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Winter temperatures above 35C in South America leave climatologists in disbelief
- retrac 3y agoThe current sea temperature anomaly is extreme. You can see it plotted since 1980 here: https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/ https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/ The dark black line that diverges in March is this year to date.
- pier25 3y agoThese anomalies will become more common and more extreme over the coming decades.
- WeylandYutani 3y agoIt will happen just slow enough for people to get used to it and not panic. And then it will be the new normal. Humans can adapt to terrible situations. Honestly I'll ride it out but I do feel bad for people with kids.
- TremendousJudge 3y ago>Honestly I'll ride it out but I do feel bad for people with kids. Do you live near the coast? If so, "riding it out", might involve moving inland and paying insane property prices.
- knewter 3y agoOn what timeline do you believe this to be the case
- hn_throwaway_99 3y agoYou can't possibly be from the Southwestern US. We're used to particularly brutal summers here, but this year has just been insane, unlike anything I've ever experienced (and, of course, we've had many "record breaking years" over the past 10-20 years). I already have plans to move north. Phoenix has been one of the fastest growing cities in the US - I definitely believe a lot of people are going to think twice about moving there now. There are parts of the world that are already hitting wet-bulb temperatures that are lethal to humans. And this is all just the beginning.
- Xorakios 3y agoNext year will be worse, but after that should be much cooler. The 90 year "Moctezuma" cycle (think dust bowl 1930's - much warmer than this year, 1840's, 1750's and conquistador records from 1660's) is combined with a peak 11 year solar cycle and an el nino, will subside. overall warming will still increase, so 2110's will be brutal, but late 2020's should be awesome -- cooler summers and warmer winters, longer growing seasons, more snow, rain, skiing, cheaper food etc. :)
- Pulcinella 3y agoDo you have a single source for this idea?
- defrost 3y agoThe current short term (5 year) climate thinking is that conditions (land + ocean temps, storms, etc) will worsen for "a few years" and then lighten up a little with a slight reduction and general plateau for a few more years. The ratcheting upward saw toothing is a feature of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) pattern .. and the world is just now moving into the upturn phase. Climate dynamics are akin to the tennis racket theorem - the uninterferred long term arc of the centre of gravity (gross parameters) is essentially deterministic, however the short term specific orientations of the tumblings along that arc resist exact prediction. You can read more via: https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/what-el-ni%C3%B1o%E2%80%93southern-oscillation-enso-nutshell https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/what-el-ni%... https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.shtml https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/e...
- Pulcinella 3y agoNone of these sources describe this alleged "Moctezuma cycle" that was mentioned and a quick internet search also turns up nothing
- 3y ago
- xyzelement 3y ago// Honestly I'll ride it out but I do feel bad for people with kids. When I came to the US in the 90s, one of my teachers was freaking out about peak oil and about how people shouldn't have kids because that would exacerbate the problem and those kids would have a bad life. Joke's on him I guess. I suspect that at every single point of human history, someone was dismal about something and using it as a reason to not have kids. If I had to bet, people having kids now are not going to regret it ever.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y agoOf course, it is obviously inevitable that at some point the doomsayers will be correct (and, to note, there are also many times they've been right in the past - I wouldn't have wanted to be born in Europe just before the Black Death, or in Rome just before it fell, or in 510 or so just to be in prime age during what is often called "the worst year in history" in 536, ...)
- xyzelement 3y agoYup however you wouldn't be here today if someone.in your ancestry didn't live through that - assuming your family is from that part of the world
- sandydan 3y agoI’m sure it was deeply unpleasant for my ancestors and I’m currently thinking the world may be up being way more unpleasant for my descendants than it was for me.
- xyzelement 3y agoThe point this sub thread is that people always had reason to suspect this and at all previous time it was an error.
- sandydan 3y ago
- pier25 3y agoThat's what I used to think 10 years ago. Now I'm not so sure. Everything is happening way sooner and more dramatically than expected.
