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A Polar Vortex collapse sequence has begun
- AlexanderDhoore 6y agoThe next decade is going to be wild. We will start to really see the effects of climate change. Real consequences for every day lives in the western world. Prepare for erratic weather. Storm's coming.
- NewHereBeNice 6y agoYour statement has no basis in scientific fact whatsoever. The timeline for severe consequential effects of climate change are a hundred years away. Your hysteria only damages the climate change cause, because in 10 years time people will use proclamations such as yours to deny climate science.
- Ma8ee 6y agoI don’t know what you are considering severe, but I think that both Australia and California might disagree with you after the fires last year.
- lazide 6y agoAs a long time Californian with non commercial timberland? Global warming, if It played a part in those fires, played a small one. The biggest issues are failed forest management practices combined with expansion and development into previously undeveloped land. As part of 4+ Year process to get my timberland thinned to reduce fire danger (through the state approval process which is terrible, but finally happened), it came up that historically - based on archeological data - fires used to happen in this area every 10 to 15 years. It has been 115 years since a fire happened on the property. Massive buildup of fuel (due to suppressing small Fires and not allowing cutting or timber harvesting), combined with many people living and using power equipment in an area that historically was thinly populated means massive fires when they do happen. Which is what you saw.
- chippy 6y agoas an environmentalist, we've been saying this since the 70's. As an educator I'd caution against fear as a motivation for societal change, but I understand that many think that its good to cause fear and panic for the benefit of the globe and everyone on it (after all, we teach children to be afraid of dangerous things).
- iagovar 6y agoYou've saying this since the 70s, how much change on people minds did you achieve without fear?
- chippy 6y agoGreat question - equally so: how much change on people minds did you achieve with fear? The answer to both is that we need to do something different.
- bryanrasmussen 6y agoFear becomes a greater motivator to action the more proximate the source of the fear is. Thus as the effects of climate change become more extreme and apparent the efficacy of fear to spur action increases.
- paulcole 6y agoLook at what the fear of another 9/11 was able to accomplish. I still have to take off my shoes at the airport! And look at what “masks protect other people” accomplished. 40% of the American population gleefully advertising that they don’t care about other people. You don’t have to change people’s minds if you can change their actions.
- jeltz 6y agoAnd how does people taking off their shoes make air travel any safer? I do not see how your example supports using fear as a tool to drive useful change.
- hyko 6y agoI understand your sentiment, but most westerner’s everyday lives will not be affected by climate change this decade, outside of government initiatives to help solve the problem. That’s why it’s so damn unfair: it’s the poorest people in the world that will bear the early burden. It’s my opinion that if we give people in the west unrealistic timelines, it will only serve to undermine the political effort to solve the issues for the long term.
- ciceryadam 6y agoEuropean heatwave of 2003 resulted in 50-70k deaths [0]. It will be chump change in comparison of having uninhabitable regions of South East Asia when the wet bulb temperature reaches 35C (95F), but it already affects Western Europe. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_European_heat_wave https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_European_heat_wave
- hyko 6y agoYes, but most of the hundreds of millions of westerners (US, Western Europe, Australasia) are unlikely to experience real consequences for everyday life from climate change in a wild ride this decade. That’s for all sorts of reasons, principally economic and geographic.
- TheOtherHobbes 6y agoYou don't consider death, drought, and flooding real consequences? Why not? The insurance industries already disagree with you. Trying getting flood insurance in some parts of the UK now. It wouldn't have been a problem thirty years now, now it's impossible. And try selling a house that can't be insured. But perhaps you don't think losing that kind of capital investment isn't a real consequence for everyday life?
- michaelcampbell 6y agoHe said most, not all. You even said your self "some parts".
- refurb 6y agoDo you have a source that lays out why this decade versus 2000 or 2010 will “be wild”?
- MaslowsPyramid 6y agoFor those wondering, if this does occur it would affect Canadians as well. [1] The source states it is not a guaranteed event. 1: https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/sci-tech/face-numbingly-cold-weather-may-be-coming-thanks-to-polar-vortex-1.5260669 https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/sci-tech/face-numbingly-cold-w...
