Posts Tagged ‘heat’
“Men argue. Nature acts.”*…
Further to yesterday’s post, an elegant (albeit frightening) tool from our friends at The Pudding…
Climate scientists say that we’re headed for more than a two degree rise in earth’s temperatures. But for most of us, that’s not really helpful in providing a tangible vision of our future.
Perhaps that’s because we’re more familiar with weather: the daily, short-term forecasts that make you pack an extra sweater or wear your rain boots. Climate, on the other hand, describes average weather systems over long periods of time.
150 years ago, German scientist Wladimir Köppen attempted to bridge the gap between climate and weather by using vegetation growth, average temperature, and precipitation levels to classify the world into five distinct climate zones: Arid Tropical, Temperate, Cold, and Polar…
To distinguish the differences within these categories, the five climate zones are divided into subcategories.
For example, here you can see these European temperate climates broken up into four subcategories: Temperate – Dry summer, hot summer, Temperate – Dry summer, warm summer, Temperate – No dry season, warm summer, Temperate – No dry season, hot summer.
Overall, there are 30 unique subclassifications, and together they make up the Köppen Climate Classification (KCC). The KCC helps us not only differentiate between weather systems of neighboring countries, but also brings insights into cities oceans apart that on average will have similar weather throughout the year…
A 2018 study, led by climatologist Hylke Beck, used projected data from climate models along with the current Köppen Climate Classification to give a glimpse at what our world may look and feel like in 2070.
At a zoomed out level, some of these changes are hard to notice: Temperate climates shifting north Tropical and Arid climates growing Cold climates disappearing.
But what if we were to zoom into the city level to see how these changes affect the way each city feels?
This project looks at 70 global cities, and tracks their classification from present day to 2070.
And with climate change, your city isn’t just getting hotter: it will resemble the distinctive climate of completely different places…
Here we see our 70 global cities listed in their current climate classification. [With this tool], we can transport any city into its future classification…
Bracing: “Climate Zones- how will your city feel in the future?” from @puddingviz.
See also: “Conservation Imperatives: securing the last unprotected terrestrial sites harboring irreplaceable biodiversity,” a paper from two dozen climate scientists with a plan to protect Earth’s remain biodiversity by conserving a tiny percentage of the planet’s surface: “Our analysis estimated that protecting the Conservation Imperatives in the tropics would cost approximately $34 billion per year over the next five years. This represents less than 0.2% of the United States’ GDP, less than 9% of the annual subsidies benefiting the global fossil fuel industry, and a fraction of the revenue generated from the mining and agroforestry industries each year.”
* Voltaire
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As we reconsider our customs, we might note that on this date last year, the Earth set a record for the hottest day every recorded… a record that lasted until the next day, Tuesday, July 4th. July 6, 2023 currently holds the record– but it is deemed likely to “fall” this summer…
“What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance.”*…
… and it’s likely, climate scientists Matthew Barlow and Jeffrey Basara suggest, to get more uncomfortable still…
… Although heat waves are a natural part of the climate, the severity and extent of the heat waves so far this year are not “just summer.”
A scientific assessment of the U.S. heat wave estimates that heat this severe and long-lasting was two to four times more likely to occur today because of human-caused climate change than it would have been without it. This conclusion is consistent with the rapid increase over the past several decades in the number of U.S. heat waves and their occurrence outside the peak of summer…
… Although heat waves are a natural part of the climate, the severity and extent of the heat waves so far this year are not “just summer.”
A scientific assessment of the U.S. heat wave estimates that heat this severe and long-lasting was two to four times more likely to occur today because of human-caused climate change than it would have been without it. This conclusion is consistent with the rapid increase over the past several decades in the number of U.S. heat waves and their occurrence outside the peak of summer…
At the peak of the last ice age, some 20,000 years ago, when the Northeast U.S. was under thousands of feet of ice, the globally averaged temperature was only 10.8 F (6 C) cooler than now. So, it is not surprising that 2.2 F (1.2 C) of warming so far is already rapidly changing the climate.
Countries promised in 2015 as part of the Paris Agreement to keep warming well under 2 C, but current government policies around the world won’t meet those goals. Temperatures are on pace to continue rising, with the increase likely to more than double again by the end of the century.
While this summer is likely be one of the hottest on record, it is important to realize that it may also be one of the coldest summers of the future…
Read on for more on: “How climate change is heating up the weather, and what we can do about it,” from @MathewABarlow and @OUWXDoc in @ConversationUS.
See also: “The rise of the truly cruel summer,” (gift article) from @TheEconomist.
* Jane Austen, in a letter to her sister dated 18th September, 1796
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As we chill, we might recall that it was on this date in 1922, the day before his 19th birthday, that Ralph Samuelson invented water skiing. Samuelson had already mastered aquaplaning (riding on a sheet of wood while being pulled by a powerboat) but wanted a summer equivalent of snow skiing. He had unsuccessfully tried barrel staves and snow skis before succeeding with 8 foot long pine boards, the front tip of which he bent up (by boiling them in his mother’s kettle). His first successful outing, on a wide portion of the Mississippi River near Lake City, Minnesota, involved starting on an aquaplane, then stepping off onto the skis.
Samuelson didn’t patent his invention, nor was his work sufficiently publicized at the time to prevent U.S. Patent 1,559,390 for water skis from being subsequently issued, on October 27, 1925, to prolific inventor Fred Waller, who marketed his product as “Dolphin Akwa-Skees.” (Waller also invented Cinerama, which he used to publicize his skis…) Still, Samuelson, who became a turkey farmer, was a guest of honor at a water skiing 50th anniversary in 1972, and was inducted into the Water Ski Hall of Fame in 1977. His slightly-modified second pair (the first pair broke) still exists, and are on display at the Lake City Chamber of Commerce.
