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> Two main factors are at play in driving temperatures to such extremes: their inexorable increase from burning fossil fuels and an El Niño event that is shapin

> Two main factors are at play in driving temperatures to such extremes: their inexorable increase from burning fossil fuels and an El Niño event that is shaping up to be a strong one. It would be quite educational to attribute in more detail the impact of these two factors. The degree of "El Nino" influence is presumably known, and if its strength is not related with global warming in complicated and unknown ways it would be good to overlay it as a distinct effect. Being clear about what is happening and why (to the extend that it is known and understood) is important, on at least two counts: There is already a segment of the population that drifts into panic and depression as a result of all the viral social media climate change echo chambers. Panic is not the way to address our sustainability challenges that are deep-seated and systemic. The flip side of short-term focused panic is switching off into apathy, or even cry-wolf type incredulity - if a few years down the line these extremes are temporarily subdued. The other segment of the population that can be affected by a clear and well founded explanation of what is happening are those sitting on the fence about climate change or feeling skeptical for legitimate reasons. Obviously nothing will convince nut-cases or deeply compromised individuals that have large personal stake in the status-quo (and they are many).

hotpotamus 3y ago
Perhaps those drifting into panic and depression are doing so because we are now clearly seeing undeniable effects and yet denial persists while CO2 emissions creep up seemingly inexorably?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- aaomidi 3y ago
  Honestly I’m getting tired of the “thinkers” who are just _don’t panic_. That statement just comes across as so disconnected and also doesn’t actually accomplish something. If someone is panicking, the correct solution here is to show that there’s a realistic attempt at solving the problem. Not dismissing their valid feelings of dread and panic.
  - moffkalast 3y ago
    Well the main issue is that no realistic attempt exists that would be able to solve the problem(s). Thus all that anyone can do inscribe "DON'T PANIC" in large friendly letters per HHGTTG's example, so society can continue to run normally for as long as it can while our planet gets demolished. Welcome to the decline, easiest thing to do is to accept it and have fun while we drive off the proverbial cliff.
    - jeremyjh 3y ago
      I'm not sure why this is being downvoted. Yes, there are some realistic choices that could be made, or could have been made to seriously mitigate the issues. But so far we haven't pursued those, so there are not realistic attempts so far. We're pretending pouring money into renewables is enough, and it isn't. We're pretending that made up carbon credits will help, and they won't because people just use them to lie and steal. Some people pretend consumers aren't the problem, that it is "corporations". Well, those corporations exist only to funnel goods and services into the gaping maws of consumers. You can regulate corporations, and we must, but the idea that change will happen without our own personal sacrifices is foolish. You need to allow a nuclear plant to be built in your backyard, and then another one. You need to start taking the bus to work. You need to stop eating meat. These would be the beginnings of "realistic attempts" if all of society committed to such ideas and changed our collective ideas about what quality of life is.
- oldpersonintx 3y ago
  Drifting into panic and depression...or not...is just signalling Very concerned people who do not take action are equally to blame as those who don't care
  - antifa 3y ago
    Yes, the people in the back of the bus are exactly as equally to blame as the bus driver.
- esarbe 3y ago
  No, I'm drifting into panic because I've seen that rational discourse just doesn't change anything. There's always a reason to not-do anything, to not-upset anything, because, you know, the GDP, the stock market, think of the all the people involved in oil, etc. Meanwhile we've shifted from ridicule to denial through downplaying and the outright delusional "this could actually be good". What is not happening are any meaningful steps towards reigning in even the worst excesses. So, yeah. Maybe panic is not the worst state of mind regarding this challenge?
  - nologic01 3y ago
    To paraphrase, dont get panicky, get even. This is a long-term marathon that will change all societies and economies one way or another. The objective is to make sure its eventually a better place. This transormation is not going to be the result of panic thinking or action. GDP, stocks etc are not eternal constructs, they were invented and adopted in a certain context. Well that context is falling apart. But the new constructs are not born yet. There might be some easy, immediate "quick-wins" in change of behaviors or new technology, but they are not that many, or particularly impactful. Take for example coal. In various places they thought that eliminating it is a no brainer. Its dirty, lots of CO2 emissions etc. Well guess what. Many poorer countries only have access to coal and they are not particularly keen to remain energy poor to make up for the historical excesses or others.
