3 ms·

On a side note, I always wondered if Americans would be more aggressive trying to prevent global warming if these projections were in Fahrenheit, not Celsius.

1024core 7y ago
Nah, Americans (as in, the people in power) would only care if their homes were affected.
numair 7y ago
This may sound really simple and dumb, but I think you’re actually on to something. Americans read all of these stories about 1° warming and have NO idea what it means. In fact, since so much global policy-making involves American multinationals, maybe it should be a rule that all climate increases/decreases are written in the context of Fahrenheit, so Americans better understand what scientists are estimating, regardless of whether it is pro- or anti-climate-science.
- 0xffff2 7y ago
  I don't think it would matter. One (or four) degree(s) is a similar change in either scale. I think the larger issue is the disconnect between global average temperature and local weather systems. I think people read "4 degrees warmer" and think that all of their weather forecasts are going to be 4 degrees higher than they used to be. It seems like a small change when viewed like that, but of course that's not what is going to happen at all.
  - skinnymuch 7y ago
    I’m concerned about climate change. I know about the flooding, glaciers and ice melting, coastal areas and islands filling up with water. I understand some of the natural ecosystem of the world would be messed up with some animals dying out as well. But I have no concept of how much of the latter will be done or how much it’ll effect things. However as I don’t know too much, why would 4 C increase result in a lot of South Asia being uninhabitable and making most of America into hostile land. The other link said most of it would be desert land. And that Siberia and north west Antarctica would be green inhabitable. Wouldn’t part’s of Siberia and any part of Antarctica still be crazy cold and awful places to be? I guess I’m a “dummy” because I also don’t get how global weather increase will mess and change things so much outside of what I acknowledged in my first paragraph. Though again I’m all for fixing up our behavior wrt environment and controlling climate change.
    - brandmeyer 7y ago
      Here's one example: increasing average temperatures raises the incidence of extreme heat waves. There is an upper limit of temperature+humidity above which humans cannot survive. Under business-as-usual rates of CO2 emissions, those conditions will start to happen, and India is one of the earlier areas to see it. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/aug/02/climate-change-to-cause-humid-heatwaves-that-will-kill-even-healthy-people https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/aug/02/climate-...
    - jbattle 7y ago
      I don't know why you were downvoted, I think it's a good question. My understanding is that this is a 4 degree difference in the average temperature. Meaning there might be times of the year that don't change much at all but other seasons get dramatically hotter. That affects rainfall distribution, the speed that snow melts (and wether snow ever falls in the first place), etc. My guess is that "uninhabitable" in this context refers to specific critical periods that are deadly short of water or deadly hot which last long enough to make building/maintaining cities in those places a losing (i.e. prohibitively expensive) proposition
      - skinnymuch 7y ago
        Maybe people thought I was against believing in man made climate change? I remember a year ago I posed a similar question amongst a liberal crowd (of which I’m one as well) and someone took it upon himself to be sure I believed there is no man made climate change. I’m pretty sure he just didn’t know anything either and enjoyed being offended. That’s not what’s happening here exactly but perhaps some people thought I wasn’t being genuine. Thanks! Yes that’s a big difference if it’s average and some seasons might not change much. That would be a big difference. Uninhabitable explanation makes sense too. Thanks.
- martin_a 7y ago
  > maybe it should be a rule that all climate increases/decreases are written in the context of Fahrenheit Nah, the rest of the world is fine with using SI units and understanding them. No need to dilute it down by using different systems.
- jazzyjackson 7y ago
  Absolutely, 'one degree' has an intuitive sense of 'negligible' in my experience of going outside. The actual danger of a warming world is in the energy moving around us, pushing water inland and forcing higher wind gusts etc etc. So if you want to impress large numbers upon the public, maybe Joules or Watts of excess energy would be good. Poking around a random Quora post it looks like the equivalent for 1*C of warming would be on the order of a billion TeraJoules.
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    A billion TJ, or the ocean's total warming is 436 ×10^21 J since 1871[1] is a bit like billion pounds to most of the public - most of whom disliked maths - huge, but utterly meaningless. Why else is every media story associating things with the size of a football field, the area of 63 Wales, or length equivalent to the height of the Empire State or 23 double decker buses? And I always wondered why double decker buses when they're the same length as a single decker... Must be a British thing. :) Guardian reported the ocean warming since 1871 study as "...equivalent of one atomic bomb explosion per second for the past 150 years" (1.5x the power of Hiroshima), which seemed a bit hyperbolic. Except the same article then asked the author of the study[1]: “I try not to make this type of calculation, simply because I find it worrisome,” said Prof Laure Zanna, at the University of Oxford, who led the new research. “We usually try to compare the heating to [human] energy use, to make it less scary.” At which point I think Guardian might have been on to something in their choice of visualisation... [1] https://www.pnas.org/content/116/4/1126 https://www.pnas.org/content/116/4/1126
- Vinnl 7y ago
  1° doesn't mean anything for those who are used to those units either, when it comes to global warming. A day that's 1° hotter or colder is not that much hotter or colder. You go by the effects scientists say it has on the environment, not by whether it feels as a lot or a little.

