This weather is awful!! 2008-2021

[W2R]

Holy Mackerel!

I just looked, and the forecast high for tomorrow (June 28, 2019) in Avignon is 109F (43C). This is bad. I am afraid there will be fatalities, particularly among the elders.


PS. In Rome, it was said that zoo animals were fed popsicles to help them cool down.

According to wunderground dot com, that is the prediction for tomorrow, but today (6/27/2009) the high in Avignon was 112F! I hope that is in error. If not, then I imagine there will be fatalities for sure.

 

[NW-Bound]

I guess 112F may be possible in some spots due to microclimate. I have not found an official number that high for Avignon for today, June 27, 2019.

But, but, but I saw the forecast for tomorrow (6/28/2019) for Nimes. It's 45C or 113F.

Three fatalities have been reported in France already. All 3 cases involved people at the beach. One 70-year old man suffered cardiac arrest when he entered the water and experienced a thermal shock. Officials are now advising people to enter the water slowly, and not jump in.

 

[W2R]

I guess 112F may be possible in some spots due to microclimate. I have not found an official number that high for Avignon for today, June 27, 2019.

But, but, but I saw the forecast for tomorrow (6/28/2019) for Nimes. It's 45C or 113F.

Three fatalities have been reported in France already. All 3 cases involved people at the beach. One 70-year old man suffered cardiac arrest when he entered the water and experienced a thermal shock. Officials are now advising people to enter the water slowly, and not jump in.

That makes sense.

I remember a few years ago, when we had some unusually hot weather, the city (or some organization?) was giving out free electric fans to the elderly poor because the elderly are more vulnerable during heat waves.

Or, if one didn't qualify, the Dollar Store was selling electric fans for $1 at that time.

 

[aja8888]

Raining here again today. Mostly thunderstorms.

A few days ago we had 3" rain overnight starting at 4:00 AM and ending a few hours later. Looks like we are averaging 3 - 4" of rain per week.

 

[Teacher Terry]

Electricity is too expensive in Poland.

 

[NW-Bound]

Actually, electricity cost is not too bad in Poland at $0.15/kWh in 2017 compared to Germany at $0.30/kWh, yet Germans do not make twice as much as the Polish.

France is $0.17/kWh, and Great Britain is $0.18/kWh, both in 2017.

See: https://1-stromvergleich.com/electricity-prices-europe/

PS. Electric fans are sold out in France. Of more than 1 dozen Airbnb's I have stayed in Europe, only 1 or 2 had a fan.

 

[Teacher Terry]

They retired and can’t afford it. Like most poles they have no dryer or dishwasher either for the same reason.

 

[MRG]

It's the warmest day of the year, hit 83°. It's starting to cool down a little, supposed to get in the 40°s overnight.

We walked down to the junction of two canyons in SJNF and the breeze was delightfully cool. One of them runs behind our house and makes it a little cooler than the thermometer says. Maybe tomorrow we'll test the AC.

 

[NW-Bound]

They retired and can’t afford it. Like most poles they have no dryer or dishwasher either for the same reason.

Not just Poland, but much of Europe does not have air conditioning. As explained earlier, it is because they did not need it, but do now. I think people are finally realizing that air conditioning is a matter for survival in this global warming trend.

Being in southern latitudes, the Greeks saw the hand writing on the wall before other Europeans, and they scrimped on other things to have AC, despite being a poorer country than other Western Europeans.

In Greece, an estimated 99 percent of households now have air-conditioning, surpassing even America's 87 percent. Switzerland's energy consumption for air conditioning has doubled in the last 10 years and accounts for all the power generated by one of that country's five nuclear reactors...

... But, but, but I saw the forecast for tomorrow (6/28/2019) for Nimes. It's 45C or 113F...

I just checked. Temperature in Nimes hit 112F today, cooling down to 111F now at 5PM.

The historical high average should be only 84F. Oh, these poor people!

 

[Teacher Terry]

For years when we lived in Wisconsin no one had A/C. Most do now.

 

[Bestwifeever]

We got an energy alert from ComEd that we can get a credit for reducing electric consumption today between 1 and 6 pm, the peak hours. First one we received this year. Will be turning the air off (which we turned on as soon as we received alert to precool the house). I do wonder how much AC contributes to climate change.

 

[NW-Bound]

... I do wonder how much AC contributes to climate change.

