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Earth

Why a Sudden Surge of Broken Heat Records is Scaring Scientists (msn.com) 147

Posted by EditorDavid from the having-a-heat-wave dept.
Monday was Earth's hottest day in at least 125,000 years — and Tuesday was hotter.

The Washington Post reports that the director of Europe's Copernicus Climate Change Service has a term for it: "uncharted territory." It's not just that records are being broken — but the massive margins with which conditions are surpassing previous extremes, scientists note. In parts of the North Atlantic, temperatures are running as high as 9 degrees Fahrenheit above normal, the warmest observed there in more than 170 years. The warm waters helped northwestern Europe, including the United Kingdom, clinch its warmest June on record.

New data the Copernicus center published Thursday showed global surface air temperatures were 0.53 degrees Celsius (0.95 degrees Fahrenheit) above the 1991-2020 average in June... Antarctic sea ice, meanwhile, reached its lowest June extent since the dawn of the satellite era, at 17 percent below the 1991-2020 average, Copernicus said. The previous record, set a year earlier, was about 9 percent below average.

The planet is increasingly flirting with a global warming benchmark that policymakers have sought to avoid — 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels. It has, at times, been surpassed already this year, including in early June, though the full month averaged 1.36 degrees above an 1850-1900 reference temperature, according to Copernicus.
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Why a Sudden Surge of Broken Heat Records is Scaring Scientists More

Why a Sudden Surge of Broken Heat Records is Scaring Scientists

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  • The wrong people are scared (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 08, 2023 @12:43PM (#63668527)
    Scientists might be scared, but politicians, and the dumb people who vote for them, aren't.

    If Florida was underwater due to rising sea levels, Republicans would still claim that climate change is just a liberal hoax.

    • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

      by JaredOfEuropa ( 526365 )
      From the start I thought it would have been better (here in Europe) to sell the energy transition as energy independence. A massive rollout of renewable (maybe nuclear) energy, beefing up the grid to be able to cope with the expected increased demand as more thing go electric, and electrification of our economy, ll those things would have made a big dent in greenhouse gas emissions, and while it would not exactly be cheap, it is relatively simple and painless to roll out. No need to drastically change soc

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Scientists might be scared, but politicians, and the dumb people who vote for them, aren't.

      If Florida was underwater due to rising sea levels, Republicans would still claim that climate change is just a liberal hoax.

      If Florida was underwater everybody would just sell their houses to Aquaman and buy new ones on dry land just like Ben Shapiro suggested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Crizzam ( 749336 )

      If it were true that cities were going to be underwater you would see ZERO construction in costal cities. You don't think insurance companies who cover billion dollar infrastructures know something about rising sea levels. Please stop parroting the narrative and look at what people DO, not what they say. Thats lesson #1 to not be blind to reality.

      • Insurance companies have bailed on Florida, leaving the state to be the biggest insurer now. Socialism works

      • Here in New Zealand, we have the added fun of a geography that is sinking... as well as sea level rise...

        This link has some good maps and diagrams...

        https://interactives.stuff.co.... [stuff.co.nz]

        Already, terms like uninsurable and 'managed retreat' have crept into the nation lexicon...

        However Close to me is a suburb called Petone, that's quite low to the sea... and people have still been building, selling and buying there...

        I think most people are generally oblivious...

      • You don't think insurance companies who cover billion dollar infrastructures know something about rising sea levels.

        My father's insurance specifically doesn't cover rising water damage of any kind, sea or rain induced.
        Amazingly, the mortgage company that gave him the loan didn't seem to give a shit. At first glance, you'd think, "remarkable....", but then you remember 2008. It's not remarkable. They plan to chop that mortgage up and make their money back on it two-fold long before it folds.

      • Why do you suppose virtually every insurance company has stopped writing insurance policies in Florida?
    • Don’t worry, the next ice age will fix it.

    • An overwhelming majority of people in high-income countries believe and are willing to undertake steps to mitigate climate change. See, for instance, here: https://www.pewresearch.org/gl... [pewresearch.org]. Unfortunately, the same survey shows that a somewhat lesser minority believe that we're doing a good job of dealing with climate change.

      If we had an actual democracy or republic or whatever, the public would be better informed and action would have been underway for decades. As it is, the fossil fuel industry owns the l

    • You just need to shut down the pumps, and it will flood in a couple weeks.

    • If Florida was underwater due to rising sea levels, Republicans would still claim that climate change is just a liberal hoax.

