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Smoke has caused temperature forecasts to go crazy
- tyleo 6y agoI’m in the midsts of this right now and it’s depressing. I spent yesterday morning with a sore throat and itchy eyes and most of the afternoon hopelessly driving hours away for a box fan and furnace filter (I finally found them). All the while I should have been working. Some of my coworkers have complained of week-long headaches. If anyone else is suffering from this: you are not alone.
- malwarebytess 6y agoI worry about the consequences of prolonged exposure. There is historical precedent that shows we should be concerned. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London
- flyGuyOnTheSly 6y agoThat smog was mostly caused by coal and highly localized. Inhaling smoke is bad for your health, absolutely, but I fail to see many similarities between the two situations.
- xapata 6y agoCoal smoke in that case, not wood smoke. Coal is a terrible pollutant. If you survive the wood smoke, the literature suggests you'll be back to normal in a couple weeks.
- CydeWeys 6y agoSource? What makes combustion particulates from coal substantially worse than combustion particulates from wood?
- Verdex 6y agoCoal can have radioactive materials inside of it. There's radioactive carbon (c14) and it looks like also a bunch of more concerning materials. [] - https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/#:~:text=At%20issue%20is%20coal's%20content,10%20times%20their%20original%20levels https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-....
- cyphar 6y agoRegarding carbon-14, there is so little of it that it makes no sense to even think about it (about 1 in 10^12 atoms). In addition, all biological matter (including you and the food you eat) has carbon-14 present in it -- that's the basic principle behind carbon dating. In fact, ash from wood burning would probably have more carbon-14 if anything. But yes, the article you linked talks about trace amounts of uranium and other materials that actually could be harmful.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- spqr0a1 6y agoThe half life of C-14 is much shorter than geologic formation time for coal. Coal's radioactivity is due to primordial nuclides and their decay chains.
- shard 6y agoHow does the radioactivity from coal compare with the radioactivity from bananas?
- tdy721 6y agoSulfur is a big one. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal Leading to, for example, acid rain. Also just a guess, coal is a finer particulate matter than wood, I think that might give more particles off. Wood dust, nope, coal dust? Hell no. Also radioactive!
- 6y ago
- formerly_proven 6y agoToday in HackerNews: Don't worry about that pesky wood smoke, it'll all be fine, folks!
- xapata 6y agoNo, that's not the takeaway. I wear my N95 outside, run my air filter inside, and avoid strenuous activity. However, there's no need to panic if you get a cough from the smoke. Don't exaggerate my statement.
- Retric 6y agoWood smoke kills around 2 million people a year, though that generally takes long term exposure. So, while you’re not incorrect that individual wildfires are not a major concern, living in places where such exposure is common is a significant issue.
- DoofusOfDeath 6y agoI've never heard this number, but I find it really interesting. If you remember where you got this number, could you please share a link?
- njarboe 6y agoIt is probably because a billion? people still use open wood fires indoors with poor ventilation. Visualize a fire in the middle of a hut with a pot on it and a small hole in the ceiling. AQI in that hut is going to be very bad. Creating systems where people can afford to use propane or other gas stoves are a huge win for the health of humanity and ecosystems.
- formerly_proven 6y agoDie drei Plagen des Bauern: Hausrauch, ein undichtes Dach und eine untreue Frau > The three plagues of the farmer: household smoke, a leaky roof and an unfaithful wife Supposedly an old saying, but almost certainly retcon. Not necessarily wrong though, look at houses a few hundred years ago, that sort of thing is still ubiquitous in the developing and pre-developing world.
- Mc_Big_G 6y agoIt's not the wood I'm worried about, it's all the non-organic material in the smoke. Plastic, household chemicals, paint, etc... In some years we'll see a massive spike in cancer and respiratory issues from these fires.
- beefalo 6y agoI doubt there is a significant enough amount of those materials being burned. Millions of acres of forest has burned compared to relatively few buildings.
- laurencerowe 6y agoDoesn’t coal burn more cleanly than wood? Edit: I was probably thinking of smokeless coal which is processed to burn more cleanly.
- jcranmer 6y agoIt depends on the grade of coal. If you're burning anthracite, yes. If you're burning lignite... no.
- robocat 6y agoI would make the educated guess that the reason wood smoke is OK is because we have thousands of years of evolution to be more tolerant of wood smoke.
