My sense is that there is so much pressure in the weather industry to get ad clicks/revenue that it seems that they make speculative events seem more likely and more dramatic. The amount of snow storms that are going to be heavy snow and dangerous condition have been overblown to the point that I don’t believe them until after the snow is down. I recognize the aspect of public safety element of calling storms though there is significant risk of crying wolf. I would never have considered myself someone who would fall into that category but the poor level of accuracy has forced me in that route. I’m suspect of this very dramatic prediction coming through.
For the record I track weather for a multitude of sports are dependent on specific aspects so am close to the forecasting nature.
It snowed heavily in Madrid a couple of days ago for the first time in decades, causing utter chaos. It's around 5C colder than the usual seasonal average where I am.
My sense - and the sense of many working in climate science and media monitoring - is that there's a climate change denial industry [1] which is working very hard to lie about the catastrophic effects of developing climate change, and also to shift blame away from those responsible for causing them.
But I feel we also run into the reverse problem. While it's true that neither Hurricane Irma nor Harvey nor Katrina, nor the Californian or Australian wildfires, nor the strangely warm arctic temperatures, can be singularly attributed to climate change, the pattern of all these events is clearly climate change at work.
And so we end up stuck in this stupid limbo, where because no one can be certain that climate change caused this disaster, nothing is ever done in response to any disaster. We should be viewing these events as a serious call to action.
> ...the pattern of all these events is clearly climate change at work.
This is still debated. The notion that weather has become more extreme still relies on very little data and statistical models trying to fit different types of events into the same model. ...and none of the models are able to digest all types of events across the entire world, over the entire 100 year reference time window.
But more importantly, the debate around it is a distraction.
The proven fact is that global warming has occurred and continues, AND that it will cause sea level rise within our lifetime. That fact has sufficient serious consequences for nations/states/cities to begin planning local responses, and maybe coordinate global emissions reductions (though this seems increasingly too little, too late).
Good call out. Not just a disservice and unscientific, it’s just plain wrong. An observed variance in weather over one day or even a few days isn’t even climate. It’s just weather activity.
Sorry, but increased variance is very much in line with systemic climate change. In fact, it's one of the main predictions as climate change means disruption of the normal distribution, not just pushing the median but increasing the standard deviation.
> increased variance is very much in line with systemic climate change
Not really, it's also in line with the limited amount of high-quality data we have.
E.g. viewed in isolation, recent Gulf of Mexico hurricanes were pretty bad (2019 in particular, IIRC). But if you look into history, 1932,1933 was also pretty bad.
Arguably, if we had even more recorded history, such outliers wouldn't seem that exceptional - there still is a possiblity that climate change is affecting hurricanes (making them worse) but you can't just look at the variance (outliers) - trend is also (more?) important.
Let's use math and statistics, not anecdotes. If an increase in variance means that you get a +5 outlier 10x more often, then looking at a 10x longer timescale will mean that you see the +5 outlier roughly as often, making it seem "less exceptional". The problem is that the exceptional thing is now happening 10x more often.
For example, Texas getting three "500 year" floods in 3 years. These were floods that were estimated to be a 0.2% probability in any given year. The fact that they are happening at much higher frequency is because the entire probability distribution has shifted (and expanded). Now if you improved your ability to peer into the past and found another "500 year flood" a few hundred years back, you'd be tempted to think everything is fine, when everything is decidedly not fine.
You cannot take prove a global phenomenon with local data, unless you compare global occurrences of local events.
Taking only Texas as an "example" means you're cherry picking data. I'm sure we could find other parts of the world that had multiple rare events in every decade of the last century as well.
It was just an example. If you look at all the data together, the trend is clear. Both median temperatures and variance are increasing. Same for other extreme weather events like hurricanes, wildfires, and droughts.
Is there a data source that says that temperature variances have increased? I have never seen meaningful evidence of this.
> Same for other extreme weather events like hurricanes, wildfires, and droughts.
Extreme weather events are extremely hard to define, and have such a low occurrence rate that you cannot extrapolate an increase in the timeframe we're discussing on a global level.
> Arguably, if we had even more recorded history, such outliers wouldn't seem that exceptional
This holds true if you assume a system is static, which is one of the hardest communication points the scientific community has to convey to the general public. A good part of climate science is not just mapping the statistics of a system, but analyzing those in terms of physics and chemistry to figure out what causes dynamism in the climate system.
The driving mechanic behind climate change theories is that we are changing the chemistry of the atmosphere, which is making the climate unstable. If you just look at the statistics through the lens of data science, it's easy to write off effects as "not enough data", but this is a simplistic view, stemming from not spending huge amounts of time learning and studying climate science.
> The driving mechanic behind climate change theories is that we are changing the chemistry of the atmosphere, which is making the climate unstable.
This is a strange characterization of the increase in CO2 and resultant heat retention. It's not itself "unstable".
> If you just look at the statistics through the lens of data science, it's easy to write off effects as "not enough data", but this is a simplistic view,
Selecting only a specific set of events in specific areas is, by definition, cherry picking data.