      No silly, you're not thinking like a politician. Republicans would claim that the rising sea levels are caused by woke nature activists who need more salt water to flavor their avocado toast.

    • Re:The wrong people are scared (Score:4, Funny)

      by dvice ( 6309704 ) on Saturday July 08, 2023 @05:02PM (#63669241)

      > Scientists might be scared

      That reminds me of a t-shirt which had the following text:

      Bomb Squad
      If You See Me Running Try To Keep Up

    • Scientists might be scared, but politicians, and the dumb people who vote for them, aren't. If Florida was underwater due to rising sea levels, Republicans would still claim that climate change is just a liberal hoax.

      You could not comprehend Kamala Harris' take on climate warming...nor can I.

    • "Scientists might be scared, but politicians, and the dumb people who vote for them, aren't".

      Which are you?

  • Obviously something changed recently; probably a worthwhile quest to figure out what it is, rather than randomly changing stuff. That's not going to solve anything except through extreme luck.

    The reduction in sulfur emissions seemed like an interesting thread to pull.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by crow ( 16139 )

      What were global temperatures the last time CO2 levels were as high as they are now? It takes a long time for the planet to warm up due to greenhouse gasses, so the warming is a lagging indicator of the problem. Conversely, it also means that we have a lot more warming already pending based on the CO2 we've already released. So if we stop all emissions now, we're already facing a long period of warming.

      • The planet does not heat up, the 10km thick layer of air is said to be a higher temp because CO2 may have gone from 250ppm to 425ppm. That layer of air varies from -40C to 45C extrema at the surface for a third of the planet every 365.25 days. The atmosphere has about 1 millionth of the thermal mass of the water of the oceans and the two are attached for 5/8ths of the planet. The thermal mass of the planet supports semiliquid liquid iron to permafrost. "Below the sea surface, historical measurements

      • Re:Geoengineering fail (Score:4, Informative)

        by dvice ( 6309704 ) on Saturday July 08, 2023 @05:08PM (#63669259)

        > What were global temperatures the last time CO2 levels were as high as they are now?

        That would be about 3 million years ago. Temperature was about 2-3 degrees higher than now.

        > So if we stop all emissions now, we're already facing a long period of warming.

        Yes. Decades or hundreds of years. Estimates about this vary.

    • Obviously I'm spitballing here, but I suspect ENSO phase change is playing a role. Having a warm pool of ocean water develop after 3 years of inhibition by La Nina will have some significant impacts on global temperatures. La Nina has been taking a huge amount of solar heating and pushing it deeper into the ocean. Now that process has reversed and not only is the solar energy not being sequestered, the previously stored energy is being brought back to the ocean surface. Don't get me wrong, Sulfur emission

      • Yes, and if you plot all the La Nina and el
        Nino years, they take place every time in a warmer climate. The baseline temperature is increasing. What the natural cycles may do is take the system over a tipping point eventually⦠Overally the extra amplified greenhouse effect dominates.

  • It's going to take legislation and treaties (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TheMiddleRoad ( 1153113 ) on Saturday July 08, 2023 @12:47PM (#63668541)

    Global warming will not be fixed with good intentions and individual action. We need hard core international effort and agreement.

    • Sadly, global warming is not a problem that people will be able to solve through action. It will be solved by inaction, strife, and a long period of time. All we as people can do is prepare for it and try not to do things that will make it significantly worse.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Looks like it, yes. Also make sure at least some part of industrial civilization does not collapse. Might get pretty hard when a few billion people try to move to the last habitable regions though.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      We have had that international consent for 50 years now: To do nothing or rather to keep making things worse.

  • Libertarians (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Plugh ( 27537 ) on Saturday July 08, 2023 @12:54PM (#63668563) Homepage
    Fifteen years ago I moved to NH to be with Libertarians thanks to a Slashdot story. At the time many of them were skeptical of human induced climate change. I have since distanced myself from these people due to their science denialism in other areas (like epidemiology). I wonder if a decade of new information changed their minds⦠or if it is still all a Government Plot

    • Re:Libertarians (Score:5, Interesting)

      by GameboyRMH ( 1153867 ) <<moc.liamg> <ta> <hmryobemag>> on Saturday July 08, 2023 @01:24PM (#63668643) Journal

      Most still consider it a government plot because it's a "tragedy of the commons" type problem which has no credible solution under libertarianism. A few accept that it's real and instead try to pretend that libertarianism wouldn't be worse than useless at solving it, with solutions involving complex webs of tort laws or granting a private entity ownership over common environmental resources(!).