- anonAndOn 6y agoYou would hope, but no. Wood smoke is still deadly.[0] [0]https://www.stoveteam.org/why-stoves https://www.stoveteam.org/why-stoves
- robocat 6y ago“more tolerant” is what I said. Evolution is mostly a slow process and can never reach perfection. An evolutionary force that is too strong just kills a species.
- samatman 6y agoClose to a million years by the best guess. Which is thousands of years... about a thousand such thousands.
- anonAndOn 6y agoRightly so. Smoke inside the house is a leading cause of death. [0] [0]https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/household-air-pollution-and-health https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/household-a...
- BurningFrog 6y agoWould be interesting to know the AQI numbers for London back in the day. I can see how it may be too late for that...
- derwiki 6y agoI’ve been using an app that converts AQI to equivalent cigarettes smoked per day. It’s not perfect but it’s something I can wrap my head around as a meaningfully bad number.
- dls2016 6y agoWhat sort of numbers are you seeing?
- derwiki 6y agoYesterday it said 6 cigarettes in East Bay for AQI ~175
- tenkabuto 6y agoHere's one such app, for people that are interested: https://shootismoke.app https://shootismoke.app It's currently giving me 2.3 cigarettes per day, and I live a decent distance away from any of the fires (Sacramento, CA).
- cactus2093 6y agoWhy in the world would this be a native app and not a web page?
- toper-centage 6y agoData collection, of course.
- patothon 6y agoOr maybe the developer only knows mobile engineering? Not everything has to be seen from an uncharitable angle.
- heavyset_go 6y agoiOS encourages developers to make apps for their services because Safari's features and compatibility lag behind other browsers, and it doesn't implement PWA functionality.
- colmvp 6y agoThere's no good timing for these fires but now just seems really bad. Can't socialize inside because of Covid, can't socialize outdoors because of smoke. Tough time to be in the West Coast.
- sharkweek 6y agoAnd as someone in the PNW these last few weeks were going to be our last hurrah of nice warm weather before the long gray winter too.
- t-writescode 6y agoThat part, to me, is the least frustrating. I'm rather tired of having hot indoors because the PNW doesn't have air conditioning as standard in most of the apartments... It hasn't gone under 81 in my apartment since this whole smoke started; and my office tends to sit at 83 on the ground.
- y-c-o-m-b 6y ago> the PNW doesn't have air conditioning as standard in most of the apartments That's because it wasn't necessary until the last 10 years or so. 90 degree days were uncommon and night temps would dip low enough to cool most places in the evening through the next morning.
- grogenaut 6y agoIt's still not really. We had 2 days over 90 in seattle, one in the smoke. And a few days at 88-89, in total I had 4 days where I turned on the window unit in my home office. If I wasnt on a deep coding problem I'd be out in the yard. 4 days a year isn't really justification for aircon
- NegativeLatency 6y agoIf you live by a busy/noisy street as many apartments are, it's necessary. I grew up in the PNW in the suburbs and living more in the city in apartments the need for AC is much more real.
- x86_64Ubuntu 6y agoDo you mind giving your state? I'm on the east coast so I don't expect to have any problems like anyone in Idaho or on the West Coast.
- pc86 6y agoEven thought some smoke has reached the east coast for pretty much everything east of the Mississippi there is no change in air quality (yet?)
- brewdad 6y agoMost, if not all, of the smoke traveling that far will be up near the jet stream level of the atmosphere. It will impact your sunlight but will have little to no effect at ground level.
- quercusa 6y agoPhiladelphia-area highs came in about 7°F under forecast today due to the high smoke from the West Coast.
- jhardy54 6y agoI'm in Portland, Oregon and can report the same.
- sp332 6y agoLots of east coast pictures in this Twitter thread showing dimmed sun this morning: https://twitter.com/growingwisdom/status/1305821237587910657 https://twitter.com/growingwisdom/status/1305821237587910657
- gdubs 6y agoWillamette Valley here, and I feel you. Was really investing a lot of my optimism in the rain that was talked about for today, for over a week now — which doesn’t look like it’s gonna happen. This has been a long, long week.
- zwieback 6y agoWhen I stepped out of my house last night and saw clouds and a little bit of blue I was ridiculously happy. None of the predicted wind or rain has shown up so far, I wonder if the fires are blocking the normal wind from the ocean.
