world

Scores dead as heat wave grips Canada, U.S. Northwest

22 Comments

The requested article has expired, and is no longer available. Any related articles, and user comments are shown below.

© 2021 AFP

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

22 Comments
Login to comment

....and I am sure you have studied all about the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum yourself, being the climate scientist that you are, and did not just copy a talking point from a media article. Right?

Actually I got it from my climate scientist colleagues

Everything I've mentioned is a fact

Your Prof. Steve Konin was making future extrapolations from those facts

I was not making future extrapolations - I was simply putting out the facts

And Prof. Steve Konin is not disputing those facts

0 ( +0 / -0 )

More info on the subject from NOAA. Pay attention to the slope of the trend line this century. That is not the result of a natural climate change. It is much too steep.

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/what%E2%80%99s-hottest-earth-has-been-%E2%80%9Clately%E2%80%9D

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Of course they are recorded. How else did you hear about them 

The climate history of the Earth is preserved in old rock formations. Read what I posted above.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

This is what I am referring to when I speak of Earths hottest periods. These predate humans. Read and learn. Some of these past climates are not amenable to human life and the farming that sustains it.

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/whats-hottest-earths-ever-been

1 ( +1 / -0 )

lostrune2

What's new though is the rate it's going up - the previous fastest Earth's climate went up was about 55 million years ago during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM)

....and I am sure you have studied all about the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum yourself, being the climate scientist that you are, and did not just copy a talking point from a media article. Right?

Meanwhile a real climate scientist who is qualified to understand the source material, points out:

"Leaders talk about existential threat, climate emergency, disaster, crisis, but in fact when you actually read the literature, there is no support for that kind of hysteria. The science is insufficient to make useful projections about how the climate will change in coming decades. Much less what effect human beings will have on it."

(Prof. Steve Konin (ex Obama climate advisor))

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

Heat waves are reported with headlines, cold waves are ignored... see how a media narrative works?

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

Much of what man depends on to survive would be lost if the Earth ever returned to such high temperatures. Most of mankind and the animals and plants we all love would be gone.

Yes, I know. We only have 9 years left and we’ll all be gone. Yet oddly the Arctic Ice Cap will still be there.

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

The hot periods you refer to are not recorded.

Of course they are recorded. How else did you hear about them - word of mouth from your ancestors. If you are not a climate realist- you are denying the science.

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

The current warming is not anywhere close to the hottest or most frequent high temperatures recorded in the Earths history

The hot periods you refer to are not recorded. They occurred tens and hundreds of millions of years ago. They are inferred from geological evidence of higher temps. Nobody was around to record those temperatures. Two of those periods would have been too hot for human habitation so their existence is cautionary. Much of what man depends on to survive would be lost if the Earth ever returned to such high temperatures. Most of mankind and the animals and plants we all love would be gone.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

Climate change is causing record-setting temperatures to become more frequent. Globally, the decade to 2019 was the hottest recorded, and the five hottest years have all occurred within the last five years.

This statement is false. The current warming is not anywhere close to the hottest or most frequent high temperatures recorded in the Earths history. Scientists have examined the evidence recorded in ice cores and other natural features. The editors did not vet this. One of the biggest problems with discussion of climate issues is the spread of hyperbolic and outright sensationalist misinformation designed more to bring forth an ideologically based outcome rather than enlighten the public.

