Climate Change

[wadaye]

One of the greatest sadnesses of climate change is the monotonising sameness that it causes. Take that glass of water with an icebube in it and power in the energy and the water rises in temperature only very slowly until the ice is melted and then only rises radically. Same for the earth. the magnificent diversity reduced to a ridiculous monotony. Because by definition the insulative capacity of the atmosphere is closer to saturation at the equator, than at the poles, the second law of thermodynamics or entropy's increase requires the heat to flow from the equator to the poles to access that escape route. The only rule is that the poles can't get hotter than the equator, generally speaking. And the other escape route is equally attractive to the heat. Go into the ice.

Edit: just thinking about the explainer for the above, because the insulative capacity is closer to saturation, that's another way of saying that there's more heat in the atmosphere at the equator and like a river, the more heat that is there has to build up to higher energy temperature to reach escape trajectory in the upwards direction. But entropy wants heat dissipation. So the heat doesn't want to compete with itself for the escape route upwards in the tropics because the temperature gradient down as the altitude rises is not as steep as it used to be, so for the heat, its more of a downhill ride to head to the poles.

[pipbarber]

I hear that Toontown is heading for a lazy 10C above average tomorrow! That's nothing compared to 25C above average last week in Malawi(?). I've been getting a lot of mileage out of that 25C occurrence, it also happened in South America recently. I say, 'imagine waking up in the middle of July (in Melbourne) and it's a 40C day, because that is what is going to happen.' And if that gets some kind of traction, imagine waking up in January (in Melbourne) and you're facing 64C. How's your economy going then?

Anyway, stay cool up there.

Not so sure that 64 degree January is around the corner but definitely 40 degree July is coming quick, very quick

Yes, i was deploying hyperbole for emphasis. As you point out, hot winters are more imminent than 60C summer days, although having said that i suspect we may breach the 50C mark in a city this summer. The alarming summer prospect however is not a one off record breaking day but a prolonged heat wave, such as occurred in Phoenix this year. It's a fearful prospect.

[wadaye]

...
Yes, i was deploying hyperbole for emphasis. As you point out, hot winters are more imminent than 60C summer days, although having said that i suspect we may breach the 50C mark in a city this summer. The alarming summer prospect however is not a one off record breaking day but a prolonged heat wave, such as occurred in Phoenix this year. It's a fearful prospect.

Yeah I know I was just taking advantage of opportunity to flex an idea that even in writing it confused me. When I wrote it then I pondered it some more wondering what did it really mean. It was a subject that fascinated me in (mid life) uni, why do the poles heat up more and quicker than the tropics, and I did a presentation on it, and in the 7 years since then I see that the issue is not adequately or barely at all explained to the public, and very little mentioned in the literature. Essentially the heat doesn't want to compete with itself for space in the tropics and tropics atmosphere so it pushes out to the poles and dives into the ice, and heats up the atmosphere there.

So (among) the worst of climate change is the extirpation of difference between the tropics and the poles.

[Irrev-Black]

[stylofone]

i suspect we may breach the 50C mark in a city this summer. The alarming summer prospect however is not a one off record breaking day but a prolonged heat wave, such as occurred in Phoenix this year. It's a fearful prospect.

The northern hemisphere summer of fear didn't change the oblivious attitude to the crisis, so I don't expect any major change if we cop it in our half this summer.

Meanwhile, "Keep 1.5 Alive" is turning into the "Weekend at Bernie's" version of climate talking points.

If I read it right, six years worth of our CURRENT emissions will get us to 1.5. SIx years is a blink of an eye, but emissions are actually increasing, so maybe it will happen sooner. Also, maybe we will discover other factors which reveal it is even worse. This is likely because other findings previously dismissed as "doomist" will prove to be correct. So the six years thing itself is very optimistic.

