General / Off-Topic Europe climate shift ?

[Remus]

Disclaimer

This is not a political thread, I know of some posters how will undoubtedly try to make it one !
I don't care if you think that climate change is a hoax or not. In this thread the topic will be about the possible effects of a rise of temperature on the weather on the long term over Europe.
If someone starts trying to derail the thread to make it political I will report him, and will ask for the thread to be closed.
Thank you for your comprehension.

It does seem as it is getting warmer lately isn't it ?

At least that is my personal feeling.

For the last 5 years the overall temperature rise has set record after record for maximum temperature reached as well as the number of warm days.

Last winter it felt as we had almost no winter at all. Only 2 cold weeks in February, with only 3 days in last year November.

I'm not making this up, those are my personal observations.

The climate is getting warmer, and with the rise of temperatures come some unwanted secondary effects.

This year Sweden has lived its hottest month of may with temperatures reaching 5 degrees Celsius above the average temperatures for that month, the snow is melting faster than usual.

And because of this, down here in France we have had a particularly crazy weather, with a ridiculous amount of thunderstorms for the month of may. As well as the heavy rains that come with it !

In a little town called Morlaix, last Sunday it rained in half an hour the amount of water they usually get in five months !

And a quick look at weather forecasts shows that it ain't over yet !

Yet, as extraordinary as the weather seems to be over here, it does recall me of some countries that seem to be living under this conditions daily. The thing is, those countries are situated over the tropics. Which gave the name to the kind of climate that they are having over there.

Tropical climate.

And thus a question arose.

If our climate continues to follow the same pattern, high temperatures and heavy rains. Does that means that the climate over Europe in general is slowly but steadily shifting from an Oceanic/ Mediterranean climate, to a subtropical/tropical one ?

What are your thoughts on the matter ?

Should I start to invest in coconut palms or banana trees ? [noob]

 

[Ian Skippy]

I would be careful not to confuse small-term local trends with actual climate change.

 

[Chris Simon]

I would be careful not to confuse small-term local trends with actual climate change.

My friend is a commercial airline pilot and he says he sees a very distictive trend in thunderstorms and turbulence getting much fiercer and larger, and also more often even in months that never saw local thunderstorms before. Especially in last 10-15 years.

 

[Remus]

I would be careful not to confuse small-term local trends with actual climate change.

You are right !

If this had been just a local and limited thing I wouldn't have bothered raising the question.

Thing is, last year we had the same, less obvious maybe. And so was the year before that, and the one before that. To the point that it seems to not be punctual anymore, but following a pattern.

But again, weather can be so unpredictable, so lets just assume, for the sake of argument, and allow me to refrase my question.

In theory, if our climate keeps following the same trend, could Europe start feeling a "tropical" climate in the long run ?

 

[lysan]

We're all doomed, run to the forest!!!! or the hills anything just ruuuuunnnn!!!

 

[hems303]

My "observation" fwiw:

30 years ago we could not grow any strain of palm trees in the English Midlands, for the last five or so years they are popping up all over...and surviving the "winters" that now prevail.

o7

 

[Chris Simon]

We're all doomed, run to the forest!!!! or the hills anything just ruuuuunnnn!!!

[video=youtube;3ZlDZPYzfm4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZlDZPYzfm4[/video]

 

[ZeroAi]

Fact: We've been digging up fossil fuels and burning them for many long years.

That obviously can't be good.

We the people of Earth need to get our governments to spend a little less on discretionary things like guns, tanks, parks, lavish government benefits and outrageous government salaries, and use those savings to encourage grass roots efforts to develop clean nearly free energy ;-)

With nearly free energy we could start sequestering CO2 for nearly no cost - keeping it handy if another ice age threatens us

It would also greatly help in reducing hunger and poverty because a large part of the cost of making anything is the power required to make it.

But with nearly free energy clean water and locally grown food become much easier to provide.

Sooo - free energy solves nearly everything!

Free energy FTW!

 

[Ian Skippy]

We the people of Earth need to get our governments to spend a little less on discretionary things like guns, tanks, parks, lavish government benefits and outrageous government salaries, and use those savings to encourage grass roots efforts to develop clean nearly free energy ;-)

Fixed it for ya. Now, what am I gonna do with my mandatory 35 days paid leave every year?

 

[Chris Simon]

Fact: We've been digging up fossil fuels and burning them for many long years.

That obviously can't be good.

We the people of Earth need to get our governments to spend a little less on discretionary things like guns, tanks, parks, lavish government benefits and outrageous government salaries, and use those savings to encourage grass roots efforts to develop clean nearly free energy ;-)

With nearly free energy we could start sequestering CO2 for nearly no cost - keeping it handy if another ice age threatens us

It would also greatly help in reducing hunger and poverty because a large part of the cost of making anything is the power required to make it.

