Climate Change

[AMOS]

Has anyone else had strange weather patterns for the last few years? I live in S.E. New England and we've had more brutal wind storms than I can remember at any other point in my life (I'm 59) The occasional Hurricane we get are dismal compared to our Nor'Easters and other bad wind storms that seem to come out of nowhere. several people I know are convinced there's something funny going on, if these are natural cycles, then they are some pretty brutal cycles. I'm a Conservative that believes man is creating some of this mess, but it's not limited to that. I feel it's coinciding with other natural cycles. Sun, Planet etc.. but surely record high CO2 levels in the atmosphere for the last half decade or so must be doing something.

I'm looking for any input from your part of the country/world, and if things have been getting extreme, or even if things haven't changed at all.

 

[Dumple Stilzkin]

Where I live, the weather is much more erratic. We used to have slow smooth transitions between seasons, now we will have a 32 degree day, followed by a a 60 degree day. The summers are becoming hotter, we set a record this last summer at 116.

 

[AMOS]

Where I live, the weather is much more erratic. We used to have slow smooth transitions between seasons, now we will have a 32 degree day, followed by a a 60 degree day. The summers are becoming hotter, we set a record this last summer at 116.

We bounce around a lot too, it can be 60 one day, snow the next. This Winter was worse than the last few, but in general Winters have been warmer here and much less snow than normal. It gets very humid in the Summer here so 85-90 feels much hotter.

 

[zappatton2]

It's kinda sad that these discussions tend to get filed into "politics", when they should be in some heading of "what to do about this thing that credible scientists are stating clearly with overwhelming evidence is happening and going to mess a lot of things up for us and ecosystems worldwide".

 

[Lorcan Ward]

We are starting to get more hot spells during the summer and milder Winters which is great for our agriculture and low vitamin D levels but not nice to see the weather causing so much trouble in other parts of the world.

 

[AMOS]

It's kinda sad that these discussions tend to get filed into "politics", when they should be in some heading of "what to do about this thing that credible scientists are stating clearly with overwhelming evidence is happening and going to mess a lot of things up for us and ecosystems worldwide".

I know what you mean, I thought about that before posting but since they usually get heated, I put it in here.

 

[ScottThunes1960]

It's kinda sad that these discussions tend to get filed into "politics", when they should be in some heading of "what to do about this thing that credible scientists are stating clearly with overwhelming evidence is happening and going to mess a lot of things up for us and ecosystems worldwide" on a seven string guitar messageboard.

Fixed!

 

[zappatton2]

I know what you mean, I thought about that before posting but since they usually get heated, I put it in here.

I didn't intend to imply you shouldn't be posting it here, just that it's kinda tragic from a broader perspective how the topic tends to get framed.

 

[odibrom]

I live in the south west of Europe and am 45 now. I remember to have winters when I was a kid. Summers are hotter than ever...

... regarding on what to do to about this, there are lots of actions to take, but I believe that the most important begins with the self, with our own habits, liberties and whims. We should be more conscious about our surroundings and the effects our choices have on the rest of the world. We should think in the real price tag that comes along with the "cheap", "easy", "fast" and "new"... and what is fashionable (which goes means clothes, wear, food, high tech, consumables, life style choices/options and so on)...

Best rule of thumb would be to buy local... everything, either food, clothes or cars. This will greatly reduce the carbon footprint of shipping things around the globe, which is HUGE.

Second best rule of thumb is to avoid as possible processed / industrial food, for it will reduce hugely the impact that packages have on the planet, either as garbage when tossed after its purpose is fulfilled as it is a huge waste of the planet resources.

Then, our whims/vices take the best out of us. Lets get disciplined an consume only what we really need. Excesses are inexcusable. We NEED to use our reason and behave as the rational beings we advertise ourselves of being. Let's act accordingly, shall we?

It is sai that "meat production" is one of the biggest causes of de-florestation and gas emissions. The problem is not "eating meat" on itself but on the methods to make it accessible to mass consumers... the problem is the "mass consumers", which we urgently must stop being and become conscious ones. personally, I'm almost vegan, eating only some yogurts and ice-creams at my parents about once a week or less, and am veggie since late 1995. I've also stopped going to fast food restaurants as an habit (sure, once in a while, but less than once a month) and prefer the whole food approach to the "ready made"/ industrial shit. yeah, it takes time and has a learning curve, but we all know this is the way.