- gadflyinyoureye 3y agoCan anyone find a sea temp plot before 1980? NASA likes to pull tricks such as start acreage burn around that time because it was a local minimum.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Xorakios 3y agohttps://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-sea-surface-temperature https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indica... Take a few grains of salt. Even 1980 was long before we had great satellite data so a lot is inferred from tidal measurements in European cities
- marstall 3y agoit may indeed be unprecedented - but this type of chart could do a better job of showing that. here's what I mean: we know that temperature has been increasing steadily for 140 years. So we expect each year can be higher than the previous one. And in an El Niño year, higher even. This chart shows that happening. What it doesn't show (clearly) is how high this year is vs. the previous year - and, importantly, whether that jump in temperature is the highest ever, or one of the highest ever, or whatever. maybe it is, but this type of chart doesn't highlight that fact because all of the years are jumbled together.
- Retric 3y agoI agree it’s not great. However, you may have missed it but the key in interactive you can click on individual years and groups of years you see the trends. 2021 and 2022 are also quite distinctive lines. So it’s easy to see from the data how large an anomaly 2023 is. Enabling individual years lines in sequence, 1998 was a major jump from what came before as was parts of 2015, and 2016. But 2023 is still a huge jump which going from past patters will settle down for a few years before becoming the new normal.
- FuckButtons 3y agoYou’re assuming that the ocean temperature relative to the previous year is meaningful. I don’t think that’s true, absolute difference from normal is what matters for ocean ecology.
- twojacobtwo 3y agoI had the same thought as the parent poster. It may not be the most meaningful metric scientifically, but it would be great for showing average people that climate change won't necessarily be a smooth, linear, predictable climb.
- GeoAtreides 3y agoThe black line is the current year, the orange line is the last year, in my opinion you can see very clearly the difference between the two. There are also three dotted lines: a mean (1982-2011) and a +-2sigma interval from the mean.
- drumhead 3y agoWhen you see a divergent year then you need to ask yourself did anything odd happen this year?
- defrost 3y agoOr in past years, or in adjacent climate cells, etc. Check the equations, there are lag terms .. heat transfers take time. The factors here are increased insulation gases (CO2, methane, water vapor), decreased Saharan dust, decreased shading sulphates, changing swing of the ENSO cycle.
- gumballindie 3y ago“This is between 10C and 20C above what is normal for this time of year in parts of Chile and Argentina” Excuse the language, but it would appear that we are in a bit of a jam.
- dbetteridge 3y agoUp the proverbial river of excrement without a paddle, if you'll excuse my French
- revscat 3y agoThe lifespan of everyone reading this has decreased by several decades.
- jb12 3y agoThat's not true at all and not what anthropocene climate change implies.
- Aeolun 3y agoWe’ll make solar powered cities that migrate to the temperate parts of the earth? I’m sure I’ve seen that in some book.
- irrational 3y agoWhat is going to cause everyone reading this to die decades earlier?
- gonzo41 3y agoRead up on 35 wet bulb night time temperatures.
- irrational 3y agoYeah, but, I’m reading this and that won’t be an issue where I live. So it must be something else that will kill everyone reading this decades earlier.
- WA 3y agoAn interesting phenomenon drowned in a clickbait article. I sometimes understand the lunatics of the "climate change is a hoax" movement.
- mistrial9 3y agook - but the 400 page report does not get promoted, this broadcast TV piece does..
- WA 3y agoYeah but this kind of clickbait actively destroys trust in climate science, because the lunatics think that they get sold a hoax. And actually, the kind of writing is extremely sketchy.
- psychlops 3y agoAnd it doesn't help that the lunatics are floating in a sea of hoaxes.
- jackmott42 3y agoNo, it doesn't. What destroys trust in climate science is coordinated attacks from conservative think thanks. You people who think its the fault of them not acting like perfect logicians are delusional. Its is propaganda (clickbait or otherwise) which actually makes things happen, not reasoned arguments. Conservatives understand this is and that is why they tend to win even when their goal are clearly bad.
