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Comment by mg | Hacker News Reader

This chart looks like all 3 months since May 2023 have been extreme outliers:

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/F0A3/production/...

These 3 months seem so out of line with all others that I am not sure I am reading the chart correctly.

We had extreme outliers corresponding with the same time of the year, but this time the record is compared with the hottest point of the cycle, like breaking all summer heat records in a day of winter (and all winter were nearly as hot).

And the year and going up trend is not over yet. We are driving into uncharted territory.

I'd say you're reading it correctly. This is what I see:

There's an underlying yearly cycle that goes something like:

- gets hotter around March

- gets colder around May-June

- gets hotter around August

- gets colder around November

This is, let's say, a sort of cyclic baseline that repeats every year. But over it there are variations. Some years are generally colder, or generally hotter. Some the differences are bigger or smaller, etc. Then, obviously, it's not a perfect curve and there's "noise" on it. It's also interesting to note that the "March peak" is generally hotter than the "August peak", and that the "November valley" is generally colder than the "June valley". All this, broadly speaking.

Now, until last year, the highest temperature had happened in 2016, in the "March peak". This "makes sense". I mean, it makes sense that the hottest it got was on one of the hot peaks. What's more, it happened in the hotter one of both hot peaks.

But if we look at this year, what we see is two things. One is that, as the title points out, there's been a new highest, higher than March 2016. This is pointed out because it makes an easy and simple headline.

The second thing you can see is what you pointed out, that in 2023 we haven't had much of a valley in May-June and instead it has been hotter since March producing that the August peak be not only much higher than other years but even higher than the highest March peak. (And, I may add, it may still get hotter in this peak)

This is the "daily average sea surface temperature between 60°N and 60°S".

And southern latitudes have more exposed ocean than northern ones.

See 60° to 60° on "Land Mass at Each Latitude" https://www.ecoclimax.com/2016/08/land-mass-at-each-longitud...

Which would make sense that southern summer (ending ~March) would be the typical yearly peak. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_equinox

Yes, you're absolutely right. There's more sea surface in the southern hemisphere, so it makes sense that generally the peak would be determined by southern summer.

I'm rethinking this after puzzling over it for a minute.

Since it's the average... total sea area shouldn't matter.

Land heats up faster than sea, but likely doesn't transfer much of that heat into the ocean, so the sea:land ratio might be immaterial.

Probably more indicative is what deep to shallow circulation currents exist in the northern vs southern oceans.

From memory, the northern has many more "vertical" circulations, that might lead to cooling surface temperatures.

Clearly we can't know for sure unless we have more information about the data itself.

But my reasoning is this: If we assume a uniform number of "samples per area" then the north/south distinction does matter. Larger total sea area in the south would mean more samples taken in the south. And therefore more influence of "southern samples" on the total average.

Again, we don't know unless we have more info, but it seems like a reasonable assumption to make.

I've heard all my life that the climate system is fiendishly difficult to model (which seems true enough to me), and nearly always in the context that perhaps the undesirable predictions of these models may not come to pass (AKA climate change denialism). To me, the unpredictability of making measurable changes to the composition of the Earth's atmosphere is a reason not to do it; not an excuse that can do whatever we want with no repercussion. I'm pretty sure this all ends badly.

Not sure im reading you right but i assume ur just saying “it cant be done”? To which I would like to to point to decades of consensus on global warming and that, yes, the climate is absolutely over 1C warmer now than the mid 20th century. Models are wrong, but the ones climatologist use are clearly getting something right!

Oh, I suppose it can and has been done well enough that we can now see the shape of our doom. The denialist argument for a long time seemed to be that impeccably accurate models are impossible and thus no model should be used for any predictive purposes, and therefore we didn't need to take any action. The game may still be technically going on, but I'm fairly sure their side has already locked in their "win" and the outcome is now certain.

Has this temperature average been measured by exactly the same stations over all those years? Or is this satellite data?

Edit: Looks like it is a model that combines many sources: https://confluence.ecmwf.int/display/CKB/ERA5%3A+data+docume...

That’s called a tipping point. I think it’s now been broken through. The hardest part of all this is not nearly enough is being done to stop atmospheric greenhouse gases growth. If you looks at growth rates in CH4 and CO2. It’s pretty steady since recording began. It isn’t until it flat lines and we get back to 350 ppm CO2 that we can even begin to get back to the habitable planet we are suited for.

Even were we to destroy all oil refineries and coal mines today via an organized bombing campaign it would not be enough.

Why not? That would effectively bring emissions growth to 0. More carbon would start to be fixed then released into the atmosphere again due to growth in afforestation efforts. Within the next 5-10 years we would start to see negative greenhouse gas emissions growth. It's all about balancing the math so we fix more then is released. Stopping fossil fuel emissions shifts the curve towards fixation and greenhouse gas reductions.

