[vichu]

I fear that this is the year "wet-bulb temperature" becomes a term regular households across the world become deeply familiar with. It may be as ubiquitous as the term "social distancing" became.

I've always naively thought that climate disaster was still 10-20 years out, but it seems like it's going to begin in earnest now and instead be completely catastrophic after these next 10 years.

What can I as an individual do? Move to Saskatchewan or Alaska? I already know from a friend in Alaska that the melting permafrost is causing many native villages to sink and collapse, and it's only gotten worse in the past few years. Check out this article on Newtok, AK by National Geographic from 2019: http://archive.today/1enHh

[hunter2_]

I am very familiar with how a wet-bulb thermometer works and some of the ways it's useful (like at altitude for weather forecasts, and as one of the ways to build a hygrometer) but I'm struggling to make the connection that you've made as to why it'll be a household term. Mind explaining?

[flerchin]

Because a wet-bulb temperature of 35C is generally considered deadly, perhaps as low as 31C. Global warming that kills large swathes of Burma or India would be a household term I'd think.

[hunter2_]

But "heat index" is already a household term, and essentially has the same purpose [0]. It's like saying the Kelvin scale will end up in household use: I would disagree because while Kelvin is useful, it's not sufficiently more useful than C/F for most household usage.

> people cannot carry out normal outdoor activities past a wet-bulb temperature of 32 °C (90 °F), equivalent to a heat index of 55 °C (130 °F) [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature

[relaxing]

Wet bulb is not just a different scale, it's a different model with different inputs.

If it becomes useful for knowing whether or not you're going to die (and it could), I bet it catches on.

[roflyear]

At a certain wet bulb temp humans cannot cool themselves off - they die without access to some other means to get cool (like cold water, air conditioning, etc).

[hammock]

The threshold at which humans can no longer cool themselves naturally varies based on factors like health, activity, clothing and humidity.

Typically, a wet-bulb temperature above 95F (35C) poses a severe risk to health, especially with high humidity.

It's important to note that such extreme wet-bulb temperatures are relatively rare in most parts of the world

[PheonixPharts]

> extreme wet-bulb temperatures are relatively rare in most parts of the world

The concern the top-level comment has is that sooner rather than later these cases will not be as rare and so more people will become familiar with this concept.

[000ooo000]

That context here is so obvious, it almost makes you wonder if the comment you were replying to is a ChatGPT special.

[paranoidxprod]

To add to this with an article I just found

“The [wet-bulb] temperature reading you get will actually change depending on how humid it is,” says Kristina Dahl, a climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “That’s the real purpose, to measure how well we’ll be able to cool ourselves by sweating.”

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jul/31/why-you-need...

[roflyear]

Yes, wet bulb temp is in the context of humidity.

Apparently 95f or 35c is the "limit" for humans - where many people will have health issues if they can't cool off otherwise.

[ndsipa_pomu]

"Health issues" may be under selling it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature

> The theoretical limit to human survival for more than a few hours in the shade, even with unlimited water, is a wet-bulb temperature of 35 °C

[kzrdude]

Do we have any real world examples of this happening? That would help understanding.

[hammock]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_European_heat_wave

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Pakistan_heat_wave

As far as global warming goes, study results indicate that limiting global warming to 1.5 °C would prevent most of the tropics from reaching the wet-bulb temperature of the human physiological limit of 35 °C. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-021-00695-3

[jchmrt]

Just to be clear, studies also indicate that we will not realistically limit global heating to anything close to 1.5C, unless very drastic actions are taken immediately (actions on a level that would be seen as extremely radical by most people)

[roflyear]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature

[guerrilla]

I dount it'll help you much to move. We've got drought and fire here in Sweden already. Never rains anymore. Slaugherhouses fullbooked already becauae the probability of being able to keep the livestock fed and watered looks pretty bad already...

[hammock]

>Never rains anymore

Sweden average rainfall seems to be trending up on a 100-year scale. https://tradingeconomics.com/sweden/precipitation

> We've got drought and fire here in Sweden already

Forest fires in Sweden are a complex dynamic and the risk factor from climate change is only one part. Here is an interesting discussion https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10113-020-01718-2

Droughts in Sweden have been on a downtrend for the last 60 years, with quite a bit of variability. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221458182...

