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Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter

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Re: Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter

#91

Post by toasterlovin »

xg15 wrote: post #71
toasterlovin wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's even worse than that: the small percentage of people who have changed their consumption patterns out of concern for the environment are probably having zero or negative impact. For instance, the following products are worse for the environment than their alternatives: 1. Hand-crafted, locally produced goods 2. Non-factory farmed food 3. Organic food

So we should exclusively eat factory-farmed food to save the environment? Despite factory-farming being one of the main drivers of CO2?

Factory farming is very resource intensive, but it is less resource intensive per unit of food produced. Just look at the prices at your local grocery store!

Re: Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter

#92

Post by toasterlovin »

microtonal wrote: post #70
toasterlovin wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's even worse than that: the small percentage of people who have changed their consumption patterns out of concern for the environment are probably having zero or negative impact. For instance, the following products are worse for the environment than their alternatives: 1. Hand-crafted, locally produced goods 2. Non-factory farmed food 3. Organic food

There are also simple things that one can do, that have an impact. For example, one could go on holiday to a local destination rather than flying half the world. Or you could cycle to work rather than traveling by car every day. (Sure, in the grand scheme of things, these will make small differences, but we have to cut our use of fossil fuel everywhere.)

I think this advice can be simplified greatly: reduce your expenditures. If you're spending less money, then you are consuming a smaller share of the world's bounty.

Re: Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter

#93

Post by spodek »

loverofthings wrote: post #43
brentm wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point believing or not believing in climate change is analogous to religion. I have trouble believing any facts or data would swing a significant portion of either side of the debate. Denying climate change is easy. We're not going to see places like New York City move swiftly underwater and the problem is so abstract it's easy to call BS. Short of Trump changing his mind and using his super power of convinci…

In similar ways, majority of people that believe in climate change do nothing (or barely anything) to fight it. No one is reducing their heating/cooling, no one is changing their diet, no one is measuring their heating patterns and trying to optimize it (by no one I mean barely anyone). People still want their 24/7 AC, their steaks, their huge cars, their big heat inefficient houses, their plane flights etc. No one d…

Check out the Leadership and the Environment podcast (disclosure: I host it).

http://joshuaspodek.com/podcast

Re: Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter

#94

Post by ianai »

nashashmi wrote: post #84
joshuahedlund wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're different by orders of magnitude. This spike is occurring in context of record low winter ice following a record low the previous winter following decades of a declining average. Yeah, the 25 number is a spike on the edge of the bell curve, but this bell curve is consistently shifting, and thus so are these spikes.

That's OP's point. It is only a spike, not an event that points to climate change. A climate change event example would be an average yearly temperature changing significantly.

As a lay person, I think the poles are much more symbolic of the total state of the weather/water system in the micro level than anywhere else on earth. An observation with several sigmas of difference from average at the poles probably translates to very widespread conditions.

Re: Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter

#95

Post by craigsmansion »

loverofthings wrote: post #82
mirimir wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true. Many people in "developed" countries reduce their energy use, and their use of energy-intensive products, in order to help reduce climate forcing. And they've done so for decades. However, it is true that too few people in "developed" countries do that. And it's also true that too many people in "less-developed" countries lust after energy-intensive lifestyles. So overall, its unlikely that overall c…

I'm not sure that many people do that. A good comparison would be FOSS. Richard Stallman inconveniences himself to the point of absurdity, but I'm pretty sure barely anyone does anything close to it. I changed my diet, I live in good housing, but when I put the numbers on paper, I'm not doing much at all, and could do much more.

> Richard Stallman inconveniences himself to the point of absurdity

I'm not sure that's an apt comparison. rms simply has a workflow that doesn't require the use of proprietary software. It's not that inconvenient for him.

In on-topic comparison, it would be having a lifestyle where you'd simply have no use for a car: you live close to work, enjoy riding a bicycle, etc.

Of course, finding that workflow or lifestyle might limit some options, but once you accept that, it's not all that inconvenient.