“I’m having a magenta day. Not just red, but magenta!”*…
Your correspondent is still on the road; regular service resumes on or around May 6. Meantime, a colorful update…
Forget about red hot. A new color-coded heat warning system relies on magenta to alert Americans to the most dangerous conditions they may see this summer.
The National Weather Service and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday — Earth Day — presented a new online heat risk system that combines meteorological and medical risk factors with a seven-day forecast that’s simplified and color-coded for a warming world of worsening heat waves.
“For the first time we’ll be able to know how hot is too hot for health and not just for today but for coming weeks,” Dr. Ari Bernstein, director of the National Center for Environmental Health, said at a joint news conference by government health and weather agencies.
Magenta is the worst and deadliest of five heat threat categories, hitting everybody with what the agencies are calling “rare and/or long-duration extreme heat with little to no overnight relief.” It’s a step higher than red, considered a major risk, which hurts anyone without adequate cooling and hydration and has impacts reverberating through the health care system and some industries. Red is used when a day falls within the top 5% hottest in a particular location for a particular date; when other factors come into play, the alert level may bump even higher to magenta, weather service officials said.
On the other hand, pale green is little to no risk. Yellow is minor risk, mostly to the very young, old, sick and pregnant. Orange is moderate risk, mostly hurting people who are sensitive to heat, especially those without cooling, such as the homeless.
“When red-hot isn’t enough: New government heat risk tool sets magenta as most dangerous level,” from @AP.
* Stephen King, Needful Things
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As we reassess risk, we might recall that it was on this date in 1986 that Russia announced the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, two days after it happened.
“No great thing is created suddenly… If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.”*
What is true of many blessings is also, Andrew Dessler explains, true of many curses…
If you’re struggling to understand why the impacts of climate change suddenly seem so awful, it’s time we discuss a key scientific term: non-linearity.
In a linear system, changes occur in a straight line. If climate impacts were linear, each 0.1°C increase in temperature would produce the same increment of damage. In this world, things slowly get worse over decades until, later this century, the accumulations of slow impacts becomes truly terrible.
But impacts of climate change are different — they are non-linear. In a rain event [as pictured above], for example, the first few inches of rain typically produce no damage because existing infrastructure (e.g., storm drains) were designed to handle that much rain.
As rainfall continues to intensify, however, it eventually exceeds the capacity of the storm runoff infrastructure and the neighborhood floods. You go from zero damage if the water stops half an inch below the front door of your house to tens of thousands of dollars of damage if the water rises one additional inch and flows into your house.
Thus, the correct mental model is not one of impacts slowly getting worse over decades. Rather, the correct way to understand climate change is that things are fine until they’re not, at which point they’re really terrible. And the system can go from “fine” to “terrible” in the blink of an eye.
The key to this is recognizing the thresholds that exist in the systems around us. For example, when engineers of the 20th century designed the infrastructure that we live with today (bridges, dams, storm runoff systems), they designed it for the range of climate conditions that existed at the time, adding in a small margin for unforeseen weather extremities. But not too much of a margin — they wanted to keep costs down.
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The speed of us passing limits is mind bending. People who are impacted are often shocked and we frequently see people bemoaning the fact that some impact never happened before — this is the calling card of non-linear effects…
Rain, snow, wind, heat– we’re living in a non-linear world: “Why are climate impacts escalating so quickly?“, from @AndrewDessler.
* Epictetus
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As we steel ourselves, we might recall that it was on this date in 1969 that Hurricane Camille, the 2nd most intense and one of only four Category 5 hurricanes to make landfall in the continental U.S., came ashore along the Mississippi Gulf Coast near Waveland, MS.
“I’m playing both sides, so that I always come out on top”*…
A new database shows 1,500 US lobbyists working for fossil-fuel firms while representing green groups and other with similarly contradictory concerns…
More than 1,500 lobbyists in the US are working on behalf of fossil-fuel companies while at the same time representing hundreds of liberal-run cities, universities, technology companies and environmental groups that say they are tackling the climate crisis, the Guardian can reveal.
Lobbyists for oil, gas and coal interests are also employed by a vast sweep of institutions, ranging from the city governments of Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia; tech giants such as Apple and Google; more than 150 universities; some of the country’s leading environmental groups – and even ski resorts seeing their snow melted by global heating.
The breadth of fossil fuel lobbyists’ work for other clients is captured in a new database of their lobbying interests which was published online on Wednesday.
It shows the reach of state-level fossil fuel lobbyists into almost every aspect of American life, spanning local governments, large corporations, cultural institutions such as museums and film festivals, and advocacy groups, grouping together clients with starkly contradictory aims…
Read on for chilling examples: “‘Double agents’: fossil-fuel lobbyists work for US groups trying to fight climate crisis,” from @olliemilman in @GuardianUS.
* “Mac,” It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
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As we contemplate conflicts (and note that last Monday’s, then Tuesday’s “hottest day ever” records are sure to continue to be broken), we might spare a thought for Jacob Bjerknes; he died on this date in 1975. Son of Vilhelm Bjerknes, one of the pioneers of modern weather forecasting, Jacob is remembered for his seminal paper on the dynamics of the polar front, the mechanism for north-south heat transport, and for his contributions to the understanding of the weather phenomenon El Niño.
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