- throwaway5752 3y ago
  Agreed. Panic is the rational reaction [edited from "response"] to a near term extinction level threat that not enough people are taking seriously. People advocating half measures or not panicking are incredibly irrational. It's a human cognitive bias to try to arrive at intermediate outcomes between extremes (regardless of truth). Extremeness aversion. edit: for instance, IPCC/NCA5 author Zeke Hausfather said, "This month was, in my professional opinion as a climate scientist – absolutely gobsmackingly bananas" (https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1709217151452954998 https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1709217151452954998) Everyone should be rioting in the streets. If you are not scared for the lives of your children then you simply don't realize the severity of this problem.
  - sojournerc 3y ago
    Panic is never rational - it's an emotion. Giving into it can cloud what action should be taken, or, often, cause actions that make the situation worse.
    - throwaway5752 3y ago
      If you do not feel panic at the state of climate change, then you are in fact not processing information correctly, ie, not rational. It is not rational to drive a car off the rim of the Grand Canyon; it is rational to jump on the brakes immediately and not fall to ones death. It is rational to feel fear when in great danger.
      - JoshuaDavid 3y ago
        Fear and panic are not the same thing. If your car is rolling towards the rim of the grand canyon and isn't slowing down, you would be afraid but ideally would quickly but calmly consider and try your options (emergency brake, steer away from edge, bail before it reaches edge, etc) rather than panicking.
        hotpotamus 3y ago
        What if you are the passenger and the driver has their foot down on the accelerator while refusing to believe that the cliff lies ahead? What is the appropriate emotion?
chimprich 3y ago
> It would be quite educational to attribute in more detail the impact of these two factors. The degree of "El Nino" influence is presumably known, and if its strength is not related with global warming in complicated and unknown ways it would be good to overlay it as a distinct effect. I've seen some attempts to quantify the difference. E.g. this article tries to illustrate it: https://theconversation.com/july-was-earths-hottest-month-on-record-4-factors-driving-2023s-extreme-heat-and-climate-disasters-209975 https://theconversation.com/july-was-earths-hottest-month-on...
flagrant_taco 3y ago
The debate over exact causes has always felt misguided to me. The planet is extremely complex, human impact on the planet is largely based on estimates and modeling, and at the end of the day an understanding of why it's getting hotter isn't itself a course correction. There are such obvious first steps we could take without a complete understanding of cause if we really cared. We could easily cut our use of fossil fuels if we weren't trying to balance that with an arbitrary GDP growth target. We could stop incentivizing people and companies to consume disposable products. We could stop subsidizing massive industrial farms and instead focus on eating locally and growing some of your own food. The list goes on, but having spent decades watching people debate passionately over why the planet is warming all while going further down the same path my only conclusion is that we just don't give a damn. When push comes to shove we would rather buy new cloths imported from the other side of the world, throw resources at new construction and gut job renovations, and will happily fly around the world on vacation rather than stay home and enjoy the world around us. Oh and don't forget about new tech. Machine learning rebranded as AI is so ground breaking that we have no choice but to produce as many GPUs as we can and throw all the power and water needed to run the damn things 24/7.
- gjulianm 3y ago
  > There are such obvious first steps we could take without a complete understanding of cause if we really cared. That's the issue, a lot of people just don't care or refuse to believe it. Questions like the one in the parent comment are starting to seriously annoy me because they're demanding an unachievable level of evidence before doing anything, a level that's never asked for in any other kind of intervention (for example, interest rate hikes).
  - nsxwolf 3y ago
    Everyone leaves out a large cohort - people that believe it, but don't want the solutions you're selling. We typically put forth constructive solutions like nuclear, which get shouted down / laughed out of the room instantly.
    - 3y ago
erghjunk 3y ago
