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Wednesday, August 7, 2019

Climate Change

     I saw a post on Red Ferret dated July 29 by a lady claiming climate change will soon make parts of the planet uninhabitable because it will be too hot to sweat. 
     In the article she explains that when humidity reaches a certain level, your sweat doesn’t evaporate. It doesn’t matter how much you drink because your body is heating up internally and you will only last a few hours. See THIS article.
     She warns that this issue is already starting to affect parts of the world and is a perfect example of why we need to start taking climate change seriously. 
     The author of the post did not cite any sources which got me curious...where is this information coming from? Not the medical part about sweating because that's true, but the part about parts of the planet becoming uninhabitable because of the heat.
     According to an October 27, 2012 article in the British online newspaper The Independent...hold on! How reliable is The Independent? According to Site Media Bias Fact Check, The Independent has a slight to moderate liberal bias. They often publish factual information that utilizes loaded words (wording that attempts to influence readers by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes) to favor liberal causes. Stories are generally trustworthy for information, but may require further investigation. Overall they rate The Independent left-center biased due to story selection that moderately favors the left and high for factual reporting based on proper sourcing of information and a clean fact check record. 
     OK, we will assume the story stating that some countries will be so hot by 2100 that humans won’t be able to go outside has some basis and is not just hype or scare tactics.
     According to the article, scientists are warning that by the end of the century heatwaves in some hotter climates could reach "feels like" temperatures of up to 170 degrees F. (77C). Note that's "feels like."
     The “feels like” temperature relies on environmental data including the ambient air temperature, relative humidity and wind speed to determine how weather conditions feel to bare skin. If you want to mess around with temperature and humidity to see what the feels like temperature is, the National Weather Service has a nifty calculator HERE. For example, a 110 degree F temperature at 60 percent humidity feels like 171 degrees.  
     Scientists have estimated that by the end of the century some parts of the Persian Gulf will suffer heatwaves that are too hot for humans to survive. By 2100, parts of Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and others will experience deadly combinations of temperature and humidity. 
     In July of 2016, unusually high temperatures were reached in Mitrabah, Kuwait (129.2 degrees F.) and the city of Basra in Iraq (128 degrees F.). Southern Morocco also saw temperatures of between 109 and 116 degrees.  During this time temperatures exceeded the seasonal averages by a large margin over a sustained period. The refugee population in the Middle East was hit very hard by the high temperatures.
     During the same time the central and eastern United States was affected by a widespread heatwave with temperatures in the range of 95-100 degrees with the feels like temperature reaching 110 to 115 degrees. 
     During that period record warmth was widespread across Alaska, western Canada, southern Mexico, northern South America, central Africa, Indonesia, northern and eastern Australia, North Indian Ocean, and across parts of north-central Russia, western Asia, central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, the southwestern Pacific Ocean, and the north-western Atlantic Ocean.  And a number of countries saw new temperature records: for instance, India saw a new national temperature record of 123.8 degrees in its state of Rajasthan.
     The World Meteorological Organization stated that the length, frequency and intensity of heatwaves would likely increase further during this century.
     A study in the Nature Climate Change Journal presented computer simulations of what will happen to global temperatures if carbon dioxide emissions continue at their current pace. It predicts a new breed of super-heatwaves affecting the Persian Gulf, the likes of which have not been seen on Earth while humans have been around. 
     According to the study, Persian Gulf countries could hit heat indexes between 165 and 170 degrees F. for at least six hours during the middle of the day. That’s so hot that the human body is incapable of producing sweat to get rid of heat, making it dangerous even for even healthy, fit people to stay outside for any length of time. 
     Those temperatures wouldn’t be expected every day, but they would bring mass fatalities. Also, those temperatures would not be everywhere in the Gulf region. Developed cities like Abu Dhabi and Dubai could still function thanks to widespread air conditioning. 
     Experts say the implications of this study are frightening because people will die. They add that such heat levels can be avoided...but only if the world limits future emissions. 
     At least those are the predictions. I remember back in the 1920s a scientist at a major US university wrote that space travel was impossible. Actually, I don't remember it, but I remember reading it in an old Popular Science magazine of the period. 

18 spectacularly wrong predictions made around the time of first Earth Day in 1970 

Misleading evidence that fooled scientists for decades 

     There are more, but you get the idea. Even so, one is reminded of the following prophecy in the Bible: Next, the fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and it was given power to scorch the people with fire. And the people were scorched by intense heat, and they cursed the name of God, who had authority over these plagues; yet they did not repent and give Him glory...Revelation 16:8-9  It would seem that scientists are only predicting what has already been prophesied in the Bible!

1 comment:

  1. Thanks very much for your thoughtful and informative post about our article. You're right that we did not have the space or time to verify the sources of the piece on the Red Ferret blog. We're not 'serious' enough to claim any expertise, but certainly recent temperature records would indicate that things are getting worse not better. As you rightly say, there a LOT of predictions which have never made it (where's my flying car?) but in the case of the climate emergency I think anyone will agree that the list of anomalous events predicted by the climate scientists have started to grown in number. I would gently suggest that the 'why' is a red herring at this point. Our decision as a species is whether we wish to risk things getting worse - much worse - or take action now to hopefully mitigate the worst? I'm not a gambling man, but I know my answer. I hope to try and help if I can. Anyway thanks again and all the best. Nigel Powell, founding editor, The Red Ferret.

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