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posted by martyb on Friday May 18 2018, @10:55AM   Printer-friendly
from the gonna-need-a-MUCH-bigger-parasol dept.

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."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/05/17/global-warming-april-400th-consecutive-warm-month/618484002/?csp=chromepush


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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Saturday May 19 2018, @09:50AM (2 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday May 19 2018, @09:50AM (#681556) Journal
    You don't get that in a block of slightly warmer steel - I mean there is some sort of increase in such variation, but it is an insignificant change. Again this is an interesting assertion, but apparently without any empirical backing as usual. There are two problems with the analogy given. First, to be a proper analogy, we need to consider a boiling water situation to a boiling water situation with slightly greater heat retention. While yes, there is an increase in activity when one slightly increases the temperature (or similar), it is overshadowed by the activity that is already present.

    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.
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  • (Score: 2) by fritsd on Saturday May 19 2018, @11:01AM (1 child)

    by fritsd (4586) on Saturday May 19 2018, @11:01AM (#681567) Journal

    You don't get that in a block of slightly warmer steel - I mean there is some sort of increase in such variation, but it is an insignificant change.

    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.

    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.

    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:

    The troposphere is the layer where most of the world's weather takes place. Since temperature decreases with altitude in the troposphere, warm air near the surface of the Earth can readily rise, being less dense than the colder air above it. In fact air molecules can travel to the top of the troposphere and back down again in a just a few days.

    Stratosphere:

    The stratosphere defines a layer in which temperatures rises with increasing altitude. At the top of the stratosphere the thin air may attain temperatures close to 0°C. This rise in temperature is caused by the absorption of ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the Sun by the ozone layer. Such a temperature profile creates very stable atmospheric conditions, and the stratosphere lacks the air turbulence that is so prevalent in the troposphere. Consequently, the stratosphere is almost completely free of clouds or other forms of weather.

    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

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday May 19 2018, @11:34PM (#681704) Journal

      But I don't know how quickly Stratosphere air mixes with Ionosphere air, and that with Thermosphere "air".

      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.