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Earth

Tuesday Set an Unofficial Record For the Hottest Day On Earth (apnews.com) 114

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: The planet's temperature spiked on Tuesday to its hottest day in decades and likely centuries, and Wednesday could become the third straight day Earth unofficially marks a record-breaking high. It's the latest in a series of climate-change extremes that alarm but don't surprise scientists. The globe's average temperature reached 62.9 degrees Fahrenheit (17.18 degrees Celsius) on Tuesday, according to the University of Maine's Climate Reanalyzer, a common tool based on satellite data, observations, and computer simulations and used by climate scientists for a glimpse of the world's condition. On Monday, the average temperature was 62.6 degrees Fahrenheit (17.01 degrees Celsius), setting a record that lasted only 24 hours.

University of Maine climate scientist Sean Birkle, creator of the Climate Reanalyzer, said the daily figures are unofficial but a useful snapshot of what's happening in a warming world. Think of it as the temperature of someone who's ill, he said: It tells you something might be wrong, but you need longer-term records to work like a doctor's exam for a complete picture. While the figures are not an official government record, "this is showing us an indication of where we are right now," said National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief scientist Sarah Kapnick. And NOAA indicated it will take the figures into consideration for its official record calculations.

Even though the dataset used for the unofficial record goes back only to 1979, Kapnick said that given other data, the world is likely seeing the hottest day in "several hundred years that we've experienced." Scientists generally use much longer measurements -- months, years, decades -- to track the Earth's warming. But the daily highs are an indication that climate change is reaching uncharted territory.

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Tuesday Set an Unofficial Record For the Hottest Day On Earth

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  • Deja Vu (Score:5, Informative)

    by lsllll ( 830002 ) on Thursday July 06, 2023 @10:43PM (#63664164)
    Because the last time [slashdot.org] it went in one ear and out the other ...
    • Repetition is needed to remember important things.

    • the last time it went in one ear and out the other ...

      I'm not in a position to directly do anything about climate change, and as an individual, let's see...

      Buy a BEV?
      *checks bank account* Umm, no, that's not happening.

      Buy a PV system?
      Can't have one on my home per local code (it's a manufactured home).

      Bike to work?
      I drive a work van full of tools and equipment. Not everyone has a job where the only thing they have to transport is themselves.

      Eat less meat?
      YOU try telling my partner his tacos are filled with soy-o-chicken.

      LED bulbs?
      Yeah. I've got those. Maybe

      • Re:Deja Vu (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Joce640k ( 829181 ) on Friday July 07, 2023 @12:06AM (#63664308) Homepage

        Don't tell your partner about the soy-o-chicken, see if they notice (or just eat veggies without trying to pretend you're eating meat).

        Turn up the thermostat a couple of degrees - there's no need for arctic conditions at home. Add some fans around the house to move air.

        Plan your journeys better in your work van - do less miles, learn to hypermile.

        Move out of Florida - should me a no brainer.

        • Don't tell your partner about the soy-o-chicken, see if they notice

          I've tried that. My take is that it's not that bad, but really does need to come down in price a bit to be worth it compared to actual dead fowl flesh. His perspective, however, was that it was vile and he'd rather eat a pack of Reese's for dinner if the food has to be vegetarian. Though the internet tends to disagree on that one. [reddit.com]

          Turn up the thermostat a couple of degrees - there's no need for arctic conditions at home.

          Believe me, if I could afford it on my electric bill, I'd keep it a hard 74F all day long. I already keep things as warm as tolerable in order to prevent my electric bill from

          • I don't think this state is ready to completely flood quite yet. We are still talking about climate change, right?

            A lot of your argument is based on costs. And you live in a place where costs are only going to go up as climate change deepens. You can probably save quite a bit of money by eliminating your need for air conditioning 10 months out of the year by living somewhere that isn't a horrid fucking swamp.

            Granted, it's far easier to say that kind of thing as a drive-by remark on the internet than it is to do, but being able to have a nice cool home during the summer by opening a few windows and maybe turning on a

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by rally2xs ( 1093023 )

          Don't tell your partner about the soy-o-chicken, see if they notice (or just eat veggies without trying to pretend you're eating meat).

          Requirement: A happy life. Doing this is about as appealing as suicide. Not happening.

          Turn up the thermostat a couple of degrees - there's no need for arctic conditions at home.

