6 ms·

Super-heatwaves of 55°C (131°F) to emerge if global warming continues

46 points by mimsee 9y ago

rc_bhg 9y ago
It will and they will.
transverse 9y ago
In another universe, I propose an AI virus that selectively destroys computers of those who are the biggest polluters. As an example, those who fly a lot definitely qualify as being big polluters. The AI virus will monitor your files and network activity, and will cast destruction upon you if it classifies you as a big contributor to global warming. Phase 2 of this AI will be adaptive in that it will use reinforcement learning to target just enough people to bring the climate to stability. If this is insufficient, phase 3 will use preemptive destruction based on forecasts of your pollution many years ahead even if you are not a big polluter to begin with. Also in that universe, there will also be a parallel project that will be executed on cloud instances. Rowhammer and other attacks, e.g. those based on undocumented CPU instructions, will be used. One way or another, the AI virus will defend the planet. Of course there will be some collateral damage based on misclassifications, but that's the cost of humans not taking responsibility for the planet. However bad this virus may be, it will be heaven when compared to heatwaves of 55C. Legal Disclaimer: These ideas are fictional and are not for this universe. I don't want idiot lawyers chasing me down for having an idea.
0xbear 9y ago
It would be good if there was some website that would aggregate and preserve these predictions along with the names of people who have made them, and then compared them against what actually happened years or decades down the road. Right now climate science seems to suffer from confirmation bias, that is, people only remember the few predictions that have come true, and forget everything else, such as "Florida will be underwater" from the 00s or "we're all gonna freeze to death" from the 70s. There is perverse incentive to come out with these outlandish claims, which on the one hand make it easier to get funding, and on the other imply no responsibility whatsoever, since the timeline is often decades in the future, and people's attention spans are short.
- transverse 9y ago
  Is it really outlandish, for example, to have claimed the Arctic ice would disappear? It has been happening and the disappearance is almost complete. I have seen glaciers break and fall into the see in my front of my very eyes. Also, need I remind you of the planet Venus. It once had liquid water. It later became a victim of runaway climate change.
  - 0xbear 9y ago
    And Earth once was frozen all over, and there were times when concentration of greenhouse gases was much higher than it is today, with no "runaway" effects.
    - throwawaywonk 9y ago
      Found the climate change denialist.
    - transverse 9y ago
      In other words, you don't deny that outlandish events do happen. Clearly we don't want them to happen. Or did you mean to throw your hands up in the air and call yourself a victim of circumstance? Not me.
    - stouset 9y ago
      Nobody's saying the runaway effects are going to boil the oceans, for fuck's sake. Do you seriously not realize that the people who've been doing climate research for decades are aware that there were previous eras with more CO2 in them? If you weren't just out to validate your own political goals, you might stop for a moment and reflect on how poorly-suited current life on the planet is for those previous eras with drastically more carbon in the air.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - slackingoff2017 9y ago
    Earth has had CO2 levels far higher than currently in the geologically recent past. We will run out of fossil fuels well before we destroy the planet. The biggest effect of global warming so far is arguably positive. Plants are making good use of higher CO2 levels and it's estimated that farming yields have increased 30% in the last century from this faster plant growth.
Hasknewbie 9y ago
It should be noted that heatwaves exceeding 50°C have been recorded outside of Europe in recent years, with 51°C in India [1] and 54°C in Kuwait [2], so other parts of the world are already only 1 degree below "super-heatwave" status. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/20/india-records-its-hottest-day-ever-as-temperature-hits-51c-thats-1238f https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/20/india-records-... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_heat_waves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_heat_waves
slackingoff2017 9y ago
I think it's time to shift to damage control mode with global warming. If we were gonna stop polluting and filling the atmosphere with CO2 it would have happened 20 years ago. The economic incentives are too strong to follow the rules. It's like OPEC, whenever there's a "production cut" everybody just lowers their numbers and shifts product to the black market. It's easy enough to throw some dust into the upper atmosphere to cool the planet a bit. Volcanoes do it all the time so we know it's safe and it works. I don't know why were still talking about the nearly impossible idea of getting everyone to abandon fuel when we could spend a miniscule fraction of the time and human effort to just launch some crap into the atmosphere. Frankly, I don't think warming the planet a bit is a bad idea at all. The Earth is in an interglacial and without human interference most of our major cities are due to be covered in half a mile of ice in the next 2-100 thousand years. This sounds like a long time but besides nuclear war it's probably the biggest "near term" threat to our species. Global warming is being conflated with people who don't want the environment being messed with. That's why all the proposed solution involve not using fossil fuels when its pretty easy to cool the Earth with other means if we really wanted to.
- tarr11 9y ago
  Damage control mode has already been happening for a while in vulnerable areas. [1] I suspect people will need solutions to extreme heat that are less dependent on the electrical grid (which will likely fail) in order to survive these "super-heatwaves" [1] http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170403-miamis-fight-against-sea-level-rise http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170403-miamis-fight-agains...