    • You state it in such a way as if Libertarians are a large political force and as if they caused the climate to change. They are not and they haven't. This climate would be changed no matter if it is capitalism, communism, liberalism, whatever, because we need energy and we expand as a species.

      What is a realistic ssolutionto the energy trap in CO2 at this point? Probably blocking a few percent of the Sun light on the day side of the planet with satellites and to achieve this capitalism gives us the tools

  • Climate change is is getting worse (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JoshuaZ ( 1134087 ) on Saturday July 08, 2023 @01:00PM (#63668577) Homepage
    We cannot definitely assert that this is due to global warming, but it certainly looks like it. The situation is going to just keep getting worse. At the same time, IPCC reports suggest that we are likely to avoid the very worst scenarios. But at this point, every bit of CO2 we put out is creating more of a problem. So what can we do to help out?

    There are three main categories of things one can do, personal, political and charitable.

    In terms of personal things you can eat less meat, drive less, and use public transit. If you need a new car, please consider buying an electric car, or at least a plug-in hybrid. My spouse and I don't own a car but not everyone is lucky enough to live somewhere where that's a reasonable option. If one own's a house, consider upgrading insulation, or getting solar panels. All these are things which do not just help with CO2, but they can actively save you money.

    The second big category is political. This means voting for and campaigning for parties and politicians who will help deal with climate change. In the US, this largely means Democrats. The Democrats history is not perfect on many of these issues, especially nuclear power, but they've gotten better over time. And the Inflation Reduction Act shows that under the right circumstances they can help out a lot here. Now, not every individual politician is going to be great on these issues. Some Dems are anti-nuclear or have other issues (such as being NIMBYs who will fight against solar and wind in locations they don't want). Another big US specific political issue is permitting reform. Right now in the US, building anything new requires a massive amount of red tape, including ironically, a lot of "environmental" impact assessment. https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-big-nepa-roundup [noahpinion.blog]. Right now, that is a major barrier to things we need, such as major transmission lines to connect major wind and solar to the grid. And in some states, some fossil fuel burning power companies are deliberately using these sorts of things to block low carbon power sources https://www.wsj.com/articles/building-the-wind-turbines-was-easy-the-hard-part-was-plugging-them-in-11561176010 [wsj.com]. So talk to your local representatives, congress people, also state level reps about these issues.

    The third thing you can do is charitable. There are multiple charities which do good work helping put in more renewable power. Everybody Solar helps get solar panels for nonprofits like museums and homeless shelters https://everybodysolar.org/ [everybodysolar.org]. The Solar Electric Light Fund gets solar panes for villages in developing countries which have little to no electricity. https://www.self.org/ [self.org]. This is particularly important because this not only helps get electricity for locations without it, it also helps make sure that as developing countries develop, they do not go through the same very heavy fossil fuel use that other countries did. In terms of wind power, one I am fond of is the New England Wind Fund https://www.greenenergyconsumers.org/newenglandwindfund [greenenergyconsumers.org] which helps build more wind turbines in the Northeast of the US. Since the Northeast has a lot of wind, but very few turbines, one can easily add more to that section of the grid without stressing the system. Every little bit helps.

    • IPCC reports suggest that we are likely to avoid the very worst scenarios.

      The IPCC are reported as being exceptionally conservative. That's probably no bad thing in some ways, but can be misleading in others.
      We can only hope this conservatism, this careful analysis of multiple submitted papers, is on the money.

      We can also only hope that the unknown impacts of human induced climate change are minimal. This is what alarms me most, that climate scientists, being good scientists, admit when "they just don't kno

    • What you do not do personally means fuck all, industrial sources dwarf everything else.

      What you do politically does not matter unless it involves crowds with torches, pitchforks, and guillotines.

      Telling yourself fairy stories about just having to wish real hard is self-delusion. Telling others those fairy stories is gaslighting.

      • Industrial sources are making industrial products for things for the society you and I live in. And changing those requires political change. And no, pitchforks doesn't magically change how those industries are doing things. There's genuine need for new infrastructure. If you just go and destroy all the fossil fuel plants now and pitchfork the people running them, society will collapse with results as bad or more likely worse than climate change. As the idea that what you personally do doesn't matter, it is

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by etash ( 1907284 )
          > society will collapse Well, you just proved it will do something. Societal collapse and let's say half a billion dead and us moving to preindustrial civilization, means a lot less new CO2 in the air. No? xD

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Njovich ( 553857 )

        In the end the only final customer of this industrial output is individual humans. It's not the fishes buying gas at a gas station, it's you, me and everyone else. Perhaps AI's will become a client eventually but for now it's just individuals.