> The degree of "El Nino" influence is presumably known, and if its strength is not related with global warming in complicated and unknown ways it would be good to overlay it as a distinct effect. A brief web search suggests this presumption is incorrect and that climate change is having an effect on the cycle, rendering this division somewhat meaningless - the old El Nino is "gone," in a sense, and only the climate change effected one remains. from: https://research.noaa.gov/2020/11/09/new-research-volume-explores-future-of-enso-under-influence-of-climate-change/ https://research.noaa.gov/2020/11/09/new-research-volume-exp... “No two El Niños or La Niñas are perfectly alike,” Capotondi said. “We’ve seen how diverse ENSO events can be. This diversity adds another degree of complexity for understanding how climate change will influence future ENSO events.” So how are ENSO impacts likely to evolve in the coming decades? “Extreme El Niño and La Niña events may increase in frequency from about one every 20 years to one every 10 years by the end of the 21st century under aggressive greenhouse gas emission scenarios,” McPhaden said. “The strongest events may also become even stronger than they are today.” and here is the full book: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781119548164 https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/978...
- nologic01 3y ago
  The chapter on "ENSO Diversity" seems the most relevant for this discussion but it is alas behind a paywall. The available summary does not hint there is something conclusive yet on these interactions: "Current research seeks to determine whether such changes in ENSO characteristics were the result of anthropogenic greenhouse gas forcing or just a manifestation of natural variability, and whether and how climate change may affect ENSO diversity in the future."
jgreen10 3y ago
One theory is that it's too early in the cycle to attribute the warming to El Nino (which will make things even worse), but that it's due to a reduction in SO2 in shipping fuels causing lower solar reflection and heating up the oceans faster. However, it's hard to be sure. A discussion: https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/aerosols-are-so2-emissions-reductions-contributing-global-warming https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/aerosols-are-so2-emissions-...
hermannj314 3y ago
Americans wear ignorance as a badge of honor, specifically, ignorance of math. "Let's not get lost in the details", "Let's take a 30,000 foot view of the problem", etc. are common sayings in corporate America that boil down to "I'm not that confident in math, so can we stick to hard-to-prove-false qualitative claims only, please?" I love this sentiment, I hope it takes off, but I gave up trying years ago.
secretsatan 3y ago
> The other segment of the population that can be affected by a clear and well founded explanation of what is happening are those sitting on the fence about climate change or feeling skeptical for legitimate reasons. I simply no longer believe these people really exist, that information has been around, it has been around for decades, and yet this argument comes up time and time again, I'm a reasonable person, persuade me. Nah.... it's been done time and time again.
Aurornis 3y ago
> It would be quite educational to attribute in more detail the impact of these two factors. The degree of "El Nino" influence is presumably known Unfortunately, they aren't independent variables. The climate change effects of global warming have also altered the function of El Nino. You can't entirely subtract one variable out because they're interlinked. If you really wanted to, you could squint and look at the trend lines of previous months and years and try to extrapolate a trajectory. It would still be going up.
noknownsender 3y ago
If there is a potion of the population that is "sitting on the fence about climate change", it is highly unlikely that they "can be convinced by a clear and well founded explanation of what is happening" Anybody capable of that, would either no longer be sitting on the fence, or are highly unlikely to be reading this article. Also, the basic premise of your comment assumes that the effects on the monthly temperature can be cleanly broken down categorically into "fossil fuel related" and "El Nino related", which presupposes that a stronger and more frequent El Nino events are unrelated to the burning of fossil fuels. The facts the human impact on climate change are overwhelming, both in their abundance and scope of impact. Pretending that they don't exist, or treating them as a tangential issue to be put aside so as to appeal to a skeptical and/or ignorant minority, serves no purpose other than to undercut the facts.
- nologic01 3y ago
  There are people who are "in principle" accepting climate change but skeptical about the urgency and magnitude of adaptation that is required. This includes critical segments of the business and political worlds who weigh any action against their vested interests. These people will never panic. But they may plot a "changing of stripes" strategy if the signals from experts and society are strong and persistent. This is discussion is really about how the experts (and, subsequently, mass and social media) popularize the explanations of weather events and what effect this might have on various segments of the population. > which presupposes that a stronger and more frequent El Nino events are unrelated to the burning of fossil fuels. I didn't pressupose anything, I qualified my statement. In fact people posted various interesting recent pieces of research in the thread and I learned that there are both additional potential factors that may be currenty overlapping and that understanding of a potential climate change / El Nino link is still elusive. But that is beside the point. Even if there was a known link it doesn't change my remark that better framing is required. You would simply condition on the dependence, show the growing El Nino "diversity" against the underlying trend and indicate how this may have created an outlier realization.
  - PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
    It's not beside the point, it IS the point. There's too much currently unknown for any honest person to speak with the confidence the other poster is and that makes many people (myself included) distrustful.
zackees 3y ago
[dead]
lamontcg 3y ago
Analysis done back in 2016, back when 2015 shattered records due to El Nino (and completely shattered the argument around a "pause" in global warming due to the El Nino spike back in 1998): https://tamino.wordpress.com/2016/01/27/el-nino-and-the-2015-record-breaking-heat/ https://tamino.wordpress.com/2016/01/27/el-nino-and-the-2015... https://tamino.wordpress.com/2016/01/29/correcting-for-more-than-just-el-nino/ https://tamino.wordpress.com/2016/01/29/correcting-for-more-...
- nologic01 3y ago
  Seems wortwhile to update this. Maybe even have a running calculation that is updated on each data release? It provides an intersting context for understanding monthly and annual temperature anomalies.
  - lamontcg 3y ago
    I think most people consider it settled science/argument at this point. As a veteran of the 2005-2015 internet flamewars on climate science it definitely just bores the living shit out of me to even think about it again. And all the climate science sources from that period (Skeptical Science, Real Climate, Tamino's blog) also don't publish anywhere near the amount they used to. If you disagree, then be the change you want to see in the world... Setup a website, pull the data, build your own model and publish it. Once you've got it going, I'd guess that Tamino would be more than willing to correct all your mistakes in your model.
worksonmine 3y ago
I would like to see solar activity included in the discussion as well. But anytime I bring it up I'm called a climate denialist. But we're seeing auroras very far south and those days it's no issue mentioning the sun is currently in an active phase. Why is that detail always omitted when it comes to global warming, sorry climate change?
- jeremyjh 3y ago
  I don't understand. Do you think there is scientific doubt about the greenhouse effect, or that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, or that for hundreds of thousands of years CO2 concentrations have correlated with average temperature? There isn't any doubt about the problems of greenhouse gases, and there isn't anything we can do about the sun's activity other than use it as an excuse to do nothing "until we understand".
  - worksonmine 3y ago
    This is the kind of responses I'm referring to. I'm not saying we shouldn't do anything as you assume, I'm wondering why solar activity isn't accounted for in the models. Maybe it can explain something? Trust the science and all that you know, being thorough. I'm curious if the changes we see can be explained by the sun activity yes. I'm not qualified to assess which of the scientists are right and which aren't, and to what extent CO2 gases cause global warming. Instead of just asking me to take it for a fact when asking a question please use your expertise and explain it in a sense that I can understand and verify. I'm asking out of curiosity and because I want to understand, to me this could all be because of the sun and an elaborate cash-grab, just as plausible. Because it's not about stopping it at all costs, some people can apparently buy the right to produce more? With these kind of hand-wavy responses from those who claim to have the knowledge where do you think me and other like me are turning for information? I don't know if it's easier to build a giant sunscreen than to get the worlds population eating bugs because apparently cows fart too much? But we still keep exploiting the amazon, and doing everything we can to keep the endless growth economy we've built going. So how pressing can it really be? We're fighting wars over more resources, when maybe we should be fighting to stop consumerism? I don't know. But I'm not taking anyones word for it, help me understand or move on. Don't tell me what to think.
yongjik 3y ago
> population that drifts into panic and depression vs > feeling skeptical for legitimate reasons I think it's just your bias showing. This is 2023, people who are "skeptical" of the climate change aren't there for legitimate reasons. And frankly I'm less and less convinced that we need to engage these people.
- holbrad 3y ago
  I think might be your bias showing... IMO there's an awful lot of necessary debate around climate policy. Skeptical can mean anything from thinking: 1) Battery storage for intermittent renewables is unsolved and therefore nuclear is a better solution (I think this is actually correct, if we could emulate France's historic budgets, timelines and safety) 2) The earth isn't warming at all and it's a Chinese conspiracy. There's a lot of room between those two points, even thing's as basic as what's our current level of warming are harder to pin down than you would expect.