- evan_ 6y agoDark Sky has been promising a very good chance of light rain on Friday, it’s all that’s keeping me going... I’m trying to forget that it says 0.01”.
- mywittyname 6y agoDamn. That's like a glass of water being dumped on a driveway...
- davidw 6y agoHere in Bend it's pretty awful too. We live here because we love the outdoors, and we've been locked up inside since Friday. The kids are going stir crazy. Everyone was getting excited when the AQI dipped a bit under 200 yesterday (still rated "unhealthy") because we had been over 500. Now it's back up though, and they're talking about maybe things getting better by Thursday.
- briffle 6y agoAlso Willammette Valley. I was excited to look up this morning, and be able to both tell where the sun was, and see the outline of clouds through the smoke. Its been a week now. Still horrible outside, but definitely improved.
- runarberg 6y ago
- AnonsLadder 6y agoSame here in central Oregon, it's very bad and literally no viz. I almost can't see past my neighbor's house...
- rcMgD2BwE72F 6y agoI wonder how much all that cost, all in all, and how that compare to switching to non-carbon energy sources (to limit further climate damages)…
- pathseeker 6y agoNon-carbon energy sources will not stop fires. Many of the ecosystems in California have depended on the fires as part of their life-cycle. We screwed up over-preventing fires during the last 100 years and built up a huge tinder box.
- fossuser 6y agoWhy not order a few HEPA filter air purifiers? I have 4 (5th is on its way). They work extremely well and if you pair them with a Temptop AQI sensor you can see how well in real time: https://www.temtopus.com/collections/temtopus-pm2-5-pm10-monitor https://www.temtopus.com/collections/temtopus-pm2-5-pm10-mon... Those temptop sensors are great. I've previously had awair, foobot, and purple sensors which all sucked in different ways. Really long thread about this here: https://www.reddit.com/r/AirQuality/comments/ikf1ed/are_there_any_good_air_sensors/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AirQuality/comments/ikf1ed/are_ther...
- tyleo 6y agoI have some on the way but they won't arrive until the end of the week. I wanted relief yesterday so I drove around to get it.
- clairity 6y agowow, the temtop website sent my laptop fans spinning with all the crap it tries to load, and that my content blockers went into overdrive blocking (especially, and inexplicably, from reviewsimportify.com). still, i'm interested in getting a good pm2.5 monitor to pair with my air purifier, as air pollution is a much bigger issue than covid (air pollution certainly affects vast swaths of people across the world, persistently and largely invisibly, and is only getting worse over the decades). is waiting for the wifi version (currently sold out) worth nearly twice the (sale) price of an m10?
- fossuser 6y agoThe WiFi versions have negative value to me, the apps are usually terrible and they are almost impossible to pair (typically only have 2.4ghz radios). I went with the P10 which does exactly what I want (AQI and PM2.5). It looks nice, it works, and is highly visible from a distance (even has a 6hr battery which makes it easy to move between rooms). The only other one I'd consider is the one that does CO2. As a bonus the Temtop sensors are less than half the price of their competitors while being at least twice as good.
- truthwhisperer 6y agotake care
- originalbryan2 6y agoYeesh. I'm sorry. I'm in CO and even the levels here get me all of the symptoms you mentioned. Last week I drove 1700 miles and only escaped the smoke during a summertime snowfall. It rebounded and while driving I was suppressing a mild anxiety attack bc there's nothing you can do to escape it. Driving at sunrise/sunset reminds me of the original Mad Max. Expect real and depressing.
- DocG 6y agoGenuine question, are these fires big enough to stop them from happening for a while? Or should we expect another one next year? Edit: My original question was more in mind with does this have same effect as controlled burning / prescribed burning. Thank you all for replies :)
- londons_explore 6y agoIn % of land area burned, the fires are pretty small. Far less than 1% of the US land area burned this year. So, given the same weather conditions, you should expect more fires next year.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- tsomctl 6y agoAlso, when these fires burn mature forests, they don't actually burn the huge trees, just the smaller brush. However, they are so hot that they kill the huge, mature trees. So a couple of years later, you have a huge amount of dead trees ready to burn again.
