6 ms·

Warmest June on Record for Contiguous U.S.

70 points by infodocket 5y ago

chrisco255 5y ago
> June sea ice extent was 103% of the 1991-2020 median value. Greenland has been gaining ice this summer, quite unusual: http://polarportal.dk/en/greenland/surface-conditions/ http://polarportal.dk/en/greenland/surface-conditions/
- cs702 5y ago
  The planet's climate is a complex system, the state of which cannot be neatly summarized by any one statistic. I mean, there's a reputable school of thought predicting that global warming will lead to another ice age, because higher temperatures disrupt ocean currents -- particularly the Gulf Stream, which redistributes warm water from the Gulf of Mexico to northern Europe. As the Gulf Stream makes its deposits of warm water along the coasts of Great Britain and northwest Europe, it keeps the temperatures in northwest Europe warmer than in eastern Canada, even though they both are roughly the same distance from the equator. The prediction is that, if Arctic ice melts as a result of global warming, huge amounts of fresh water will pour into the North Atlantic and slow down the Gulf Stream, cooling Europe, and triggering a feedback loop with colder and longer European winters, and more and more ice on the planet's surface.[a][b] [a] The book "Ice Age" by Cambridge-trained astrophysicist John Gribbin and his wife Mary has a good high-level overview of this school of thought: https://reanimus.com/store/?item=1420 https://reanimus.com/store/?item=1420 [b] Recent studies of circulation in the North Atlantic already show a significant reduction in currents flowing north from the Gulf Stream: https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2020/09/new-studies-confirm-weakening-of-the-gulf-stream-circulation-amoc/ https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2020/09/new-s...
  - chrisco255 5y ago
    We're already in an ice age, and we have been for the last 1 million years. We're just in an interglacial period (for the past 12K years). We were always going to revert back to a glacial period. The belief is that CO2 concentration would prevent that, by causing global warming. Otherwise, if we revert to a glacial period, that is currently status quo for planet earth: https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/abrupt-climate-change/Glacial-Interglacial%20Cycles https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/abrupt-climate-change/Glacial-Inte...
    - cs702 5y ago
      Yes, we're in an interglacial period. You're absolutely right about that. The counter-intuitive prediction from this school of thought is that global warming would precipitate or accelerate glacial period within this ice age.
- advisedwang 5y ago
  I'm struggling to interpret the data on that site, is there any analysis links you can share talking about this issue?
  - chrisco255 5y ago
    That site just tracks Greenland and Arctic ice. They just measure the volume and extent. On the map of Greenland, any red areas you see are areas where ice melted over the past day. Any blue areas are where it snowed. On the chart, the grey area is the 2 standard deviation range that ice gains/losses typically see over the course of the year, and the blue line is the current year's gain/loss. If the blue line goes above or below the grey area, it's anomalous. Greenland typically melts off some in the summer, but the blue line shows that it's currently gaining ice, and has even had some way above average days this summer, for ice gains. This means its ice volume is increasing, which is counter to predictions.
- karakot 5y ago
  Makes sense though, a lot of ice melting, water becoming cooler so the next winter you get more ice area with lower ice volume. Rinse and repeat until the whole ice sheet disappears.
  - chrisco255 5y ago
    No. You're literally interpreting it as the exact opposite of what is occurring. Sea ice volume is at 30 year median: http://polarportal.dk/en/sea-ice-and-icebergs/sea-ice-thickness-and-volume/ http://polarportal.dk/en/sea-ice-and-icebergs/sea-ice-thickn... And Greenland's ice sheet is expanding over the course of this summer, when it normally goes through a melt season. Arctic ice is pretty variable, because it floats over the water. Arctic ice is not what causes sea level rise, by the way, since it's already sitting in the ocean. It's Greenland and Antarctica that you have to watch for sea level rise influence. And Antarctica is above average right now: https://sites.uci.edu/zlabe/antarctic-sea-ice-extentconcentration/ https://sites.uci.edu/zlabe/antarctic-sea-ice-extentconcentr... In other words, melting ice caps, as predicted, are not happening.
    - karakot 5y ago
      Suppose there is an ice cube with volume 1m^3 in a huge freezer, it melts when the freezer is off and then freezes back when the freezer turns on. Now the volume would be the same, the question is about the thickness. The thinner it gets, the faster it will melt/freeze leading to more variability in climate patterns. (speculation mode off)
marricks 5y ago
Living through a heat dome was terrifying… seeing birds pant and plants die a couple days after the extreme heat. I hope this spurs everyone to take climate change more seriously but I won’t hold my breath.
- VonGuard 5y ago
  I have come to the conclusion that climate change will have to cause enough scarcity and enough chaos to require despotic governmental changes towards environmental preservation. It's going to have to get absolutely terrible, and when it does, we'll snap very far back in the other direction and put people to death for polluting... The mealy mouth bullshit we do now, where every individual is accountable, but the corporations behind most of the emissions and waste are not, is absurd. We'll never have resealable, recycleable plastic chip bags, for example, because that would cost someone money.... We're basically cornering humanity into some kind of horrible hellscape future where we're all going to be killing each other for electricity or waffles or god knows what...
  - metalliqaz 5y ago
    You could argue that the chaos is already starting. My faith in humanity is so low at this point that I expect the solution could just as easily end up being global conflict that significantly decreases the population, rather than actually fixing anything. Poor countries will suffer terribly long before rich countries give a flying fart about it.
    - tolbish 5y ago
      End up? It's a circle. The rich will just hang out in their New Zealand bunkers until the chaos subsides, then back to square 1.
      - tablespoon 5y ago
        > End up? It's a circle. The rich will just hang out in their New Zealand bunkers until the chaos subsides, then back to square 1. Kinda sorta. If things become so chaotic that they have to flee to those bunkers, there's a decent chance the political situation afterwards won't allow them to return to their previous positions. So, unless their bunker has enough weapons for a small army and they have the skills and mentality to become a petty warlord in rural post-apocalyptic New Zealand, all they can really count on getting from it is a somewhat higher chance to survive.
ketzo 5y ago
And, in case you haven’t heard, California is set up for (yet another!) historic fire season. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sfgate.com/bayarea/amp/fuel-moisture-content-California-wildfire-16087019.php https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sfgate.com/bayarea/amp/fuel...
metalliqaz 5y ago
warmest June so far
- jfengel 5y ago
  And the coolest for the rest of your life.
vcg3rd 5y ago
What about May? Coolest spring in mid-Atlantic of my lifetime (55) I'd wager. https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/05/30/east-record-cold-memorial-may/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/05/30/east-recor... Was in Germany too. People wait to pounce on heat,drought, storms any weather patter that fits the narrative bias.
- tzs 5y ago
  May 2021 was the 437th consecutive month with global surface temperature above the 20th century average [1]. It tied May 2018 as the 6th warmest may in the 142 year record. [1] https://www.climate.gov/news-features/featured-images/may-2021-tied-sixth-warmest-may-record https://www.climate.gov/news-features/featured-images/may-20...

