All the climate change i hear about is a change for the worse. Are there any places on earth where the change will be for the better? We've had pretty mild summers in TX for the past 5 or so years. If that's due to climate change then great, i'll just live here.
Putting more energy into a meta-stable chaotic system will greatly increase the number of extremes across the board. Models and forecasts are currently mostly focused on how the various averages are trending, which is fine and useful.
It's most correct to plan around every location getting more wet, more dry, more hot, more cold, more storms and more droughts.
The issue is the warming planet isn't only causing a change in weather for various areas. Yeah for example the Arctic is getting a bit warmer. Which sounds like a good thing.
But the warming up of the sea and atmosphere is giving more energy potential to our weather systems. So every hurricane season, tornado season, fire season, monsoonal season, etc is getting worse and worse. And there's no such thing as isolated climate. That extra energy in the system is world wide, which is really bad for most of us.
There may be places that have slight benefits, sure. But the worldwide negative effects cancel those out IMO.
Texas is predicted to go from 60 dangerous heat days per year to 115 heat days per year by 2050. I doubt that's a good thing. And 5 years isn't enough to establish what the trend is, a countercyclical trend for 5 year can happen by random or via any of the multidecadal climate cycles.
The Canadian Prairies are getting warmer and forecasted to have a longer/more productive growing seasons although a bad drought this year isn't encouraging.
Climate resiliency was a primary factor in our decision to move last year to western New York. Farmland, fresh water, and not too hot. Check out Figure 10 in the linked report...
Extreem changes in a system deeply adapted to a current situation is always a problem, that's why you hear mostly about the down and not the up.
Slow or local changes are ok because life adapts nicely.
Brutal or global changes will also see adaptation, but will cause much pain and damages.
Moving a cristal glass on a few yards or meters at the average speed of 4 miles or km an hour may be fine for the glass or not, depending if your speed is mostly constant, or not.
If you move the glass excrucingly slowly first, of throw it brutally at the last inch/cm, it will be bad for the glass. You won't hear about the good stories about this, because there are not aligned with the nature if the situation.
Texas is most likely fucked long-term. You can probably get away with living there another 10-15 years (total guess, some things could happen which could kick off some positive feedback loops sooner than that), but I wouldn't buy any housing there and maybe start looking further north before everyone else does and housing prices skyrocket.
> pretty mild summers in TX for the past 5 or so years. If that's due to climate change then great, i'll just live here.
There have been two weather related massive grid failures in Texas this year so far. I would not want to live there as climate change intensifies. The winters are going to suck.
Let's say the weather gets better in one place due to climate change. Isn't that nice. You have that on the one hand.
On the other hand, there are big risks inherent to change. You don't get to pick just the good parts of climate change. Spitballing here: risks to food stability from droughts, fires, etc. Some areas no longer economically support farming. Other areas open up but aren't as productive, so food is a bigger part of your budget and might be subject to disruption. Political risks: displaced people start eyeing the habitable places and find ways to make life miserabile unless they're let in. Costs of the disruption while everyone tries to adapt weigh on the economy and make the products/services you take for granted today more expensive or unavailable. Your children (or others that you care about) will have to deal with even worse. And things don't stop getting worse until greenhouse gas emissions are dealt with.
The mentality of looking at the silver lining while ignoring the rest is wrong on so many obvious levels.
You're taking about destabilising a global-spanning system with tremendous energies. No, there's no "change for the better"
I mean, the cold y'all had this winter was possibly climate change, so you have that to look forward to. Likely worse wildfires, too. East Texas will get higher humidity.
Yes. Nordic countries like Russia and Canada will benefit the most, especially considering the opening of maritime routes and the easier exploitation of natural sources that were usually locked up under ice or permafrost.
People will complain if you put any change in positive terms. But of course there are upsides and silver linings.
I won't get into some contentious discussion, but let's just say it's more and more viable to grow and produce wine in Denmark, which is on its own a positive thing. So that's just one example of a positive change.
>If the AMOC collapsed, it would increase cooling of the Northern Hemisphere, sea level rise in the Atlantic, an overall fall in precipitation over Europe and North America and a shift in monsoons in South America and Afria, Britain's Met Office said.
Have the other major climate models accounted for this? Most I've seen have predicted rapid warming in North America. Not sure how to reconcile the difference. Perhaps the cooling effect is more concentrated over the oceans and coasts?
North America is a minor fraction of the northern hemisphere.
Yes, models have consistently predicted warming and drying of the western US at least since I was running climateprediction.net HadCM3 models (through BOINC) in the 00s: the return of the Great American Desert, basically everywhere west of the Mississippi and south of British Columbia.
Secondly, the cooling is an average, and relative to the situation without collapse of the AMOC. In most places, it still gets hot; but in Northern Europe, not so much. It even cools relative to the situation in 1900, IIRC.
