Sheaf Saint

Usually, the simplest explanation is the correct one. 1940 is as far back as the ERA5 hourly reanalysis data goes. https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/cdsapp#!/dataset/reanalysis-era5-single-levels?tab=overview

The best analogy I heard about this is that climate modelling and prediction is like calculating how long it will take to boil a pan of water if you understand all the parameters like volume, energy input, and evaporative loss etc. Whereas local weather forecasting is like trying to predict where any individual bubble will rise in the pan.

The milestones passed and average temperature records that have been broken this summer are alarming, because they haven't just been breached, they've been smashed. And the strongest effects of El Nino are still yet to come, meaning 2024 is only likely to continue that trend. Dismissing global issues because they aren't apparent on your own doorstep is idiotic in the extreme. July might have been mild and wet in the UK, but globally the story is very different:

I cycled to work. And you?

Which part of the word 'global' do you not understand?

This video talks a lot about how many scientists were asked their opinion on climate change, but that isn't how science works. The beauty of it is that, if done correctly, the results you get from scientific studies are true regardless of what anybody believes. So a few people may have publicly asserted a figure about which there seems to be a lot of uncertainty around how it was derived. But that doesn't change anything in terms of the actual science. If you bothered to read the link I provided in the post you quoted, you'll see that the consensus in the peer-reviewed literature - which is all that actually matters, rather than the opinions of people who have never conducted any research in the field - is greater than 99%.

There are no data that show the 1930s as the hottest. Every dataset available shows the upward trend since the start of the 21st century as hotter than the 1930s. The graph you posted only shows a heatwave 'index' in the US. It has nothing to do with the global temperature trend. You do get that, don't you?

Believe it or not, there was a time when I thought a little like you do. I wanted to believe that I was part of a tiny minority that knew 'the truth' about climate change. So I decided to properly educate myself on the subject, and in the process of so doing I came to the inescapable conclusion that my previous position was wrong. There is no point having regular debates, because there is no more debate to be had about whether or not humans are influencing climate. It is happening, and there is an overwhelming body of evidence to support it. The science is irrefutable. Anybody who still wants to push the contrarian view to that either doesn't understand the science, or is deliberately muddying the waters to push their own agenda. The only thing left to debate is what to actually do about it.

It's difficult to take this attempt at marking their own homework seriously when they still flat out refuse to disclose who funds them.

So you're citing a graph from the EPA to support your claim that heatwaves aren't getting more frequent and more intense, but when I present a graph from the same source to show a different trend, you automatically assume it must just be manipulated to push a certain narrative. Okay then.

The 97% figure was first put out by Naomi Oreskes, and was popularised further by a 2013 study by Cook et. al. that examined over 11,000 research papers. Interestingly, a 2015 study reviewed a selection of the 3% of papers which reject anthropogenic climate change, and found serious flaws in every single one of them. The actual consensus is now shown to be greater than 99% in peer-reviewed literature. So in a way, I agree with Heartland on one point. Science is about hard evidence and facts, not a 'show of hands'. And the hard evidence indicates beyond any possible doubt that global warming is due to human GHG emissions.

I'm not going to try and 'dig dirt' on the EPA's data. I'm not disputing that there was a spike in heatwaves in the US in the 1930s. My dispute is with the HI for using that graph to try and make it look like the current increase in global heatwave frequency and intensity isn't actually happening. This is the thing with climate 'sceptics' - they are always cherry picking data to try and disprove the warming narrative, knowing full well that uneducated people will take their claims at face value and do their dirty work for them by spreading them online. To demonstrate this, have a look at this graph from the same EPA site your graph was taken from. Don't just take my word for it. Read for yourself... Ocean and land forcing of the record-breaking Dust Bowl heatwaves across central United States | Nature Communications Abstract The severe drought of the 1930s Dust Bowl decade coincided with record-breaking summer heatwaves that contributed to the socio-economic and ecological disaster over North America’s Great Plains. It remains unresolved to what extent these exceptional heatwaves, hotter than in historically forced coupled climate model simulations, were forced by sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and exacerbated through human-induced deterioration of land cover. Here we show, using an atmospheric-only model, that anomalously warm North Atlantic SSTs enhance heatwave activity through an association with drier spring conditions resulting from weaker moisture transport. Model devegetation simulations, that represent the wide-spread exposure of bare soil in the 1930s, suggest human activity fueled stronger and more frequent heatwaves through greater evaporative drying in the warmer months. This study highlights the potential for the amplification of naturally occurring extreme events like droughts by vegetation feedbacks to create more extreme heatwaves in a warmer world.

