
Global temperatures likely to hit at least 1C warming for next five years - 23throwaway23
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/09/global-temperatures-likely-to-hit-at-least-1c-warming-for-next-five-years
======
battery423
In germany we have a drought right now. I never assumed that we in germany get
water issues.

Now farmers said things like 'i have never seen so little water at this time
of year in the 30 years im a farmer'.

I don't have the feeling we are recognizing the elephant in the room.

My personal take on this is to buy a farm, buy water reserve tanks, have a
little garden and trying to become independend. Which is not a bad plan in
general as it helps to cut costs down anyway if you do it smart enough. Its
not that i get money when i put it in the bank and corona showed how volatile
shares can be.

~~~
bzb3
30 years is not a good enough sample. In fact it's pretty bad.

~~~
battery423
I do combine this with other data i read of course.

We do have more data available than just what one farmer experiences.

Nonetheless, what is a good response to it?

I don't have the feeling that just ignoring it or not doing anything is a good
approach.

~~~
toomuchtodo
It makes me incredibly nervous about what happens when water and food gets
scarce and you have cities full of people with no ability to acquire these
basic needs from the land. You can desal water on coastal communities with
cheap renewables, but you can’t grow food in concrete.

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makerofspoons
We seem to be trending right along with the worst case emissions scenario:
[https://sites.uci.edu/energyobserver/files/2018/11/4BDC35FE-...](https://sites.uci.edu/energyobserver/files/2018/11/4BDC35FE-0E3C-42F0-93C8-79A4E117C088.png)

Edit: There is also credible evidence we've been underestimating climate
sensitivity for years:
[https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01484-5](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01484-5)

~~~
23throwaway23
Given that IPCC and other world bodies suggest we need to be reducing
emissions by 7.6% every year for the next decade (starting this year). We're
doing the almost exact opposite.

The US and China are increasing hostilities and are locked in a downward
spiral of increased military spending (and associated emissions).

Most of the economic elite, while paying lip service is in utter denial about
the direness of the situation.

With a few exceptions (New Zealand), every developed and developing society is
prioritizing the economy and economic development over the preservation of a
viable human future.

We're bordering on insanity.

~~~
zzzcpan
If you want to compare which problems are worse, plenty are much worse than
slow effects of climate change, like wars, contagious diseases, exploitation
of poor people, poverty and inequality in general, political systems
controlled by the rich that want to keep it that way, etc. Those problem cause
massive suffering and even death. And what's the worse that could happen to
humans due to climate change? Some foods might disappear, some people might
need to modify their houses for new weather, some might need to relocate. It's
not insane to simply ignore the problem altogether, it's very rational. Now
how to solve all those actual problems is a big question.

~~~
23throwaway23
Not sure where you're getting your information. We've consistently
underestimated how fast things are happening, and how much sooner they're
happening.

All of those problems you identified are accelerating global warming and will
be made worse by it. Unless we reduce emissions drastically immediately (and
stop the biosphere collapse), we're likely en route to at a bare minimum a +3C
world, with a ~20% chance of a +4C world within our lifetimes.

Estimates of what survive at a +4C world range from a few hundred million to a
maybe 1-3B people. That's what, somewhere between 50-90% of humanity dying
off. Look to your left, look to your right, unless we do something today,
those people are going to die.

The World Bank in 2012 came out with a report as to Why We Need to Avoid a 4C
world. At that time, they suggested that +4C is a low probability as early as
2050's-60's. Their assumptions then were that we'd stop curbing emissions in
2015 (they've gone up), and they also drastically underestimated how much
higher CO2e concentrations would be increasing in the atmosphere (they assumed
CO2e concentrations would go up by 1.5 ppm / year, but instead, they've gone
up 2.6 ppm / year)

The issue with climate is compounded by something called "thermal inertia",
which in practice means that the action we take today won't bear fruit for
another 30 years.

So yea, unless we drastically reduce emission and stop the biosphere collapse,
this generation, meaning YOU, meaning the elites who ignore this, and yes me,
will likely be responsible for the largest die off of life since ... well the
last mass extinction event.

