September was the most anomalously hot month ever • Hacker News Board

Re: September was the most anomalously hot month ever

#51

Post by Applejinx » Thu, Oct 05, 2023, 1:38 PM UTC

yakattak wrote: post #4

Can someone help me understand why when there’s a record cold month, there’s a convo like this > non-believer: “see global warming doesn’t exist” > believer: “you can’t measure this on a monthly scale, it’s too slow of a process” But often when the case is reversed, it’s used as evidence of global warming? I know global warming is real and I am a firm believer in it but this duality seems to cause a lot of issues whe…

The increase in global climate energy initially called 'warming' means putting more energy into a titanic chaotic system.

When you do that, BOTH extremes become more extreme, not just 'warm' ones. Though hot temperatures are dangerous, it's not just about heat spikes, it's about the consequences of the increased energy available to the chaotic system.

This energy can just as easily be expressed in a brutal, dangerous cold snap, or an unreasonably huge storm. The 'non-believer' is so fundamentally wrong that it's impossible to discuss with them, and the global climate is not subject to their primitive understanding of what 'warm' is.

Re: September was the most anomalously hot month ever

#52

Post by chimprich » Thu, Oct 05, 2023, 1:38 PM UTC

mbiondi wrote: post #45

yakattak wrote: post #4

Can someone help me understand why when there’s a record cold month, there’s a convo like this > non-believer: “see global warming doesn’t exist” > believer: “you can’t measure this on a monthly scale, it’s too slow of a process” But often when the case is reversed, it’s used as evidence of global warming? I know global warming is real and I am a firm believer in it but this duality seems to cause a lot of issues whe…

For the same reason that in the winter the weather people tell you the temperature, but then are sure to include the windchill factor (which makes it sound worse). In the summer they tell you the temperature and be sure to include the "real feel", which includes the heat index and makes it sound worse. Arguably, in the winter there's still a heat index and in the summer a wind chill, but that would make the news soun…

> Bad news sells.

People often claim this, but I don't think it's true. I think news organisations on average underplay the threat from climate change.

What actually sells is confirming people's world view. Telling people "everything's fine, look at these silly scientists panicking over nothing" seems very popular with a large segment of the population.

Re: September was the most anomalously hot month ever

#53

Post by IKantRead » Thu, Oct 05, 2023, 1:39 PM UTC

zemvpferreira wrote: post #42

badcppdev wrote: post #32

https://www.defense.gov/News/Feature-Stories/story/Article/2... I think the Overton window needs to shift soon to include the idea that widespread government intervention will be required to avoid 800 million climate refugees

We do need to urgently discuss the role of the first world towards massive third world calamities. I'm a global warming believer, but I'm starting to question whether the planet warming won't actually be posivite for a lot of first world economies. More solar power, less money spent on heating, less dependent on foreign resources etc etc etc. Meanwhile, poor countries will take the brunt of the disasters due to geogr…

> I'm starting to question whether the planet warming won't actually be posivite for a lot of first world economies

Well this is a fun new twist on climate denial.

I have a hard time understanding how you can believe this when we've already seen incredible and costly damage in the US caused by climate change in just the last few years. Insurers are pulling out of Florida because they can't afford the increased risk and the entire insurance industry is at risk of catastrophic failure if extreme events keep getting more extreme [0].

> More solar power, less money spent on heating, less dependent on foreign resources etc etc etc.

What? Climate change means less predictable weather, not more sunny days; I think people in Texas would have a hard time buying your argument for "less spent on heating"; less dependent on foreign resources is another way of say "reduced global trade" which has been and continues to be a major part of our economy.

0. https://www.wsj.com/finance/insurance-catastrophe-reinsuranc...

Re: September was the most anomalously hot month ever

#54

Post by nicbou » Thu, Oct 05, 2023, 1:40 PM UTC

This is just so unbelievably sad. How should one react to their powerlessness as an individual in the face of this looming catastrophe?

Re: September was the most anomalously hot month ever

#55

Post by brookst » Thu, Oct 05, 2023, 1:42 PM UTC

xnorswap wrote: post #19

jonahrd wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we ever record record cold months on a global scale? My understanding is that globally, we keep seeing record warm months. Perhaps locally there are some record cold months but that's much less _news_ than the entre global average.

