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We often hear that the earth will heat by 1 or 2 degrees in the next however many years. I think people hear that and think ooh 22c instead of 21c on a June afternoon in England lubbly jubbly. I certainly did at first. I think we should stop talking in these terms and keep talking as in 40 degree summers will soon be the norm, as I read this morning. I think this would resonate more, not that we can do a lot about it as individuals other than disrupt snooker matches.
What does this actually mean though? One or two days of extreme temperatures does not constitute a whole summer. We don't need exaggerated headlines and scaremongering, we need honest & accurate information. We are currently going through a colder ( and wetter ) than average July and also had below average temperatures for most of the UK in spring. I've not seen too many people talking about this.
I'm not suggesting that Global temperatures are not rising but people in the UK are not going to believe messaging around 40c summers when it doesn't reflect the reality when they open the front door.
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Climate change - poor messaging? on 13:33 - Jul 27 with 764 views
Climate change - poor messaging? on 10:48 - Jul 27 by StokieBlue
The UK isn't short of water, only the south and east of England is really short of water. I would think that water transference projects (canals) would be more cost efficient than desalination plants but I haven't looked that up.
It's worth noting that desalination itself isn't prohibitively expensive, it's that the energy required for either thermal or reverse osmosis processes is very high and usually requires a dedicated power plant to supply the desalination plant.
SB
can confirm that water transfer strategy is well underway... i'm involved in early discussions / plans from the point of view of assessing impacts of transfer (loss) from NW England to Midlands/SE will be... ie. on our aquatic environments and ecosystems up here.
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Climate change - poor messaging? on 13:49 - Jul 27 with 744 views
Climate change - poor messaging? on 10:48 - Jul 27 by StokieBlue
The UK isn't short of water, only the south and east of England is really short of water. I would think that water transference projects (canals) would be more cost efficient than desalination plants but I haven't looked that up.
It's worth noting that desalination itself isn't prohibitively expensive, it's that the energy required for either thermal or reverse osmosis processes is very high and usually requires a dedicated power plant to supply the desalination plant.
Climate change - poor messaging? on 10:48 - Jul 27 by StokieBlue
The UK isn't short of water, only the south and east of England is really short of water. I would think that water transference projects (canals) would be more cost efficient than desalination plants but I haven't looked that up.
It's worth noting that desalination itself isn't prohibitively expensive, it's that the energy required for either thermal or reverse osmosis processes is very high and usually requires a dedicated power plant to supply the desalination plant.
Climate change - poor messaging? on 10:48 - Jul 27 by StokieBlue
The UK isn't short of water, only the south and east of England is really short of water. I would think that water transference projects (canals) would be more cost efficient than desalination plants but I haven't looked that up.
It's worth noting that desalination itself isn't prohibitively expensive, it's that the energy required for either thermal or reverse osmosis processes is very high and usually requires a dedicated power plant to supply the desalination plant.
SB
Desalination plants may end up being something we see for other means soon if Sodium Ion batteries take off.
Climate change - poor messaging? on 13:08 - Jul 27 by BlueOura
"40 degree summers will soon be the norm"
What does this actually mean though? One or two days of extreme temperatures does not constitute a whole summer. We don't need exaggerated headlines and scaremongering, we need honest & accurate information. We are currently going through a colder ( and wetter ) than average July and also had below average temperatures for most of the UK in spring. I've not seen too many people talking about this.
I'm not suggesting that Global temperatures are not rising but people in the UK are not going to believe messaging around 40c summers when it doesn't reflect the reality when they open the front door.
it essentially means lots of people may die.. on an increasingly frequent basis over the upcoming decades. Heatwaves are defined something like 3 nights running where average temps are 3 (or 5???) degrees C above the average for that time of year. Last year 3000 died in UK heatwave... 61k across Europe. Mostly elderly or those with underlying health issues. It doesn't mean 40 degrees through the whole of a month or anything like that... they can be short events but can have big impacts on health and mortality.. especially here where our housing stock quality is p1ss poor and completely inadequate to deal with it.
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Climate change - poor messaging? on 14:20 - Jul 27 with 691 views
Climate change - poor messaging? on 14:11 - Jul 27 by Geomorph
it essentially means lots of people may die.. on an increasingly frequent basis over the upcoming decades. Heatwaves are defined something like 3 nights running where average temps are 3 (or 5???) degrees C above the average for that time of year. Last year 3000 died in UK heatwave... 61k across Europe. Mostly elderly or those with underlying health issues. It doesn't mean 40 degrees through the whole of a month or anything like that... they can be short events but can have big impacts on health and mortality.. especially here where our housing stock quality is p1ss poor and completely inadequate to deal with it.
One way to think about it is that the temperature is based off a bell curve where you have extremes at both ends and then the larger "normal" section.
The issue with the warming is that the lower end of the bell curve is being shifted forward by 2C which makes the "normal" part already hotter and the extreme tail events hotter still.
Climate change - poor messaging? on 10:50 - Jul 27 by blueasfook
I have said this before. In the west, we are generally taking strides to become greener and reducing dependency on carbon fuels (Maybe we could/should be doing more). The big polluters like the US, and particularly China and India are the ones who are dragging their feet. India wouldnt even commit to the pledges that eveyone else signed up to in COP26.
