4 ms·

I think the phrase "global warming" is part of the problem. "Warming" doesn't sound scary to a lazy layman mind, especially when scientist say the worst case s

I think the phrase "global warming" is part of the problem. "Warming" doesn't sound scary to a lazy layman mind, especially when scientist say the worst case scenario is something like 1.5-2 degrees Celsius. This causes a lot of people to believe that warming is same weather they would normally be getting, just add 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius. "Phew, I wouldn't mind a bit more sunshine!" Unfortunately, that's not how it works and the name doesn't help to convey the scale of devastation to come. I think this should be called something more scary like "Global weather pattern disruption"

mjevans 5y ago
Global Weather Chaos More energy in the weather caused by a human additions to the atmosphere that weaken natural filters, act as collectors on the ground (compared to natural 'green' cover), and might even insulate (mostly smog?). The increased energy makes for hotter summers, and counter-intuitively for some, stronger storms which worsen winters by disrupting the previous systems that averaged and smoothed out temperatures. Global Weather Chaos - it's accurate.
- lmilcin 5y ago
  Chaos is good word bot I think for another reason. Weather is chaotic system in the mathematical sense of chaos. In this sense, the idea is that small changes can have arbitrarily large effects. Climate on Earth has settled into equilibrium that for millions of years has been changing rather slowly and periodically. We are now moving the climate out of that equilibrium and it is not possible to tell what can happen. There are not many hard bounds on what the weather can look like on Earth when (if) we come the other side. We know how much energy we receive from Sun and this is not going to change and this puts some bounds on how energetic our weather can be. We know the oceans and atmosphere will not evaporate into space in any short time so we are not going to run out of air or water anytime soon. Other than that, it is possible we can be reflecting most of the Sun's energy back into space (if we manage to snowball our planet). It is also possible we can get our atmosphere to retain much more of heat making it completely uninhabitable to human life unassisted by technology. Even small changes in temperature can weaken, stop or redirect oceanic currents and these can have outsize effects on weather patterns. Sahara could be getting monsoons and Europe could revert to climate of north Canada (as its latitude would suggest). More than that, in some places on Earth we are skirting the boundary of uninhabitability for unassisted human life. Humans cannot survive wet bulb temperatures 35 degrees Celsius or more. There are registered cases of waves of hot humid air with wet bulb temperatures over 35 degrees -- basically deadly for any human. These waves are going to be more and more frequent and may be responsible for increasing number of deaths. A large wave like that could kill hundreds of thousands or even millions of people in a densely populated areas of India. An even slight increase in temperature or humidity or wind patterns can cause these waves to be much larger or lingering for longer creating new type of natural disaster.
clydethefrog 5y ago
The Guardian implemented some guidelines around climate reporting specificially to communicate the ordeal more clear. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/16/guardian-language-changes-climate-environment https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/16/guardian...
- koheripbal 5y ago
  Then again there ARE some northern communities that benefit from global warming. ...so it's not really that lazy to think that some people might be in that group. Arctic sea lanes are already open for business to global shipping. It's becoming one of the main ways to circumvent the Panama Canal for certain routes.
  - lmilcin 5y ago
    There are some people benefiting from wars, also.

mjevans 5y ago

Global Weather Chaos More energy in the weather caused by a human additions to the atmosphere that weaken natural filters, act as collectors on the ground (compared to natural 'green' cover), and might even insulate (mostly smog?). The increased energy makes for hotter summers, and counter-intuitively for some, stronger storms which worsen winters by disrupting the previous systems that averaged and smoothed out temperatures. Global Weather Chaos - it's accurate.

lmilcin 5y ago
Chaos is good word bot I think for another reason. Weather is chaotic system in the mathematical sense of chaos. In this sense, the idea is that small changes can have arbitrarily large effects. Climate on Earth has settled into equilibrium that for millions of years has been changing rather slowly and periodically. We are now moving the climate out of that equilibrium and it is not possible to tell what can happen. There are not many hard bounds on what the weather can look like on Earth when (if) we come the other side. We know how much energy we receive from Sun and this is not going to change and this puts some bounds on how energetic our weather can be. We know the oceans and atmosphere will not evaporate into space in any short time so we are not going to run out of air or water anytime soon. Other than that, it is possible we can be reflecting most of the Sun's energy back into space (if we manage to snowball our planet). It is also possible we can get our atmosphere to retain much more of heat making it completely uninhabitable to human life unassisted by technology. Even small changes in temperature can weaken, stop or redirect oceanic currents and these can have outsize effects on weather patterns. Sahara could be getting monsoons and Europe could revert to climate of north Canada (as its latitude would suggest). More than that, in some places on Earth we are skirting the boundary of uninhabitability for unassisted human life. Humans cannot survive wet bulb temperatures 35 degrees Celsius or more. There are registered cases of waves of hot humid air with wet bulb temperatures over 35 degrees -- basically deadly for any human. These waves are going to be more and more frequent and may be responsible for increasing number of deaths. A large wave like that could kill hundreds of thousands or even millions of people in a densely populated areas of India. An even slight increase in temperature or humidity or wind patterns can cause these waves to be much larger or lingering for longer creating new type of natural disaster.

clydethefrog 5y ago

The Guardian implemented some guidelines around climate reporting specificially to communicate the ordeal more clear. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/16/guardian-language-changes-climate-environment https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/16/guardian...

koheripbal 5y ago
Then again there ARE some northern communities that benefit from global warming. ...so it's not really that lazy to think that some people might be in that group. Arctic sea lanes are already open for business to global shipping. It's becoming one of the main ways to circumvent the Panama Canal for certain routes.
- lmilcin 5y ago
  There are some people benefiting from wars, also.