14 ms·

Europe Heatwave: Records Tumble in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands

68 points by reddotX 7y ago

SiempreViernes 7y ago
Get your in comments disregarding predictions coming true before this weather related story gets flagged off the front page. Well, maybe there is so little call to action in this one that it’ll stick around?
- mrep 7y ago
  Why do you think this will be flagged? I hardly ever see comments disregarding climate change here.
  - SiempreViernes 7y ago
    There was anoter bbc article about the need for political action, that managed to stay up for about 2 hours, getting plenty of “well, we don’t need to worry about it now, the market will sort it” comments before being flagged off.
  - SiempreViernes 7y ago
    There’s one up now, posted a minute after yours.
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    Lots of climate stories get flagged off the front page, and rapidly. Or trigger HN spam flags from the succession of low karma deniers with "climate has always been changing", "well we don't have accurate temperature records back to the yyy age" zero substance comments. If Europe is wider awake they seem to have more chance of sticking around a while... Which is a bit sad as it's one of the few places online I'd have hoped for a more engaging and productive discussion of the topic.
    - dang 7y ago
      It's one of the most-discussed topics on HN. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0&query=climate%20comments%3E20 https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story... https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=warming%20comments%3E10 https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story... Everyone's favorite topic feels under-discussed because frontpage space is the scarcest resource here. Probably even Rust hackers feel that way. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0&query=by:dang%20scarce https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
        Sure, there's a decent number that do survive, but there's also a lot that attract interest, decent discussion then bomb fast from either getting flagged or excess downvotes/comments - however your algo decides to derank. Which is not to say I expect them all to stick... :)
    - malvosenior 7y ago
      > Or trigger HN spam flags from the succession of low karma deniers with "climate has always been changing", "well we don't have accurate temperature records back to the yyy age" zero substance comments. > Which is a bit sad as it's one of the few places online I'd have hoped for a more engaging and productive discussion of the topic. How can you have a productive discussion when you immediately dismiss anyone who questions things as "low karma deniers"? Any meaningful discussion should start with addressing: "climate has always been changing", "well we don't have accurate temperature records back to the yyy age" since they're very relevant points.
      - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
        Except they're not relevant. I could understand someone in the 1980s and 1990s raising those in good faith, through poor understanding, before high general awareness. Just as I could understand someone raising points around fatty food and obesity in the same era. At least climate, unlike fat in food, hasn't had an entire irrelevant and possibly harmful industry spring up based on that FUD. Today, it isn't meaningful, it's just a distraction tactic to dilute and spread doubt. The most charitable interpretation of someone raising such points as today is they have got their terrible "understanding" from the most biased, disingenuous sources created and promoted by those with an agenda. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/aug/23/harvard-scientists-took-exxons-challenge-found-it-using-the-tobacco-playbook https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97...
elorant 7y ago
Meanwhile in Greece it has been the coolest summer of the last 20 years at least. We didn't have a single heatwave so far. It even rained in mid July.
- StavrosK 7y ago
  "Coolest"? It just hasn't hit 40 yet. The weather has been crazy, we had a goddamn tornado for crying out loud. It even rained in July!
  - elorant 7y ago
    Cool as in opposite of hot. Not cool like nice.
Havoc 7y ago
Records tumble. That's a once off message - being a record. Good for immediate PR. Terrible for sending the message that needs to be sent - namely climate change. The messaging needs to switch towards things are now permanently hot in X rather than well today is extra hot.
- anonymouz 7y ago
  I like this graph: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48678196 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48678196 . Gets the trend across in a very concise and obvious manner.
scrollaway 7y ago
The northern half of europe (anywhere north of the mediteranean) really sucks at handling heat. In most of France, Belgium or Germany it's impossible to find apartments with ceiling fans or air conditioning. There's also no concept of central air conditioning anywhere in europe for non-commercial buildings, which is a big opportunity for improvement (especially in Greece where air conditioning is everywhere, looks disgusting in the streets and is less efficient than a central unit in summer). Possibly the worst offence in Germany and especially in Belgium is that you can't ask restaurants/bars for tap water. They'll refuse to serve you, and will ask you to buy bottled water. (Tap water is 100% safe, they just don't want to do the kindness) It's an especially absurd custom given that, you go west a few kilometers and pass the French frontier, every bar and restaurant is legally obligated to serve tap water for free whenever customers ask. In most mediterranean countries, it's not even a question of asking: You sit down, a waiter will bring you water, before you've even ordered.