Indeed we don't, monthly average global temperatures are available here: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/climate-at-a-gla... There hasn't been a "coldest global average" set since 1917, which was the coldest March.

Thanks for the sourced data. It is amazing and saddening to see so much “I assume record colds happen all the time too, but we never hear about them, so that’s proof of some kind of bias, which makes me question global warming” in this thread.

Re: September was the most anomalously hot month ever

#56

Post by AuthorizedCust » Thu, Oct 05, 2023, 1:43 PM UTC

yakattak wrote: post #4

Can someone help me understand why when there’s a record cold month, there’s a convo like this > non-believer: “see global warming doesn’t exist” > believer: “you can’t measure this on a monthly scale, it’s too slow of a process” But often when the case is reversed, it’s used as evidence of global warming? I know global warming is real and I am a firm believer in it but this duality seems to cause a lot of issues whe…

While the refutations of this guy seem scientifically sound, they are tone deaf. He’s speaking to perceptions. There is a problem with how the issue is communicated in common parlance.

How do we fix the communications?

Re: September was the most anomalously hot month ever

#57

Post by Aerroon » Thu, Oct 05, 2023, 1:43 PM UTC

zemvpferreira wrote: post #42

badcppdev wrote: post #32

https://www.defense.gov/News/Feature-Stories/story/Article/2... I think the Overton window needs to shift soon to include the idea that widespread government intervention will be required to avoid 800 million climate refugees

We do need to urgently discuss the role of the first world towards massive third world calamities. I'm a global warming believer, but I'm starting to question whether the planet warming won't actually be posivite for a lot of first world economies. More solar power, less money spent on heating, less dependent on foreign resources etc etc etc. Meanwhile, poor countries will take the brunt of the disasters due to geogr…

>More solar power

Aren't solar cells led efficient at higher temperatures?

But the rest of your point does stand. Europe is pretty far north, as is Russia and Canada and even the northern parts of the US.

Re: September was the most anomalously hot month ever

#58

Post by hotpotamus » Thu, Oct 05, 2023, 1:44 PM UTC

nologic01 wrote: post #50

> Two main factors are at play in driving temperatures to such extremes: their inexorable increase from burning fossil fuels and an El Niño event that is shaping up to be a strong one. It would be quite educational to attribute in more detail the impact of these two factors. The degree of "El Nino" influence is presumably known, and if its strength is not related with global warming in complicated and unknown ways it…

Perhaps those drifting into panic and depression are doing so because we are now clearly seeing undeniable effects and yet denial persists while CO2 emissions creep up seemingly inexorably?

Re: September was the most anomalously hot month ever

#59

Post by ramraj07 » Thu, Oct 05, 2023, 1:44 PM UTC

badcppdev wrote: post #32

https://www.defense.gov/News/Feature-Stories/story/Article/2... I think the Overton window needs to shift soon to include the idea that widespread government intervention will be required to avoid 800 million climate refugees

I don’t believe it’s possible to avoid anything anymore, Merely the scale will be determined at best. It’s not just going to be 800 million refugees. I suspect it’s going to be actual deaths in that range. And with no real intervention as is the case now, likely in the billions. Given how the whole world handled the pandemic I have no confidence it’ll unfurl any other way. A sobering thought that keeps me awake for a bit every night.

Re: September was the most anomalously hot month ever

#60

Post by Workaccount2 » Thu, Oct 05, 2023, 1:45 PM UTC

zemvpferreira wrote: post #42

badcppdev wrote: post #32

https://www.defense.gov/News/Feature-Stories/story/Article/2... I think the Overton window needs to shift soon to include the idea that widespread government intervention will be required to avoid 800 million climate refugees

We do need to urgently discuss the role of the first world towards massive third world calamities. I'm a global warming believer, but I'm starting to question whether the planet warming won't actually be posivite for a lot of first world economies. More solar power, less money spent on heating, less dependent on foreign resources etc etc etc. Meanwhile, poor countries will take the brunt of the disasters due to geogr…

I'm sure the wealthy coastal elite, rolling in the cash mountains of globalization arbitrage and extolling the virtues of humanitarianism, will be bending over backwards to build refugee camps and in turn permanent housing in their towns to accommodate mass migrations of third world climate refugees.