Global heating pushes tropical regions towards limits of human livability:
Humans’ ability to regulate their body heat is dependent upon the temperature and humidity of the surrounding air. We have a core body temperature that stays relatively stable at 37C (98.6F), while our skin is cooler to allow heat to flow away from the inner body. But should the wet-bulb temperature – a measure of air temperature and humidity – pass 35C, high skin temperature means the body is unable to cool itself, with potentially deadly consequences.
“If it is too humid our bodies can’t cool off by evaporating sweat – this is why humidity is important when we consider livability in a hot place,” said Yi Zhang, a Princeton University researcher who led the new study, published in Nature Geoscience. “High body core temperatures are dangerous or even lethal.”
The research team looked at various historical data and simulations to determine how wet-bulb temperature extremes will change as the planet continues to heat up, discovering that these extremes in the tropics increase at around the same rate as the tropical mean temperature.
[...] Dangerous conditions in the tropics will unfold even before the 1.5C threshold, however, with the paper warning that 1C of extreme wet-bulb temperature increase “could have adverse health impact equivalent to that of several degrees of temperature increase”. The world has already warmed by around 1.1C on average due to human activity and although governments vowed in the Paris climate agreement to hold temperatures to 1.5C, scientists have warned this limit could be breached within a decade.
This has potentially dire implications for a huge swathe of humanity. Around 40% of the world’s population currently lives in tropical countries, with this proportion set to expand to half of the global population by 2050 due to the large proportion of young people in region. The Princeton research was centered on latitudes found between 20 degrees north, a line that cuts through Mexico, Libya and India, to 20 degrees south, which goes through Brazil, Madagascar and the northern reaches of Australia.
Journal Reference:
Yi Zhang, Isaac Held, Stephan Fueglistaler. Projections of tropical heat stress constrained by atmospheric dynamics, Nature Geoscience (DOI: 10.1038/s41561-021-00695-3)
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @12:38AM (56 children)
Not such a tropical paradise, eh.
Move to Siberia like the rest of us.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday March 14 2021, @12:44AM (1 child)
More like: look the other way from China and India while reducing everybody else's energy independence and sending carbon tax dollars straight to Israel. Climate change will be the next big hoax after the Rona hoax fizzles. Fortunately, it is as equally unbelievable by anybody with half a brain.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @12:53AM
Hey, Little Hitler! Get a life, dumbtard. Or at least crawl back to wherever you came from.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by julian on Sunday March 14 2021, @01:14AM (3 children)
When that permafrost melts and turns Siberia into millions of square kilometers of malarial swamp it won't be so nice either.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday March 14 2021, @01:56AM
Don't forget to add a bit of methane [yale.edu]
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Sunday March 14 2021, @07:20AM (1 child)
Presumably it would re-solidify eventually. Fortunately, those of us in North America can anschluss Canada and enjoy the non-swampy north.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @04:44PM
stay home - we don't need or want you.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Sunday March 14 2021, @01:50AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BK7kMe9dwPg [youtube.com]
compiling...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 14 2021, @02:22AM (48 children)
Or cool off in the water. Or inside in the AC. Or have a cold drink. Or work in the morning and evening instead of the hottest part of the day. It's not like this shit ain't been dealt with in the south every summer since forever. Mid-90s with five million percent humidity summer days are par for the course here, which is why we dig us some iced tea and not working when it's hotter than hell and you need a snorkel to mow the yard.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @02:34AM (47 children)
The South ain't no tropic. I give you that the humidity is horrendous, but it don't get that hot down there.
Try some places like Dubai and others in Persian Gulf region - temp hits 120 with swamp humidity and zero wind.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 14 2021, @03:06AM (46 children)
Tennessee hits and stays around 35C with enough humidity that sweating is useless pretty much every single summer. Which is the temperature and humidity level that was specifically mentioned. And yet folks living here have managed not to all die every summer for thousands of years.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @03:27AM (26 children)
35C is not 50C (120F).
Nevertheless. During the midday In swampy hot summer, you stick a few coins into the vending machine, and out pops a ice-cold glass bottle of coke, not the aluminum can, or even worse, plastic bottle.