As long as we continue to grow carbon fixation efforts without burning more fossil fuels we should head towards a negative growth trend and 350 ppm again.

Because the die has already been cast. Nothing humanity can do given extant technologies can reverse what was became inevitable a decade ago.

All the other years are the same colour, giving the impression that it varies within a range. But other graphs colour them by recency and the most recent ones are clearly moving upwards, which makes the newest one seem more inevitable than surprising.

This chart is terrifying!

It reminds me of the XKCD temperature chart: https://xkcd.com/1732/

Why? What will be the consequences besides the two mentioned in the aricle (sharks may become more aggressive, and some fish and wales may move in search of cooler waters)?

warmer waters = less oxygen

less oxygen = less life

less life = less food

less food = less human

I’d argue that "less human" is a net positive for Earth.

You first :)

How about the people who actually caused (and are still actively causing, and fighting to continue causing) the problem go first, yeah?

So nuke most of the Western World? The couple still-standing cold war bunkers should be enough to house the couple of deserving offgriders and climate activists that can be judged innocent.

And yes, we would also have to kill part of China, especially the cities

Oh yeah, because using nukes always works out for the best for everyone involved, yeah? Let's just do that. Much faster and more efficient than waiting for the 1% to boil us slowly to death.

It's more efficient than trying to put a billion people (give or take a couple) to the guillotine or the electrical chair, and the side effect of nuclear winter didn't seem that bad to me given the context. Might cause some food shortages though

> So nuke most of the Western World?

This thread is silly. To reduce the world population you don't need to kill anyone at all. You simply look for ways to reduce birth rates.

Of course the trouble is those same people have been capturing enough value out of the destructive process that they will surely go last. I suspect this is no small part of the reason we're in the fix we're in.

A war is required but discussion of it is forbidden.

You're sadly probably right on both counts.

(The second part for sure, judging by you gettin' downvoted to oblivion.)

The very existence of something affects its environment. Even the caveman burned sticks for warmth; would you say he is the "cause" of "the problem" of increased carbon emissions? Because unarguably he did release carbon into the atmosphere. So you'd have to be very specific about the "cause" and the "problem".

The electricity that feeds my computer allowing me to type this comment comes from the local power plant, which is fossil-fuel based (coal and natural gas). Shall I be put to death? Or am I far enough removed, and instead perhaps the CEO of the utility company? Or considering that they answer to the shareholders, maybe anybody who owns shares? Considering that it's a publicly-traded company that serves roughly 4% of the landmass of the continental US, that's quite a lot of people.

In the end, nobody burns polluting coal and gas for fun. They do it because it's the economical choice; if we could all have abundant clean energy from fusion power at the wave of a wand, we would do it. The fact remains that "problems" cannot be "solved" as much as they need to be weighed against the tradeoffs; there is no free lunch, and the scarce time and resources that can be spent "solving" something can be equally spent somewhere else. I'm afraid that the desire of some people to classify the problem of the changing climate as a categorical imperative that must be "solved" at any cost does not change the underlying reality, which is that "at any cost" is an impossible thing in real life.

> nobody burns polluting coal and gas for fun.

Look up rolling coal. But yes, most people don't.

less human = less greenhouse gas emissions

less greenhouse gas emissions = less greenhouse gas

less greenhouse gas = cooler waters

Seems the problem is eventually self correcting.

True though there is a risk that before we get to the end of the 2nd step on your flow, that loads of methane is released from across the currently frozen plains of Asia/Russia - along with more CO2 released from more regular wild fires. The earth could go on releasing greenhouse gases even when (if) we stop releasing, if it gets too warm.

There is only so much methane trapped, and the warmer climate is said to increase the chances of wildfire, so it too will eventually reach a tipping point where the forest growth can't keep up.

... dinosaur eats man.

Woman inherits the earth.

(Best line delivery in the movie)

Slow increase until there is little to no sea ice in winter . . . and then ... oh shit.

The context is that atmospheric gases are trapping more and more solar energy.

The same unit of energy that transforms a mass of zero degree ice to zero degree water can also transform that same mass of zero degree water to ~ 76 degree Celsius water (over two thirds of the way from almost ice to boiling).

Once there's significantly less ice to buffer the increasing solar energy the water gets much hotter much faster.

ADDED: It's unfair to savagely downvote my parent jansan for asking "Why?" Not everybody is across the potential consequences here.

Properly terrifying an XKCD don't seem to mix?

If you like terrifying graphs you will love this one, click 'antarctic' after the page loads:

https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-...

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2023/08/02/the-rapi...

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