July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa • Hacker News Board

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#151

Post by neom » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 1:04 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #107

harryh wrote: post #44

Personally I think that the idea that these trends can ever be revered by some sort of world wide agreement to lower consumption is a pipe dream. People want to eat meat and drive cars and fly on airplanes. As long as they're rich enough to do so you'll never stop them. The only solution to this problem is technology. Some combination of green energy sources plus probably very large scale terraforming.

Yes and no. You can change the carbon efficiency of people's consumption quite a bit with appropriate nudging and consumption taxes. You can also have global agreements paying countries not to exploit their "unburnable" fossil fuel resources. Little things like the EU mandate for ending incandescent lightbulbs can definitely add up. You need technology and policy and economics. The market for power plants is never go…

The economics aren't that hard, just long term and not as good as other returns. think arability. Particularly useful in areas you might terraform. (have thought about this for like 2 years now, heh. I hope it's my next startup.)

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#152

Post by dredmorbius » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 1:06 PM UTC

oDot wrote: post #25

viach wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These maps are based on emission trends continuing, assuming no political action will be taken. I think this is a very realistic assumption. Global Warming Is Irreversible, Study Says: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9988890...

Irreversible as in "won't fix itself" or in "don't even bother with CO2 extraction [edit: from the atmosphere]"?

General information I've seen is thousands of years for the carbon cycle to return to its preindustrial balance.

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#153

Post by ikeyany » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 1:06 PM UTC

throwanem wrote: post #95

It never ceases to bewilder me that nuclear power isn't taken seriously as a replacement for fossil-burning baseload generation.

It's the phenomenon of refusing to plant the seeds of trees whose shade we may never sit under [1], but on a global scale.

[1] https://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles_2010/Winter_...

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#154

Post by Klathmon » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 1:06 PM UTC

ThomPete wrote: post #147

acomjean wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

climate is long term, weather is short term[1]. Its a subtle difference and often confused, especially if english isn't your first language. [1] http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/noaa-n/climate/climate_wea...

What on earth does language have to do with it? Other countries write about climate change too :)

Because to a non-native speaker the 2 words can be confused as synonyms.

Hell I didn't even know there was a distinct difference between the 2 words until just now (and i've been speaking english my whole life), and I had just assumed that these kinds of discussions were talking about the "long term" data.

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#155

Post by sanxiyn » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 1:07 PM UTC

oDot wrote: post #25

viach wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These maps are based on emission trends continuing, assuming no political action will be taken. I think this is a very realistic assumption. Global Warming Is Irreversible, Study Says: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9988890...

Irreversible as in "won't fix itself" or in "don't even bother with CO2 extraction [edit: from the atmosphere]"?

Actually, CO2 extraction from the atmosphere may work. But zero emission doesn't. Let me quote from IPCC AR5 SPM E.8 (Climate Change Commitment):

"A large fraction of anthropogenic climate change resulting from CO2 emissions is irreversible on a multi-century to millennial time scale, except in the case of a large net removal of CO2 from the atmosphere over a sustained period. Surface temperatures will remain approximately constant at elevated levels for many centuries after a complete cessation of net anthropogenic CO2 emissions."

This is because most of additional energy (more than 90%) from CO2 forcing is stored in ocean. Oceanic thermal inertia is enough to keep warming in 1000 years scale without any additional CO2.

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#156

Post by dwc » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 1:07 PM UTC

ThomPete wrote: post #147

acomjean wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

climate is long term, weather is short term[1]. Its a subtle difference and often confused, especially if english isn't your first language. [1] http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/noaa-n/climate/climate_wea...

What on earth does language have to do with it? Other countries write about climate change too :)

There's not always a 1:1 mapping of words between languages, so the nuance of "climate" vs. "weather" in English might get confusing.

