Is Global Warming becoming unstoppable?

[basilio]

Back in the real world of an Australia that is cooking..

Australia heatwave: overnight minimum of 35.9C in Noona sets new record
On fifth day of record-breaking extreme weather, temperatures in parts of Victoria, ACT and NSW forecast to soar above 40C, including in Sydney’s west
https://www.theguardian.com/austral...west-to-hit-45c-after-week-of-extreme-weather

 

[basilio]

.

A bit off topic which is why we need a general chat on climate to take it all in together. But then it's just party time in fact

Your right Explod. Did you check out the Confounds the Science song above? It did pull it all together nd was very powerful in doing so.

 

[explod]

Yes Bas, good.

And that other type of thread is aimed at keeping those not sure about climate change in the uncertain lane. And the deniers will throw all the rubbish they can on the reality of what even us laypeople can see and are experiencing.

And bitumen roads are melting all over the place and possums falling dead out of the trees.

 

[rederob]

Back in the real world of an Australia that is cooking..

Australia heatwave: overnight minimum of 35.9C in Noona sets new record
On fifth day of record-breaking extreme weather, temperatures in parts of Victoria, ACT and NSW forecast to soar above 40C, including in Sydney’s west
https://www.theguardian.com/austral...west-to-hit-45c-after-week-of-extreme-weather

Lots of people focus on maximum temperatures for climate change, but if ever there were a yardstick to sort the wheat from the chaff, its record minimums.
The simple reason for this is that CO2 traps heat rather than amplify it. See pages 43,43 here for Australian trends.

 

[Joules MM1]

Our planet is 4.6 billion years old.

If we scale that to 46 years we have been here for four hours,

the industrial revolution began one minute ago and in that time we have destroyed more than half the world's forests.

Trees make the rain and our oxygen.

A bit off topic which is why we need a general chat on climate to take it all in together. But then it's just party time in fact

Trees are one small component of oxygen, most of the oxygen comes via phytoplankton, depending on who's data you refer to the total output is above 50% with a mean of 65%

 

[explod]

Trees are one small component of oxygen, most of the oxygen comes via phytoplankton, depending on who's data you refer to the total output is above 50% with a mean of 65%

Not just that, trees circulate and keep water fresh also, but importantly are the makers of primary rain bearing clouds. And temperature too is reduced with cloud cover.

 

[Smurf1976]

51 celsius at 12.37 in Mildura today.

Think of the benefits.

You'll save on heating costs for a start.

Plus you're getting a sauna free of charge. People pay good money for those you know.

Move along, nothing to see here....

Seriously, 51 is rather warm yes.

 

[qldfrog]

Anyone knows what is actually the liveable limit without air cond, i mean with good house design, etc

 

[rederob]

Anyone knows what is actually the liveable limit without air cond, i mean with good house design, etc

Ask the folk at Coober Pedy where every maximum this coming week is expected to be over 40 degrees:

Gotta love the need for a fireplace.

 

[Smurf1976]

Ask the folk at Coober Pedy where every maximum this coming week is expected to be over 40 degrees

I've never been to Coober Pedy but I've spent a night in a dugout at White Cliffs in NSW which is a similar opal mining town. It's very quiet and quite pleasant underground.

White Cliffs was also home to the world's first commercially operated solar power station back in the 1980's by the way. It's no longer in use but it's still there as such.

 

[Smurf1976]

Anyone knows what is actually the liveable limit without air cond, i mean with good house design, etc

I don't know but a lot would depend on an individual's health I expect.

I'd expect that babies, the elderly, pregnant women and anyone with pretty much any illness (especially those which raise body temperature) would be particularly at risk. Just an assumption, I'm not a doctor.

A related issue is that there's a mix of housing types people actually live in in practice. Someone in an uninsulated place built of sheet metal or fibro in full sun is going to be in a very different situation to someone with a double brick place shaded by trees.

Also related is people going about day to day activities. Eg someone simply sitting down doing nothing of a physical nature is going to be in a different situation to someone performing any sort of physical labour.

My understanding is that present day weather does produce an excess of deaths during extremes of hot or cold. It's not people dropping dead everywhere but the total number of deaths does increase on a very hot or very cold day. That's my understanding at least.

 

[sptrawler]

Anyone knows what is actually the liveable limit without air cond, i mean with good house design, etc

My wife, myself and 3 kids under 4, lived in Exmouth W.A, in the early 80's for two years with no air con.
The house was low pitch roof, asbestos and tin, on stumps.
One period of 13 days it never went below 36deg C day or night, 44-47 during the day 36-40 overnight.
It was uncomfortable, but we managed, at least we had ceiling fans, many of the early settlers had nothing.