- raverbashing 6y agoIt does affect Canada sometimes already (example, winter of 2014)
- Havoc 6y agoNot sure collapsing is the right word here. Sounded to me more like a portion split off
- Learning2-2 6y agoThe warm period in December has a word in Norwegian: kakelinna, traditionally thought to be caused by excessive baking before Christmas. https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakelinna https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakelinna
- djxfade 6y agoInteresting, I am Norwegian, and have never ever heard this phrase in my life
- turbonoobie 6y agoDitto
- e12e 6y agoI've heard it frequently growing up in tromsø. We have our share of bizarre weather this winter - while it's customary for snow to melt right before Christmas - I can't recall there being this little snow not only in December - but through Christmas and well into January. I just went for a walk and watched people skating on the nearest pond - which is usually frozen this time of year, but also covered in a meter or more of snow. Meanwhile they're having a white Christmas in Bergen.
- ttonelli 6y agoOh I loved visiting your city in the summer, hope to have a chance to visit again in winter!!
- fy20 6y agoThat's how things were last year here in Lithuania. We never had a proper winter. This year it seems about normal in terms of snow, but temperatures feel a bit warmer (most of the season its been hovering around 0c, but is usually -10c)
- larsiusprime 6y agoSame here, TIL!
- JackFr 6y agohttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-10/as-polar-vortex-stirs-a-deep-freeze-threatens-u-s-and-europe?utm_source=google&utm_medium=bd&cmpId=google https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-10/as-polar-... Fewer cool graphics but much more understandable article.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- bamboozled 6y agoA really long article with a lot of speculation...
- sam_goody 6y agoBut a lot of imagery, which gives the impression of "fact". There is a lesson to be learned here.
- 0df8dkdf 6y agospeculation is good right? As long as the author state that it is speculation.
- bamboozled 6y agoDidn't say it was bad, just warning people that it is what it is.
- 2ion 6y agoI like that they added a lot of plots. They basically explained the plots. The plots are interesting to read. I haven't looked at this kind of climate info for a long time so I like reading this kind of thing from time to time.
- protomyth 6y agoIf you just moved to a northern climate and have been saying this isn't that bad, then this is a bit of a wake-up call to make sure you are ready for winter. I still do recommend that you keep one of those shiny silver mylar survival blankets in your car. It works not only for warmth but also to put outside the car if you are off road and need to be spotted. Keep a week's worth of good at home that doesn't need electricity to prepare. Power outages in extreme cold are a pain.
- heavenlyblue 6y agoWhich country are you speaking about?
- protomyth 6y agoUSA since a lot of commuting, but I think safety is pretty universal. Depending on infrastructure in any place the climate can kill you might not be a good idea.
- sjg007 6y agoI agree. The polar vortex is no joke.
- dlkinney 6y agoI think it's important to dispute your recommendation to keep a mylar blanket in case of emergency. Those blankets have practically zero thermal advantage, and really are only good to deflect wind, rain, and snow. (As well as signaling.) Please keep a large wool blanket in your vehicle if you are in a location that threatens extreme cold with the inability to walk to safety. I would hate for someone to be stuck in a tight spot and realize the useless thermal properties of those blankets the hard way.
- protomyth 6y agoWell, the one I bought works damn well for heat and had one huge advantage over wool. I can bungee cord it to my car and be very, very visible to any search going on to find me. I would hope people going out in winter also have proper coats and pants, but extra blankets as well a proper survival kit is a very good thing. Small grain shovels are also quite nice.
- mradmin 6y agoI don't understand the title. Does the OP not understand the difference between Europe and the EU?
- rebuilder 6y agoOr US and North America?
- DavidVoid 6y agoEU (without the the) is sometimes used as shorthand for Europe, especially when space is limited. It is technically incorrect, but so is referring to the US as America or to North America as the US.
- daneel_w 6y agoOnly by US media and politicians. Nobody in Europe, nor elsewhere, refers to Europe as EU for short.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- vsupalov 6y agoAt long last, winter is coming.
- braindongle 6y agoThis is great. People who don't trust experts and cynically think that everything is political can readily say "It's really cold! See, global warming and climate change are fake!" Here we see that the polar vortex isn't extra-strong this year, it's extra-week, and the breakdown may send chunks of it southward. This armchair level of understanding (even if my summary is not right on the nose) is what we need when we encounter people who actually want to politicize the weather. Will we defeat ignorance, or will ignorance defeat us?
