[HN Gopher] Northern summer was hottest on record by a significa...
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Northern summer was hottest on record by a significant margin
Author : sharemywin
Score : 113 points
Date : 2023-09-06 12:56 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnn.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnn.com)
| lebuffon wrote:
| I just heard about a jump in atmospheric methane that is not
| understood. The oil/gas industry has made some progress to
| curtail methane emissions so we don't think it is that gang.
|
| I wonder about millions of tons of frozen ancient vegetation in
| Canada and Russia beginning to rot. ?
|
| One idea is that we have hit the true "terminus" point of the
| past ice age and temperatures will rise rapidly over the next few
| decades and then stabilize at the new "normal".
|
| Human CO2 might have pushed temps up but this could be much
| bigger than we expected.
|
| https://theconversation.com/rising-methane-could-be-a-sign-t...
|
| https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends_ch4/
| vuln wrote:
| 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
| [deleted]
| TomK32 wrote:
| 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.
| vuln wrote:
| The immediate environmental impact of a destructive act can
| be catastrophic, endangering ecosystems and human lives.
| While the long-term use of fossil fuels is indeed
| concerning, abrupt disruption isn't the answer. Instead, we
| should be pushing for a gradual, sustainable transition to
| cleaner energy sources. It's about finding a balance
| without resorting to extreme measures.
| Filligree wrote:
| Yeah, they're doing well at moving to coal.
| t_tsonev wrote:
| Stop spreading FUD.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Germa
| ny
| vuln wrote:
| That Wikipedia stat is over 3 years ago 2020. What's it
| look like now?
| phkahler wrote:
| >> No one knows the amount of thought I put into this same
| problem when building train tracks for my son but I had no idea
| how to solve the problem.
|
| My opinion is that it will rise until we reach a tipping point
| where changes happen that will lead to the next glaciation.
| IMHO there will be at least a few years where odd things happen
| and then the modeling folks will say "oh crap this is going to
| happen". Stalling of the north Atlantic current is just one of
| these things that might happen.
|
| In this light, I don't consider human-induced warming a
| fundamentally new problem, but an acceleration of a process
| that has been happening for several million years. Not that it
| makes too much difference - I don't want a glacier in my back
| yard any more than I want the other outcomes people talk about
| ;-)
| piva00 wrote:
| > but an acceleration of a process that has been happening
| for several million years
|
| That's exactly the main issue, isn't it? A change happening
| over millenia/millions of years gives enough time and slack
| for life to adapt, an accelerated change that happens in the
| course of centuries will just erase many species that can't
| reconfigure their metabolism through evolution. Of course
| that life finds a way and new species adapted to a new
| environment will become more prevalent over time, the issue
| is exactly that we accelerated it to a pace where most things
| aren't able to cope. We depend on those things as well to
| survive.
| sophacles wrote:
| Changing the speed of a process can dramatically change the
| outcome. For instance, compare taking an elevator vs jumping
| out the window.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| > 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...
| beebeepka wrote:
| But they conducted extensive reviews on everything they do
| and concluded that we should look elsewhere. Maybe methane
| grows on trees or everyone just had more gas recently
|
| Oil, sorry energy, companies would never ever lie
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| 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.
| dayofthedaleks wrote:
| 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.
| vjerancrnjak wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_methane_emissions
|
| Methane stored in arctic and Siberia is equivalent to 100 of
| years of todays yearly co2 emissions. Once that starts coming
| out there's no point of return for sure.
|
| But the recent increase is probably due to wetlands for now.
| Roark66 wrote:
| >no point of return
|
| Considering we're talking about an event that happens every
| ~140k years by definition there will be "a return". Just like
| there will be future ice ages.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| More accurately no return in our lifetimes.
| nprateem wrote:
| Congratulations everyone, we did it!
| sparrowInHand wrote:
| Oh, yes, its not linear, its exponential the moment..
| bheadmaster wrote:
| Population growth was exponential too, until it stopped being
| exponential. Real world doesn't always follow our well-behaved
| mathematical functions.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| One useful heuristic I've learned along the way is that when
| I think something is exponential, it's probably a sigmoid
| function.
| BytesAndGears wrote:
| Yeah, they have a graph of temperatures from 1940 onwards with
| a linear trend line-- but just by looking at the data points,
| it seems that an exponential curve would fit the data better.
