Persian Gulf Experiences Record (and Life-Threatening) Heat Index (msn.com) 105
Parts of the Persian Gulf "have seen the heat index, or how it feels when factoring in the humidity, reach 140 to 150 degrees Fahrenheit (60 to 65 Celsius)," reports the Washington Post, "fueled by an intense heat dome, the warmest water temperatures in the world and the influence of human-caused climate change."
Temperatures at the Persian Gulf International Airport in Asaluyeh, Iran, climbed to 108 (42 C) on Wednesday and 106 (41 C) on Thursday, with both days recording a peak heat index of 149 (65 C). In Dubai, the temperature topped out at 113 (45 C) on Tuesday and the heat index soared to 144 (62 C). Other extreme heat indexes in recent days include 141 (61 C) in Abu Dhabi and 136 (58 C) at Khasab Air Base in Oman.
Last August, this same region experienced even more extreme heat indexes, climbing as high as 158 degrees (70 C).
The maximum air temperatures this week — generally between 105 and 115 (41 and 46 C) — have only been somewhat above normal. But the dew points — which are a measure of humidity — have been excessive, climbing well into the 80s (27 to 32 C). In the United States, any dew point over 70 degrees (21 C) is considered uncomfortably humid. It's the very high dew points that have propelled heat indexes up to 30 degrees (16 C) above actual air temperatures. The extreme humidity levels are tied to bathtub-like water temperatures in the Persian Gulf, the warmest in the world. According to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data, sea surface temperatures are as warm as 95 degrees (35 C).
Largely because of the high humidity, nighttime minimum temperatures have also remained exceptionally warm, in many cases staying above 85 (29 C). Temperatures in Iranshar, Iran, only dropped to 97 (36 C) on Wednesday night, its hottest July night on record.
"Researchers have identified the Persian Gulf among the regions most likely to regularly exceed life-threatening heat thresholds during the next 30 to 50 years," the article adds. And it also cites new heat records reported for the region by weather historian Maximiliano Herrera. "The United Arab Emirates saw a scorching high temperature of 123 while Adrar, Algeria, tied its record of 122 (50 C). Cities in both Kuwait and Iraq reached 126 (52 C), and Al Ahsa, Saudi Arabia, notched a record of 124 (51 C)...
"The same heat dome that's in the Persian Gulf region has spread record heat northward into Eastern Europe, westward into northern Africa, and eastward into India, Pakistan and Indonesia. In Eastern Europe, high temperatures surpassed 104 (40 C), with some locations staying above 85 degrees (29 C) at night."
Last August, this same region experienced even more extreme heat indexes, climbing as high as 158 degrees (70 C).
The maximum air temperatures this week — generally between 105 and 115 (41 and 46 C) — have only been somewhat above normal. But the dew points — which are a measure of humidity — have been excessive, climbing well into the 80s (27 to 32 C). In the United States, any dew point over 70 degrees (21 C) is considered uncomfortably humid. It's the very high dew points that have propelled heat indexes up to 30 degrees (16 C) above actual air temperatures. The extreme humidity levels are tied to bathtub-like water temperatures in the Persian Gulf, the warmest in the world. According to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data, sea surface temperatures are as warm as 95 degrees (35 C).
Largely because of the high humidity, nighttime minimum temperatures have also remained exceptionally warm, in many cases staying above 85 (29 C). Temperatures in Iranshar, Iran, only dropped to 97 (36 C) on Wednesday night, its hottest July night on record.
"Researchers have identified the Persian Gulf among the regions most likely to regularly exceed life-threatening heat thresholds during the next 30 to 50 years," the article adds. And it also cites new heat records reported for the region by weather historian Maximiliano Herrera. "The United Arab Emirates saw a scorching high temperature of 123 while Adrar, Algeria, tied its record of 122 (50 C). Cities in both Kuwait and Iraq reached 126 (52 C), and Al Ahsa, Saudi Arabia, notched a record of 124 (51 C)...