 

[basilio]

We have had this discussion on the physical limits of heat and humidity on the human body. In fact there are climate science studies that point out with the steady increase in global temperatures there will large areas of the earth that will produce temperatures that will kill people quite quickly. This will happen in humid areas where temperatures reach 34-35C and people are unable to sweat to cool themself.

Dry heat is a bit easier to survive.

South Asia May Become Too Hot for Humans to Survive by 2100
By Tracy Staedter, Live Science Contributor | August 7, 2017 12:30pm ET

Families cool off in a pond during a heat wave on June 2, 2012, in New Delhi, India.
Credit: Daniel Berehulak /Getty Images
By the end of this century, temperatures in South Asia — a region where about one-fifth of the world's population lives — could become too hot and humid for people to survive, according to a new study.

Climate change in Pakistan, Nepal, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka could be so severe by the late 21st century that temperatures and humidity may exceed the upper levels of human survivability, scientists reported in a study published online Aug. 2 in the journal Science Advances. The hazard posed by such extreme conditions over a crescent-shaped region where 1.5 billion people live could have disastrous effects, the authors wrote. [The 8 Hottest Places on Earth]
https://www.livescience.com/60059-south-asia-may-become-too-hot-to-survive.html

 

[basilio]

Where is the world in terms of the effects of Global Heating ? As California was trashed with the most intense and extensive wild fire ever the National Climate Assessment issued it's report on what is happening with the Earths climate and where we are heading.

The report was released and buried.

A Grave Climate Warning, Buried on Black Friday
In a massive new report, federal scientists contradict President Trump and assert that climate change is an intensifying danger to the United States. Too bad it came out on a holiday.

Robinson Meyer Nov 23, 2018

Firefighters battle the King Fire near Fresh Pond, California, in September 2014.Noah Berger / Reuters

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On Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year, the federal government published a massive and dire new report on climate change. The report warns, repeatedly and directly, that climate change could soon imperil the American way of life, transforming every region of the country, imposing frustrating costs on the economy, and harming the health of virtually every citizen.

Most significantly, the National Climate Assessment—which is endorsed by NASA, NOAA, the Department of Defense, and 10 other federal scientific agencies—contradicts nearly every position taken on the issue by President Donald Trump. Where the president has insisted that fighting global warming will harm the economy, the report responds: Climate change, if left unchecked, could eventually cost the economy hundreds of billions of dollars per year, and kill thousands of Americans to boot. Where the president has said that the climate will “probably” “change back,” the report replies: Many consequences of climate change will last for millennia, and some (such as the extinction of plant and animal species) will be permanent.

The report is a huge achievement for American science. It represents cumulative decades of work from more than 300 authors. Since 2015, scientists from across the U.S. government, state universities, and businesses have read thousands of studies, summarizing and collating them into this document. By law, a National Climate Assessment like this must be published every four years.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/11/national-climate-assessment-black-friday/576589/

 

[basilio]

The hole in the ozone layer crisis would have destroyed most of life on earth if left unchecked.
How did scientists discover the problem? How did we collectively manage to address it to the point that the hole is now gradually repairing ?

This story has much to offer in the current efforts to address global heating.

How to stop the climate crisis: six lessons from the campaign that saved the ozone
Thirty years ago, all 197 countries got together to ban the gases damaging the Earth’s ozone layer. Now we need to unite to combat an even greater threat. What can we learn from 1989?

Jonathan Watts

Mon 21 Jan 2019 02.00 AEDT Last modified on Mon 21 Jan 2019 06.26 AEDT

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The ban on chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) gases has been an incredible success story. Composite: Alamy/Guardian Design
Amid the anti-globalist chest-thumping of Brexit, Donald Trump, and the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, it may sound like the stuff of folklore. But there was a time in the recent past when all the countries of the world moved quickly to discuss a common threat, agreed an ambitious plan of action and made it work.