Any small steps we may take as a country will have a little or no impact when the major polluters are still churning out millions of tonnes of carbon emissions.
This might be of interest for people who bring up China every time they hear the term climate change:
Perhaps worthy of its own thread, but the supposed breakthrough in superconductor research published earlier this week (the production of a room temperature/normal pressure superconductor using relatively inexpensive and common materials) could be an absolute gamechanger. For a start, it would allow power to be transported thousands of miles with no losses, meaning we could get power from a solar farm in the Sahara desert.
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Climate change - poor messaging? on 14:21 - Jul 27 with 683 views
Climate change - poor messaging? on 14:20 - Jul 27 by StokieBlue
One way to think about it is that the temperature is based off a bell curve where you have extremes at both ends and then the larger "normal" section.
The issue with the warming is that the lower end of the bell curve is being shifted forward by 2C which makes the "normal" part already hotter and the extreme tail events hotter still.
SB
indeed
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Climate change - poor messaging? on 14:21 - Jul 27 with 680 views
Climate change - poor messaging? on 14:11 - Jul 27 by Geomorph
it essentially means lots of people may die.. on an increasingly frequent basis over the upcoming decades. Heatwaves are defined something like 3 nights running where average temps are 3 (or 5???) degrees C above the average for that time of year. Last year 3000 died in UK heatwave... 61k across Europe. Mostly elderly or those with underlying health issues. It doesn't mean 40 degrees through the whole of a month or anything like that... they can be short events but can have big impacts on health and mortality.. especially here where our housing stock quality is p1ss poor and completely inadequate to deal with it.
I don't doubt that, although important to counter this by recognising that more people die overall from the effects of cold weather than hot, so any claim of deaths in relation to overall warming temperatures needs to be balanced by how many lives would be saved by milder winters.
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Climate change - poor messaging? on 14:25 - Jul 27 with 666 views
Climate change - poor messaging? on 14:21 - Jul 27 by Clapham_Junction
This might be of interest for people who bring up China every time they hear the term climate change:
Perhaps worthy of its own thread, but the supposed breakthrough in superconductor research published earlier this week (the production of a room temperature/normal pressure superconductor using relatively inexpensive and common materials) could be an absolute gamechanger. For a start, it would allow power to be transported thousands of miles with no losses, meaning we could get power from a solar farm in the Sahara desert.
China is absolutely building the most renewables in the world. They are also building the most fossil fuel based power stations in the world.
What the world needs is for them to continue to build renewables and to reduce the fossil fuel footprint but that's going to take quite some time. They are certainly doing more than India in that regards though.
Room temperature superconductors would be amazing but it's going to take a long time to replace the grid but it would absolutely be worth it. They would certainly make a difference when moving power from North Africa as you've pointed out.
Another promising breakthrough recently was the use of perovskite to construct solar panels with greater efficiency and possibly double-sided.
SB
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Climate change - poor messaging? on 14:28 - Jul 27 with 663 views
Climate change - poor messaging? on 14:21 - Jul 27 by Clapham_Junction
This might be of interest for people who bring up China every time they hear the term climate change:
Perhaps worthy of its own thread, but the supposed breakthrough in superconductor research published earlier this week (the production of a room temperature/normal pressure superconductor using relatively inexpensive and common materials) could be an absolute gamechanger. For a start, it would allow power to be transported thousands of miles with no losses, meaning we could get power from a solar farm in the Sahara desert.
Before we all give a great big cheer for China, just bear in mind, they were still the major polluter in 2022, with 9.9 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions. More than twice as much as the second highest (US with 4.4 billion toness).
"Blueas is a great guy, one of the best." - Donald Trump
Climate change - poor messaging? on 14:21 - Jul 27 by BlueOura
I don't doubt that, although important to counter this by recognising that more people die overall from the effects of cold weather than hot, so any claim of deaths in relation to overall warming temperatures needs to be balanced by how many lives would be saved by milder winters.
you make a good point.. exacerbated by amplified fuel prices...
Associated impacts on a warming world are many... if you live in Suffolk or the SE the latest hydrological science suggests many of your rivers will run dry through typical summers in the mid 21st century. No problem you'll get your water piped down country from the Lake District :) Up there (where I am) we had Storm Desmond chaos in 2015... that kind of event will be ten times more likely to occur in a given year and up to 50% bigger in the mid to late part of this century. We're already seeing the flow stats changing in the monitoring records. So what do we do? Wall off towns in readiness? Pull back towns from the floodplains? Wait to see if the science is correct then react? I really don't see much thinking on such things from our leaders...
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Climate change - poor messaging? on 14:45 - Jul 27 with 625 views
Climate change - poor messaging? on 14:28 - Jul 27 by blueasfook
Before we all give a great big cheer for China, just bear in mind, they were still the major polluter in 2022, with 9.9 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions. More than twice as much as the second highest (US with 4.4 billion toness).
If you'd have read that thread, you'd have seen that was addressed
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