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Earth Science

'Record-Shattering' Heat Becoming Much More Likely, Says Climate Study (theguardian.com) 279

Posted by BeauHD from the what-to-expect dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Record-shattering" heatwaves, even worse than the one that recently hit north-west America, are set to become much more likely in future, according to research. The study is a stark new warning on the rapidly escalating risks the climate emergency poses to lives. The research found that highly populated regions in North America, Europe and China were where the record-shattering extremes are most likely to occur. One illustrative heatwave produced by the computer models used in the study showed some locations in mid-northern America having temperatures 18C higher than average. The new computing modeling study [...] looked for the first time at the highest margins by which week-long heatwave records could be broken in future.

It found that heatwaves that smash previous records by roughly 5C would become two to seven times more likely in the next three decades and three to 21 times more likely from 2051-2080, unless carbon emissions are immediately slashed. Such extreme heatwaves are all but impossible without global heating. The vulnerability of North America, Europe and China was striking, said Erich Fischer, at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, who led the research. "Here we see the largest jumps in record-shattering events. This is really quite worrying," he added. "Many places have by far not seen anything close to what's possible, even in present-day conditions, because only looking at the past record is really dangerous."

The study also showed that record-shattering events could come in sharp bursts, rather than gradually becoming more frequent. "That is really concerning," Fischer said: "Planning for heatwaves that get 0.1C more intense every two or three years would still be very worrying, but it would be much easier to prepare for." The new research, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, concluded: "Record-shattering extremes are [currently] very rare but their expected probability increases rapidly in the coming three decades." It found the rate of global heating was critical in increasing the risk, rather than simply the global temperature reached. This indicates that sharp cuts in emissions are needed as soon as possible, rather than emissions continuing and being sucked back out of the atmosphere at a later date. The scientists used a scenario in which carbon emissions are not reduced, which some experts have argued is unrealistic, given that some climate action is being taken. However, global emissions are not yet falling, bar the blip caused by the coronavirus pandemic, and the researchers argue the scenario remains relevant until CO2 emissions are consistently falling.
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'Record-Shattering' Heat Becoming Much More Likely, Says Climate Study More

'Record-Shattering' Heat Becoming Much More Likely, Says Climate Study

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  • Is anyone surprised? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Deal In One ( 6459326 ) on Monday July 26, 2021 @11:33PM (#61623875)

    There are record setting heatwaves and record setting floodings going on at different parts of the world, sometimes even close by, chronologically.

    The Earth will probably be setting new records in terms of heat, wetness and coldness for the next few years at least I think.

    Interesting times we are in now.

  • I call it G.E.T. Global Ecological Tilt. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Qbertino ( 265505 ) <moiraNO@SPAMmodparlor.com> on Tuesday July 27, 2021 @12:28AM (#61623959)

    Threshholds are crossed, runaway effects are ramping up as we speak. This isn't news. Hypothesis about man-made climate change were around in the 18hundreds, since 1950 it's common knowledge, since the late 1970ies at the latest decisive action is due. 45 years in and humanity is still dragging its heels.

    Now we're facing vastly accelerated natural methane release into the atmosphere by melting undersea ice and thawing tundra, on top of humanities co2. If you think man moving CO2 from underground into the atmosphere is scary, the methane clathrate gun hypothesis is going to shock the living daylights out of you. Google that if you want to f*ck up your day epic style.

    It's 20 past 12 and dimwit decision makers around the globe still haven't caught on. Hearing the frustration of Angela Merkel in her last summer interview and hearing her talk about her futile attempts to get Kyoto protocol in place and having to go for some wishy-washy pseudo agreement in the Paris accord has my hopes dampened once more and parts of me are starting to get super-pissed.

    I only hope that people burning up in the US and drowning in Germany help get the issue through some thick skulls a little faster.

  • Live a good life, work on what interests you, be kind to your fellow humans. We are living in neo-feudalistic times, and everyone reading and writing here are serfs who haven't a hope in sweet hell of changing the minds of the Powers That Be. Oh, and we're going to Mars. Giggle.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by IdanceNmyCar ( 7335658 )

      Mars is going to look like a pleasure resort by the time we are done with Earth, so I honestly don't know why it's a joke that we are going there?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by znrt ( 2424692 )

        because we aren't. setting up a semi permanent meteo station for science or prestige isn't "we are going there".

        so we can't stop thrashing our planet but we're going to turn mars into a paradise. with all our tech we can't practically live in the desert or the artic because their extreme temps despite having plenty of breathable air because they have extreme temperatures, but we're going to live in mars which has no air to breathe whatsoever, has the same extreme temps and is 9 months space travel away with

        • I think you might under-estimate just how bad we are going to make this rock relative to habitability while also downplaying that even if there are some people living on Mars who aren't science focused, that the endeavor will be possible without a lot of science focused people. That's potentially why it could be successful, you will have a whole class of citizens who are STEM focused and they will be the majority of the people living there.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by znrt ( 2424692 )

            I think you might under-estimate just how bad we are going to make this rock relative to habitability

            doesn't matter, they will be always more tolerable than on mars: no air, no magnetic shield to protect you from radiation. going to mars is absolutely crucial to study it, for science. going for survival doesn't even start to make any sense. if it has been sold to you as a "second earth", forget it, that's not going to work anytime soon. however ...

            while also downplaying that even if there are some people living on Mars who aren't science focused, that the endeavor will be possible without a lot of science focused people. That's potentially why it could be successful, you will have a whole class of citizens who are STEM focused and they will be the majority of the people living there.

            i'm not sure what you are even trying to say but it seems you actually bought the whole fairy tale. not going to argue. ;-)

  • Industry knew about the risks of CO2 in 1912 (Score:3, Insightful)

    by illogicalpremise ( 1720634 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2021 @01:28AM (#61624075)
    The ultimate question is why is took 100 years to be taken seriously. https://www.abc.net.au/news/20... [abc.net.au]
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • From 18 to 80? Shit dude what are you smoking. Homo erectus had a longer average lifespan...