hotpotamus 3y ago

Perhaps those drifting into panic and depression are doing so because we are now clearly seeing undeniable effects and yet denial persists while CO2 emissions creep up seemingly inexorably?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
aaomidi 3y ago
Honestly I’m getting tired of the “thinkers” who are just _don’t panic_. That statement just comes across as so disconnected and also doesn’t actually accomplish something. If someone is panicking, the correct solution here is to show that there’s a realistic attempt at solving the problem. Not dismissing their valid feelings of dread and panic.
- moffkalast 3y ago
  Well the main issue is that no realistic attempt exists that would be able to solve the problem(s). Thus all that anyone can do inscribe "DON'T PANIC" in large friendly letters per HHGTTG's example, so society can continue to run normally for as long as it can while our planet gets demolished. Welcome to the decline, easiest thing to do is to accept it and have fun while we drive off the proverbial cliff.
  - jeremyjh 3y ago
    I'm not sure why this is being downvoted. Yes, there are some realistic choices that could be made, or could have been made to seriously mitigate the issues. But so far we haven't pursued those, so there are not realistic attempts so far. We're pretending pouring money into renewables is enough, and it isn't. We're pretending that made up carbon credits will help, and they won't because people just use them to lie and steal. Some people pretend consumers aren't the problem, that it is "corporations". Well, those corporations exist only to funnel goods and services into the gaping maws of consumers. You can regulate corporations, and we must, but the idea that change will happen without our own personal sacrifices is foolish. You need to allow a nuclear plant to be built in your backyard, and then another one. You need to start taking the bus to work. You need to stop eating meat. These would be the beginnings of "realistic attempts" if all of society committed to such ideas and changed our collective ideas about what quality of life is.
oldpersonintx 3y ago
Drifting into panic and depression...or not...is just signalling Very concerned people who do not take action are equally to blame as those who don't care
- antifa 3y ago
  Yes, the people in the back of the bus are exactly as equally to blame as the bus driver.
esarbe 3y ago
No, I'm drifting into panic because I've seen that rational discourse just doesn't change anything. There's always a reason to not-do anything, to not-upset anything, because, you know, the GDP, the stock market, think of the all the people involved in oil, etc. Meanwhile we've shifted from ridicule to denial through downplaying and the outright delusional "this could actually be good". What is not happening are any meaningful steps towards reigning in even the worst excesses. So, yeah. Maybe panic is not the worst state of mind regarding this challenge?
- nologic01 3y ago
  To paraphrase, dont get panicky, get even. This is a long-term marathon that will change all societies and economies one way or another. The objective is to make sure its eventually a better place. This transormation is not going to be the result of panic thinking or action. GDP, stocks etc are not eternal constructs, they were invented and adopted in a certain context. Well that context is falling apart. But the new constructs are not born yet. There might be some easy, immediate "quick-wins" in change of behaviors or new technology, but they are not that many, or particularly impactful. Take for example coal. In various places they thought that eliminating it is a no brainer. Its dirty, lots of CO2 emissions etc. Well guess what. Many poorer countries only have access to coal and they are not particularly keen to remain energy poor to make up for the historical excesses or others.
throwaway5752 3y ago
Agreed. Panic is the rational reaction [edited from "response"] to a near term extinction level threat that not enough people are taking seriously. People advocating half measures or not panicking are incredibly irrational. It's a human cognitive bias to try to arrive at intermediate outcomes between extremes (regardless of truth). Extremeness aversion. edit: for instance, IPCC/NCA5 author Zeke Hausfather said, "This month was, in my professional opinion as a climate scientist – absolutely gobsmackingly bananas" (https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1709217151452954998 https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1709217151452954998) Everyone should be rioting in the streets. If you are not scared for the lives of your children then you simply don't realize the severity of this problem.
- sojournerc 3y ago
  Panic is never rational - it's an emotion. Giving into it can cloud what action should be taken, or, often, cause actions that make the situation worse.
  - throwaway5752 3y ago
    If you do not feel panic at the state of climate change, then you are in fact not processing information correctly, ie, not rational. It is not rational to drive a car off the rim of the Grand Canyon; it is rational to jump on the brakes immediately and not fall to ones death. It is rational to feel fear when in great danger.
    - JoshuaDavid 3y ago
      Fear and panic are not the same thing. If your car is rolling towards the rim of the grand canyon and isn't slowing down, you would be afraid but ideally would quickly but calmly consider and try your options (emergency brake, steer away from edge, bail before it reaches edge, etc) rather than panicking.
      - hotpotamus 3y ago
        What if you are the passenger and the driver has their foot down on the accelerator while refusing to believe that the cliff lies ahead? What is the appropriate emotion?