        • In the end the only final customer of this industrial output is individual humans.

          That's a gross oversimplification of the situation. The individual humans profiting the most pay bribes ("campaign contributions" etc, plus actual direct bribes as we've broadly seen applied to Supreme Court Justices recently for example) to keep the laws set such that the mechanisms of modern society produce profit for them at the expense of everyone else. We can do better while still having nice things. What's more, the people at the top of the ziggurat could still be there and merely would have to conten

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        What you do not do personally means fuck all, industrial sources dwarf everything else.

        Pretty much, yes.

        What you do politically does not matter unless it involves crowds with torches, pitchforks, and guillotines.

        While I am for that, it requires a lot more people to have that "Oh, crap!" moment. Most are still determinedly in denial.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by yusing ( 216625 )

        What millions of people do personally do means a lot.

        Old saying: "Every dollar is a vote." Still driving as much as we're used to? Still using that old furnace? So are millions of people. Distracted by the same load of crap that has always been used to keep those at the top at the top.

    • > At the same time, IPCC reports suggest that we are likely to avoid the very worst scenarios.

      I'm going based off my anecdotal discussions with other people, so...
      Usually people who say this base this on the work of the IPCC group 3. The important thing to note is that these are mainly economists. At least in AR5 they used their own models, which didn't have much in common with real scientist's models (those from Group 1). They have no clue.

      The people from group 1 (post AR6) are now shouting that we mu

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        The IPCC's more extreme scenarios are pretty dire. A couple of them have exponential growth of emissions up to 2100, ending up at 5 times annual emissions with a global average temperature rise of 5 degrees C or so.

        That we're probably going to avoid that is good, but not really reassuring.

    • IPCC reports suggest that we are likely to avoid the very worst scenarios

      The IPCC Report does not say this at all. It says:

      - "All these pathways assume immediate action after 2020." But it is 2023, have you seen immediate action?
      - We must rapidly reduce GHG emissions between now and 2050, but they are currently still increasing each year.
      - We might limit rapid global warming to 2C "during 21st century"

      But at our current warming rates (0.08C per year) we could reach 2C before 2030, so the

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gTsiros ( 205624 )

        the only species that insists on raping the environment instead of living with it.

        that is the only difference between us and all other species. We irreversibly damage the environment in our misguided efforts to survive.

    • Basically I don't like the energy downsizing approach and neither does the rest of the world. I like meat, travel and by the way public transport sucks, I still remember a girl I knew telling me the story of how the guy next to her jerked off and wiped semen on her cloths on the London underground. Way to go public transport. What I'm saying is that democracies won't accept this pathway so stop trying to suggest an unrealistic option.
      People in Asia and Africa want lots of reliable energy, solar and batterie

      • Basically I don't like the energy downsizing approach and neither does the rest of the world.

        Energy downsizing is not what is under discussion here. Yes, some specific measures, like taking public transit are about reducing energy use.

        I like meat, travel and by the way public transport sucks, I still remember a girl I knew telling me the story of how the guy next to her jerked off and wiped semen on her cloths on the London underground.

        And car accidents happen and road rage happens. The idea that somehow all the bad stuff is unique to public transit is just not true. Well funded, properly policed public transit systems work great, and have a far lower death rate than cars. But note that in the comment you are replying to, I also explicitly mentioned EVs. So if one is deadset against using public tra

    • > If one own's a house

      Own is not a noun, and can't have possessions.

  • from 50 years of saying "I told you so".

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Indeed. The respective scientists are not terrified. They have known for half a century what is comming.
      And remember, these are just the very benign beginnings. From now on things will get steadily worse for at the very least a century, but more likely 2 or 3.

  • Tipping points being ... tipped? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bb_matt ( 5705262 ) on Saturday July 08, 2023 @01:08PM (#63668607)

    When anecdotes amongst family, friends or colleagues when discussing weather are more often one of concern, you just know we're knees deep in that unchartered territory already. When weather patterns reach a level of unpredictability that start to alarm people who don't follow the science, you just know the climate is rapidly changing.