- DocG 6y agoOh, I did not think nor knew about that one. I was more curious about does this have the same effect as controlled burning / prescribed burning but this seems to be making things even worse then. Thank you all for answers :)
- cultus 6y agoPrescribed burning is usually done outside of the peak season (often in the later Autumn) just so it is more controllable and less intense. It's amazing how fires can differ. Many "good" fires just essentially smolder for months, growing very slowly until the autumn precip douses them. The FS just lets them burn if they don't threaten any structures. I've even hiked directly over smoldering ground before, with no danger.
- cm2187 6y agoWould be curious to compare how much CO2 has been emitted as a result of these fires to California’s annual CO2 savings by going for renewable energy.
- VBprogrammer 6y agoThat might be interesting from a purely educational point of view but it is of little practical relevance. Trees burning in wild fires release CO2 that was captured in the last couple of decades by the tree in the process of growing. Burning fossil fuels releases CO2 which was captured millennia ago and buried deep underground. It's roughly the same as why melting icebergs cause sea levels to rise but rain will not.
- chongli 6y agoIt could be relevant if a bunch of different wildfires happen around the same time worldwide. If they bring the global average temperature above some tipping point and result in the melting of permafrost and release of large amounts of methane, that could cause the runaway greenhouse effect to occur much earlier than previously forecast.
- VBprogrammer 6y agoI'm afraid if that was the case the world is so delicately balanced that we are already fubar.
- ForHackernews 6y ago> we are already fubar Nobody's shown any convincing evidence that this isn't the case. We've been tracking worse-than-worst-case-predictions for a while https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/13/climate-worst-case-scenarios-clouds-scientists-global-heating https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/13/climate-...
- cm2187 6y agoWell it does matter in the sense of how bad policy can annihilate the benefits of good policy
- naivedevops 6y agoMeanwhile, in Sao Paulo we are getting to 34C (93F) every day, and even the nights have been extremely warm. And here at the southern hemisphere it's winter now.
- Scarblac 6y agoHere in the Netherlands it is currently 32 degrees C. This is the latest date we have had 30+ temperatures since measurements began in 1901. And ten years from now we'll remember this as cool.
- bamboozled 6y agoI remember visiting Amsterdam in a heatwave, maybe 2016, and they were hosing the canal bridges off to cool them so they'd close properly. Apparently they'd expanded from the heat more than they were designed to cope with.
- xxpor 6y agoThat happens in Seattle too. I'm surprised the metal expands that much myself.
- aidenn0 6y agoThe expansion is as a fraction of length. For steel its around 10-20ppm per degree C. So a 40 degree temperature swing would be 400-800ppm, which means about 1mm difference in length for 2m of steel. Obviously bridges aren't usually made of a single span of steel, but there will be limits to how much expansion a given joint can tolerate, and each half of a draw-bridge needs to be fairly rigid. On top of that, 40 degrees is probably much less than the difference in road temperature between a cold night in January vs. a sunny day in August. Railway tracks used to buckle in the heat before they built them with a small gap between the rail spans.
- larrik 6y agoWhat are winters normally like? You seem to be about as far from the equator as places like Miami, so I'm not sure what to expect.
- Oricle 6y agoAntifa blm communists setti g fires as usual. These people are funded by the likes of George sorros and friends. Wake up, before your an alien in your own cou try! It's a global threat too!
- yowlingcat 6y agoIf you're like me and you wondered if the fires raging on the west coast could benefit from the controlled burn approach Australia has historically used to control bushfires, the answer seems to be a disappointing no [1]. Any folks who know this better than me who can comment? > He adds that a particular feature of the recent fires in Australia is that they have spread across the crown or top part of the forest - so removing growth at ground level does not make that much difference. > Also the fires have been hot and intense enough to burn through areas that were already burned, with embers able to travel through the air and ignite areas far away from an active fire. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-51020384 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-51020384
- jdsfighter 6y agoA couple months back, I read an article on how California's indigenous peoples used to do controlled burns to help prevent wildfires. Apparently it was something California put an end to, despite the indigenous folks' insistence. It seems to have begun making a comeback in recent years though [1] [1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/nov/21/wildfire-prescribed-burns-california-native-americans https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/nov/21/wildfire-pre...
- mensetmanusman 6y agoConservation of energy indicates that you can ‘flatten the curve’ of forest fires by doing more burns more frequently that are less intense.
