The North Pole is an insane 20C warmer than normal as winter descends | Hacker News Reader

The North Pole is an insane 20C warmer than normal as winter descends

smh.com.au

25 pointsDaishiman8 comments

While I'm certainly no denier of the scientific part of the global warming phenomenon, I tend to have healthy scepticism of these headlines which seem to solicit an alarmist reaction. Short-term weather can have high volatility and deviance from the norm, and that's nothing new.

We are aware of the difference between weather and climate. Most of us are also aware that these significantly elevated temperatures have persisted for a while now rather than being outlying data points, and are heartily sick of attempts to derail the debate with facile arguments like the one advanced here.

Of course, that might not be your motivation in posting it, but since you saw fit to speculate about the motivation behind the headline I feel equally free to speculate about the motivations behind your 'skepticism.'

The title is:

>The North Pole is an insane 20C warmer than normal

To be fair, in that context it is really not facile to point out the difference b/w weather and climate. If anything the title is facile. It says nothing of this difference, yet exclaims, "insane."

While you speculate about me derailing "the debate," (what exactly is "the debate?" Is there only one? regarding the science, the politics, what am I exactly derailing?) You're not clear about how I would be trying to derail the debate. I did assert the scientific consensus regarding global warming in my first sentence, so I don't know what you're getting at.

My point is that the alarmism around global warming is what's up for debate: I think we have all met people who think the world is soon coming to an end. Yet, despite the hysteria, we aren't doing enough in our public policy to combat global warming. Have you seen two irrational minds discuss global warming: one convinced the world is coming to an end ("go travel now before all the world's coastal cities are underwater in 5 years") fighting against the other "that's just lieberals making stuff up." It's not longer about the science, that case has been closed, it's about the politics, and how is it constructive for either side to radicalize their followers?

Considering the fact the Northwest and the Northeast Passages have been navigable to shipping in the summer months since 2008, a feat impossible in the 20th century, there appears to be something more significant than short-term weather changes happening in the artic.

Yes, that's not inconsistent with my post.

My reply is just one example of how long term major changes are happening in the artic, changes that can not be dismissed as short-term variances in weather.

>as short-term variances in weather.

OK but That's not inconsistent with what I wrote

>insane 20c warmer

That's what is a short-term weather variance. I promise you there are people that read that headline and think the world's major cities are going to be underwater in the next 5-10 years. They're not as bad as global warming deniers, but they're still wrong. It feels impossible to be reasonable with this issue - like many treat it more as a career, a cause, like it's a religion to them more than they actually care about helping anybody else.

If you've read the article and follow the writings of Arctic climatologists like Jason Box, you'd know that this a pant-shittingly scary situation.

Arctic ice albedo strongly affects the Earth's ability to reflect heat. This is a significant positive feedback loop and signals a new normal in the Jet Stream fluctuations.

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