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26th July 2019, 07:22 PM | #1 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Record Heat in UK
I know ISF has many British members and I was hoping to find some commentary here about this week's record heat in the UK, France and other parts of Europe. Here in the US, NBC News reported:
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What I'm wondering about, is Boris Johnson a climate change denier? Climate change as the earth warms, does this engender the same kind of controversy in Britain and other parts of Europe as it does in the US? Where is this headed? [** - Bear with me please, Yanks still express temps in Fahrenheit.] |
27th July 2019, 01:23 AM | #2 |
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Not as much controversy across here, especially in mainland Europe. Even our 'right wing' conservatives do tend to be a bit more liberal than the right in the US. I think it may be due to the whole Evangelist thing going on across there. I tend to see that the more evangelical christians tilt more towards the extreme GOP representatives. I'm speaking from a fairly limited pool of experiences though. I used to travel a lot to the States, less so over the last three years.
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27th July 2019, 02:11 AM | #3 |
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27th July 2019, 04:50 AM | #4 |
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While most people here accept Global Warming even on the right the right tend to pay it lip service and do nothing about it. Mind you Labour aren't much better.
The standard get out here seems to be 'yeah but its China and India doing it all and they ain't going to stop so what's the point of us doing anything?' - in other words good old fashioned English colonial blaming of Johnny Foreigner while arrogantly ***** up everything. |
27th July 2019, 08:01 AM | #5 |
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About ten years ago while on a visit to Toronto I watched a CBC documentary about First Nation people. One segment was about the depletion of a traditional freshwater fishing ground. Scientists thought the problem was that the water temperature was gradually rising. This aggravated the food supply problem. Because already, with sea ice melting faster and earlier, polar bears were ranging further inland and interfering with caribou hunting.
After the show there was a news story about Canadian efforts to control climate change. Several people interviewed said they feared that until "our giant neighbor to the south" became sufficiently concerned Canada's efforts could have only a very small impact. The question was posed: Why do so many in the United States either disbelieve the climate change science or seem unconcerned? One answer (which rang very true with me) was: "Here in Canada we have seen dramatic evidence of warming. In the U.S. not so much. Until people in the U.S. see it -- not read about it or see it on TV but experience it personally -- they'll probably remain largely apathetic." I'm wondering if the historically high temperatures in the UK and Europe this past week are changing peoples' attitudes? Creating some urgency on the political side? |
29th July 2019, 10:26 AM | #6 |
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We should probably wait for climate scientists to crunch the numbers before jumping to the conclusion that it’s attributable to climate change. Recent history suggests it will be attributable to climate change but it’s still best to wait for the actual science. The problem with jumping to conclusions wrt to the UK is that it’s not clear if we should expect global warming to result in local warming or local cooling. Climate models predict an area of cooling in the north Atlantic and a similar feature is starting to show up in the temperature data. This could conceivable brink cooler not warmer temperatures to the UK. |
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29th July 2019, 10:32 AM | #7 |
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29th July 2019, 09:36 PM | #8 |
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For the rest of us, 101.6 in American degrees is 38.7. Which, yes, is pretty warm.
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30th July 2019, 12:49 AM | #9 |
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30th July 2019, 03:09 AM | #10 |
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30th July 2019, 04:52 AM | #11 |
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There is already great concern in the UK I discovered. Below is some information from an American climate change activist group called the Climate Reality Project.
Quote:
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30th July 2019, 06:29 AM | #12 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Most of the places in the US that regularly go to these temperatures are a lot dryer which helps a lot.
Temperatures as low as 35 Deg C (101 deg F) can be un-survivable to mammalian life at around 70% relative humidity because they can no longer cool their bodies via evaporation. There was no danger of this in the UK obviously; no place in the world reaches this combination of temperature and humidity today. By 2100 there is likely to be at least some placed on earth where this happens on a somewhat regular basis. |
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31st July 2019, 02:22 PM | #13 |
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I know it's a old cliché, but I suspect the humidity in the UK makes the heat a lot worse.
