4 ms·

It's the about the "extremeness" and out of balance weather patterns compared to before, not whether it's warm or cold. The ocean currents are out of whack, cre

by mtgx 8y ago

It's the about the "extremeness" and out of balance weather patterns compared to before, not whether it's warm or cold. The ocean currents are out of whack, creating these highly irregular waether patterns.

makomk 8y ago
The difficult part is telling if they are that extreme. The UK only has full, reliable temperature records since around 1910, so when articles like talk about the highest or lowest X they really mean since 1910. If you think about the number of months, the number of different kinds of weather measurements, etc, you quickly realise that we should expect a reasonable number of record-breaking events like this. (You can find a full set of the monthly temperature records the Met Office tracks here, by the way: https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/climate-extremes/#?tab=climateExtremes https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/climate-extremes... )
- NeedMoreTea 8y ago
  One outlier is to be expected now and then. A consistent pattern of breaking high temperature records, in the current decade or two, on the other hand. Or as the Met Office put it "extremes of heat are now being recorded 10 times more often than extremes of cold".
  - sparkie 8y ago
    "Extremes" need putting into perspective. Around the dawn of human civilization (12,000BC), Britain was connected by land to Europe via Doggerland and the Nile was completely dried out. By around 6000 BTC, the Nile was flowing and Doggerland was completely submerged under 120m of water. A quick math suggests that if the sea level rose by 120m over 6000 years, it must've rose by 2cm/year on average. When you put the scaremongering into this perspective, and we're worried about sea level rises of a few centimeters over the course of a century, it just makes us look like idiots. The earth has had far worse extremes that we can't even comprehend. There's the idea that we're adding to the natural change of the climate, and so those effects will be compounded, or accelerated, or delayed. Putting again in to perspective, this will have an effect on humans in centuries (or millennia) to come. Imagine if the humans who initiated civilization had decided they weren't going to burn wood fires because "it might have an effect on the climate for other humans in 12,000 years." Yes, it is that absurd. We are dumb cavemen compared to the humans that will be around in a thousands of years to deal with any problems we think we're creating for them.
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      > When you put the scaremongering into this perspective, and we're worried about sea level rises of a few centimeters over the course of a century We’re not, particularly. Oh, sure, that sea level rise is one of the predicted effects of the thing we are worried about, and it will itself have fairly expensive consequences and kill lots of people, but we're really concerned about getting to the point of an unstoppable feedback loop that, among other things, ends the current ice age (and not in the loose sense of a glacial period, which we aren't in but there have been several of while humans have been on Earth, but in the stricter sense of a period when Earth has permanent polar ice; all of human existence has been during the current ice age.) > The earth has had far worse extremes that we can't even comprehend. Sure, the Earth has, and the lump of rock will still be around whatever we do to the climate. Humans, OTOH, have not been through anything like what the current warming trend will do if not arrested, and may well not be around if it isn't. The concern isn't about the Earth, it's about conditions of human life on Earth.
- benj111 8y ago
  The UK has some of the better weather records. Eg "The oldest ongoing instrumental record of temperature in the world is the Central England Temperature record, started in 1659." [1] So while they may not be very good, they're some of the best we've got. [1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/climatechange/2009/03/since_records_began_a_brief_gu.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/climatechange/2009/03/since_recor...
  - makomk 8y ago
    We have enough measurements to do reasonable estimates of the monthly average temperature in one region of the UK (with a bit of finagling), but that doesn't help here. This record high is effectively the maximum temperature at any location in the UK, which is something that can only be determined with a widespread network of temperature stations taking multiple measurements a day, and we didn't have that until relatively recently.
    - benj111 8y ago
      Whilst having data for the whole country is obviously good, having data for one fixed location stretching back 350 years is good too. You can for example compare the recent heat wave to past years at the same location. I'm also not sure what utility measuring the highest temperature serves, except for making good headlines. Does it make any difference whether the highest temperature was recorded in Cornwall or Devon? Especially as the UK is an arbitrary human construct. I'd be much more interested to know that the Shetlands had recorded temperatures 25% above normal, compared to Cornwall's 20% for example.