I did a little googling and it appears Scally has got this from a website called Climate At A Glance, which is owned and run by the Heartland Institute. The very same organisation that was hired by the tobacco industry in the 1970s to rebut the science that was emerging about the dangers of smoking. They have no scientific credibility whatsoever - they are nothing but a corporate lobby group who peddle pseudo-science dressed up as fact with fancy looking graphs and booklets that, to the layman, look quite convincing, but are actually just laughably bad. I had a little look around the rest of the site. Fuck me! Some of the content on it is just hilarious. Take this for example, where they talk about the scientific consensus. Their central claim is that science is about hard facts and evidence, not a 'show of hands', and they then go and back up their claim that a "strong majority of scientists are not very worried about it", by citing a survey that is literally just a show of hands - asking some scientists what they believe about certain aspects of climate change - that doesn't actually say what they want you to believe it says. As to this graph, it's well known there were heatwaves in the US in the 1930s. They were both a cause and a symptom of the dust bowl event that devastated huge areas or arable land due to poor agricultural practices leading to the soil drying out completely, which in turn influences heat waves. What it doesn't specify is how intense those heatwaves were. And it only refers to the US, not the rest of the world. And, most importantly, it leaves out the whole bit that you posted explaining that heatwaves are becoming more frequent and intense, because that's inconvenient and doesn't fit with their agenda. In short - don't believe a single word printed/posted by the Heartland Institute, because it's guaranteed to be complete bollocks.

Yes, we are. But if we don't start incentivising people to make the transition now, it will only take longer and people will be even less prepared for it when it finally happens. In the mean time, the revenue raised from the incentive schemes can be used to invest in the necessary improvements to infrastructure, like a functional charging network.

Yes, and eventually all petrol and diesel cars will also be completely banned from driving into city centres as well. But obviously it's not feasible to introduce such a ban anywhere yet, because of the massive impact it would have on the economy and people's livelihoods. So until such a ban is feasible, the only option is to try and encourage people to start making the transition to less polluting vehicles as early as possible. And the only really effective way to change people's behaviour is to make it more expensive for them to carry on with the old behaviour.

Don't be too surprised if you don't notice an immediate effect tonight. CBD needs to be taken regularly at an appropriate dose before you will start to feel a real benefit from it. Cutting out caffeine is definitely recommended though. Contrary to popular belief, it doesn't give you energy, but it has the effect of blocking the chemical signals that tell your brain you are tired and it's time to sleep, so if you have it in your system at bed time you will struggle to switch off. Sometimes when I'm a little wired before bed I will use a guided sleep meditation. There's loads of them on Youtube. You just need to find ones without adverts and make sure you have turned off the setting to automatically play the next video when they finish.

Not entirely sure what point you're trying to make here. Yes, cereal production is still on an upward trend, while temperatures have been gradually rising. But at some point along that trajectory, the trends will diverge and grain production will begin to decline as global temperatures rise and rainfall patterns change. If we go over certain tipping points and enter into runaway warming, that point will come sooner rather than later. Interestingly, this chart shows a decline in production in 2018. We had a severe heatwave and drought in parts of Europe that year, and this study documents the impact this had on crop yields... "In 2018, Northern and Eastern Europe experienced multiple and simultaneous crop failures—among the highest observed in recent decades. These yield losses were associated with extremely low rainfalls in combination with high temperatures between March and August 2018".

On the face of it, it's an interesting discussion with a few good points made. Lomborg speaks well and does a decent job of sounding convincing to the layman, but he doesn't exactly have a good reputation for reliability in these matters, and frequently contradicts himself when it comes to climate policy proposals. Just saying "Yay for extra heat because it will save a few lives in winter" is a very myopic way of looking at the situation, and demonstrates a total lack of big picture thinking. Yes, humans may be able to tolerate extra heat more than we can tolerate cold, but what about the rest of the food chain we rely on? Current projections are that maize production could decline by 20% worldwide by 2030, and the extra heat being rapidly absorbed by the oceans is causing a massive disruption to their ecosystems, making them more and more uninhabitable for marine life.

There is no mistake. The plural of axis is axes.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-66229065

Being on hold to your employer's IT provider for over half an hour and being forced to listen to the same 30 second clip of soft jazz on continuous repeat for the whole time.

I wonder how well the Saudi authorities will take to him wearing rainbow laces?

Finished watching Silo. Rally enjoyed its moody and claustrophobic aesthetic. A few questionable plot holes but hopefully they will be addressed in S2. While I'm enjoying my free trial of Apple TV, I decided to give Foundation a go, with S2 having just launched. Based on books by Isaac Asimov, it's very ambitious in its scale, spanning both space and time. Really enjoying it.

Not a chance in hell we will accept that offer for him.

The fact check piece mentions that the image has been captioned with "This is how manipulation works", but the poor saps spreading it don't realise it is them that are being manipulated. Unsurprising really.