- mrguyorama 3y agoAh yes, climate deniers just haven't been talked to right! Rather then them choosing to consume a media diet 100% filled with "liberal hoaxes THEY don't want YOU to know about!!!!!"
- oceanplexian 3y agoThere’s no such thing as climate deniers. There are people asking “Hey, maybe there are additional mechanisms in the climate that cause a hot summer that we don’t know about”? and then there are people running around with their head cut off, screaming about how air conditioning and cars and modern technology is the devil incarnate while offering no practical solutions.
- timmg 3y agoLots of crazy things in the weather this year. The obvious thing is to blame climate change. But these are pretty sudden and extremely unusual. I don’t think this is at all what is predicted. I wonder how much the Hunga Tonga eruption of last year affected the weather this year. I think it injected some crazy amount of water into the atmosphere.
- layer8 3y agoClimate change increases the likelyhood of such extreme events. That's part of the predictions.
- DiggyJohnson 3y agoIn fairness, climate change does not increase volcanism...
- layer8 3y agoI was referring to the weather extremes. The point is that you don’t need the Hunga Tonga eruption to explain those. Moreover, at this point it's pure conjecture that the eruption would constitute a major factor here.
- pvaldes 3y agoOf course that climate change will increase volcanism. Is the most logical outcome. Well, I'll self-correct myself: Replace "will increase" by "has been increasing".
- goatlover 3y agoVolcanism isn't caused by the climate, it's caused by magma seeping up from the Earth's core through cracks in the mantle.
- pvaldes 3y ago> Volcanism isn't caused by the climate, it's caused by magma seeping up from the Earth's core through cracks in the mantle. And this cracks (in the crust) are normally created by...
- tosser0001 3y agoPart of this may have been due to the Hunga Tonga eruption which injected an tremendous amount of water vapor into the upper atmosphere https://twitter.com/RARohde/status/1685971656198545408 https://twitter.com/RARohde/status/1685971656198545408 https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/tonga-eruption-blasted-unprecedented-amount-of-water-into-stratosphere https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/tonga-eruption-blasted-unpr...
- espresso_enigma 3y agoFrom the NASA article: "The effect would dissipate when the extra water vapor cycles out of the stratosphere and would not be enough to noticeably exacerbate climate change effects."
- IAmGraydon 3y agoI feel like there must be some other influence here, and the Tonga eruption is a good candidate. That's not to say this isn't already exacerbated by existing human-derived climate change, but the way the temperature leaps off the chart starting in April is not like the gradual upward trend we see with climate change. It makes utterly no sense from that perspective. Something external to climate change has to be influencing the system. Unfortunately, it also seems like a lot of people are hesitant to even discuss this possibility for fear of being ostracized by the mob.
- refulgentis 3y agoWhat is the mechanism for They ostracizing anonymous accounts on HN?
- rngname22 3y agoThere's something called a tipping point, and it can result in exactly that sort of sudden rate of change increase entirely due to a certain threshold being breached.
- poutine 3y agoApparently warming is compounded by the eruption, low sulphur shipping fuel rules, low amounts of Saharan dust and changes by El Niño according to this: https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-low-sulphur-shipping-rules-are-affecting-global-warming/ https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-low-sulphur-shippin...
- swader999 3y agoHunga Tonga eruption or whatever it's called..
- jboggan 3y agoI came across this hypothesis a few years ago and thought it was an interesting possibility, but that there wasn't any data that really supported it. In light of the data of the last few months I honestly can't think of a hypothesis that better explains what is going on with ocean temperature, especially in regions that should be in winter right now. https://theethicalskeptic.com/2020/02/16/the-climate-change-alternative-we-ignore-to-our-peril/ https://theethicalskeptic.com/2020/02/16/the-climate-change-... It's a really long article and has been updated continuously for 3 years as new data has been coming in, but I think it really explains how this warming is being driven from the crust and bottom of the ocean up, and not via atmospheric warming. It also has an interesting proposal for the linkage between this observed warming and the variance of Earth's rotation, as well as the long observed weakening of the magnetic field.