by mtgx 8y ago

makomk 8y ago

The difficult part is telling if they are that extreme. The UK only has full, reliable temperature records since around 1910, so when articles like talk about the highest or lowest X they really mean since 1910. If you think about the number of months, the number of different kinds of weather measurements, etc, you quickly realise that we should expect a reasonable number of record-breaking events like this. (You can find a full set of the monthly temperature records the Met Office tracks here, by the way: https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/climate-extremes/#?tab=climateExtremes https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/climate-extremes... )

NeedMoreTea 8y ago
One outlier is to be expected now and then. A consistent pattern of breaking high temperature records, in the current decade or two, on the other hand. Or as the Met Office put it "extremes of heat are now being recorded 10 times more often than extremes of cold".
- sparkie 8y ago
  "Extremes" need putting into perspective. Around the dawn of human civilization (12,000BC), Britain was connected by land to Europe via Doggerland and the Nile was completely dried out. By around 6000 BTC, the Nile was flowing and Doggerland was completely submerged under 120m of water. A quick math suggests that if the sea level rose by 120m over 6000 years, it must've rose by 2cm/year on average. When you put the scaremongering into this perspective, and we're worried about sea level rises of a few centimeters over the course of a century, it just makes us look like idiots. The earth has had far worse extremes that we can't even comprehend. There's the idea that we're adding to the natural change of the climate, and so those effects will be compounded, or accelerated, or delayed. Putting again in to perspective, this will have an effect on humans in centuries (or millennia) to come. Imagine if the humans who initiated civilization had decided they weren't going to burn wood fires because "it might have an effect on the climate for other humans in 12,000 years." Yes, it is that absurd. We are dumb cavemen compared to the humans that will be around in a thousands of years to deal with any problems we think we're creating for them.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > When you put the scaremongering into this perspective, and we're worried about sea level rises of a few centimeters over the course of a century We’re not, particularly. Oh, sure, that sea level rise is one of the predicted effects of the thing we are worried about, and it will itself have fairly expensive consequences and kill lots of people, but we're really concerned about getting to the point of an unstoppable feedback loop that, among other things, ends the current ice age (and not in the loose sense of a glacial period, which we aren't in but there have been several of while humans have been on Earth, but in the stricter sense of a period when Earth has permanent polar ice; all of human existence has been during the current ice age.) > The earth has had far worse extremes that we can't even comprehend. Sure, the Earth has, and the lump of rock will still be around whatever we do to the climate. Humans, OTOH, have not been through anything like what the current warming trend will do if not arrested, and may well not be around if it isn't. The concern isn't about the Earth, it's about conditions of human life on Earth.
benj111 8y ago
The UK has some of the better weather records. Eg "The oldest ongoing instrumental record of temperature in the world is the Central England Temperature record, started in 1659." [1] So while they may not be very good, they're some of the best we've got. [1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/climatechange/2009/03/since_records_began_a_brief_gu.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/climatechange/2009/03/since_recor...
- makomk 8y ago
  We have enough measurements to do reasonable estimates of the monthly average temperature in one region of the UK (with a bit of finagling), but that doesn't help here. This record high is effectively the maximum temperature at any location in the UK, which is something that can only be determined with a widespread network of temperature stations taking multiple measurements a day, and we didn't have that until relatively recently.
  - benj111 8y ago
    Whilst having data for the whole country is obviously good, having data for one fixed location stretching back 350 years is good too. You can for example compare the recent heat wave to past years at the same location. I'm also not sure what utility measuring the highest temperature serves, except for making good headlines. Does it make any difference whether the highest temperature was recorded in Cornwall or Devon? Especially as the UK is an arbitrary human construct. I'd be much more interested to know that the Shetlands had recorded temperatures 25% above normal, compared to Cornwall's 20% for example.