Re: Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter

#96

Post by igravious »

boardwaalk wrote: post #37
igravious wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It actually says so in the article, “This next batch of abnormally warm air is forecast to shoot the gap between Greenland and northern Europe through the Greenland and Barents seas. Similar circumstances occurred in December 2016, when the temperature at the North Pole last flirted with the melting point in the dark, dead of winter. Similarly large jumps in temperature were documented in November 2016 and December 2…

A few years of this does not make it normal. While we're quoting the article: > These kinds of temperature anomalies in the Arctic have become commonplace in winter in the past few years. Implying they haven't been in the past.

> A few years of this does not make it normal.

I wasn't implying that.

> Implying they haven't been in the past.

Nor that.

My only intention was to agree with the original commenter that the title and start of the article made it sound like this one event was a complete anomaly.

Later on we find out that, no, this has been happening for a while.

If it is not an anomaly then we need to know how frequently this temperature spike happens. Multiple times during the winter? Has it been spiking only in the last few years. How anomalous is it?

Am I not allowed ask these questions?

Re: Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter

#97

Post by mirimir »

jtzhou wrote: post #87
mirimir wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. That's arguably the prudent take on "party hearty". There's always the tension between "do fun stuff now when you can enjoy it most" and "save for later when you'll have more free time and less likely income".

Ah understood. You were looking at the national level with countries like China and Russia "party[ing] hearty" by not significantly curbing C02 emissions. Those individuals who benefit directly from oil and coal (as they do in the US) will extract gains and use it to pad offshore bank accounts. Meanwhile the rest of us should take a prudent life and be prepared for shocks ahead (like land and cost of living soaring i…

The US is still partying hard. At least, relative to much of Western Europe. Much of Eastern Europe still has too much inefficient Soviet-era infrastructure. And yes, China has had slack in most climate agreements.

Re: Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter

#98

Post by 52-6F-62 »

jpindar wrote: post #83
52-6F-62 wrote: post #2

Anecdotal: Here in Toronto, it's been 16˚C this past week. In February. We've had about 2 or 3 real snowfalls that stuck around for a few days before melting. As somebody who loves ice skating outside, it's really frustrating. And I love the snow. Every year it seems like the winter gets a little milder...

Anecdotal: New Hampshire has experienced both record breaking high temperatures (> 70˚F) and record breaking low temperatures ( It snowed the day after it was 75˚F.

That's how it's happened here. Another commenter mentioned that while we've had such highs, we've also experienced record lows. What they didn't associate was how they have come back-to-back.

It's rather usual for a northerly place like Calgary to go from -20˚ to +20˚ Celsius (or the reverse) over the course of a day due to Chinook winds from the mountains. They're really quite a sight if there are any clouds—you can watch the wall of whatever front is blowing in.

In Ontario, it's rather unusual for the same kind of phenomenon, and we've experienced it multiple times this winter.

Re: Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter

#99

Post by mikeash »

briga wrote: post #4

Using events like this to illustrate that global warming is happening is about as scientifically significant as when Trump used the recent US cold snap to imply that global warming isn't happening. I'm not saying climate change doesn't exist--it certainly does--but outlying events like this aren't by themselves particularly unusual. "Normal", after all, is at the top of a bell curve, and deviations from normal should…

This is a false equivalence. The reasons they’re being linked are important too. When Trump and others point to cold snaps as evidence against climate change, they’re just drawing a straight line from one to the other with no rationale or explanation in between. When extreme events like this are linked to climate change, they’re presented as illustrative of a well studied phenomenon that definitely causes this sort of thing to happen.

It’s like if I take the Lord’s name in vain and then get sick and you tell me this shows that I shouldn’t swear. Then you lick a handle on the subway and get sick and I tell you this shows how disease is transmitted by germs. The two may look superficially similar, but the underlying reasoning is important.

Re: Arctic temperatures soar 25 degrees above normal in the dead of winter

#100

Post by discoursism »

vixen99 wrote: post #25
discoursism wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know global warming is happening because of this news article. This news article worries me because I know global warming is happening.

How does the 'I know' bit advance the discussion?

I don't understand what you mean by "advance the discussion."
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