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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

#61

Post by Ygg2 »

misja111 wrote: post #39
pjc50 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're misunderstanding the arithmetic. Take a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_temperature_recor... The Nth "hottest years" are relative to the present day. So in the graph, it looks like 1981 would have been a record hot year - but now it's only the 30th (or whatever) hottest year. If the graph were a completely smooth upward-sloping line, then you'd expect that 15 of the 15 hottest years…

Thanks for the chart. To me it still seems like we are missing something. If you look at the period of 1940 - 1980, then there was not really an upward or downward trend. But in the 36 years after 1980, the global temperature has been going up like crazy. Should all of that be attributed to statistical noise? To me it looks like some new factor has started to influence the climate in the recent years, whatever that f…

When you put a kettle on a stove, it doesn't start boiling immediately. Double so if there is some ice floating in the kettle.

Similarly if you turn off the stove, the water will continue boiling for some time.

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

#62

Post by oliv__ »

redwood wrote: post #52
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.

I tend to agree: you can't go "back to nature" when you have 8 billion people running around, a larger and larger portion of which want to live like those of us in developing countries do (especially in the basic sense of having AC to escape this increasing heat). AC is a great little allegory for the whole thing... would you rather have AC and deal with hotter and hotter days, or forego AC and wait a century, have n…

Before AC, did people not live without it?

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

#63

Post by fratlas »

codecamper wrote: post #47

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…

Also the power grid cannot accommodate in it's current form. Older substations struggle to do with the load fluctuations that are caused by solar panels, which is why they are discouraging them in Hawaii. A huge investment would be required to upgrade these substations. But yes, soon solar will be cheaper than coal.

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

#64

Post by codecamper »

geomark wrote: post #56
codecamper wrote: post #47

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…

"Remove the subsidies that oil, gas & coal receive, and you will witness a new day." Yes. But you will also need to remove the anti-dumping import duties on Chinese-made PV cells. Those are some pretty big special interest groups (particular the first one) receiving government protection from foreign competition. So good luck with getting those protections removed.

You think these duties will stop the Chinese? Ha ha ha.

Already the major chinese manufacturers are opening fabs in Malaysia. First Solar and Sunpower (US PV companies) also manufacture in Malaysia.

I'm not saying they are actually doing this, but how hard will it be to ship modules from China to Malaysia and then onto final destinations?

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

#65

Post by collyw »

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.

Having kids especially in the west is probably the least environmental friendly thing you could do.

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

#66

Post by codecamper »

fratlas wrote: post #63
codecamper wrote: post #47

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…

Also the power grid cannot accommodate in it's current form. Older substations struggle to do with the load fluctuations that are caused by solar panels, which is why they are discouraging them in Hawaii. A huge investment would be required to upgrade these substations. But yes, soon solar will be cheaper than coal.

well the grid needs to be upgraded. Totally ridiculous that HI discourages residential PV.

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

#67

Post by sevenless »

goodcanadian wrote: post #54
sevenless wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

If you believe this, wouldn't the ethical thing be to not have kids? I see this over and over . . . If you don't have kids, who exactly are you saving the world for?

I take it the world isn't going to be 'saved'. The question is how we respond to that.

Why do you see 'saving the world' as a priority? The natural (non-human) environment doesn't have any right to exist. Our priority should be to avoid harming humans, and people born into a world that's mostly uninhabitable for them will have pretty shit lives.

Long term, the world will be fine, we won't.

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

#68

Post by pjc50 »

misja111 wrote: post #39
pjc50 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're misunderstanding the arithmetic. Take a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_temperature_recor... The Nth "hottest years" are relative to the present day. So in the graph, it looks like 1981 would have been a record hot year - but now it's only the 30th (or whatever) hottest year. If the graph were a completely smooth upward-sloping line, then you'd expect that 15 of the 15 hottest years…

Thanks for the chart. To me it still seems like we are missing something. If you look at the period of 1940 - 1980, then there was not really an upward or downward trend. But in the 36 years after 1980, the global temperature has been going up like crazy. Should all of that be attributed to statistical noise? To me it looks like some new factor has started to influence the climate in the recent years, whatever that f…

Rather than eyeballing it, why not do a proper regression?

To me, it looks like a line going up from 1900 with a bump in 1940. But you don't have to take my word for it, there's piles and piles of data out there.

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

#69

Post by [deleted] »

RobertoG wrote: post #24
pjc50 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're misunderstanding the arithmetic. Take a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_temperature_recor... The Nth "hottest years" are relative to the present day. So in the graph, it looks like 1981 would have been a record hot year - but now it's only the 30th (or whatever) hottest year. If the graph were a completely smooth upward-sloping line, then you'd expect that 15 of the 15 hottest years…

I find interesting, in that graph you are linking, that there is a spike in the years of the second world war. It would be interesting to know if there is causality between human activity in those years and that spike.

[deleted]

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

#70

Post by fratlas »

codecamper wrote: post #66
fratlas wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also the power grid cannot accommodate in it's current form. Older substations struggle to do with the load fluctuations that are caused by solar panels, which is why they are discouraging them in Hawaii. A huge investment would be required to upgrade these substations. But yes, soon solar will be cheaper than coal.

well the grid needs to be upgraded. Totally ridiculous that HI discourages residential PV.

Absolutely. I was just pointing out that in the current state of a lot of developed countries, coal is still cheaper than solar because of the infrastructure. But we're bloody close!
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