India roasts as mercury hits 51°C Those readers with a tendency to wilt with rising temperatures are advised to steer clear of the Indian state of Rajasthan, where the mercury yesterday hit a blistering 51°C. The city of Phalodi broke India's previous record of 50.6°C, registered in 1956, during a heatwave which has seen the country's north and west suffer …
I'm not a scientist but I do know this: if the planet is anything like my bedroom, then when I want to block out the sun, I close the curtains. You can't argue with that.
So surely what India needs is a blanket of smog over the country for a few months to block out the sun and let the country cool down. The chemicals in the rain will also have the useful side effect of cleaning the buildings and streets too, and people's hair and clothes. Because what are detergents if not chemicals?
So why oh why, do liberal do-gooder 'scientists' constantly call for a reduction in 'dirty' gasses. It's madness and worse, could affect house prices in my area!
Would it be a misinterpretation given that their previous previous peak temperature appears to have been set sixty years ago? And then not significantly different so that it can't be within the probable error band in comparing measurement technology then to now.
Its hot in India before the monsoon. I knew that before the article hit the various media outlets.
"Would it be a misinterpretation given that their previous previous peak temperature appears to have been set sixty years ago? "
Well... yes. Yes, yes it would. India having it's hottest year on record may be evidence that climate change is happening, or it may not be evidence that climate change is happening. It is not evidence that climate change is not happening, which is traditionally how Mr Page presented... well, absolutely any climate-related article. USUALLY with A very DAILY MAIL-FRIENDLY mix of ALL CAPS and small WORDS.
Page either didn't understand the papers he was reporting on (in some cases literally stating the exact opposite of what the paper actually said, as was pointed out frequently in the comments), or else was just happy to ignore anything which didn't support his position (presumably in the hopes of landing a gig at either the Daily Mail or Fox News, where this ability is much prized).
His articles on the military were always very good - meticulously researched, insightful and carefully contextualized, which is unsurprising given his background. His articles on anything climate related were poorly-conceived ideological tripe, written by a man without even a tangential grasp of the science pretending to understand it better than genuine experts, and we're no worse off for losing his input on the topic.
Ahh, and there was me still believing the subject of anthropomorphic climate change was still a matter of debate. Two data points in the article and you believe there is a result to be misconstrued.
I don't suppose it really matters who it is who disagrees, if they don't hold with your particular view presumably its a case of them not understanding the subject.Interesting.
Thanks for putting me straight.
@Naselus - (Lewis Page's) "articles on the military were always very good - meticulously researched, insightful and carefully contextualized, which is unsurprising given his background."
That's odd, because if you go to the main UK military forums and mention Lewis Page's name as an authority on military matters, you will get laughed off the site by the genuine military experts.
Perhaps because he disagrees with more than because they doubt his credentials. If the others in the forum have served in the military as he did, what makes them more of an expert than him? More years in the service? Different branch? Having worked in the MoD?
I find on a lot of forums where so-called "experts" are discussing things, the disagreements are often petty personal conflicts. There is one such forum I participate in regularly, and anytime I post in a thread where a certain other guy is reading/posting, he will go after my statements. Doesn't matter what I've said, even if it is something clearly indisputable, he simply decided at some point that he doesn't like me. There are a few others he goes after as well. We'd complain to the moderators, but unfortunately he IS one!
"Many temperature and weather-related records being broken all over the planet, for some strange reason."
Except where they are not like Ireland where the record is 129 years old or Bosnia and Herzegovina 116 years old or Argentina 111 years old etc etc.
Hong Kong recorded its coldest temperature this year.
"Hong Kong recorded its coldest temperature this year."
Records are being broken in both directions as cold air gets dragged further south than usual whilst northern places are simultaneously hotter than normal.
It was predicted 30 years ago that global warming would result in more extreme weather in mid to high latitudes (NB: weather is NOT climate) as well as the tropics getting too hot to handle and the polar regions getting out of whack.
Bear in mind that ice is a terrific moderator due to the latent heat of crystallisation. The amount of energy required to transform ice at 0C to water at 0C is about the same as the amount of energy required to heat that same mass of water from 0C up to 80C
If you want to really worry about shit, look at what's happening in the Leptov Sea and look up historic anoxic oceanic events.
Yep, changing trends, we have them!
The slow and deadly dzud in Mongolia
They are victims of the dzud, an unseen and brutal natural disaster unique to Mongolia where a summer drought combines with a harsh winter and vast numbers of livestock die from either starvation or cold.
The last dzud in 2010 killed eight million animals. It is thought to descend in five-yearly cycles and each time it wreaks havoc.
