A glimpse at what our world may look and feel like in 2070
June 22, 2024 1:51 AM Subscribe
Climate Zones [The Pudding]
I guess this is why property in Melbourne continues to go up in value... remains "no dry season, warm summer" in 2070.
posted by xdvesper at 3:26 AM on June 22 [1 favorite]
posted by xdvesper at 3:26 AM on June 22 [1 favorite]
Actually I think it moves to ‘hot summer’ (like London). You have to click on it in the final graphic to see what happens (I think).
posted by Phanx at 3:45 AM on June 22 [1 favorite]
posted by Phanx at 3:45 AM on June 22 [1 favorite]
Does this take into account the expected changes to the Gulf Stream? I don't know enough to say that it doesn't, but to me it looks like it doesn't.
Have we got a similar one for agriculture instead of cities? Food production is a lot more important than city climates because without large scale agriculture you can't have cities.
posted by Jane the Brown at 4:35 AM on June 22 [15 favorites]
Have we got a similar one for agriculture instead of cities? Food production is a lot more important than city climates because without large scale agriculture you can't have cities.
posted by Jane the Brown at 4:35 AM on June 22 [15 favorites]
On once hand, this is neat; stick to one piece of Data Viz
On the other hand, to riff off Jane the Brown, these anodyne pronouncements "Oh, the scandanavian riveara" and "a bit harsher" hide some pretty horrifying truths.
posted by lalochezia at 4:51 AM on June 22 [16 favorites]
On the other hand, to riff off Jane the Brown, these anodyne pronouncements "Oh, the scandanavian riveara" and "a bit harsher" hide some pretty horrifying truths.
posted by lalochezia at 4:51 AM on June 22 [16 favorites]
Geez, this style of webpage really pisses me off. Stop changing what I'm looking at without my permission! I'd like to look at Present Day map for more than 1 second before switching to 2070!
posted by I-Write-Essays at 4:57 AM on June 22 [19 favorites]
posted by I-Write-Essays at 4:57 AM on June 22 [19 favorites]
It's an art piece that gives the middle finger to usability.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 4:59 AM on June 22 [15 favorites]
posted by I-Write-Essays at 4:59 AM on June 22 [15 favorites]
In the future, web pages will be vaguely ominous but mostly inoperable. Tremble!!
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:14 AM on June 22 [20 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:14 AM on June 22 [20 favorites]
I expect this is more of a visualisation issue, but to my eyes the rapidly and annoyingly oscillating "now/2070" display didn't really make the change 'pop' (pls shoot me). Perhaps having fewer classifications with more distinct colours would have helped.
posted by BCMagee at 5:33 AM on June 22 [4 favorites]
posted by BCMagee at 5:33 AM on June 22 [4 favorites]
This is *vital* information for people to explore. The heuristic of moving a city from one zone to another is very useful.
But I'm with I-Write-Essays. The snowfall design is initially appealing, then gets in the way.
posted by doctornemo at 6:09 AM on June 22 [3 favorites]
But I'm with I-Write-Essays. The snowfall design is initially appealing, then gets in the way.
posted by doctornemo at 6:09 AM on June 22 [3 favorites]
Works pretty well on mobile. Also, terrifying.
posted by From Bklyn at 6:21 AM on June 22 [1 favorite]
posted by From Bklyn at 6:21 AM on June 22 [1 favorite]
This flamboyant visualization is using the older version of the data from Hylke Beck et al. while using "present day" to refer to normals for 1981-2016 and "2070" to refer to RCP 8.5 projections for 2070-2099. Eighty-odd years of worst-case warming are presented as what to expect within forty-six. A much clearer visualization is available at koppen.earth, and the climate model data are also available to explore with your favorite GIS software. Therein you can see that one pixel within San Francisco flips to "hot summer" by the end of the century in the implausible emissions-will-triple scenario while The Pudding places the entire city there in 2070. Realistic projections, such as Sierra isotherms climbing 200 feet per decade under RCP 4.5, are troubling enough without the theatrics.
posted by backwoods at 6:37 AM on June 22 [16 favorites]
posted by backwoods at 6:37 AM on June 22 [16 favorites]
in 2070 my town will be covered by a giant black box of text
posted by mittens at 7:44 AM on June 22 [26 favorites]
posted by mittens at 7:44 AM on June 22 [26 favorites]
20 predictions for 2020: Here's what people said would happen by this year - - pre-millenium predictions of that distant future world of 2020.