"The same heat dome that's in the Persian Gulf region has spread record heat northward into Eastern Europe, westward into northern Africa, and eastward into India, Pakistan and Indonesia. In Eastern Europe, high temperatures surpassed 104 (40 C), with some locations staying above 85 degrees (29 C) at night."
Careful what you wish for (Score:1, Troll)
Time to cycle some nuclear inventory. Gotta keep those missiles fresh!
Israel just bombed a big oil depot [270towin.com] in Yemen.
That's not the Persian Gulf, but it's pretty close.
Careful what you wish for.
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Re: Sounds Like A Good Place For A Nuclear Winter. (Score:2)
Re: Sounds Like A Good Place For A Nuclear Winter (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't worry mister frog, your bathtub has always been this hot. Don't worry about it!
The consequences of our own actions! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yes, we all know that oil CEOs are in extreme poverty and can't afford an air conditioner nor even a dehumidifier.
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+1
"Your air conditioner isn't built for this heat." - https://www.npr.org/2023/07/19... [npr.org]
"Most air conditioners have a maximum temperature limit of around 115 degrees Fahrenheit. Although the outside temperature may never reach 115 degrees, your unit may get this hot if it is in direct sunlight and is working hard to keep your home cool." - https://coastalhomeservicesinc... [coastalhom...cesinc.com]
I'm guessing you can design machines for more extreme conditions but their cost and energy usage will rise very fast.
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At some point you start compounding the closed-cycle phase change cooler with an open-cycle one by putting an evaporative cooler in front of the AC's outside heat exchanger to pre-cool the air blowing over the coils.
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Back home I'd just find a shady spot... (Score:5, Interesting)
...and dig a shallow hole and lie in it when it was really hot(we were poor and didn't have air conditioning).
I learned this little trick when I was a kid by watching rabbits do this.
I used to do this under a big tree in the back yard near the rabbit burrow during the summer when it was well over 100F in SoCal.
It works very well, in fact it worked so well that if I fell asleep for an hour or two I'd wake up cold kind of like falling asleep in the tub.
The best part was that the rabbits would come over and lick the sweat off of me... if you've never had a rabbit lick you you're missing out.
Re:Back home I'd just find a shady spot... (Score:4, Informative)
Your houses must have been poorly designed. Airconditioning is a comfort not a necessity in virtually every climate. But we've lost the lessons of the past. Even 500 years ago arabs knew how to build houses to funnel cold air in and hot air out. For much of the 19th and 20th century we in the west even knew how to face windows and position houses in the prevailing wind direction.
These days, we care about style over function, and just throw an airconditioning unit in. It's amazing how poorly we build houses these days.
Also where are the awnings.
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Your houses must have been poorly designed. Airconditioning is a comfort not a necessity in virtually every climate. But we've lost the lessons of the past. Even 500 years ago arabs knew how to build houses to funnel cold air in and hot air out. For much of the 19th and 20th century we in the west even knew how to face windows and position houses in the prevailing wind direction.
Another trick forgotten was high ceilings (especially combined with adjustable vent windows over doors, which in turn were a bit t
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I live in a house like this right now and I've been here for two summers. They're called "Queenslanders" here. I'm moving out in five days and can't wait to get out of it. It's winter here now and it's ghastly cold because they're not insulated and trying to heat them is a nightmare. I do not want to be here another summer.
In summer the high ceilings keep them cooler than outside until about midday, then without the air conditioning on the indoor temperature hits 30 degrees and stays at least there until pr
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I live in a house like this right now and I've been here for two summers. They're called "Queenslanders" here. I'm moving out in five days and can't wait to get out of it. It's winter here now and it's ghastly cold because they're not insulated and trying to heat them is a nightmare. I do not want to be here another summer.
In summer the high ceilings keep them cooler than outside until about midday, then without the air conditioning on the indoor temperature hits 30 degrees and stays at least there until probably after 7pm.