|
| Maybe someone more skilled than me has analyzed that already?
| Because just eyeballing it, is really making me nervous about
| the exponential future projection of that graph of the next 20
| years
| tobr wrote:
| This was discussed in the latest episode of The Ezra Klein
| Show[1]. Apparently aerosols artificially held down
| temperatures roughly 1940-1980, after which they started to
| be reduced (from my memory of what they discussed). So it
| might be that the contribution of the greenhouse effect is
| masked in that period of the temperature graph.
|
| 1: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/05/opinion/ezra-klein-
| podcas...
| taylodl wrote:
| Were the aerosols from above-ground nuclear bomb
| detonations? I remember seeing a graph years and years ago
| that showed the temperatures really starting to rise was
| above-ground nuclear bomb testing was banned.
|
| Crazy spur-of-the-moment idea - should we pursue dumping
| some sort of aerosol into the upper atmosphere to reduce
| the amount of heat Earth receives from the sun? Obviously
| this shouldn't be pursued in lieu of curtailing our pumping
| C02 into the atmosphere, but it could alleviate some of the
| damaging effects from what we've already done.
| jamesash wrote:
| YC backed: https://makesunsets.com/
| scythe wrote:
| Aerosols were probably sulfuric acid. Unfortunately this
| has negative side-effects. Aerosol can also be produced
| by monoterpenes, e.g. pinene, but there is disagreement
| about whether this can be helpful.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| The crazy part about this is that doing something like
| that is within reach of a number of wealthy individuals.
| All it takes is one delusional billionaire to throw
| caution, and a metric buttload of aerosols to the wind
| and we will find out whether it was a good idea or not.
| derefr wrote:
| Putting up a geosynchronous mirrored-foil tarp that
| shadows the entirety of one of earth's larger deserts
| would take about the same amount of effort -- and be much
| easier to reverse if it turns out to be a bad idea.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| I think the important part here is you could do the
| aerosol injection secretly. It's pretty much impossible
| to launch a rocket to geosync orbit without a major
| government getting involved in your business.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Sulphur oxides have been proven to reduce global warming
| - when the ocean freighters cleaned up their emissions in
| a bid to stop pollution we saw increases in temperature.
| I hear people suggesting that we dump a ton of that in
| the upper atmosphere, but adding more crap to the air to
| try and stop the previous crap reminds me of how the old
| lady who swallowed the fly ended up with horse-sized
| problems.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Except we don't need to replace those sulfur dioxide
| emissions with more sulfur dioxide; Salt water misted
| into the air has the same effect, while being pretty
| unlikely to harm anything.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Even that will produce halogens and has the potential to
| change rain patterns.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| That's why you do it on offshore platforms, such that the
| water and salt and anything else simply return to the
| ocean.
|
| The spraying platform would constantly be growing salt
| all over it, and that's not a fun thing to maintain
| though.
| piva00 wrote:
| It'd be just a giant game of whack-a-mole, not too
| dissimilar to what humans tried to do after destroying
| some ecosystems: travel to a new place in boats carrying
| rats, the rats get to a new land and multiply quickly,
| bring cats to control the rat population, the cats kill a
| lot more than rats and multiply quickly, rinse and
| repeat.
|
| Complex systems that feedback into each other get very,
| very tricky to manage. We can't even do that with stupid
| software, it's a massive human hubris to believe we can
| do to systems we don't even comprehend...
| roter wrote:
| A good review paper on "global dimming" and changes in
| surface shortwave radiation is by Wild [0].
|
| [0] https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.102
| 9/200...
| scythe wrote:
| It's supposed to be quadratic, IIRC. Total GHG is linear,
| then integrate over time. Of course this is a crude approach,
| but it's suggestive.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| Scroll to the end: https://xkcd.com/1732/
| phkahler wrote:
| No doubt the big Canadian Barbecue had a significant effect. Not
| to say there is no trend, just that this particular year is
| exceptional for at least on reason.
| Macha wrote:
| I also wonder if the war in Ukraine had an effect too. To my
| understanding in a lot of the initial stage, Russia was
| extracting as much natural gas as stopping the extraction
| process would render it hard to restart, but with much reduced
| opportunities to sell it, they were just flaring the excess
| gas.