1. Life expectancy will rise past 100posted by fairmettle at 8:40 AM on June 22 [4 favorites]
2. Computers will be invisible
3. Books will be dead
4. Your every move will be tracked
5. World's population will reach 8 billion
6. China will be the world's largest economy
7. We'll have self-driving cars
8. It will be normal to retire at 70
9. Americans will vote electronically from home
10. China will be on a path to democracy
11. We'll have 'personal companions'
12. Cars will be able to go months without refueling
13. Heart disease, depression will be world's top diseases
14. Global surface temperature will increase
15. Humans will set foot on Mars
16. Boris Johnson would lead Brexit
17. Antigravity belts will revolutionize warfare
18. Nuclear will replace natural gas
19. Americans will work 26 hours a week
20. Nationalism will wane
METAFILTER: It's an art piece that gives the middle finger to usability.
posted by philip-random at 8:45 AM on June 22 [11 favorites]
posted by philip-random at 8:45 AM on June 22 [11 favorites]
My non-invisible computer is presenting possibly interesting information on a nearly unreadable website.
Welcome to the present.
posted by BlueHorse at 9:31 AM on June 22 [6 favorites]
Welcome to the present.
posted by BlueHorse at 9:31 AM on June 22 [6 favorites]
Blue is certainly an interesting choice for land.
posted by Flaffigan at 9:56 AM on June 22 [5 favorites]
posted by Flaffigan at 9:56 AM on June 22 [5 favorites]
17. Antigravity belts will revolutionize warfare
Considering how warfare is going in Ukraine, this one is almost comical to imagine.
posted by fatbird at 10:45 AM on June 22 [1 favorite]
Considering how warfare is going in Ukraine, this one is almost comical to imagine.
posted by fatbird at 10:45 AM on June 22 [1 favorite]
12. Cars will be able to go months without refueling
17. Antigravity belts will revolutionize warfare
How to say "I have a weak understanding of physics" without actually saying it.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 10:51 AM on June 22 [2 favorites]
17. Antigravity belts will revolutionize warfare
How to say "I have a weak understanding of physics" without actually saying it.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 10:51 AM on June 22 [2 favorites]
Today in Nature: Global impacts of heat and water stress on food production and severe food insecurity, which projects: "(a) substantial declines, as measured by GCal, in global food production of some 6%, 10%, and 14% to 2050 and (b) the number of additional people with severe food insecurity by 2050, correspondingly, increases by 556 million, 935 million, and 1.36 billion compared to the 2020 model baseline."
posted by mittens at 11:33 AM on June 22 [5 favorites]
posted by mittens at 11:33 AM on June 22 [5 favorites]
It's one thing to see blotches of color move around, but photosynthesis driving food production will get less efficient as it gets hotter. And how some chunks of land will stop being arable and others will become newly food-producing will not just change cities. Climate change is already creating wars that are changing governments and uprooting entire societies. Cities are along for the ride, and some are not doing well or are in the crosshairs (e.g., in countries like Syria, Darfur, Ukraine).
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 12:39 PM on June 22 [2 favorites]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 12:39 PM on June 22 [2 favorites]
20 predictions for 2020: Here's what people said would happen by this year
beware of certainty.
posted by philip-random at 12:47 PM on June 22 [1 favorite]
beware of certainty.
posted by philip-random at 12:47 PM on June 22 [1 favorite]
Whenever people call RCP8.5 the worst case scenario, i chuckle. Its the highest ghg concentration scenario that gets modelled, and we beat its emissions trajectory many years in the past 20. But its considered unrealistically pessimist because it assumes ghg concenrations higher than people think we can achieve with BAU fossil fuel use.
the people claiming its emissions are too high assume no destabilization and release of vast reservoirs of carbon held as organic mater in warming surface soils, off gassing from dissolved co2 in shallow aquifers, from wildfire faster than regrowth, released from thawing permafrost, off gassing from warming surface waters, anoxic methane release from newly inundated lowlands under sea level rise, released from shallow methane clathrates, mobilized from fire-flood erosion events, increase in tropical methane from flood agriculture and increase torrid zone precipitation, in addition to the ways humans are accelerating the mobilization from geologic reserves from tar sands, sea water and co2 well injection, fracking, coal bed gassification, artic and shallow ocean drilling, not to mention increased burning trash, and the emission of mucj higher heat trapping gases from transformers, refrigerants, tire off gasing, the expansion of dark surfaces in tundra and polar oceans, the increase in nitrogen oxides from agriculture and i.c.e expansion. Not to mention all the steel.and.cement just to perform regular maintaince on 20th century construction, let alone the continued expansion of built plant.
