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July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

nytimes.com

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

#41

Post by madaxe_again »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #29
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.

I'm not sure. Many of the countries with the largest emissions per capita are in regions where houses are heated in the winter and cooled in the summer. Given that indoor temperature is ~ 20C, the ∆T for heating can be much greater than for cooling, since cold outdoor temp can easily go as low as -20C, while really hot weather won't go much above 40C. Thus, in a warmer climate where you need less heating in winter an…

Heating is far more efficient than cooling, however, given that the former is a direct process, and the latter uses heat pumps.

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

#42

Post by noselasd »

misja111 wrote: post #8

So 14 of the 15 hottest years ever have taken place since 2000. I'm wondering, if this is the result of global heating due to emissions, why do we see so many new record highs only now? The industrial revolution has been going on already for over 150 years. Why were there so few records broken in, say, 1980 - 1996, and so many in 2000 - 2016?

> Why were there so few records broken in, say, 1980 - 1996 ?

Were there ? In 1980, it was the hottest year ever. But in 1996, that was the hottest year ever. And that trend continues.

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

#43

Post by sevenless »

staticelf wrote: post #37

I am lucky I live in the northen parts of Europe. I do not wish to live in America in ~50-100 years from now since there is so much guns and other weapons easily available. People who care about their childrens future should start planning now. I think when the shit hits the fan it will hit hard and fast.

> People who care about their childrens future should start planning now.

If you believe this, wouldn't the ethical thing be to not have kids?

Besides, global warming-derived refugee flows into Europe could well put it in a much worse position than the US.

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

#44

Post by harryh »

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.

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

#45

Post by staticelf »

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.

Well the trend has so far been that countries increase their emissions generally and not the reverse. Especially with emerging economies like China and India.

A lot of Swedish politicians claims that Sweden has lowered it's emissions and while that is true we also outsourced a lot of production and increased our consumption rendering our emissions actually higher when you count that in.

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

#46

Post by staticelf »

sevenless wrote: post #43
staticelf wrote: post #37

I am lucky I live in the northen parts of Europe. I do not wish to live in America in ~50-100 years from now since there is so much guns and other weapons easily available. People who care about their childrens future should start planning now. I think when the shit hits the fan it will hit hard and fast.

> People who care about their childrens future should start planning now. If you believe this, wouldn't the ethical thing be to not have kids? Besides, global warming-derived refugee flows into Europe could well put it in a much worse position than the US.

Well.. yes. But I think a lot of people are going to have kids nonetheless and a lot of people here maybe already have kids.

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

#47

Post by codecamper »

Solar panels now sell for about 45c a watt out of China. Cost to create is around 36c / watt.

This allows deployments such as in Chile & Dubai where the cost/kwh is 3 cents & below.

This now cheaper than coal, without subsidy.

Remove the subsidies that oil, gas & coal receive, and you will witness a new day.

Only problem for solar right now is over supply caused by a sudden drop in demand. China reduced its subsidy a bit. Also the US extended subsidy for 5 years, which is great, but it has removed the urgency to complete utility scale solar plants before subsidy cutoff, causing the utilities to sit it out & wait.

Better act soon! (250 years to clear CO2 from atmosphere, feedback loops only now being discovered.)

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

#48

Post by socialist_coder »

blahi wrote: post #22
fsloth wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FUD of what? Generally FUD is used to gain some financial advantage. The only party who has anything to gain from continuing with the economic policies which acerbate climate change are the owners of fossil fuel sources. These constitute billions of dollars of future profit - but only if it's burnt up into the sky. Everyone else is only going to lose in the long term. If one does not understand anything of climate sc…

I am personally acquainted with the dealings of several environmental NGOs. Not climate related, but I extrapolate. And we are talking branches of the biggest NGOs out there. They have a very big incentive to spread FUD and they do it all the time. They are basically extortion and defamation platforms used as a political lever. At least here. But I very much doubt it's much different elsewhere.

Of course, there will always be people who are less than noble in their pursuits. In academia, in NGOs, in environmental groups, in government, in private industry, everywhere.

Ask yourself though, even if all this climate change and global warming is FUD, what happens if we respond to it like it is real? Result: we have a cleaner planet (cleaner air, cleaner water, oceans that still support life) and we have a sustainable path when fossil fuels do eventually run out.

What happens if we ignore it? Result: the potential demise of the world as we know it...

Think about it from a risk vs reward perspective. It's clearly much riskier to ignore than it would be to take a hit on our economic growth and pivot hard to 100% renewable energy.

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

#49

Post by dasboth »

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.

> some sort of world wide agreement to lower consumption is a pipe dream

This has been my conclusion recently too. Sure, we can all do our own bit individually, but I can't realistically see a global shift in conscientiousness taking place.

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

#50

Post by madaxe_again »

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 great.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature

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