[dredmorbius]

Keep in mind that "drought" can be highly relative and short-term.

For regions which have historically experienced frequent (e.g., daily or weekly) rainfall, even a few days or weeks with no or limited precipitation can induce stress on ecological communities. Deluge / drought patterns (see California's long-term drought and this past rain season's endless atmospheric river storms) actually compound the problem.

Looking at long-term averages alone may well mask this effect and its significance.

[limpanz]

Well it mostly rains during winter in Sweden and for half the country that means snow, so mo chance of forest fires then. The past 10 years there have been more dry years during summer than the past. Also it's usually dry in the most southern parts of sweden, which also accounts for a majority of the food production.

[guerrilla]

> Sweden average rainfall seems to be trending up on a 100-year scale. https://tradingeconomics.com/sweden/precipitation

> Droughts in Sweden have been on a downtrend for the last 60 years, with quite a bit of variability. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221458182...

Your averages are meaningless if not intentionally misleading. The country is huge ranging from 55°N to 69°N and having four distinct and relatively extreme seasons. It's ridiculous to assert that the droughts down here in the south aren't new, drastic and caused by climate change. The sea water here is virtually room temperature. Don't try to tell me that's normal. Cherry picking through your confirmation bias is no substitute for being here and being able to read our news with access to experts studying and working with exactly this.

[roflyear]

These issues are going to impact livestock around the world - which is a big contributor to global warming. I suppose some issues are self-correcting.

[BasedAnon]

If by self-correcting you mean 'killing enough humans until a new equilibrium is reached' sure

[roflyear]

Well, you don't need meat to survive.

[guerrilla]

Yeah malnutrition and inflation will be great...

[ardrak]

People usually get angry with this view, but I think soon enough meat consumption will become too expensive to be viable to most of the population.

[genman]

I hope they make canned meat then.

[concordDance]

Unless you live in the select few poor equatorial countries with high humidity and heat you have little to worry about personally.

Climate change is a long term problem. We're going to see hundreds of millions of climate refugees before the end of the century, but the bulk will be after most of us are dead.

[kfrzcode]

Keep calm, carry on, adapt.

Slow-moving crises are not crises, they're problems, not emergencies.

----

Here, have some literature, down-voters! ----

[1] Nine long and nearly continuous sea level records were chosen from around the world to explore rates of change in sea level for 1904–2003. These records were found to capture the variability found in a larger number of stations over the last half century studied previously. Extending the sea level record back over the entire century suggests that the high variability in the rates of sea level change observed over the past 20 years were not particularly unusual. The rate of sea level change was found to be larger in the early part of last century (2.03 ± 0.35 mm/yr 1904–1953), in comparison with the latter part (1.45 ± 0.34 mm/yr 1954–2003). The highest decadal rate of rise occurred in the decade centred on 1980 (5.31 mm/yr) with the lowest rate of rise occurring in the decade centred on 1964 (−1.49 mm/yr). Over the entire century the mean rate of change was 1.74 ± 0.16 mm/yr. [0]

----

We compare estimates of coastal and global averaged sea level for 1950 to 2000. During the 1990s and around 1970, we find coastal sea level is rising faster than the global average but that it rises slower than the global average during the late 1970s and late 1980s. The differences are largely a result of sampling the time-varying geographical distribution of sea level rise along a coastline which is more convoluted in some regions than others. More rapid coastal rise corresponds to La Niña–like conditions in the tropical Pacific Ocean and a slower rate corresponds to El Niño–like conditions. Over the 51 year period, there is no significant difference in the rates of coastal and global averaged sea level rise, as found in climate model simulations of the 20th century. The best estimate of both global average and coastal sea level rise remains 1.8 ± 0.3 mm yr−1, as found in earlier studies. [1]

----

Kemp et al. (1) note that recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports emphasize sub-2 °C scenarios. Simultaneously, IPCC reports also overemphasize catastrophic scenarios, as does broader discourse. For example, the cataclysmic Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 (RCP8.5) and Shared Socioeconomic Pathway 5-8.5 (SSP5-8.5) scenarios—now widely considered implausible (2)—account for roughly half of the scenario mentions in recent IPCC Assessment Reports’ impacts (Working Group II) sections (Fig. 1A), similar to underlying scientific literature (3). The SSP3-7.0 emissions pathway, which Kemp et al. (1) use in their analyses, assumes a world in 2100 heavily reliant on coal and with no climate policy—an implausible future (3, 4). It projects vastly higher emissions than the International Energy Agency (IEA) stated policies scenario, which has continually been revised downward in recent years (4) (Fig. 1B). [2]

----

[0]: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/200... [1]: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/200... [2]: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2214347119

Cherry-picked because hey, why not?

