Northern summer was hottest on record by a significant margin • Hacker News Board

Re: Northern summer was hottest on record by a significant margin

#41

Post by roter » Wed, Sep 06, 2023, 2:42 PM UTC

tobr wrote: post #5

BytesAndGears wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, they have a graph of temperatures from 1940 onwards with a linear trend line— but just by looking at the data points, it seems that an exponential curve would fit the data better. Maybe someone more skilled than me has analyzed that already? Because just eyeballing it, is really making me nervous about the exponential future projection of that graph of the next 20 years

This was discussed in the latest episode of The Ezra Klein Show[1]. Apparently aerosols artificially held down temperatures roughly 1940–1980, after which they started to be reduced (from my memory of what they discussed). So it might be that the contribution of the greenhouse effect is masked in that period of the temperature graph. 1: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/05/opinion/ezra-klein-podcas...

A good review paper on "global dimming" and changes in surface shortwave radiation is by Wild [0].

[0] https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/200...

Re: Northern summer was hottest on record by a significant margin

#42

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Wed, Sep 06, 2023, 2:45 PM UTC

tejohnso wrote: post #14

louwrentius wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this relevant: you seem to imply “don’t bother”. I would disagree strongly.

It's relevant because people continue to downplay just how dire the situation is. It's not only going to get worse if we continue burning fossil fuels. It's going to get worse no matter what. If accepting that would lead you to conclude that we shouldn't bother, so be it. That's your interpretation, not mine. But downplaying those facts so that you can feel better about the situation is something I would disagree wit…

If we stop burning oil now it will get worse for a while, and then it will get better again.

It also gives us the option to work on carbon capture and mitigation technologies.

If we just carry on it's guaranteed to keep getting worse and worse until it doesn't matter any more.

The first is the rational choice, especially when the momentum in the models already accounts for likely future changes.

Re: Northern summer was hottest on record by a significant margin

#43

Post by phkahler » Wed, Sep 06, 2023, 2:48 PM UTC

lebuffon wrote: post #34

I just heard about a jump in atmospheric methane that is not understood. The oil/gas industry has made some progress to curtail methane emissions so we don't think it is that gang. I wonder about millions of tons of frozen ancient vegetation in Canada and Russia beginning to rot. ? One idea is that we have hit the true "terminus" point of the past ice age and temperatures will rise rapidly over the next few decades a…

>> No one knows the amount of thought I put into this same problem when building train tracks for my son but I had no idea how to solve the problem.

My opinion is that it will rise until we reach a tipping point where changes happen that will lead to the next glaciation. IMHO there will be at least a few years where odd things happen and then the modeling folks will say "oh crap this is going to happen". Stalling of the north Atlantic current is just one of these things that might happen.

In this light, I don't consider human-induced warming a fundamentally new problem, but an acceleration of a process that has been happening for several million years. Not that it makes too much difference - I don't want a glacier in my back yard any more than I want the other outcomes people talk about ;-)

Re: Northern summer was hottest on record by a significant margin

#44

Post by oh_sigh » Wed, Sep 06, 2023, 2:52 PM UTC

scythe wrote: post #26

taylodl wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were the aerosols from above-ground nuclear bomb detonations? I remember seeing a graph years and years ago that showed the temperatures really starting to rise was above-ground nuclear bomb testing was banned. Crazy spur-of-the-moment idea - should we pursue dumping some sort of aerosol into the upper atmosphere to reduce the amount of heat Earth receives from the sun? Obviously this shouldn't be pursued in lieu of…

Aerosols were probably sulfuric acid. Unfortunately this has negative side-effects. Aerosol can also be produced by monoterpenes, e.g. pinene, but there is disagreement about whether this can be helpful.

The crazy part about this is that doing something like that is within reach of a number of wealthy individuals. All it takes is one delusional billionaire to throw caution, and a metric buttload of aerosols to the wind and we will find out whether it was a good idea or not.

Re: Northern summer was hottest on record by a significant margin

#45

Post by phkahler » Wed, Sep 06, 2023, 2:52 PM UTC

No doubt the big Canadian Barbecue had a significant effect. Not to say there is no trend, just that this particular year is exceptional for at least on reason.

Re: Northern summer was hottest on record by a significant margin

#46

Post by roter » Wed, Sep 06, 2023, 2:53 PM UTC

tejohnso wrote: post #4

> Burgess said the summer had been one of tumbling records and it would only get worse if the world continues to burn planet-heating fossil fuels. It would get worse even if we stopped burning fossil fuels immediately. Because of lag effects, tipping points, and masking.

