We need to talk about the weather and the potential for extreme heat - RED WARNING issued

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

So we need to talk weather and climate.

You might have seen some lurid headlines about extreme temperatures in 10 days time. These are based on some of the ensemble members of the GFS model runs.

GFS is one weather model. It runs 4 times a day. Each run consists of several parallel versions running with slightly different starting conditions (perturbations).

For several days now some of these have been showing widespread temperatures of 41C. We've never seen temperatures modelled above 40C for the UK before. The UK record for the actual temperature is 38.7c .

A big big however though! Most of the ensemble members are showing temperatures rather lower than this - low to mid 30's c. so at the moment these extreme temperatures remain unlikely. Not impossible though.

From a climate point of view, we have, in my opinion reached a tipping point where such extremes are now theoretically possible in our local climate. This is extremely alarming. I know the world and our country are full of alarming issues, this is one of them.

I'll keep this thread updated over the next few days.

Thread title edited by MNHQ on OP's request

You are completely right. Directly famine hits the exodus will be towards Europe. We honestly have no idea what’s coming.

The U.K. is slightly better placed and depends what is put in place could deal with exodus

I had read we would get hotter but wetter so unlike other areas water should be ok, maybe that is out of date though

But I’m am a bit more concerned about the Gulf Stream situation - not that I can do much about it

I'm sorry, but hysterics is the right word. We are talking about one or two days of extreme heat, not weeks and months! Do you seriously think that the UK is the only part of the world going through tough times at the moment? Why on earth is the NHS going to be so busy with people seeking help for a couple of days of hot weather??? My country is not set up for very cold weather, but if we do have snow or extreme frosts for any length of time we just get on with it - just as the UK will have to do with a couple of hot days.

1. Literally half my post referred to countries Beyonce the UK.

2. The NHS hospitals are full of vulnerable people without air conditioning to help keep them cool before you get to additional admissions caused by heat related exacerbations.

3. I'll get on with it, most of us will get on with it. Personally, I'll enjoy it - and it doesn't negate the above.

Beyonce!! What is wrong with my autocorrect?!

Thank you SO much OP for this thread
i’ve followed your threads before -
you are great !

One very hot day, one very cold day, just ten minutes with hail or just 10 minutes with a lot of rain are potentially enough to decimate whole crops.
No food or less food means more people will go hungry. We can anticipate the lack of water and easily plan for it (think Aruba and Israel) but there are extreme events for which, even though we know are coming, we just can't plan ahead.

This on top of rising food prices and energy instability. For those talking about hyperbole, we live in a global society. Bad things happening on the other side of the globe impact us. Where do you think we get large proportions of our food from? The UK, at the moment, doesn't have the capacity to feed itself.

Climate change will affect food production (already is affecting food production). It will impact energy supply. Anyone who thinks different is burying their head in the sand.

I'm going to ignore the ridiculous responses, they don't dignify an answer from me. I've repeated why I'm concerned but to recap: it's not the current forecast, it's the potential for extremes in the future. We have reached the point where our climate has the potential to deliver extreme heat.

In brief, confidence is growing more for a period of hot weather next week. The ECM model is moving more towards a hot solution. GFS persists in producing some extreme outlier solutions among its members. The most likely scenario at present still looks to be at least a few days of temperatures in the low to mid 30s.

Bad things happening on the other side of the globe impact us.
Ukraine is one the world's leading producers of wheat, which I didn't know before tbh! One country's crops out of the equation and look at where we are in Europe. Butter at over 9 quid in UK!

This is hitting developing countries badly and may get worse if it’s not taken out

But £9? It’s £2 on Ocado

£9 is for 1kg. Regular butter is only 250g. So £2.25 per 250g. So yes it’s gone up and other food will, but ‘£9 for butter is a bit daily mail trickery’

We are trying to, or looking to move towards growing a lot more of our own food. Added two fruit trees this year and last, which hopefully will be beneficial over the years.