And yes, you are right about the location. The visible part of the AMOC is called the Gulf Stream, and it's the reason London does not have the same climate as Labrador.
The slowing of the Gulf Stream, at least, which keeps Europe warm despite cooler temperatures at the same latitude in Canada, has always been one of the discussed scenarios. I don’t know whether IPCC made models, though.
So the only thing to do is keep emissions as low as possible. The likelihood of this extremely high-impact event happening increases with every gram of CO2 that we put into the atmosphere.
It's unlikely we will be able to achieve our emissions targets. We need a combination of CO2 scrubbing, non-intermittent renewables, and even geoengineering to restore Earth's energy budget.
It's depressing to think that when that documentary came out, the general reaction of the public was ambivalence to outright laughter. Al Gore really was a visionary, even if he was 30 years late compared to the climate scientists.
Please don’t. Fiction isn’t evidence, and there are too many people who don’t want anyone to believe in reality who will mock those who are trying to create solutions to the real problems as if the fiction is the only thing which exists.
That's one of the great things about the scientific method, that it tells you things you never would have guessed.
> how would that result with sea levels rising?
The Gulf Stream (part of the AMOC) brings warm water north, Evaporation happens (and the evaporated water rains out over land, where some is absorbed or flows south). The remaing sea water on the surface is now saltier and denser so sinks.
Without the AMOC, the surface water is less dense. The local mean sea level rises due to gravitational effects. Precipitation also happens more over the sea, freshening the surface sea water. Fresh water is most dense (compact) at 4 degrees Celsius. Salt affects this, but the less salt there is, the smaller the effect.
I guess when you crunch the numbers you get the result they state.
> would a new `current` not naturally establish
Last I checked, some years ago, I think it was believed that no new large-scale overturning current would establish for some thousands of years, which means the sea stratifies (settles into non-mixing layers), with a top relatively fresh and light layer over dense anoxic deeps.
Another funny item is, icecaps attract water by gravity, so if they melt, sea would lower by ~7m around the caps, and rise around the tropics. Anyway, with so many parameters and effects, I don’t venture into predictions anymore ;)
I'm not sure I understand correctly. Do you want to say that the author unnecessarily relativized what he wrote about so far or that the last sentence is the actually interesting part and everything else was sort of a preface (which seems to be what "burying the lede" means [0], from what I can tell (as non-native speaker))
Worth noting that TDAT took the concept of the AMOC collapsing and turned it into one of the most absurdly unscientific science-based films short of Armageddon.
But it was pretty entertaining if you could find a way to stay plugged into the movie and not feel disenchanted by the concept of polar cyclones icing things with tropospheric air. Still, there was that initial kernel of truth to it, which is what we're reading about now.
(not a climate guy; I'm probably getting some parts of this wrong)
> Twentieth Century Fox invited a group of scientists to preview this movie, to test their reactions to the "science" used in it. None of the scientists were impressed with what they say, although most conceded that the movie was enjoyable nonsense.
> The consultation by N.A.S.A. scientists was requested before the filming of this movie, but N.A.S.A. stated that the events in this movie were too ridiculous to actually occur, and denied the request.
[+] [-] macintux|4 years ago|reply
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28085342
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28078575
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28082887
[+] [-] chasd00|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Diederich|4 years ago|reply
It's most correct to plan around every location getting more wet, more dry, more hot, more cold, more storms and more droughts.
[+] [-] gtfoutttt|4 years ago|reply
But the warming up of the sea and atmosphere is giving more energy potential to our weather systems. So every hurricane season, tornado season, fire season, monsoonal season, etc is getting worse and worse. And there's no such thing as isolated climate. That extra energy in the system is world wide, which is really bad for most of us.
There may be places that have slight benefits, sure. But the worldwide negative effects cancel those out IMO.
[+] [-] lamontcg|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jdavis703|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marcosdumay|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ornornor|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] v77|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cproctor|4 years ago|reply
http://uploads.oneregionforward.org/content/uploads/2015/01/...
[+] [-] BiteCode_dev|4 years ago|reply
Slow or local changes are ok because life adapts nicely.
Brutal or global changes will also see adaptation, but will cause much pain and damages.
Moving a cristal glass on a few yards or meters at the average speed of 4 miles or km an hour may be fine for the glass or not, depending if your speed is mostly constant, or not.
If you move the glass excrucingly slowly first, of throw it brutally at the last inch/cm, it will be bad for the glass. You won't hear about the good stories about this, because there are not aligned with the nature if the situation.
[+] [-] cableshaft|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] HWR_14|4 years ago|reply
There have been two weather related massive grid failures in Texas this year so far. I would not want to live there as climate change intensifies. The winters are going to suck.