Coke just tastes better in the South.
Memory from a bygone era, I suppose.
(Score: 1) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 14 2021, @03:52AM (25 children)
No, 35C (mid-90s F) is what was specifically mentioned as the super scary wet bulb temperature in TFA though. So pretty damned relevant.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @04:23AM (16 children)
Yes, but the 35C you mentioned for Tennessee isn't 35C wet-bulb. "wet-bulb temperature, which is so-called because it is measured by a thermometer that has its bulb wrapped in a wet cloth, " Your 35C would be standard.
(Score: 1) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 14 2021, @04:40AM (15 children)
No, it would not. You've obviously never stepped foot in TN during the summer or you'd know we're within spitting distance of wet-bulb pretty much year round. 50C in a sealed building with no AC in Austin is a lot more bearable. You can work all day in it so long as you stay hydrated. You can't mow the lawn in 35C at >80% humidity without hitting yourself with the water hose every few passes though; sweat doesn't work because it doesn't evaporate but cool water over the head does.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @04:51AM (10 children)
Pretty sure 80% humidity isn't the same as wrapping a wet cloth around the thermometer.
Isn't that the point of the article? Places getting too hot and humid for people to do anything? Particularly places that don't have access to a plumbing system filled with cool water?
By the way, how many heatstroke deaths does Tennessee have every summer?
(Score: 2, Informative) by hemocyanin on Sunday March 14 2021, @05:17AM (2 children)
Did they use a Temperature-Humidity-Index in the paper? That would make comparison to places people are familiar with easier. Here's a description of one index: https://www.britannica.com/science/temperature-humidity-index [britannica.com]
The formula is apparently (in F): 15 + (0.4 * (DBT+WBT))
DBT=dry bulb temp
WBT=wet bulb temp
Another formula uses just DBT and Relative Humidity: https://www.pericoli.com/EN/news/120/Temperature-Humidity-Index-what-you-need-to-know-about-it.html [pericoli.com]
NOAA provides a calculator for the "Heat Index" using DBT and RH: https://www.weather.gov/arx/heat_index [weather.gov]
And NOAA's chart is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_index#Table_of_values [wikipedia.org]
It appears that 70% humidity is dangerous from 90-95 F, and extremely dangerous from 96F. I would guess there are parts of the US that hit this range every year. It would also be interesting whether the info used in the paper could be parsed into one of the several Temp-Humidity indexes that already exist, get noted in the weather reports, and with which people are familiar.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday March 14 2021, @11:58AM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 14 2021, @03:42PM
It's not uncommon for us to have a dewpoint of 25-30C, just for reference.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 14 2021, @03:38PM (6 children)
No, 80% != 100%. It is, however, close-e-fucking-nough to make a relevant statement on the topic. The Dubai nonsense was just flat out unrelated, because who's the hottest wasn't anyone's point.
Yes, and my point is that it's as wrong as it's possible to be since hominids have been surviving temps and humidity that bad or worse for longer than homo sapiens have even existed.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @04:44PM (4 children)
Try it without your AC and plumbing for a while. And the article is about places where temp+humidity is expected to go above what humans have been dealing with for millennia.
(Score: 1) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 15 2021, @01:03AM (3 children)
And you reckon we won't be able to find adaptations this time, with all the knowledge we've accrued, unlike every other temperature range we've adapted to throughout history? And you wonder why folks like you get called hysterical idiots...
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 15 2021, @06:18AM (2 children)
Depends on the temperatures/humidity and available infrastructure. And whether we can adapt isn't the same as saying we will adapt. I mean, it's possible for folks to live on Antarctica but I don't see a large land grab there. Nor in the deep deserts, unless there's a handy river. And either way, the point is that there will have to be adaptions from the current situation.
(Score: 1) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 15 2021, @01:31PM
So? There have had to be adaptations to changing conditions all throughout human history. And we're damned good at it. It's why there are so bloody many of us while it's pretty hard to find a woolly mammoth. The ice ages were a lot more difficult to deal with than a couple degrees worth of temperature rise. Is your complaint really that you might be horribly inconvenienced by having to do what the species has done its entire existence?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 15 2021, @05:17PM
If you can't be bothered, then why should I be bothered? The disease is the cure.