... more bicycles and less cars...

... Reuse, reduce and recycle/upcycle...

All this starts in the self, not in politics. In order to change a country, one must start at the individual, the politics / politicians will follow or fall/fail. So, do we, who care, have the guts and balls to be an example for others to follow and as so become a force of change? This is the way... you know it.

 

[sleewell]

Much milder winters here, warmer summers. The high wind events are more common too.

 

[CanserDYI]

Well I live in Ohio where weather has always been Florida in the summer, Canada in the winter, but these last few years have been absolutely insane with weather, you will literally wear shorts and T shirt one day and a full arctic gear the next. hell it was in the 10s literally 2 days ago, today is supposed to be 70.

In my entire life I've never seen such wild changes back and forth like it has done in the past few years, to me, it feels like climate change is absolutely happening right in front of our eyes, and yes, it's man perpetuated.

 

[Demiurge]

This winter has held a record for the number of times I've shoveled snow in the morning and could see bare lawn by the evening.

 

[Drew]

Has anyone else had strange weather patterns for the last few years? I live in S.E. New England and we've had more brutal wind storms than I can remember at any other point in my life (I'm 59) The occasional Hurricane we get are dismal compared to our Nor'Easters and other bad wind storms that seem to come out of nowhere. several people I know are convinced there's something funny going on, if these are natural cycles, then they are some pretty brutal cycles. I'm a Conservative that believes man is creating some of this mess, but it's not limited to that. I feel it's coinciding with other natural cycles. Sun, Planet etc.. but surely record high CO2 levels in the atmosphere for the last half decade or so must be doing something.

I'm looking for any input from your part of the country/world, and if things have been getting extreme, or even if things haven't changed at all.

While I suppose we can't technically rule out "sun and planet cycles" as a contributing factor, the explanation that requires the fewest angels dancing on the head of a pin is the strong correlation between atmospheric CO2 and average global temperatures, and the fact that higher temperatures mean temperature "volatility" is getting higher, which makes "extreme" weather a lot more likely.

Fun visualization from NASA:

https://www.reddit.com/r/nextfuckinglevel/comments/tejc0l/the_clever_people_at_nasa_have_created_this/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

Here in Boston, our winters have GENERALLY gotten milder even in the ~15 years I've lived here, with winter accumulation not sticking until later and later in the year (last couple years, we didn't have permanent snow on the ground until January) but with a number of blizzards setting all time snowfall records. Several years ago we hit a patch where a noreaster hit the city without fail every Sunday night into Monday in February, and, in a year where we had only gotten 1-2" of snow before the month, broke our annual snowfall record getting over 10' of snow, almost entirely in a span of 5 weeks. This past winter, we had either the second highest or highest one day snowfall total on record, with some cities reporting as much as 36" of snow in 24 hours - my neighborhood was comparatively spared but we even got just under two feet in a single day.

And, yes, I've noticed more, and windier, windy days lately. And, tangentially related, our "king's tide" high tide days are higher than ever, and in a few instances we've had some waterfront flooding.

But suggesting we actually DO anything about it... that makes you a godless commie that hates America, right?

 

[mbardu]

There's not a lot of room for debate TBH.
Climate change is here, and largely human made.
Anecdotal weather is not climate, but when weather is changed systematically and everywhere, then it's pretty clear.

At this point sadly it looks like we're already past the point of no return if we're being realistic.

Most developing countries (with the biggest growing population) want modernization and couldn't care less about their climate impact per capita; while most "solutions" sold to developed countries (consumer responsibility, electric cars, solar etc) are mostly useless lies.

It's only getting worse and is going to need a miraculous technological revolution to get a shot at fixing the issue.
And I mean a real solution. Not one that is just about moving the problem somewhere else such as selling our carbon footprint to others or going to "poor" countries to mine tons of rare metals at a disgusting environmental cost.

