global warming

[Misha Marchuk]

Actually any real global warming - runaway greenhouse effect - on Venus happened aeons ago; Venus isn't warming now. It's surface temperatures are remarkably stable - the same temperature at night as day, the same whether at the poles or the equator iirc. Global warming on Earth is real right now.


Arctic warming is approaching those kinds of levels of average warming in places but policy makers cannot base responses on anecdotal accounts. We need better than that - and climate scientist do require and do use better. The frequency and intensity of extremes are significant data, along with the temperature averages and other indicators; climate science does look to all kinds of data.

Still, our personal observations and experiences do matter - they impact our sense of how important the issue is.

Having recently been through the most intense period of drought on record here (Eastern Australia - we got less than 30mm of rain across a whole year), that included exceptional bushfires, that got out of control in Winter, global warming stopped being something hypothetical, for some far future. Unprecedented in timing, unprecedented in intensity as fires continued through Spring into Summer. According to firefighters, unprecedented in fire behavior - there were more and more intense fire tornadoes, and more fires creating pyro-cumulus clouds and storms with dry lightning, that started even more fires.

If you live in a cold climate a few degrees of warming may not seem like much - may seem beneficial even (although I doubt it actually will be) - but where I live Summer heatwaves already get unbearable and fire risks are reaching unprecedented levels with 1.4C of local average warming (from 1C of global average warming); adding another 4 or 5C degrees cannot be viewed as anything but catastrophic. I suspect that could be enough for heatwaves to kill crops, livestock and wildlife outright.

Even the warming of Winter temperatures has problem impacts here, from perennial noxious weeds that were kept in check by frosts, now growing all year (once we got some rain again), requiring more work and expenditure to deal with them, to making Winter burning of grass and bushland for bushfire fuel reduction difficult (to reduce hot weather fire risks) with additional labour and equipment and expenditure requirements to do it safely. I cannot treat it as some kind of hypothetical possibility any more.

Yes, you are absolutely right, I live in a temperate climatic zone, earlier in the summer it was still bearable, but now it is already unbearably hot in the summer. Summer has just begun, and already the temperature in the sun reaches 33 degrees Celsius and it is simply unbearable, and the crop yields have become much lower. Global warming must be fought, not ignored.

 

[Helio]

Having recently been through the most intense period of drought on record here (Eastern Australia - we got less than 30mm of rain across a whole year), that included exceptional bushfires, that got out of control in Winter, global warming stopped being something hypothetical, for some far future. Unprecedented in timing, unprecedented in intensity as fires continued through Spring into Summer. According to firefighters, unprecedented in fire behavior - there were more and more intense fire tornadoes, and more fires creating pyro-cumulus clouds and storms with dry lightning, that started even more fires.

That's ugly. Sorry to hear of this. Just west of me is essentially desert with normal rainfalls not a lot more than 30 mm, which means very little crop growth.

Oddly, in the US we have had a reduction in the number of F5 tornados (not fire tornados, of course). [Here] But, as the article notes, climate change may be moving their formation a bit eastward and limiting their formation due to the change in geography.

Also, this report helps illuminate how important data accuracy must be strongly considered. It's possible, though unlikely, that we have actually had more F5 tornados since it is their actual destructive actions that are measured to establish that rating. Hence, if more of these happened in corn fields in recent years than average, then we have poor accuracy in our data. [Perhaps Doppler radar will improve enough to use it for establishing tornado strengths.]

 

[Ken Fabian]

I should have mentioned the local average annual rainfall is over 1000mm. That 30mm was the worst year of a drought that lasted several years with more years of below average preceding. There is also an apparent shift from more frequent, less extreme rainfall events to less frequent but more extreme, that is not reflected in yearly average data. This is something climate modeling shows - but not as a high confidence prediction.

Rainfall here in Australia is highly variable, historically (ie naturally) including periods of severe drought but that was the worst. The previous worst was in the 2001-2009 period - which I don't think is mere coincidence. But I am not one of those that thinks that because we have always had droughts we will cope okay with worse ones; we don't cope very well with the ones we have already. They are hugely costly and leave enduring impacts - economic and environmental, from immediately lost agricultural production to longer term topsoil loss through wind erosion and to extinctions of native plants and animals.

Extreme weather events are amongst the most difficult to understand and predict - in climate science terms it more about predicting changes to frequency and average (and perhaps potential maximum) intensity, not predicting specific events at specific times. Near term prediction is for (closely related) weather science.

We are getting better at observation - radars, satellites, automated weather stations, buoys and more - from which better understanding flows.

 

[Finn441]

As the United States steps away from global climate leadership, China is stepping up. EDF has been working there for more than 25 years, and now we're helping the Chinese government launch a national system to control climate pollution.


mcdvoice

 

[Catastrophe]

There are some signs that mankind is waking up, but it may already be too late.

Cat

 

[IG2007]

There are some signs that mankind is waking up, but it may already be too late.

Cat

I love how Bob Dylan's song about change is true forever:

"Come gather 'round, people, wherever you roam,
And accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin' ,
So better start swimming or you'll sink like a stone -
For the times - they are a-changin'"

 

[Killage]

China,

and India

 

[Killage]

Global warming is what all people are to blame, not just one country. We are all to blame, deodorants, exhaust fumes from cars, factories, thermal power plants and so on. This all affects the temperature on our planet. Earlier, I somehow did not really betray this value and, one might even say, I did not even believe in global warming. But now I am thinking about it. In my childhood, the air temperature in my latitudes in the summer was an average of 20 to 25 degrees Celsius. Now I have grown up, and I see that now it is much hotter, and the temperature is from 30 to 35 degrees Celsius. So, whatever one may say, we are unlikely to defeat this phenomenon, but we can at least slow down it.

are you living in a mud hut? Still driving your own car? Still flying? Charging and using your tech?? If not, then you are a hypocrite. Did you reproduce? If so are the kids doing any of the about? Do you Drive a hybrid or all electric? Do you feel guilty for all the mining done for Lithium or the charging station that belches out diesel smoke as it charges?

 

[Wolfshadw]

And this thread has run it's course.
Thank you to all who have contributed.

Closing
Wolfshadw
Moderator