An interesting impact of an immediate stop of fossil fuel emissions is a rapid temperature increase over a few years due to an unmasking impact. i.e. the aerosols that are continually being produced due to fossil fuel burning drop out within days, weeks, months, increasing the solar radiation reaching the surface [0,1].

[0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01372-y (paywall)

[1] https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/188408/6/Dvorak_Armouretal_r... (pdf pre-print)

Re: Northern summer was hottest on record by a significant margin

#47

Post by derefr » Wed, Sep 06, 2023, 2:57 PM UTC

oh_sigh wrote: post #44

scythe wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aerosols were probably sulfuric acid. Unfortunately this has negative side-effects. Aerosol can also be produced by monoterpenes, e.g. pinene, but there is disagreement about whether this can be helpful.

The crazy part about this is that doing something like that is within reach of a number of wealthy individuals. All it takes is one delusional billionaire to throw caution, and a metric buttload of aerosols to the wind and we will find out whether it was a good idea or not.

Putting up a geosynchronous mirrored-foil tarp that shadows the entirety of one of earth's larger deserts would take about the same amount of effort — and be much easier to reverse if it turns out to be a bad idea.

Re: Northern summer was hottest on record by a significant margin

#48

Post by dahart » Wed, Sep 06, 2023, 2:59 PM UTC

tejohnso wrote: post #35

Ar-Curunir wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we shouldn't do anything at all?

Is that the option that comes to mind when presented with the facts? That's your reaction. Not mine. Who am I to tell people what to do or not do? You could just as easily have read what I said and thought: "So we need to prepare for something even worse no matter what, and we also need to act much more aggressively than we are!"

Your top message does seem to imply and suggest there’s nothing to be done, and there are multiple replies that saw this as your summary point.

I agree with you that it’s dire, and we need more aggressive action. I agree it’s going to get worse. In the short term, in terms of a few years, it’s true that changes to fossil fuel consumption won’t fix it. In the long term (decades and centuries) that’s not true though, and we do need to be thinking both short term and long term. We do need to curtail fossil fuel consumption and CO2 emission in order to solve this problem eventually, in addition to taking stronger actions in order to alleviate some of the symptoms anytime soon, right?

Re: Northern summer was hottest on record by a significant margin

#49

Post by beebeepka » Wed, Sep 06, 2023, 3:01 PM UTC

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #37

lebuffon wrote: post #34

I just heard about a jump in atmospheric methane that is not understood. The oil/gas industry has made some progress to curtail methane emissions so we don't think it is that gang. I wonder about millions of tons of frozen ancient vegetation in Canada and Russia beginning to rot. ? One idea is that we have hit the true "terminus" point of the past ice age and temperatures will rise rapidly over the next few decades a…

> The oil/gas industry has made some progress to curtail methane emissions so we don't think it is that gang. I don't know if we can reach that conclusion. It's been discovered, in Canada at least, that O&G is vastly under-reporting its methane production. I imagine other areas of the world might be even worse. https://www.ctvnews.ca/climate-and-environment/30-40-per-cen...

But they conducted extensive reviews on everything they do and concluded that we should look elsewhere. Maybe methane grows on trees or everyone just had more gas recently

Oil, sorry energy, companies would never ever lie

Re: Northern summer was hottest on record by a significant margin

#50

Post by piva00 » Wed, Sep 06, 2023, 3:03 PM UTC

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #28

taylodl wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were the aerosols from above-ground nuclear bomb detonations? I remember seeing a graph years and years ago that showed the temperatures really starting to rise was above-ground nuclear bomb testing was banned. Crazy spur-of-the-moment idea - should we pursue dumping some sort of aerosol into the upper atmosphere to reduce the amount of heat Earth receives from the sun? Obviously this shouldn't be pursued in lieu of…

Sulphur oxides have been proven to reduce global warming - when the ocean freighters cleaned up their emissions in a bid to stop pollution we saw increases in temperature. I hear people suggesting that we dump a ton of that in the upper atmosphere, but adding more crap to the air to try and stop the previous crap reminds me of how the old lady who swallowed the fly ended up with horse-sized problems.

It'd be just a giant game of whack-a-mole, not too dissimilar to what humans tried to do after destroying some ecosystems: travel to a new place in boats carrying rats, the rats get to a new land and multiply quickly, bring cats to control the rat population, the cats kill a lot more than rats and multiply quickly, rinse and repeat.

Complex systems that feedback into each other get very, very tricky to manage. We can't even do that with stupid software, it's a massive human hubris to believe we can do to systems we don't even comprehend...