[HN Gopher] U.S. had its coldest February in more than 30 years
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U.S. had its coldest February in more than 30 years
Author : finphil
Score : 26 points
Date : 2021-03-11 20:13 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.noaa.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.noaa.gov)
| ronnier wrote:
| The colder temps worked out for me. AT&T has a research business
| center next to my home and when the temperature is above 45
| degrees they turn on a chiller unit to keep their servers cool.
| It blasts over 45 DB (I sometimes go over 50 decibels) into my
| house all night as long as long as the temperature is over 45
| degrees. With the colder temps outside, I've been able to sleep
| in my room. When the warmer weather hits I'm not able to sleep in
| my own room at night. My entire house is filled with an extremely
| torturous tone that will drive you insane. ATT won't do anything
| about it even though licensed professionals show they are above
| the city code allowed noise levels at night.
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| Maybe you should fight it with a lawsuit?
| ronnier wrote:
| That's the plan. Waiting on the official report next week and
| will present it to the city (again). If the city continues to
| refuse to take action then I'll have to move forward with a
| lawsuit.
| injb wrote:
| Strangely, it has been a very mild winter for the upper Midwest
| tyronehed wrote:
| That's because the Jet Stream has moved South. The Arctic was
| much warmer, leading to melting of permafrost and the firing of
| the so-called methane clathrate gun, which releases vast
| amounts of tremendously-damaging methane gas.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| As a resident of Houston: Can confirm it sure FELT like it.
| macrowhat wrote:
| This is why I'm so skeptical of climate alarmists. It wasn't that
| long ago the alarmism was centered around a "big freeze"
| (http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19731203,00.html). I
| see it as a feeble attempt to acquire power and funnel money from
| hard-working citizens to the "scientific" community, without
| providing any tangible benefits. What do you guys think?
| zozin wrote:
| I sometimes joke that climate change orthodoxy is driven in
| part by the CIA in order to retard growth/industrialization in
| semi and non-developed countries in order to elongate America's
| hold on power.
|
| I would describe myself as agnostic on the topic simply because
| I haven't done enough personal research, but the devout belief
| that many people have in human-caused global climate change is
| really off putting, primarily because it's hubristic in so many
| ways: that our presence and actions are harming a 4.5 billion
| year planet in the span of a few decades; that our models are
| that good; that our data is that good; that our analysis and
| conclusions are undoubtedly true, etc. My inner skeptic just
| freaks out.
| macrowhat wrote:
| That mostly mirrors my sentiment, although I'd say that the
| government is inhibiting industrial growth foremost in the
| US, unfortunately without regard for the American workers
| that it hurts. Then for some strange reason, the same people
| who criticize industrial pollutants here turn around and
| revere China's industrial growth, all the while promoting
| "cheap goods" without taking responsibility for the pollution
| their goods cause there. Glaring hypocrisy.
| aw1621107 wrote:
| > It wasn't that long ago the alarmism was centered around a
| "big freeze"
| (http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19731203,00.html).
|
| The article accompanying that cover has _nothing_ to do with
| climate [0]. It 's discussing the 1973 oil crisis and its
| effects, one of which is a shortage of fuel to heat homes
| during the winter.
|
| In addition, discussion of "global cooling"/a "big freeze"
| appears to be more representative of news coverage than the
| state of climate research at the time [1].
|
| [0]:
| http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,9082...
|
| [1]:
| https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/89/9/2008bam...
| macrowhat wrote:
| I don't know about that
| aw1621107 wrote:
| Don't know about what?
| macrowhat wrote:
| Okay sorry, I was being Quick Draw McGraw with the
| articles.
|
| This was the article published by time referencing the
| "New Ice Age": http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/ar
| ticle/0,33009,9449.... I knew I saw it before ;) And of
| course, the paper you linked quotes many, many more that
| perpetuates the myth. I'll be bookmarking that!
|
| A quote:
|
| "As they review the bizarre and unpredictable weather
| pattern of the past several years, a growing number of
| scientists are beginning to suspect that many seemingly
| contradictory meteorological fluctuations are actually
| part of a global climatic upheaval. However widely the
| weather varies from place to place and time to time, when
| meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the
| globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing
| gradually cooler for the past three decades. The trend
| shows no indication of reversing. Climatological
| Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for
| the weather aberrations they are studying may be the
| harbinger of another ice age."
|
| So the scientific community seems to have the same
| perspective as I, whereby the media alarmists cause
| unnecessary fear among the population that accepts their
| orthodoxy unabated.
| raarts wrote:
| I am 60. I was a little nerd when I was around 11-12 yo and I
| read all pop science magazines.
|
| Being afraid of an upcoming ice age definitely was a thing,
| many articles were written on it, quoting scientists, even in
| national newspapers. I remember writing an essay on it for
| school.
|
| I don't have those magazines any more but you should be able
| to find them somewhere.
