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It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

noaa.gov

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Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#401

Post by randomdata »

gambiting wrote: post #348
linuxhansl wrote: post #303

Imagine an asteroid would be on trajectory to collide with earth in (say) 2025. Possible order of hypothetical events: 1. Scientist discover the asteroid. Calculate risk of collision. 2. Asteroid comes closer, probability of impact is calculated as high. 3. People will start saying that we cannot let our economy be controlled by the specter of an asteroid. 4. The asteroid becomes visible. You can see it with your bar…

Honestly, given our track record I don't understand how we've actually managed to ban fluorocarbons globally.

Good marketing likely helped.

A hole in the ozone layer? We had better patch it at once!

Global warming? I never liked winter much anyway.

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#402

Post by lmilcin »

jacquesm wrote: post #82
vkou wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think denialism has moved on to 'We're fine as we are, this is a problem that developing countries should be solving.'

Or that if we all just bought electric cars that the problem would be solved. Nobody seems to appreciate the scale at which this is operating. The mass of the atmosphere is 5 x 10E15 tons. To heat that up by 1.5 degrees is off my scale of intuitive comprehension by a couple of orders of magnitude.

There is about 10t of atmosphere per square meter. It is the same mass as 10m of water. A lake with 10m of water is very shallow one and can heat up many degrees C even in a single sunny day.

And air is no water, it has much less heat capacity.

The global warming is not stalled at all by waiting to heat up the atmosphere.

The state of atmosphere is a result of balance of huge flows of energy. The atmosphere itself, as immense as it is, holds very little energy and if given chance would heat up to kill us all in couple of days.

The balance is influenced by a lot of factors like how much of energy is being absorbed by ground or reflected back to space.

By consistently adding a small amount of CO2 to atmosphere we keep a tiny part of energy from reflecting back to space. And by allowing the ice to melt the amount of energy reflected back gets even smaller (as ice reflects more than dirt). These very small differences in albedo are enough to cause all that mayhem.

The reason the global warming stalled for a long time is actually our oceans dissolving CO2. Now, the oceans' ability to dissolve more CO2 is reducing and removing CO2 no longer keeps up with us adding more of it.

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#403

Post by ptkd »

csense wrote: post #273

Shouldn't climate change have both negative and positive effects? For example, people don't want to live in the Rust Belt because the winters are too cold. Could the region's economic viability increase if winters get milder? In some places, climate change makes things worse for growing crops, makes people need to move out, or increases the probability of disasters. Everyone is talking about this. In other places, cl…

Okay, I will give you a genuine answer: it will have almost unequivocally negative effects.

First, I'll address your asymmetry comment, with a couple of example points.

> crops

This is a common misunderstanding I see. Crops aren't solely viable because of climate -- a large portion of crop-viability is due to soil quality, which is built up over many many years. As areas that have traditionally been extremely cold become potentially more viable, crops are much less effective because the soil has not historically had a lot of fertilizer-producing flora/fauna.

> decreasing the probability of disasters

As far as I understand climate change, this is not expected anywhere. A disaster can be considered an event that goes dramatically against the norm. For example, flooding [extreme rain], drought [extreme lack of rain], fires [extreme heat], crop freezes/cold snaps [extreme cold]. Climate change essentially results in increasingly extreme deviations from the norm, so "disasters" go up. There's nowhere in the world I'm aware of that is going to get more consistent from climate change.

> make people want to move in

Even if climate were a zero sum game, and some places got better while others got worse, forcing everyone to move would be pretty awful. Further -- it's not a zero sum game, as mentioned in my last point.

The final point I'll make around climate change is that it's very likely to lead to geopolitical instability. As some areas become unlivable, famines, wars and refugees become more and more frequent.

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#404

Post by iammisc »

lmilcin wrote: post #183
nemo44x wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP was voted down by others but I respect their honesty about it. And the point about their perception of fear being used as a motivator and resulting skepticism. I think a lot of people feel this way. I think people are "crisis hardened" at this point. So much news and opinion about most everything is framed as a "crisis" and people are just sort of tuned out to it and they're sick of being made anxious about everyt…

I don't agree. I think this is just a faulty way to see the world. I grew up with ample evidence and cries of scientist of the reality of global warming, and no actual real evidence to the contrary. And everybody else grew with the same information. If you think that it is ok to deny everything "because somebody said so" until your house burns down because of it, then you are THE problem. Please, don't push responsib…

The idea that everyone who sees the same thing will come to the same conclusion is the height of personal hubris.