- StavrosK 7y ago
  I think the Greek custom of AC units everywhere is because traditionally houses have been pretty cool, so there hasn't been much of a need for central AC until now. We prefer to open our windows at night and shut them during the day, and we use fabric awnings to keep the sun out. Plus, most buildings are rather old so HVAC systems weren't popular. That said, yeah, it does look very ugly, and I wish new buildings had central AC units.
  - nostrademons 7y ago
    It's like that in parts of the U.S. as well - the vast majority of Bay Area homes do not have central A/C or even a room air conditioning unit, because for 99% of the year, you don't need one. This is getting to be a problem with 100 degree days becoming more common. Strangely, I saw more units with central A/C in Toronto than in San Francisco. I guess they're used to hot summers there. (It's ubiquitous in the American South, though, since many of those areas were quite unpleasant to live in before air conditioning was invented.)
    - 7y ago
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
llamathrowaway 7y ago
Weather forecast says London is going to be 38 degrees tomorrow, with a humidity of over 60%. Railway companies are telling me not to travel tomorrow because the heat is likely to disrupt train services. Tube lines without air conditioning are going to be dangerously hot. I don’t know how this city is going to function tomorrow. Maybe it’s something we need to adapt to.
- Cenk 7y ago
  This happened a couple years ago on ICE (Inter City Express) trains in Germany: https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/the-world-from-berlin-deutsche-bahn-is-soft-boiling-its-customers-a-706889.html https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/the-world-from-... > As temperatures soared to 38 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit), the cooling system on many ICE high-speed trains simply switched off, leaving passengers to swelter amid inside temperatures of up to 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit). > "A company that has aspirations to be a high-tech firm, but one which soft boils its customers instead of bringing them comfortably to their destination, has more than a small technical problem."
  - jazzyjackson 7y ago
    Wow, don't suppose they could open a window !
    - srrr 7y ago
      The ICE does not have windows that can be opened because it is a high speed train traveling at 200-300km/h.
    - pgeorgi 7y ago
      I'd rather boil than open a window at 280km/h
ARandomerDude 7y ago
All those other people who cook, use lights and computers, and rely on transportation are killing us.
vermontdevil 7y ago
Apparently England might break their highest temp and they have a record dating back pretty far.
dev_dull 7y ago
> The Belgian town of Kleine Brogel hit 39.9C (102F), the hottest since 1833. Global warming is causing the heatwave now. But what caused the heat wave in 1833?
- whatshisface 7y ago
  Short-term climate fluctuations caused both heatwaves, and global warming has made this one a little worse than it would otherwise have been.
- graeme 7y ago
  1833 is when records began. Usually the case when you heard hottest since [19th century date] The BBC should have said that. This article mentions it: https://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/wireStory/europe-braces-record-breaking-heat-wave-64534647 https://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/wireStory/europe-braces-rec...
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
spraak 7y ago
"Report: Average American Must Have Life Ruined By Natural Disaster Every 6 Minutes To Fear Climate Change" [1] It's the Onion, but still seems on point [1] https://www.theonion.com/report-average-american-must-have-life-ruined-by-natur-1836604584 https://www.theonion.com/report-average-american-must-have-l...
rainyMammoth 7y ago
we should honestly stop yelling climate change and global warming whenever it gets too hot or too cold. That's NOT how it works and the only long term effect will be to create more doubts around climate change.
tzs 7y ago
> The Belgian town of Kleine Brogel hit 39.9C (102F), the hottest since 1833 OK...I'll be the pedantic nit-picker and bring this up: 39.9 C is 103.83 F. How the heck did they round that to 102 F? I can see 104F or 103F, but 102 F!? Or maybe they got the report as 102 F and calculated C from that? No...that doesn't work either. 102 F is 38.889 C, so should have rounded to 38.9 C if they wanted one decimal place, not 39.9 C. Also, might as well nit-pick this too...there is supposed to be a space between the number and the unit symbol according to the rules for SI units, except for °, ′, and ″ when used to denote angles in degrees, minutes, and seconds, such as 14° 13′ 41″ [1]. I could see omitting the space if they included the circle, such as 39.9℃ and 102℉, since the circle keeps the C or F from being unpleasantly close to the number. [1] https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/2794/punctuation-with-units https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/2794/punctuation...
- rambojazz 7y ago
  Maybe they truncated numbers instead of rounding. 39.9°C -> 39°C -> 102.2°F -> 102°F

