Also posted in the weather thread. But you want screwy climate news? I got it for ya here.
Shot:
Chaser:
yes, a tornado. In Chicagoland. In February. With a massive supercell that produced a light show of epic proportions.
This is straight up late April, early may weather. We literally had about 3 weeks of winter.
Doesnât bode well for climate change though.
Itâs not clear to me that this is the case. Replacing oil sands production with lower-carbon sources is a good thing. A lower oil price might spur more oil consumption and delay development and adoption of low-carbon alternatives. On the other hand, adoption of low-carbon alternatives will reduce oil demand (over what it otherwise would have been) and therefore reduce oil prices.
I donât know how it plays out overall.
My impression is that cheaper oil prices leaded to more oil consumption and less pressure to develop clean alternatives.
I hope Iâm wrong!
Some weather/climate news from Sydney, where I live. It was the hottest summer on record which means the last 158 years. There were some boiling hot days, and the weird thing was sometimes the temperature didnât even improve at night. Imagine lying in a stuffy bedroom at 1am trying to sleep with temps over 30 degrees celsius (86F).
Our decision last spring to wait a year before buying air conditioning proved a bad one. Moreover, our poorly installed bamboo flooring expanded so much from the heat it started to buckle. Worst summer ever, thanks Obama / climate change.
So tornadoes yesterday, snow today. Yay?
Honestly, at this point I think that perhaps the best bet for dealing with carbon is gonna be carbon capture, rather than trying to stop folks from burning shit.
That free atmosphere capture which automatically builds carbon nano-tubes is pretty awesome, even if years out. What makes it cool though, is that it offers a way to put the genie back in the bottle at some point in the future, to some degree.
Applying it to powerplants themselves allows the folks operating those plants to produce industrial grade nanotubes at 1% of the amount they could then sell them for.
This is pretty much the best way to go⌠because instead of having the companies fight you on it, youâre basically saying, âHey, do you want to make money? You like money, right?â
Snow⌠tornado⌠Snornado? That sounds kind of like the description of a Wall Street office party, doesnât it?
NSFW gif deleted.
I didnât notice for a few seconds but that gif is NSFW at high rez, FYI.
Dang, you are correct. My bad :(
Just picture the Wolf of Wall Street coke on a boat party folks.
Ok.
Here is the max temp in Sydney for the summer months since 1910 (deg C). Itâs been hot, but itâs highly likely your assessment of any of the other peaks, or probably any other summer, would be similar - âitâs fucking hotâ.
From 1850, with some nice early 20th century warming and static temperature for 25 years. I guess we were all too busy dumping mercury or reading Silent Spring to worry about global warming.
To zero years bc with static CO2.
Ooh, ice ages.
While we can measure the current climate quite accurately, accurately modelling climate change is beyond our reach. âEquilibrium climate sensitivityâ is the coefficient thrown in front of a doubling of CO2 concentration and the resulting climate change, a result of climate feedback mechanisms that are poorly understood.
IPCC provides a likely change of 1.5 to 4.5 deg C. In light of the historical record, thatâs a confidence interval wide enough to drive a bus through.
A political solution to CO2 emissions requires resolution of the inequality between first and third world industrialisation. This is not being seriously considered by any nation, least of all the materially well off voters in the Western democracies.
Given that the current agreements are non-binding niceties, I imagine there is some more decades of data gathering before there is real political impetus. Then you are basically asking 80% of the world to skip industrialisation and live in grinding poverty while you sip on a free trade soy latte, steamed with argon. There are no affordable or efficient energy alternatives for the undeveloped world. Perhaps the political solution will be to buy those corrupt governments off.
In the old days weâd just bomb the shit out of them until they did as we demanded, but that releases a lot of carbon monoxide.
For the rich nations, apart from the self-deception of inefficient, unaffordable solar power, and the geographically limited use of wind, there remains only nuclear power. Doesnât that open up can of proliferation worms? Fuel cells make us feel nice, but itâs not quite as self-righteous when you find out all that hydrogen came from the oxidation of hydrocarbons.
Having finally bothered to a bit of reading, it becomes obvious how heavily manipulated the graphs in the media are. tata
Leaving aside that the climate agreements generally give developing countries a pass on carbon emissions, you just posted a bunch of data that shows accelerating global warming and then capped it off by saying we need to gather more data.