But with nearly free energy clean water and locally grown food become much easier to provide.

Sooo - free energy solves nearly everything!

Free energy FTW!

The problem with that is that
1) NOTHING is free
2) ergo the free energy isn't free
3) It's not energy but entropy
4) it's not even about CO2

And here are several problems. There are two ways of getting energy. We can dig it from the ground and burn it. Different materials have different energy density so using uranium is much more effective than, let's say, coal. But the principle doesn't change - we use low entropy resources and turn them into high entropy+energy. Therefore we're heating up Earth.
And the so-called "free energy"? All comes from the sun. Be it crops out of which we make fuel (or eat it), direct sunlight (solar panels), wind (the weather is "fueled" by sun, also!), etc. All this is low entropy in the form of electromagnetic radiation that comes to Earth. And Earth, to be in balance, has to radiate just as much energy as it receives. But we trap this low entropy through windmills, solar panels, heated water, plants,... and turn it into high entropy+energy (again). Therefore we're heating up Earth.

Thermodynamics can't be really fooled. As long as our technology works on turning low entropy energy into work, we will heat up. Raising CO2 makes radiating even harder, but it's not the inherent cause. We can definitely USE the CO2 (Or stop producing it #nobreathingjune), but that is only shifting the problem, not solving it.

 

[lysan]

Fact: We've been digging up fossil fuels and burning them for many long years.

That obviously can't be good.

We the people of Earth need to get our governments to spend a little less on discretionary things like guns, tanks, parks, lavish government benefits and outrageous government salaries, and use those savings to encourage grass roots efforts to develop clean nearly free energy ;-)

With nearly free energy we could start sequestering CO2 for nearly no cost - keeping it handy if another ice age threatens us

It would also greatly help in reducing hunger and poverty because a large part of the cost of making anything is the power required to make it.

But with nearly free energy clean water and locally grown food become much easier to provide.

Sooo - free energy solves nearly everything!

Free energy FTW!

Guns, one can’t have to many if those, but the rest I agree with.

 

[khaos526]

Well considering the Earth's mean temp is actually warmer than it is today and that we still haven't gotten out of the last Ice Age in terms of temperatures (as Earth generally has been a lot warmer at the peaks than we have even seen yet), it just means it's not that climate change is happening, the question should be why has it been stalled and not reached the levels we should be at right now if comparing to the Ice Age trends.

Either way, it will happen, it always does and everything will either adapt or go extinct for the next generation of species to evolve or die out, same as it's always done.

As for recently, it's just been in waves. Yes hotter than the previous few years, but that's not a constant and we could easily see it dip back down in the new few years as well as seems to occur.

Just be glad you didn't live back in the day where the CO2 levels on Earth were far more extreme than we have ever seen as humans have existed. But you can bet some critters found a way to live in that environment. After all there are shrimp like species that thrive in volcanic vents that they've discovered at temperatures that scientists had never though could be possible.

So looks like for Earth, it's finally starting to catch up and get back up to the normal levels it should be at and out of this last Ice Age once and for all.

Of course humans will probably be extinct in the next 10,000 years anyways, so it's not like we'll ever see that optimum temperature anyways...

 

[Ian Skippy]

The problem with that is that
1) NOTHING is free
2) ergo the free energy isn't free
3) It's not energy but entropy
4) it's not even about CO2

And here are several problems. There are two ways of getting energy. We can dig it from the ground and burn it. Different materials have different energy density so using uranium is much more effective than, let's say, coal. But the principle doesn't change - we use low entropy resources and turn them into high entropy+energy. Therefore we're heating up Earth.
And the so-called "free energy"? All comes from the sun. Be it crops out of which we make fuel (or eat it), direct sunlight (solar panels), wind (the weather is "fueled" by sun, also!), etc. All this is low entropy in the form of electromagnetic radiation that comes to Earth. And Earth, to be in balance, has to radiate just as much energy as it receives. But we trap this low entropy through windmills, solar panels, heated water, plants,... and turn it into high entropy+energy (again). Therefore we're heating up Earth.

Thermodynamics can't be really fooled. As long as our technology works on turning low entropy energy into work, we will heat up. Raising CO2 makes radiating even harder, but it's not the inherent cause. We can definitely USE the CO2 (Or stop producing it #nobreathingjune), but that is only shifting the problem, not solving it.

Sure, but if the effectiveness becomes high enough the point becomes mostly academic.

 

[Chris Simon]

Sure, but if the effectiveness becomes high enough the point becomes mostly academic.

Well, yeah. Some of our machines can be very effective. But by and large, we are running below 50% and that's me being optimistic.
We would have to turn the whole Earth into Utopia ran on fusion and 90%+ solar energy harvesting to be able to revert the changes.

And although I AM an optimist deep down I think it will be much easier to simply go a screw up a different planet for a while than trying to achieve THAT.