chimprich 3y ago

> It would be quite educational to attribute in more detail the impact of these two factors. The degree of "El Nino" influence is presumably known, and if its strength is not related with global warming in complicated and unknown ways it would be good to overlay it as a distinct effect. I've seen some attempts to quantify the difference. E.g. this article tries to illustrate it: https://theconversation.com/july-was-earths-hottest-month-on-record-4-factors-driving-2023s-extreme-heat-and-climate-disasters-209975 https://theconversation.com/july-was-earths-hottest-month-on...

flagrant_taco 3y ago

The debate over exact causes has always felt misguided to me. The planet is extremely complex, human impact on the planet is largely based on estimates and modeling, and at the end of the day an understanding of why it's getting hotter isn't itself a course correction. There are such obvious first steps we could take without a complete understanding of cause if we really cared. We could easily cut our use of fossil fuels if we weren't trying to balance that with an arbitrary GDP growth target. We could stop incentivizing people and companies to consume disposable products. We could stop subsidizing massive industrial farms and instead focus on eating locally and growing some of your own food. The list goes on, but having spent decades watching people debate passionately over why the planet is warming all while going further down the same path my only conclusion is that we just don't give a damn. When push comes to shove we would rather buy new cloths imported from the other side of the world, throw resources at new construction and gut job renovations, and will happily fly around the world on vacation rather than stay home and enjoy the world around us. Oh and don't forget about new tech. Machine learning rebranded as AI is so ground breaking that we have no choice but to produce as many GPUs as we can and throw all the power and water needed to run the damn things 24/7.

gjulianm 3y ago
> There are such obvious first steps we could take without a complete understanding of cause if we really cared. That's the issue, a lot of people just don't care or refuse to believe it. Questions like the one in the parent comment are starting to seriously annoy me because they're demanding an unachievable level of evidence before doing anything, a level that's never asked for in any other kind of intervention (for example, interest rate hikes).
- nsxwolf 3y ago
  Everyone leaves out a large cohort - people that believe it, but don't want the solutions you're selling. We typically put forth constructive solutions like nuclear, which get shouted down / laughed out of the room instantly.
  - 3y ago

erghjunk 3y ago

> The degree of "El Nino" influence is presumably known, and if its strength is not related with global warming in complicated and unknown ways it would be good to overlay it as a distinct effect. A brief web search suggests this presumption is incorrect and that climate change is having an effect on the cycle, rendering this division somewhat meaningless - the old El Nino is "gone," in a sense, and only the climate change effected one remains. from: https://research.noaa.gov/2020/11/09/new-research-volume-explores-future-of-enso-under-influence-of-climate-change/ https://research.noaa.gov/2020/11/09/new-research-volume-exp... “No two El Niños or La Niñas are perfectly alike,” Capotondi said. “We’ve seen how diverse ENSO events can be. This diversity adds another degree of complexity for understanding how climate change will influence future ENSO events.” So how are ENSO impacts likely to evolve in the coming decades? “Extreme El Niño and La Niña events may increase in frequency from about one every 20 years to one every 10 years by the end of the 21st century under aggressive greenhouse gas emission scenarios,” McPhaden said. “The strongest events may also become even stronger than they are today.” and here is the full book: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781119548164 https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/978...

