this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2023

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166

What countries will heat up the most in a 2°-warmer world: the need for air conditioning will skyrocket, with Africa and Europe hit hardest. (arstechnica.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 57 points 1 year ago (4 children)

The Gulf Stream, which currently keeps Europe warmer than it should be, could be disrupted by sudden dumping of cold fresh water from Greenland. As I understand it, the fresh water is lighter than salt water and will essentially disrupt the Gulf Stream. Previously, It was believed that if the Gulf Stream were disrupted, Europe would plunge back into the temperatures that you see at the same latitudes in North America. The equivalent latitude for Belgium would be Winnipeg, which has exceptionally cold winters.

Now, you would think perhaps this would then balance out. The problem is that the Gulf Stream dissipates heat from the equator into the northern latitudes. Heat is what drives hurricanes. With nothing dissipating heat from the equator, you have an enormous, essentially battery, to power more frequent and larger hurricanes. Now before you start saying goodbye to Florida, consider that hurricanes ride along on the Gulf Stream. With it disrupted, where are those hurricanes going to go?

This is why weather modeling is so difficult. There are way too many variables to have to account for. Go ahead, try to make a prediction for more than two-three weeks.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

There is no case/risk of the gulf stream collapsing it's a slowdown that is the main concern. Issue would be charge in percipitation pattern not a mini Ice age formation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_Stream#Gulf_Stream_Collapse

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I wouldn't compare Belgium sans Gulfstream to Winnipeg. Center of a continent vs by an ocean makes a big difference no matter the latitude. I think it would be much more fair to compare it to someplace like St. John's. It will still be colder but not to the same extent.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is terrifying

[–] [email protected] -5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Is it? Why? Houses in Europe are still built to withstand heavy winters

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

If they can withstand heavy winters they can also withstand heavy summers. Insulation is awesome that way. I've kept my well-insulated house cool by shutting the triple glazed windows and the blinds during the day and opening everything at night. And that wasn't just one day, it was hot (35-37C) for weeks. Although we were lucky that it wasn't hot at night, like it was in Australia.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah but the food supply may not.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Where does this idea come from? European agriculture is much more resilient to cold than it is to heat, as it has historically developed to withstand harsh winters.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Great, climate wars

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Us DOD has drawn up plans for what to do in the next probable wars based upon various causes. One of those causes is lack of water.

[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 year ago (1 children)

One of the more threatening aspects of climate change is its potential to unleash feedbacks, or situations where warming induces changes that drive even more warming. Most of those are natural, such as a warmer ocean being able to hold less carbon dioxide, resulting in even more of the greenhouse gas in the atmosphere.

But at least one potential feedback has a very human element: air conditioning.

A lot of the carbon dioxide we emit comes from the production of electricity. The heat those emissions generate causes people to run air conditioning more often, which drives more electricity use, which drives further emissions. It's a feedback that will remain a threat until we manage to green the electrical grid.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

AC is possibly the only application that can be run by solar power alone though.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I’m pretty sure it’s already too late. They had their chance to change, but they chose instead to focus their time, money, and resources on campaigns to program people that it wasn’t happening.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Was it ever not too late? We still haven't arrived a a point where we aren't making things worse. I just don't think even if the countries that could have implemented positive changes we would have just delayed the inevitable.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Europe may have to accept air conditioning as a necessity. At the moment even in southern Europe it isn't typically considered one. Sometimes it is even viewed with some hostility.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We can cool spaces using evaporation and not HVAC. But that takes water, why aren't the old methods of basic thermal dynamics not in play? What about geothermal cooling/heating? So many lower energy cost alternatives to get the temps down in your domicile

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

In a desert, water works great. If water is around, not so much.

And water bulges around the equator - water tables are close to the surface and humidity is high in the places that need it most.

Radiative cooling is an option, but it's not exactly amazing on small scales... It can work, passively even, but it'd need large scales to really make a difference. But it also largely sends that heat into space, which is great

At the end of the day, we're not currently equipped to do anything but active cooling at scale. Changing that would be a great idea... It's generally not very practical on an individual level though