‘We should have better answers by now’: climate scientists baffled by unexpected pace of heating
‘We should have better answers by now’: climate scientists baffled by unexpected pace of heating
The leap in temperatures over the past 13 months has exceeded the global heating forecasts – is this just a blip or a systemic shift?
Temperatures above 50C used to be a rarity confined to two or three global hotspots, but the World Meteorological Organization noted that at least 10 countries have reported this level of searing heat in the past year: the US, Mexico, Morocco, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, Pakistan, India and China.
In Iran, the heat index – a measure that also includes humidity – has come perilously close to 60C, far above the level considered safe for humans.
Heatwaves are now commonplace elsewhere, killing the most vulnerable, worsening inequality and threatening the wellbeing of future generations. Unicef calculates a quarter of the world’s children are already exposed to frequent heatwaves, and this will rise to almost 100% by mid-century.
You're viewing a single thread.
There are also some comments about aircon not being a good answer if solely relied on, including:
One of the key effects of heatwaves, which send demand for electricity soaring and cause extreme storms that stress electrical grids, is to cause blackouts. Blackouts mean no more air-con. A recent study suggested a blackout lasting just two days could hospitalise more than half of Phoenix residents and kill 12,000, mostly in their own homes. This is why the author Jeff Goodell warns of a “heat Katrina”: you thought the hurricane in New Orleans was bad?
Further, what happens when everyone knows the power isn't coming back and instead the roads out of Phoenix all get backed up and people die in the heat of their cars trying to escape the heat of Phoenix. Because heat can kill a lot of vehicles, and a lot of people have ill-maintained vehicles, meaning roads being completely blocked from escape can happen fast.
I really think Phoenix will become the first mass casualty event from climate change in the USA.
EDIT: Obligatory Peggy Hill. Peggy gets it.
That's one of those nightmare thoughts - when the power goes out, what do people usually do for a while? Wait for it to come back on. Someone is coming to fix it, right? Much of modern society is built upon such assumptions, and it mostly works. So I think you're right for some, but many would perish at home, trying to outlast the day (and what if the night doesn't cool?)
And then their food goes bad. Three days of starvation is all it takes to eat cake.
Water also disappears. At some point water is being pumped by a power source. I suppose that's more when people get driven out, by hunger and thirst than by just curiosity or a plan. So much easier to leave before things go bad, but like Katrina showed, mobility is a class thing, some people can't leave like that.
Yup absolutely. Hopefully the people can do something about it actually do something. Not you and me, I mean the corporations that got us into this mess in the first place.
Lots of cars > lots of traffic > stopped cars > radiators don't cool > cars break down > roads blocked
Most people buy the cheapest car batteries they can get. As a Floridian I can tell you, the heat destroys these things faster than most people realize. Everyone is already strapped for cash so they're going to be driving around with batteries that barely start their car for months before it finally leaves them stranded.
Car radiators have fans. They can idle indefinitely. You're more likely to eventually run out of gas.
Edit: oh you mean because of the heat. I don't think that's going to be an issue, ambient temp is still going to be far below the roughly 200°F of an engine.
Do you not live in the USA? Do you not realize how many people are driving around old beaters that can absolutely get overheated in such an environment?
In my hometown more than half the driveways are filled with multiple beater-ass cars, most of which don't work and are just sort of rotting. They just keep adding new ones by buying more shitty vehicles that die quickly and doing the same cycle over again.
I do live in the USA. I'm pretty sure that no parts of the US are predicted to remotely approach 200°F air temperature.
I actually drive a beater myself. But if the coolant pump or radiator fan aren't working, you're not going to be driving it very far, regardless of air temperature.
if anyone else was wondering, 200 °F are 93.33333 °C
This assumes a car with a working cooling system. How many people have old cars with bad head gaskets or a radiator leak and "just fill it with water" and not fix the problem, only to find that pure water isn't enough, as modern cars will walk up and down from 185-235F, which will blow steam before the fans kick on. They never noticed because they only drove a few miles a day, not long or hard enough to find out there is a real problem and not a nuisance.
EDIT: Obligatory Peggy Hill. Peggy gets it.
And considering how rarely she "got" things, that's saying a lot!
That’s when it becomes Rita as opposed to “heat Katrina”.
For folks who don’t remember/know about Rita because they didn’t live through it, less than a month after Katrina a record-breaking cat 5 hurricane was heading for Texas. Everyone still had Katrina on their minds and panicked. Millions of people (literally estimated as 2.5–3.7 million) evacuated, or tried.
The highways out of Houston came to a total standstill. About 100 people died before the storm even hit land because of the evacuation. And then the hurricane itself was nbd; the evacuation was literally the worst part.
Realistically it'll be when people can no longer insure their homes when we see the first mass migrations. Florida is already at the point where only state insurance will cover hurricane prone areas, and it sounds like that currently costs $7k/year. Anyone have any bets for if it'll be the southwest suffering more frequent more severe fires that gets it first or Florida and neighboring states from more severe hurricanes?
Frankly, I am amazed it has not already happened in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, or Austin. The power grid here in Texas is a disaster and the weather conditions are unforgiving. At least in the desert you can do evaporative cooling. That doesn't work where its hot and humid.
It has. Some weak ass cat-1 hurricane killed like a dozen people in TX earlier this year. The winds didn't harm anyone directly but it knocked out power for a few days in places. That's all it takes when temps are well above 100F.
Yeah, I was in that storm. We were without power for 3 days. Fortunately it was not over 100f that during that stretch but It would have been so much worse if it had been. I personally know people who were without power for almost 2 weeks after it came through. Centerpoint was negligent in maintinging their equipment, right of ways, and getting their crews where they should have been.
Air conditioners will soon be considered life support. In some places it will be a death sentence to have a power outrage. This isn't speculation. It's already happening.
I keep an old evaporative unit in the shed just in case. It only needs 70 watts and can thus run for quite a long time off a car battery or similar. Add a basic camping solar panel and you're more or less set for the day as long as you have water and don't live in a really high humidity place.
A significant amount of greenhouse gasses are emitted because of air conditioning. It's a feedback loop.
I said that air con made global warming worse on Reddit a few years ago, got massively downvoting.
THE TRUTH HURTS!
I get downvoted for asking for cars with manual roll up windows because spending electricity on rolling up a car window is negligent when its easy as fuck to do by hand.
But if you add up all the electricity used since automatic windows were invented, power used to roll up and down windows, in aggregate its no small amount. It adds up.
But nooooo manual roll up windows is a step too far.
I gues convenience is more important than waste, to most people.
Wait really? Do you mean by the electricity generation or by a refrigerant process?
I know those processes are inefficient and create overall heat in the system as they can’t create cool but only push heat, there should be no green house emission, just heat generation.
Are you saying extra heat will stay in the atmosphere? That’s not good but it’s not the same as carbon which allows heat to build up.
The power used by AC is responsible for ~3% of global emissions. I can't find data about the impact of refrigerants ATM, but I assume it's significant because of their extremely high "global-warming-potential." I'm guessing a significant amount of emissions come from the manufacture of refrigerants, and a significant amount of refrigerants leak out of systems when they fail (or are improperly disposed of).