nologic01 3y ago
The chapter on "ENSO Diversity" seems the most relevant for this discussion but it is alas behind a paywall. The available summary does not hint there is something conclusive yet on these interactions: "Current research seeks to determine whether such changes in ENSO characteristics were the result of anthropogenic greenhouse gas forcing or just a manifestation of natural variability, and whether and how climate change may affect ENSO diversity in the future."

jgreen10 3y ago

One theory is that it's too early in the cycle to attribute the warming to El Nino (which will make things even worse), but that it's due to a reduction in SO2 in shipping fuels causing lower solar reflection and heating up the oceans faster. However, it's hard to be sure. A discussion: https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/aerosols-are-so2-emissions-reductions-contributing-global-warming https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/aerosols-are-so2-emissions-...

hermannj314 3y ago

Americans wear ignorance as a badge of honor, specifically, ignorance of math. "Let's not get lost in the details", "Let's take a 30,000 foot view of the problem", etc. are common sayings in corporate America that boil down to "I'm not that confident in math, so can we stick to hard-to-prove-false qualitative claims only, please?" I love this sentiment, I hope it takes off, but I gave up trying years ago.

secretsatan 3y ago

> The other segment of the population that can be affected by a clear and well founded explanation of what is happening are those sitting on the fence about climate change or feeling skeptical for legitimate reasons. I simply no longer believe these people really exist, that information has been around, it has been around for decades, and yet this argument comes up time and time again, I'm a reasonable person, persuade me. Nah.... it's been done time and time again.

Aurornis 3y ago

> It would be quite educational to attribute in more detail the impact of these two factors. The degree of "El Nino" influence is presumably known Unfortunately, they aren't independent variables. The climate change effects of global warming have also altered the function of El Nino. You can't entirely subtract one variable out because they're interlinked. If you really wanted to, you could squint and look at the trend lines of previous months and years and try to extrapolate a trajectory. It would still be going up.

noknownsender 3y ago

If there is a potion of the population that is "sitting on the fence about climate change", it is highly unlikely that they "can be convinced by a clear and well founded explanation of what is happening" Anybody capable of that, would either no longer be sitting on the fence, or are highly unlikely to be reading this article. Also, the basic premise of your comment assumes that the effects on the monthly temperature can be cleanly broken down categorically into "fossil fuel related" and "El Nino related", which presupposes that a stronger and more frequent El Nino events are unrelated to the burning of fossil fuels. The facts the human impact on climate change are overwhelming, both in their abundance and scope of impact. Pretending that they don't exist, or treating them as a tangential issue to be put aside so as to appeal to a skeptical and/or ignorant minority, serves no purpose other than to undercut the facts.

nologic01 3y ago
There are people who are "in principle" accepting climate change but skeptical about the urgency and magnitude of adaptation that is required. This includes critical segments of the business and political worlds who weigh any action against their vested interests. These people will never panic. But they may plot a "changing of stripes" strategy if the signals from experts and society are strong and persistent. This is discussion is really about how the experts (and, subsequently, mass and social media) popularize the explanations of weather events and what effect this might have on various segments of the population. > which presupposes that a stronger and more frequent El Nino events are unrelated to the burning of fossil fuels. I didn't pressupose anything, I qualified my statement. In fact people posted various interesting recent pieces of research in the thread and I learned that there are both additional potential factors that may be currenty overlapping and that understanding of a potential climate change / El Nino link is still elusive. But that is beside the point. Even if there was a known link it doesn't change my remark that better framing is required. You would simply condition on the dependence, show the growing El Nino "diversity" against the underlying trend and indicate how this may have created an outlier realization.
- PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
  It's not beside the point, it IS the point. There's too much currently unknown for any honest person to speak with the confidence the other poster is and that makes many people (myself included) distrustful.

