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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Woland@lemm.ee to c/world@lemmy.world

A severe heatwave is ongoing in Europe. Temperature records broken in France, Switzerland, Germany and Spain.

On 11 July 2023, the Land Surface Temperature (LST) in some areas of Extremadura (Spain) exceeded 60°C, as highlighted in this data visualisation derived from measurements from the Copernicus Sentinel-3 Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer (SLSTR) instrument. The ongoing heatwave in Spain this week is resulting in a total of 13 autonomous communities, being at extreme risk (red alert), significant risk (orange alert), and risk (yellow alert) due to maximum temperatures that, in some cases, will exceed 40°C and reach a maximum of 43°C.

For reference, "in areas where vegetation is dense, the land surface temperature never rises above 35°C. The hottest land surface temperatures on Earth are in plant-free desert landscapes."

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[-] pizzahoe@lemm.ee 119 points 1 year ago

The world is burning but no one gives a shit.. i don't think anyone will until literally their house is on fire.

[-] CitizenKong@lemmy.world 38 points 1 year ago

Not even then sometimes. In Germany, there was a small village buried under a mudslide from a flashflood that was a direct consequence of extreme weather patterns created by climate change. That same village overwhelmingly voted for conservative politicians that don't care about doing anything about climate change the very next year.

[-] maegul@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 year ago

For a while now, the question of democracy has been haunting the climate change issue. In the west, at least, it has shown itself ill-suited to the task of handling climate change. Of course, seriously proposing older forms of government would be dangerous and perhaps even insane. But the tension is there, and when we look back on all of this, democracy, or the form we have, is likely not going to look good.

[-] Eximius@lemmy.lt 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Any form of government with idiots at the helm will fail. With power at the helm and feebleness of the people defining the grandeur of the fail.

I.e. I want to say: the form of government doesnt matter. Just defines the imaginary friction for the government to do things and stuff.

[-] charlytune@mander.xyz 12 points 1 year ago
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[-] schmorpel@slrpnk.net 27 points 1 year ago

I've spent last August sitting in the shade listening to the music from the village parties mixed with the sound of the airplane engines flying over a nearby forest fire. It was bizarre. But then, what is one to do really? People who live around here aren't really the ones to blame. Can't really blame them for still wanting to have their village party. While I, who does give a shit, do little more than eating local and avoiding consumerism. Eating the rich might me more efficient, but there's none around here, we just have grapes and potato.

[-] CeruleanRuin@lemmy.one 19 points 1 year ago

The people with the real power to do anything are the people who will suffer the least. We're going off the rails on a crazy train.

[-] schmorpel@slrpnk.net 9 points 1 year ago

'Crazy train' describes well the feeling I had last summer. Like the 'this is fine' meme. And this summer will be the same. You hide, keep your garden watered, and hope the fires won't get you this year. All while the officials keep advising to plant more Eucalyptus for profit and organic matter is blamed for the problem and burned for biofuel or on people's fields - instead of reincorporated into the landscape as it should be. Here in Portugal, for animal bedding, most buy straw bales from the overheated because desertified Extremadura instead of cutting the Giesta (broom) as people used to do. Why are the Spanish straw bales cheaper? Because fossil fuels and the big scale agriculture attached to them create a fake price for the straw (I'm not an economist and don't know the right terms, but it's like the prices for fossil fuels and their derivates don't contain the environmental damage caused by its use). And the Giestais, unused, grow and spread the wildfires.

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[-] xuxebiko@kbin.social 23 points 1 year ago

Northern India saw intense heatwaves just a few weeks back and now is being drowned. Indians are used to heatwaves and floods, but this year the intensity and scale both are frightening.

[-] cynar@lemmy.world 38 points 1 year ago

This was the reason it changed from "Global Warming" to "Climate Change". More energy is being dumped into the weather system. This makes everything more extreme. The heating is almost incidental to it. The extra energy is the killer.

[-] Marsupial@quokk.au 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

That’s climate change to a tee, it’s more the usual pattern but taken to the extreme, and it’s only going to get worse each year.

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[-] moosh@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

If I makes you feel any better, I give a shit.

[-] Arin@kbin.social 10 points 1 year ago

Your comment signals lighting government official's houses on fire nonstop so they start doing something

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[-] Darkard@lemmy.world 56 points 1 year ago

When the crops are dead and the water dried up. Then people will start to take notice. But by then, it's already too late.