Yep, if the average temperature of the air and ground is too high, a passively-cooled house is never going to get cool enough without assistance (i.e, proper phase-change air conditioning). Sure, good design can make it "less awful" but it's still not a nice place to be, and it's worse if the inhabitants need to get meaningful work done, as opposed to just sipping cool drinks and watching other people toil in the plantation.
I agree 100% that homes are poorly designed, and there is a lot of low-hanging fruit
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I should have noted that this house was built in the 1910s, as far as we can figure out. So it's not like someone banged it out in the last few years just to torture us.
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It's partly down to towns and cities, i.e. the density of the housing making freely aligning a house and ensuring good airflow is difficult. It gets even worse with blocks of apartments where most of them don't have two opposing exterior walls.
Thing is even the Arabs would have had a hard time with the humidity and heat. When it's not too humid your body can shed heat into the cooler air much more easily.
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No it doesn't. That's simply the result of shithouse town planning. There's nothing about density that prevents a town planner from adopting the architectural lessons of how to manage heat.
Again it's a pointless stylistic choice. The "I want to be fancy and don't want this neighbourhood to look like every house faces the same direction" style of design.
Thing is even the Arabs would have had a hard time with the humidity and heat. When it's not too humid your body can shed heat into the cooler air much more easily.
Actually they haven't really. Not in their homes anyway. The people who are having actual issues are those *not* at home, i.e. look at the death toll from th
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If you're referring to those awful "portable" ACs that have a hot air hose which effectively behave this way, well, they're a "solution" to a completely artificial problem just like acoustic coupled modems: douchebag landlords denying people the right to use a "real" AC that sits in a window. Idiocy is indeed involved, but not on the part of their designers or users.
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The worst thing is that most air cons are installed completely idiotic.
Instead of sucking air from inside, de-humifying it, cooling it and putting it back inside,
they suck 45C air from the outside, cool it to 18C and blow it inside.
Completely idiotic.
That's not how any installed air-conditioning units work. The portable ones that are not "installed" anywhere work exchange air, but they don't suck outside air in, they use inside air to cool the radiator and exhaust it through the window. Some more expensive units suck air in from the outside to cool the radiator and dump that back on the outside using a hose-in-hose design. But you only see one hose so you've probably assumed it leaves the air indoors.
Which is a stupid assumption to make for a German con
Re: Back home I'd just find a shady spot... (Score:2)
Re: Back home I'd just find a shady spot... (Score:2)
Evaporative cooling doesn't work when the air can't absorb any more water.
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Evaporative cooling doesn't work when the air can't absorb any more water.
We can often tell where people are at by their approach to air cooling. Here in the wet, muggy East US, I know of no one using a swamp cooler because they don't work well. But out in the Arid west, they do. And about that 85 degree night time weather, we had a few so far this summer here in PA. And that's the odd thing. Yes, we've had some really hot days - but during the 2 long heat waves so far this summer, it hasn't cooled off all that much at night.
Dropped to 69 degrees two nights ago - That felt pr
69 (Score:2)
Nice. ;)
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I'd try this, but dang the bugs like mosquitoes and red imported fire ants. :(
Re: Back home I'd just find a shady spot... (Score:2)
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NO government is equipped to deal with this issue. I have a friend with diabetes who still sneaks in the daily soda because "Who cares if it's gonna kill me later? I want it now."
Our entire civilization isn't equipped to deal with this.
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Sadly true. If a country did decide to prioritize the climate and our future over the present... every other nation that could would exploit the hell out of that opportunity rather than follow suit.
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Sad but true. As a group, the human race is pretty primitive, incompetent and has no clue how things work. Add a few that are violent and quite a few that are greedy and arrogant to make for a nice, repulsive mixture. The few members that are not primitive and not morally corrupt are not being used as leaders, instead they are typically seen as problems. They would have to go massively against their own convictions and ethics to get the power they would need to fix things.
