Phoenix has set another heat record by hitting 110 degrees on 54 days this year | Hacker News Reader

Phoenix has set another heat record by hitting 110 degrees on 54 days this year

npr.org

60 pointsRadixDLT63 comments

I was there and in it for a little while. The strangest thing was it was over 100 degrees for most of the night many nights. It's crazy going outside at night and it's extremely hot. When it's over 110, sitting outside in the shade with a cold drink is even unpleasant. One needs to be in the pool or dripping wet after having just gotten out for it to be tolerable. There are no outdoor sports anyone can do at that temperature safely except swimming. Some people even refer to it as reverse winter because one has to spend so much time indoors and you can't even change your clothing to be comfortable outside.

Yet kids are still outside shooting hoops in the heat and construction workers and landscapers are still doing there jobs no matter the temperatures. My Apple watch says it’s 109 and I’m about to get my sunscreen on and work out in the garden for a couple hours. I guess the heat just bothers some people more then others.

whats the humidity like?

I'm always reminded of this clip when Phoenix's heat is brought up, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PYt0SDnrBE

I found Phoenix in the summer to be uninhabitable for me even decades ago. The fact that ~2 million people live in that area, mostly without being forced to, gives me hope for the survivability of our species on a warming globe.

Just not for my particular genome. My survival strategy was to stay in air conditioned spaces and carefully plan my movements from one such place to another like a astronaut preparing for an EVA.

That sounds fine and dandy, but they don't grow food there. That's going to be a much bigger problem than whether or not people can tolerate being indoors all day.

Don’t even start trying to work out how bad the water wars would be if everywhere was like Phoenix.

Water rights between states and between nations are going to lead to war and mass migration.

Too hot to fight!

That’s why I’m glad I already live in the Pacific Northwest. At some point I imagine there will be a huge influx if only for our plentiful water.

I'm not sure what you mean by "there" because metropolitan areas typically do not have much agrarian enterprise, but Arizona grows plenty of cotton, beef, and citrus, and always has.

https://extension.arizona.edu/arizona-citrus-resources

https://www.arizonabeef.org/the-beef-story/cattle-in-arizona

https://www.cooperranchlife.com/contact

https://azgrassraisedbeef.com/shipping/

Of course, the urban landscape as it is now, used to be dominated by farmland, and so it isn't what it used to, but if you meant to write "they can't grow food there" that also another lie, because there is plenty of food that grows quite well here. In fact, several of my friends love to share the produce from the trees in their yards and their backyard gardens.

I think they mean at a certain point there will be no water to grow plants and it might even be too hot to grow them even if there was water.

Why would this ever be the case? The planet is 2/3s water

It’s 2/3 salt water. Desalinization is resource intensive, and water transport is fraught with geopolitical peril.

If only there were some method of extracting fresh water from the sky, somehow

Not if Arizona receives less rainfall, as predicted.

That is mostly sea/ocean, a lot of desalination would be needed

You might want to look up what happens in Yuma and the Imperial Valley, where it can be even hotter, because 1000ft lower elevation. People have been farming the Salt River and Gila River valleys for many centuries. I see that wikipedia has got a nice article on the Hohokam people, and the large scale network of irrigation canals they built.

Not much happens in the summer, that's true, but since all SW ag is irrigated, a lot is grown during the rest of the year.

Now I can't stand Sonoran Desert summers, not possible to be outside comfortably, but a lot of people really like the rest of the year there.

When I was young, in 1978, I went to the US. Hess Open in Phoenix, in August. It blew my mind, how hot it was. Then in 1998 my wife and I moved to Arizona, but in a cooler spot two hours north of Phoenix in the mountains. Love Arizona after we lived in a crowded beach town in California.

We spent 25 years in Prescott, which is 1.5 hrs NW of PHX, and is at 5000+ ft. Due N. a couple of hours, Flagstaff 7000ft. We thought that the weather in Prescott was fantastic: 4 seasons, half dozen 2 day blizzards that melted in 3 days, and July-Sept monsoons keeping the highs under 90F. Flagstaff OTOH, brrrrr. True fact: in late spring early summer Flagstaff is occasionally the coldest place in the US (outside AK).

Most people don't realize that Phoenix and Tucson, where nearly all the people are, are not at all like the 2/3 of the rest N and E.

> In July, Phoenix also set a record with a 31-day streak of highs at or above 110 F (43.3 C). The previous record of 18 straight days was set in 1974.

Something tells me the new record will stand for a long time.

If the majority of climatologists are correct, records will be broken at a greater frequency. This would make it unsurprising to see this record broken within 49 years.

I mean, there’s precedent for changing the number of days in July, I guess…

there is?

Actually, I misremembered. It was August that got extended in the Julian calendar reform: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_calendar

You speak of a "majority of climatologists": was there a poll taken and an article published, a study done, or perhaps a citation you might provide?

old joke: a psychologist is a person who constructs mental hurdles between you and your goals and then, one by one, as each is jumped or knocked over, points it out to you.

Seems that maintaining the suspense of climate change involves a lot of mental "hurdle construction".