|
| Of course, the traditional customers of that gas were burning
| gas too, sourced from elsewhere via LNG, or in some cases,
| coal. So in effect in 2022, we ended up double dipping on the
| european fossil fuel usage as it was burned both in europe and
| in russia.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Sure, but you can look at the rest of the graph and see the
| clear trend even if you assume 2023 is an exceptional outlier
| to the exceptional.
| abenga wrote:
| It does seem like every subsequent year is exceptional though.
| This is the Simpsons' "the hottest year of your life so far"
| meme personified.
| myshpa wrote:
| 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.
| jiofj wrote:
| (records began 80 years ago)
| leke wrote:
| Check out ice cores.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleoclimatology) didn't
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/27/world/july-hottest-month-reco...
|
| There is a decent amount of confidence that it's an outlier in
| the last 120,000 years, but you're right, there are no written
| records that far back.
|
| Regardless, do you find it reassuring to know that the world is
| rapidly changing in a way that's proving to be predictable? We
| can easily look at that chart and guess what it's going to look
| like over the next 10 years.
| zacharytelschow wrote:
| > We can easily look at that chart and guess what it's going
| to look like over the next 10 years.
|
| That's why all the past predictions have been so accurate,
| right? "But we know more now." We do not. Some intellectual
| humility by those wanting tyranical control over our lives
| would be fantastic.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| You mean the 1970s internal exxon graph that tracks very
| well with reality?
| anigbrowl wrote:
| _tyranical control over our lives_
|
| Stop drinking out of poisoned wells.
| edgyquant wrote:
| There is not a "decent amount of confidence" and your CNN
| link provides no proof that there's any at all outside of a
| sentence claiming tree rings and coral mean it may be. There
| is so much disinformation (from both sides) and fear
| mongering about this subject that anything not a direct and
| peer reviewed source should not be taken as any kind of proof
| of anything.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| To portray this as a "both sides" problem is to wildly
| misunderstand the scientific discourse, or mistake it for
| the political one.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| The american right desperately want this to be a
| political fight so they can continue to ignore and profit
| from it for another few decades while they all die off
| and not have to worry about the consequences
| akitzmiller wrote:
| Somebody mentioned this in a reply, but it deserves to be a top
| level comment. A good chunk of this year's unusual heat may be
| attributable to a reduction in SO2 emissions from shipping.
| Article cites other factors as well, but this implies that 2023
| is the new normal.
|
| https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-low-sulphur-shippin...
| tejohnso wrote:
| > 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.
| louwrentius wrote:
| Why is this relevant: you seem to imply "don't bother".
|
| I would disagree strongly.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| I get the opposite implication, i.e. Holy shit, even if we
| hit the brakes we're gonna slide over the cliff with
| momentum.
| simpleuser27 wrote:
| Because HN is home to performative contrariness - making an
| observation for no substantive reason other than to show you
| "know" something.
| tejohnso wrote:
| 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 with
| strongly.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| 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.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| 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.
| tejohnso wrote:
| > 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.
| myshpa wrote:
| > It's not a given that it will get better again. Not on
| timescales that matter to our species anyway.
|
| But it could.
|
| https://getpocket.com/explore/item/massive-forest-
| restoratio...
|
| The right trees, planted in the right locations (0.9
| billion hectares), could store 205 gigatons of carbon
| dioxide. ... That's two thirds of all the CO2 humans have
| generated since the industrial revolution.
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets
|
| If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce
| global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares
|
| So we could plant not just 0.9 billion hectares but 3
| billion.
|
| Twice as much CO2 as we have ever put into the
| atmosphere.
|
| > 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.
|
| Because those technologies don't work at the scale
| needed. Check how much we're producing and how much
| carbon those factories are able to store. We'd need tens
| of thousands of them.
| louwrentius wrote:
| I'm on your side but your initial response would have meant
| something completely different to me, if you added that
| first sentence:
|
| > It's relevant because people continue to downplay just
| how dire the situation is.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| 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.
| louwrentius wrote:
| They clarified they mean the opposite: to illustrate how dire
| the situation is.