"We are trying so hard to keep them alive," 50-year-old herder Bayankhand Myagmar says, talking about her dead sheep and goats. "But nothing we do is working."
In Mongolia it hasn't rained since last July and this winter temperatures dropped to as low as -50C for days on end. Snowfall covered up to 60% of the country and fell heavier than usual.
The dzud is made worse by overgrazing and a creeping desertification. Without rain grass is unable to grow across the vast steppes in summer and the millions of animals that live on them cannot put on enough weight to survive the winter cold. So they die. This winter more than 255,000 people have been affected by the dzud.
Damn good post to bring perspective in a number of respects. Climate, animals and people.
Out of something more than simple curiosity what is the global warming effect of 8 million carcasses? Nothing happens at -50 degrees. I get that part, but when summer comes ....
The global warming effect of 8 million carcasses is nil. CO2 only matters to the extent that are you digging up carbon that had been sequestered underground for millions of years and are releasing it into the atmosphere today. We could burn down all the forests and kill all the animals and the effect on global warming would be a rounding error compared to the release of who knows how many years of stored carbon in the century or so we've been actively burning fossil fuels.
Whereas we ourselves worship *our* grandparents for the great wisdom with which they bestowed us a world full of racism, sexism, post-colonial despots, slow-burn civil wars and economic and political stagnation.
Except that we don't. We just pick up the pieces as best we can. Our own grandchildren will probably concede that we were better in some respects and worse in others, compared to both our grandparents and our grandchildren.
"Whereas we ourselves worship *our* grandparents for the great wisdom with which they bestowed us a world full of racism, sexism, post-colonial despots, slow-burn civil wars and economic and political stagnation.
Except that we don't."
Worship is a *bit* much, but personally, I do have some gratitude to my grandparents generation (and the generation before that) as they had a desire to make things better for the generations that followed, even if they didn't completely succeed - after all, racism, sexism, colonial despots, civil wars and economic and political stagnation were things they also inherited. But they gave women the vote, (grudgingly) accepted the will for self-determination in various colonies, fought and died for essential liberties and tried to put in place diplomatic structures in the hope no one else would have to fight and die on the same scale again.
On the other hand, I have little but contempt for my parents generation, who were given cradle to grave health care, free education, the chance to own their own home, and retire in their 60s with a secure pension. In return, they have told their children to pay for their own education, rent into their 30s, because house-price inflation is the sign of a healthy economy, but wage inflation is Satan's doing, work into their 70s with no expectation of a secure pension, and don't get sick because the health service is overburdened looking after baby boomers getting far more out than they ever paid in, but we have to pay for them because you can't touch that unearned property equity!
We're the first generation since the black death to have a lower life expectancy than our parents.
" raise the height of the thermometers from 5' to 10' above the ground"
You can do the same with the housing. Whilst you're at it, look up solar chimneys and passive cooling.
The persians have been doing it well in their desert areas for 3000 years without needing to burn coal to make electricity to run airconditioners. It's time people actaully looked at past ways of keeping cool instead of trying to bruteforce the issue.
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>The greatest number of 110°F or higher days ever recorded in Phoenix: 33 in 2011
Yeah sure just wet those blankets and stay inside and everything will be great all summer. I am sure Grandma will be fine. And anybody that says its a dry heat has never seen 115 or they would know it doesn't matter after about 110 or so. I know first hand how hard it can be for the European readership to believe AC can be life or death (although 2003 in France showed that somewhat) but it really is here (by state/city law AC breaking down must be looked at in 24 hours, every store must offer water for free, etc). That was one thing that amazed me actually was just how unafraid of the Sun the Germans were. That thing is a cancer causing dehydration machine killer out here.
I will grant you UAE as all around that Persian Gulf is one of the few places on earth worse than Sonora (with heat index values competing with Death Valley). In the US the only two major cities that even are in the same league heat index wise as Phoenix are New Orleans and Houston (due to humidity) and even then only for at most a few days a year if that. Both those cities heat index values will drop below 100 for days at a time in June and July which doesn't happen in Phoenix for more than a day.
>The persians have been doing it well in their desert areas for 3000 years without needing to burn coal to make electricity to run airconditioners.
I think if you do some research you will see Iran is overrepresented in the most polluted cities in the world for burning fossil fuels as well.
Phoenix's population was a fairly steady slow rise until the 1950s when it quadrupled in ten years. People for the most part won't live in a desert without AC being the obvious duh. Also with Sun being the one thing Sonora has plenty of our energy is actually remarkably green with all the solar rooftop plus Palo Verde nuclear plant nearby.
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