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www.axios.com

A heat wave that has stifled the southern tier of the U.S. for weeks has expanded into the Plains, Midwest and now the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast on Thursday, triggering heat alerts for over 227 million people, according to the National Weather Service.

  • IHeartBadCode@kbin.social
    29·
    1 year ago

    “It’s 1°C. That’s not a lot.”

    It’s 1°C on average. That means every molecule of air has AT LEAST 1°C extra thermal energy. And I’m not sure if anyone has noticed, there’s a lot of air molecules. So while taking one cubic centimeter of air and increasing it by 1°C isn’t a ton of energy. Do that for roughly all 109 tredecitillion molecules and you get about 2.2 zettajoules of energy. Annual US energy consumption is just 0.094 zettajoules. So one degree increase is equal to more energy than the US uses in 23½ years. The biggest nuclear bomb humans ever made, that pulls in at about 0.00021 zettajoules. So one degree is roughly 10,500 Tasr Bombas going off and then the resulting heat just never leaving.

    All of that energy. It has to go somewhere. Sometimes it makes ice turn to water, sometimes it increases the speed at which some wind is moving, sometimes it increases the surface temperature of land, sometimes it evaporates water leaving an area very dry. But it has to go somewhere. And it cannot just radiate back out into space, it hits a CO₂ molecule, bounces off of it, and flies right back down to Earth. And the more CO₂ molecules we put out there, the more often that happens.

    • FlickOfTheBean@lemmy.world
      12·
      1 year ago

      Huh this is the first thing I’ve read that puts it into a sort of understandable perspective (eternally recovering from my conservative raised childhood, maybe sane people explain it better in general)

      • tryptaminev 🇵🇸 🇺🇦 🇪🇺@feddit.de
        3·
        1 year ago

        If you want a feeling for how your local temperatures will change you can extrapolate the peaks linearly. So if we look at London Uk as an Example https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/0394/production/_125961900_optimised-max_temp_uk-nc-002.png.webp

        With a global mean temperature increase of 1 C since 1970 there was an increase in peak temperatures (avg) of about 2 C. So till 2050 it will be somewhere around 3 C for the average peak in summer. If we look at the ramp up since 2008 we can expect more like 5-6 C higher temperature records than today. So in the 2050s there will be some summers with 45 C records and the average hottest day every year around 35-37 C

        Edit: and not to forget that this is only talking about how high the peaks every year are. The length of heatwaves will also increase by a few days. So where it was maybe 32 for three days and then 35 for one day, followed by a cooling thunderstorm it will be more like five days of 35 followed by a day of 37 and then a much more intense thunderstorm than what we know today.

    • Lakija@lemmy.world
      2·
      1 year ago

      Who! This is the first time someone explain this shit to me! 🤯 Like actually explained it so it makes sense.

      Thank you!

    • Fredselfish@lemmy.world
      5·
      1 year ago

      I agree and yet half of America wants to pretend man made climate change is fact and we are having no effect on the earth.

    • Pohl@lemmy.world
      1·
      1 year ago

      We’ve been so fortunate up here in the Great Lakes. Only one day above 90 in the 10 day forecast here and it’s still gonna dip below 70 every night.

      Heat dome won’t step to 5k cubic miles of cold water.

      Be safe out there!

      • cedarmesa@lemmy.world
        5·
        1 year ago

        Hate to burst your bubble but remember the heat domes over seattle and portland? They both sit on a pretty significant, cold body of water.

      • MostlyBirds@lemmy.world
        4·
        1 year ago

        Yes, it will. The reason we haven’t been affected is simply because this isn’t where this heat dome is. We can and will get them.

      • onionbaggage@lemmy.world
        1·
        1 year ago

        I heard you got 5 cubic miles of cold water… Sure would be a shame if that became 5 cubic miles of hot water.

        • Pohl@lemmy.world
          1·
          1 year ago

          The lakes hold 5500 cubic miles of water, not 5. But yes, the lakes have been warming, surface temps on Superior are 2.5C hotter than they were 50 yrs ago. Which is alarming no doubt. The deep temps in Superior remain a constant 4C all year round and that temp seems to be pretty stable.

          We got lucky with the lake winds this week. That’s all.

          People who think climate change is going to spare this region are overstating the case by a lot. That said, I guess being on defense in the water wars will be better than being on offense… maybe?

  • shadowSprite@lemmy.world
    91·
    1 year ago

    I’ve been sad because I know I’ll never be able to retire, no matter how hard I work, but now I’m realizing I can stop being sad about that because there will be no world or civilization around by the time I’m old enough to retire. The earth and humanity will still exist but I highly doubt things will still resemble what they do today. One way or another, it seems like things are going to drastically change. We can’t sustain this for another 40 years

  • CharlesReed@kbin.social
    4·
    1 year ago

    I’ve been having to start taking showers in the morning because I wake up sweating, and I’ve only been going outside when I absolutely have to. These triple digits are suffocating me. Like I know I should expect it due to the area I live in, but jesus christ, I can’t wait until September.
    I had someone earlier today tell me, “Don’t worry! We’ll be in the low 90s by the end of August!” I don’t think that’s any better T-T

  • DreamHollow4219@kbin.social
    1·
    1 year ago

    It’s been stifling in my area, too. 80F+ even late at night.
    It’s not supposed to cool down until this weekend, at best. It’s scary to think this may be our new “state of affairs”.