We're pretty f*cked, but I guess at least the boomers get to enjoy their last few years of retirement and then peace out before it gets too bad.

 

[StevenC]

Bring back nuclear power!

 

[AMOS]

A professor is saying the solar magnetic activity will drop by 60 percent between 2030 and 2040, creating a mini ice age. I'm due to retire in 2033 and my days of land surveying will be over

 

[wheresthefbomb]

I have noticed milder winters and more/worse fires during the summer over my time living here. We get a lot more unusually warm days during winter which results in more frequent freezing rain conditions. That has always happened but it's much more frequent now. The stretches of extreme subzero temperatures are shorter and less severe. It's been ten years since I remember a solid stretch of -50°F in town, even -40° is less common these days.

We did have a record-setting cold winter a few years ago, but it was "just" colder on average. It didn't exhibit those extremes and didn't feel especially cold, but also living in a place like this warps your perception of what is "cold."

Perhaps most strikingly, we have a proper Fall season now that we did not have before. It used to be more or less that the leaves would drop and then the snow would start falling and it would all be over in maybe a week or two tops. Now we have this extended season of leaves on the ground and cool weather with no snow or proper winter conditions.

One unexpectedly positive (for now) result of this is that our short, intense growing season is becoming longer.

 

[Steinmetzify]

I hear this a lot and think people take it the wrong way. It’s not ‘climate change’ it’s just climate.

If you subscribe to the theory of evolution, the Earth is over 4 billion years old. People talking about ‘it’s a lot hotter than it was when I was a kid’ even being 60 years old or whatever, that’s an attosecond in the Earth’s lifetime. This has gone on and on and on for billions of years, and will continue to do so.

On a smaller scale, the city of Denver is on a 7 year cycle. The rainiest summers it rains for about an hour a day between 2-4pm every day. Slows down the next year, smaller the year after and so on. 7 years after the first one the cycle starts all over again and pretty much always has the entire time I’ve been alive, at least (I’m 48 btw).

Committees and meetings and taxing people so we can ‘fix climate change’ is pretty arrogant thinking to me, especially considering there are always going to be people that don’t subscribe to this and won’t do anything to help anyway. China, Russia, India etc are never going to stop burning coal until it’s all gone, and that’s almost a 3rd of the world’s population.

Not ragging on people that are genuinely trying to help the environment in any way but trying to change a billions year old cycle seems rather futile to me.

 

[wheresthefbomb]

I hear this a lot and think people take it the wrong way. It’s not ‘climate change’ it’s just climate.

If you subscribe to the theory of evolution, the Earth is over 4 billion years old. People talking about ‘it’s a lot hotter than it was when I was a kid’ even being 60 years old or whatever, that’s an attosecond in the Earth’s lifetime. This has gone on and on and on for billions of years, and will continue to do so.

On a smaller scale, the city of Denver is on a 7 year cycle. The rainiest summers it rains for about an hour a day between 2-4pm every day. Slows down the next year, smaller the year after and so on. 7 years after the first one the cycle starts all over again and pretty much always has the entire time I’ve been alive, at least (I’m 48 btw).

Committees and meetings and taxing people so we can ‘fix climate change’ is pretty arrogant thinking to me, especially considering there are always going to be people that don’t subscribe to this and won’t do anything to help anyway. China, Russia, India etc are never going to stop burning coal until it’s all gone, and that’s almost a 3rd of the world’s population.

Not ragging on people that are genuinely trying to help the environment in any way but trying to change a billions year old cycle seems rather futile to me.

I am not a scientist, but my very basic understanding is that while all of existence operates on cycles, the trends we are seeing now are unprecedented on the scale of global history and will have accordingly unprecedented results. I'm just some guy looking at the weather, but the people drawing scientific conclusions are looking at a much bigger picture than that.

 

[Empryrean]

Not sure if related to climate but I live in california where we now have a fire season that I don't remember existed like 10 years ago. Usually mid summer/ autumn I can expect the sky to be grey and shittier than usual with some days of ash lightly coating the sidewalk and cars. I think it's fair to say I might just be nostalgic about the past but a fire season is objectively quite shitty imo