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U.S. has its wettest 12 months on record again
- mirimir 7y agoGlobal climate change => higher air temperatures => more water in the air => more water available to fall out of the air.
- newvoiceoldphne 7y agoCloud formation is also thought to inversely correlate to sunspot activity. With the lull in solar activity, that very well could be the cause.
- 6d6b73 7y ago=> more snow in winter => mini ice age
- chrisco255 7y agoAre some predicting a mini ice age as opposed to warming? A mini ice age worries me more than warming.
- 6d6b73 7y agoYeah - https://www.iflscience.com/environment/we-could-be-heading-mini-ice-age-2030/ https://www.iflscience.com/environment/we-could-be-heading-m...
- viraptor 7y agoIt's weird that they call it "mini ice age" then follow up with - we had one in 17th century, London got temperature below 0 in winter. Not what I imagine from the name.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Smoosh 7y agoHumans are bad at distinguishing small but close from large but far away for abstract ideas like climate.
- plicense 7y agoI think humans are pretty good at warming things up. So I would take a mini-ice age over global warming.
- mises 7y agoYeah, heating is usually more efficient than cooling, because energy is usually produced with some kind of heat output. All though agriculture is a serious concern; you might starve several million people in africa.
- hirsin 7y agoSurprisingly this is not true. A watt of energy can only produce a watt of heat, but can remove several watts of heat from a space. That said, we're much better setup to increase total entropy in the atmosphere than decrease it (via heat sinks eg)
- kevin_thibedeau 7y agoThose displaced Joules are just moved somewhere nearby and are joined by the energy spent moving them.
- hirsin 7y agoYes, hence my second statement and use of "space" in the first.
- mises 7y agoFrom a purely scientific view, yes, you can move energy easier than you can cool it. However, people in hot climates usually prefer cold air blowing, which takes more energy to chill.
- chrisco255 7y agoNot just Africa. Probably every continent, because yields would tank and growing seasons would shrink.
- mirimir 7y agoNo, more rain in winter ;)
- mihaifm 7y ago=> more water in the air => increased greenhouse effect => rising temperatures => even more water in the air
- mirimir 7y agoYes. And the greenhouse effect overall is mostly due to water in the air. But water content is very sensitive to temperature. And when CO2 level increases, that also increases water content. So water is like an amplifier for CO2 changes. Edit: Maybe someone thinks that this is a GCC-denial argument. It's not. Water vapor is in fact the major greenhouse gas: 36% (in dry areas) to 72% (in humid areas) of total greenhouse forcing.[0] 0) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas#Greenhouse_gases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas#Greenhouse_gase...
- Gibbon1 7y agoI think that's what I read. Water vapor amplifies the green house effect of increased CO4 and CH4. And figuring out the exact forcing constant is complicated by weather patterns and cloud cover. One of the other things that scares me is weather is chaotic. Patterns repeat year over year. But global warming could cause those patterns to change. Possibly permanently as far as human civilization goes.
- billions 7y agoThe most powerful supercomputers in the world are focused on weather analysis and they can only project a few days out. Yet, some people think they've got it figured out.
- justwalt 7y agoThat does put things into perspective, a bit.
- ceejayoz 7y agoNah, it's a common talking point, but it's highly flawed. It's like claiming that because we can't predict if the stock market will go up or down tomorrow, we can't determine whether we're in a recession or a boom time. Short-term weather is fairly chaotic (and we've gotten a lot better at predicting it over the last 50 years). Long-term trends are different.
- jessaustin 7y agoIf you can figure out recessions and booms in real time you can make lots of money.
- 6d6b73 7y agoThe most powerful supercomputers in the world are not even close in processing power of a 4 year old. Isn't it possible that some people can see patterns that the supercomputers can't?
- chrisco255 7y agoSure, but those supercomputers aren't autonomous, they're programmed and designed by thousands of human adult experts.
- 6d6b73 7y agoAnd these people can make mistakes or be biased. If we can't predict what the weather in our hometowns will be how can we predict how will the climate change?
- mc32 7y agoShould we expect dry (arid) regions around the world to experience more rainfall?
- btilly 7y agoThat depends on the region. As a well-known example, rainfall in California will decrease. Here is an explanation. Take a pot of water. Heat one side. The water will start to circulate, come up where it is hot, fall where it is not, then cycle back. The Earth's atmosphere does that as well. It rises in the tropics, spreads out, falls in temperate zones, then comes in. These circulation patterns are called the Hadley cells. They explain a lot of things. For example air that came from the equator, then spread out, is moving faster than the ground below it. That's the jet stream. And where it falls it is still moving. That sets up the prevailing wind on land, and the trade winds at sea. One thing that they help explain is where things are dry. You see when air rises, the water falls out. So where air comes down, it is dry. Therefore the latitudes where it falls have lots of deserts. Now one of the effects of global warming is that the Hadley cells get less stable, and also expand. Which means that arid zones in Mexico move north, and the Southern USA gets drier. But this comes with more instability in weather patterns. So you see, it is complicated. Overall wetter does not mean wetter where you are...