- vkou 6y ago> Will we defeat ignorance, or will ignorance defeat us? It's not ignorance that's the problem. The people orchestrating global warming denialism aren't stupid - they are just cynically self-serving.
- thysultan 6y agoThen stop using the word global warming, poor marketing, when it gets cools(which it will) instead of warm it starts to look and sound a con. The more enlightened skeptics are more so "human caused" climate change skeptics than anything else, with the sun as their main point of origin.
- braindongle 6y agoAgreed, "global warming" is poor marketing. It's also a common colloquialism among climate change deniers, no? So, if you need to explain to someone how cold weather doesn't mean "global warming is fake", maybe also steer them toward the notion of climate change. "Anthropogenic forcing" or "it's our fault" is of course another important matter.
- braindongle 6y agoIs it one or the other? I don't know anything about dark rooms where captains of industry who profit from fossil fuels orchestrate climate denialism. Sounds plausible. But in any event, such efforts are surely more difficult, if possible at all, with an informed citizenry.
- patall 6y agoThis kind of article has caused my father, who hasnt seen any snow this winter so far, to buy two new snow shovels for my grandmother (who has not seen any ground snow either and already has a dedicated snow shovel and a plower). When I asked 'why', he told me he read of a 'professional' snow shoveler who has multiple shovels for different types of snow. Meanwhile, in my area we are snow coverred for two weeks now (pretty standard around here) and pretty much everyone in the neighboorhood has a single shovel and a vanilla broom for the task. Yeah, we have seen the pictures from Madrid but come-on, you dont have to prepare like its gonna be 6 feet of snow tomorrow.
- fy20 6y agoIt's very interesting to contrast how different regions handle extreme (to that region) weather. I was raised in the UK where 10cm of snow pretty much means the country is shut down for a week (interestingly the same happens in 'extreme heat' of 30c). Where I live now there was 30cm of snow in the last couple of days and everyone is happy and playing outside, and tomorrow will be work as usual (well for covid). Most major roads have been swept, and those that aren't you just drive a little more careful. I guess there is a different level of preparedness (here you are required by law to have winter tires on your car), but still it seems like some places treat it as an end-of-the-world scenario as if it's impossible for humans to live like that.
- GordonS 6y agoSame here. I live in North East Scotland, but have spent a lot of time in Norway with work over the past 20 years (I'm actually closer to Norway than to London!). If there's so much as a sprinkling of snow over here, airports shut down and there are car crashes everywhere - meanwhile in Norway, it's business as usual. Also in Norway, if you have a car you must by law fit winter tyres during snow season.
- alistairSH 6y agoIt sounds crazy that relatively affluent nations/cities can't handle snow, but at least here in the DC area in the US, there are a few good reasons... 1. While we do get snow every winter, it tends to be mixed with icy rain, not the powdery stuff you get in more northern climates. What tends to happen is a bit of snow will fall overnight, then go into a melt/flash-freeze cycle as the temperature hovers around freezing. 2. Because it only snow (with any major accumulation) once or twice a season, there isn't a huge incentive to invest in more snow removal equipment. The state DOT handles major roads, but neighborhoods are largely left to clear their own snow. My last neighborhood had a contract with a construction company from out of the region for major snow - they'd drive up their trucks (with plows attached) and set up camp at the edge of the area for a few days, then go home. 3. DC is highly transient. Lots of drivers who simply don't have much experience driving in snow. 4. Public transit is terrible. So, everybody tries to go to work, and if their only car is a Corvette, so be it. And of course, they spin it into a ditch as soon as they try to get on the highway.
- boringg 6y agoMy sense is that there is so much pressure in the weather industry to get ad clicks/revenue that it seems that they make speculative events seem more likely and more dramatic. The amount of snow storms that are going to be heavy snow and dangerous condition have been overblown to the point that I don’t believe them until after the snow is down. I recognize the aspect of public safety element of calling storms though there is significant risk of crying wolf. I would never have considered myself someone who would fall into that category but the poor level of accuracy has forced me in that route. I’m suspect of this very dramatic prediction coming through. For the record I track weather for a multitude of sports are dependent on specific aspects so am close to the forecasting nature.
