Climate Changes Suck. Share your experiences

[XSarellaX]

Hey everyone! I'm new to general chatter, so maybe this subject has been brought up before, so forgive me if that is the case :)

Let me contextualize things. I'm Brazilian, and Brazil is facing the biggest drought in recorded history since last year. It is raining this month, but not nearly enough to make up for December and January, or for last year.

To make matters worse, our country has always been hot, but it's getting even hotter. In the place where I live (Southeast), I was used to temperatures below 35ºC, and even that occured in specially hot days. This year, we had two weeks of temperatures ranging from 35ºC to 40ºC. Every day. I'm only in my early 20's, but I don't think this has ever happened before.

I have no proof this is strictly due to global warming, but two years with precipitation below average seem really suspicious to me.

So far, my only direct experience with climate change was not getting to wear my pretty winter clothes as much as I wanted to, because we are only getting one or two really cold weeks a year. I think it's only now starting to sink in how much our lives can change due to all of these environmental issues....

[AverageGuy]

To make matters worse, our country has always been hot, but it's getting even hotter. In the place where I live (Southeast), I was used to temperatures below 35ºC, and even that occured in specially hot days. This year, we had two weeks of temperatures ranging from 35ºC to 40ºC. Every day.

You're saying a 5 degree Celsius change in what range of time?

[Loge]

Isn't that drought more the result of deforestation? Anyways, while global warming certainly doesn't help, two unusually warm summers in a row isn't that extraordinary a thing. I remember a series of three unusually hard winters in a row back in the 80s...

And big cities create their own local climate. I wouldn't be surprised if the center of a city like Sao Paulo or Rio is a few degrees warmer in summer than the suburbs:

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

[RhaenysBee]

Not sure how much this has to do with global warming, ozone layer issues and CO2 emission, but we are definitely experiencing weather phenomena that were kind of unheard of for the first fifteen years of my life.

For the past three years we haven't had proper summer or winter. The temperature gets stuck between 1-5 degrees in winter and 24-28 in summer. There was close to no snow this and the previous winter (and even that little snow there was only reached the northern corner of the otherwise tiny country). In queer contrast three years ago we had a snowstorm in mid March and 1-2 degrees in the beginning of April. Topped by 38-40 degree heat in July and August. The last time I remember having proper continental climate was as I said about 6-7 years ago. Since then either extreme cold and heat exchange each other in the span of two months or we experience fall/spring weather roughly all year around.

[Masonity]

While I'm not denying climate change, or even that a large amount of it is man made, 2 years weather can't be pinned on it. Climate change affects long term trends, short tern anomalies are totally natural.

[The Mance]

While I'm not denying climate change, or even that a large amount of it is man made, 2 years weather can't be pinned on it. Climate change affects long term trends, short tern anomalies are totally natural.

Part of that long term trend, though, will be an increase in the frequency and extremity of short term anomalies.

[sj4iy]

Climate ≠ weather.

[Ser Arthur Hightower]

My part of England hasn't had any snow for the last 2 or 3 years now, rather worrying.

Though really we shouldn't use anecdotes to talk about global warming, after all the last couple of winters in the U.S. have been rather severe, someone who doesn't understand how scientific data works (either wilfully or otherwise) could conclude from that information that the Earth is getting colder.

[Nymeria10k]

The weather has changed a fair bit where I live in the UK, both summer and winter.

We used to get a fair bit of snow when I was a kid (or so my mother tells me XD) I'm almost 21 now so this was back in the late 90s/early 2000s. Then it pretty much stopped snowing, never snowing more than once or twice and getting maybe like 1cm each time except for 2010/2011 (I think) where we got maybe like a foot of snow. The areas around me usually get a bit more snow each year but here there is very little.