So yea, pay attention to the science. Pay attention to the scientists and the
literature.

The picture is bleak.

~~~
zzzcpan
There is no science today that can make any kind of confident predictions on
the effects of climate change on human population in 30 years from now.

~~~
23throwaway23
Um... There's actually quite a bit. What is the basis of your claim?

The most famous is the limits to growth model (developed by the Club of Rome
in the 1970's, which we're unfortunately tracking quite closely). You can read
about that model here:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth)
, though there are many academic articles about. That is a quantifiable,
falsifiable model that has had about 50 years of predictive power. The next 30
years according to that model are horrific.

Another scientific effort is what is being calculated by the global footprint
network - [https://www.footprintnetwork.org/our-work/climate-
change/](https://www.footprintnetwork.org/our-work/climate-change/). We've
been in a deficit also since about the 1970's, and that overconsumption is
directly connected to the current scientifically documented biosphere collapse
which suggests that we're in the middle of the 6th mass extinction event on
earth.

Lastly, a number of independent modellers have attempted to show what the
world looks like. Here's a brief article with a map.
[https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/what-the-world-will-
look-l...](https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/what-the-world-will-look-
like-4degc-warmer). From the article:

> Micronesia is gone – sunk beneath the waves. Pakistan and South India have
> been abandoned. And Europe is slowly turning into a desert. This is the
> world, 4°C warmer than it is now.

90% of where humans currently inhabit would be inhospitable to human life.
That's about 6-7B people that will have to move across 1000's of km on the
order of less than a decade. Likely into the Arctic and Antarctic ... where ..
topsoil formation typically takes 100's of years.

Moreover, if you think xenophobic Europeans or Americans are going to allow
Africans, Asians and Central Americans in, when they're putting existing
climate refugees into concentration camps RIGHT NOW, you should perhaps
rethink your worldview.

~~~
zzzcpan
I'm not sure what you are getting at. A model is essentially an unproven
hypothesis, it can never be proven and confidence in the model depends on the
evidence. With models on the effects of climate change (aka impact models) the
confidence is pretty much non existent, there were literal studies done to
show that, it's actually a huge and complex ongoing research area. So the
predictions of doom is nothing more, but propaganda, that conveniently forgets
to say that such predictions are very likely to be wrong.

------
WarOnPrivacy
I truly thought we were about to exceed the speed of light before I realized C
!= c.

~~~
Symbiote
For some incomprehensible reason, the Guardian's style guide specifically says
_not_ to use the degree symbol.

Perhaps it's an attempt to maintain their reputation for sloppy editing.

[https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-
guide-c](https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-c) (under
"Celsius")

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freddealmeida
Solar minimal will reduce temp. Not increase. This is not the issue.

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lazyjones
Doesn't sound dramatic to me, especially considering the process for
calculating these "global" temperatures (stations near growing urban heat
islands etc.).

I'd be more interested in long-time temperature increases in specific remote
areas. One of the oldest continuous temperature records on a mountain in
Germany shows less than 0.7C since 1800:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohenpeißenberg_Meteorological...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohenpeißenberg_Meteorological_Observatory#/media/File:Temperaturreihe_Hoher_Peißenberg.PNG)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohenpeißenberg_Meteorological...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohenpeißenberg_Meteorological_Observatory)

~~~
frabbit
It seems very unlikely that this report would fall into the well-known problem
of not accounting for urban heat islands:

[https://www.skepticalscience.com/urban-heat-island-
effect.ht...](https://www.skepticalscience.com/urban-heat-island-effect.htm)

Are you specifically clamining that the authors ignored this ?

~~~
lazyjones
You can only avoid this effect by not using urban stations, claiming the
effect is small doesn't solve the problem.

I am specifically claiming that there is no known global temperature dataset
that is frequently used in such alarming studies and contains no stations
affected by the UHI effect. Since the linked article contains no references or
links to sources, I cannot be more specific.