- simias 6y agoI have a different take on this, I suspect the problem is not necessarily self-serving ad clicks and revenue. I think there's pressure within the scientific community to come up with concrete and tangible threats linked to global warming. Otherwise all you have is stuff like "global temperatures are going to rise by n degrees over the course of the century" with n being a relatively low number for us humans used to local weather having much greater temperature swings. Sure, if we're educated we can understand why this is a huge problem, but for people who don't want to hear this (and may benefit in the short term from not hearing it) "the weather is going to be 5 degrees hotter in a century" doesn't sound all that bad. So in order to cut through some scientists look for more dramatic events that could come as a consequence of this. The problem of course is that the climate is wild and hard to predict over large timescales and sometimes they're wrong, and then the climate change deniers use that as evidence that they're lying.
- boringg 6y agoInteresting take. I would counter and say that climate over the long run is much easier to predict then in the short run. The localized effects, high variability and shorter term impacts are way more challenging. I would say that the impact to global weather phenomenons are might not be well understood though that seems more like local (large local like continent wide) impacts as opposed to general global weather trend.
- nickpp 6y agoReally looking forward to it. It's like it's still autumn around here.
- Dumblydorr 6y agoChecked this site out on mobile: tons of ads, pop up video ad, super ugly distracting ads too. Can anyone here suggest a way to adblock for chrome on android?
- wcoenen 6y agoThe Brave browser for Android is chrome-based and blocks ads by default. There is some controversy here on HN around Brave for other reasons, but I found that it works well for this purpose.
- mFixman 6y agoWhy not just use Firefox? It's far better than Chrome on mobile and it has extensions.
- c0nsumer 6y agoI just hope this means more snow in Southeast Michigan. Something like a few days of 2" per day, then a decent dusting every night, would be excellent. With many of us looking for nice outdoor activities during COVID times, thus far it's been an awful winter. We got a bit of snow, then some rain, and all the packed snow on trails and paths where people walk, hike, run, and bike have become sheets of ice. Snow is great for outdoor winter stuff, but ice is really hard to deal with.
- swsieber 6y agoHopefully it means more snow in Utah. It's been very dry this year, which means summer will be very dry and hot since there won't be much mountain melt run-off.
- whalesalad 6y agoHi neighbor. Hoping for the same thing too! Detroit is probably the worst place to live in all of Michigan if you are someone who enjoys nature and being outside. I’m in the Woodward corridor and can’t wait to get out west into the woods.
- c0nsumer 6y agoI'm, kinda thankfully, about 20 miles north of there so I'm close to a whole bunch of parks. It's still not ideal being the northern suburbs and all, but within 30 minutes drive I've got half a dozen nice green areas, and a few within 10.
- MikeKusold 6y agoKahtoola micro spikes are great for hiking on ice. Infinitely better than Yak Tracks on a trail.
- dangoor 6y agoI'm curious to see what happens, but so far this winter has been _mild_ to say the least. Current forecast calls for 40+ on Wednesday and Thursday which is very-not-January-like. A good snow would totally be fun, though. I just got new boots, too!
- tomlong 6y agoPutting aside how good the actual predictions are, I really enjoyed how this was written. It explained things in a manner that I could understand, and I don't have meteorological knowledge beyond what I could glean off a weather forecast.
- throwaway5752 6y agoPeople talking about how they are looking forward to warm weather: you are selfish ghouls. People are already dying from refugee and crop failure situations around the world.
- eplanit 6y agoPopulation reduction is the single most effective measure to reduce the root causes of global warming.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ageofwant 6y agoYes. There are other ways as well of course, but less people will be great for the world. Its basic stuff really http://www.vhemt.org/ http://www.vhemt.org/
- jeffbee 6y agoOnly if it falls on Americans, otherwise it’s just raising the average per capita CO2 output.
- Ma8ee 6y agoAnd other people, in particular brown people in far away places like the Middle East or Africa are just numbers, so we should definitely try to reduce those. Or you can remember that you and your family also are population, and your environmental impact per capita is an order of magnitude higher than most people’s in Africa, so you could really help with the reduction yourself.
- postalrat 6y agoWorse crops in some areas. Better in others.
- adrianN 6y agoInvest in Siberia and Canada now. Don't forget to also invest in weapons to keep millions of refugees out of the new bread baskets.
- h2odragon 6y ago20 screen pages to say it's expected to snow in January. /smartass Actually a decent explanation of what "polar vortex" means and a good illustration of how it causes winter weather. Without even "and this means the end of humanity tomorrow!" hype.