Such a land grab is presently illegal by treaty with that law enforced by the most powerful nations of the world.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @06:34PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @08:59AM (3 children)
Remind me why CA sucks again and how everyone is leaving....for TN, I presume?
(Score: 1) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 14 2021, @03:39PM
Would you like a list or would insane taxes (we don't even have a state income tax) and no fucking electricity cover it well enough?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday March 15 2021, @03:24PM (1 child)
Maybe not for TN, but for TX, they sure are.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday March 16 2021, @02:02PM
TN's the top destination for CA refugees, TX is #3 or #4. Last I looked anyway.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday March 14 2021, @11:21PM (7 children)
This explains it. [wikipedia.org]
So parts of the world are not far away from that and they're getting warmer. If they get more humid too people will not be able to live there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @11:46PM (1 child)
Since you seem actually interested, you should know that wet-bulb temperature is actually a function of more than just humidity. The shade dry-bulb temperature, absolute humidity, wind speed, air pressure, and more have an effect on it. Any of those changing can increase the wet-bulb temperature. Another factor is that increasing dry-bulb temperatures usually increases many of those other factors as well, which results in a larger change in wet-bulb temperature than the change in the dry-bulb temperature.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday March 15 2021, @12:00AM
Yes, I read the article.
(Score: 1) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 15 2021, @01:08AM (4 children)
People are able to live in space where there isn't even air to breathe. Tell me another one that doesn't take into account the human mind and opposable thumbs.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday March 15 2021, @01:42AM (3 children)
What point do you think you're making? Do you think tens of millions of people are going to live in orbit when their homes become uninhabitable?
(Score: 1) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 15 2021, @03:59AM (2 children)
No, I'm saying if we can live where there isn't even any air to be hot, we can live in hot air. Anything said to the contrary is bullshit with an ulterior motive.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 15 2021, @08:10AM (1 child)
At what cost? Just because it's possible doesn't mean it's easy or simple, or that anyone will pay for it. I mean, it's possible to dig a tunnel from New York City to San Fransisco, but no-one's busy digging one.
(Score: 1) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 15 2021, @01:33PM
So what? If it's not worth doing then we won't do it. If it is worth doing, we'll do it. How is that different than anything else?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday March 14 2021, @05:12AM (18 children)
Which is fine if you want to install air conditioning [tn.gov] in the rainforest or wherever.
(Score: 1) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 14 2021, @03:44PM (17 children)
Unnecessary. If you live in a rainforest you've long since adapted through either biology or guile to nasty heat and humidity.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday March 14 2021, @07:51PM (4 children)
Adapted, maybe up until about 1920. But you definitely can't evolve within a hundred years [climate-lab-book.ac.uk] to temperature changes when you're a k-selected species [montana.edu] with a reproductive lifespan within a similar order of magnitude.
Put differently, what fraction of tropical climates' current population can live in something that may start becoming a desert?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 15 2021, @01:10AM (3 children)
Ask the people who live in the current deserts. Pro-tip: your body will adapt to the current climate on a week to week basis as well as a generational one.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 15 2021, @05:27AM (2 children)
Got any specific locations in mind? Probably should move away from deserts, though. Their wet-bulb temperature is much lower than what they are talking about here.
(Score: 2, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 15 2021, @01:35PM (1 child)
You got confused. The lower the humidity, the better your sweat works. The better your sweat works, the higher the temperature can be without you dying. Assuming you stay hydrated.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 16 2021, @08:41AM
Yes, which is why they have lower wet-bulb temperatures than most people realize despite their often high dry-bulb temperatures.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday March 14 2021, @11:23PM (11 children)
Only to a point. [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @11:48PM
You can't actually go from wet-bulb to heat index like that. They aren't measuring the same thing, so it is possible for the same wet-bulb to match a range of heat index measures and vice versa.