"we are headed above 2C" is a poor way to phrase "we are already above 1.5 and on trajectory for 3.5 to 5.5C by 2100 and much more after that unless some thermodynamically preposterous miracle tech gets thanos-snapped into global scale and drives massive negative emissions.
posted by No Climate - No Food, No Food - No Future. at 9:29 PM on June 22 [9 favorites]
the people claiming its emissions are too high assume no destabilization and release of vast reservoirs of carbon held as organic mater in warming surface soils, off gassing from dissolved co2 in shallow aquifers, from wildfire faster than regrowth, released from thawing permafrost, off gassing from warming surface waters, anoxic methane release from newly inundated lowlands under sea level rise, released from shallow methane clathrates, mobilized from fire-flood erosion events, increase in tropical methane from flood agriculture and increase torrid zone precipitation, in addition to the ways humans are accelerating the mobilization from geologic reserves from tar sands, sea water and co2 well injection, fracking, coal bed gassification, artic and shallow ocean drilling, not to mention increased burning trash, and the emission of mucj higher heat trapping gases from transformers, refrigerants, tire off gasing, the expansion of dark surfaces in tundra and polar oceans, the increase in nitrogen oxides from agriculture and i.c.e expansion. Not to mention all the steel.and.cement just to perform regular maintaince on 20th century construction, let alone the continued expansion of built plant.
"we are headed above 2C" is a poor way to phrase "we are already above 1.5 and on trajectory for 3.5 to 5.5C by 2100 and much more after that unless some thermodynamically preposterous miracle tech gets thanos-snapped into global scale and drives massive negative emissions.
posted by No Climate - No Food, No Food - No Future. at 9:29 PM on June 22 [9 favorites]
I think by analogizing a current city to another hotter yet liveable city, we are minimizing in the reader's mind how disruptive that transition will be. The fact that the underlying data is too optimistic too is icing on the cake.
The real figure of merit was pointed out by Jane the Brown: what happens to agriculture? Spoiler: its a roller coaster ride of eratic yeilds until we get unlucky and then we discover how much ecosystem damage hundreds of millions hungry people and billions of scared people can do with cars, guns, chainsaws and smartphones.
posted by No Climate - No Food, No Food - No Future. at 9:39 PM on June 22 [2 favorites]
The real figure of merit was pointed out by Jane the Brown: what happens to agriculture? Spoiler: its a roller coaster ride of eratic yeilds until we get unlucky and then we discover how much ecosystem damage hundreds of millions hungry people and billions of scared people can do with cars, guns, chainsaws and smartphones.
posted by No Climate - No Food, No Food - No Future. at 9:39 PM on June 22 [2 favorites]
17. Antigravity belts will revolutionize warfare
Considering how warfare is going in Ukraine, this one is almost comical to imagine.
posted by fatbird
The prediction was only slightly off, if you consider that instead of individual military personnel flying around the battle zone, we have made the highly practical amendment of leaving the individual personnel on the ground at the controls of a drone, doing much the same things they would have done while flying around, but rather more safely and cheaply.
Drone warfare seems to be revolutionizing warfare so they got that part correct.
posted by Jane the Brown at 1:12 AM on June 23
Considering how warfare is going in Ukraine, this one is almost comical to imagine.
posted by fatbird
The prediction was only slightly off, if you consider that instead of individual military personnel flying around the battle zone, we have made the highly practical amendment of leaving the individual personnel on the ground at the controls of a drone, doing much the same things they would have done while flying around, but rather more safely and cheaply.
Drone warfare seems to be revolutionizing warfare so they got that part correct.
posted by Jane the Brown at 1:12 AM on June 23
17. Antigravity belts will revolutionize warfare
Considering how warfare is going in Ukraine, this one is almost comical to imagine.
It's only partially wrong. It turned out that hovering drones revolutionized war by taking it back to trenches. They got the physics wrong and the outcome wrong but the core idea of individualized death from above was accurate. I'd say this was pretty good as a prediction.
posted by srboisvert at 3:10 AM on June 23 [1 favorite]
Considering how warfare is going in Ukraine, this one is almost comical to imagine.