68 points by reddotX 7y ago

Get your in comments disregarding predictions coming true before this weather related story gets flagged off the front page. Well, maybe there is so little call to action in this one that it’ll stick around?

mrep 7y ago
Why do you think this will be flagged? I hardly ever see comments disregarding climate change here.
- SiempreViernes 7y ago
  There was anoter bbc article about the need for political action, that managed to stay up for about 2 hours, getting plenty of “well, we don’t need to worry about it now, the market will sort it” comments before being flagged off.
- SiempreViernes 7y ago
  There’s one up now, posted a minute after yours.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  Lots of climate stories get flagged off the front page, and rapidly. Or trigger HN spam flags from the succession of low karma deniers with "climate has always been changing", "well we don't have accurate temperature records back to the yyy age" zero substance comments. If Europe is wider awake they seem to have more chance of sticking around a while... Which is a bit sad as it's one of the few places online I'd have hoped for a more engaging and productive discussion of the topic.
  - dang 7y ago
    It's one of the most-discussed topics on HN. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0&query=climate%20comments%3E20 https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story... https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=warming%20comments%3E10 https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story... Everyone's favorite topic feels under-discussed because frontpage space is the scarcest resource here. Probably even Rust hackers feel that way. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0&query=by:dang%20scarce https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
      Sure, there's a decent number that do survive, but there's also a lot that attract interest, decent discussion then bomb fast from either getting flagged or excess downvotes/comments - however your algo decides to derank. Which is not to say I expect them all to stick... :)
  - malvosenior 7y ago
    > Or trigger HN spam flags from the succession of low karma deniers with "climate has always been changing", "well we don't have accurate temperature records back to the yyy age" zero substance comments. > Which is a bit sad as it's one of the few places online I'd have hoped for a more engaging and productive discussion of the topic. How can you have a productive discussion when you immediately dismiss anyone who questions things as "low karma deniers"? Any meaningful discussion should start with addressing: "climate has always been changing", "well we don't have accurate temperature records back to the yyy age" since they're very relevant points.
    - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
      Except they're not relevant. I could understand someone in the 1980s and 1990s raising those in good faith, through poor understanding, before high general awareness. Just as I could understand someone raising points around fatty food and obesity in the same era. At least climate, unlike fat in food, hasn't had an entire irrelevant and possibly harmful industry spring up based on that FUD. Today, it isn't meaningful, it's just a distraction tactic to dilute and spread doubt. The most charitable interpretation of someone raising such points as today is they have got their terrible "understanding" from the most biased, disingenuous sources created and promoted by those with an agenda. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/aug/23/harvard-scientists-took-exxons-challenge-found-it-using-the-tobacco-playbook https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97...

elorant 7y ago

Meanwhile in Greece it has been the coolest summer of the last 20 years at least. We didn't have a single heatwave so far. It even rained in mid July.

StavrosK 7y ago
"Coolest"? It just hasn't hit 40 yet. The weather has been crazy, we had a goddamn tornado for crying out loud. It even rained in July!
- elorant 7y ago
  Cool as in opposite of hot. Not cool like nice.

Havoc 7y ago

Records tumble. That's a once off message - being a record. Good for immediate PR. Terrible for sending the message that needs to be sent - namely climate change. The messaging needs to switch towards things are now permanently hot in X rather than well today is extra hot.

anonymouz 7y ago
I like this graph: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48678196 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48678196 . Gets the trend across in a very concise and obvious manner.

scrollaway 7y ago

The northern half of europe (anywhere north of the mediteranean) really sucks at handling heat. In most of France, Belgium or Germany it's impossible to find apartments with ceiling fans or air conditioning. There's also no concept of central air conditioning anywhere in europe for non-commercial buildings, which is a big opportunity for improvement (especially in Greece where air conditioning is everywhere, looks disgusting in the streets and is less efficient than a central unit in summer). Possibly the worst offence in Germany and especially in Belgium is that you can't ask restaurants/bars for tap water. They'll refuse to serve you, and will ask you to buy bottled water. (Tap water is 100% safe, they just don't want to do the kindness) It's an especially absurd custom given that, you go west a few kilometers and pass the French frontier, every bar and restaurant is legally obligated to serve tap water for free whenever customers ask. In most mediterranean countries, it's not even a question of asking: You sit down, a waiter will bring you water, before you've even ordered.

