Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 522 posts

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

#261

Post by losteverything »

harryh wrote: post #34
tombert wrote: post #21

The part I find especially frustrating is that, on average, a New Yorker has a lower carbon footprint than the typical American, probably due to the heavy use of the train. So even when I do the (I think) eco-friendly thing by not having a car and using public transit, I'm still being punished for what the rest of the US (and the rest of the world) does.

Even with your slightly lower footprint due to not owning a car you still have a much larger footprint than the world mean. Probably 2-3x. So there are billions of people being "punished" for what you're doing.

I don't like the word "punished" in this climate context.

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

#262

Post by s_q_b »

davidf18 wrote: post #250
barkbro wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that wind and solar are only a supplementary to nuclear power at the moment. It won't be able to replace nuclear until we find a better way to store energy.

Battery technology is improving significantly.

You're right about that. Molten salt storage will even bring it down below the price of natural gas turbines used now.

However, even with all the projected improvements and price declines in recent years, solar still will not be enough to serve global energy needs in time to stave off disaster.

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

#263

Post by imtringued »

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.

Because it's faster and cheaper to invest in renewable energy. Building a nuclear power plant requires a massive amount of money and time.

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

#264

Post by ythl »

madaxe_again wrote: post #50
sevenless wrote: post #4

These maps are based on emission trends continuing, assuming no political action will be taken. But wouldn't a hotter world tend to exacerbate emission trends, with human needs for AC and desalination rising, plus forest fires? Moreover, there might be some tipping point for large scale methane release. The 'tail risk' to global warming has appreciable density a long way out.

Not only this, but as the article touches upon, it may end up being lethal to go outdoors. At over 35C/95F with humidity of 100%, humans and other animals cannot cool themselves, even naked, in a breeze, in the shade, and die of heat exhaustion. So yet more air conditioning will ensue, consuming more energy, warming oceans further, raising humidity, and thus exacerbating the problem. Positive feedback cycles sure are…

Well if you don't believe in God, you might want to start since it appears he's the only hope we have left for a doomed climate.

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

#265

Post by pjc50 »

white-flame wrote: post #236
pjc50 wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US might have plenty of desert, but you need rather a lot of cool water to run a nuclear plant, which is why they're often built on coasts. And what of other places? France has a decent set of nuclear reactors, but there aren't really uninhabited areas in Europe to put more in. Only relatively less populated areas. The UK is currently struggling to get one off the ground and the economics of it look terrible.

The Palo Verde nuclear generating station is the largest nuclear reactor in the US, and possibly in the western hemisphere. It is located in the US desert, an hour out of town pretty much in the middle of nowhere & nothing.

Wikipedia tells me they have a clever solution:

"The facility evaporates water from the treated sewage of several nearby municipalities to meet its cooling needs. 20 billion US gallons (76,000,000 m³) of treated water are evaporated each year."

Interesting read, I'd never heard of Palo Verde.

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

#266

Post by melling »

davidf18 wrote: post #250
barkbro wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that wind and solar are only a supplementary to nuclear power at the moment. It won't be able to replace nuclear until we find a better way to store energy.

Battery technology is improving significantly.

Can you quantify "significantly"?

That's one of those words people throw around to make a point without making a real point. Are we talking 20%, 100%, 300%. And whatever the number, is it sufficient? Also, what's the timeline? A decade?

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

#267

Post by gadders »

It looks like the actual increase was minimal and within the margin of error:

NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced this week that according to their calculations, July 2015 was the hottest month since instrumental records began in 1880. NOAA says that the record was set by eight one-hundredths of a degree Celsius over that set in July 1998. NASA calculates that July 2015 beat what they assert was the previous warmest month (July 2011) by two one-hundredths of a degree. But government spokespeople rarely mention the inconvenient fact that these records are being set by less than the uncertainty in the statistics. NOAA claims an uncertainty of 14 one-hundredths of a degree in its temperature averages, or near twice the amount by which they say the record was set. NASA says that their data is typically accurate to one tenth of a degree, five times the amount by which their new record was set.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/aug/23/tom-harris-g...

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

#268

Post by pjc50 »

s_q_b wrote: post #207
nl wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Nuclear power isn't some counter-cultural fad. It's the top recommendation and consensus among climate scientists. This messianic fantasy that solar and wind will save us, to which every anti-nuclear technologist clings, is not only wrong, but dangerous. Global warming is no longer a theoretical issue. It is here . Now. Within 20 years people will begin abandoning the Persian Gulf, sending a wave of refugees across E…

And within 20 years, how many of those reactors will actually be built? Especially within the Persian Gulf, where nuclear weapons proliferation is a big issue. How many decades did Iran spend under sanctions while building a reactor?

The solution can't be first-world-only, and local solar is a much better bet in equatorial but poor and politically unstable parts of the world.

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

#269

Post by throwanem »

imtringued wrote: post #263
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.

Because it's faster and cheaper to invest in renewable energy. Building a nuclear power plant requires a massive amount of money and time.

Faster, cheaper, and much less effective. Renewable is very much worthwhile, but I'd argue it is at its best as part of a strategy which addresses irreducible baseload demand by means of modern nuclear.

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

#270

Post by fsloth »

blahi wrote: post #208
collyw wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scientific consensus is that it is probably man made.

The scientific community could not possibly hope to have a definite answer to that. Hard liners on "man-made" climate change are sponsored through various channels just like hard-liners on no climate change at all. I am no ecologist, but I know my statistics, math and logic. From what I've read on the subject, claims that it is man-made are based on assumptions which don't hold and huge jumps in logic and conclusions…

"The scientific community could not possibly hope to have a definite answer to that."

Do I take that by your logic we should not even try to understand the environment? Since definitive answers are not possible, and if the current expert's opinion is not sufficient, then I fail to see what argument could possibly be of any higher quality.

"Hard liners on "man-made" climate change are sponsored through various channels just like hard-liners on no climate change at all."

Evoking "hardliners" sounds like all debates would be about selecting the most charismatic authority and sticking with their opinion.

I prefer to peruse the reports of established scientific bodies http://www.ipcc.ch/

Post reply on HN