1024core 7y ago

Nah, Americans (as in, the people in power) would only care if their homes were affected.

numair 7y ago

This may sound really simple and dumb, but I think you’re actually on to something. Americans read all of these stories about 1° warming and have NO idea what it means. In fact, since so much global policy-making involves American multinationals, maybe it should be a rule that all climate increases/decreases are written in the context of Fahrenheit, so Americans better understand what scientists are estimating, regardless of whether it is pro- or anti-climate-science.

0xffff2 7y ago
I don't think it would matter. One (or four) degree(s) is a similar change in either scale. I think the larger issue is the disconnect between global average temperature and local weather systems. I think people read "4 degrees warmer" and think that all of their weather forecasts are going to be 4 degrees higher than they used to be. It seems like a small change when viewed like that, but of course that's not what is going to happen at all.
- skinnymuch 7y ago
  I’m concerned about climate change. I know about the flooding, glaciers and ice melting, coastal areas and islands filling up with water. I understand some of the natural ecosystem of the world would be messed up with some animals dying out as well. But I have no concept of how much of the latter will be done or how much it’ll effect things. However as I don’t know too much, why would 4 C increase result in a lot of South Asia being uninhabitable and making most of America into hostile land. The other link said most of it would be desert land. And that Siberia and north west Antarctica would be green inhabitable. Wouldn’t part’s of Siberia and any part of Antarctica still be crazy cold and awful places to be? I guess I’m a “dummy” because I also don’t get how global weather increase will mess and change things so much outside of what I acknowledged in my first paragraph. Though again I’m all for fixing up our behavior wrt environment and controlling climate change.
  - brandmeyer 7y ago
    Here's one example: increasing average temperatures raises the incidence of extreme heat waves. There is an upper limit of temperature+humidity above which humans cannot survive. Under business-as-usual rates of CO2 emissions, those conditions will start to happen, and India is one of the earlier areas to see it. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/aug/02/climate-change-to-cause-humid-heatwaves-that-will-kill-even-healthy-people https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/aug/02/climate-...
  - jbattle 7y ago
    I don't know why you were downvoted, I think it's a good question. My understanding is that this is a 4 degree difference in the average temperature. Meaning there might be times of the year that don't change much at all but other seasons get dramatically hotter. That affects rainfall distribution, the speed that snow melts (and wether snow ever falls in the first place), etc. My guess is that "uninhabitable" in this context refers to specific critical periods that are deadly short of water or deadly hot which last long enough to make building/maintaining cities in those places a losing (i.e. prohibitively expensive) proposition
    - skinnymuch 7y ago
      Maybe people thought I was against believing in man made climate change? I remember a year ago I posed a similar question amongst a liberal crowd (of which I’m one as well) and someone took it upon himself to be sure I believed there is no man made climate change. I’m pretty sure he just didn’t know anything either and enjoyed being offended. That’s not what’s happening here exactly but perhaps some people thought I wasn’t being genuine. Thanks! Yes that’s a big difference if it’s average and some seasons might not change much. That would be a big difference. Uninhabitable explanation makes sense too. Thanks.
martin_a 7y ago
> maybe it should be a rule that all climate increases/decreases are written in the context of Fahrenheit Nah, the rest of the world is fine with using SI units and understanding them. No need to dilute it down by using different systems.
jazzyjackson 7y ago
Absolutely, 'one degree' has an intuitive sense of 'negligible' in my experience of going outside. The actual danger of a warming world is in the energy moving around us, pushing water inland and forcing higher wind gusts etc etc. So if you want to impress large numbers upon the public, maybe Joules or Watts of excess energy would be good. Poking around a random Quora post it looks like the equivalent for 1*C of warming would be on the order of a billion TeraJoules.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  A billion TJ, or the ocean's total warming is 436 ×10^21 J since 1871[1] is a bit like billion pounds to most of the public - most of whom disliked maths - huge, but utterly meaningless. Why else is every media story associating things with the size of a football field, the area of 63 Wales, or length equivalent to the height of the Empire State or 23 double decker buses? And I always wondered why double decker buses when they're the same length as a single decker... Must be a British thing. :) Guardian reported the ocean warming since 1871 study as "...equivalent of one atomic bomb explosion per second for the past 150 years" (1.5x the power of Hiroshima), which seemed a bit hyperbolic. Except the same article then asked the author of the study[1]: “I try not to make this type of calculation, simply because I find it worrisome,” said Prof Laure Zanna, at the University of Oxford, who led the new research. “We usually try to compare the heating to [human] energy use, to make it less scary.” At which point I think Guardian might have been on to something in their choice of visualisation... [1] https://www.pnas.org/content/116/4/1126 https://www.pnas.org/content/116/4/1126
Vinnl 7y ago
1° doesn't mean anything for those who are used to those units either, when it comes to global warming. A day that's 1° hotter or colder is not that much hotter or colder. You go by the effects scientists say it has on the environment, not by whether it feels as a lot or a little.