StavrosK 7y ago
I think the Greek custom of AC units everywhere is because traditionally houses have been pretty cool, so there hasn't been much of a need for central AC until now. We prefer to open our windows at night and shut them during the day, and we use fabric awnings to keep the sun out. Plus, most buildings are rather old so HVAC systems weren't popular. That said, yeah, it does look very ugly, and I wish new buildings had central AC units.
- nostrademons 7y ago
  It's like that in parts of the U.S. as well - the vast majority of Bay Area homes do not have central A/C or even a room air conditioning unit, because for 99% of the year, you don't need one. This is getting to be a problem with 100 degree days becoming more common. Strangely, I saw more units with central A/C in Toronto than in San Francisco. I guess they're used to hot summers there. (It's ubiquitous in the American South, though, since many of those areas were quite unpleasant to live in before air conditioning was invented.)
  - 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

llamathrowaway 7y ago

Weather forecast says London is going to be 38 degrees tomorrow, with a humidity of over 60%. Railway companies are telling me not to travel tomorrow because the heat is likely to disrupt train services. Tube lines without air conditioning are going to be dangerously hot. I don’t know how this city is going to function tomorrow. Maybe it’s something we need to adapt to.

Cenk 7y ago
This happened a couple years ago on ICE (Inter City Express) trains in Germany: https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/the-world-from-berlin-deutsche-bahn-is-soft-boiling-its-customers-a-706889.html https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/the-world-from-... > As temperatures soared to 38 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit), the cooling system on many ICE high-speed trains simply switched off, leaving passengers to swelter amid inside temperatures of up to 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit). > "A company that has aspirations to be a high-tech firm, but one which soft boils its customers instead of bringing them comfortably to their destination, has more than a small technical problem."
- jazzyjackson 7y ago
  Wow, don't suppose they could open a window !
  - srrr 7y ago
    The ICE does not have windows that can be opened because it is a high speed train traveling at 200-300km/h.
  - pgeorgi 7y ago
    I'd rather boil than open a window at 280km/h

ARandomerDude 7y ago

All those other people who cook, use lights and computers, and rely on transportation are killing us.

vermontdevil 7y ago

Apparently England might break their highest temp and they have a record dating back pretty far.

dev_dull 7y ago

> The Belgian town of Kleine Brogel hit 39.9C (102F), the hottest since 1833. Global warming is causing the heatwave now. But what caused the heat wave in 1833?

whatshisface 7y ago
Short-term climate fluctuations caused both heatwaves, and global warming has made this one a little worse than it would otherwise have been.
graeme 7y ago
1833 is when records began. Usually the case when you heard hottest since [19th century date] The BBC should have said that. This article mentions it: https://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/wireStory/europe-braces-record-breaking-heat-wave-64534647 https://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/wireStory/europe-braces-rec...

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

spraak 7y ago

"Report: Average American Must Have Life Ruined By Natural Disaster Every 6 Minutes To Fear Climate Change" [1] It's the Onion, but still seems on point [1] https://www.theonion.com/report-average-american-must-have-life-ruined-by-natur-1836604584 https://www.theonion.com/report-average-american-must-have-l...

rainyMammoth 7y ago

we should honestly stop yelling climate change and global warming whenever it gets too hot or too cold. That's NOT how it works and the only long term effect will be to create more doubts around climate change.

tzs 7y ago

> The Belgian town of Kleine Brogel hit 39.9C (102F), the hottest since 1833 OK...I'll be the pedantic nit-picker and bring this up: 39.9 C is 103.83 F. How the heck did they round that to 102 F? I can see 104F or 103F, but 102 F!? Or maybe they got the report as 102 F and calculated C from that? No...that doesn't work either. 102 F is 38.889 C, so should have rounded to 38.9 C if they wanted one decimal place, not 39.9 C. Also, might as well nit-pick this too...there is supposed to be a space between the number and the unit symbol according to the rules for SI units, except for °, ′, and ″ when used to denote angles in degrees, minutes, and seconds, such as 14° 13′ 41″ [1]. I could see omitting the space if they included the circle, such as 39.9℃ and 102℉, since the circle keeps the C or F from being unpleasantly close to the number. [1] https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/2794/punctuation-with-units https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/2794/punctuation...

rambojazz 7y ago
Maybe they truncated numbers instead of rounding. 39.9°C -> 39°C -> 102.2°F -> 102°F