    But we know this, because the "frontrunners" experiencing life changing impact from rapid climate change have already told us - it's just that they are usually poverty stricken communities. It's been happening for decades.

    Climate scientists told us, decades back, about the unknowns of rapid climate change - about both known and unknown tipping points, that the climate is going to result in unpredictable and volatile weather.

    It's now, it's here, we're in it.

    Hold onto your hats folks, it's not going to be much fun...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      It's now, it's here, we're in it.

      Just in the very early beginnings. Compared to what is to come, the current situation is outright cute and friendly. And things will now continuously get worse for a century or two.

  • Where does it say "Earth's hottest day in at least 125,000 years" and how do they know?

    The articles in the chain of links have time periods that are all over the place decades, centuries, whatever.
    This is the first time I've seen the "125,000 years" number

    • "Tuesday’s global average temperature was calculated by a model that uses data from weather stations, ships, ocean buoys and satellites, Paulo Ceppi, a climate scientist at London’s Grantham Institute, explained in an email Wednesday."

      "Instrument-based global temperature records go back to the mid-19th century, but for temperatures before that, scientists are dependent on proxy data captured through evidence left in tree rings and ice cores. “These data tell us that it hasn’t been th

      • "Tuesday’s global average temperature was calculated by a model that uses data from weather stations, ships, ocean buoys and satellites, Paulo Ceppi, a climate scientist at London’s Grantham Institute, explained in an email Wednesday."

        "Instrument-based global temperature records go back to the mid-19th century, but for temperatures before that, scientists are dependent on proxy data captured through evidence left in tree rings and ice cores. “These data tell us that it hasn’t been this warm since at least 125,000 years ago, which was the previous interglacial,” Ceppi said, referring to a period of unusual warmth between two ice ages."

        – https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]

        That article is oddly worded

        Tuesday was the hottest day on Earth since at least 1979, with the global average temperature reaching 62.92 degrees Fahrenheit (17.18 degrees Celsius), according to data from the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Prediction. As a result, some scientists believe July 4 may have been one of the hottest days on Earth in about 125,000 years

        "as a result" doesn't seem right to follow the preceding sentence.
        "Some scientists believe"... "may have been" isn't very definitive at a

    • No it's true, I just looked it up. July 2, 122,977 BC was 0.5C hotter.

      • No it's true, I just looked it up. July 2, 122,977 BC was 0.5C hotter.

        So Taylor Swift was getting everyone all hot & bothered way back then?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Njovich ( 553857 )

      It's the last time we were around this phase in the ~100k year Milankovitch cycle. So with a 10000 year warming trend there is a fair chance that any heat records go back quite a long time. But indeed the way they wrote it is silly, the data is simply not there.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dvice ( 6309704 )

      Source: https://xkcd.com/1732/ [xkcd.com]

    • Where does it say "Earth's hottest day in at least 125,000 years" and how do they know?

      The time frame has been reported on the news and in other articles. As for how they know, I just saw a scientist interviewed make reference to things like ice cores and ocean floor sediment.

  • The focus on +1.5C is counter-productive. The focus should be on the facts 1) It is normal for the planet to to be on average +17C warmer than it is now (32C average annual planet air temp). 2) Global warming is a process, that once initiated does usually stop without an ice age. 3) We are nowhere near an ice age.

    Scientist have been foolishly conservative in their messaging for fear of being wrong. But they should be informing people of what a normal Earth looks like and what that will mean -- becau
  • and thought the 1950's had returned!
  • This was known to be coming.
    Who should be concerned are ppl that are allowing politciians to do little to nothing.
    Even now, Biden/Goon Squad are worthless on AGW. Very little change, but they have created a MESS.
    Thankfully, Sinema and Manchin have at least pushed IRA in the right direction, though not far enough.

  • I've long suspected we're already past the tipping point, but by now I'm pretty sure it's a tiny speck in the rear-view mirror. Sometimes - like now - I'm literally on the verge of tears when I think about what lies ahead for us humans, and for the wildlife that we're taking into hell with us.

  • Anyone who hasn't been living under a rock for the last 3 decades and isn't a total dimwitt knows that this is just the beginning.

    Humanity is 5 decades to late with a complete eco turnaround and even today, in the last decade to (maybe) prevent a total disaster we are still dragging our heels.

    The planets albedo has already sunk notably and continues to do so. Methane release is ramping up and huge land areas are rapidly becoming uninhabitable due to the summer heat.

    Our water cycles here in Germany have an 1

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