- yowlingcat 6y agoThat's what I was under the impression of as well. What the article seems to imply, though, is that exogenous increase in burn intensity (ostensibly through climate change) is making the mileage of that approach less practical than it used to be. Of course, I'm sure the two are not mutually exclusive.
- mshenfield 6y agoCliff Mass spoiled himself for me with this asinine blog post comparing Seattle BLM protesters to brownshirts in Nazi Germany [0]. It feels icky to get behind someone who will use his platform to sling ridiculous accusations and accept no criticism [1]. It's a shame - his weather reporting is uniquely good and fun to read. [0] https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2020/08/seattle-city-in-fear-can-be-restored.html https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2020/08/seattle-city-in-fear-... [1] https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2020/08/my-firing-at-knkx.html https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2020/08/my-firing-at-knkx.htm... EDIT: Fleshed out criticism of the original blog post: http://www.dailyuw.com/news/article_8421ecd2-d90c-11ea-9e91-3f2d966a45fd.html http://www.dailyuw.com/news/article_8421ecd2-d90c-11ea-9e91-...
- jackyinger 6y agoI agree that he went off the deep end with that post. Let there’s be no mistake about that; I live on cap hill in Seattle and his analogy falls flat on its face for many reasons. But, I think we should allow ourselves the nuanced perspective of continuing to enjoy his weather posts even if we disagree with his politics. I think that we owe it to ourselves to be able to pick and choose information from a person rather than writing them off entirely. Isn’t that what we do with family members that we have disagreements with but still have to get along with? Are we not all one big human family?
- aaomidi 6y agoIf a family member compares blm to nazis then no I basically cut them off.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- cmendel 6y agoMaybe I'm misunderstanding, are you advocating for continuing to follow a blog that is known to give misinformation because you like the writing style? Because if that is the case I would highly recommend changing your mind, the Bayesian prior has changed and unfortunately it is permanent.
- dthal 6y agoThis blog post went up on Saturday, September 12. It says: >> MUCH cleaner air will push in by 4 PM Sunday over the coastal zone and will just reach Seattle late in the afternoon >> By 1 AM Monday, air quality will be hugely better in western Washington As of now (Tuesday) there is no sign of clearing. Here in Seattle we are still in the "very unhealthy" range for AQI.
- lacker 6y agoYeah, the weather forecasts for air quality have been quite inaccurate. Since Friday, the projections for Oakland CA have constantly been, “it’ll clear up in the next 24 hours.” Only now, Tuesday morning, has the AQI dropped below 100. It seems like it’s just a harder problem than regular weather forecasting. Nobody has much experience with giant smoke clouds like this one. So I can forgive the weather service some inaccuracy. Just don’t rely on the AQI forecasts for much.
- wnissen 6y agoYep. Predictions are obviously hard, but there's no wind to blow the smoke away, so I don't know why it is routinely predicted to do so 48 hours in the future. There is enough smoke piled up over the ocean (at least to judge from the satellite pictures) that it would take several days of steady winds to clear everything out. Any wind strong enough to theoretically clear the smoke quickly would probably spark new fires instead. And yet even with multiple fires nowhere near containment, the Spare The Air forecast still says "moderate" air in two days. I'll believe it when I breathe it. The "incident meteorologist" for the North Complex fire was quoted yesterday as saying there was no system predicted that would cause a notable improvement in air quality for the next two weeks. Again, assuming no new fires, which is a stretch given that we're right in the middle of the traditional fire season. The only forecast I rely on is the National Weather Service. Their site is painfully dated but the accuracy is unmatched.
- GaryNumanVevo 6y agoI've found the HRRR experimental smoke models to be quite good. It's a bit cumbersome to use, but good enough for 18H forecasts https://rapidrefresh.noaa.gov/hrrr/HRRRsmoke/ https://rapidrefresh.noaa.gov/hrrr/HRRRsmoke/
- mensetmanusman 6y agoUse room air purifiers with hepa quality, those remove particles down to <100 nm (these should be in every classroom already to capture SARS-CoV2 and make indoor air cleaner than outdoor air). Furnace filters are not designed to filter as much, or else they would need changing too often and put too much pressure on the furnace motors when people forget, which is a hazard in its own right.
- aaomidi 6y agoYou can find furnace filters with higher ratings.
- mensetmanusman 6y agoTrue, but they don’t keep the air clean nearly as fast as putting room air purifiers near people (closer to source) unless you have an HVAC that is so powerful you feel wind inside..