If everyone who had space managed to grow even a small % of own food, that would make a huge difference in how many food miles and transport of other essentials that can’t be easily grown. We seem to have a good little community now in our street of food swaps going on which helps as you don’t have to do it all alone. Ie we give neighbour supplies of courgettes and radishes, and she returns with cucumbers and redcurrants for us

Danish butter is probably not the best example! hahah! Lurpark at £9.30 in the UK, I read sth about it somewhere. Not that it was that cheap when I lived there, though my flatmates saw it as essential then! Still, to go from 5 to 9 quid, is something. An example at a more normal/middle-class level would be a thread here a few days ago about an OP saying all cheese was going up by up to a pound.
I'm in Portugal and a lot has gone up. 10p here, 20p there, it all adds up. Though the overall cost of fuel has probably had a bigger impact in my life than wheat. Still, we're not getting such a big hit like you there on the electricity bill.

We are trying to, or looking to move towards growing a lot more of our own food. Added two fruit trees this year and last, which hopefully will be beneficial over the years.
I'm in a flat and I grew cherry tomatoes in the balcony during the first lockdown! I would love to have a bit of land to grow my own food though!

This post should have the Marie Antoinette prize!

It's not about whether in the UK a few "glorious" hot days are an issue. (Although the migration, food shortages and fuel prices might be tricky soon). Places that are already hot are having major droughts or becoming deserts, places that should be cold are getting hotter - that's why frozen baby mammoths are falling out of glaciers. That's why it's called global climate change, not "a couple of nice days". Regardless of how the map is coloured in, the world is one interrelated system.

@Caspianberg sorry I appreciate you said you were in Europe , mis read. To be fair cats will probalby out survive us!

@NotMeNoNo - I am agreeing it’s terrible of you read my other posts.

I’m just pointing out that people/ and animals do adapt to a degree ie cats and dogs in uk now struggle with random hot days, but those born and living in hot countries don’t seem to mind.

In case people were thinking about buying an aircon unit, they use roughly 60 times more energy that a basic fan. Obviously fans don't actually bring the room temperature down, but they do make the heat more comfortable.

@LaChatte that's shocking! Do you have a source for that, please?

We won’t be ok. Have a look at the flood modeling. Several of our major cities, including London, will be under water.

Several of our major cities, including London, will be under water.

when by?

The two are not comparable. People will need aircon, not fans.

Doesn’t air con just expedite climate change?

Most of the projections are for 2050, so quite soon. There have been lots of articles recently if you google it. There is also an interactive map here:

coastal.climatecentral.org/map/6/-1.555/52.0752/?theme=sea_level_rise&map_type=year&basemap=roadmap&contiguous=true&elevation_model=best_available&forecast_year=2050&pathway=ssp3rcp70&percentile=p50&refresh=true&return_level=return_level_1&rl_model=gtsr&slr_model=ipcc_2021_med

We are completely f**ked but global leaders are doing nothing about it because they’re all in the pockets of multinationals who just want you to keep buying things that you don’t need and using energy that you don’t need to.

Doesn’t air con just expedite climate change?

That's certainly my understanding. Interested to see hard stats on emissions, though, as I've not seen these quoted.

Of course it does. But what are people meant to do when it’s 35 degrees? Government loves to try and push responsibility onto us, the general public, with daft initiatives like recycling but this is so far out of the hands of the average person that these policies aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.

We need governments to completely stop burning fossil fuels globally, right now, not in a few years time. We need to make flying so incredibly expensive that everyone stops doing it. We need to spend much, much more money on R&D for innovative technologies. We need to stop obsessive consumption by taxing luxuries, we need to invest in clean public transport and disincentivize driving so that car manufacturers stop manufacturing cars. We need to make consumables last for longer and easy to fix and buy replacement parts so it’s not cheaper to buy a new washing machine than to fix one.

We need to vote for governments that commit to doing these things.