46 points by mimsee 9y ago

It will and they will.

In another universe, I propose an AI virus that selectively destroys computers of those who are the biggest polluters. As an example, those who fly a lot definitely qualify as being big polluters. The AI virus will monitor your files and network activity, and will cast destruction upon you if it classifies you as a big contributor to global warming. Phase 2 of this AI will be adaptive in that it will use reinforcement learning to target just enough people to bring the climate to stability. If this is insufficient, phase 3 will use preemptive destruction based on forecasts of your pollution many years ahead even if you are not a big polluter to begin with. Also in that universe, there will also be a parallel project that will be executed on cloud instances. Rowhammer and other attacks, e.g. those based on undocumented CPU instructions, will be used. One way or another, the AI virus will defend the planet. Of course there will be some collateral damage based on misclassifications, but that's the cost of humans not taking responsibility for the planet. However bad this virus may be, it will be heaven when compared to heatwaves of 55C. Legal Disclaimer: These ideas are fictional and are not for this universe. I don't want idiot lawyers chasing me down for having an idea.

0xbear 9y ago

It would be good if there was some website that would aggregate and preserve these predictions along with the names of people who have made them, and then compared them against what actually happened years or decades down the road. Right now climate science seems to suffer from confirmation bias, that is, people only remember the few predictions that have come true, and forget everything else, such as "Florida will be underwater" from the 00s or "we're all gonna freeze to death" from the 70s. There is perverse incentive to come out with these outlandish claims, which on the one hand make it easier to get funding, and on the other imply no responsibility whatsoever, since the timeline is often decades in the future, and people's attention spans are short.

transverse 9y ago
Is it really outlandish, for example, to have claimed the Arctic ice would disappear? It has been happening and the disappearance is almost complete. I have seen glaciers break and fall into the see in my front of my very eyes. Also, need I remind you of the planet Venus. It once had liquid water. It later became a victim of runaway climate change.
- 0xbear 9y ago
  And Earth once was frozen all over, and there were times when concentration of greenhouse gases was much higher than it is today, with no "runaway" effects.
  - throwawaywonk 9y ago
    Found the climate change denialist.
  - transverse 9y ago
    In other words, you don't deny that outlandish events do happen. Clearly we don't want them to happen. Or did you mean to throw your hands up in the air and call yourself a victim of circumstance? Not me.
  - stouset 9y ago
    Nobody's saying the runaway effects are going to boil the oceans, for fuck's sake. Do you seriously not realize that the people who've been doing climate research for decades are aware that there were previous eras with more CO2 in them? If you weren't just out to validate your own political goals, you might stop for a moment and reflect on how poorly-suited current life on the planet is for those previous eras with drastically more carbon in the air.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- slackingoff2017 9y ago
  Earth has had CO2 levels far higher than currently in the geologically recent past. We will run out of fossil fuels well before we destroy the planet. The biggest effect of global warming so far is arguably positive. Plants are making good use of higher CO2 levels and it's estimated that farming yields have increased 30% in the last century from this faster plant growth.

Hasknewbie 9y ago

It should be noted that heatwaves exceeding 50°C have been recorded outside of Europe in recent years, with 51°C in India [1] and 54°C in Kuwait [2], so other parts of the world are already only 1 degree below "super-heatwave" status. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/20/india-records-its-hottest-day-ever-as-temperature-hits-51c-thats-1238f https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/20/india-records-... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_heat_waves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_heat_waves

slackingoff2017 9y ago

I think it's time to shift to damage control mode with global warming. If we were gonna stop polluting and filling the atmosphere with CO2 it would have happened 20 years ago. The economic incentives are too strong to follow the rules. It's like OPEC, whenever there's a "production cut" everybody just lowers their numbers and shifts product to the black market. It's easy enough to throw some dust into the upper atmosphere to cool the planet a bit. Volcanoes do it all the time so we know it's safe and it works. I don't know why were still talking about the nearly impossible idea of getting everyone to abandon fuel when we could spend a miniscule fraction of the time and human effort to just launch some crap into the atmosphere. Frankly, I don't think warming the planet a bit is a bad idea at all. The Earth is in an interglacial and without human interference most of our major cities are due to be covered in half a mile of ice in the next 2-100 thousand years. This sounds like a long time but besides nuclear war it's probably the biggest "near term" threat to our species. Global warming is being conflated with people who don't want the environment being messed with. That's why all the proposed solution involve not using fossil fuels when its pretty easy to cool the Earth with other means if we really wanted to.

tarr11 9y ago
Damage control mode has already been happening for a while in vulnerable areas. [1] I suspect people will need solutions to extreme heat that are less dependent on the electrical grid (which will likely fail) in order to survive these "super-heatwaves" [1] http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170403-miamis-fight-against-sea-level-rise http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170403-miamis-fight-agains...