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#405

Post by cthaeh »

linuxhansl wrote: post #303

Imagine an asteroid would be on trajectory to collide with earth in (say) 2025. Possible order of hypothetical events: 1. Scientist discover the asteroid. Calculate risk of collision. 2. Asteroid comes closer, probability of impact is calculated as high. 3. People will start saying that we cannot let our economy be controlled by the specter of an asteroid. 4. The asteroid becomes visible. You can see it with your bar…

Disclaimer, I'm all for stopping climate change and think it's the biggest issue facing our generation.

But nothing indicates non runaway climate change is an existential level event for humanity. Nothing.

By comparing it to asteroids, and then 10, 20, 30 years in the future, when what happens is nowhere near to the complete eradication of all humans on earth that you are predicting with this comparison, why are you surprised that people don't take activists and scientists seriously.

Stop with the hyperbole. Stick with the facts and only the facts and you may notice that we will have more support then ever in the fight against climate change.

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#406

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

adam_arthur wrote: post #367

Any policy should be evaluated on the basis of costs and benefits. Too much of the conversation on global warming is either broadly dismissive or exasperatingly alarmist. Fundamentally policy changes to curb global warming will have economic consequence, those of which will be borne disproportionately by the poor. E.g. efforts to curb oil and coal extraction will naturally result in the price of energy going up. I ca…

Like many pigouvian taxes, most carbon tax proposals make an attempt to offset its regressiveness by distributing some sort of dividend or rebate.

The idea isn't to punish the poor for driving to work. Rather, it's an attempt to charge the major carbon-emitters for their pollution of the commons (the atmosphere), then compensate the public with that money.

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#407

Post by panzagl »

anyfoo wrote: post #184
frankfrankfrank wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised this straw-man still exists. If there are any people that "believe global warming does not exist", it's an edge minority. All skeptics are clear that they believe global warming is happening. The far bigger issue in addressing the global warming matter is actually people who seem incapable of having a rational and logical discussion and debate about things, and instead simply demand imposed obedience an…

Climate change does not care about ideology, psychology, or any of the issues you listed. It's a problem that affects literally everyone, and it needs solving.

Right. But the solutions can't impact the environment, or the developing world, or the disadvantaged. It's pretty obvious that the US, UK, and Commonwealth countries are going to be expected to disrupt their lives and economies while the rest of the world dithers and screams that not enough is being done.

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#408

Post by Tarsul »

linuxhansl wrote: post #303

Imagine an asteroid would be on trajectory to collide with earth in (say) 2025. Possible order of hypothetical events: 1. Scientist discover the asteroid. Calculate risk of collision. 2. Asteroid comes closer, probability of impact is calculated as high. 3. People will start saying that we cannot let our economy be controlled by the specter of an asteroid. 4. The asteroid becomes visible. You can see it with your bar…

I laughed out loud when I read that in the end the result was layout and spelling :)

crisis averted!

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#409

Post by iammisc »

imoverclocked wrote: post #45
lmilcin wrote: post #8

Who still believes global warming does not exist? I am currently listening to audiobook of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six (1998). It has a paragraph on global warming and trying to convince POTUS it is real. And POTUS not wanting to act on it because it would be too large economic drag on US. This book is almost quarter of century old.

I want to know what percentage of people overlap between anti-vaxxers, flat-earthers and climate deniers. Are they largely the same group or do we actually have disparate groups that think science is somehow just another religion?

Well, speaking as someone who used to live in Marin county, which was the county with some of the highest non-vaccination rates in the country when I was there in 2018, I think they're different. Marin was super anti-vax, but every other thing was about reducing our carbon footprint, and anti-consumption was a common sentiment. Of course it was also one of the bluest counties in the country.

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#410

Post by UnFleshedOne »

anyfoo wrote: post #184
frankfrankfrank wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised this straw-man still exists. If there are any people that "believe global warming does not exist", it's an edge minority. All skeptics are clear that they believe global warming is happening. The far bigger issue in addressing the global warming matter is actually people who seem incapable of having a rational and logical discussion and debate about things, and instead simply demand imposed obedience an…

Climate change does not care about ideology, psychology, or any of the issues you listed. It's a problem that affects literally everyone, and it needs solving.

Problem is that a lot of activists and politicians don't want to solve it -- they instead spend time replacing nuclear with coal, tacking on unrelated social issues and so on. All of those are about power, and correlate with taking the problem seriously and solving anything only by accident if at all. In other words -- climate change is not the game they are playing to win.
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