| snarf21 wrote:
| I have no proof, but as the climate has changed and mostly gotten
| warmer it _seems_ like the summer heat takes longer and longer to
| dissipate from the ground and the water. We used to have snow at
| the end of November in PA. Now snow is only in January and
| February. It feels like winter is delayed a month because of our
| warmer summers. It also feels like spring is what keeps getting
| shorter. It warms slightly and then summer is full on again.
| tonymet wrote:
| If we're going to have headlines "hottest year on record " to
| confirm global warming , then what would this coldest record
| indicate ? I don't think either are good indicators , just
| curious why confirming evidence is welcome and detracting
| evidence is not .
| briankelly wrote:
| It indicates global warming as well. Colder weather is
| occurring below the Arctic because the polar air is getting
| pushed down (my laymen's understanding), and the Arctic winters
| are getting warmer and warmer as a trend.
| tyronehed wrote:
| You clearly don't understand what is happening. The increase in
| CO2 causes wilder swings in weather, leading to more and more
| extremes. It also perturbed the Jet Stream, leading us to get
| in the USA what had been weather confined to the Arctic. This
| outcome is PRECISELY what had been predicted for the worst
| effects of climate change.
|
| In fact, the amount of CO2 that we have already released has
| triggered the knock-on effects, which is the melting of
| permafrost and the subsequent release of vast quantities of
| Methane gas, which is 84 times more damaging than CO2.
|
| Unfortunately, climate is not simple. By definition it is a
| complicated effect. But the coldest February ever seen is 100%
| in agreement with the predictions in Climate change.
| jcranmer wrote:
| This is why a lot of scientists prefer the term "climate
| change" over "global warming"--the expected result isn't a
| uniform "everyone experiences warmer changes" but rather more
| severe disruptions in climate patterns.
|
| One of those predicted disruptions is a weakening of the
| margins of the polar vertex. This results in cases where the
| front of vertex pushes deeply far south. As a result, cold
| polar air can move deep into the US interior (so, say, 0degF or
| less in St. Louis) while Alaska is baking in 50-60degF.
|
| In other words, one of the predictions of global warming is
| that the US will see an increase in _extreme cold_ events in
| winter even as the _average_ Earth temperature is increasing.
| xyzzy_plugh wrote:
| IIUC but global warming is somewhat of a misnomer for local
| weather effects, which can include colder winters; i.e. global
| warming is thought to cause more extreme weather in general.
| baybal2 wrote:
| A few years ago, I heard a hypothesis why hotter summers in the
| northern hemisphere can cause colder winters. I forgot where, or
| from whom I heard it, but here it is:
|
| Winters got more severe, and polar can vortex move further south
| because lands in the north became more dry, and there is less
| moisture both in the air, and soil.
| hdkenhd wrote:
| Is climate change the most consequential effect of global
| warming? What does a 1C increase in temperature on a global /
| astronomical scale mean in terms of thermodynamics? How do we
| experience it at human scale?
|
| I have a basic undergraduate understanding of physics (at best),
| and it seems to me that the planet should be experiencing a
| significant increase in entropy - meaning that everything (i.e.
| reality itself) is becoming less predictable -- at least in our
| tiny local neighborhood. Is this interpretation totally wrong?
| fiftyfifty wrote:
| I think an increase in entropy is a great way to put it. More
| energy from the sun is being kept in the atmosphere (and the
| oceans), more energy is going to effect a complex system like
| the Earth's atmosphere in complex ways. More energy means
| changes in air currents and ocean currents that could have a
| significant impact on local weather patterns. More energy means
| larger more powerful storms. More energy means more moisture in
| the atmosphere which means potentially more rainfall/snowfall
| in some areas.
| artonge wrote:
| The temperature difference from the last ice age is only 5degC.
| Most of northern Europe was under a glacier all year long.
|
| Forecasts are telling us a 2degC increase before the end of the
| centuary is already inevitable. If we do not change anything, a
| 4degC increase is really probable.
|
| It is easy to imagine that a lot of place will become not be
| suitable to human life.
| gmuslera wrote:
| Weather is so complex that a nearly chaotic system, the
| butterfly effect comes from the idea that the flapping of a
| butterfly in south africa could be the thing that start a
| tropical storm in the caribbean a couple of weeks later.
|
| It is so complex because the amount of things that play a role
| there. Some of the components you have are i.e. sea currents
| (like the Gulf Stream, making England warmer than it should be)
| or the polar vortex, a more or less stable cyclone that runs in
| the upper atmosphere. Global warming affect those components,
| and in particular was the polar vortex what caused the cold
| weather in the US the last months.
|
| But when you talk about climate in the context of global
| warming, you are talking about yearly global temperature
| averages, not what happen in only one region or in a few
| days/months.
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(page generated 2021-03-11 23:02 UTC)