          See above. Having moisture / sweat rolling off your skin and an overall generally greasy feeling 'cuz you want to save energy for a cause that is believed by many to be the greatest hoax ever perpetrated upon mankind is not likely happening either. Sit around and become a physical wreck from lack of exercise, since exercise saturates everything due to your "environmentally friendly" temperature in the house will h

        • Don't tell your partner about the soy-o-chicken, see if they notice

          FFS, even hardcore brainwashed vegans do notice, hence the existence of stuff like Beyond Meat. If soy was "just as good" vegans would not pay tons of money for that BM crap, they'd just eat soy and be happy.

          • FFS, even hardcore brainwashed vegans do notice, hence the existence of stuff like Beyond Meat. If soy was "just as good" vegans would not pay tons of money for that BM crap, they'd just eat soy and be happy.

            I don't get the obsession with trying to pretend you're eating meat and being miserable over it while complaining about the price.

            I made an awesome plate of buttery fried garlic potatoes this afternoon. Stuffed myself to the gills.

            I didn't feel any need at all to add any processed soy in there.

        • Don't tell your partner about the soy-o-chicken, see if they notice

          I'd notice when I got horrible indigestion. I can't digest any soy products. Even if I can't tell they're in there when I'm eating, I can tell afterwards. My lady already pulled that experiment on me once. Thankfully, she hasn't repeated it. I simply cannot digest TVP, tofu, etc.

          • Again: Why even try to eat that crap? It's just wrong.

            (and fucking expensive!)

            Get yourself a jar of cooked pinto beans and put them in a frying pan with plenty of oil and garlic. Fry/mash them until they stop sticking to the pan (you'll know it when you see it). Have some rice boiling while you're doing that. Throw in a sliced avocado. Unbelievable tasty meal in 10-15 minutes.

        • I guess you WFH and never change out from your pyjamas...even when you go to the General Store down at the base of the mountain?
      • Re:Deja Vu (Score:4, Informative)

        by CaptQuark ( 2706165 ) on Friday July 07, 2023 @12:37AM (#63664358)

        If you put half as much thought into finding solutions as you do finding excuses, you could find plenty of things to help.

        Yard tools
        Using a gas powered yard tool for an hour (lawn mower, string trimmer, leaf blower, chain saw) emits as much pollution as driving 250 miles. Change out gas powered tools for battery versions.

        Recycling
        This is an easy one that most people are already doing but it bears repeating.

        Use less water
        Not a big issue in Florida and Washington state, but other parts of the country use lots of energy pumping, treating, and disposing of household water. Less usage means less energy expended.

        Insulate
        Check your insulation and add more where appropriate. This helps save energy in both the summer and winter. In Florida you can use heat reflective paint and Mylar window treatments to reduce the heat your manufactured home absorbs from the sun.

        Car maintenance
        Keeping your car's tires at the recommended pressure and avoid SUVs unless necessary. Renting a truck from U-haul, Lowes, or Home Depot when you need it and driving a smaller car the rest of the time saves fuel. You might drive a large van full of tools during the work day, but hopefully you have a more fuel efficient vehicle for personal use. Even if it isn't a BEV yet, you can help by keeping it well maintained.

        https://cotap.org/reduce-carbo... [cotap.org]

        I yield the soapbox to the next speaker.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by lsllll ( 830002 )
          And I'll get on the soxpbox.

          Using a gas powered yard tool for an hour (lawn mower, string trimmer, leaf blower, chain saw) emits as much pollution as driving 250 miles. Change out gas powered tools for battery versions.

          When I moved into a wooded lot with a long driveway, I knew I'd get piled on with leaves, so I bought a semi-expensive Husqvarna leaf blower because I knew it'd start quickly and last me a long time. If I decide to get an electric leaf blower, I'm not going to just throw away my Husqvarna. I'll either sell it or give it away to someone else, which means it'll still be in use. What you're missing is that a lot of carbon dioxide went into making that device. Throwing it away is

          • Which is exactly what they are doing in California and other cities and states.

            https://www.usatoday.com/story... [usatoday.com]
            https://www.route-fifty.com/pu... [route-fifty.com]
            https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]

          • Re:Deja Vu (Score:4, Informative)

            by serviscope_minor ( 664417 ) on Friday July 07, 2023 @03:09AM (#63664536) Journal

            It's not the CO2 with those gardening tools, they don't give out that much in the grand scheme of things. They do spew other pollutants though in horrendous quantities.

          • If I decide to get an electric leaf blower, I'm not going to just throw away my Husqvarna. I'll either sell it or give it away to someone else, which means it'll still be in use.

            Yes, but they were going to buy one anyway, so their emissions would have increased whether you sold it or not.