- aaomidi 6y agoIt's really not related to wind speed or hvac power. If you have a well insulated house then a normal hvac system can maintain positive pressure and keep the air inside clean. Assuming it's designed for that purpose. Alternatively just having a bunch of box fans forcing air through filters is also good. That's essentially what a air purifier is.
- mensetmanusman 6y agoI love the box fan method, wish they would market that at menards for people doing drywall demo :)
- samatman 6y agoWell insulated houses, unfortunately, are not a usual feature of West Coast architecture.
- SomewhatLikely 6y ago
- moocowtruck 6y agomy local forecasting should blame it on the smoke too, since they never get it right...you know when i know it's going to rain...when it's already raining.
- dghughes 6y agoI'm in southeastern Canada years ago smoke from Quebec forest fires made the sky red. The soil where I am from is also red. It was like living on Mars. The fun ends quickly when your throat gets scratchy and there is no where you can go to escape it the air in your house has to come from outside too. I'm not looking forward to any smoke now my dad has COPD, IPF, is on oxygen, and he's elderly. If we get any amount of smoke here it will be the end of him. It's hard enough trying to keep him from contracting SARS-Cov-2 and developing covid-19.
- woah 6y agoGet an air filter
- hguant 6y ago>I'm not looking forward to any smoke now my dad has COPD, IPF, is on oxygen, and he's elderly. If we get any amount of smoke here it will be the end of him. It's hard enough trying to keep him from contracting SARS-Cov-2 and developing covid-19 Seriously, get a HEPA rated air filter. Speaking as someone who has some serious lung issues, it's literally life changing/saving. Honeywell sells a number of models, cost is between 150-270 USD, depending on the size/amount of air you want moved.
- EricE 6y agoThis. My sleep has greatly improved since putting a HEPA filter in my bedroom and I rather enjoy the white noise of the fan. Good units like the Sharp Plasmacluster I use have a large, slow moving blower (not a higher speed fan with fewer, larger blades) so the noise is very subtle.
- Sulamitachica 6y agoI also have HEPA filters throughout my house. They have improved my sleep and reduced my allergies even.
- Scoundreller 6y agoOr in a pinch, a HEPA vacuum cleaner. Double points if you rig it to take in outside air and vent it inside to create a positive pressure of filtered air. This should work.
- mtalantikite 6y agoI was in Delhi in January/February a couple years ago and the air quality index looked the same as the image from the article around Salem, OR every day I was there. Some nights I’d check the stats and it’d be around 600. The depressing thing is you end up getting sort of used to it, albeit with a bad cough. The effects of our reckless destruction of the environment are sadly in your face every day in many parts of the world.
- danaris 6y agoI have a utility that automatically sets my desktop picture to a snapshot from the GOES satellite image feed every 20 minutes or so, and this morning I noticed it showing this [0]. I was curious to see if it was what I thought, so I switched to the west-coast feed [1], and indeed, the smoke appears to have crossed the entire continent on the jet stream. No apparent effects here on the east coast for now, but I'm betting sunsets will be prettier than normal for a while...definitely somewhat concerned for the possibility that it could worsen, though, if the fires continue. (Images come from here [2], swap the 16 in the URL for 17 for the west coast feed) [0] https://cdn.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES16/ABI/FD/GEOCOLOR/20202591510_GOES16-ABI-FD-GEOCOLOR-1808x1808.jpg https://cdn.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES16/ABI/FD/GEOCOLOR/2020... [1] https://cdn.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES17/ABI/FD/GEOCOLOR/20202591520_GOES17-ABI-FD-GEOCOLOR-1808x1808.jpg https://cdn.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES17/ABI/FD/GEOCOLOR/2020... [2] https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES/fulldisk.php?sat=G16 https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES/fulldisk.php?sat=G16
- ogre_codes 6y agoSeeing this first hand here near Eugene. Weather app has said mid 80s, I go outside and it's in the mid-low 60s and I need a hoodie. Our local fire crews say this completely crappy weather/ unhealthy air is slowing the fire down so they can increase containment. Going stir crazy, but also this fire scared the hell out of most people so it's hard to complain too much about lingering fog/ chilly days.
- jedberg 6y agoOn the day when the Bay Area was completely blacked out, the weather forecast said it would be 89, and when I went outside my thermometer was reading 68. The cooling effect of smoke is ridiculous.