I would rather have 105 in a dry heat then 90 in a humid climate. I was in the UK on vacation back in 2003 when they had a heat wave of over a 100 Fahrenite. It was horrid. ANd I come froma city that has really hot summers. |
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31st July 2019, 02:26 PM | #14 |
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Yeah, I am in Sacramento;where you can expect 9 or 10 days of 100 plus tempertures a year...and this has been the case since they started keeping records in the mid 1800's. But it's a pretty dry heat.
In Phoenix Arizona,where they have a lot more plus 100 days and is the hottest climate of any major American city (being in the desert will do that), a popular T shirt shows too skeltons talking saying "But it's a Dry Heat".... |
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17th August 2019, 04:32 PM | #15 |
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I would also say that we are seeing denialist articles in 5he press. Booker died but I can't remember the last articles from Rose, Monckton or Ridley.
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18th August 2019, 02:30 AM | #16 |
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The either/or scenario which lomiller is discussing is somewhat deceptive. As you point out it could be both, one after the other. But it isn't cold melt water which will be the problem. Not exactly, anyway. Most (I've read 90%) of the fresh water in the world is locked up in the southern ice cap. The Gulf Stream is a system which depends on a difference in salinity to drive it, and enough fresh water melted into the ocean could break that. While extreme hot temperatures may be a problem now, if the Gulf Stream quits transporting warm water from the equatorial regions to the north Atlantic then the UK won't have to worry about that so much any more. Glaciers? Mebbe not, but the UK's latitude will become a lot more obvious. North of much of Canada. |
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18th August 2019, 02:42 AM | #17 |
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I'm not sure about "most". The South and Southeast tend to be a bit on the damp side.
Quote:
"Steam bath" is a term getting used a lot. |
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19th August 2019, 10:45 AM | #18 |
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Salinity changes where it subsides into the deep ocean, but the Gulf Stream itself is actually wind driven
Yes the US south can get these temperatures but not as often as you may think, especially in the more humid costal areas. Tampa Bay Florida has never recorded a 100+ Deg day, Savannah GA’s all time record is 100 Deg C Atlanta hits 100 once every few years so it’s still not a frequent occurrence. Heat index in London reached as high as 115 Deg F, which isn’t all that common even in the US south. A big difference is that no one in the UK has AC. |
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19th August 2019, 11:19 AM | #19 |
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I used to tell people to try sticking their head in the oven if they wanted to experience what a dry heat feels like. That said, we've actually had a pretty mild summer by Phoenix standards, June was gorgeous with almost no 100+ days (very unusual), July was normal hot. August has been hotter than normal and we have not had many monsoons, which means I have to water my trees regularly.
Last summer was also unusually mild, with the heat amazingly breaking in mid-September (mid-October is more normal). Of course, here everybody has A/C; going without is not really an option. |
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19th August 2019, 02:03 PM | #20 |
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20th August 2019, 12:04 AM | #21 |
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The US arm of The Don family mostly resided in Las Vegas.
We used to visit every couple of years in July and August and back in the early 1970's with temperatures in the 110-120 range but humidity in low single digits it was excruciatingly hot but at least sweat evaporated immediately. It still wasn't too bad in the late 80's, the last time we visited as a family. Mrs Don and I went back a few years ago for the first time in three decades and I don't know whether it's due to the much increased population, the greater number of water features and the like, climate change or just the weather that June week, but humidity was far, far worse, into the twenties and thirties. Being outside was more or less unbearable. |
20th August 2019, 12:31 AM | #22 |
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20th August 2019, 01:08 AM | #23 |
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London reached 105°F, not 115.