70 points by infodocket 5y ago

> June sea ice extent was 103% of the 1991-2020 median value. Greenland has been gaining ice this summer, quite unusual: http://polarportal.dk/en/greenland/surface-conditions/ http://polarportal.dk/en/greenland/surface-conditions/

cs702 5y ago
The planet's climate is a complex system, the state of which cannot be neatly summarized by any one statistic. I mean, there's a reputable school of thought predicting that global warming will lead to another ice age, because higher temperatures disrupt ocean currents -- particularly the Gulf Stream, which redistributes warm water from the Gulf of Mexico to northern Europe. As the Gulf Stream makes its deposits of warm water along the coasts of Great Britain and northwest Europe, it keeps the temperatures in northwest Europe warmer than in eastern Canada, even though they both are roughly the same distance from the equator. The prediction is that, if Arctic ice melts as a result of global warming, huge amounts of fresh water will pour into the North Atlantic and slow down the Gulf Stream, cooling Europe, and triggering a feedback loop with colder and longer European winters, and more and more ice on the planet's surface.[a][b] [a] The book "Ice Age" by Cambridge-trained astrophysicist John Gribbin and his wife Mary has a good high-level overview of this school of thought: https://reanimus.com/store/?item=1420 https://reanimus.com/store/?item=1420 [b] Recent studies of circulation in the North Atlantic already show a significant reduction in currents flowing north from the Gulf Stream: https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2020/09/new-studies-confirm-weakening-of-the-gulf-stream-circulation-amoc/ https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2020/09/new-s...
- chrisco255 5y ago
  We're already in an ice age, and we have been for the last 1 million years. We're just in an interglacial period (for the past 12K years). We were always going to revert back to a glacial period. The belief is that CO2 concentration would prevent that, by causing global warming. Otherwise, if we revert to a glacial period, that is currently status quo for planet earth: https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/abrupt-climate-change/Glacial-Interglacial%20Cycles https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/abrupt-climate-change/Glacial-Inte...
  - cs702 5y ago
    Yes, we're in an interglacial period. You're absolutely right about that. The counter-intuitive prediction from this school of thought is that global warming would precipitate or accelerate glacial period within this ice age.
advisedwang 5y ago
I'm struggling to interpret the data on that site, is there any analysis links you can share talking about this issue?
- chrisco255 5y ago
  That site just tracks Greenland and Arctic ice. They just measure the volume and extent. On the map of Greenland, any red areas you see are areas where ice melted over the past day. Any blue areas are where it snowed. On the chart, the grey area is the 2 standard deviation range that ice gains/losses typically see over the course of the year, and the blue line is the current year's gain/loss. If the blue line goes above or below the grey area, it's anomalous. Greenland typically melts off some in the summer, but the blue line shows that it's currently gaining ice, and has even had some way above average days this summer, for ice gains. This means its ice volume is increasing, which is counter to predictions.
karakot 5y ago
Makes sense though, a lot of ice melting, water becoming cooler so the next winter you get more ice area with lower ice volume. Rinse and repeat until the whole ice sheet disappears.
- chrisco255 5y ago
  No. You're literally interpreting it as the exact opposite of what is occurring. Sea ice volume is at 30 year median: http://polarportal.dk/en/sea-ice-and-icebergs/sea-ice-thickness-and-volume/ http://polarportal.dk/en/sea-ice-and-icebergs/sea-ice-thickn... And Greenland's ice sheet is expanding over the course of this summer, when it normally goes through a melt season. Arctic ice is pretty variable, because it floats over the water. Arctic ice is not what causes sea level rise, by the way, since it's already sitting in the ocean. It's Greenland and Antarctica that you have to watch for sea level rise influence. And Antarctica is above average right now: https://sites.uci.edu/zlabe/antarctic-sea-ice-extentconcentration/ https://sites.uci.edu/zlabe/antarctic-sea-ice-extentconcentr... In other words, melting ice caps, as predicted, are not happening.
  - karakot 5y ago
    Suppose there is an ice cube with volume 1m^3 in a huge freezer, it melts when the freezer is off and then freezes back when the freezer turns on. Now the volume would be the same, the question is about the thickness. The thinner it gets, the faster it will melt/freeze leading to more variability in climate patterns. (speculation mode off)

