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September was the most anomalously hot month ever

scientificamerican.com

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Re: September was the most anomalously hot month ever

#91

Post by flagrant_taco »

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…

The debate over exact causes has always felt misguided to me. The planet is extremely complex, human impact on the planet is largely based on estimates and modeling, and at the end of the day an understanding of why it's getting hotter isn't itself a course correction.

There are such obvious first steps we could take without a complete understanding of cause if we really cared. We could easily cut our use of fossil fuels if we weren't trying to balance that with an arbitrary GDP growth target. We could stop incentivizing people and companies to consume disposable products. We could stop subsidizing massive industrial farms and instead focus on eating locally and growing some of your own food.

The list goes on, but having spent decades watching people debate passionately over why the planet is warming all while going further down the same path my only conclusion is that we just don't give a damn. When push comes to shove we would rather buy new cloths imported from the other side of the world, throw resources at new construction and gut job renovations, and will happily fly around the world on vacation rather than stay home and enjoy the world around us.

Oh and don't forget about new tech. Machine learning rebranded as AI is so ground breaking that we have no choice but to produce as many GPUs as we can and throw all the power and water needed to run the damn things 24/7.

Re: September was the most anomalously hot month ever

#92

Post by erghjunk »

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…

> 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 would be good to overlay it as a distinct effect.

A brief web search suggests this presumption is incorrect and that climate change is having an effect on the cycle, rendering this division somewhat meaningless - the old El Nino is "gone," in a sense, and only the climate change effected one remains.

from: https://research.noaa.gov/2020/11/09/new-research-volume-exp...

“No two El Niños or La Niñas are perfectly alike,” Capotondi said. “We’ve seen how diverse ENSO events can be. This diversity adds another degree of complexity for understanding how climate change will influence future ENSO events.”

So how are ENSO impacts likely to evolve in the coming decades?

“Extreme El Niño and La Niña events may increase in frequency from about one every 20 years to one every 10 years by the end of the 21st century under aggressive greenhouse gas emission scenarios,” McPhaden said. “The strongest events may also become even stronger than they are today.”

and here is the full book: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/978...

Re: September was the most anomalously hot month ever

#93

Post by drdrey »

chimprich wrote: post #52
mbiondi wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That works because polarization sells too

Re: September was the most anomalously hot month ever

#94

Post by moffkalast »

aaomidi wrote: post #80
hotpotamus wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Honestly I’m getting tired of the “thinkers” who are just _don’t panic_. That statement just comes across as so disconnected and also doesn’t actually accomplish something. If someone is panicking, the correct solution here is to show that there’s a realistic attempt at solving the problem. Not dismissing their valid feelings of dread and panic.

Well the main issue is that no realistic attempt exists that would be able to solve the problem(s). Thus all that anyone can do inscribe "DON'T PANIC" in large friendly letters per HHGTTG's example, so society can continue to run normally for as long as it can while our planet gets demolished. Welcome to the decline, easiest thing to do is to accept it and have fun while we drive off the proverbial cliff.

Re: September was the most anomalously hot month ever

#95

Post by oldpersonintx »

esarbe wrote: post #81
gottorf wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the portion of the US populace that wants to maintain/increase fossil fuel usage because they think it's the best option they have? Is that not a valid viewpoint?

I think it's an uneducated viewpoint that is supported by the deliberate misinformation of the oil and gas lobby. There are alternatives, there have always been alternatives. Better ones, cheaper ones.

[dead]

Re: September was the most anomalously hot month ever

#97

Post by esarbe »

hotpotamus wrote: post #58
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?

No, I'm drifting into panic because I've seen that rational discourse just doesn't change anything.

There's always a reason to not-do anything, to not-upset anything, because, you know, the GDP, the stock market, think of the all the people involved in oil, etc.

Meanwhile we've shifted from ridicule to denial through downplaying and the outright delusional "this could actually be good".

What is not happening are any meaningful steps towards reigning in even the worst excesses.

So, yeah. Maybe panic is not the worst state of mind regarding this challenge?

Re: September was the most anomalously hot month ever

#98

Post by frob »

ziddoap wrote: post #78
IKantRead wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 a…

The term "global warming" being seen as interchangeable with "climate change" has really been troublesome, and I think has led a lot of people to think surface warming is the entirety of what "climate change" is.

The term "climate change" was literally created by conservative activist and Bush pollster Frank Luntz to confuse people about global warming and muddy the waters.

From his Wikipedia article:

> Although Luntz later tried to distance himself from the Bush administration policy, it was his idea that administration communications reframe global warming as climate change since "climate change" was thought to sound less severe.

Re: September was the most anomalously hot month ever

#100

Post by mc32 »

brookst wrote: post #74
naiv wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a shame that your comment got downvoted.

It was a lot of words to say “perception is more important than reality”, and delivered in an oblique way hinting at some unstated “narrative” going on, without either explicitly making that point or providing evidence. Kind of the HN equivalent of the angsty teen who will only say “that’s what YOU think” to everyone.

The poster was asking why certain things are omitted and only things the support an argument are surfaced. The reason is it tends to undermine a given narrative. People are convinced of things via narrative. Both good and bad things.

It’s not an oblique criticism of climate change. It’s a comment on why narratives don’t tend to be objective.

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