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It was December 1984, and President Reagan had just been elected to his second term, Dynasty was the top show on TV and Madonna's Like a Virgin topped the musical charts.
It was also the last time the Earth had a cooler-than-average month.
Last month marked the planet's 400th consecutive month with above-average temperatures, federal scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday.
[...] "We live in and share a world that is unequivocally, appreciably and consequentially warmer than just a few decades ago, and our world continues to warm," said NOAA climate scientist Deke Arndt. "Speeding by a '400' sign only underscores that, but it does not prove anything new."
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Earth Just had its 400th Consecutive Warmer-Than-Average Month Thanks to Global Warming
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-- Elvis Costello
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 18 2018, @01:01PM (11 children)
One "feature" of global warming is increased variability in the weather systems: hotter hots, colder colds... reading that, I wonder if there's a global wind energy index? Seems like it would be challenging to measure on a global scale, even with satellite data, but as total global weather energy increases, one might expect more wind.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 18 2018, @01:10PM
By extreme weather they mean extremely stable weather like droughts, etc.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday May 19 2018, @02:13AM (9 children)
That's an interesting assertion, but where's the evidence?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday May 19 2018, @02:23AM (3 children)
2 seconds of Google gets this:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1873965212000047 [sciencedirect.com]
variability of surface air temperature (SAT) associated with the AO index shows high correlation with recent global warming trend.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday May 19 2018, @02:44AM (2 children)
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday May 19 2018, @05:02PM (1 child)
So, establish your own peer reviewed journal and write your own rules - I'm sure if it's of value it will be widely read and respected.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday May 19 2018, @11:17PM
Why would I bother to do that? What's in it for me?
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Saturday May 19 2018, @08:36AM (4 children)
There's a Wiki article on "dissipative systems" [wikipedia.org]. (Not the easiest wikipedia article I've read, I must say, but I'm a fan of Prigogine)
It's like when you boil an egg and the Bénard cells form when the water is almost boiling. The heat transfer from the hot bottom of the pan to the water is so big that simpler, more "gentle" methods get overshadowed by more vigorous and random and "violent" phenomena.
If you'd put the pan on too hot a flame, you'd *probably* burn yourself if you got close, because the statistical probability of some boiling water sometimes splashing over the edge of the pan becomes significant.
I say *probably*; the splashes could miss you, or not occur just when you get the egg out with a long spoon. But would you risk it? Is it worth the risk? Or would you say: "I'm not Pris from the film Blade Runner, turn the bloody cooker off NOW and wait until the system rebalances itself to a level I can cope with".
(hey not a bad analogy I think)
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Saturday May 19 2018, @09:50AM (2 children)
Second, if there is a significant increase in weather systems activity and variation, then we run into a different problem, namely that one can't eat one's cake and have it too. Such notable increases would significantly increase the collective heat dissipated to space and greatly reduce the potential for positive feedback "tipping points" in the system. Current climate models aren't taking that into account.
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Saturday May 19 2018, @11:01AM (1 child)
Yes, but that's because steel is a solid at those temperatures. The molecules get to rotate and vibrate, but not to translate (move) -- at least not in any appreciative amount. Boiling means water molecules actually leave the pan (steam). There is an interface layer between 100° water and 100° steam.
I understand what you say, but I think the weather we see on Earth is practically all in the "Troposphere". So maybe hurricanes mix warm air from ground level with cold air from Stratosphere level (10 km? 20km?) and warm up the lower Stratosphere.
But I don't know how quickly Stratosphere air mixes with Ionosphere air, and that with Thermosphere "air". There is no weather that high. Vacuum is an extermely good insulator; that's why Dewar buckets [wikipedia.org] for liquid air and N2 are made of double glass with vacuum in between. If those dissipation processes take longer than a few hundred years then the Earth will still "boil over" in the meantime, so to speak.
I'm not 100% sure but I think the most significant way that Earth sheds its heat, is by radiation of infrared to outer space, and that's a very inefficient process, so we shouldn't upset the steady state as we do, because it takes long to get rid of the heat we've already built up down here (500 years? don't remember where I read that ballpark figure).
Oh I found an interesting link khallow:
http://www.weather-climate.org.uk/02.php [weather-climate.org.uk]
Troposphere:
Stratosphere:
So air gets mixed horizontally (jet stream) but not much vertically in the Stratosphere.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday May 19 2018, @11:34PM
There is very little air at those higher altitudes to transfer heat to. Instead, the chief loss of heat would be through radiation to space. And that's the point about a lot of the extreme weather that is discussed. Much of it efficiently transfers heat via convection to altitudes where it can be more efficiently radiated to space. Greenhouse gases would have a little effect at these higher altitudes (but not much due to the low densities of atmosphere at these altitudes).
And that leads to yet another geoengineering approach that isn't talked about. There are natural features of Earth that already routinely trigger extreme weather, such as mountain ranges and some lakes (such as Lake Maracaibo [wikipedia.org]). It's not going to address high concentrations of greenhouse gases in atmosphere, but it can stabilize the climate away from tipping points, should they exist, and provide local relief to areas particularly hard hit by high temperatures from global warming.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 19 2018, @11:56AM
Instead of spoons and splashes of water, I just steam my eggs nowadays. They're much less likely to overcook, shells slide off with minimal hassle, and no risk of burns from near-boiling water.