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Cities' Heat Can Affect Temperatures 1000+ Miles Away
Living in dense cities makes for certain efficiencies: being able to walk or take mass transit to work, living in buildings with (at least potentially) efficient HVAC systems, and more. That's why cities have been lauded in recent years for their (relatively) low environmental impact. But it seems at least one aspect of city life has an environmental effect felt at extreme distances from the cities themselves: waste heat. All those tightly packed sources of heat, from cars to banks of AC units, result in temperature changes not just directly (and locally) but by affecting weather systems surrounding the source city.
From the article:
"The released heat is changing temperatures in areas more than 1,000 miles away (1609 kilometers). It is warming parts of North America by about 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.6 degrees Celsius) and northern Asia by as much as 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius), while cooling areas of Europe by a similar amount, scientists report in the journal Nature Climate Change.
The released heat (dubbed waste heat), it seems, is changing atmospheric circulation, including jet streams — powerful narrow currents of wind that blow from west to east and north to south in the upper atmosphere.
This impact on regional temperatures may explain a climate puzzle of sorts: why some areas are having warmer winters than predicted by climate models, the researchers said. In turn, the results suggest this phenomenon should be accounted for in models forecasting global warming."
more than 1,000 miles away (1609 kilometers)
Seriously, if you have one rough rounded number you can't do an exact convert and add false precision to the statement...
Serious, first thing to look for a thermal is the local town, absent mountains or hills. A large parking lot already does do fine. I know of a military airport which has a cemetary nearby, the dense black marble is sufficient.
The heat island effect has always been taken into account for purposes of observation - when some of your data points are located in cities, you need to either discard them or compensate in some manner. This study shows that the effect covers a far wider area than previously thought. A few minor revisions to the models are needed. That doesn't mean previous predictions are suddenly all wrong - just that they are not as accurate as they will be once these revisions are implimented.
That's not the only downwind effect than can be attributed to human activity.
Science News had an article on down wind rainfall being affected by large scale irrigation projects in California.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/347691/description/Watering_fields_in_California_boosts_rainfall_in_Southwest
I wonder how long it will take for someone to research downwind effects of some of the huge wind farms that have been built. Taking that much energy out of the atmosphere should theoretically have an effect that might be measurable.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Unfortunately tipping the balance is all that is required to mess it up.
Isn't this comment more or less an archetypal example? Veiled and nonspecific allusions to error, uncertainty, and weakness? No actual substance? Nonspecific accusations that could be leveled at any piece of research? Let's look at the issues you raise.
"The question is always, how do they know? What did they do to arrive at that result?"
It's in the papers. And countless popular accounts.
"...does not sound like a high standard."
That's why your rhetorical scenario is not the standard to which climate science is held. If you're interested it's... in the papers, and in the countless popular accounts.
"Where's your rigorous testing for that assertion?"
It's in the papers, and countless popular accounts. Assuming, of couse, you do not set an arbitrarily strict limit for "rigorous" that excludes them.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?