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Earth Science

September Broke the Global Heat Record by a 'Gobsmackingly Bananas' Margin (bnnbloomberg.ca) 142

The global average temperature for September broke records by such an absurd margin that climate experts are struggling to describe the phenomenon. From a report: "This month was -- in my professional opinion as a climate scientist -- absolutely gobsmackingly bananas," Zeke Hausfather, a researcher with Berkeley Earth, said on the social media platforms Bluesky and X. The numbers are stark. September 2023 beat the previous record for the month, set in 2020, by 0.5C (0.9F), according to data sets maintained by the Japan Meteorological Agency and the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service. The temperature anomaly for the month was roughly 1.7C above pre-industrial levels, which is above the symbolic 1.5C mark set as the stretch goal in the Paris Agreement.

"We've never really seen a jump anything quite of this magnitude," Hausfather said. "Half a degree C is analogous to slightly less than half of all the warming we've seen from pre-industrial [temperatures]." Carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels are the main driver of rising temperatures. The global average temperature this year has also seen a boost from El Nino, a natural climate shift in the Pacific. Other factors may also be pushing temperatures up incrementally, such as a decline in cooling aerosol pollution from ships. Hausfather said next September may be unlikely to have all the same compounding factors, and consequently may be not as extreme. But either way, he described September 2023 as a "sneak peek" of what the back-to-school month may feel like in a decade as climate change pushes temperatures higher.

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September Broke the Global Heat Record by a 'Gobsmackingly Bananas' Margin

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  • Get metric. (Score:5, Funny)

    by stooo ( 2202012 ) on Thursday October 05, 2023 @02:24PM (#63903459) Homepage

    Stop using those crazy units.
    Bananas is not a measurement unit
    Get Metric :)

    • by The-Ixian ( 168184 ) on Thursday October 05, 2023 @02:28PM (#63903485)

      Stop using those crazy units.
      Bananas is not a measurement unit
      Get Metric :)

      Yeah, everyone knows that the rest of the civilized world measures in Plantains

      • Hey, don't make fun of the metric system! It doesn't use arbitrary fruit. Our measurements are very precise. We are using the mass of potassium in a cubic centimeter of banana. And not just any banana. Each year we select the tastiest variety and re-set the benchmark.

    • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      But I just bought a Banana Scale and Gobsmacker.

      • But, how do you convert to fractions of a banana? Let me present an old Slashdot favorite: The Hutzler 571

        Highly reviewed

    • by Torodung ( 31985 )

      Goddammit, I was measuring the craziness of him using the unit "bananas" in metric bananas. Why use imperial bananas in the first place?

      One gobsmack is roughly equivalent to 5 newtons, btw.

      • Imperial Bananas:

        One banana to rule them all, one banana to find them, One banana to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them; In the Land of Mordor where the shadows lie.
    • by hey! ( 33014 ) on Thursday October 05, 2023 @03:17PM (#63903693) Homepage Journal

      The unit here is 'gobsmackingly'; the thing being quantified is bananas. I believe it is an ordinal [wikipedia.org] quantifier, i.e. gobsmackingly > alarmingly > surprisingly > remarkably > routinely.

    • Re:Get metric. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Joce640k ( 829181 ) on Thursday October 05, 2023 @03:45PM (#63903809) Homepage

      Bananas is not a measurement unit

      Yes it is. The whole of the Internet uses bananas for scale these days.

      Here's a handy converter: http://bananaforscale.info/ [bananaforscale.info]

  • by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Thursday October 05, 2023 @02:28PM (#63903481)

    Yes, this is massive, extremely bad and will only get much, much worse. But all it does is confirm the predictions.

    Those with working minds already know what is happening. The usual idiots will just stay in denial.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      Yes, this is massive, extremely bad and will only get much, much worse. But all it does is confirm the predictions.

      Those with working minds already know what is happening. The usual idiots will just stay in denial.

      As much fun as people have living in fantasy world? There will come a point where denial will have to be willfully ignorant to the point of absurdity. When people can't walk on blacktop without melting their shoe soles? It's gonna be hard to say we aren't seeing the results of something beyond "normal" margins. Note: I've been in 120F heat for a work day. You do *NOT* want to see that become a standard, normal summer day. It was bad enough when it happened once every ten or twelve years.

      Things are getting u

      • by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Thursday October 05, 2023 @03:33PM (#63903767)

        Remember those COVID deniers that denied it exists right up to dying from it? Some people basically have unlimited capacity for denial.

        • It's hardly unlimited if it's limited by the finiteness of their earthly existence.

          Not that I complain, don't get me wrong here.

          • by gweihir ( 88907 )

            Sure. Some problems are self-correcting. If only climate change was an individual thing....