- mirimir 7y agoSome, yes, I've read. Africa and Indonesia may get wetter, and the Sahara could even switch back to rainforest. But my "more water, so wetter" comment was about global averages. Given that global air and ocean circulation will change, some areas will probably get drier. Such as the US Midwest and Southwest, and perhaps the Amazon. https://news.uci.edu/2018/04/27/scientists-project-a-drier-amazon-and-wetter-indonesia-in-the-future/ https://news.uci.edu/2018/04/27/scientists-project-a-drier-a... https://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/34232/20170704/climate-change-could-green-the-sahara-and-unleash-monster-hurricanes-on-the-u-s https://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/34232/201...
- ajmurmann 7y agoAnecdotally it looks like parts of central Europe might also get drier.
- rolltiide 7y agoIts not that I disagree, I just want to point out this never explains what was going on the last time the records were hit and by proxy a snapshot of the current record
- fwip 7y agoThis record was set at the end of June 2019. The last time this record was set was May 2019. The time before that? You guessed it. April 2019. I'm willing to wager it's the same thing going on as "last time."
- ChuckMcM 7y agoYup, pretty much exactly. The interesting side effects are the formation of more clouds (in the stratosphere they make things warmer, in the troposphere they make things colder), and bigger temperature shifts in the air when the water finally condenses out in liquid form (more mass to phase change, more net temperature change).
- phkahler 7y agoRecord air traffic. Record cloud seeding. Record rainfall. Record heating.
- umvi 7y agoAre there any record-setting weather patterns that global climate change can't account for?
- lovich 7y agoIts changing the climate so no, there is probably no record setting weather it cant account for. Even if this was less water it would be listed as the driest 12 months on record.
- mirimir 7y agoIn the weather/climate realm, effects of increasing CO2, CH4, etc arguably dominate. Next important, I think, are changes in land use. Such as heat island effects of cities. Or deforestation reducing local to regional rainfall. So yeah. In areas that are getting warmer, such as the Arctic, new records will be about high temperatures and less sea ice cover. In areas that are getting drier, it'll be about drought. And in areas that are getting wetter, it'll be about flooding.
- throwaway934898 7y agoNo, any layman can easily construct a reasonable sounding explanation tying any of these odd patterns to climate change. It doesn’t matter whether or not they are actually caused by climate change. It’s a level of annoying to me similar to when my dad uses a cold winter as evidence that there is no warming going on.
- sdinsn 7y agoExcept increased rainfall is actually linked by scientists to global warming.
- tomatotomato37 7y agoAre they using the same models that also predict colder winters, hotter summers, and more droughts? I feel like everyones making different assumptions when building their climate models, so you end up with a model that show more intense A & B but not C, and than another model showing more intense A & C but no change in B, and a third mentions only a change in B and something about D, but by the time it makes it to the general populace the only thing anyone sees is that climate change is causing A, B, C, D, E, and F. Not to their fault, but with complex models like climate, a small change can butterfly wildly.
- jupiter90000 7y agoGuess it is somehow not happening in UK though, weird! :-) https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/uk-temperature-rainfall-and-sunshine-time-series https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/...
- TheRealPomax 7y agoTo be fair, the UK is not in the US, no matter how many high school students might guess that it is...
- jupiter90000 7y agoSo US-only warming instead of global? Confused. Admittedly I may not understand, is US is expected to be impacted differently by global warming than other countries?
- undersuit 7y agoThe landmass of North America will experience different effects of climate change than other landmasses. There might be similarities between it and other areas, like South America, but South America has a large cold continent to it's south while North America has a small cold ocean to it's north.
- jupiter90000 7y agoHave any good resources to learn more on this? Thanks if so
- mirimir 7y agoIt's certainly gotten warmer in the Arctic.
- noelsusman 7y agoYes. Are you trying to imply that global warming isn't happening?
- refurb 7y agoAnd if we were in the middle of a drought?
- gourneau 7y agoDoes anyone know where to get data for macro weather trends like these? I am curious what regions will have the most ideal weather in the next few years.
- arafa 7y agoA U.S. focused take from 2017: https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2017/02/global-warming-will-bring-milder.html https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2017/02/global-warming-will-b...
- briantakita 7y agoIt depends on what model you believe will occur. If you believe in cyclic climate changes, then the old "green" regions will come back. If that's the case, the fertile crescent & old roman grow areas (North Africa) & American Southwest will have a greening. Another factor that has been observed is the changes in the jetstreams. This past winter there were Polar vortexes leading to cold temperatures. Europe was recently hit with an Equatorial vortex leading to a heat wave.
- golemiprague 7y agoGood luck with that, all the climate change predictions fail after a while because they got no clue what is going to happen even next week, let alone in the next couple of years or decades. Just ignore all this noise, it is too complicated system to predict.
- gxx 7y agoI wonder if this will help to refill some of the depleted aquifers.
- xmichael999 7y agoYes, its about the only thing floods are good for.
- coryrc 7y agoNo, floods just wash by, eroding top soil and often decreasing future aquifer replenishment because there is less to hold on to the water to give it time to soak down into the aquifer.
- ArtDev 7y agoExpect flooding. So.. maybe?