[_djo_]

This isn’t moving that slowly any more.

[jovial_cavalier]

Therefore... panic?

[_djo_]

Given that such rapid and severe deviations as shown in the charts are unheard of at this scale, perhaps a little panic is justified. It’s certainly worrying.

[jovial_cavalier]

I agree it's worrying. Panic to me, though, indicates a loss of your faculties. You still have to be able to assess the situation objectively and adapt accordingly. I guess my point is that hyperbole about climate change (alarmism) is just as unhelpful as climate change denial.

[_djo_]

Except that in context nobody, not even the self-proclaimed doomer who wrote the post, is suggesting we all go running around in blind panic with our hair on fire over this. Rather, that it’s severe enough and so far out beyond recorded temperatures that it should be an urgent priority that’s taken extremely seriously.

Claiming this is just panic is devaluing the data and an argument in favour of yet more inaction or slow and ineffective action.

[zaroth]

To be fair, this particular deviation we are seeing in the ocean temps was knowingly and intentionally caused by changing the environmental regulations around sulfur content.

So it’s a weird state to be in where the environmentalists are pushing dramatic warming policies.

[matsemann]

Finally doing something or calling for action isn't "panicking"..

[valval]

It’s moving super slowly, and if nothing is done by the end of the century, we’ll be slightly worse off than we are now.

[_djo_]

I can’t tell if you’re trolling, in denial, or just very naive.

Climate change is already causing economic damage and the loss of lives. This isn’t some theoretical future problem.

[valval]

You should read some of Bjørn Lomborg's stuff.

[jules-jules]

Maybe you should say hello to the people of Pakistan for a change.

[data_maan]

If living in poverty, without access to various types of medication because our fragile supply chains broke is "slightly worse off", then sure, yeah, it's just going to be slight change

[r00fus]

Uncontrolled fires in the arctic circle along with every continent aside from Antarctica? Yeah, that doesn't sound apocalyptic at all!

[oldstrangers]

Slow moving relative to your sense of time, sure. Extremely fast moving on a planetary timeline.

[plagiarist]

This is not slow-moving.

[pcdoodle]

Wake me up when the banks stop giving 30 year loans for coastline property.

Who do you trust? Bankers or the "experts".

[uw_rob]

Bankers are known to be responsible and have a fantastic history of being responsible with others money. There are no reasons why a collection of individuals would make a bad decision which would impact other people 10, 20, or 30 years in the future for an immediate gain.

[simmerup]

https://www.ocregister.com/2023/05/26/state-farm-says-no-new...

[jfim]

Bankers aren't in the business of underwriting risk, other than credit risk. However, mortgages typically require having property insurance as a condition for issuing the mortgage, so de facto, if the property is uninsurable, the bank isn't issuing a loan. The expert insurance and reinsurance underwriters have started raising rates or exiting some markets altogether, as well.

[data_maan]

Google California insurance providers.

Anyone else got examples?

[data_maan]

Post your examples here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36297304

[Koffiepoeder]

In Belgium, if you buy an appartment at the coastline using a business, the fiscal authorities dispute the tax deductability and depreciation (33y by default) if it is not at least on the second floor.

[skummetmaelk]

This is without a doubt the most hilarious take I have ever seen.

[creato]

Expectations of a bailout might mess up this analysis.

[jjoonathan]

Exactly. Rich coastal communities are powerful and stand a decent chance of being able to force the rest of us to hold their bags.

[eevo]

Markets are irrational - yeah I'll trust where the data leads rather than a known overinflated housing market

[kfrzcode]

When the mouths are moving, watch the hands.

[fallingfrog]

I’m guessing this is a satirical question, given the behavior of the banking industry within living memory..