            • If it was, I'd not even bother with it. I'd just bring a bag of popcorn and a soda (and plenty of ice, I heard it's gonna be a hot day, every day) and watch the fallout.

            • by Darinbob ( 1142669 ) on Thursday October 05, 2023 @06:47PM (#63904361)

              Except it's not self correcting. With COVID there are more survivors than deceased, and many of those will continue to spread the conspiracy theories, the home remedies, the alternative medicines. They're building a clinic in Florida where the doctors will be willing to violate the hippocratic oath, for the population who demands to get the drugs they ask for even if there's no scientific evidence for efficacy. We The People Health and Wellness Center in Venice, FL.

              Remember that the original Typhoid Mary was arrested and forcibly quarantined, not because she was a carrier but because she denied being a carrier and insisted on continuing to work as a cook. After agreeing to stop working as a cook and also improving her hygiene, she was released. Then later quarantined again, for the rest of her life, after again working as a cook and causing new typhoid outbreaks. She insisted all along that she was not a carrier. Not to debate the ethics of forcible incarceration for medical reasons, she's a good example of a denier who was a clear danger to others, a problem that did not correct itself.

              • by gweihir ( 88907 )

                I should have said "sometimes, a part of the problem is self-correcting". You are correct that the overall problem is not.

        • by chill ( 34294 ) on Thursday October 05, 2023 @05:57PM (#63904243) Journal

          You underestimate the stupid. People were denying Covid-19 well past simply dying from it. There were deathbed requests not to put Covid-19 on the death certificate or mention it in the obituary. I personally have family members (wife's side) that were begging the hospital not to put Covid-19 down as cause of death.

          • by gweihir ( 88907 )

            OMG. That is even more ragingly demented than I thought. So these people essentially knew and still were in deep denial?

            • by chill ( 34294 )

              Not so much denial at that point as not wanting to have their surviving family deal with the shit from their social circle. The whole social belonging bit is stronger than I ever thought. People would rather DIE IN AGONY than be ostracized.

              • by gweihir ( 88907 )

                In my book, these people are just completely fucked in the head. Does explain a lot though.

        • And those with COVID refusing remdesivir, while in the hospital, then demanding to be discharged early even though they can't even walk. They had it distilled into their heads that the cure was worse than the disease and that their home remedy would work. True believers in the conspiracy.

          • by gweihir ( 88907 )

            True believers are always the worst. Reality is complex and there are basically no absolute truths. Hence dealing with reality competently requires some mental flexibility. True believers have switched off their reasoning capabilities and latched on to _something_, anything. And they are often willing to force other to do the same.

        • by gweihir ( 88907 )

          What moron modded the _literal_ truth "flamebait"?

      • As much fun as people have living in fantasy world? There will come a point where denial will have to be willfully ignorant to the point of absurdity.

        My feeling is that we're already past that point. And even among the people who aren't actively in denial, there are a lot who haven't thought much about how terrible some of the secondary consequences will be. For example, imagine environmental refugees whose numbers will absolutely dwarf the current tide of illegal immigration. And they will come at a time when 'hard' infrastructure such as power distribution is already being stressed by beyond-spec operating temperatures, and where 'soft' infrastructure

      • Just like those people who refuse to evacuate before a hurricane, there's only so much you can do to warn some people. The snag here though is that the denial is likely making the problem worse.

    • Yes, this is massive, extremely bad and will only get much, much worse. But all it does is confirm the predictions.

      Those with working minds already know what is happening. The usual idiots will just stay in denial.

      An increase in surface sea temperature of 2C suggests the expected monetary losses (scaling with power expended) would nearly triple, increasing by a factor 2.67.

      Edward Wolf, Precise Prediction of Hurricane Power vs Ocean Temperature,
      International Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, 2021,
      doi: 10.11648/j.ijaos.20210501.11

      It's not all horrifically, gob-smackingly bad banana news. On the plus side, the maximum wind scale would be increased by 39% which means the sea surface would cool (if you assume t

      • It's not all horrifically, gob-smackingly bad banana news. On the plus side, the maximum wind scale would be increased by 39% which means the sea surface would cool (if you assume that oceans are like bowls of soup.)

        Plus side? That cooling effect you mention comes about by evaporation. LOTS of extra moisture in already warmer air means that wet-bulb and dry-bulb temperatures are pretty much the same. With humidity levels that high, there is NO WAY short of air conditioning to keep people cool enough to survive. How many people are in circumstances such that they have little or no access to A/C? And how many who nominally have that access won't have it because of power failures caused by an over-stressed electrical grid

        • This is a hope for me too in a situation without a lot. It is about a bigger picture, evaporation making clouds, reflecting sun, bring water to new areas to increase plants and carbon sequestration in biomass. Certainly means more dangerous wet bulbs temps in many places, but at the point where you wonder if life anywhere will be okay, it seems to raise the probability that some places could, especially with aggressive planting if new weather patterns turn deserts wet.