            Leaf blowers are for people too dumb to figure out brooms and rakes, anyway. They not only directly create a ton of air pollution, and noise pollution, they also throw a bunch of crap which is on the ground into the air. A lot of that stuff is harmful when inhaled, like silicates.

            • by lsllll ( 830002 )
              Thanks for calling me dumb to my face, not knowing the area and the amount of leaves I have to remover, which I briefly alluded to in the post you replied to.
              • No sweat. I'm not the type to go behind people's back, those are the people serially modding me down daily.

                There are better plans than blowing leaves, no matter how big the space is.

          • What you're missing is that a lot of carbon dioxide went into making that device.

            Do you have any stats on this?

            • by lsllll ( 830002 )
              Do I need stats for "a lot"? "A lot" is very subjective. My definition of it will probably vary from yours. But to answer your question via a guesstimate, since I don't have the desire or energy to search for carbon footprint of making a lawn appliance, it's about 200 lbs, which is roughly equivalent to driving a car for 1000 miles.
        • Re: Deja Vu (Score:1, Troll)

          by ludd421 ( 6351044 )
          While the things you suggested may help you feel better about yourself (because you are doing something, right?) they have no effect at all for global warming. Every gallon of fossil fuels that you don't consume will be readily consumed by someone else on the other side of the world, because by not consuming it yourself, the price goes down and it becomes affordable to more people.
          • Well that's some pretty stupid fucking logic. Nobody says "Hey, you know what? ludd421 didn't use a gallon of gas today, so I'm going to take an extra trip to nowhere!"

            If you don't use a gallon of fuel, then that's one less gallon of fuel that needs to be produced for you to use tomorrow. That gallon of fuel on the other side of the world is going to be used whether you use one or not.

        • Re:Deja Vu (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Friday July 07, 2023 @02:12AM (#63664484) Homepage

          Using a gas powered yard tool for an hour (lawn mower, string trimmer, leaf blower, chain saw) emits as much pollution as driving 250 miles.

          You've ventured a bit outside the realm of climate change here. Pollution in that context is NOx and unburned hydrocarbon products, not particularly significant amounts of CO2 emissions (they are small engines, after all). That being said, all my yard equipment tools already are of the 120v corded variety, because I've got a tiny yard and loathe futzing with small engines.

          Recycling

          Again, probably a good thing to reduce the amount of pollution, but not really something that goes hand-in-hand with climate change.

          Use less water

          I'm actually already at a pain point with the government's efforts to reduce water consumption. My clothes washer really doesn't get my work clothes unless I do a pre-rinse, two post rinses, and run the longest cycle. Similarly, my dishwasher only produces clean dishes on the longest setting with all the heat and extra rinse options enabled.

          Just based on my own experience, it feels like I'm trading off energy efficiency in order to conserve water, and even the water savings an assumption that all those extra options aren't just making the appliances use as much water as the older models that originally got the job done in less time.

          In Florida you can use heat reflective paint and Mylar window treatments to reduce the heat your manufactured home absorbs from the sun.

          Both of those are actually banned by the community association. Not allowed to paint vinyl siding, and window films of any kind are also verboten. It's also worth mentioning there's no attic in the conventional sense in most manufactured homes, so reinsulating is an extremely expensive major renovation. It's certainly possible if you have enough money to throw at the problem, sure, but no one who has that kind of budget would live in a manufactured home in the first place.

          You might drive a large van full of tools during the work day, but hopefully you have a more fuel efficient vehicle for personal use.

          I do. The van is bad enough on gas and the car note on my econobox is just cheap enough that the math still works out in my favor. Now, if I had to make a payment on something like a Chevy Bolt instead? I'd just drive the van full time and it would still be cheaper. That's a major part of the issue with why addressing climate change even on an individual level is difficult - for a lot of people it's the monthly budget which has the final word in the matter.

          • Similarly, my dishwasher only produces clean dishes on the longest setting with all the heat and extra rinse options enabled

            I'm gonna say you're holding it wrong. What dishwasher do you have anyway?

            Your problems are almost certainly not water use it's one or more of:
            * Crap dishwasher
            * Dirty/clogged/scaled dishwasher
            * Crap detergent
            * Insufficient detergent
            * Hard water nerfing your detergent

            I have an almost religious aversion to handwashing if the dishwasher can in principle do the job, so I chuck everything

        • >Using a gas powered yard tool for an hour (lawn mower, string trimmer, leaf blower, chain saw) emits as much pollution as driving 250 miles. Change out gas >powered tools for battery versions

          Please stop spreading this crap. This is based on emissions of hydrocarbons from a small 2stroke engine. hydrocarbon emissions of this type contribute basically zero to climate change. CO2 emissions matter, and small engines, while not particularly efficient, are also not that bad in this area.