[detrites]

> I've always naively thought that climate disaster was still 10-20 years out

You can hardly be blamed for that, they've been saying it was one way or another since at least the 1970's.

Literally none of their doomsday scenarios have occurred as stated yet.

My bet is, rather than bovine farts and air for plant-life, the major climate driver will turn out to be what it always has been... 1 million earths-worth chaotic searing nuclear eruption, boiling atop hidden internal processes 4b+ years.

And if there is a human aspect to it, I'd first investigate the large-scale weather-modifying experiments creating and directing precipitation in arbitrary and unaccountable ways over large landmasses for decades. Eg, look at China's.

(Cue the brigade claiming sensible observations are madness because there's a "consensus"... among only scientists that agree...)

[sgu999]

> And if there is a human aspect to it

lol

> sensible observations

Please share how you've conducted your observations in a rigorous way, no one will blame you for it, that's how science progresses...

> "consensus"

lol

[detrites]

I've observed that for the past 4.5+ billion years, the sole principle driver of the climate on our planet has been the million-earth sized nuclear reaction it's in orbit around.

That the past 100 years of cows farting would suddenly have infinitely greater impact strikes me as absurd, and meshes well with the decades of failed predictions I've observed its purveyors making.

That they will casually disregard, as entirely irrelevant, large-scale human deployments specifically targeted at changing the climate - that have succeeded in doing so - only supports this assessment.

Finally, asserting a "consensus" only by ignoring or mocking any and all dissenting views is utterly pathetic and not indicative of science. It's more indicative of field capture by industry, politics and profits.

Even the most cursory analysis of investment flows, or the personal investments of people promoting it and what they stand to personally gain from it (while taking private actions contradicting public claims) confirms this also.

That everything the field claims about the future is based on "modelling" (which is another word for "imagining"), really just cements the level of "science" we're dealing with here. No wonder their "models" always fail.

I'm not saying the climate isn't changing, and I'm not even saying we couldn't be causing it. I'm saying the current investigation into it is off-track, compromised, and historically incapable of coming up with any accuracy.

Ie, if China can successfully, and continually, modify the climate across their entire continent using a large-scale tech deployment, how is it reasonable to exclude it from theories on anthropogenic climate? It makes no sense.

(And if you aren't aware of China's weather modification programs, look them up. It's not "conspiracy theory", even CNN has reported on it.)

[dredmorbius]

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36289143>

[sgu999]

Uh, thanks. I couldn't resist this time, I needed the reminder I guess!

[kfrzcode]

There's literally nothing a "bottom-up" approach will do to effectuate any serious change on the climate. The climate is a dynamic system, and "climate change" is a tautology. At which point, ever, is any "climate" in a static state?

Never, because systems are dynamic, and it's chaotic. Now, if anyone (the State powers and corporate interests) actually WANT to "solve" this "problem," it's, uh, very very clear where to start. Nuclear.

But like many other scissor issues, it will continue to be used as a lever to slice apart groups so's they can fight each other.

When was the last time you asked yourself "What made and or makes me confident in my belief that this is actually a crisis? Why?"

Which papers and statistical analyses have you written? Are you "trusting the science?" Are you versed enough to truly understand how we'd even be able to measure this? Or is it just esoteric enough that it can be used as an engine of disruption, corruption, etc...

[defrost]

Weather (short term local fluctuations) is chaotic.

Climate (long term parameters) isn't.

As an example of how this can be so, consider the classic images of spinning wingnuts in space ( Dzhanibekov effect | Tennis racket theorem ).

The tumblings of the wingnut, moment to moment, are chaotic and unpredictable.

The long term trajectory of the wingnut is clear to see, the centre of mass arcs in a smooth manner and the eventual impact point on the hull can be marked in advance.

( In answer to your question, I've spent decades in geophysics and related disciplines, I've measured gravity, ground radiation, cosmic radiation, continent scale tides to determine mean sea levels, etc. )

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennis_racket_theorem

[uw_rob]

Double pendulums are a great example of complex, chaotic, and dynamic system. Given an initial state, I wouldn't be able to predict the outcome. However, I could easily go over and smash the toy and then have a pretty good prediction of the outcome state.

Anyone who is interested in having a deeper understanding of climate change I would recommend checking out IPCC AR6.

https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6...