- SilasX 7y agoLast October in Austin, there was a bitter irony: after heavy rains, the systems for filtering the water were overloaded and they put out a warning that water wasn't safe to drink (though fine for other purposes). "Water, water, everywhere, but not a drop to drink." Story about it: https://patch.com/texas/downtownaustin/austin-water-safe-drink-now-usage-restrictions-remain https://patch.com/texas/downtownaustin/austin-water-safe-dri...
- kgwgk 7y agoIn any case, drought conditions are the best in a long time: https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/Data/Timeseries.aspx https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/Data/Timeseries.aspx
- obelos 7y agoIn many areas, not appreciably. Aquifer contraction and all the pavement lain in the past century end up blocking a lot of absorption. A recent 99% Invisible episode talked about this, focusing on Mexico City's aquifer situation: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/depave-paradise/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/depave-paradise/
- kingkawn 7y agoWhat if rather than doom we get global tropical paradise
- floatrock 7y agoWhat if new tropical paradises means the current tropical paradises become uninhabitable, creating more forced migrations that make the syrian refugee crisis look like a quiet day on the canadian border, and the lands that become your "tropical paradise" actually are the grain belts of the world, which can no longer grow all the food a continuously expanding global population demands? Look at all the flooding in the midwest this year -- despite dams on every major river, we've still had record-breaking field inundation and crop failure. Is that the new normal paradise you're describing?
- Skunkleton 7y ago> What if new tropical paradises means the current tropical paradises become uninhabitable. And what if the shift happens so fast there isnt enough time for all of the tropical plant life to migrate with the temperature changes?
- zaroth 7y agoWheat prices don’t seem to be particular affected; https://www.macrotrends.net/2534/wheat-prices-historical-chart-data https://www.macrotrends.net/2534/wheat-prices-historical-cha...
- briantakita 7y agoWe also have financialization of markets, which allows manipulation. The USDA has also made some controversial assessments with readjustments of the corn production forecast. Currently, 31 million corn acres are deemed unplanted this year. One can read the trends to see the writing on the wall... https://www.agweb.com/article/crunch-time-31-million-corn-acres-uplanted-naa-anna-lisa-laca/ https://www.agweb.com/article/crunch-time-31-million-corn-ac... Gold & Silver have also been kept artificially low & there is incoming indictments of market rigging. I add this as an example of how financialization distorts the pricing information flow. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/merrill-lynch-fined-by-doj-cftc-for-spoofing-in-precious-metals-futures-2019-06-25 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/merrill-lynch-fined-by-doj...
- mbell 7y agoDoes anyone know what 'on record' means for NOAA? EDIT: I found this from NOAA -> Earth’s long-term warming trend continued in 2018 as persistent warmth across large swaths of land and ocean resulted in the globe’s fourth hottest year in NOAA’s 139-year climate record. So the implication is that this is that maybe this is the wettest 12 months since 1879?
- WheelsAtLarge 7y agoI wonder if water export can become an industry in the same manner as petroleum or natural gas? With solar power getting so inexpensive I wonder if we could fill a very slow solar power tanker and ship it to the middle east at costs lower than desalinization? Thoughts anyone? It might not be so crazy. At one-time shipping ice around the world was a thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_trade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_trade
- TheRealPomax 7y agoExcept the US really, really, really needs it. Just in different parts of the US.
- jessaustin 7y agoKeep your mitts off our water. You don't need water-intensive agriculture in the desert.
- rubber_duck 7y agohttps://www.businessinsider.com/engineering-firm-tow-icebergs-antarctica-for-water https://www.businessinsider.com/engineering-firm-tow-iceberg... So they are saying one iceberg could provide 100 million and 200 million m3 of water. According to wikipedia that's the global oil tanker transport load for a year and the largest tanker can load up 550k m3. It's also interesting what effect moving 200m m3 of ice to a desert climate would have on local climate. Even if their plan is unrealistic it sort of puts things in perspective in terms of quantities of water available.
- heymijo 7y agoGood question. Desalinization also has externalities that aren't priced in but would make sense to consider. That's a fancy way of saying that the salt removed from the water creates a brine that in large quantities is no bueno to just dump somewhere.
- briantakita 7y agoDr. Heinrich Svensmark has physical experimental evidence that cosmic rays seed clouds. https://principia-scientific.org/strong-evidence-that-svensmark-s-solar-cosmic-ray-theory-of-climate-is-correct/ https://principia-scientific.org/strong-evidence-that-svensm... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rg3MqdBX0_k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rg3MqdBX0_k The Earth's magnetosphere & Sun's Heliosphere are measurably weakened due to the Grand Solar Minimum. The Earth is also going through a magnetic pole reversal. These magnetic fields shield Earth from cosmic rays. If they are weaker, Earth will be bombarded by cosmic rays. https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2019/04/23/a-perfect-storm-of-cosmic-rays/ https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2019/04/23/a-perfect-storm-o... The other planets in the solar system are have observed effects of cosmic ray bombardment. https://www.space.com/39590-jupiter-great-red-spot-color-still-a-mystery.html https://www.space.com/39590-jupiter-great-red-spot-color-sti... A model backed by physical experimental evidence & reliable observations is the basis of the scientific process.