This month’s open thread on climate topics.
Reader Interactions
3 Responses to "Unforced variations: Aug 2024"
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UAH has posted its TLT July anomaly as +0.85ºC, up on June’s +0.80ºC. This is also up on July 2023’s +0.64ºC, making UAH’s July 2024 TLT anomaly the hottest July on record.
Some SAT records may also manage to show July 2024 as ‘hottest on record’ but so far the re-analyses (CDAS and soon ERA5) are/will-be showing July with a higher anomaly than June’s but below July 2023.
[Response: This is a little interesting. We know that MSU TLT has a larger fingerprint from El Niño than the surface records (cf. 1998 etc.), and so this is evidence that the spikes seen in the surface records last summer/fall were not (wholly) driven by the emerging El Niño… – gavin]
1) Re recent arguments that we can feed 10 billion people and hence can be indifferent to population growth, a recent article in Nature notes how large amounts of greenhouse gases are produced by the production of the synthetic fertilizers that modern agriculture uses in massive amounts. I.e., the creation of agriculture’s inputs are a problem, not just agriculture’s own emissions.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-18773-w
2) Plus the last time I checked those massive farming machines don’t run on sunlight.
3) The US Midwest feeds much of the world — but the huge Ogallala Aquifer used for irrigation is being depleted — which will put us back into the Dust Bowl.
4) Good intentions are no substitute for knowing how the chainsaw works.
Tom Fuller, in last month’s UV thread:
“That 50% seems a bit high. Only 32% of American voters are registered Republican. Not all Republicans are MAGA-heads.
Still far too many, of course.”
Well, Tom, at least we know you’re not a MAGA-head, although I presume we’ve all figured that out by now, despite your penchant for picking fights. But seriously: it looks to me like Nigel’s “50%” was his way of saying “about half”. He’s right, as today’s poll results all show Harris has wiped out the lead Trump held as late as last week (LMGTFY: https://www.google.com/search?q=harris+trump+poll&tbs=qdr:w). Bloomberg.com (paywalled) calls it a “dead heat”. I, for one, am taking heart from the news!
And while not all registered Republican voters may be MAGA-heads, any of them who don’t vote for Harris will effectively be voting for Trump nevertheless. That’s a problem only because there are far too many people, indeed about half of the voters, who will vote for him affirmatively, whether or not they’re registered Republicans or call themselves MAGA-heads!
You know how our system works, Tom. Most of our elections are decided on slim margins, easily reversed in the next cycle. What still puzzles me, is how Americans let ourselves be divided so neatly down the middle. It seems comparable to the blue and green factions at the Byzantine chariot races – a marketing strategy that resulted in deadly confrontations (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/blue-versus-green-rocking-the-byzantine-empire-113325928)!