[-] LeberechtReinhold@lemmy.world 47 points 1 year ago

Both of those progressing nicely in Spain, and the result was... a rise of the right, that has doubled down on destroying the aquifers in the south, the most affected region.

So the worse things become, the more people turn a blind eye to the issue.

[-] prole@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 year ago

Humans deserve to burn up

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[-] lagomorphlecture@lemm.ee 30 points 1 year ago

I know this is a world community but I'm just going to throw the conversion out there for anyone who needs it to understand how hot that is, that is 140F.

[-] IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

I feel like my toaster oven doesn’t get much hotter than that when I set it to reheat leftovers.

We are truly fucked…

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[-] Galluf@lemmy.world 29 points 1 year ago

Talking about surface temperature is pretty misleading.

[-] cley_faye@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago

Ah, I see you're one of these people that will dismiss such claim because of "surface temperature". Well, as someone that:

  • currently lives in an area with a long-lasting heatwave
  • can't levitate above the ground
  • need to breath air

I can tell you that surface temperature, even if they make "bigger numbers", are extremely relevant to the degradation of the situation, no matter how misleading you think it is. The ground didn't "suddenly" get hotter with everything else staying the same; and everything getting hotter also have dire consequences. It's just a metric, it might not be the best one, but people should stop dismissing these, because it's by having a hot frying pan that the content gets cooked.

[-] Galluf@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

Nope, not at all. You completely misunderstood my point.

I'm not saying the ground suddenly got hotter and everything else stayed the same. In this case, it's just a metric that's quoted because it has a misleading high value especially by people who are just scrolling through.

It's click bait.

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[-] tcj@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

Yeah, it's confusing and unhelpful. People should standardize on reporting air temperature unless there's a very specific and compelling reason not to.

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[-] giant_smeeg@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

But bigger number

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[-] frippa@lemmy.ml 21 points 1 year ago

I'm on vacation in a place that is regularly 20c on summer, it's 35c right now. Real sad since I wanted to escape the 40c city

[-] Tautvydaxx@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago

Get ready for new eco bans, we will have to stop using plastic milk containers and factories will produce more junk to put the milk in to. Like with the plastic straws and bags, good idea on papper, poor execution irl.

[-] anakaine@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago

Maybe you're being funny, maybe not, but plastic bag pollution and straws etc are not the driving force behind temperature swings like this. Atmospheric gasses such as CO2, CH4, etc are the issue that causes climate change, and thus the instability accompanying things like greater peak temps, more disasters, etc.

The bags and straws discussion is about environmental care. Eg not letting sea turtles eat plastic bags because they think they are jelly fish.

[-] Tautvydaxx@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

What iam saying that the average person will get the short stick, and the big polluters like factories will not see any new anti pollution regulations. Like do we need 100s of key chain factories, we lived without useless plastic trinkets before, ban those things because thry have no use.

[-] nekat_emanresu@lemmy.ml 12 points 1 year ago

Distractions to make the govt look like they care and to shift blame onto the average person.

[-] Ronno@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago

Yeah indeed, the paper bags are more polluting to produce than its plastic equivalent. The many problem with plastics is that it does more damage when it ends up in nature, but it is recyclable though.

We should stop blaming the people/consumers and start blaming the large corporations that dump PFAS in our drink water supply, like they did here in The Netherlands and Belgium. That does lore harm than the plastic straws ever did

[-] Akulagr@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Out of curiosity, how are paper bags more polluting than plastic ones?

Also, from what I have been reading, the problem with plastic is that it's actually marketed as widely recyclable, but nobody actually recycles plastic as it is too expensive (water bottles, plastic packaging, etc...). Its actually cheaper to produce more plastic than to recycle.

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[-] Clbull@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago

It's only gonna get worse as global warming takes hold.

Soon, Britain, Ireland and the Nordics are going to be prime summer holiday destinations because Southern Europe will be too damn hot to even inhabit.

[-] damnYouSun@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 year ago

It's going to be absolute hell because homes in these countries are designed to retain heat, have no air conditioning, and typically are built with large windows to let as much light in as possible.

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[-] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago
[-] TrenchcoatFullofBats@belfry.rip 8 points 1 year ago

There's probably a handy wildfire around to light 'em!

[-] PottedPlant@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

If we are starting to get alarmed over surface temps, here's my patio furniture temp right now in Arizona

Air temp is currently 43.8C

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[-] sheepyowl@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 1 year ago

That's devastatingly hot.

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this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2023
497 points (97.0% liked)

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