4 ms·
> "a few degrees, what difference does that make?" Maybe this helps: Think about when we have a fever of "a few degrees", say, instead of 37 degree Celsius, we
by triska 1mo ago
> "a few degrees, what difference does that make?"
Maybe this helps: Think about when we have a fever of "a few degrees", say, instead of 37 degree Celsius, we have 40. It shows that also a few degrees can make a huge difference.
- charcircuit 1mo agoThe temperature of a fever is not measuring the temperature outside.
- deleted 1mo ago[deleted]
- groby_b 1mo agoThis may be hard to understand, but that was an illustrative example on why sometimes a few degree difference have bigger absolute impact than you'd expect from the purely numerical value. Nobody (well, almost nobody, I guess) considered it an explanation or model of climate change.
- deleted 1mo ago[deleted]
- charcircuit 1mo agoIt's like saying the sea level's altitude is important because if a drone assumes it is off by a few meters it can crash into the ground. It ignores that the altitude of a drone is based off of the output of a control system. If you just ignore the control system and adjust the altitude of the drone to the point where it crashes it is just ignoring what happens in reality and is not representative of what is trying to be discussed.
- Isaackoz 1mo agoThink even bigger. 1 degrees inside your house? Not noticeable at all. But on a planet-wide scale? A 1 degree difference requires a LOT of energy. It's like boiling a cup of water vs an Olympic sized swimming pool. The latter is going to take a lot more energy than the former.
- ColdStream 1mo agoFunnily enough the water temperature is why many are so focused on the arctic sea ice. It is acting as a buffer that is keeping large parts of the ocean cooler beyond both reflecting sun light and also actively melting and releasing cool water into the ocean. But as it is shrinking rapidly, there is an eye being kept to see when we hit a "Blue Ocean Event". That is coverage less that 1 million sq KM as that is effectively gone as far as functionality goes. Only 15 years ago this was thought to be something that might happen in the 22nd century, it looks like we might see this in the next decade. You can test the impact of this at home. Get a glass of water and put some ice in it with a thermometer. Once down to temperature, the water won't change much as the ice will melt to keep the temperature stable. But as soon as it is all gone, the temperature will start to rise rapidly. This is because of Latent heat fusion. The amount of energy it takes to change ice to water. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enthalpy_of_fusion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enthalpy_of_fusion The amount of energy it takes to break the bonds of ice at 0c to into water at 0c, is the same about of energy need to take that 0c water up to 71c. When the arctic is gone, we lose a HUGE buffer on global temperatures.
- acuozzo 1mo agoJust figure out how many 7-foot-tall persons you'd have to add to your country to increase the average height by 1 inch. 7 feet = 2.1336 meters 1 inch = 2.54 centimeters
- ColdStream 1mo agoI said this elsewhere. Land temperature raises quicker than oceans. So a 2c increase globally is actually a 4c over land. If we hit 3c, that will be 6c over land. So with a fever, 37c jumped up to 43c goes from normal and stable to a very quick death.