[+] [-] TurningCanadian|4 years ago|reply
On the other hand, there are big risks inherent to change. You don't get to pick just the good parts of climate change. Spitballing here: risks to food stability from droughts, fires, etc. Some areas no longer economically support farming. Other areas open up but aren't as productive, so food is a bigger part of your budget and might be subject to disruption. Political risks: displaced people start eyeing the habitable places and find ways to make life miserabile unless they're let in. Costs of the disruption while everyone tries to adapt weigh on the economy and make the products/services you take for granted today more expensive or unavailable. Your children (or others that you care about) will have to deal with even worse. And things don't stop getting worse until greenhouse gas emissions are dealt with.
The mentality of looking at the silver lining while ignoring the rest is wrong on so many obvious levels.
[+] [-] jopsen|4 years ago|reply
Notice that "short term" in nature is probably a very long time for a human :)
[+] [-] groby_b|4 years ago|reply
I mean, the cold y'all had this winter was possibly climate change, so you have that to look forward to. Likely worse wildfires, too. East Texas will get higher humidity.
So... probably not too nice.
[+] [-] TeeMassive|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] elevenoh|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whoaisme|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mempko|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mempko|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trophycase|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] long_time_gone|4 years ago|reply
The same Texas where hundreds of people froze to death in February? Seems like there has been some extreme weather.
[+] [-] kzrdude|4 years ago|reply
I won't get into some contentious discussion, but let's just say it's more and more viable to grow and produce wine in Denmark, which is on its own a positive thing. So that's just one example of a positive change.
[+] [-] crackercrews|4 years ago|reply
1: https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-change-natural-disaster...
edit: added "in this regard". Did not mean to suggest that we know how all of the implications of global warming pan out.
[+] [-] spideymans|4 years ago|reply
Have the other major climate models accounted for this? Most I've seen have predicted rapid warming in North America. Not sure how to reconcile the difference. Perhaps the cooling effect is more concentrated over the oceans and coasts?
[+] [-] tuatoru|4 years ago|reply
Yes, models have consistently predicted warming and drying of the western US at least since I was running climateprediction.net HadCM3 models (through BOINC) in the 00s: the return of the Great American Desert, basically everywhere west of the Mississippi and south of British Columbia.
Secondly, the cooling is an average, and relative to the situation without collapse of the AMOC. In most places, it still gets hot; but in Northern Europe, not so much. It even cools relative to the situation in 1900, IIRC.
And yes, you are right about the location. The visible part of the AMOC is called the Gulf Stream, and it's the reason London does not have the same climate as Labrador.
[+] [-] laurent92|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Deadsunrise|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blueblisters|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] bilekas|4 years ago|reply
This seems somewhat counter productive, if the northern hemesphere is cooling, how would that result with sea levels rising? Or they're not related ?
This really seems strange, would a new `current` not naturally establish based on the temperature relocations ?
[+] [-] tuatoru|4 years ago|reply
I'm guessing you mean counterintuitive.
That's one of the great things about the scientific method, that it tells you things you never would have guessed.
> how would that result with sea levels rising?
The Gulf Stream (part of the AMOC) brings warm water north, Evaporation happens (and the evaporated water rains out over land, where some is absorbed or flows south). The remaing sea water on the surface is now saltier and denser so sinks.
Without the AMOC, the surface water is less dense. The local mean sea level rises due to gravitational effects. Precipitation also happens more over the sea, freshening the surface sea water. Fresh water is most dense (compact) at 4 degrees Celsius. Salt affects this, but the less salt there is, the smaller the effect.
I guess when you crunch the numbers you get the result they state.
> would a new `current` not naturally establish
Last I checked, some years ago, I think it was believed that no new large-scale overturning current would establish for some thousands of years, which means the sea stratifies (settles into non-mixing layers), with a top relatively fresh and light layer over dense anoxic deeps.
[+] [-] laurent92|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scoofy|4 years ago|reply
And, lets bury the lede of why no one will care about this unless they are already on board for fighting climate change.
[+] [-] _Microft|4 years ago|reply
[0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bury_the_lede
[+] [-] zamalek|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MauranKilom|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] steve76|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] throwaway888abc|4 years ago|reply
The Day After Tomorrow (2004) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0319262/
2 minutes summary - trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ku_IseK3xTc
[+] [-] eganist|4 years ago|reply
But it was pretty entertaining if you could find a way to stay plugged into the movie and not feel disenchanted by the concept of polar cyclones icing things with tropospheric air. Still, there was that initial kernel of truth to it, which is what we're reading about now.
(not a climate guy; I'm probably getting some parts of this wrong)
[+] [-] awb|4 years ago|reply
> Twentieth Century Fox invited a group of scientists to preview this movie, to test their reactions to the "science" used in it. None of the scientists were impressed with what they say, although most conceded that the movie was enjoyable nonsense.
> The consultation by N.A.S.A. scientists was requested before the filming of this movie, but N.A.S.A. stated that the events in this movie were too ridiculous to actually occur, and denied the request.
[+] [-] hindsightbias|4 years ago|reply
After the Warming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfE8wBReIxw