  • Now, with the record low sea ice around Antarctica, will the planet cool down less during the northern hemisphere's winter?

    Next year might be fun too. /Given up on large scale sane cooperation, now on team 'watch it burn'.

  • "This month was -- in my professional opinion as a climate scientist -- absolutely gobsmackingly bananas,"...

    I see after a literal global pandemic the members of the scientific community have learned fuck all about reporting with factual accuracy when speaking to a jaded audience who's rightfully jaded.

    Grow up if you want people to actually take climate change seriously. Most of us stopped reading after seeing measurements only a gobsmacked monkey could understand.

    • Sounds like every day language usage in the UK.

  • Nobody ever - EVER - has to admit they're wrong. The whole place could either burn down or freeze over, depending who's in error, and nobody has to admit a causal relationship of any kind.

    So let's not fight about that. Let's figure out better ways of growing crops in inhospitable regions, and work on making structures that are far more flood resistant than we have now (or on moving everybody inland, which would be "right" but unpopular).

    • by hey! ( 33014 )

      No, your program still requires people who insist it is not happening to admit they're wrong, otherwise they'd be responding to a trend they say does not exist.

      • No, it doesn't. I'm not asking for people to acknowledge a causal relationship. I'm asking them to work on the fact that coastlines are flooding and lots of places are burning down. You can do one without the other.

        • by hey! ( 33014 )

          You don't think people can deny that stuff? Last summer we had heat wave denialists.

          • Sure, but not enough people to matter. I think the number of people who believe it's normal, cyclical, and has nothing do with us dwarfs the number of people that actually deny the events themselves.

    • by rlwinm ( 6158720 )
      10,000 years ago the Sahara was a lush, tropical area. I would love to see it converted back to one. It's possible, but not easy.
    • But you know what we're really going to do, right? Insurance subsidies to ensure that big beach houses remain "affordable" no matter how many times they get washed away.
      • Actually I think that insurance is the perfect vehicle for causing relocation. I am in favor of insurance companies refusing to insure places where these things are becoming statistically difficult. It makes perfect sense to me. It's dispassionate, merciless, and generally based on hard numbers.

    • I gotta perfect structure. Buy an old coal mine, use the fact that it is buried to harness the lower temps, move into it, set up a coal generator to fire up my AC, I will be the last one with the lights on, while all else cook. Of course I'll cook when the coal runs dry, but it will be a few generations.

      Whether it is right or wrong is a pretty big question. Without answering it, eventually, it will be the people living in underground bases with nuclear energy finding and killing people living underground bu

  • And Republicans.. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by MpVpRb ( 1423381 ) on Thursday October 05, 2023 @03:26PM (#63903731)

    ..will still loudly insist that climate change is a hoax
    Even worse, voters agree and put them in office where they can cause real damage

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by rlwinm ( 6158720 )
      I'm not a republican. I certainly think it's nonsense.
      • Are you voting for them? If not, then you're probably not making the issue much worse for everyone else, so you're welcome to continue with your own personal beliefs :-)

  • With all the lockdowns in 2020 and reduced GDP in 2021, consumption of fossil fuels was lower but there wasn't a corresponding lower temperature. So, either the data is sketchy or the correlation between fossil fuel consumption and temperature rise is not the causation.

    • by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 ) on Thursday October 05, 2023 @06:04PM (#63904271) Homepage

      It's not the amount of pollution generated per year, that is correlated to temperature rise. The air pollution has *accumulated* for decades. The "lower" pollution levels in 2020-2022 added less to that accumulation, but the accumulation is still the highest it's ever been.

    • by q_e_t ( 5104099 )
      CO2 concentrations increased 20-21, so there's no reason to expect reduced temperatures. Yes, there may have been a tiny reduction in fossil fuel usage but CO2 output still exceeded the capacity of sinks to absorb it. It's like pouring water into a bucket with a hole, pouring less in won't stop it filling up if it's still greater than the leak.
  • direct from the IPCC FAQ

    "In principle, ‘pre-industrial levels’ could refer to any period of time before the start of the industrial revolution. But the number of direct temperature measurements decreases as we go back in time. Defining a ‘pre-industrial’ reference period is, therefore, a compromise between the reliability of the temperature information and how representative it is of truly pre-industrial conditions. Some pre-industrial periods are cooler than others for purely natura

    • by q_e_t ( 5104099 )
      If your complaint is that the reliable figures are from 1880, how do you know that the MWP existed? (The MWP wasn't a simultaneous global event anyway).
  • Haha. More proof they live in a world of their own.

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