Speaking of data, for the tech oriented crowd here, if you have a large NAS you arenât using and a fast connection, you can help mirror some climate data sets. Relevant since it looks like the NOAA budget is about to be gutted. Weather.gov was a great site for no ad filled weather too.
The data sets are typically in the ballpark of 10 to 15 terabytes each. Pretty manageable for a modern NAS.
Is that really what I said, Mr Rubber Ducky? Hmm, letâs seeâŚ
Well shit, I guess on a purely literal basis that is indeed what I said.
Here, let me have a crack at this sort of incomprehensibility: please feel free to contact the IPCC and tell them have gathered enough data, and now they can close up shop.
After all, that is the implication of your argument. Iâm sure theyâll be glad to hear from you.
re. Paris, Democratic Republic of Congo is up for their 0.06%, I can assure you this number has not been selected in anticipation of them industrialising to a point where they enjoy the material quality of life you and I currently do. Not to mention the huge resource strain weâd be looking at if there was to be a worldwide elevation in material living standards.
If you think climate change is an issue of concern, and I do to whatever degree these existential issues matter, well of bloody course you are looking at many more years of gathering data. That goes without saying for any reasonable analysis. If the powers that be genuinely believed we were approaching a precipice of no return, then we would be looking at a far more rigorous response.
The reason we are not seeing that is because there is a credibility gap, and one of the ways you bridge that is to gather data. Successful modelling would be a powerful argument, but itâs such a complex, out of equilibrum system that all we seem to currently do is pick the RCP that fits.
It could be due for another multi-year cyclical downturn soon (and we canât reach for an aerosol explanation this time), and thatâs sure going to make things awkward in our febrile media driven culture.
But you know, whatever. Itâs summer and itâs hot! Fuck you Trump/Obama/Santa Claus!
later
I am pretty sure I did not imply that we should stop gathering data. Rather, the idea that we havenât gathered enough data yet to know if humans are warming the earth rapidly is absurd on itâs face.
Yes human nature being what it is we will probably be unable to make a coordinated effort until it is too late. I agree with that. I am not sure that merits burying our heads in the sand, Trump-style.
The new climate change skepticism, by people that bother to read the facts, is sort of a begrudging acceptance which weâre seeing here. Basically 'thereâs still lots of uncertainty so we should wait before doing anything, plus most of the world wonât change so thereâs no point, plus weâre asking them to stay poor which is hypocritical, PLUS solar power is a waste of money anyways 'cause itâs dark half the time.
All of these have good, logical, and true, counterpoints and policies available. But they demand a more nuanced argument. Since thereâs few here that need convincing, itâs not worth the detailed hours and back and forth. @badsport try and look them up one by one though, and expand your mind, dude!
Meh, Iâve never been particularly skeptical of human induced climate change.
However, Iâm skeptical of our ability to get a solid handle on the quantities involved, and the science demonstrates that pretty clearly and honestly. If youâre legislating industry, quantity of the threat is all youâre interested in.
The politics that surround climate chage are abysmal, but that is the usual.
Just pointing out to you the political and scientific realities. You can try and nuance your way out of them all you want, but it wonât stop them being there.
The worldwide response to climate change is decidedly half-hearted. Youâre options there are to recognise the intersection of politics and science, or to blame whoever your totem currently is.
All we could all spend the weekend at Scottâs place squeegeeing our third eye. Solar? Duuuudddeee⌠itâs called an energy budget.
The thing is, from a conservative perspective, dealing with climate change is not a thing which is inherently bad. It doesnât require destruction of our economic base, as is often presented.
Changing over to a greener infrastructure is an economic opportunity, not a disaster. It means you need to build stuff. Building stuff is generally what makes the economy go.
There are worse things to spend money on. Like a big ass useless fence.
The weekend? But itâs Monday; Iâm sure weâll address all of your skepticism by Friday.
Anyways, which quantities do you think we need a better handle on? Is it the temperature increase range? The financial cost of making a difference? I can preempt your topic of concern: Thereâs a lot of information about it if you search it out.
The politics are awful, somewhat true (especially in the US), but so what? The answer to that is to learn and act. Could be as simple as your next vote, or your next car purchase, or your discussion around the dinner table. Or hey, you live in the US, I just read that the administration wants to reopen the fuel economy standards Obama set. Why not oppose that vocally? But let me guess, youâre too old, itâs pointless, the world is going to hell anyway, etc. Etc.
Solar power is awesome by the way. It is literally electricity falling from the sky.