- refulgentis 3y agoGave it about 5 minutes, left me with a strong crackpot energy, even with the disclaimer a little bit in. The length seems to affect the authors ability to make a cohesive argument, even when I set my bias against length aside. I closed the tab after I saw the claim its the only way to explain increased CO2 PPM during [March / April 2020]. Figure 1A is "substantial jump in carbon ppm each year from 15 Feb through 1 Apr when the sun increases its heat contribution"
- LatteLazy 3y agoIt's horrendously long and bad. I tried to read it once. I don't get why people deny climate change, it's not like we're even doing anything to stop it for them to actually complain about...
- ChatGTP 3y agoi think it’s mostly out of fragility, fear and denial. It’s so much easier to put your head in the sand.
- jboggan 3y agoSure, I felt similarly when I read it 3 years ago. But the problem is that there is not a single atmospheric model that can explain the magnitude, rapidity, and localization of the current warming. This does all three and I don't see why the mechanism for it is impossible. The fact that Antarctic sea ice is plummeting when there hasn't been any significant atmospheric warming at the South Pole is remarkable and deserves a lot of scrutiny. And figure 1A is referring to the heat contribution to the Northern hemisphere where the vast majority of seasonal CO2 landmass sequestration occurs. The author isn't saying the sun gets hotter in March.
- SkeuomorphicBee 3y agoJust an interesting first person anecdote: In the south of Brazil (close to Argentina) we normally have well defined seasons, but almost like clockwork we always had a famous "mini-summer of May", an unusually warm week in an otherwise cold mid-autumn. Well in the last decade the new concepts of "mini-summer of June" and now "mini-summer of July" started entering the popular parlance, as this abnormally warm weeks during a cold season are becoming more numerous and coming later in the season (late Autumn and even Winter).
- bogdan0s 3y agoInteresting. In Rome we have a similar week in October, it's called "the roman October"
- timeon 3y agoIs it Indian summer?
- fallingfrog 3y agoProbably that’s a culturally insensitive term? But also that’s what we call it in Maine
- morkalork 3y agoThat's what I know it as in Canada.
- higeorge13 3y agoSame in Greece for 10 days usually in January named after a bird (and a myth that this happens for this bird to stay with their eggs).
- TremendousJudge 3y agoVeranillo de San Juan has been a thing since forever[0], and it usually was at the end of June. However, people have taken to call any hot spell this way, even if it's nowhere near St. John's date (June 24th). My anecdotal observations are similar to yours. [0] It even has its own (poorly sourced) wikipedia article: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veranito_de_San_Juan https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veranito_de_San_Juan
- akasakahakada 3y agoBut human lifes matter much more than the whole planet's ecosystem! No one likes to sacrifice their own comfort to keep the globe cool, so keep belief in infinite growth of economy and generate money from thin air!
- akasakahakada 3y agoJust for tonga folks. I remember reading this yesterday and they calculated that the effect of tonga only make at best 0.1 degree C increase in temperature. However what human did is 1.x degree C. That is order of magnitude difference => tonga is almost irrelevant. https://e360.yale.edu/digest/summer-2023-extreme-heat-causes https://e360.yale.edu/digest/summer-2023-extreme-heat-causes edit: previous claimed 2.x is in degree F, here we global citizens use international standard unit degree C which convert to 1.x.
- IAmGraydon 3y agoThe worldwide anomaly in 2023 is about 0.9 degrees C from the mean since 1979, not 2.x. Furthermore, the 2023 anomaly from the last decade mean is about 0.3 degrees C. The 2023 anomaly from 2022 is 0.18 degrees, which is close to what they predicted the Tonga eruption would cause. One of the best ways to fight climate change is to not make up numbers out of thin air. There has to be trust for people to begin to change, and exaggerating because you want people to feel as scared as you will not help.