It's only partially wrong. It turned out that hovering drones revolutionized war by taking it back to trenches. They got the physics wrong and the outcome wrong but the core idea of individualized death from above was accurate. I'd say this was pretty good as a prediction.
posted by srboisvert at 3:10 AM on June 23 [1 favorite]
If I understand, we still think RCP4.5 matches fossil fuel reserves. As RCP6 and RCP8.5 exceed fossil fuel reserves, they should be unreachable without tipping points that emit carbon, ala methane clathrates, or increasing reserves through better shale technology.
At the same time, we've steadily worsened predictions for what each RCP means: IPCC expects just under +3°C now, but previously that was the high end of RCP4.5. We're still not counting tipping points that emit carbon because: You'll notice current SSPx-y.z have higher temperatures estimates past RCPy.z.
We've much more extreme worsening revsion for economic conequences..
In 2018, William Nordhaus won a Nobel prize in economics for bullshit arguments that +4°C struck an optimal balance between damage and mitigation. Yet, now insurance companies have noticed higher than expected losses.
In 2024, more sensible estimates say the world economy has already committed to income reduction of 19 % due to climate change by 2050. In other words, if you achieve some mythical communist eutopia, then 1 in 5 hours worked gets spent doing climate mitigation, but this ratio worsens if you've more inequality. We'll stop fixing much destroyed infrastructure probably.
Interestingly, we've learned that Greenland's glaciers are melting 100 times faster than previously estimated. If the south pole melts like expected, then maybe gravity moves the sea level rise south, but maybe also means more committed sea level rise even if warming halts.
At the same time..
Afaik, renewables have not decreased existing fossil fuel consumption, although surely they mitigated demands for increases. In particular, coal usage continues increasing in China, despite them leading in renewables deployment.
We'll seemingly never abandon oil willingly, so instead we want zero sum policies of "last one with oil wins" to become national stratigies, aka nations set their spies & millitaries against one anothers' oil extraction. In this, one should look over oil reserves by country asking: How could the oil in [oil_nation] stay in the ground? Aka how could political relationships evolve so that [other_powerful_nation] makes [oil_nation] stop drilling?
posted by jeffburdges at 4:17 PM on June 23 [1 favorite]
At the same time, we've steadily worsened predictions for what each RCP means: IPCC expects just under +3°C now, but previously that was the high end of RCP4.5. We're still not counting tipping points that emit carbon because: You'll notice current SSPx-y.z have higher temperatures estimates past RCPy.z.
We've much more extreme worsening revsion for economic conequences..
In 2018, William Nordhaus won a Nobel prize in economics for bullshit arguments that +4°C struck an optimal balance between damage and mitigation. Yet, now insurance companies have noticed higher than expected losses.
In 2024, more sensible estimates say the world economy has already committed to income reduction of 19 % due to climate change by 2050. In other words, if you achieve some mythical communist eutopia, then 1 in 5 hours worked gets spent doing climate mitigation, but this ratio worsens if you've more inequality. We'll stop fixing much destroyed infrastructure probably.
Interestingly, we've learned that Greenland's glaciers are melting 100 times faster than previously estimated. If the south pole melts like expected, then maybe gravity moves the sea level rise south, but maybe also means more committed sea level rise even if warming halts.
At the same time..
Afaik, renewables have not decreased existing fossil fuel consumption, although surely they mitigated demands for increases. In particular, coal usage continues increasing in China, despite them leading in renewables deployment.
We'll seemingly never abandon oil willingly, so instead we want zero sum policies of "last one with oil wins" to become national stratigies, aka nations set their spies & millitaries against one anothers' oil extraction. In this, one should look over oil reserves by country asking: How could the oil in [oil_nation] stay in the ground? Aka how could political relationships evolve so that [other_powerful_nation] makes [oil_nation] stop drilling?
posted by jeffburdges at 4:17 PM on June 23 [1 favorite]
Why do things like this always assume everyone lives in or near a city?
posted by GallonOfAlan at 1:43 AM on June 26
posted by GallonOfAlan at 1:43 AM on June 26
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I am seeing many examples of climate change in my geographical area which is temperate.
posted by Narrative_Historian at 2:05 AM on June 22 [1 favorite]