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Europe's all-time heat record set in Sicily at nearly 120 degrees

axios.com

71–80 of 129 posts

Re: Europe's all-time heat record set in Sicily at nearly 120 degrees

#71
post #58
post #9

Tip: the world uses Metric system. USA is the exception.

Why complain? I don't see a lot of comments on HN when the article is from Europe or someone else with the metric system. If you're reading something based in the US expect they will use Imperial measurements.

Italy, despite what many “eye-talyan” Americans might believe, is not in the US.

Re: Europe's all-time heat record set in Sicily at nearly 120 degrees

#72
We need to mandate (by appropriately subsidizing improvements while taxing externalities) houses become more energy efficient at heating and cooling, so we can use as little AC and heating as possible and try to stop some of the runaway energy usage due to extreme weather events.

Install window fans, ceiling fans, attic fans, use evaporative coolers in dry climates, install H/ERVs. Change your AC and heating to a heat-pump model if you need both. Try to tap into geothermal where possible. If we continue treating home construction as copy-paste races to the bottom for cost then we'll see AC and heating usage climb through the room as extreme weather events become more frequent.

Re: Europe's all-time heat record set in Sicily at nearly 120 degrees

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UK uses miles for distance, stones for weight, and I'm pretty certain that many things in the US are measured using metric. The real question I have is ... who really cares? I certainly don't complain when someone uses a celsius temperature, I just convert it to terms I'm more comfortable with.

> The real question I have is ... who really cares Me, when the term “degrees” is used without further clarification.

Read TFA. The celsius measurement is in the first sentence, listed before the farenheit equivalent.

"A weather station in Sicily may have set an all-time high temperature record for all of Europe on Wednesday, when the temperature climbed to a scorching 48.8°C (119.8°F) amid a regional heat wave that has shown few signs of relenting."

Re: Europe's all-time heat record set in Sicily at nearly 120 degrees

#74

This is not the case with Italy, but what are we going to do with uninhabitable areas in the future? Think the horn of Africa or parts of the Middle East. Large parts of MENA are already de facto lawless areas, where the official government doesn't exert any meaningful control, due to political factors. Now throw in deadly year-round climates on top. Every piece of land on this planet is claimed as sovereign territor…

What? Extract the resources and not live there. Settle Antarctica. Murder the mass refugees. The usual shit.

And yeah, countries will claim and fight over useless pieces of land. There's plenty of people who can be sent to die defending or occupying it.

Don't like reality? Downvote and live in lalaland until a "sudden tragedy" happens "out of nowhere".

Re: Europe's all-time heat record set in Sicily at nearly 120 degrees

#75
post #43

The IPCC is due to release a more comprehensive look at solar geoengineering in 2022. I say we start planning for it now, and be ready to roll it out if and when the climate models predict that it's safe enough to do so.

We've known for a while we can trivially block solar irradiation. What we don't know is if we can do it without making things worse. Geoengineering will be a lot more dangerous than just switching the world to nuclear power.

Re: Europe's all-time heat record set in Sicily at nearly 120 degrees

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The real question I have is ... who really cares Me, when the term “degrees” is used without further clarification.

I just read the material for context and convert if I need to. This publication is a US publication written for a US audience. In that context their choice makes sense. I can easily convert it to C.

Fair enough. I’m just of the opinion that a single byte of extra data (assuming ASCII) conveys an awful lot of contextual information, and can see few reasons to exclude it.

Re: Europe's all-time heat record set in Sicily at nearly 120 degrees

#78
post #52
post #38

Yes, OK, everyone, Fahrenheit, we get it, metric system, cut the smugness, Axios is a US-centric publication, discuss the issues. Such as: the feedback mechanisms that may come into play here. Europe, broadly, hasn’t been big on AC. That may have to change, as 322 Kelvin is just not bearable. But that means more power use…which means more energy use…which probably comes from fossil fuels…which means more issues with…

It's not about being smug, put fucking European units in an article about European temperatures in a European location. Not everybody knows who or what Axios is, but we know what Europe and Sicily are.

Surely the publication's location and readership are the salient factors, and not the article's topic? Or should the article be in Italian because it is about Italy?

Re: Europe's all-time heat record set in Sicily at nearly 120 degrees

#79
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> who really cares Engineers, Scientists, Mechanics, Carpenters, etc.

Celsius is as arbitrary as Fahrenheit. Really, it's the one unit where it does not matter. Meters, kilogram, seconds, volt, ampere... they all stand in relation to each other. Celsius doesn't, you'd have to go to Kelvin for that (which is derived from Celsius, but Celsius is still useless by itself). I'm European, grew up with Celsius and am therefore more comfortable with it, so hardly any bias there.

The size of the degree matters in some contexts. But, yeah, if your focus is on the "right" system from an engineering/science perspective, Kelvin should be being used.

Re: Europe's all-time heat record set in Sicily at nearly 120 degrees

#80
post #38

Yes, OK, everyone, Fahrenheit, we get it, metric system, cut the smugness, Axios is a US-centric publication, discuss the issues. Such as: the feedback mechanisms that may come into play here. Europe, broadly, hasn’t been big on AC. That may have to change, as 322 Kelvin is just not bearable. But that means more power use…which means more energy use…which probably comes from fossil fuels…which means more issues with…

Depends where you live. Germany has done an idiotic 180 away from nuclear, but France is heavily into it. https://www.electricitymap.org/

But France isn't building any new, is it. A slow phase-out is what is aligned for near future, and almost entirely replacing it with fossil fuels
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