> Selecting only a specific set of events in specific areas is, by definition, cherry picking data.
You used the same phrase elsewhere in the thread. I am not sure if we agree on what "cherry picking" really means. There is a difference between isolating relevant variables and cherry picking data. For example, if you wanted to track the long term trend of lion weight in Africa, you wouldn't also include in your dataset the weights of monkeys in South America. That'd just add irrelevant noise because, even though they are measurements of animal weight, they are not what we are studying. It absolutely would not be "cherry picking" to exclude monkeys from your sample. Real cherry picking would be things like excluding particular years of measurements or finding other reasons to exclude data that goes against a trend you are looking for.
> This is a strange characterization of the increase in CO2 and resultant heat retention. It's not itself "unstable".
I'm not sure how you got this from what I wrote. I specifically said "changing the chemistry of the atmosphere", which is not a strange characterization of an "increase of CO2" in the atmosphere, it is word for word a correct description of that action. I have no idea what you mean by "It's not itself "unstable", especially in the context. If you mean that changing the chemical makeup of the atmosphere doesn't make climate patterns unstable, then you're just wrong.
> Selecting only a specific set of events in specific areas is, by definition, cherry picking data.
This also literally has nothing to do with what I said. Are you some kind of weird GPT bot or something? I'd assume you accidentally wrote back to the wrong comment, but you quoted me... If you'd go ahead and reread my post, and not skip the big words, you'll see that I was trying to convey that because we have such limited data, and it's data from a system that's ridiculously large and dynamic compared to the data, any purely statistical analysis is going to be absolute garbage. Hence, you also need to use logical reasoning about cause and effect, what types of chemical shifts in the atmosphere will cause what types of outcomes.
But really, you need to stay a little more on task if you'd like to discuss and debate. Just confusing at this point, and I'm still not sure if you're trolling or a bot or just flailing.
If you observe a few days of severe weather, you've observed severe weather. Taking a mere observation over one week of weather activity cannot be looked at in isolation and simply called "climate change, tada!"
FTA:
>When scientists talk about climate, they're often looking at averages of precipitation, temperature, humidity, sunshine, wind, and other measures of weather that occur over a long period in a particular place. In some instances, they might look at these averages over 30 years. And, we refer to these three-decade averages of weather observations as Climate Normals.
I'm trying to connect your comment to parent comment and I'm struggling to find correlations. Are you implying that there are powers at play responsible for sensationalizing weather headlines to make forecasting seem untrustworthy?
And we've had an unusually warm end of December and start of January. Only one big dumping of snow and then hovering around freezing. Not normal where I am. It's too warm here.
I see we are supposed to get snow end of Jan now. Of course weather forecasts here really suck and you can't trust the weekend forecast until its Friday afternoon.
No, we definitely don't know that it's used as a tool for control.
We know for sure that the average temperatures have risen higher in the last 40 years than they have ever before. We know this is not natural. We know that prior to the 70s the world was cooling.
Reversing climate change is an aim to make society and the world better as a whole. Not for "control".
Slight correction - temperatures are not higher than ever before. The eocene (60 million years ago) was 10-14 degrees hotter than now. That level of warming would be bad to say the least, but it has easily been this hot before.
Also relevant, a few times in the Pleistocene, 20,000 years ago, temperatures peaked a couple degrees hotter than they are now.
I believe the parent is talking about rate of change rather than absolute temperature.
Discounting collisions with large meteors, the statement that the average temperature over time has never risen so fast is true.
Correct, horse (battery staple)! Sorry about that. This interpretation is what I intended - the rate of change has certainly increased like never before.
I don’t think that is true. I read it as the maximum, not the slope. The confusion is from the use of higher instead of faster. Faster would be the rate of change while higher is absolute value.
> We know for sure that the average temperatures have risen higher in the last 40 years than they have ever before.
This could be a year over year increase in maximum, with a very small slope too
The post in question writes "have risen higher", which to me reads as if it's saying that the temperature, as a result of rising, is now higher than ever before, not that the rate of change is higher.
I would expect something along the lines of "have risen faster" if we were describing the slope of the graph of temperature over time.
Temperatures rising and falling over hundreds and thousands of years is indeed natural. The system is in constant flux, with or without us. Our acceleration of this process by releasing vast quantities of greenhouse gasses in a relatively short period of time, however, is not.
Limiting our interference in this natural process will necessitate vast methods and quantities of 'control'. Nevertheless, it should be done. And fortunately, this process will herald a new economic expansion providing jobs and creativity outlets for countless people worldwide.
> No, we definitely don't know that it's used as a tool for control.
Irrespective of the nature of climate change, humans are humans and a crisis or enemy, if you will, will always be an opportunity for people to assert control. The difficult task is understanding when that control is a reasonable response to the crisis and when the crisis is an excuse to assert control. This is not an exclusive choice, both types of efforts can be going on simultaneously.
We seem to have become numb to the large numbers that are now thrown around as part of defining public policy. When you start manipulating multiple trillions of dollars it is naive to think that isn't an opportunity for manipulation of all sorts.