          Electric replacemen

        • Re:Deja Vu (Score:4, Insightful)

          by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Friday July 07, 2023 @06:20AM (#63664770)

          I yield the soapbox to the next speaker.

          That's all well and good, but you're missing the point. Anything that inconveniences Americans won't be done. If Americans need to make one insignificant change to make things better they will go out of their way to expend more energy to not do it than to do it.

          Good thoughts, though.

        • It's not that simple.

          Yard tools
          If the gas tool is near EOL than replacing it with a battery one makes sense, but throwing out a perfectly good and working tool into the garbage and landfill just because it uses gas doesn't sound very environmental. A quick search shows that the recycle rate for batteries is a paltry 5-10% thus most still end up in landfills so the green benefit is not a much as we think. Though much better for our lungs if we are outside and everyone is using battery/electric mowers.

          Mo

        • Yard tools
          Using a gas powered yard tool for an hour (lawn mower, string trimmer, leaf blower, chain saw) emits as much pollution as driving 250 miles. Change out gas powered tools for battery versions.

          This statement is only true if CO2 is NOT considered. The gasses that contribute most to climate change are methane and carbon dioxide. Gas powered yard tools emit little carbon dioxide and no methane.

        • Use less water
          Not a big issue in Florida and Washington state, but other parts of the country use lots of energy pumping, treating, and disposing of household water. Less usage means less energy expended.

          Actually, even in Florida, water is a big issue that just isn't talked about much but starting to become an issue. Most of the fresh drinking water Florida has comes from underground aquifers, and they are being expended faster than they can be refilled by natural rainfall. This leads to an ever-increasing amount of sinkholes, and if it continues unchecked, eventually the aquifers will become contaminated with seawater (or simply slowly collapse never to fill again).

          https://www.tampabay.com/opini... [tampabay.com]

      • "I've tried nothing, and I'm all out of ideas!"
        Funny how all these climate change deniers just happen to be the super rare 0.000000001% exception who can't possibly implement basic changes to save the planet. Enjoy your tacos when chickens are extinct, I guess.
      • Re:Deja Vu (Score:4, Insightful)

        by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Friday July 07, 2023 @07:12AM (#63664890)

        Not everyone has a job where the only thing they have to transport is themselves.

        I hope you realised the absurdity of what you're saying when you apply it to specific examples. No one thing suits everyone. All you've done is list the things you don't do and complain about it, (and even list a thing you've done and somehow complained about it anyway). Rather than focusing on generalised advice for everyone and cherry picking the things which don't work there is plenty you *can* do if you bothered to dedicate as much effort into it as you do complaining about it.

      • The basic idea of what you are supposed to do is to commit suicide. Because we are all civilized here, you are supposed to do that only bit by bit: give up meat, give up cars, give up air conditioning, give up gas heating, give up concrete, give up cooking, give up fast food, give up plastic, don't turn on your lights, give up showers and baths, ....

    • by pjt33 ( 739471 )

      Is the world duping records before /. dupes the story on the first occurrence one of the signs of the apocalypse?

  • And then Wednesday set a record for the Most Unofficial Day.

  • More to come (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Errol backfiring ( 1280012 ) on Friday July 07, 2023 @03:38AM (#63664570) Journal

    .. .hottest day in decades and likely centuries

    It's the hottest only if you look back. This record will be broken next year, and the year after that. Or, as said in this presentation [media.ccc.de], "Don't think of this summer as the hottest of the past, think of it as the coolest of the future."

  • When does it become official?

    • Re:"unofficial" (Score:5, Informative)

      by Chris Mattern ( 191822 ) on Friday July 07, 2023 @08:30AM (#63665092)

      It is official...back to 1940, because official records don't go back further than that. Unofficially, it's the hottest over a much longer time period, but that will remain unofficial forever because we can't time travel back and create official records for times when none exist; we can only estimate from glacial ice core samples and the like.

  • by sethmeisterg ( 603174 ) on Friday July 07, 2023 @07:39AM (#63664926)
    Some folks are just dumb as rocks and continue to assert that climate change isn't real. Just boggles the mind.
  • Don't forget this incredibly important factor about global warming. https://youtu.be/zJdqJu-6ZPo?t... [youtu.be]
  • Slashdot moves into full silly mode with "Hottest Day on Earth" headline. When people shift into religious thinking, they usually don't notice because the religious proposition gets labeled in their brain as "new truth".

Their idea of an offer you can't refuse is an offer... and you'd better not refuse.

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