        But I mean past all your snark, you do have a fair point. We deal with the suffering that is generally immediately before us, so as climate change starts reducing lifespans, we will probably start caring more and yet to reverse that trend will be a lot more work by then... Neither one of you have a perfect perspective which is of course the issue with why it's likely a democratic or free market approach will fail in

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      For the first half of that century, it was largely because of two scientific beliefs that turned out be false. First, it was believed that atmospheric CO2 was in equilibrium with ocean CO2, which would make a subtantial increase in atmospheric CO2 impossible. Second, it was believed that CO2's absorption spectrum was the same as water vapor's.

      In the 1950s these ideas were disproven, but it was still believed that the Earth would cool due to aerosol pollution. However papers began to come out in the 60s s

  • No shit. Pursue new nuclear. (Score:3)

    by atomicalgebra ( 4566883 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2021 @01:55AM (#61624109)
    We should have built 1 TW of nuclear 2 decades ago. That would have prevented(or at least significantly delayed) climate change. We still need to build out that much. Fuck every body who opposes nuclear.

    • We need better nuclear at this point. Like potentially molten salt but even this might not be best because the big issue I think is thermal capacity. However, maybe I play too much Oxygen Not Included.

    • Currently there are 130 years of uranium reserves available that are commercially viable. 1TW new would mean that supply would fall to around thirty years, which is not great relative to cost and potential lifetime of reactors. Either technology would need to change, or more reserves with positive EROEI would need to be found, or costs would increase. This is why there is a suggestion that 20% of global electrical generation, double that of today, is the limit without those changes, as that just about align

      • The uranium needed is several orders of magnitude more abundant with either reprocessing or reactors designed to burn spent fuel. Remember that something like 97% of a fuel rod is still usable fuel at the end of its life, we just dump it in a vault instead of doing something with it. Additionally if you expand out to using thorium as a fuel source then nuclear fuel is effectively limitless. Finally, commercial viability expands with economies of scale... had the environmental movements of the last 60 yea

  • Republicans are dangerous, time to split US (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2021 @02:18AM (#61624149) Journal

    Republicans ignore or deny too many key scientific ideas such as evolution, climate change, pollution, and vaccination. They will block related legislation with all their political might. Living with them is now asking too much; time to agree to split the USA. That way they can only fuck up roughly half of it instead of most of it. I'm tired of their antics. Let's divorce!

    And maybe using sanctions we can eventually persuade them to act on climate change. They do care about "wallet science".

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Viol8 ( 599362 )

      I suspect more middle grounders would vote democrat if they gave the fucking racial and minority gesture politics a rest just for 5 minutes and concentrated on important issues such as this.

      • Yep. As a middle-grounder (i.e. reasonable person) the democrats would probably have my vote at least some of the time if they could bring themselves to stop calling me a racist asshole for 5 minutes. I basically vote for whomever isn't running on a platform of race-baiting bullshit. Those are usually independents, unaffiliated, libertarian, or write-in candidates.

    • Republicans ignore or deny too many key scientific ideas such as evolution, climate change, pollution, and vaccination. They will block related legislation with all their political might. Living with them is now asking too much; time to agree to split the USA. That way they can only fuck up roughly half of it instead of most of it. I'm tired of their antics. Let's divorce!

      And maybe using sanctions we can eventually persuade them to act on climate change. They do care about "wallet science".

      The US could be 100% green with all parties singing in unison, and we humans would still be fucked. Pull your head out of America's festering political asshole, and you'll see there's a whole planet to address.

      More partisan shit-slinging, will do no one any good. One would think your worthless "Representative" would have demonstrated that by now, sitting on Twitter all day racking up shit-slinging points instead of doing their elected job.

  • We're putting more energy into the whole system, which means in winter, we can also expect more violent storms...and the precipitation won't be falling as warm summer rain.

    • falling as warm summer rain

      Ironic, since in my area (just west of Philly) we just had a hail storm. In my 40 years at this location I may have seen 2 occasions of hail. They were small like sleet, but this was at marble size. I guess I can thank those fires out west for putting all that smoke in the air.

      • That's a really interesting thought. I know there's been research done on how forest fire smoke affects weather, but hail storms are pretty unusual at the best of times. Your 40 years is a lot of observation time, and it covers a lot of forest fires out west that probably sent smoke in the same general direction.

        Side note: A few years ago a Slo-pitch team I played on got hit by a wicked thunderstorm with marble-size hail during a game. We all got under cover, but a few of the cars that weren't parked un

  • "highly populated regions in North America, Europe and China were where the record-shattering extremes are most likely to occur."
  • When I read some of the comments here, I sometimes wonder if some of the accounts aren't sock-puppets belonging to members & they're posting outlandish climate change denier bullshit just to f**k with us.

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