Since that short heat wave, August in central Europe hast been mild under average, with the last couple of days tons of rain here, which was long overdue. The plants are happy again. |
20th August 2019, 04:52 AM | #24 |
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20th August 2019, 02:50 PM | #25 |
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20th August 2019, 05:44 PM | #26 |
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21st August 2019, 11:04 AM | #27 |
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21st August 2019, 11:35 AM | #28 |
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I’m not of the “feels like” as a description for heat index. It works better as a description for heat index than wind chill, but you still don’t really feel the effects of heat index immediately, you feel it more over time as your body struggles to get rid of excess heat.
Provided you are protected from the wind, you may actually at be much greater risk of hypothermia with temperatures near freezing and high humidity than you are at -20 Deg C and the air is dry. Part of the problem is that the air can feel warmer on your skin even when you are loosing body heat more rapidly because the insulation value of your clothes drops when it’s humid. The popular “feels like” metric for cold doesn’t account for this at all, instead it looks at the effect if wind on exposed skin. This is important when there is a possibility of frostbite on exposed skin but may not capture the risk of hypothermia. |
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21st August 2019, 11:44 AM | #29 |
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Same basically, one state east here in ABQ. Except the spring was exceptionally cool and wet, like dipped into the 40's around Memorial Day. Been hovering around 100 most days in August. The weather forecast keeps saying around 95, then they revise it day of. Finally got a tiny bit of rain last night, just a quick heat storm rolling off Sandia.
I will gladly take the dry heat though. Stay out of the sun and its bearable at least, unlike humid heat. |
21st August 2019, 12:45 PM | #30 |
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That makes sense but you wrote Here in Germany that heat wave was rather dry and with a healthy wind, so I didn't suffer too much (although I felt like starting a thread in Forum Community complaining about it ). |
21st August 2019, 12:57 PM | #31 |
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21st August 2019, 01:00 PM | #32 |
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21st August 2019, 09:24 PM | #33 |
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Okay. I can dig it. This time of year the local weather critters often use it synonymously with "heat index", which they also use in their reports. I put "feels like" in quotes because ... well ... I was quoting it. This time of year in NC, and even more so this year it is highly unlikely that anyone is going to be confusing it with "wind chill". We're having plenty of wind. Micro-burst downdrafts are doing an unusual amount of damage, along with garden variety very high winds. But they aren't of the chilly variety. |
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22nd August 2019, 06:06 AM | #34 |
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So you were commenting on the absence of a unit? Why didn't you just say so?
Personally, I’m not to worried about the presence of a unit in that case because it was a casual conversation and the unit was easily inferred. Also worth noting is that while Deg F is the official unit for Heat Index (It was popularized by the US government), think using the units of Temperature are little misleading because it’s not actually a temperature. I also favor the old unit for wind chill (W/m^2) over the popular but misleading“feels like X Deg C” for many of the reasons I already discussed above. |
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22nd August 2019, 06:08 AM | #35 |
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22nd August 2019, 06:16 AM | #36 |
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I get that. I was just pointing out that “it feels like X Deg” isn’t a great way to describe numbers like this (heat index, humidex, wind chill, etc) because they don’t really feel the same. Temperature plus humidity that push the heat index to 120 doesn’t feel like 120 Deg F in dry air.
The real information is about danger level for certain heat related issues, and to understand that you need the additional information that a heat index of 120 is in the “danger” area. |
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22nd August 2019, 06:23 AM | #37 |
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Humans are somewhat immune to ecosystem breakdowns, but the economic damage is going to be serious and that reduced our ability to deal with climate change. Still, if it’s just climate change I think humanity and some measure of our society can survive.
OTOH, Ocean Acidification is death. If that reaches a certain threshold, the evolutionary history of the earth tells us animals of our size do not survive, period. |
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22nd August 2019, 07:06 AM | #38 |
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22nd August 2019, 07:13 AM | #39 |
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22nd August 2019, 07:45 AM | #40 |
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Would it have a knock-on effect that makes the atmosphere or general climate impossible for land animals? I'm not disputing what you're saying, but a quick read about mass extinctions doesn't explain why large mammals might be wiped out unless they depend directly on the sea (polar bears, walruses etc spring to mind)
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