The Climate Change Thread

[live627]

I'm confident that they will figure this out; airplanes technology will adapt. Example: fighter jets. Since those always go above mach 1 speeds and create a sonic boom, they probably encounter constant turbulence.

 

[Retro]

This was inevitably going to happen as our planet continues to warm. Incredibly, other than mentioning the percentage of UK homes with aircon, this study doesn't actually mention it anywhere else, other than a footnote. Incredible, as aircon is central to keeping a home cool, especially one not designed with heatwaves in mind, which is most of them since the UK was a colder country before, so keeping warm was the problem.

Lower-income householders, minority ethnic people and those with young children are more likely to live in homes at risk from dangerous overheating, research has found.

The UK has baked in multiple heatwaves this summer, with many people sweltering in dangerously hot homes that were not designed to withstand extreme temperatures. June was the hottest on record and in general this summer England was an average of 1.58C above average temperatures.

Hot homes are dangerous for health; cardiovascular and respiratory issues, sleep disturbance, mental health problems and heat exhaustion all correlate with high temperatures in the home. Health risks spike when temperatures inside are above 25C, and there is a link between overheating homes and the risk of death, particularly for elderly people.

An analysis of housing stock by the Resolution Foundation has found nearly half (48%) of the poorest fifth of English households have homes liable to get too hot – three times as many as among the richest fifth (17%).

Low-income and minority ethnic people in England most at risk from dangerously hot homes

Exclusive: Homes are heating up as summers get hotter but least well-off are shouldering greatest risk, study finds

www.theguardian.com

 

[Astro What]

Incredible, as aircon is central to keeping a home cool, especially one not designed with heatwaves in mind, which is most of them since the UK was a colder country before, so keeping warm was the problem.

It's all in what you get used to. Here in Texas there are still many homes that do not have AC, and that is in an area that averages 96° (36°C) to low 100's (38°C+) in the summer. You learn to make do with fans in the rooms (ceiling and also floor) along with consumption of ice water.
At 63, I was out mowing the back 3/4 acre with a push mower when the temp was 97° the other day and the "feels like" temp was 103° and we had a hot weather advisory out.

 

[Retro]

Sounds like a sweltering nightmare.

 

[Astro What]

Sounds like a sweltering nightmare.

It's just part of Texas and actually living in much of the deep south. Texas and Louisiana are probably the worst due to the humidity levels with the heat in much of the both states. At least if the humidity level is low you can use evaporative cooling that works really well. That doesn't work well when the air is already saturated with water vapor.
Texas, Louisiana and Florida are considered the hotter of the southern states. The benefit for Texas is due to our size, we do have some areas that are more arid even though they may get hot.

 

[AllThingsTech]

@Astro What thanks for clarifying this, as I was considering purchasing an evaporative water cooler but from my experience effectiveness varies. It’s great to now understand why

 

[Retro]

Climate change continues to break all the wrong records. More wildfires in Europe.

Temperature records broken as extreme heat grips parts of Europe

Unprecedented temperatures causing difficulties in south-west France, Croatia, Italy and Spain with wildfire destruction across Europe up 87%

www.theguardian.com

 

[Retro]

In a blow to us climate change affirmists, it turns out that the melting of arctic sea ice has dramatically slowed down in the last 20 years despite ever more CO2 being pumped into the air by the burning of fossil fuels. However, scientists aren't phased by this, stating that it's just a blip and that melting will resume soon.

The melting of sea ice in the Arctic has slowed dramatically in the past 20 years, scientists have reported, with no statistically significant decline in its extent since 2005.

The finding is surprising, the researchers say, given that carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning have continued to rise and trap ever more heat over that time.

They said natural variations in ocean currents that limit ice melting had probably balanced out the continuing rise in global temperatures. However, they said this was only a temporary reprieve and melting was highly likely to start again at about double the long-term rate at some point in the next five to 10 years.

Of course, this will be seized upon by climate change denialists and the fossil fuel industry to continue pumping out ever more CO2 in the atmosphere and triggering catastrophic rises in temperature which the world is already heading for, making it so much worse, likely making significant parts of the planet uninhabitable, especially around the equator which is always the hottest. Future generations are gonna have it rough, much more than we have it today and it's already measurably worse than just a couple of decades ago.

Dramatic slowdown in melting of Arctic sea ice surprises scientists

Natural climate variation is most likely reason as global heating due to fossil fuel burning has continued

www.theguardian.com

 

[Retro]

We all know how critical water is, right? Well, there's gonna be rather a lot less of it in a lot of places due to global warming, affecting the lives of millions of people.

Vast swathes of Europe’s water reserves are drying up, a new analysis using two decades of satellite data reveals, with freshwater storage shrinking across southern and central Europe, from Spain and Italy to Poland and parts of the UK.

Scientists at University College London (UCL), working with Watershed Investigations and the Guardian, analysed 2002–24 data from satellites, which track changes in Earth’s gravitational field.

Because water is heavy, shifts in groundwater, rivers, lakes, soil moisture and glaciers show up in the signal, allowing the satellites to effectively “weigh” how much water is stored.

The findings reveal a stark imbalance: the north and north-west of Europe – particularly Scandinavia, parts of the UK and Portugal – have been getting wetter, while large swathes of the south and south-east, including parts of the UK, Spain, Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany, Romania and Ukraine, have been drying out.

Revealed: Europe’s water reserves drying up due to climate breakdown

Exclusive: UCL scientists find large swathes of southern Europe are drying up, with ‘far-reaching’ implications

www.theguardian.com