(Score: 1) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 15 2021, @01:15AM (9 children)
This is true, if they turn their brains off entirely and have zero access to anyone who hasn't. We're not minnows who can only live in one part of a specific stream, we are the best species there has ever been at surviving unpleasant environments. Because we're really fucking crafty.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday March 15 2021, @01:39AM (8 children)
That makes no sense
(Score: 1) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 15 2021, @04:05AM
No, it makes perfect sense. You're just denying it for religious reasons. You can tell because if they were scientific reasons, arguments shooting your position completely to shit would change your opinion.
Human beings are quite adaptable biologically but we're astoundingly adaptable technologically. We can live in Antarctica, under water, out in space, in deadly hot deserts, and yes, even in hot, muggy bullshit. Because we figure out how to and we do it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 15 2021, @05:32AM (6 children)
He is obviously talking about people using technological means like AC to stay ahead and you are talking about the more poverty-stricken masses that won't have such options to create artificial climates.
(Score: 1) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 15 2021, @01:40PM (5 children)
Actually, I was talking about any number of ways to stay cool. Going swimming or hanging in a basement during the heat of the day doesn't exactly take tons of money or cutting edge technology. If you can't think of that simple of a thing I don't think your genes are going to stay in the pool though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday March 15 2021, @07:54PM (4 children)
So a billion subsistence farmers in Africa and Asia are just going to be able to go for a dip to cool off while their crops die are they?
Or maybe chill out in the basement which they don't have?
You live in a fantasy world.
(Score: 1) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday March 16 2021, @02:08PM (3 children)
And you're being gradeschool foolish. Basements don't require concrete and rebar, just something to dig with and something to produce shade above. And crops don't require work in the hottest part of the day; they don't much care when you do the work aside from at planting and harvest times. Make some more excuses that're easily solved so I can show you how much of partisan zombie they make you sound like.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 16 2021, @07:19PM (2 children)
You are truly an astounding level of stupid, and in fact I believe you may be one of the first members of the Cult of Science! "We can do anything! Because SCIENCE!!"
Humorously enough you are also the narrow minded libertarian type that would refuse the economic and labor support to help these areas adapt to changing climate. Wait, that isn't actually funny, but your hypocrisy merits a sardonic grin.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday March 16 2021, @07:58PM
It is fairly stupid, but mostly because of the provincial ignorance that thinks that because we live like this everybody else can too.
(Score: 1) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday March 19 2021, @12:13AM
Hysterical fool. We can't do anything but we are damned well able to figure out or remember really simple shit that people have already had figured out for thousands of years.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @12:58AM
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @01:15AM (5 children)
》 Around 40% of the world’s population currently lives in tropical countries
Mostly Muslims, Blacks, and Black Muslims. So raise global temperatures 1.5 degrees and the Hei Lao Wai die off. Then turn down the CO2 emissions and move your population to tropical paradise, without having another Uighur problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @01:37AM (4 children)
Except China is absolutely screwed fast and hard by rising oceans. I don't know why nobody says this out loud. Sure it's like being the first guy on on the bus hit by an oncoming train... but there it is. When the train arrives through the front of the bus, it will squash the Chinese passengers first before midly slowing down and hitting the rest of us. Ha ha China losers.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by shortscreen on Sunday March 14 2021, @03:59AM
China supposedly builds ghost cities just for the fun of it. I can't see the CCP losing much sleep over having to relocate some people away from coastal areas or build sea walls.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @10:07AM (2 children)
Nobody says this because it's not true. Here [vividmaps.com] is what the world would look like if all the ice in existence melted. It'd cause discomfort because we'd have to move inland a bit, but it's hardly some major issue. And keep in mind this is a transition that happens over a period of many decades to centuries, so you hold off water levels in the short term and gradually build inward. Even if all ice melts it'd be mostly inconsequential in and of itself.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @03:28PM (1 child)
Prior to getting to ALL the ice melting there's a period of time where some of the ice melts. China sinks first. Ha ha losers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 16 2021, @07:23PM
Is ^ a serious comment? Cuz it is really dumb.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @02:22AM (21 children)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_climatic_optimum [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eemian [wikipedia.org]
It is a shame Nature is publishing lies of this level of stupidity, now.