In terms of summer, that's changed a lot too. We used to have proper summers until about 2007 where I live, and then it started raining every summer. July and August were usually always wet, with May and June being the hottest months (I remember this because I was always in school/college during the hot days). But the last two years it has barely rained in the summer at all, which is great because I love summer. I remember this cus of Ramadan XD which falls right in the middle of summer now. The year before, it was sunny every single day during Ramadan and I don't think it rained at all. The hot weather began maybe two or three days before? It was early July, if I recall correctly, and lasted right until the end of September. Last year we had a few rain days in between and the summer weather lasted til sometime in September but we've had real summers the last two years and I love it.

Winter is kind of a mixture of wet and dry round here, it rained a fair bit in December/January but has been mostly dry recently with some sunny days. It actually feels like we have proper seasons here now xD minus the snow.

...and as I type, it starts raining heavily. Joy.

[Jo498]

Not sure how much this has to do with global warming, ozone layer issues and CO2 emission, but we are definitely experiencing weather phenomena that were kind of unheard of for the first fifteen years of my life.

For the past three years we haven't had proper summer or winter. The temperature gets stuck between 1-5 degrees in winter and 24-28 in summer. There was close to no snow this and the previous winter (and even that little snow there was only reached the northern corner of the otherwise tiny country).

Where do you live?

Anecdotal evidence is always problematic, but in Germany the summers have become hotter in the last 20 years or so, I believe. Sure, there is always the odd summer rather rainy, but it feels like every three summers or so one gets really strong heatwaves with temperatures around/above 30° Celsius and often also thunderstorms and floodings. I lived in an apartment at the top floor under the roof 2006-2009 and every summer there were several weeks when it was almost too hot to bear, in 06 already in early June.

The winters were rather mild most of the 90s and early 2000s, so when we had two real winters in 09/10 and 10/11 people sometimes panicked because the infrastructure was lacking provision for real winters. But I think those two winters would not have been considered extraordinary in the 70s/80s when I was a little kid.

Still, unless one lives close to certain rivers (where flooding seems to have become worse in the last two decades) the climate in Germany is still rather mild and non-extreme compared to most other places, so I doubt we will suffer too much directly from climate change.

[baxus]

Just this morning I was thinking about how we used to have snow as early as mid-November and as late as early April when I was a kid and now we're lucky to have some around New Year until mid-to-late February.

We don't have anywhere near as much snow as we used to when I was in pre-school and early grades of elementary school (20-ish years ago).

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Individual weather events, extreme weather events too, are not proof of or a refutation of climate change. I thought everyone understood this. As sj4iy states above weather is not climate.

[TrueMetis]

Individual weather events, extreme weather events too, are not proof of or a refutation of climate change. I thought everyone understood this. As sj4iy states above weather is not climate.

No, but they may be linked. If as the anecdotes suggest places have been getting less snow, and having hotter summer over the past 20 or so years there's a fair chance that's a result of climate change.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

TM,

But, given that these are anicdotes, we can't know we can only assume. What point is served by such assumptions?

[Fragile Bird]

If you don't like the anecdotes, look at the numbers. This decade has been the hottest one on record, and it's the continuation of a trend.

As for anecdotes, 50 years ago my mom was always pleased to see roses blooming on her favourite rosebush by her birthday, June 17. For many years now, the rosebushes not only have been blooming far earlier, they have in fact faded and died by June 17, and are budding for a second go-round of blooms. And that's just in my lifetime.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

FB,

No argument. The numbers show that. The anicdotes do not. That's my only point.

[TrueMetis]

TM,

But, given that these are anicdotes, we can't know we can only assume. What point is served by such assumptions?

We then have a hypothesis to test, and finding real numbers isn't all the hard.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

TM,

Yes. I do not argue that climate change is occuring. It is. I state that weather anicdotes do not offer proof for or against climate change.

[Filippa Eilhart]

anEcdotes, Scott. Anecdotes.

[Pebble thats Stubby]

I may not agree with Scott, But I will defend his right for the freedom of spelling words in his unique way according to his beliefs.

Anecdotes can offer an indication that something may be happening and gives us the basis to form a hypothesis to test with hard data.