3 ms·

Huh. https://www.weather.gov/hazstat/ https://www.weather.gov/hazstat/ That's of course cherry picked. But I think the sucky part is increasing the variance of

by jfoutz 5y ago

Huh. https://www.weather.gov/hazstat/ https://www.weather.gov/hazstat/ That's of course cherry picked. But I think the sucky part is increasing the variance of the temperature distribution. So the hot is hotter and the cold is colder, and both ends really suck.

trashtester 5y ago
According to this Lancet study, about 5M die from cold globally, annually, while about 500K die from heat: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(21)00081-4/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5... I found the article through this link: https://news.emory.edu/stories/2021/07/climate_change_heat_related_deaths/index.html https://news.emory.edu/stories/2021/07/climate_change_heat_r... Interestingly, the emory link did not quote how many deaths were due to cold vs heat, but it did say that cold related deaths were going down and heat related deaths were going up. By cherry picking just the part of the article that support a global warming narrative, but leaving out that cold is still, by far, the main danger, emory is seriously misrepresenting the science, imo. Btw, the Guardian coverage for the same article is only slightly better: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/08/extreme-temperatures-kill-5-million-people-a-year-with-heat-related-deaths-rising-study-finds https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/08/extreme-temper... While it does mention that cold kills more, it does not mention that the ratio is 10:1 in the study.
- jfoutz 5y ago
  That's good stuff! I peeked at the lancet study, but it didn't support my trollish response to the OP. The real point I was trying to make was the crazy extremes, the higher variance. I vividly recall running one morning when it got to -40F/-40C the night before. It sucked. The house was cold, work was cold. But one day is just a freak thing we all deal with, like snow in Atlanta. I remember a lot of government buildings shut down, to conserve natural gas. they made that resource available to everyone. Some people lost heat. I don't remember if people died. If that lasted for a week, I don't know what would have happened. I imagine it would have been bad. not riots, but heading in that direction. There are 7 billion of us. We're pretty well adapted to our environments. We can handle a few bumps and potholes. Pushing those extremes, longer and deeper, that's not going to be fun. Heat will kill. Cold will kill. Both are tolerable in the short run, but days of it is pretty scary. We're facing more of both. I don't have an answer to solve either case. Thank you for the thoughtful reply. I can't say I'll get much use out of it tomorrow, but this is a long haul problem. I'll try to commit this evidence to memory. Maybe in a few months or years I can point at these references.
  - fighterpilot 5y ago
    If the ratio is 10:1, then even if you have increasing variance (which is bad), an increase in the mean may offset that badness. I can't comment beyond that, I'm just talking generally about distributions with two fixed cutoffs at both extremes (beyond which = death or high likelihood of death).
    - jfoutz 5y ago
      I'm going to quibble. This is all unfounded, you're probably right and I'm a fool. the statistic, adding 1 degree to the temperature isn't that bad. That statistic nicely glosses over the huge amount of energy added to the system. 1 degree isn't going to melt the icecaps. 1 degree is a huge amount of energy. I think, that energy is going to make things hotter and colder and less predictable. Moving the mean is, well not fine but that's what we're doing. Have to accept reality as it is. But as far as I can tell, we're not shifting the distribution to the right. We are flattening the distribution, the median is moving +X. So, we've got fatter tails. Those fat tails suck. we're finely attuned to current variance, we can deal with a cold or hot day. But that fatter tail, that's the fucker. A cold or hot week is deadly.
      - trashtester 5y ago
        It makes sense that adding energy to the system can lead to higher temperatures and more extreme cases of winds and precipitation. It makes less sense that it should lead to extreme cold. Indeed, the Lancet study did say that the number of deaths from cold were on the way down. Also, if examining the data further, most deaths are NOT in extremely cold countries, but rather in South East Asia and Africa. I remember spending some time in a tropical country about 10 years ago, and when I was there, there was a few nights of "extreme" weather, where nighttime temperatures fell all the way to +14C (plus!). The government declared a state of emergency, and distributed blankets to the poorest people, to prevent oo many deaths. Clearly, the main problem is poverty, not extreme weather.