(Score: 5, Informative) by hendrikboom on Sunday March 14 2021, @02:39AM (9 children)
If you look at the graph (and its inset, and it's mark for 2016) you'll see that it's now significantly warmer than anytime in the holocene climatic optimum you mention.
-- hendrik
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @02:53AM (8 children)
Even if you can cross your eyes in such a way as to unsee the peaks of all the plethora of colored curves on said graph...
...you still have THIS one to explain away:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/All_palaeotemps.svg [wikimedia.org]
That pesky Eemian interglacial. The link you managed to not notice: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eemian [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @03:48AM (1 child)
Maybe in a few million years another species will have a shot.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @09:02AM
I only hope our greasy, overweight bodies will provide them the same bounty of oil that fueled our civilization.
(Score: 3, Touché) by FatPhil on Sunday March 14 2021, @12:09PM (2 children)
Ever heard of "evaporation"?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @03:34PM (1 child)
> Ever heard of "evaporation"?
Touche, environmental whackos.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday March 16 2021, @08:14AM
You really shot yourself in the foot there.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday March 15 2021, @01:31AM
Looks like we're not quite at the Eemian peak yet, but the projection for 2100 certainly is above it. That rise is something we should prevent.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Monday March 15 2021, @01:54PM (1 child)
Did humans live in the tropics during the Eemian?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 15 2021, @08:43PM
Yes. Definitely. There has been continuous human habitation, by all available evidence, in southern Africa at least as well as parts of Asia, since pre-sapiens humans were all there was.
And unless you go to the southern tip of Africa (basically, parts of South Africa; not even the whole country) you're in the tropics.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @03:32AM (8 children)
I have been in many places where 44C or even 48C was normal. Not last week, try the 1980's. This was in parts of Africa (the 48C) in the tropics and in parts of N.America. Humans cope just fine. Its the pansies that whine. I don't mind the heat at all. But it is worrying that cold places like Alaska and Siberia are defrosting to mud, mosquitos and unknown old diseases.
(Score: 2) by NateMich on Sunday March 14 2021, @03:55AM (5 children)
Alaska is a land of mosquitoes already. Has been for a very long time.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Sunday March 14 2021, @12:12PM (4 children)
It's the seasons that are changing.
Additional datapoint - I've been in Lappland on the very day *every single mosquito* woke up. (Late May, IIRC, back in the early 90s, no idea what it would be now.)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by NateMich on Sunday March 14 2021, @04:59PM (3 children)
I was up in Alaska for a couple weeks in June of 2013. I thought growing up in Michigan I knew what mosquitoes were. I was wrong.
(Score: 1) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 15 2021, @01:19AM
Heard Alaska is bad. Wouldn't know personally but I can say from experience and without equivocation that you do not want to ride a motorcycle through Louisiana in the summer around dusk wearing a t-shirt, shorts, and sunglasses. Regular mosquitoes are annoying but tens of thousands of 70mph mosquitoes at once are even less pleasant.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday March 15 2021, @07:54AM
One weird thing is that bried hiking trip completely desensitised me to all flying insects. I literally had a wasp land on my nose about a month later, and I didn't bat an eyelid the whole time, despite others in the room getting in a right flap.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 15 2021, @08:14PM
Weirdest experience I had in Thailand was when I was out canoeing near dusk. It was great, warm weather, minimal bugs, catching some fish, picking some morning glory, going to have a nice meal back home. Then the sun set. And as if it was some huge alarm clock went off, just an unimaginably thick swarm of mosquitoes appeared seemingly out of nowhere. I have never seen anything even remotely close to it. You know how sometimes you see a flock of birds so thick they can kind of blot out at least part of the sky? It was the exact same thing, with mosquitoes. It had to have been in the millions.
I was wearing minimal clothes, as was my wife. It was bad enough that we forced to jump out of the boat, back into the water, and use the canoe for cover. Weird thing too is that it was only in this one area. Everywhere else I ever traveled in the country, not a problem in the least. I mean they have mosquitoes but nothing like *that* monstrosity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @09:04AM
> Humans cope just fine.
