5 ms·

See my other comment, this was less than 0.5 °C more than the previous record set 20 years ago. This title is clickbait fear porn.

netsharc 3y ago
HN user doesn't understand scale and thinks a giant body of water warming by half a degree Celcius is not a big deal. Volume of the sea according to Wikipedia: 3,750,000 km3, or 3.75E+18 liter. To heat up 1 liter of water 1 degree Celcius requires 4180 Joules. For half a degree, 2090 Joules. 3.75E+18 * 2090 = 7.85E+21 Joules. What does this number mean? Luckily Wikipedia has some numbers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(energy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(energy) 7.9×10^21 J Estimated energy contained in the world's petroleum reserves as of 2010 [191] [191]:Calculated: "188.8 thousand million tonnes" => 188.8×10^9 tonnes of oil × 42×10^9 J/tonne of oil = 7.9 × 10^21 J The largest oil tanker according to https://www.freightcourse.com/largest-oil-tankers/ https://www.freightcourse.com/largest-oil-tankers/ can contain 441893 tonnes of oil, the amount of energy needed to cause that raise is 427 thousand tankers' worth of oil...
- lockhouse 3y ago
  I understand scale just fine. The previous record temperature was set 2 decades ago. This isn’t the cataclysmic event that the title implies.
  - undersuit 3y ago
    Here have a pretty not so pretty picture: http://www.ceam.es/ceamet/SST/MAPS/NCEI/TREND/SST-NCEI-multiyear-series.png http://www.ceam.es/ceamet/SST/MAPS/NCEI/TREND/SST-NCEI-multi... Let's see what happens in a month like the last record.
    - lockhouse 3y ago
      It's a graph whose scale doesn't start at 0 on the Y-axis. Weather patterns are cyclical. Yes this is a warm year. It doesn't mean the world is ending. I even agree that we should reduce carbon emissions, we just don't have to massively disrupt everyone's way of life to get there. We've got time to come up with better solutions.
      - defrost 3y ago
        > It's a graph whose scale doesn't start at 0 on the Y-axis. Bit ridiculous and entirely irrelevant to demand the graph start at absolute zero Kelvin. It's a graph that shows the full cycle range of 40 years of annual tempreture. It's a graph that shows the median tempreture of a > 30 year base reference range. It's a graph that shows recent years are all veering upwards more than a significant number of standard deviations from the mean. It's a graph that shows an early outlier from 20 years ago was just that, there are known reasons why AGW changes aren't a monotonic increase, that they rachet upwards in stages with small plateaus and brief backslides. Thanks to ENSO the world is in for a few years of "things will get worse" followed (hopefully) by a brief spell of "look, it's stopped getting worse".
      - undersuit 3y ago
        >It's a graph whose scale doesn't start at 0 on the Y-axis. Why would it start at 0? It's an average of surface temperatures across the Mediterranean Sea, parts never dip below 15C. >I even agree that we should reduce carbon emissions, we just don't have to massively disrupt everyone's way of life to get there. We've got time to come up with better solutions. I didn't even give you a spiel which makes me want to use even less plastic and take more personal responsibility!
      - raffraffraff 3y ago
        Lol. Plenty of time. And nobody has to give up anything, tech will find a way. You futurists...
- throwawaymobule 3y ago
  I think the surface temperature rises faster than lower part of the water, so a gradient needs to be applied to that calculation. And using that much oil for heating would probably overshoot, from the co2 released. Thanks for doing the math on this!

netsharc 3y ago

HN user doesn't understand scale and thinks a giant body of water warming by half a degree Celcius is not a big deal. Volume of the sea according to Wikipedia: 3,750,000 km3, or 3.75E+18 liter. To heat up 1 liter of water 1 degree Celcius requires 4180 Joules. For half a degree, 2090 Joules. 3.75E+18 * 2090 = 7.85E+21 Joules. What does this number mean? Luckily Wikipedia has some numbers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(energy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(energy) 7.9×10^21 J Estimated energy contained in the world's petroleum reserves as of 2010 [191] [191]:Calculated: "188.8 thousand million tonnes" => 188.8×10^9 tonnes of oil × 42×10^9 J/tonne of oil = 7.9 × 10^21 J The largest oil tanker according to https://www.freightcourse.com/largest-oil-tankers/ https://www.freightcourse.com/largest-oil-tankers/ can contain 441893 tonnes of oil, the amount of energy needed to cause that raise is 427 thousand tankers' worth of oil...

lockhouse 3y ago
I understand scale just fine. The previous record temperature was set 2 decades ago. This isn’t the cataclysmic event that the title implies.
- undersuit 3y ago
  Here have a pretty not so pretty picture: http://www.ceam.es/ceamet/SST/MAPS/NCEI/TREND/SST-NCEI-multiyear-series.png http://www.ceam.es/ceamet/SST/MAPS/NCEI/TREND/SST-NCEI-multi... Let's see what happens in a month like the last record.
  - lockhouse 3y ago
    It's a graph whose scale doesn't start at 0 on the Y-axis. Weather patterns are cyclical. Yes this is a warm year. It doesn't mean the world is ending. I even agree that we should reduce carbon emissions, we just don't have to massively disrupt everyone's way of life to get there. We've got time to come up with better solutions.
    - defrost 3y ago
      > It's a graph whose scale doesn't start at 0 on the Y-axis. Bit ridiculous and entirely irrelevant to demand the graph start at absolute zero Kelvin. It's a graph that shows the full cycle range of 40 years of annual tempreture. It's a graph that shows the median tempreture of a > 30 year base reference range. It's a graph that shows recent years are all veering upwards more than a significant number of standard deviations from the mean. It's a graph that shows an early outlier from 20 years ago was just that, there are known reasons why AGW changes aren't a monotonic increase, that they rachet upwards in stages with small plateaus and brief backslides. Thanks to ENSO the world is in for a few years of "things will get worse" followed (hopefully) by a brief spell of "look, it's stopped getting worse".
    - undersuit 3y ago
      >It's a graph whose scale doesn't start at 0 on the Y-axis. Why would it start at 0? It's an average of surface temperatures across the Mediterranean Sea, parts never dip below 15C. >I even agree that we should reduce carbon emissions, we just don't have to massively disrupt everyone's way of life to get there. We've got time to come up with better solutions. I didn't even give you a spiel which makes me want to use even less plastic and take more personal responsibility!
    - raffraffraff 3y ago
      Lol. Plenty of time. And nobody has to give up anything, tech will find a way. You futurists...
throwawaymobule 3y ago
I think the surface temperature rises faster than lower part of the water, so a gradient needs to be applied to that calculation. And using that much oil for heating would probably overshoot, from the co2 released. Thanks for doing the math on this!