"...make society and the world better as a whole." How exactly do 'we' (whoever 'we' is) achieve this without control? The verb 'make' assumes control, one does not make anything without having control over the ingredients, and in this case the ingredients are us.
Okay so you say "this is untrue". You might be right but why should I trust you? Why did you fail to produce evidence? Your comment is way too short to know for sure.
Looks like the current temperature is close to 5k BC. The 45 degree trend line towards the end is also comparing a 50 year period to 500 year periods in history. So, these 'spikes' could be totally normal, but you won't see them because the graph is not honest.
Here's what we do know: The earth has historically been much hotter with more CO2 in the atmosphere (much more) than it is today. There's also some evidence that historic rises in CO2 lagged temperature rather than the reverse.
Sure, that's fine. But Earth with humans living on it, providing a hospitable climate for us, has been cooler.
Just because something happened in Earth's past doesn't mean it's a good thing for us, nor is it a good idea for us to slingshot our way very quickly toward that balmy future.
>There's also some evidence that historic rises in CO2 lagged temperature rather than the reverse.
That's only true in some cases with strong emphasis on "some". If you want to know how much of that is true and how much is wrong just watch this video https://youtu.be/FBF6F4Bi6Sg?t=703
I don't think I can do it justice with a butchered summary on HN but I'll keep it long enough to get you hooked. There are two phases during a deglaciation and CO2 lags in the first one and leads in the second one.
We have basically skipped the first phase by emitting CO2 directly. If anything, this should worry us even more because there is evidence that increased temperatures drive CO2 emissions as well. So we haven't skipped the first phase at all, it's going to happen in the future.
Feedback loops have been predicted by many scientists. What could happen is this: "man-made CO2 -> higher temperatures -> more CO2 -> even higher temperatures".
I recommend you to watch the entire video. Not just the segment I linked.
> There are two phases during a deglaciation and CO2 lags in the first one and leads in the second one.
This is evidence that CO2 is not causative of warming. You can wrap this in whatever additional logic you like, but nobody's buying it.
In any case, if there was an increasing feedback loop, then we'd see that with the #1 greenhouse gas, water. We're not, so we're not in a feedback loop.
Please note that the last part of the graph have stippled lines that's because they are comparing year of year with averages over 300 years or so.
Anything you average over 300 years will tend to flatten. If you averaged the last 100 years over the last 300 years it would not look as dramatic too.
The data points at the top are at 16.6 year intervals.
Recent data is represented by a line.
The punch line is not the absolute temperature (as this wanders around a fair bit), but the gradient at the end.
Because the recent data is over a period of 166 years, you can turn the line into 10 dots which represent each 16.6 year 'line' average.
I think you should try this yourself. You will find that the averaging only smooths out brief transients between your new dots. In the case of the comic, it has no effect on the gradient at 2016.
Having more data doesn't change the average slope - it simply allows you to measure average slope over shorter distances.
So unless you think the joke was "haha we've been at this temperature before", I suggest it is you who is being ... what you said.
It is only politicized because you and others have allowed yourselves to be manipulated to a point of confusion. The tool has indeed worked you over well and good.
Here is what we know: Anthropogenic climate change is a fact[1]
> It is only politicized because you and others have allowed yourselves to be manipulated to a point of confusion.
I'm confident this statement describes others better than it describes myself.
Here's what we know: The earth was hotter before, the earth's temperature has been rising for 100's of thousands of years, the CO2 levels have been higher before, there's evidence that CO2 levels lagged temperature increases historically, water vapor is the strongest greenhouse gas, all recent climate prediction models have been wrong, historic data has been 'normalized' and changed, repeatedly.
Whatever you think has been debunked hasn't. I've been around longer than a day, I've seen the shifting climate alarmists goal posts.
No one's claiming that the planet hasn't seen worse. It's been worse. It's been freezing cold for hundreds of millions of years. It's been blazing hot for hundreds of millions of years. No one is claiming that this is either new or dangerous for the planet. It's neither of that.
It is however potentially fatal for our global civilization. Since the early 70ies, the climate models have been pretty spot on. Especially before climate change denialism (to protect profit margins) turned climate sciences into a hot potato, mainstream predictions have been pretty good.
Now, its not that a few degrees warmer temperature is going to kill people. At least not many. But with rising temperatures, people will start doing what they've been doing since the dawn of time when things got uncomfortable in one place; they start moving and migrating. And do you know what no country with static borders is good at dealing with? Moving populations and migrations.
That always causes chaos and turmoil.
Then there's the trouble with water; as soon as the weather patterns start changing because of anthropogenic climate change, we'll have conflicts about water. In some parts of the world this has already started. China is currently doing a lot of projects with "its" streams and is redirecting a lot of water. Much to the chagrin of it's southern neighbors.
Another source of troubles.