Meanwhile, the argument they are trying to make is that we bring forward our "net zero" target from 2050 to 2034. But that would require immediate REAL cuts, and that's just to going to happen. We are knowingly letting the horse bolt now, and planning to shut the gate in a few years' time.

"There are no socio-technical scenarios globally available in the scientific literature that would support that that is actually possible, or even describe how that would be possible," said Prof Joeri Rogelj, also from Imperial College London.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-67242386

[wadaye]

All agreed. Even the notion of seeking to fit the graph of exponential growth to the human timeframe so as to match 1.5C with the Gregorian calendar year 2100 is scientifically illiterate, and intellectually illiterate for failing to explain it too.

Its a meaningless point on an exponential graph along the path to what they all accept will be at least 3 degrees Climate Equilibrium for doubling which has already occurred, taking into account methane and nitrous oxide, but then completely ignoring slow feedback mechanisms and other important issues, such as complete forest loss, which feeds back into the atmosphere, completely ignores that 1.5 C or 3C in the ocean means effective ocean death, ...

Its something to behold. And it is inflicted on the poor and their deaths will not be televised. Their famines will not be televised. They are suffering and dying now and it will not be televised. Only when they throw out the colonial power does it then get televised and only briefly in going wow at their supposed irrationality.

[Irrev-Black]

Funding brings results... unsurprisingly, these turn out to be the results funding source would like.

In short, we're fracked.

https://michaelwest.com.au/surprise-csi ... -fracking/

[wadaye]

I now live in the Hunter valley. Its a shock. By night its as if a thief is moving the entire earth along the railway tracks as fast as possible. 100 carriage coal trains loaded to the brim, one after the other, with less time between trains than with them going. The sound bounces in arcs a kilometre long back down to earth, and then again, like a giant soccer ball. And the coal dust from the extraction. even at a distance it gives an insight into the lives of those unfortunates near mines around the world carniverously devouring earth for the toys of the rich. Niger springs to mind with those unfortunately blighted by the uranium mine.

[Irrev-Black]

It's noticeably combustible round our way, and a dry summer is predicted.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-n ... nt-tracker

[stylofone]

Its something to behold. And it is inflicted on the poor and their deaths will not be televised. Their famines will not be televised. They are suffering and dying now and it will not be televised. Only when they throw out the colonial power does it then get televised and only briefly in going wow at their supposed irrationality.

One of the reasons 1.5 degrees is seen as a benchmark is that it will hit the poorest countries first. But the fragility of the globalised economy makes me think it will also be accompanied by global food inflation, and poor people living among us here in rich Australia will feel that. Then I wonder about any knock-on effects: currency contagions, market crashes, hyper-inflation, recessions, etc. Those things will get televised.

And the coal dust from the extraction. even at a distance it gives an insight into the lives of those unfortunates near mines around the world carniverously devouring earth for the toys of the rich.

I had coal dust on my car and in the air filter when I lived near a smallish underground coal mine in the Illawarra. I didn't realise even a minor operation like that could generate the amount of filth it did. There were various monuments around the town celebrating the long history of the coal industry. The mine is owned by Peabody, an American company known for treating its workers like shit.

It's noticeably combustible round our way, and a dry summer is predicted.

Earlier this week I was making small talk with one of the neighbours. I can't help it, I now make dark climate change references when discussing the weather. On this occasion, the neighbour-eenie didn't let it pass, he said "I was looking at some of the fossils on one of the cliffs the other day, they've been around for 50 million years, so don't worry, the world isn't going to end any time soon." There was a subtle rebuke in his comment. Actually maybe not so subtle, telling me to stop saying the sky is falling. Anyway, it doesn't matter, the people around here are still deeply scarred by black summer 2019-2020, and as a result many of them are practising solid adaptation and community-building climate change strategies even if they don't admit that that is what they are doing.

As for the current emergencies, I'm way down south but they still resonate here, because we know we could be next. It is a weird feeling. We've already had a catastrophic day in my fire district this spring.