Overall, an abysmal failure. While
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While I agree to the first statement (sad as it is), it seems that democracies are not really equipped to deal with existential threats like climate change. So, yes, that region is basically a pretty primitive deeply religious medieval society with high-tech, but the rest of the world is not looking that much better on actually being able to deal with problems competently. And, for example, the US seems to be hell-bent into becoming a theocracy as well.
Wind chill and heat index are nonsense (Score:1)
Simple fact, if the dew point climbs above 37C for an indeterminate amount of time, you will die
Sounds about right (Score:5, Informative)
I was stationed in southern Bahrain during Desert Shield/Storm back in '90-'91 during my time in the Corps. During the day the temps would regularly get above 110F with uncomfortable but manageable humidity levels and at night no lower than 85F with damn near 95% humidity. It's was brutal and miserable to say the least while living in a tent the entire time. I actually went water skiing in the Persian Gulf a few months after I got there and the water was very warm, much warmer than Lake Erie where I grew up, and Erie can reach as high as 82 during warm summers. Sounds to me like conditions have not changed all that much. Fun fact, the aircraft I worked on would get so hot during the day that we couldn't work on them for fear of blistering our hands. We did most of our maintenance at night.
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damn... you know it's hot when you literally have to work during the dark side of the earth...
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I'm not sure if this was planned or not, but right around the time Desert Storm officially kicked in (Jan 17th) it happened to be the "rainy" season for the area. It rained for a few days (no more than five if I remember correctly) and the extremely hot daytime weather subsided a bit for the remainder of Desert Storm. This allowed us the opportunity to service the planes during the day since they were involved with performing flight operations all night long.
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damn that's wild... i guess it was just by sheer luck that you guys were able to cool off from the rain.. though i can't imagine what that humidity is like or if the desert heat just dried all that water off....
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The humidity was still brutal at night, but at least the temps stayed just below 95F during the day which was a huge relief.
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I guess hot is hot, but a 4F change is a decent amount. Not something you'd want to repeat especially given your advanced years. https://climateknowledgeportal... [worldbank.org]
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Definitely not.
All I can say (Score:5, Informative)
All I can say is sorry young people. A few of us tried, but it was like being Don Quixote surrounded by CO2 spewing Windmills. I commuted by bicycle. The roads were I lived, though a bit dangerous, did not compare to how bad roads are in other parts of the US.
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Sad as it is, I agree. Sorry we did not manage to sway the majority. We should have done more. I do not really see how we could have though. That is not a justification, I simply do not see it. And it feels like a personal failure.
You are going into a world that is fundamentally screwed up and getting worse and worse, due to very little fault of your own. And your children? It will be worse for them again. As to my personal CO2 footprint, I think I am doing ok (no car, minimum energy housing, etc.), but tha
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Re: All I can say (Score:1)
Itâ(TM)s population growth thatâ(TM)s causing so the environmental problems. If you only bring one child in to this world then youâ(TM)ve contributed to population decline, which is environmentally good.
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Itâ(TM)s population growth thatâ(TM)s causing so the environmental problems. If you only bring one child in to this world then youâ(TM)ve contributed to population decline, which is environmentally good.
Look how perfectly China's one child policy worked.
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China's problem is that other social and cultural factors meant that that one child better be a boy or you would starve in old age.
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China's problem is that other social and cultural factors meant that that one child better be a boy or you would starve in old age.
With some horrifying ramifications!
I've read and watched a lot of Chinese news,(in english) and they are now concerned about Sheng nü, (leftover women) the new phenomenon of multitudes of well educated and working single women who are seeking husbands in their late 30's even 40's. The term has been adopted by others as well.
The interviews I've watched follow a pattern. The woman notes her level of education, that she has a high paying career in a prominent position, a house, and a car or two. But men
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china didnt work becouse they only wanted male children. born female and well you probly didnt survive. this in turn caused a massavle inbalance between female and males in there pupulation.
