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Comment by smcl | Hacker News Reader

> We've moved on from "global warming" to "climate change" language

Presumably because during winter certain people would point at a freak snowstorm and say "so much for global warming!" to try to minimise it (tbh they still do). Temperature rising has a few more side-effects than just your winter being milder by 1-2C, I think using a different term is entirely appropriate

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No, because they are both accurate descriptions, but "global warming" is talking about the average temp. Even as the average goes up, the standard deviation could change too, meaning that even with higher average temp, there can be bigger and colder winter storms, which are balanced out by even higher temps the rest of the time.

There were studies 10-20 years ago predicting that global warming will bring with it completely unpredictable weather and harsher extremes in both directions.

Do any governments or institutions have a live(ish) updating model of "what would happen" if trends continue? People reference studies all the time but what's the currently accepted model/outcome in the scientific community?

I remember hearing that melting of the ice caps will stop current flows in the ocean and bring about an ice age. Is that actually a thing or just fake news?

One of the things is a weakening jet stream which has caused all the recent havoc on getting cold polar air come inland.

This is why climate change vs global warming. We’re in for a hell of winters in the US as the jet stream weakens.

It's difficult, like the difference between knowing a car is going crash and being able to estimate how it will look afterward. You can (to some extent) access these models and try them out yourself: https://juliahub.com/ui/Packages/ClimateModels/dFyeI/0.2.15

Is a real concern. Half of Europe is "kissed" by tropical seawater running from the Gulf of Mexico towards Russia. This hot water creates a warmer than expected climate in the coastal areas. Portugal, UK, Denmark, Norway... all is warmer that it should be. If this current stops flowing or is weakened things will suck real fast.

Wait, why "No"? We're saying the same thing in different way.

you:

> meaning that even with higher average temp, there can be bigger and colder winter storms

me:

> Temperature rising has a few more side-effects than just your winter being milder by 1-2C

Another thing we can spell out is that the rising average temperature is an average over the whole year, over the whole planet. I.e any particular location or country could have a sinking average temperature.

The same thing happens on the flip side. I have a coworker who genuinely believes every big hurricane is caused by global warming and that if it wasn’t for global warming it would snow more.

Well that just goes to show that it's possible to be either naive and broadly in agreement with scientific consensus or naive and in agreement with some loud non-scientists who live in the TV and give you the news :)

I guess the harm in the former is that they'll be held up in bad-faith in a similar manner to the "so much for climate change" argument.

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