I hear plenty of land is available in central Libya for humans.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday March 15 2021, @03:20AM
Indeed. I took this after working outdoors all day.
http://doomgold.com/misc/thermometer.jpg [doomgold.com]
Just another normal day in the desert, suitable for scaring those who've never been out of range of an air conditioner.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @11:33AM
Easy. By hunting and gathering small game. How much small game is there to hunt and gather in major cities? How long can the people of New York survive on a diet of rats?
It's our technology (refrigeration, automation) that allows us to feed so many people in hyper-dense clusters of society known as cities. It's our global society that enables mass production of those technologies. It's our current stable climate that enables that global society.
So, please, get your head out of your ass. Or is it there because you already have nothing else to eat?
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday March 14 2021, @12:06PM
"While temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere were warmer than average during the summers, the Tropics and parts of the Southern Hemisphere were colder than average."
Your point was?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @02:33AM (6 children)
so we are maximizing every green energy source at our disposal?
.. and that would be no
several nuclear reactors in GOOD condition are still scheduled for EARLY shutdown because slightly UNPROFITABLE
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=46436 [eia.gov]
(Score: 2) by oumuamua on Sunday March 14 2021, @02:51AM
yes amazing that never gets covered anywhere and is not a one-off occurrence but on-going pattern: https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/1/27/16935382/climate-change-ugly-tradeoffs [vox.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @03:03AM (4 children)
Nuclear costs more, and natural gas will soon cost more, than renewables. Plus, EV market share is increasing, driving down demand for fossil fuels, including propane-powered trucks. People like the convenience of going home and charging overnight instead of lining up to gas up with either gasoline , diesel, or propane.
Look at the failure of one of Texas’s 2 nuclear plants because of the cold, and natural gas production dropped like a stone as the water in the gas froze valve and pupes. And let’s not forget coal plants unable to burn coal because the piles were frozen solid.
And those nuclear plants also have to shut down when the cooling water is too warm. And that’s going to happen more often.
(Score: 2) by oumuamua on Sunday March 14 2021, @03:14AM (3 children)
so in other words, climate change is not that critical to justify keeping nuclear going. As for the coldsnap:
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210222005811/en/Illinois-Six-Nuclear-Energy-Facilities-Operated-at-Near-Full-Power-During-Winter-Cold-Snap
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @03:35AM (2 children)
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 14 2021, @03:59AM (1 child)
That's not especially difficult to get around, even in the hottest bits of Texas. You can flood a big chunk of land and use phase change cooling from evaporation and the natural constant coolness of deeper ground that has no contact with surface conditions. You can also just pipe that shit in a closed loop through the ground well below where the temperature is affected by the surface temperature and let part of the planet that's all but thermally isolated from the surface act as a bigass heatsink. The latter is already being done all the time with heat pumps and saves quite a lot of money and energy over the long term.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Sunday March 14 2021, @08:30AM
That's not especially difficult to get around, even in the hottest bits of Texas.
Just send in Chuck Norris.
However, that still leaves a problem for those of us outside Texas.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @10:15AM (5 children)
Pretty much everywhere near the equator regularly sees longterm temperatures at 38, many well into the 40s. And this has been true for centuries. And people are just fine.
What's next, humans will immediately keel over dead at 500ppm CO2? Check your indoor CO2 levels sometime, if you don't get the "joke".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @03:37PM (4 children)
Ribbet. That's the sound of a slowly boiling frog.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @04:11PM
Buy carbon credits. That's the sound of a quickly enriching Al Gore.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @04:45PM (2 children)
That makes no sense. These places get *way* above the temperatures mentioned in this article implied to be deadly and life gets on 100% fine, even during the hot part of the day/year. For instance here [timeanddate.com] is the 14 day weather forecast for Bamako, the capital of Mali. Every single day next week (and for the coming weeks) will be hitting into the 40s. And it's not going to get cooler anytime soon there. And life will go on. And this has been the case for decades and even centuries.