I do not have a number, but suspect that all the energy to run AC pales besides the energy from burning gasoline in cars.

Vroom, vroom... A gallon of gasoline is 33.70 kWh. That is enough to run a 1.5-ton AC at full blast, uninterrupted for 24 hours.

 

[NW-Bound]

Here we go. France got a new record high.

... France hit its all-time heat record Friday: 45.9 C (114.6 F) in the small southern town of Gallargues-le-Montueux...

The above small town is 15 miles southwest of Nimes.

 

[RAE]

Here we go. France got a new record high.

The above small town is 15 miles southwest of Nimes.

Hard to argue that the climate is not changing when you see stuff like this happening (and not just this one event, but the trend over the last decade or two). I feel for the elderly and anyone else that has trouble coping with this kind of excessive heat.

 

[ERD50]

Hard to argue that the climate is not changing when you see stuff like this happening (and not just this one event, but the trend over the last decade or two). I feel for the elderly and anyone else that has trouble coping with this kind of excessive heat.

I won't argue about whether the climate is changing or not, but I don't think that "seeing stuff like this happening" is meaningful.

Wikipedia has an entry for the 40 hottest temperatures recorded in France:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extreme_temperatures_in_France


As expected, we see heat records clustered, particular years are hotter. There was a cluster in 1923, and 1947.

But when we "see stuff like this", it could be due to all sorts of things. For example, were ALL those towns recording temperatures since 1904 (the first entry)? Seems odd to me that there are very few repeats in the list. If a particular town set a record in 1923, why has it never appeared on the list again? Maybe because many more towns are now reporting? I don't know. But I'm pretty sure that the hottest temperatures recorded in the US would all be clustered at a very few sites (Death Valley and ?? ).

And "seeing stuff like this happening" might be all about "seeing it". I'd be willing to bet that few Americans were aware of a heat wave in France in 1923.

And there is also the urban heating effect, which raises temperatures in cities regardless of any global trends.


I'd be interested in seeing data from areas away from cities that have had reliable, consistent temperature measurements since 1904, to see how those look. That still doesn't exactly tell us about global temperatures, but it would provide some perspective for France.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_heat_island

Here it is for Tokyo and surrounding areas:

By Cory, CC BY 2.1 jp, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2112738

Tokyo went form the middle of the pack, to the leader consistently and by quite a margin. Though there is still an upward trend, especially since ~ the 90's. But also a sharp downward trend from the 20's to the 40's, and another from the 60's ~ 70's. Did we reduce our carbon footprint in those decades? I don't think so.

It's complicated.

-ERD50

 

[RAE]

I'd be interested in seeing data from areas away from cities that have had reliable, consistent temperature measurements since 1904, to see how those look. That still doesn't exactly tell us about global temperatures, but it would provide some perspective for France.
-ERD50

This may not be exactly the data you were looking for, but it does provide some information on temp trends in France over the last century. The period of time from 1959 to 2009 shows the most marked warming trend (not sure if this data set only goes through 2009 or not, but I'm guessing that is the case).

The global warming recorded in mainland France during the 20th century is about 30 % greater than the average warming throughout the globe. The average annual temperature has risen by 0.95 °C in mainland France, compared to 0.74 °C globally. These values are even higher for only the second half of the 20th century: increase of 1.1 to 1.5 °C over the period 1950-2000 (2), or 1.5 °C over the period 1959-2009 (12).
Over the period 1960-2009 there is a spatially consistent warming trend in summer over France and a clear trend to fewer cool nights and more warm nights, and also to fewer cool days and more hot days. The warming trend for summer is 0.35 °C per decade (5th to 95th percentile of slopes: 0.24 to 0.48 °C per decade) and for winter 0.20 °C per decade (5th to 95th percentile of slopes: -0.02 to 0.40 °C per decade) (1).

https://www.climatechangepost.com/france/climate-change/

 

[ls99]

Another perspective on climate change. Yes! It has been changing ever since there was climate. No denial possible.