- akasakahakada 3y agoMy fault, USA's fault. Misread that degree F and totally missed the degree C came later.
- magicalist 3y ago> One of the best ways to fight climate change is to not make up numbers out of thin air I can tell you one of the best ways to fight climate change is not to spend 0 time reading someone's source to see what's going on with their numbers and accusing them of purposefully exaggerating instead. That's just using the guise of Wikipedia expertise to be lazy and stop a conversation before it starts From their article, the "2.x" clearly comes from the fahrenheit number given. They likely meant 1.2 degrees C, measured from the preindustrial era. (and you're clearly willing to speculate based on nothing but your feelings[1], so I'm not sure you have much of a leg to stand on criticizing like that) [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37002288 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37002288
- Octokiddie 3y agoThe alarmist tone of this article inspires zero confidence in the reporting. For example: > Climatologist and weather historian Maximiliano Herrera went so far as to call it [35 C+ temperatures in winter] one of the most "extreme weather events the world has ever seen". Assuming the quote is not taken out of context and Herrera did say it, I'm not sure the facts are on Herrera's side. The world likely saw more extreme "weather events," such as the one that happened at the end of the Pleistocene. That's when the half-mile-thick layer of ice sitting over the northeastern part of North America melted to expose the land beneath.
- print_goto_ten 3y agoAnyone who is not a denier like yourself knows dam well he meant "recorded history".
- polygamous_bat 3y ago> B-but what about when the earth was molten rock a few billion years ago? We _can't_ sacrifice next quarter's profits for this!
- adrian_b 3y agoMoreover, there is now evidence that the recent years have been warmer not only than the years with meteorological records but than all the previous one thousand two hundred years, for instance: "Fennoscandian tree-ring anatomy shows a warmer modern than medieval climate" https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06176-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06176-4
- localplume 3y ago[dead]
- atonse 3y agoMy issue the last few years with anything related to the topic of climate change and weather patterns is that it's to me the poster child of where science communication can make or break an issue (even one that is existential like this one). And in this case, it has failed miserably and continues to do so. I am strongly in favor of moving to renewable sources just because they seem like the obvious next technical evolution (And all the CO2 reduction benefits, for sure). I'm also completely trusting that climatologists are doing their thing and that the models we have only keep getting better. I have nearly zero issues with the science or the scientific process as I understand it. But can we just admit that communicating about warming the earth by 2 degrees always has, and will always be a major failure in getting through to the population? Whenever I see another article talking about "2 degrees by 2035" or something similar, I roll my eyes now because that is such heavy jargon that is meaningful to such a small amount of people. How can we better communicate exactly what that means on a day to day basis? Or connect that to solutions? We have to find a better way to communicate this both at the macro level and at the micro level. At the macro level, even someone like me who is fully onboard with the science and the phenomenon, has a hard time getting worked up about chatter about 2 degrees, 0.9 degrees, and measuring tons of carbon. As humans we just can't process this in a meaningful way. And at a micro level, I'm also sick of us looking at the weather around us on individual days saying "look at this hot day, climate change" and ignoring other factors. But then when people joke about frigid winters, we are quick to correct them and say that it's still due to climate change (we seem to understand that systems are interrelated, cold fronts, warming water evaporating more and resulting in more snow for example), but in hot weather, we just use the "climate change!" sledgehammer and forget about undersea volcanoes, El Ninos, the intensity of the sun (all small factors but factors nonetheless). The whole thing to me has long been a failure in public communication of science. And I think that should be given as much attention as all the other technical solutions.