And then, finally, is our flailing ecosystem which has been under massive attack for the last 250 years and is -- slowly but surely -- crumbling under the weight of a sheer 8 billion people wanton for food and shelter. Not for nothing we've lost almost 60% of insects in the last 50 years and almost half of the animal populations; impending ecosystem collapse.
If you want to talk about environmental destruction and resource exhaustion, I'm in. If you want to talk about the zeitgeist of rising temperatures, I'm not.
Some countries are over populated. Those countries should stop that. Many people live in water scarce regions. Those people should move (EG, most of California).
I'm in favor of radical environmental reforms, but I don't care one bit about CO2 emissions.
Those warning about climate change are partially to blame. I was saying decades ago that touting the "hottest summer on record" as proof of global warming isn't actually proof and would come back to disrupt the conversation.
And here we are, equally "valid" proof that global warming is not real.
I'm not absolving the people intentionally distorting the facts, but the people who centered the conversation on local maxima bear some blame for the shakiness of the conversation.
>I was saying decades ago that touting the "hottest summer on record" as proof of global warming isn't actually proof and would come back to disrupt the conversation.
I'm not sure what you mean. If temperature records are broken consecutively do you really think it's just up to chance?
"The warmest years globally have all occurred since 1998, with the top ten being 2016, 2019, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2014, 2010, 2013 and 2005 (tied), and 1998, respectively."
Can you think of a reason why this should not count as evidence? I want you to disrupt the conversation.
Thunderfoot made a video about betting whether the next year will be the hottest year or not and if you bet against climate change then you would lose the bet all the time.
I forgot to mention how Trump said it's a hoax and a "money making industry". Isn't that ironic? Central banks are begging for money making industries. There is this money making industry that they could have spent the printed money on instead of letting it lie in some bank account and push up the value of every stock and cryptocurrency. It's money that could have employed low skilled workers in a fresh and growing industry and also save the planet. It's never going to happen. People are so against the idea of technological progress the only way it's going to happen is when it's forced down their throat.
Most discussions of temperature extremes I’ve seen focus on their change in frequency. That’s not a distortion at all, that’s a changing average (and corresponding increase in volatility).
When? As I pointed out, the stage was set for decades ago with statements like, "see how hot it is?!"
I said then that it would cause problems and today you have people equally saying, "see how cold it is!"
Neither is proof and now we have a muddle discussion with the media happy to run whatever stirs things up.
The proper move some time ago was to center the discussion around some proxy for global temperature (avg ocean temp perhaps) instead of the variable.
Even now, we shouldn't be speaking about unusual events in terms of climate change. There are more people in more places with more cameras and ability to report unusual weather.
Most news articles these days will follow it with language like: "__ marked the hottest July on record. In fact, __ of the top ___ Julys have occurred in the last 10 years."
Reputable news outlets are also good about including boilerplate like:
"While we can't attribute any single event to climate change, scientists predict an increasing frequency of events like ___."
Extreme event frequency is one of the most unambiguous signals of climate change that people can see and relate to. I feel like you're either consuming sub-par media or attacking a straw-man.
I have a different take on this, I suspect the problem is not necessarily self-serving ad clicks and revenue. I think there's pressure within the scientific community to come up with concrete and tangible threats linked to global warming.
Otherwise all you have is stuff like "global temperatures are going to rise by n degrees over the course of the century" with n being a relatively low number for us humans used to local weather having much greater temperature swings. Sure, if we're educated we can understand why this is a huge problem, but for people who don't want to hear this (and may benefit in the short term from not hearing it) "the weather is going to be 5 degrees hotter in a century" doesn't sound all that bad.
So in order to cut through some scientists look for more dramatic events that could come as a consequence of this. The problem of course is that the climate is wild and hard to predict over large timescales and sometimes they're wrong, and then the climate change deniers use that as evidence that they're lying.
Interesting take. I would counter and say that climate over the long run is much easier to predict then in the short run. The localized effects, high variability and shorter term impacts are way more challenging.
I would say that the impact to global weather phenomenons are might not be well understood though that seems more like local (large local like continent wide) impacts as opposed to general global weather trend.
I agree with you, but that was my point, in order to get people to react it's probably more effective to identify more "local" (for a large definition of local) threats. This particular coast is going to be flooded, this particular mountain won't have snow anymore, these particular crops won't be viable anymore, this particular mode of living won't work.
But given the chaotic nature of the climate and complex feedback loops these local predictions seem to be hard to make. You can say that some catastrophic events are going to become more common, but you can't say "the 12th of November 2038 a huge storm is going to ravage this country and cause countless deaths and billions of $ in damages, so let's invest this money now to prevent it from happening".
England and Iceland are currently kept much warmer than they otherwise would be by the Gulf Stream, which brings warm waters from the around the Caribbean.
I think its a combination of both your thoughts and the OP. Using words like “collapsing” is sensationalist garbage for something that happens most years and instills fear regarding climate change. But now we have names (as in proper nouns) for every small drop of precipitation, thats purely for selling eyeballs. Also missed calls for lots of snow have been a thing forever. The exact line between inches of snow and a little rain or nothing is tough to pin down. I remember 25 years ago being off school because of a big snow that never came. Thats not a new phenomenon.