by jfoutz 5y ago

trashtester 5y ago

According to this Lancet study, about 5M die from cold globally, annually, while about 500K die from heat: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(21)00081-4/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5... I found the article through this link: https://news.emory.edu/stories/2021/07/climate_change_heat_related_deaths/index.html https://news.emory.edu/stories/2021/07/climate_change_heat_r... Interestingly, the emory link did not quote how many deaths were due to cold vs heat, but it did say that cold related deaths were going down and heat related deaths were going up. By cherry picking just the part of the article that support a global warming narrative, but leaving out that cold is still, by far, the main danger, emory is seriously misrepresenting the science, imo. Btw, the Guardian coverage for the same article is only slightly better: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/08/extreme-temperatures-kill-5-million-people-a-year-with-heat-related-deaths-rising-study-finds https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/08/extreme-temper... While it does mention that cold kills more, it does not mention that the ratio is 10:1 in the study.

jfoutz 5y ago
That's good stuff! I peeked at the lancet study, but it didn't support my trollish response to the OP. The real point I was trying to make was the crazy extremes, the higher variance. I vividly recall running one morning when it got to -40F/-40C the night before. It sucked. The house was cold, work was cold. But one day is just a freak thing we all deal with, like snow in Atlanta. I remember a lot of government buildings shut down, to conserve natural gas. they made that resource available to everyone. Some people lost heat. I don't remember if people died. If that lasted for a week, I don't know what would have happened. I imagine it would have been bad. not riots, but heading in that direction. There are 7 billion of us. We're pretty well adapted to our environments. We can handle a few bumps and potholes. Pushing those extremes, longer and deeper, that's not going to be fun. Heat will kill. Cold will kill. Both are tolerable in the short run, but days of it is pretty scary. We're facing more of both. I don't have an answer to solve either case. Thank you for the thoughtful reply. I can't say I'll get much use out of it tomorrow, but this is a long haul problem. I'll try to commit this evidence to memory. Maybe in a few months or years I can point at these references.
- fighterpilot 5y ago
  If the ratio is 10:1, then even if you have increasing variance (which is bad), an increase in the mean may offset that badness. I can't comment beyond that, I'm just talking generally about distributions with two fixed cutoffs at both extremes (beyond which = death or high likelihood of death).
  - jfoutz 5y ago
    I'm going to quibble. This is all unfounded, you're probably right and I'm a fool. the statistic, adding 1 degree to the temperature isn't that bad. That statistic nicely glosses over the huge amount of energy added to the system. 1 degree isn't going to melt the icecaps. 1 degree is a huge amount of energy. I think, that energy is going to make things hotter and colder and less predictable. Moving the mean is, well not fine but that's what we're doing. Have to accept reality as it is. But as far as I can tell, we're not shifting the distribution to the right. We are flattening the distribution, the median is moving +X. So, we've got fatter tails. Those fat tails suck. we're finely attuned to current variance, we can deal with a cold or hot day. But that fatter tail, that's the fucker. A cold or hot week is deadly.
    - trashtester 5y ago
      It makes sense that adding energy to the system can lead to higher temperatures and more extreme cases of winds and precipitation. It makes less sense that it should lead to extreme cold. Indeed, the Lancet study did say that the number of deaths from cold were on the way down. Also, if examining the data further, most deaths are NOT in extremely cold countries, but rather in South East Asia and Africa. I remember spending some time in a tropical country about 10 years ago, and when I was there, there was a few nights of "extreme" weather, where nighttime temperatures fell all the way to +14C (plus!). The government declared a state of emergency, and distributed blankets to the poorest people, to prevent oo many deaths. Clearly, the main problem is poverty, not extreme weather.