- throwaway290 3y agoDo I misunderstand their numbers? It looks like in Buenos Aires historical maximum for Aug is +35 degrees, right? And so far it got only up to 30 degrees? Not to say the heat is not real ofc. Where I am the summer is super hot, in July it came within less than 1 degree of all time maximum on record for the month, though I don't think it broke the record after all... and this with up to 70% humidity, I nearly passed out walking. I guess almost the limit of my endurance.
- TremendousJudge 3y agoI'm located near Buenos Aires. There was a similar hot spell several weeks ago, mid-July. Record high in July is (according to Wikipedia) 30.2C, and I don't have the data but this record could have been very well exceeded during those extremely warm days.
- throwaway290 3y agoIt looks like 23 July, one day. It got up to about 28 degrees. Between 10-20 July I see nothing hotter than 20 degrees. This is US GFS data. Maybe I'm wrong. Also looking only at BA, it was hotter to the north west There's high altitude winds from too warm pacific tropic oceans to south america, that is probably involved in the process I think
- sproketboy 3y ago[dead]
- Vox_Leone 3y agoNot dismissing Global Heating, I’d point out that Northern Argentina, Western Paraguay have both semi arid savannas and steppes to arid desert climates. It is not no stranger to high temperature anytime of year, neither to the sudden steep subtropics warm up midwinter known locally as ‘veranito' [little summer]. Here in SE SA plateau it's been a normal to cooler winter.
- mdp2021 3y ago> have both semi arid savannas and steppes to arid desert climates. It is not no stranger to high temperature anytime of year, neither to the sudden steep subtropics warm up midwinter known locally as ‘veranito' Yes, but similar record was last seen ~70 years ago for the peak in Chile and ~110 years ago in Buenos Aires. So, the matter is about "how frequently how much" > Here in SE SA plateau it's been a normal to cooler winter Yes but this is exactly the "stochastic" part of randomness, i.e. making it difficult to assess a phenomenon from a restricted perspective which is not the big picture.
- amai 3y ago„Parts of Italy reached temperatures up to 48C“ This has been debunked. The 48 degree reported was land surface temperature, not air temperature that is usually reported. https://skepticalscience.com/land-air-difference.html https://skepticalscience.com/land-air-difference.html
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ricardobeat 3y agoThat was a lot of words to end up confirming that at least 46C was recorded as surface air temp (1.25m above ground) according to their own sources.
- sk7 3y agoNo, it was 48°C air temperature. The "Debunking" was a hoax and this explained in the article you linked.
- touristtam 3y agoThat website feels like it is 20 years too late in the design department. Quite detrimental to the content.
- oskarw85 3y agoWe broke the Earth
- Xorakios 3y agoI thought YC/Hacker News is intended to help people build new and better companies. How does this fit?
- defrost 3y agoSuccessful companies surf the zeitgeist to unfathomable heights. Regardless of your feelings, concern about climate change is very much the spirit of the age. You can ride this wave to success, cynically or with good intentions (your choice), or you can watch history pass you by (again, your choice).
- cthalupa 3y agoYC is a startup accelerator. Hacker News is hacker news. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
- drumhead 3y agoHave there been any strange geological events recently like volcanic eruptions that could have caused this?
- sisteczko 3y agoI may not be an expert on this matter, but the reported 37°C anomaly in Coquimbo is nowhere seen in the general historical record https://weatherspark.com/h/s/25823/2023/3/Historical-Weather-Winter-2023-in-Coquimbo-Chile#Figures-ColorTemperature https://weatherspark.com/h/s/25823/2023/3/Historical-Weather... . Although the climate warming is very real and serious, my opinion is that the article probably is too dramatic and exaggerates (if not manipulates) the facts.
- undersuit 3y ago>In the Coquimbo region, the mountain town of Vicuna reached a top of 37C, the Liceo Samuel Román Rojas weather station peaked at 35.4C and Monte Patricia reached 31.5C. See the article didn't manipulate facts, you accidentally did. There's more than one weather sensor in the area.