-3 ( +2 / -5 )

Here's an example how weather vs. climate works:

Weather by itself is just a data point on the chart. The data points can go up and down on the chart

Now, plot enough data points on the chart, and you'll see a trend. The trend is the climate

So when ya see the data points trending upwards, that means the climate is going up

TL, DR: So one data point (weather) is not a trend make (climate). But plot enough data points (multiple weathers), that's when the trend appears (climate)

And right now, the trend is going up. That in itself isn't new - Earth's climate goes up and down

What's new though is the rate it's going up - the previous fastest Earth's climate went up was about 55 million years ago during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM)

But that heat up occurred over a period of 10,000 years. The same heat up now is happening over a period of just 200-300 years - which coincided with the start of the Industrial Revolution

We're not quite sure yet whether that's causality vs. correlation - that's why people are doing a lot of studies to find out (hopefully before it's too late to do anything)

What we're quite sure though is the rate of heating change is unprecedented (not including when the Earth was still just a hot ball of fire)

From 10,000 to 200-300 is a heckuva big difference

0 ( +2 / -2 )

Why Most Residential Places in BC Do Not Have an Air Conditioning Unit

https://www.lilliefamilyheating.com/blog/reasons-why-most-residential-places-in-bc-do-not-have/

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Welcome to the Anthropocene! We are warming the planet with our pollution and the consequences are not good.

What to do? Primarily, elect only those who will aggressively deal with this very real global crisis.

Nothing, literally nothing is more important than the health of the only habitat that can sustain us.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

Extreme weather events are not the same as, and are not related to, climate change. The article says, "climate change is causing record setting temperatures to become more frequent" without presenting ANY evidence that this is the case.

The world is a big place. Stuff happens. Gets hot one place, gets cold another place, one place has lots of rain, another has drought. C'est la vie. the 1936 heat wave in the US killed more than 5,000 people. Was it caused by climate change too? In 1901 a heat wave in the eastern US saw temperatures of nearly 110 degrees and killed almost 10,000 people. Climate change? Don't think so.

-4 ( +3 / -7 )

At that time the environmentalists were going off predicting an impending Ice Age(seemingly unaware that the Earth is in fact IN an Ice Age already, just not a glaciation at the moment).

I'm not sold on the argument that because at some point in the past somebody said something about the environment that turned out to be wrong we can therefore conclude that everything said by anybody else about the environment at any point in the future is also wrong. This is a logical fallacy and a pretty useless observation.

The written record is VERY short, so it's a falsehood to say that it's the hottest EVAH, though it may be the hottest recorded in several decades.

Its true that it would have been good for the article to specify that this is a record only as far as records have been kept. Given the fact that the Earth's geological history include periods during which its surface was molten and temperatures were high enough to vaporize humans, perhaps they just assumed this point was obvious.

Also, while we obviously can't pinpoint daytime temperature records for a given geographical location prior to such records being kept, we do have a lot of means of determining general climactic conditions going back much further (which is of course how we know we are in an inter-glacial period of an ice age which started more than 10,000 years ago in the first place, as you mention).

0 ( +3 / -3 )

I spent a summer in the 70's in Northern Quebec and during that time there was a similar heat wave. At that time the environmentalists were going off predicting an impending Ice Age(seemingly unaware that the Earth is in fact IN an Ice Age already, just not a glaciation at the moment).

The written record is VERY short, so it's a falsehood to say that it's the hottest EVAH, though it may be the hottest recorded in several decades.

Native lore sometimes talks about very hot episodes.

-6 ( +2 / -8 )

This week was the first time I've ever spoken to my parents back home in Canada in the summer time and it was hotter there than it is in Japan (much hotter at that).

Its very worrying.

3 ( +6 / -3 )

This seems like a good time to remind everyone that just a couple years ago, a certain Mr. Pompeo was in Scandinavia celebrating the melting of the Arctic Ocean for the new trade routes it would open.

The Chinese are celebrating too but not so publicly. The Russians are actively promoting the arctic route between Europe and Asia. The Canadians meanwhile are doing everything they can to deter ships from transiting the seas to their immediate north knowing they will bring pollution and invasive species to the region.

-1 ( +4 / -5 )

Back on topic please.

Login to leave a comment

Facebook users

Use your Facebook account to login or register with JapanToday. By doing so, you will also receive an email inviting you to receive our news alerts.

Facebook Connect

Login with your JapanToday account

User registration

Articles, Offers & Useful Resources

A mix of what's trending on our other sites