Is there not a government run forecasting service where you are? In the UK the Met office is the only source of whether information I will trust. The rest is click bait.
weather.gov is nice - It shows the highs, lows, and precipitation for the next few days. The hourly temperature graphs also exist.
And no ads, because our taxes pay for it. I'm not sure why anyone uses any other website at all. Maybe it's because of the conspiracy to privatize forecasting and extract rent from it.
weather.gov is best for the "forecast discussion" page, which often gives backstory on which parts of the forecast are certain and which are speculative.
windy.com gives multiple forecasts from different agencies, which also helps calibrate confidence. They also have some great visuals, and a very good interface.
Yes, in the US there's weather.gov. The govt has a vested interest in settling people down (...usually) and the opposite for the media/weather so I like to bounce between both for larger storms.
Does it also sound bizarre that there are people that believe QAnon, fraudulent elections, lizard people in gov't leadership positions, flat earth, etc. These are actual things people believe in, so of course there will be people that believe the forecast is fake as well.
Which sounds ridiculous as well. Many outside of the US think the place is changing for the worse, no question. There's a big problem when large contingents of people believe this stuff, no?
Of course it's a problem. However, thinking that people won't believe in it is also a problem. It's kind of like rule 37 of the internet, if you can think it, it exists on the internet. with nutters, whatever the looniest thing you can come up with that you feel nobody would actually take you serious, there will be people that will grab on to it like it is truth incarnate.
100% this. Weather has gone the way of news: sensationalized for clicks. The volume of 'severe weather' risks that turn out as nothing-burgers in the past 5 years is staggering (Southern Ontario, both winter and summer).
I don’t know where you live but in Finland the weather forecasts have been a part of tabloid sexy news for a while. People are eager to hear if we will have an early summer or a late winter and so on. There might be a case for doom porn but for me it’s as common as celebrity news.
here you can always get back to the aviation meteorological service for some actual forecast, but the general meteo news sound like bad fanzine, caps locks included: https://www.ilmeteo.it/
The Daily Express newspaper in the UK is quite famous for regularly having extreme weather on its front pages, and has been for as long as I can remember.
I've just noticed they use Celsius to make it seem cold and still use Fahrenheit to make is seem hot. (Temperature in Fahrenheit has not been printed by the national weather forecaster since 1970).
OP not a comment on long-term climate change, but a statement on how grossly inaccurate short-term forecasts are common (10-20cm of snow is most often 2-5cm, etc).
The thing that struck me with the headline was the use of "arctic hounds" as an unnecessary metaphor (to help sensationalize). Now, with your comment, it maybe just seems all too fitting. Metametaphor.
> weather industry to get ad clicks/revenue that it seems that they make speculative events seem more likely and more dramatic.
Which is sad, because there shouldn't even be a "weather industry". NOAA / National Weather Service gives away a free weather report to every American for nearly every place in the entire US. There shouldn't be a reliable way to "overhype" weather.
> I’m suspect of this very dramatic prediction coming through.
What very dramatic prediction ?
The 'collapsed' arctic vortex, like in 2004 and 2013, might or might not result in the "Beast from the East" in Europe, and its USA equivalent – too soon to tell.
As for snow, Spain already had quite exceptional snow.
The warm period in December has a word in Norwegian: kakelinna, traditionally thought to be caused by excessive baking before Christmas. https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakelinna
I'm not sure how common this warm mid-winter period is in general but I've certainly noticed it in the 15 years I've lived in the UK and it must have been common in Greece in the past also. In recent years, also, but Greek winters in modern times tend to be very mild anyway. Nothing like in Norawy, I'm sure :)
We have our share of bizarre weather this winter - while it's customary for snow to melt right before Christmas - I can't recall there being this little snow not only in December - but through Christmas and well into January.
I just went for a walk and watched people skating on the nearest pond - which is usually frozen this time of year, but also covered in a meter or more of snow.
Meanwhile they're having a white Christmas in Bergen.
That's how things were last year here in Lithuania. We never had a proper winter. This year it seems about normal in terms of snow, but temperatures feel a bit warmer (most of the season its been hovering around 0c, but is usually -10c)
I just hope this means more snow in Southeast Michigan. Something like a few days of 2" per day, then a decent dusting every night, would be excellent. With many of us looking for nice outdoor activities during COVID times, thus far it's been an awful winter.
We got a bit of snow, then some rain, and all the packed snow on trails and paths where people walk, hike, run, and bike have become sheets of ice. Snow is great for outdoor winter stuff, but ice is really hard to deal with.
I'm curious to see what happens, but so far this winter has been _mild_ to say the least. Current forecast calls for 40+ on Wednesday and Thursday which is very-not-January-like.
A good snow would totally be fun, though. I just got new boots, too!
Hopefully it means more snow in Utah. It's been very dry this year, which means summer will be very dry and hot since there won't be much mountain melt run-off.
I'll pray to the weather gods to send whatever snow would have come to the Puget Sound region of Washington your way.