Source: The big picture: 65 million years of temperature swings « JoNova

5 million years of cooling

The last five million years of climate change is shown in the next graph based on work by Lisiecki and Raymo in 2005 [2] . It shows our planet has a dynamic temperature history, and over the last three million years, we have had a continuous series of ice ages (now about 90,000 years each) and interglacial warm periods (about 10,000 years each). There are 13 (count ‘em) ice ages on a 100,000 year cycle (from 1.25 million years ago to the present, and 33 ice ages on a 41,000 year cycle (between 2.6 million and 1.25 million years ago). Since Earth is on a multi-million-year cooling trend, we are currently lucky to be living during an interglacial warm period, but we are at the end of our normal 10,000 year warm interglacial period.​

65 million years of global temperatures

Image created by Robert A. Rohde / Global Warming Art​

The last 10 millenia

 

[RAE]

Another perspective on climate change. Yes! It has been changing ever since there was climate. No denial possible.

Yes, of course. It is the rate of change this time that is different. Here is a graph that depicts changes in atmospheric CO2 over time:

 

[ls99]

Pretty color picture.
Regardless of the arguments in the article, the high concentrations of CO2 are followed by consistent long term declines,as are the temperatures. Interpretations of data can be be made any which way. In another thousand years the correct answer will be revealed.
Edit add: My SWAG is that the very high CO2 level will be followed by very rapid cooling and CO2 drop. In addition sea levels are currently at high, when all is done perhaps a buggy ride from Manhatten to Staten Island will be common.


The rest of the graph:
https://www.johnenglander.net/sea-l...ears-temp-co2-and-sea-level-what-coincidence/

 

[DeborahB]

Another perspective on climate change. Yes! It has been changing ever since there was climate. No denial possible.


Source: The big picture: 65 million years of temperature swings « JoNova

5 million years of cooling

The last five million years of climate change is shown in the next graph based on work by Lisiecki and Raymo in 2005 [2] . It shows our planet has a dynamic temperature history, and over the last three million years, we have had a continuous series of ice ages (now about 90,000 years each) and interglacial warm periods (about 10,000 years each). There are 13 (count ‘em) ice ages on a 100,000 year cycle (from 1.25 million years ago to the present, and 33 ice ages on a 41,000 year cycle (between 2.6 million and 1.25 million years ago). Since Earth is on a multi-million-year cooling trend, we are currently lucky to be living during an interglacial warm period, but we are at the end of our normal 10,000 year warm interglacial period.​

65 million years of global temperatures

Image created by Robert A. Rohde / Global Warming Art​

The last 10 millenia

This is a fascinating read. Thanks for posting it. I’m glad I have central a/c at the moment.

 

[MichaelB]

Please, lets not ruin this thread by arguing about climate change. That debate belongs in a different thread. This is about daily weather around the E-R community ..

 

[ls99]

OK, returning to normal programming.


At my camp yesterday and today mid 80s F, humid. called for shorts, flip flops and no T shirt. No wind, my windmill just served as target for a misguided robin. No AC at the camp, would be extravgant to try run one on solar power. On the way home this morning got some sprinkles, not enough to wash th mud of the truck.

 

[NW-Bound]

Please, lets not ruin this thread by arguing about climate change. That debate belongs in a different thread. This is about daily weather around the E-R community ..

+1

But, but, but I just followed the link to the site by John Englander, and read down to his correspondence with commenters. Very educational. Explains a lot of things for me about issues that appear to be conflicting, but are not.

For now, I am glad I have a solar-powered AC that, while it cannot replace the central 5-ton AC, has been doing a pretty good job of keeping 1/2 of the home very comfortable at 77F, while the outside is 112F like today.

Even if there's brownout due to excessive power demand, I will not expire due to heatstroke. And this off-grid system has been reducing my power demand from the grid to save me some money, although it will take 10 years or more to pay off.

 

[NW-Bound]

And as I said earlier elsewhere, it is a lot easier to use solar power to run AC to keep cool in the summer.

Now, in the winter, when and where the sun does not shine, how do you keep warm without something to burn?

So, living in the Southwest is not bad as people may think. And here even in the winter, I will get some solar power. Would not need much power anyway, as it rarely drops to freezing in the low desert.

 

[MRG]

And as I said earlier elsewhere, it is a lot easier to use solar power to run AC to keep cool in the summer.

Now, in the winter, when and where the sun does not shine, how do you keep warm without something to burn?

So, living in the Southwest is not bad as people may think. And even here in the winter, I will get some solar power. Would not need much power anyway, as it rarely drops to freezing in the low desert.

Not bad at 112° like? Huh? Enjoy.

We are warm again today at 83°. Next week it's going to cool off to something more reasonable. When, if it hits 90° I plan to turn on the AC for a test.