So.. as an individual living in the northen part of Europe, can I expect a nice summer then?
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2021-01-25/making-your-h...
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-15/home-design-changing-...
During some 30/35+ waves of the last few summers we kept it below 23 degrees Celsius inside, even over many days of heat.
Until recently I lived in Ireland and people looked at me like I had 3 heads when I talked about air tightness, deciduous trees in front of south facing windows, and eaves/awnings - the idea that you might not _want_ as much light as possible baffled the dinosaurs in planning.
I hope the Netherlands is better but I still see an awful lot of windows with no protection from sunlight. Eaves are perfect (and deciduous trees) because you can angle them such that you get light in the winter but shade in the mid-day summer sun.
All the same, with interesting times ahead it'll be a case of choosing to suffer through, changing locations, or rebuilding | renovating to adapt.
All the more interesting as the northern European climate for the next decade isn't exactly locked in and known for certain yet.
Luckily, because of the cold, buildings are well insulated so at least they can seek some cover inside. Granted, it won't reach 40C anyways, but at least houses are built properly over there so it helps a little.
Back in July 2018 we had a month of hot weather in Stockholm (you probably experience it, saw in another comment you moved Sweden -> Spain), temperatures reaching 30C for multiple days and "tropical nights" (air temperature >= 20C during the night), even as a native Brazilian I could not bear how hot my house got, it wouldn't cool down during the night and the next day it'd heat up again. It got to a point where I couldn't sleep and there was a shortage of fans for sale, super basic fans were going for 100€ in the 2nd hand market.
Buildings would not cool down anyway during night in Stockholm due to the very short nights and Stockholm bring by a lake, we do not have cool nights. The only solution is insulation plus AC.
Goes both ways, doesn't it?
Lots of houses in Sweden have basement/cellar floors as well, and if you have good insulation, you manage to keep more of that below-ground coldness around, compared to if air blew freely through the house. At least that was my experience.
> you probably experience it
Fortunately not, moved away from my home country in 2012 already :)
It’s subtle differences and when its super hot (40c) you need AC anyway, but upper 20s/low 30s still feel ok in a well ventilated apartment and not so much with one built for keeping the cold out (like in Germany).
It’s also much more common to have functional window shades (like these http://alumgo.weebly.com/uploads/1/4/6/7/14671210/7800745_or...) in Israel than in Germany. In homes I’ve mostly only seen the cheap kind of shades or curtains in Germany, and these aren’t very good.
So there might be a natural path to taming the problem as heating systems are replaced for end of life reasons.
Unfortunately most houses in northern Europe are obsolete and plumbed for radiators so people tend to opt for systems that heat water instead of upgrading to something that offers cooling as well.
Though, Swedes would still suffer it temperatures reach 30C as it's still above average highs.
No, it seems you're right. The highest temperature ever recorded was 38C in 1933. It hasn't been broken since then.
This is just about geometry...
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-being-wobbly-...
So if you were ridiculously reckless and wielded enormous power, you could try to reduce Earth axial tilt so that there are no more seasons. Problem : this also makes the equator even hotter and poles even colder.
(With even more effort you could try to increase the tilt even more, I'm not certain about all the implications, but it seems to roughly swap equator and poles ??)
Without that kind of (did I mention reckless ?) power, our future instead seems to be of the opposite of what you are asking for : in a bad case scenario, we might end up the current Ice Age (that we lived in for the last 2.6 Ma, and which roughly corresponds to the oldest known tool industry that pretty much separates us from other animals), returning the Earth into its (more) normal state, which also involves the equators and maybe even the middle latitudes being uninhabitable for Humans and maybe even for mammals in general.
So we might face a bleak future where our descendants are trying to survive in weird jungles (?) of the Siberian coast and Antarctica, where, unlike the current jungles, summers are indeed "constant light and winters completely dark". I have some doubts about whether any civilizations can rise in these conditions...
- the risk of temp drops after plants started to sprout -> bad harvests
- snow is a great water reservoir, having the snow as rain leads to floods, results in lower ground water levels and droughts -> bad across the board and also impacting agriculture
- the permafrost in the alps is melting -> mountains litterally fall apart
And we see all that already for years now.
Edit: As rain goes rather quickly into rivers, and from there into the sea, it also compounds the fresh water issues mentioned in the article. Melting snow does so much slower, meaning it goes into ground water. Not having snow anymore really disrupts the water cycle in regions that had snow before.
> (the risk (of temp) drops) after (plants started to sprout)
The risk drops, why does it cause bad harvests? Otherwise, what is the "temp"?
The presumably intended reading:
> (the risk of (temp drops))
is nonsensical on a different level: risk always exists. It's the change that's interesting.