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Europe's new climate in seven charts

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Re: Europe's new climate in seven charts

#191

Post by Tarsul »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #126
Aachen wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> our prehistoric forebears had a lot worse to deal with Do you mean in terms of climate change? I know some temperatures were different but this was much more gradual afaik, which is no problem for anyone with two feet and a sense of where to go, but they were much more dependent on the ecosystem which struggles to keep up with the speed of today's changes From what I hear, what we're causing is unprecedented for hu…

Prehistoric climate change was sometimes much more sudden than anything we've experienced. See e.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas There are others.

The present has accepted this challenge. As Wiki states: "The scientific consensus is that severe AMOC weakening explains the climatic effects of the Younger Dryas." And with the news about AMOC weakening today, we could as well be off to quicker temperature swings (particularly in Europe) than we've seen the last decades that might well challenge the Younger Dryas.

Re: Europe's new climate in seven charts

#192

Post by graemep »

bamboozled wrote: post #146
graemep wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not know about Europe as a whole, but 1911 was pretty bad in the UK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1911_United_Kingdom_heatwave

Popular Mechanics, March 1912 — an article titled “Remarkable Weather of 1911: The Effect of the Combustion of Coal on the Climate.” https://www.livescience.com/63334-coal-affecting-climate-cen... Have you read this before? Great read.

I have not read that article, but I was aware Arrhenius calculated the effects of CO2 on global temperatures earlier. AFAIK his models has held up very well, possibly because of its simplicity compared to current models (I tend to distrust complex models).

Re: Europe's new climate in seven charts

#193

Post by A_D_E_P_T »

adrianN wrote: post #187
A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bootstrapping it again will be quite difficult as a lot of the easily accessible natural resources are already depleted. That's a myth, but let's assume it isn't. I'm thinking it sounds like a job for you. Okay, here's what you've gotta do. Buy some titanium slabs. Etch onto them, in simple and decipherable language (there's a technical way to approach this, I can explain later,) the secrets of solar panels, how to…

Any high technology has incredibly long dependency chains. I think you seriously underestimate the difficulty of bootstrapping, say, WW2 level tech from irradiated wastelands after major nuclear exchanges.

"Irradiated wastelands" -- surely you realize that Hiroshima and Nagasaki are large cities today? Harmful radiation usually doesn't stay harmful for very long.

In any case, I don't share your low opinion of future humans. They'll be as capable as we are; maybe far more capable.

You also over-estimate and over-weight how destructive nuclear exchanges really are, the readiness state of the world's nuclear arsenals, and the willingness of their possessors to lash out at effectively unaligned countries like Argentina, Chile, Austria, Morocco, Fiji, and I could go on all day.

Re: Europe's new climate in seven charts

#194

Post by hdgvhicv »

baggy_trough wrote: post #118
Dumblydorr wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind total emissions grew much much faster in our lifetime (let’s say 1980-2026) than in the prior 200 years, which was before most of the recent huge growth in Chinese and Indian emissions. Also the ocean and arctic were absorbing the majority of the heat. The arctics been going through these heat waves for 10 years, its white albedo decreasing and potentially permafrost melting making more effective emissio…

You aren't going to "stop eating beef" your way out of this. Addressing climate change requires technical solutions that result in clean energy that is cheaper than carbon emitting sources (in reality, not just due to regulations).

Solar is far cheaper than other forms, despite he US subsidising fossil fuels and taxing solar

Re: Europe's new climate in seven charts

#195

Post by cindyllm »

illiac786 wrote: post #185
spwa4 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The middle ages were in the middle of something called "the little ice age" which was entirely different and, obviously, mostly had the opposite effect. The most dramatic story about that is what happened to the settling of Greenland (more than once). Basically during a cold spell the city was gradually abandoned, with sometimes the last few people literally freezing to death when their fuel ran out.

I think you missed my point. What’s coming will obviously not be the middle age, that’s in the past. It will still be bad.

[dead]

Re: Europe's new climate in seven charts

#196

Post by hdgvhicv »

graemep wrote: post #84
realo wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes... why!! Let's go back... ah, I see mile-high glaciers over London. Global warming did occur in the past as well.

How is that a reason to exclude it from the graph? Surely including it in the charts would strengthen the case for regarding it as a long term problem? Excluding it subtly suggests that global warming is a short term phenomenon.

There you go

https://xkcd.com/1732/

20,000 years enough?

Re: Europe's new climate in seven charts

#197

Post by sometimelurker »

makapuf wrote: post #40

What strikes me is the relative sharp change. CO2 has been rising since, what 250 years ? However real effects of global warming seems to be felt since, like 10 years old ?

> CO2 has been rising

it rises faster now because we have more co2-emitters today than we did 20 years ago. source: economy has grown. idc if this sounds rude, but honestly you shoulve guessed this

Re: Europe's new climate in seven charts

#199

Post by thewhitetulip »

argentinian wrote: post #134
thewhitetulip wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I've thought about this a lot. All the news orgs are owned by oligarchs and that's why even on this thread using green energy is equal to going back to stone age When China India and now Phillipines and rest of South Asia is installing record number of solar and wind

What do you think about the concept of "externalities", making producers of excessive contaminating gases pay for it because they are harming the planet?

Will never happen in real life

Re: Europe's new climate in seven charts

#200

Post by Wacari »

dofm wrote: post #120
k__ wrote: post #53

"Europe's rapid warming is partly the result of [...] a drop in the number of tiny polluting particles in the air. This means that less of the Sun's energy is reflected back into space, leaving more energy to heat the Earth's surface." Hmmm...

This is now quite well-studied because we have had two periods in our own lifetimes (OK I guess maybe not in the lifetimes of some HN readers!), where we have cut air pollution radically almost overnight. 9/11 and the COVID pandemic transport shutdown. In both cases, the pan evaporation rate went up; in the case of 9/11 it went up very noticeably in a short period of time. Essentially: clean air == less "global dimmi…

Yeah, another example is when the Internation Maritime Organization reduced the legal sulfur content limit in shipping fuel.

This reduced SO2 emissions by about 80%, which improved human health, but also caused an increase in short-term atmospheric warming.

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