Snow here sucks, for 4 reasons.
1. More than a couple inches on the ground is rare enough that cities and counties do not have a lot of snow clearing equipment. So when we get one the rare incidents of a foot or more on the ground, it takes forever for the streets to be cleared.
2. Most people aren't familiar with driving on snow, so even when the roads are passable it sucks.
3. People are idiots. As a columnist in the Seattle Times once put it, they will be at the top of a steep hill, have just watched 20 other cars try to make it down and lose control, and think "I've got a Subaru Forester so I'll be fine" and become car #21 in the heap at the bottom.
4. The ground here is relatively warm during the winter. It quickly melts the first layer of snow, which then refreezes as smooth ice sheet when subsequent layers of snow pile up. So where places with cold ground have snow with road underneath, we get snow with an ice sheet underneath between it and the road. We end up with roads that are technically more challenging to drive on, which makes #2 even worse.
Hi neighbor. Hoping for the same thing too! Detroit is probably the worst place to live in all of Michigan if you are someone who enjoys nature and being outside. I’m in the Woodward corridor and can’t wait to get out west into the woods.
I'm, kinda thankfully, about 20 miles north of there so I'm close to a whole bunch of parks. It's still not ideal being the northern suburbs and all, but within 30 minutes drive I've got half a dozen nice green areas, and a few within 10.
This kind of article has caused my father, who hasnt seen any snow this winter so far, to buy two new snow shovels for my grandmother (who has not seen any ground snow either and already has a dedicated snow shovel and a plower). When I asked 'why', he told me he read of a 'professional' snow shoveler who has multiple shovels for different types of snow. Meanwhile, in my area we are snow coverred for two weeks now (pretty standard around here) and pretty much everyone in the neighboorhood has a single shovel and a vanilla broom for the task.
Yeah, we have seen the pictures from Madrid but come-on, you dont have to prepare like its gonna be 6 feet of snow tomorrow.
It's very interesting to contrast how different regions handle extreme (to that region) weather. I was raised in the UK where 10cm of snow pretty much means the country is shut down for a week (interestingly the same happens in 'extreme heat' of 30c).
Where I live now there was 30cm of snow in the last couple of days and everyone is happy and playing outside, and tomorrow will be work as usual (well for covid). Most major roads have been swept, and those that aren't you just drive a little more careful. I guess there is a different level of preparedness (here you are required by law to have winter tires on your car), but still it seems like some places treat it as an end-of-the-world scenario as if it's impossible for humans to live like that.
Same here. I live in North East Scotland, but have spent a lot of time in Norway with work over the past 20 years (I'm actually closer to Norway than to London!). If there's so much as a sprinkling of snow over here, airports shut down and there are car crashes everywhere - meanwhile in Norway, it's business as usual. Also in Norway, if you have a car you must by law fit winter tyres during snow season.
That's because the weather in Norway is predictable. It doesn't snow heavily once every few years, it snows heavily most years. So there are systems and equipment in place to deal with it. And drivers have experience of difficult conditions.
The UK is mostly temperate, but occasionally it isn't. Buying snowploughs and using them once every five years is a difficult ask for constrained council budgets, and drivers might get a couple of weeks of heavy snow every few years in which to practice their not-sliding-into-other-cars skills.
Right, if considering south of the border, but here in NE Scotland, at least a little snow from Jan-Mar is pretty common. So we're used to it, have snowploughs, gritters and plane de-icers, but somehow drivers still drive like idiots, and airports etc still can't cope ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It sounds crazy that relatively affluent nations/cities can't handle snow, but at least here in the DC area in the US, there are a few good reasons...
1. While we do get snow every winter, it tends to be mixed with icy rain, not the powdery stuff you get in more northern climates. What tends to happen is a bit of snow will fall overnight, then go into a melt/flash-freeze cycle as the temperature hovers around freezing.
2. Because it only snow (with any major accumulation) once or twice a season, there isn't a huge incentive to invest in more snow removal equipment. The state DOT handles major roads, but neighborhoods are largely left to clear their own snow. My last neighborhood had a contract with a construction company from out of the region for major snow - they'd drive up their trucks (with plows attached) and set up camp at the edge of the area for a few days, then go home.
3. DC is highly transient. Lots of drivers who simply don't have much experience driving in snow.
4. Public transit is terrible. So, everybody tries to go to work, and if their only car is a Corvette, so be it. And of course, they spin it into a ditch as soon as they try to get on the highway.
Sporty cars in the US are often sold with summer tires. I'm quite sure many consumers don't realize how much difference a good all-season or winter tire makes in snow.
I grew up in Suffolk and probably be a foot mark until school was off, kids today though, in London 1" and it's in stone near on.
But health and safety along with insurance like liability insurance would of been a factor in that shift. Kinda like how many schools don't do rugby due to insurance costs - a factor when I was a child that changed in the early 80's. I'm sure been many more legal and liability factors added into the the overhead of managing and running a school.