This paper is effectively claiming that the normal temperatures billions of people endure on a yearly basis are somehow now suddenly dead. Granted heat stroke does exist, as does hypothermia, but these are generally from more vulnerable populations or people engaged in really stupid behavior. A healthy person can happily go on a hike or a run in 40+ degree temps and be just fine, though you obv want to bring some water with you.
And one interesting aside that I chose not to be a dick about: that old metaphor is very useful, but actually fake. Frogs will jump out of water gradually heated to a boil long before there's any risk to their health.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday March 14 2021, @11:53PM (1 child)
No-one is claiming that. [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 15 2021, @07:03AM
The temperatures are down a substantial amount from when I posted since a storm is now coming in. Such is the nature of dynamic pages. Here [archive.org] is some rando archive from Bamako during the summer. Including extreme days like:
And from your link, "The theoretical limit to human survival for more than a few hours in the shade, even with unlimited water, is 35 °C (95 °F)." Again, this makes no sense whatsoever. That, or we're talking about baseline temperatures that even Mali isn't getting to which are going to be base temperatures in that what, the 50s? Which not even the most off their rocker alarmists are proposing.
(Score: 2) by Thesis on Sunday March 14 2021, @11:11AM (20 children)
https://www.noaa.gov/news/us-had-its-coldest-february-in-more-than-30-years [noaa.gov]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by FatPhil on Sunday March 14 2021, @12:27PM (13 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @05:23PM (12 children)
Since UK, Europe, and Russia had its coldest February in decades too. Does your imaginary Earth have no North hemisphere, or what?
(Score: 4, Touché) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday March 14 2021, @11:54PM (10 children)
What does the weather last month have to do with the climate?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 15 2021, @01:21AM (9 children)
Nothing. Except when climate evangelists find out that we had a particularly hot summer. Then it's undeniable proof.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday March 15 2021, @01:44AM (8 children)
Even when they're right! [nasa.gov]
(Score: 1) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 15 2021, @04:09AM (6 children)
If they're right about one summer proving something then the folks who say one winter proves something are right too. Either one season's weather matters or it doesn't; pick one, you don't get both.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 15 2021, @07:26AM (5 children)
Can't argue with a troll, wonder why anyone bothers with you anymore.
(Score: 1) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 15 2021, @01:42PM
Mostly? Because they keep losing the arguments.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Monday March 15 2021, @02:36PM (3 children)
TMB is right and obviously folks on both sides should not quote data from one month, one season or one year. A long term statistical trend for climate change has been established very clearly in the literature - why is it even a discussion?
(Score: 2) by pvanhoof on Monday March 15 2021, @03:55PM (2 children)
> why is it even a discussion?
I don't see a discussion. What discussion? Oh you mean TMB trolling to people about things they didn't say?
ps. We adults shouldn't interfere with bullies and Internet trolls bullying other kids until they hit each other in the eye or bite each other. Not call it discussions.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Monday March 15 2021, @04:20PM
Fair point.
(Score: 1) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday March 16 2021, @02:12PM
So PTZ wasn't doing so a few comments up and you don't see it all over the climate evangelist media every summer? Liar. Pointing out hypocrisy that you don't want to look at is not trolling.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 15 2021, @08:01PM
If you actually care, that study they are referencing does not say what you might think it says. One of the most important factors in climate models are obviously exactly how CO2 levels correlate to heat, and how CO2 levels change in response to human emissions. If you change these values you obviously get dramatically different outcomes in your model. That paper *did* change these scalars, and then claimed the papers were correct.
Here [www.ipcc.ch] is the IPCC climate assessment from 1990-1992. This [www.ipcc.ch] is their policymaker summary. Turn to page 69, to see some graphs. According to the IPCC in 1990, if we maintained 100% of 1990 CO2 emissions, we were set for about the levels of atmospheric CO2 we have today. The thing is though, we didn't stick with 100% of 1990 levels, instead we dramatically increased our outputs. And you'll find similar nonsense everywhere.