While there was some of this utterly horrifying infanticide that happened, "probably didn't survive" being born female is an exaggeration. You can see plenty of women in the Chinese news today. Sheng nü, the leftover women - the phenomenon of successful women being unable to secure husbands and families. Interviews and documentaries are out there.
These are seriously unhappy women who thought they were following a can't fail script. Get your Master's or Doctorates degree, become a powerful and we
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Actually, birth rates in China plunged prior to the policy.
So the one child policy was superfluous?
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I'm bringing a child into this world. It's a completely selfish act. I hope my child doesn't hate me for it.
Rant time - not directed specifically at you.
Imagine if people did this during the depression, or way back when the average lifespan was 30, and that an alwful lot of children never made it to puberty.
I don't know if modern people didn't pay attention during history class or what. But if we think that any children born today will envy the dead because there has not ever been a time in human history that things have been worse, that this is the absolute worst time that humans have ever existed in - well
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Re: You must be an ostrich. (Score:1)
Re: You must be an ostrich. (Score:4, Informative)
One of the first projections of future warming came from John Sawyer at the UK’s Met Office in 1973. In a paper published in Nature in 1973, he hypothesised that the world would warm 0.6C between 1969 and 2000, and that atmospheric CO2 would increase by 25%. Sawyer argued for a climate sensitivity – how much long-term warming will occur per doubling of atmospheric CO2 levels – of 2.4C, which is not too far off the best estimate of 3C used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) today.
Unlike the other projections examined in this article, Sawyer did not provide an estimated warming for each year, just an expected 2000 value. His warming estimate of 0.6C was nearly spot on – the observed warming over that period was between 0.51C and 0.56C. He overestimated the year 2000’s atmospheric CO2 concentrations, however, assuming that they would be 375-400ppm – compared to the actual value of 370ppm.
He only predicted it to 2000 (a convenient year) but note that the overall estimate of sensitivity was broadly correct. If he had been able to estimate CO2 levels in 2024 and had continued to have projected to that date, his estimates would have been close. Thus, the contention by the previous poster that this was predicted in the 1970s is pretty accurate.
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Re: You must be an ostrich. (Score:2)
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And you were reading Nature in the 1970s?
I am not the original poster, take it up with them. I was just pointing out that their contention that they remember seeing predictions that proved to be accurate is entirely possible.
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https://skepticalscience.com/i... [skepticalscience.com]. Science was largely predicting warming in the 1970s. One of the more important earlier papers was published in 1972. https://www.theguardian.com/en... [theguardian.com]
Even before that. I've outlined the discovery of greenhouse and anti-greenhouse gases in the mid-1700's and not too long after that, when people analyzed the composition of burning coal, they started understanding the relationship of energy retention of atmospheres by their composition.
Early predictions didn't have much granularity, but I always refer to this illustration from 1912 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Popular Mechanics nailed it.
At this point, deniers either know the effect is real, but
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https://skepticalscience.com/i... [skepticalscience.com]. Science was largely predicting warming in the 1970s. One of the more important earlier papers was published in 1972. https://www.theguardian.com/en... [theguardian.com]
Even before that. I've outlined the discovery of greenhouse and anti-greenhouse gases in the mid-1700's
I'm not aware of such before Tindall 100 years later.
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Look harder. There were a nearly equal number of scientists back then arguing for the probability of another snowball earth event.
The majority of scientific papers of the period predicted warning... It's in the kinks I posted it you follow them. The number predicting any cooling was relatively small. Snowball earth has a specific meaning and I would be very surprised if a single one suggested that as imminent.
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Depressions are temporary economic problems. Climate change is permanent on any human timescale.
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Depressions are temporary economic problems. Climate change is permanent on any human timescale.
Are you missing the point on purpose?
Would you like to go back to those days, and maybe contract polio or pertussis, or even your dismissive "temporary economic problems"?
The concept that there was no worse time than now, is simply wrong. That there are people who do not have the moxie to do anything but cry because they are victims by default gains them exactly nothing, other than some sort of weird victim's badge that is supposed to elicit pity is going to fail them harder than climate change.