The Montreal protocol, which came into effect 30 years ago, was drawn up to address the alarming thinning of the ozone layer in the Earth’s stratosphere. It was the first agreement in the history of the United Nations to be ratified by all 197 countries. Since it came into effect on 1 January 1989, more than 99% of the gases responsible for the problem have been eradicated and the “ozone hole” – which, in the late 80s, vied for headline space with the cold war, Diana, Princess of Wales, and Madonna – is receding in the sky and the memory.
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...essons-from-the-campaign-that-saved-the-ozone

 

[basilio]

At what point will Australian towns become uninhabitable because of extreme temperatures and lack of water ? Maybe sooner than we think.
Walgett loses all water, some air conditioning as heatwave pushes temperatures near 40 degrees
ABC Western Plains
By Lucy Thackray
Updated 5 Jan 2019, 12:34am

Photo: The Barwon River continues to be a series of stagnant pools with the region reliant on bore water. (ABC News: Danielle Bonica)
Related Story: When the drought forces communities to dig for drinking water
Related Story: The town with two rivers but no water left to drink
Related Story: Spring rain brings some short-term relief in NSW
Walgett residents have been left without water for a day after a breakdown at the local treatment plant, which also left some people without air conditioners, as western New South Wales sweated through a heatwave.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-04/crisis-as-walgett-loses-all-water-during-heatwave/10685466

For centuries the rivers sustained Aboriginal culture. Now they are dry, elders despair
An aerial image of the dried-out Namoi River outside Walgett. Photograph: Carly Earl for the Guardian
Indigenous people and farmers alike fear Walgett has only six months left if they don’t get water

by Lorena Allam and Carly Earl



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Tue 22 Jan 2019 04.00 AEDT Last modified on Tue 22 Jan 2019 11.33 AEDT

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Driving across a bone-dry riverbed at Walgett, it’s easy to believe the worst predictions of climate disaster are happening as the temperature gauge on the car dashboard hits 49C.

Two rivers meet outside Walgett in north-west New South Wales: the Barwon and the Namoi. They are major tributaries in the Murray Darling system.

But they’re both empty, and this has never happened before.
https://www.theguardian.com/austral...aboriginal-culture-dry-elders-despair-walgett

Gamilaraay and Yuwalaraay elders who have lived on these rivers all their lives cry when they say they have never seen it as bad as this, and they doubt it can ever be recovered.

 

[rederob]

At what point will Australian towns become uninhabitable because of extreme temperatures and lack of water ? Maybe sooner than we think.

Bas
I was just reading through the "fake news" thread.
Clearly the linked photo @ post 1336 was taken in the dead of summer where there's an oxbow lake to the main river.
Everyone knows the river is always full in winter, after the seasonal heavy rains there.
Everyone knows the ABC is full of lefties and greenies and cannot be trusted with the truth.
My thanks to noco for alerting me to Bas's trickiness .

 

[basilio]

My thanks to noco for alerting me to Bas's trickiness .

Well that's dangerously clever..if Noco is still with us.. Or are you channeling him ?

Anyhow the question of when towns become uninhabitable because of failing water supplies and sustained high temperatures has to be considered. As each summer gets hotter and drier I suggest the strains will tell.

 

[rederob]

Well that's dangerously clever..if Noco is still with us.. Or are you channeling him ?

Anyhow the question of when towns become uninhabitable because of failing water supplies and sustained high temperatures has to be considered. As each summer gets hotter and drier I suggest the strains will tell.

My uni thesis back in the 70's was on the drying of the Murray by 2000 unless there was federal intervention. Over 40 years later we know that droughts are getting longer and more severe across the nation
I am in constant disbelief that governments continue to fail to act in advance of what we can forecast with near certainty.
Maybe the feds are leaving it to the states? dunno...........
Our farmers are world class, but they are literally a dying breed. Who would want to be a farmer nowadays?

 

[Ann]

My uni thesis back in the 70's was on the drying of the Murray by 2000 unless there was federal intervention. Over 40 years later we know that droughts are getting longer and more severe across the nation
I am in constant disbelief that governments continue to fail to act in advance of what we can forecast with near certainty.
Maybe the feds are leaving it to the states? dunno...........
Our farmers are world class, but they are literally a dying breed. Who would want to be a farmer nowadays?

I know this is a bit off topic Rob but given your interest in the Murray did you see this article from last year?

Australia gets UN to delete criticism of Murray-Darling basin plan from report
Exclusive: Co-author of study expresses shock at ‘complete ineptitude’ of government’s intervention

The federal government has successfully put pressure on the United Nations to delete all criticism of Australia’s $13bn effort to restore the ailing Murray-Darling river system from a published study, according to the author of an expert report.


The so-called “Australia chapter” has been removed from the UN report “Does Improved Irrigation Technology Save Water?” published online by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). More....
https://www.theguardian.com/austral...cism-of-murray-darling-basin-plan-from-report