Previous climate predictions have in general just been very wrong. Papers like this that completely change these variables, and which the media then runs along with 'we predicted everything just perfectly', are part of the reason I've become much more disinterested in climate stuff in general. There is clearly a major agenda in play, which may be something as innocuous as publish or perish driving poor quality clickbait style "science", as in other fields. But it's enough to make me go from a rather vocal advocate for climate awareness to somebody who is rather on the other side of the field now a days.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday March 15 2021, @08:00AM
Another year of no longjohns for me (been 5 on the trot now). This year was especially warm though, as I didn't wear my goose-down over-the-head puffer once, and my zip-up puffer I only wore once on the coldest day, and it was way too warm, I unzipped it within minutes of leaving the house.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @05:56PM (5 children)
Wild temperature fluctuations are a sign of climate change https://earther.gizmodo.com/unseasonable-european-warmth-smashes-all-time-february-1846357348 [gizmodo.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @06:23PM (3 children)
Can you reference some papers written let's say a decade or so ago referencing the expectation for record cold temps?
The reason I specify older temps is because global warming is based 100% entirely on models. And these models generally suck - the studies suggesting the contrary tend to juke a scalar value within the models (atmospheric CO2 : heating ratio change in particular) to fit what's observed, and then claim the models were right all along which makes no sense. I can tell you exactly what the stock market will be on any given day, down to the fraction of a penny, so long as you let me have a scalar I can retroactively change.
But beyond the models sucking there's an even more insidious problem. When observations falsify the models, the data instead just dumped into the model, and we then claim the new models "predicted" it - it's, again, completely nonsensical. Of course these increasingly frequent chills weren't happen a decade ago, so the models would not have yet been retrofitted to "predict" them. So back to the original question, can you reference any "reputable" climate papers from a decade+ back that predicted these substantial chills throughout the world?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @06:29PM
And the above, assuming these record chills were not predicted by climate change - you should consider something. Climate change has long since become non-falsifiable. There is a seemingly never-ending pattern of:
1) The world will end within 10 years because of [reason].
2) 10 years passes. Hyperbolic predictions do not come even remotely true.
3) Okay, the world didn't - but it's (e.g.) slightly warmer than it was then! That's proof the world will end in 10 years because of [reason].
4) Goto 2.
This has been happening for at least 40 years now. How can you ever falsify the hyperbolic predictions if their consisted and repeated failure does not falsify them?
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday March 14 2021, @11:59PM (1 child)
The models are pretty good. [sciencemag.org]
You could read through this, which will explain some of for you. [skepticalscience.com]
But you won't.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 15 2021, @07:44PM
In other words, when we take into account actual sinking of greenhouse gases (what they term "pollution levels changed in ways Hansen didn’t predict"), the models are relatively accurate. So when are these model-makers going to put in accurate "pollution levels" into their models? Keep in mind these models made claims that a given level of emissions would result in a given level of warming. Now, they're walking back those claims by redoing the calculation with existing CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) concentrations rather than existing CO2 emissions.
This game gets played over and over again with claimed warming overshooting actual warming consistently. The physics is solid, but there's a lot of inputs (like pollution levels) that can be and are gamed.
Why this matters is that substantial greenhouse gas sinks mean substantial negative feedbacks are likely being ignored in climate models and that results in excessively high climate sensitivity estimates.
Moving on, let's consider the second link you posted:
Notice the bolded sentence. There is plenty of reason to think a model that gets the past perfectly right can spectacularly self-destruct on the future because it's not hard to make such things happen (classic example is approximating near constant data say like a short span of human population with a polynomial - it'll fail once you get outside the range of approximation). Extrapolation is notoriously hard. This glib dismissal of that difficulty should raise red flags. Second, notice that they talk about the past 30 years and the future 30 years. That's barely the scale of climate which is typically defined on time scales of 30 years.
The elephant in this room is the amazing disconnect [soylentnews.org] between human emissions of CO2 which have gone up substantially versus the concentration of CO2 in Earth's atmosphere. TL;DR: the apologists are glossing over greenhouse gases sinks. It doesn't matter how shiny and solid your radiative models are, when the problem is that you're greatly overestimating greenhouse gases concentrations.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday March 15 2021, @03:24AM
Really??
https://montanakids.com/facts_and_figures/climate/Temperature_Extremes.htm [montanakids.com]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.