Wha
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Imagine if people did this during the depression, or way back when the average lifespan was 30, and that an alwful lot of children never made it to puberty.
I'm imagining a world without overpopulation, without resource constraints, with far reduced CO2 emissions, without food crises. Is that what you were going for?
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Imagine if people did this during the depression, or way back when the average lifespan was 30, and that an alwful lot of children never made it to puberty.
I'm imagining a world without overpopulation, without resource constraints, with far reduced CO2 emissions, without food crises. Is that what you were going for?
I'm suggesting that the world is in a non-sustainable state of affairs. Way too many people, and most of them wanting a first world lifestyle.
I certainly do not want to go back to hunter-gatherer days and definitely not to the first agrarian days. I can't imagine anyone would.
We must lower CO2 emissions. but killing all of the moocows is a non-starter.
Oh yeah - famines. We are in an era where we're racing a clock. I like to use India as an example. Sniggling in at 1.3 billion, and having added ove
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I've done everything I am able to do and not be part of the problem, but also am not inclined to tell other people what they should or should not do.
I do heat with firewood, and drive an EV and no oil fuel engines are permitted at my residence. It's not so difficult to understand that digging sequestered carbon deep from the bowels of the planet surface and fucking lighting it on fire will add that carbon to the livable portion of the planet surface. When I hear 85 year old childless end-of-their-line coupl
Must be all in their heads. Right? (Score:1)
Or not. Well, I think collectively the human race has made the decision that it will not turn out that bad. Of course such decisions are not something physical reality cares about. Essentially, there is a much needed lesson in humility incoming. Whether the students will survive that lessin is open.
I am not a religious person (Score:2)
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...but if I was, I'd be praying for a solution, or at least, a scientific advance that helps limit the damage.
Praying won't help you. This is all part of god's plan [imgur.com].
Counterproductive attempts at geoengineering. (Score:3, Insightful)
During and after the COVID shutdown it was noticed in the global temperature tracking-and-modeling community that some industrial and transportation "air pollution" had a COOLING effect. Further (like volcanic pollution) it clears out (like volcanic pollution) or builds up in a time scale of a couple years, rather than the decades-to-centuries time scale of greenhouse gasses. Some significant components of this effect are fine dusts from industrial activity, high-altitude exhaust from commercial aviation (dust and contrails), and, massively, sulfur emissions from shipping (increasing and brightening over-ocean clouds).
In particular, as of a few months ago it was estimated that the reduction of shipping sulfur emission, due to the recently rolling-out global limits on sulfur in ship fuel (previously cheap but high sulfur), plus the reduction in shipping due to the COVID supply-chain disruptions, MORE that accounted for ALL the sea-level water temperature increase since the limits started going into effect. (That may not be current now, as shipping picks up post-COVID lockdown but using still lower sulfur fuel as the limits become more effective).
Deliberately adding sulfur to ship fuel to increase the global cooling part of the balance (as had been proposed even before this) has it's own problems. But perhaps modifying ships' cooling water and exhaust systems to introduce sea-water spray (which dries to cloud-seeding particles) into the hot exhaust and vent it to the air could produce the same effect without adding any more or different "pollution" than increased wave-action (as from storms) would.
Meanwhile, regardless of how much the added CO2 from previous industrial fossil fuel consumption may have contributed to heating the planet, it looks like slamming on the brakes may end up with a century or two of GREATER heating, and that a cut-CO2 solution would have involve tapering off the emissions without depressing manufacturing and transportation, over a period of decades.
Which, just incidentally, is exactly what the rollout of renewable energy, now driven more by economics and recent technology improvements than government promotion, has been doing (or had been before the draconian interference with the US fossil fuel industry.)
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Been there, did that. (Score:2)
Clearly, you've never been to Los Angeles Let me know how you like it.