marricks 5y ago

Living through a heat dome was terrifying… seeing birds pant and plants die a couple days after the extreme heat. I hope this spurs everyone to take climate change more seriously but I won’t hold my breath.

VonGuard 5y ago
I have come to the conclusion that climate change will have to cause enough scarcity and enough chaos to require despotic governmental changes towards environmental preservation. It's going to have to get absolutely terrible, and when it does, we'll snap very far back in the other direction and put people to death for polluting... The mealy mouth bullshit we do now, where every individual is accountable, but the corporations behind most of the emissions and waste are not, is absurd. We'll never have resealable, recycleable plastic chip bags, for example, because that would cost someone money.... We're basically cornering humanity into some kind of horrible hellscape future where we're all going to be killing each other for electricity or waffles or god knows what...
- metalliqaz 5y ago
  You could argue that the chaos is already starting. My faith in humanity is so low at this point that I expect the solution could just as easily end up being global conflict that significantly decreases the population, rather than actually fixing anything. Poor countries will suffer terribly long before rich countries give a flying fart about it.
  - tolbish 5y ago
    End up? It's a circle. The rich will just hang out in their New Zealand bunkers until the chaos subsides, then back to square 1.
    - tablespoon 5y ago
      > End up? It's a circle. The rich will just hang out in their New Zealand bunkers until the chaos subsides, then back to square 1. Kinda sorta. If things become so chaotic that they have to flee to those bunkers, there's a decent chance the political situation afterwards won't allow them to return to their previous positions. So, unless their bunker has enough weapons for a small army and they have the skills and mentality to become a petty warlord in rural post-apocalyptic New Zealand, all they can really count on getting from it is a somewhat higher chance to survive.

ketzo 5y ago

And, in case you haven’t heard, California is set up for (yet another!) historic fire season. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sfgate.com/bayarea/amp/fuel-moisture-content-California-wildfire-16087019.php https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sfgate.com/bayarea/amp/fuel...

metalliqaz 5y ago

warmest June so far

jfengel 5y ago
And the coolest for the rest of your life.

vcg3rd 5y ago

What about May? Coolest spring in mid-Atlantic of my lifetime (55) I'd wager. https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/05/30/east-record-cold-memorial-may/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/05/30/east-recor... Was in Germany too. People wait to pounce on heat,drought, storms any weather patter that fits the narrative bias.

tzs 5y ago
May 2021 was the 437th consecutive month with global surface temperature above the 20th century average [1]. It tied May 2018 as the 6th warmest may in the 142 year record. [1] https://www.climate.gov/news-features/featured-images/may-2021-tied-sixth-warmest-may-record https://www.climate.gov/news-features/featured-images/may-20...