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Northern summer was hottest on record by a significant margin

cnn.com

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

#61

Post by dudefeliciano »

RandomLensman wrote: post #30
SimplyUnknown wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the solution would be to continue emitting greenhouse gases and ensure it will also get worse in 30 or 50 years? > The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is now. Said to be a Chinese proverb, but I haven't extensively verified. The only viable solution right now to combat global warming is to immediately stop emitting greenhouse gases, even if there is a lag effect.

Immediately stopping all greenhouse gas emissions would kill a lot of people quickly by breaking supply and production chains for pretty much everything. So that is not an option.

i don't think anyone ever argued in favor of ceasing the usage of all greenhouse emitting fuel sources all at once. However we can't even agree to gradually phasing them out in a realistic timeline, see Kyoto Protocol

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

#62

Post by adrianmonk »

tejohnso wrote: post #27
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument to immediately stop burning fossil fuels is a radical position which few take seriously. But you seem to be arguing that it'd be pointless in the same way that pressing the break in the immediate moment before a car accident is futile. Sure it might not help a lot, but I'd argue it's still the right call and will rarely make the situation worse.

I'm not arguing a position for or against action, I'm pointing out that things are worse than the quote claims, and I'm pointing it out because there is a long history of downplaying the severity of the situation when it comes to this issue. Whether it's pointless or not is up for debate. Your brake pressing analogy could be slightly off. Rather than being in the moment before the car accident, we could be in the mom…

> I'm pointing out that things are worse than the quote claims

I believe you misunderstood the quote. "Would only get worse" is a set phrase that means getting worse is inevitable. The "only" means that no other outcome is possible. It's sort of an intensified version of "would get worse" in that it's more definite.

So "it would only get worse if the world continues to burn planet-heating fossil fuels" means that if we continue burning these fuels, there is no chance we will avoid the consequences. It does not mean that the only way to have the problem is to keep burning fossil fuels.

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

#63

Post by Filligree »

TomK32 wrote: post #60
vuln wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blowing up Nord Stream in the spring probably wasn’t a good idea for the environment. But hey at least we’re sticking it to the fascist Russians. /s

Having it operational and delivering gas for decades to come would have been worse for the environment. Germany is still a bit tumbling but definitely will move from gas and oil to other means of heating.

Yeah, they're doing well at moving to coal.

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

#64

Post by dayofthedaleks »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #51
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

Uzbekistan and Nigeria are pretty bad on methane emissions and the Nordstream attack also released quite a lot. War is highly destructive environmentally and uses a lot of fuel, so this Ukraine war is not helping.

Global methane emissions are estimated at 570 million tons annually.

Nordstream explosion is thought to have produced 155 thousand tons at the high end.

~.0004% bump.

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

#65

Post by Filligree »

roter wrote: post #46
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.…

> 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].

Well, what if we did so and also start spraying sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere?

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

#66

Post by anigbrowl »

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…

Nobody is downplaying it. Yes, it's going to get worse no matter what, relative to how it is now. But continuing to burn fossil fuels will almost certainly increase how much worse it is over the medium-longer term (decades-centuries) compared to rapidly curtailing use.

That's your interpretation, not mine.

Well, what do you advocate for? Semantic accuracy is good, but quibbling over it takes up time that could be better spent on ranking proposals.

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

#67

Post by anigbrowl »

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!"

That's your reaction. Not mine. Who am I to tell people what to do or not do?

So you just dropped in to make sure everyone feels worse? Gee, thanks.

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

#68

Post by anigbrowl »

bheadmaster wrote: post #29
sparrowInHand wrote: post #2

Oh, yes, its not linear, its exponential the moment..

Population growth was exponential too, until it stopped being exponential. Real world doesn't always follow our well-behaved mathematical functions.

One useful heuristic I've learned along the way is that when I think something is exponential, it's probably a sigmoid function.

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

#69

Post by myshpa »

https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/

Sea temperatures are so high this year that the temperature axis on the graphs had to be extended. Don't forget to switch to the North Atlantic Area.

https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/seaice/

The ice extent is also very low. Switch to the Southern Hemisphere Sea Ice Extent - it's currently winter there.

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

#70

Post by tejohnso »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #42
tejohnso wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

It's not a given that it will get better again. Not on timescales that matter to our species anyway.

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

Couldn't we do that while still burning fossil fuels? Not sure why we'd have to stop burning in order to have the option to work on capture and mitigation.

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

It's guaranteed to keep getting worse and worse in that case. But we might already be at the point where it doesn't matter anymore. I wonder, at what point would you say it doesn't matter anymore? How do you know?

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

That's the rational choice based on the conclusions you have personally come to, along with your own mental predisposition. I don't believe the situation is simple enough to say that this is the only rational choice for everybody.

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