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#157

Post by blowski » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 1:08 PM UTC

neom wrote: post #151

pjc50 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and no. You can change the carbon efficiency of people's consumption quite a bit with appropriate nudging and consumption taxes. You can also have global agreements paying countries not to exploit their "unburnable" fossil fuel resources. Little things like the EU mandate for ending incandescent lightbulbs can definitely add up. You need technology and policy and economics. The market for power plants is never go…

The economics aren't that hard, just long term and not as good as other returns. think arability. Particularly useful in areas you might terraform. (have thought about this for like 2 years now, heh. I hope it's my next startup.)

For me, terraforming is the equivalent of developers saying "we need to rebuild from scratch".

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#158

Post by bane » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 1:08 PM UTC

runeb wrote: post #91

oliv__ wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before AC, did people not live without it?

In my part of the world (northern Europe) basically nobody has AC, but that is probably because of the cooler temperatures here. I'm curious, at what temperatures do people who live with AC start using it? Or is it going all year round?

I live in a latitude about the same as Spain, Southern Italy, Greece and Turkey, but in my part of the U.S., it's been above 30 degrees Centigrade for a few weeks, with high humidity. Our winters also get around 0 Centigrade (+- 8 or 9 degrees) pretty regularly, so we need to supply both heating and cooling.

Usually when it gets above 24/25 C we start to really put on the air conditioning. And below 20 C we put on the heat. A/C is generally important for not only cooling, but reducing humidity so your body's sweat actually does something useful.

I've lived in houses around here that didn't have A/C and it's pretty dreadful in the summer. You basically don't do anything during the day, and it's too hot to really sleep comfortably. Even fairly poor people usually end up with at least one room with A/C.

This isn't true for all of the U.S., the Pacific Northwest (e.g. Seattle) and Northern California tends to not have air conditioners because it doesn't usually get hot enough.

Quite a bit of the U.S. is at the same latitude as North Africa or the Middle East, the northern-most bits get maybe to Belgium? So even with the temperature gradients that ocean currents and global air movement affords, we get total sun that's more like areas of the world people associate with being "hot".

Having been to Europe numerous times, I notice most public areas, cars, buses, trains and offices seem to have A/C. So I'm sure you spend more time in it than you may realize.

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#159

Post by nl » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 1:09 PM UTC

_ph_ wrote: post #144

s_q_b wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear, nuclear, nuclear. I've said this before, and the same climate scientists who first discovered anthropogenic global warming agree, that nuclear fission plants are the only technology that can bridge the gap between fossil fuels and fusion.

Wind and Solar are now cost-competetive with nuclear, without its nasty side effects. And the cost of storage for nuclear waste has not really been calculated yet.

Whoever downvoted this should take a look again.

While being pro-nuclear was all counter-conventional wisdom cool 5 years ago, the math is changing very, very quickly. PV power is so much cheaper in terms of startup costs, and it scales both up and (more importantly) down.

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#160

Post by nilved » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 1:09 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #107

harryh wrote: post #44

Personally I think that the idea that these trends can ever be revered by some sort of world wide agreement to lower consumption is a pipe dream. People want to eat meat and drive cars and fly on airplanes. As long as they're rich enough to do so you'll never stop them. The only solution to this problem is technology. Some combination of green energy sources plus probably very large scale terraforming.

Yes and no. You can change the carbon efficiency of people's consumption quite a bit with appropriate nudging and consumption taxes. You can also have global agreements paying countries not to exploit their "unburnable" fossil fuel resources. Little things like the EU mandate for ending incandescent lightbulbs can definitely add up. You need technology and policy and economics. The market for power plants is never go…

> Yes and no. You can change the carbon efficiency of people's consumption quite a bit with appropriate nudging and consumption taxes. You can also have global agreements paying countries not to exploit their "unburnable" fossil fuel resources.

No, you really can't, or we wouldn't have year-after-year record breaking temperatures. Regulation has never fixed anything. And especially when it comes to science, we need to remember that innovation and regulation are opposite ends of the same spectrum.