Been there. Also silicon valley. First in '73 (when the latter smelled like a fireplace three seasons out of four) and I turned down a job invitation from Signetics because of, mostly , that. (Didn't move to Silicon Valley until ;'86 or so.)
Let me know when you experience "Valley Fever".
Did that, too. (Bleh!) But the several-year allergy honeymoon (before picking up reactions to the local pollens was sweet.
Let m
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Oh, yes:
- The "hockey stick graph" has been discredited even among the warmists. Seems it included data that took tree ring width to be a measure of temperature, when it's also (massively) increased by higher carbon dioxide levels even without any temperature increase or other environmental change. So it's useless as evidence for how much, how, or whether, a carbon dioxide increase affected temperature.
what is a "heat index" (Score:1, Troll)
Re: what is a "heat index" (Score:2)
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And when I lived in Madera it frequently got even hotter. But the San Joaquin Valley has DRY heat. That's why swamp coolers can be used.
This _really_ concerning. (Score:1)
Anybody paying attention knows that humanity is too late with the eco-turnaround and aside from making it happen we will have significant extra work with doing damage control already.
However, the increasing reports of lethal heat waves do have me extra concerned. For the simple fact that we obviously already have kicked off cascading effects completely driven by mechanisms that humanity has zero control over and those are only "warming up" (NPI) just now to push the ecosphere into a new equilibrium that has
Nah, bunch of ... (Score:2)
The market will solve it, right? The trickle down economy will empower the masses to fix it. Easy peasy! The god will not allow for us to perish or ... he will but then hmm unknown are his way.
Back in the country I am from, we used say sarcastically "let there be flood after we are gone, who cares" (free translation).
I do not see any likely solution considering human traits of the human society. Somehow we will get together, put aside all our differences and let's MAGA - Make ALL Good Again, eh?
Something
Persian gulf reaches 316 degrees (Score:3)
I am annoyed with misleading headlines and articles. Heat index is not ambient air temperature, but it makes it feel hotter than it is due to evaporation not happening due to already saturated air. Starting out by saying outrageous temperatures imply not a heat index. I want to slap the editor that let this misleading article get published. The world record for straight temperature which is 134.1F on July 10, 1913 at Furnace Creek, Death Valley, California. Maybe if someone paves a big parking lot there that record will eventually be broken.
The record heat index temperature is 178F in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia on July 8, 2003. So a sensational article saying 140 or 150F is really declaring that it's a slow news day.
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And yea more interesting are long-term averages, not peeks. I have measured 178F on my house wall when it was dark-colored so yea... big black (asphalt) parking lot would break 200 easily before it melts.
Then we'd better get hot ... (Score:2)
... and hurry up with the technological solutions.
Posturing and hectoring and making political hay from it all don't seem to be doing much.
Sure. (Score:1)
RECORD heat? Heavens!
Oh wait.
1) Invent new 'measurement' of 'how hot it feels' which isn't really how hot it IS according to a thermometer but something much less objective
2) cry that the sky is falling because your new number is higher than it's ever been
You guys are hilarious.
"It's a record!"
Your own article: Last August, this same region experienced even more extreme heat indexes, climbing as high as 158 degrees (70 C)
Back in the land of real temperatures, your article points out "The United Arab Emirat
novel concept (Score:2)
100 deg F feels exactly like 100 deg F, not 140 deg F or any other made up number. How bad it feels depends on the humidity, whether there is direct sunlight, the age of the person feeling it, how habituated they are to higher temps, etc etc, not some fake number that gets re-invented to be higher every so often.
Humidity is not measured in C or F! (AI Gen?) (Score:2)
> The maximum air temperatures this week — generally between 105 and 115 (41 and 46 C) — have only been somewhat above normal. But the dew points — which are a measure of humidity — have been excessive, climbing well into the 80s (27 to 32 C). In the United States, any dew point over 70 degrees (21 C) is considered uncomfortably humid. It's the very high dew points that have propelled heat indexes up to 30 degrees (16 C) above actual air temperatures.
AI generated? Or do we now mea