- dan_quixote 6y agoYeah, we had several days in Seattle where the forecast was 70s and sunny yet it stayed 58F all day and night.
- pbuzbee 6y agoRelated: I've noticed here (California's central valley) that trees have started changing colors for fall already. This is pretty early: usually trees change in mid-October. I'm guessing this is from the smoke reducing light/temperatures.
- peweewee 6y agoThis what you get when you elect corrupt politicians and foster an uneducated population. Poor management and climate change deniers. As the US is one of the largest polluters of the world, larger than but close to China, there is a lot debt owed to other nations. That debt tho is not repayable because the damage is beyond repair. Thanks ‘murica for destroying the planet along with china and other failed states.
- 01100011 6y agoI wonder how much of an effect this will have on crop yields and crop quality? I expect we'll see lower yields and less carbohydrate content. Also, what is the composition of the particles emitted by the fires? Is it mostly carbon or is there some potassium hydroxide? Is that fertilizing to any degree?
- Obi_Juan_Kenobi 6y agoDiffuse light has a tendency to increase yield by decreasing the shading effect on lower leaves, so it largely cancels out. It is also fairly easily to saturate photosites in full sun. Heat/water are more limiting in these contexts. It's really not an issue.
- 8note 6y agoCarbohydrate content of crops has generally been going up with all that CO2 in the air, so maybe a bit less photosynthesis will do well for the nutritional content?
- SubiculumCode 6y agoThat's how its been in California the last few summers. Hot summer days, big fire(s), cooling of the summer heat under the deep cover of smoke.
- rconti 6y agoI drove from the Idaho panhandle to SF on Sunday. 1000 miles of abysmal air. Most of the journey had reported 500+ AQI values, with some areas visibly much, much worse. The worst was along the Columbia River gorge where the Deschutes flows into the Columbia (2nd photo in my tweet) I'm not sensitive to poor air, and I was running my car on recirculated air, but at one point I actually started wearing my KN95 as I was driving. https://twitter.com/reidconti/status/1305601474005590018?s=20 https://twitter.com/reidconti/status/1305601474005590018?s=2...
- jldugger 6y ago> I drove from the Idaho panhandle to SF on Sunday One does not simply walk into Mordor...
- kirillzubovsky 6y agoYup. It's been a fun weekend. Everyone in the family is feeling the cabin fever, but outside (Bellevue, WA) smells like inside of a fireplace. We put a few boxed fans with HEPA filters around the house and they are now black. In hindsight, should've bought more filters, but all the stores and Amazon are sold out for the near future. Speaking about the future, this puts planning in perspective. With the climate changing, remote work, covid and all, the way we live in the next 20 years might look somewhat different than past 50. The new "American Dream" might be a tiny condo with great AC, minimal footprint, solar energy and rain water storage...etc. It's a good time to ponder what the real estate and living of the future could look like!
- chris1993 6y agoBe sure to have a bypass on your rain system to flush the smoke precipitates off your roof before they get into the tank. My parents water used to taste of tar over winter when they were lighting their fire.
- kirillzubovsky 6y agoGood to note! One thing I definitely want to do when I have the means is built a cabin/house with the latest and greatest efficiencies. Not in a hippy-earth-loving way, but more in a curious engineer way. Did you know there are these things called Earthships in New Mexico? It's a bit too hippy for me, but on the right track.
- asdasfasdfasdf 6y agoI sense some hippie shame (maybe I'm wrong)! IMO a lot of that feeling stems from the government and ruling class pushing back against counter-culture. They were more right about the environment (among other issues) than they even realized at the time. Earthships are unconventional in appearance and implementation, but are great examples of the type of thinking we're going to need to overcome imminent climate issues. If we started doing more of that in the 60s and 70s we'd be in a better position today.
- little_hills 6y ago> the modeling systems on which they are based do not include smoke Can anybody help with providing some links to content that would expand on this? It doesn’t have to be region/country specific, just looking to dig a bit deeper in a lore general sense about current models and future improvements. I can take a guess and say that it wasn’t accounted for in current models as it might have been too niche a statistic to try and monitor, but either it’s becoming more of a factor now that’s having a prolonged (significant) effect on models or maybe there has just been a push to expand into those niches to make the models more adaptable in the future.