Heck, with climate change 1" is probably the equivalent to a foot of snow half a decade ago. I jest, though probably not far of the mark.
One aspect of the UK is when we have snow, it's been a long time since the last snowfall and drivers will have time to adjust and in that time, things happen. This is true of first snow in all countries, though in many, they have had more experience.
The other factor is the UK road system is kinda densely used with many bottlenecks already and any factor will quickly increase that, so a few flakes will see drivers over or under compensate causing a ripple that can turn into waves very quickly.
But it's always fun. The dynamics of the UK weather sure do make for interesting repercussions and whilst those same dynamics play out in other countries, they are more stable and more adjusted to such things.
Just look at how lock-downs impact area's, peoples habits changing suddenly has ripple effects and in the UK - toilet roll is serious business.
Another way to view it is - a covering of snow, even less than 1CM in London is headline news in the UK. You probably have to look at Miami to get a comparable response to snow.
The too cold for snow is based upon most cold being from high pressure in the UK at least and with that you don't get the moisture in the air - snow in the UK is mostly a clash of warm/cold are battling from Europe and the Atlantic. Hence we see most snow with good cold easterly and battling lows comming in hitting that cold air.
But as a child I too always questioned the saying "too cold for snow", the high pressure aspect is why as a rule of thumb, it works for the UK, but always exceptions to rules.
Wait a couple of years, or maybe four, nah, let's say 10, or 20, probably close to 30 and snow will be a thing of the past. Better say, 50. OK, by 2100.
The next decade is going to be wild. We will start to really see the effects of climate change. Real consequences for every day lives in the western world.
I understand your sentiment, but most westerner’s everyday lives will not be affected by climate change this decade, outside of government initiatives to help solve the problem. That’s why it’s so damn unfair: it’s the poorest people in the world that will bear the early burden.
It’s my opinion that if we give people in the west unrealistic timelines, it will only serve to undermine the political effort to solve the issues for the long term.
European heatwave of 2003 resulted in 50-70k deaths [0]. It will be chump change in comparison of having uninhabitable regions of South East Asia when the wet bulb temperature reaches 35C (95F), but it already affects Western Europe.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_European_heat_wave
Yes, but most of the hundreds of millions of westerners (US, Western Europe, Australasia) are unlikely to experience real consequences for everyday life from climate change in a wild ride this decade.
That’s for all sorts of reasons, principally economic and geographic.
In a way many Europeans have been experiencing one of the very real consequences of changing climate, refugees: The civil war in Syria was partly the direct result of a record drought [0] and a steadily escalating conflict over the limited access to fresh-water in the region [1]
You don't consider death, drought, and flooding real consequences?
Why not?
The insurance industries already disagree with you. Trying getting flood insurance in some parts of the UK now. It wouldn't have been a problem thirty years now, now it's impossible.
And try selling a house that can't be insured. But perhaps you don't think losing that kind of capital investment isn't a real consequence for everyday life?
I’m not saying there haven’t been serious consequences from climate change, I’m saying most westerners have not experienced them yet, and won’t experience them in the coming decade. There’s nothing controversial about that, it’s the view of mainstream climate science.
Alarmism is ultimately counterproductive, because the risk is that people will see the gap between their personal experience and the climate prognostications, and decide the whole thing is complete bullshit. So it’s important that we are precise in our communication, and honest about the state of our knowledge.
We face a monumental struggle to deflect the asteroid of climate change by the end of the century, and we need public buy in to do it. Anything that undermines that will magnify the challenge many times, and perhaps even render it impossible.
Disagree. In Europe there's increasing number of summer days with wet heat which persists overnight that makes many outdoor (and indoor without AC) activites difficult or impossible. It causes all kinds of adverse health effects. In the US you're used to AC everywhere but for europeans this is major adjustment.
I think that’s mostly a measure of people having more money. I’ve been living in different Bucharest apartments for almost 20 years now, the last 15 have all been in apartments with AC installed, otherwise summer can become hellish.
Yeah. The first really troublesome sign of climate change for most Europeans will be the waves of migrants desperately trying to find a place to live away from their homes that have been turned inhabitable because of climate change.
And they will look at the huddled masses and say;
"Dirty foreigners. Why don't they stay where they belong instead of trying to mooch our hard-earned wealth" and build higher walls.
as an environmentalist, we've been saying this since the 70's. As an educator I'd caution against fear as a motivation for societal change, but I understand that many think that its good to cause fear and panic for the benefit of the globe and everyone on it (after all, we teach children to be afraid of dangerous things).
Fear becomes a greater motivator to action the more proximate the source of the fear is. Thus as the effects of climate change become more extreme and apparent the efficacy of fear to spur action increases.
I agree, we need to vigorously oppose climate denial, get money out of politics, and seriously reconsider if market economies are able to deliver sustainable lifestyles at all.
Look at what the fear of another 9/11 was able to accomplish. I still have to take off my shoes at the airport!
And look at what “masks protect other people” accomplished. 40% of the American population gleefully advertising that they don’t care about other people.