| bgirard wrote:
| It's not a great analogy. The possible downsides to breaking
| before a car are slim. The downside to immediately stopping
| burning fossil fuels are huge including disrupting the global
| economy, life critical heating/cooling in cold/warm climates
| and basically modern life globally.
|
| We could barely lock down for a pandemic. Imagine telling
| someone (or entire winter cities) they will likely freeze to
| death today to reduce emissions.
|
| That is not comparable to hitting the breaks to lessen a
| crash.
| tejohnso wrote:
| 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 moment
| just after driving off of a cliff. In that case, brake
| pressing is indeed futile. But I think the system we're in is
| too complex to know for sure, and I'm all for people wanting
| to say that they are interested in doing anything they can.
| I'm also all for people actually taking action rather than
| just saying they are on board with the idea. Also...just do
| nothing if that's your preference.
| adrianmonk wrote:
| > 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.
| SimplyUnknown wrote:
| 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.
| DemocracyFTW2 wrote:
| > Said to be a Chinese proverb
|
| Unlikely, cf. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2021/12/29/plant-
| tree/
|
| There's an old Chinese proverb for this, it goes "most of the
| time it's not a Chinese proverb". Ah, words of sages, the
| wisdom of ages.
| SimplyUnknown wrote:
| I guessed as much, but I wasn't able to confirm. Thanks for
| the search.
| IKantRead wrote:
| Thank you for pointing this out! I have quite a few Chinese
| friends and they never cease to be entertained by the long
| list of "Chinese" proverbs that American's claim to know.
|
| It turns out that since for most of Western history China
| was synonymous with the "mysterious far east", it become
| common practice to just tack on "Chinese" to the origin of
| any saying to let it exotic credibility.
|
| Unsurprisingly "May you live in interesting times" is _not_
| a Chinese curse.
| RandomLensman wrote:
| 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.
| tejohnso wrote:
| It would also result in a near immediate (weeks) increase
| in global average temperature due to the reduction in
| aerosol masking.
|
| People like to fixate on a simple correction that they can
| work toward (more often just talk about), but the situation
| is not simple. And I don't think people should be making
| statements that suggest there is a simple solution at this
| point.
| dudefeliciano wrote:
| 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
| roter wrote:
| 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.uk/188408/6/Dvorak_Armouretal_r...
| (pdf pre-print)
| Filligree wrote:
| > 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?
| darkerside wrote:
| CO2 is the big long term problem, but in the short term, I
| understand cutting methane would have a significant impact
| Ar-Curunir wrote:
| So we shouldn't do anything at all?
| tejohnso wrote:
| 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! "
| anigbrowl wrote:
| _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.
| dahart wrote:
| Your top message does seem to imply and suggest there's
| nothing to be done, and there are multiple replies that saw
| this as your summary point.
|
| I agree with you that it's dire, and we need more
| aggressive action. I agree it's going to get worse. In the
| short term, in terms of a few years, it's true that changes
| to fossil fuel consumption won't fix it. In the long term
| (decades and centuries) that's not true though, and we do
| need to be thinking both short term and long term. We do
| need to curtail fossil fuel consumption and CO2 emission in
| order to solve this problem eventually, in addition to
| taking stronger actions in order to alleviate some of the
| symptoms anytime soon, right?
| 1-6 wrote:
| Perhaps we're also measuring temps more than ever with greater
| data collection.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| I don't understand, are you arguing that maybe if they'd
| measured the right July day in 1951 then we'd see that that was
| the warmest month?
| louwrentius wrote:
| Why is this observation relevant?
| piva00 wrote:
| That wouldn't skew the resulting average/mean that much, it
| would just be less accurate for specific localities...
| flagged24 wrote:
| If we have more data points in cities, this could skew the
| results. I live in a forested area and going into the city can
| easily add 3 or 4 degrees Celsius.
| brookst wrote:
| Are you saying that larger sample sizes lead to greater
| variance in results? Because I don't think statistics usually
| works that way.
| jhoechtl wrote:
| How was southern summer? How the world climate in general?
|
| Meaningless without perspective.
| abenga wrote:
| Is this supposed to be a gotcha? Do you think everyone is
| ignoring some half of the picture that somehow makes this news
| a wash?
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| Heat waves in South America have been ridiculously bad as well,
| even in winter.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_South_America_heat_wave
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