zackees 3y ago

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lamontcg 3y ago

Analysis done back in 2016, back when 2015 shattered records due to El Nino (and completely shattered the argument around a "pause" in global warming due to the El Nino spike back in 1998): https://tamino.wordpress.com/2016/01/27/el-nino-and-the-2015-record-breaking-heat/ https://tamino.wordpress.com/2016/01/27/el-nino-and-the-2015... https://tamino.wordpress.com/2016/01/29/correcting-for-more-than-just-el-nino/ https://tamino.wordpress.com/2016/01/29/correcting-for-more-...

nologic01 3y ago
Seems wortwhile to update this. Maybe even have a running calculation that is updated on each data release? It provides an intersting context for understanding monthly and annual temperature anomalies.
- lamontcg 3y ago
  I think most people consider it settled science/argument at this point. As a veteran of the 2005-2015 internet flamewars on climate science it definitely just bores the living shit out of me to even think about it again. And all the climate science sources from that period (Skeptical Science, Real Climate, Tamino's blog) also don't publish anywhere near the amount they used to. If you disagree, then be the change you want to see in the world... Setup a website, pull the data, build your own model and publish it. Once you've got it going, I'd guess that Tamino would be more than willing to correct all your mistakes in your model.

worksonmine 3y ago

I would like to see solar activity included in the discussion as well. But anytime I bring it up I'm called a climate denialist. But we're seeing auroras very far south and those days it's no issue mentioning the sun is currently in an active phase. Why is that detail always omitted when it comes to global warming, sorry climate change?

jeremyjh 3y ago
I don't understand. Do you think there is scientific doubt about the greenhouse effect, or that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, or that for hundreds of thousands of years CO2 concentrations have correlated with average temperature? There isn't any doubt about the problems of greenhouse gases, and there isn't anything we can do about the sun's activity other than use it as an excuse to do nothing "until we understand".
- worksonmine 3y ago
  This is the kind of responses I'm referring to. I'm not saying we shouldn't do anything as you assume, I'm wondering why solar activity isn't accounted for in the models. Maybe it can explain something? Trust the science and all that you know, being thorough. I'm curious if the changes we see can be explained by the sun activity yes. I'm not qualified to assess which of the scientists are right and which aren't, and to what extent CO2 gases cause global warming. Instead of just asking me to take it for a fact when asking a question please use your expertise and explain it in a sense that I can understand and verify. I'm asking out of curiosity and because I want to understand, to me this could all be because of the sun and an elaborate cash-grab, just as plausible. Because it's not about stopping it at all costs, some people can apparently buy the right to produce more? With these kind of hand-wavy responses from those who claim to have the knowledge where do you think me and other like me are turning for information? I don't know if it's easier to build a giant sunscreen than to get the worlds population eating bugs because apparently cows fart too much? But we still keep exploiting the amazon, and doing everything we can to keep the endless growth economy we've built going. So how pressing can it really be? We're fighting wars over more resources, when maybe we should be fighting to stop consumerism? I don't know. But I'm not taking anyones word for it, help me understand or move on. Don't tell me what to think.

yongjik 3y ago

> population that drifts into panic and depression vs > feeling skeptical for legitimate reasons I think it's just your bias showing. This is 2023, people who are "skeptical" of the climate change aren't there for legitimate reasons. And frankly I'm less and less convinced that we need to engage these people.

holbrad 3y ago
I think might be your bias showing... IMO there's an awful lot of necessary debate around climate policy. Skeptical can mean anything from thinking: 1) Battery storage for intermittent renewables is unsolved and therefore nuclear is a better solution (I think this is actually correct, if we could emulate France's historic budgets, timelines and safety) 2) The earth isn't warming at all and it's a Chinese conspiracy. There's a lot of room between those two points, even thing's as basic as what's our current level of warming are harder to pin down than you would expect.