You don’t have to change people’s minds if you can change their actions.
And how does people taking off their shoes make air travel any safer? I do not see how your example supports using fear as a tool to drive useful change.
I’m just making the point that creating a state of fear is a good opportunity to push through change in society. Whether the change is effective or not is another question entirely.
Do you think if the US government had said, “we’re going to ask you nicely to take off your shoes at the airport so your neighbor’s grandma doesn’t get blown up?” that would’ve gotten people to take their shoes off?
They said "You're taking your shoes off, otherwise you're not going to fly today, you're going to get locked in a small room while we go through everything you've got with you and endlessly question you." It's not fear of terrorists that changed behavior, it's the threat of overwhelming government power used against you to cause massive inconvenience at best, and unjust imprisonment at worst.
As a long time Californian with non commercial timberland? Global warming, if
It played a part in those fires, played a small one. The biggest issues are failed forest management practices combined with expansion and development into previously undeveloped land.
As part of 4+ Year process to get my timberland thinned to reduce fire danger (through the state approval process which is terrible, but finally happened), it came up that historically - based on archeological data - fires used to happen in this area every 10 to 15 years. It has been 115 years since a fire happened on the property.
Massive buildup of fuel (due to suppressing small
Fires and not allowing cutting or timber harvesting), combined with many people living and using power equipment in an area that historically was thinly populated means massive fires when they do happen. Which is what you saw.
I like that they added a lot of plots. They basically explained the plots. The plots are interesting to read. I haven't looked at this kind of climate info for a long time so I like reading this kind of thing from time to time.
Putting aside how good the actual predictions are, I really enjoyed how this was written. It explained things in a manner that I could understand, and I don't have meteorological knowledge beyond what I could glean off a weather forecast.
If you just moved to a northern climate and have been saying this isn't that bad, then this is a bit of a wake-up call to make sure you are ready for winter. I still do recommend that you keep one of those shiny silver mylar survival blankets in your car. It works not only for warmth but also to put outside the car if you are off road and need to be spotted. Keep a week's worth of good at home that doesn't need electricity to prepare. Power outages in extreme cold are a pain.
People in cold climate know to always have a full set of outdoor clothes in the car, either wearing them or in a bag even for shorter drives. You don’t want to be the guy who freezes to death after not bothering to put on a jacket since you are only picking up a pizza in the next village 3 miles away and then freezing to death because your car broke down.
Well, the one I bought works damn well for heat and had one huge advantage over wool. I can bungee cord it to my car and be very, very visible to any search going on to find me.
I would hope people going out in winter also have proper coats and pants, but extra blankets as well a proper survival kit is a very good thing. Small grain shovels are also quite nice.
USA since a lot of commuting, but I think safety is pretty universal. Depending on infrastructure in any place the climate can kill you might not be a good idea.
20 screen pages to say it's expected to snow in January. /smartass
Actually a decent explanation of what "polar vortex" means and a good illustration of how it causes winter weather. Without even "and this means the end of humanity tomorrow!" hype.
Checked this site out on mobile: tons of ads, pop up video ad, super ugly distracting ads too. Can anyone here suggest a way to adblock for chrome on android?
The Brave browser for Android is chrome-based and blocks ads by default. There is some controversy here on HN around Brave for other reasons, but I found that it works well for this purpose.
This is great. People who don't trust experts and cynically think that everything is political can readily say "It's really cold! See, global warming and climate change are fake!" Here we see that the polar vortex isn't extra-strong this year, it's extra-week, and the breakdown may send chunks of it southward.
This armchair level of understanding (even if my summary is not right on the nose) is what we need when we encounter people who actually want to politicize the weather. Will we defeat ignorance, or will ignorance defeat us?
Then stop using the word global warming, poor marketing, when it gets cools(which it will) instead of warm it starts to look and sound a con. The more enlightened skeptics are more so "human caused" climate change skeptics than anything else, with the sun as their main point of origin.
Agreed, "global warming" is poor marketing. It's also a common colloquialism among climate change deniers, no? So, if you need to explain to someone how cold weather doesn't mean "global warming is fake", maybe also steer them toward the notion of climate change. "Anthropogenic forcing" or "it's our fault" is of course another important matter.
Is it one or the other? I don't know anything about dark rooms where captains of industry who profit from fossil fuels orchestrate climate denialism. Sounds plausible. But in any event, such efforts are surely more difficult, if possible at all, with an informed citizenry.
People talking about how they are looking forward to warm weather: you are selfish ghouls. People are already dying from refugee and crop failure situations around the world.
And other people, in particular brown people in far away places like the Middle East or Africa are just numbers, so we should definitely try to reduce those.
Or you can remember that you and your family also are population, and your environmental impact per capita is an order of magnitude higher than most people’s in Africa, so you could really help with the reduction yourself.
EU (without the the) is sometimes used as shorthand for Europe, especially when space is limited. It is technically incorrect, but so is referring to the US as America or to North America as the US.
For the record I track weather for a multitude of sports are dependent on specific aspects so am close to the forecasting nature.