> You speak of a "majority of climatologists": was there a poll taken and an article published, a study done, or perhaps a citation you might provide?

Can you clarify which part is causing you the confusion? Are you trying to figure out if the majority of climate scientists have read this HN thread and voted on the question? Or if making things warmer causes more heat records to be broken? Or if almost all climatologists agree that humans are causing global climate change and the warming of average global temperatures? Can you clarify?

> Yes, the vast majority of actively publishing climate scientists – 97 percent – agree that humans are causing global warming and climate change.

https://climate.nasa.gov/faq/17/do-scientists-agree-on-clima...

I can't parse whatever you are trying to say, care to rephrase everything to clarify exactly your contention points? It's nigh impossible to understand your comment...

piva00 says "It's nigh impossible to understand your comment..."

"nigh" but indeed not "impossible". I encourage you to make the final effort, for our sake as well as yours.

It's not impossible if I create a lot of assumptions about what I think you've said, what I think you've said sounds so stupid that I preferred to not offend you, and instead asked to clarify it to maybe have a civil conversation.

You've just cemented my assumptions, thank you. Learn how to hold a conversation, don't be insufferable.

Old saying:

Why would the record stand for even a year? I wouldn’t be surprised to hear there are 100 days at or above 110 next year.

Not in July there won’t be

Oh, you were trying to make a joke about how the number of days in a month is rarely changed. Haha.

There was no try. You just missed it, and are not trying to blame someone else

Well, until next year, when it’s a 31-day streak of temps over 120, and this years streak has a 113…

Right, my point (if I had one) is really that it's just a weird way of phrasing the record, if the intention is genuinely to say that every day in July had a max temperature of at least 110. The interesting record is probably the new 'minimum daily high temperature for July'. And yes, that will probably continue rising.

Cheeky. Took me a minute I must admit to ready properly :-)

We also blew through the record for number of days over 100 degrees in my part of Texas this year, by double digits. It's 73 days so far this year, beating the previous record of 59 days.

One thing I've noticed is how the body can somewhat adapt to this type of heat. There's air conditioning everywhere, of course, so it's not truly adapting to existing 24/7 in this climate for most.

But, it's funny how a high of anything under 100 feels really refreshing. I keep the AC at around 76 and end up turning up the temperature or putting a hoodie on if I've spent a good amount of time outdoors that day.

43.3 Celsius

Thx. And No thx! Do not want. Unsubscribe! Would not buy again.

Seriously, at like 28C in the sun I'm already barely functional. This is fif.teen.degrees more :-<

You have to factor in humidity.

Scottsdale airport currently (1:40PM) is 108F (42.222C) w/ 14% humidity, meaning a wet-bulb of 71.11F (21.72778C).

London tomorrow at noon is 86F (30C) w/ 52% humidity, meaning a wet-bulb of 72.76F (22.6444C).

London will actually feel nastier.

this wet bulb thing is definitely going to be a significant data point in the future.

Riyadh is above 40C from May to October, and above 45C for July & August. Every year.

Maximum official shade temperatures are close to 49C for days, up to a week or two. Hotter on the street. It's at some elevation, so it will never win the record high.

I used to walk 2k to work, and back, each day, then run 5k on the evening, when it would often be 43C at 7pm.

Most Americans are old, obese or both. Without air-conditioning the country won't be able to function and AC will only make the problem worse long term.

Saudi Arabians has an obesity rate (35.4%) that is comparable to the USA (36.2%).

Phoenix is only pleasant when it’s under 105. Anything above that, and I’m indoors or in the pool. When I move, it’ll be to a place with significantly fewer days under 105.

A bit tangential, but all of these are arbitrarily chosen constraints:

* Within some specific and relatively unimportant geographic area

* 1 year intervals ...

* ... that start at Jan 01 ...

* ... in the Gregorian calendar.

* The number 110 ...

* ... as a threshold of temperature in Imperial units.

I don't disagree with the essence of TFA (i.e. it's getting warmer) but it's also quite absurd how you can come up with any "record" you may need if you are controlling for the variables that suit you.

I'm pretty sure I hold several world records, like the fastest cyclist:

* on my hometown

* who is male

* with a graduate degree

* that likes hawaiian pizza

They really aren't that arbitrary, except for 110, but even that is reasonable given our decimal system:

* Arbitrary but socially meaningful geographic boundary. Basically, a notable US city.

* 1 year intervals are actually canonical given that years are based on Earth's rotation

* Gregorian calendar / starting at Jan 1 is again socially meaningful, but in particular doesn't split summers in the northern hemisphere

* 110 and imperial are sensible given usage of Fahrenheit and decimal systems in the US.

Your comment makes it sound like the article is making a claim equally as meaningful as "at latlng 53.193,38.8493, Earth's temperature has been above 482.3 kelvin for 4 of the past 3952 days" which is really not.

Yeah, there's definitely some "p hacking" to make spin this into a newsworthy headline, but not nearly to the degree your comment makes it seem. And not to mention the issue of "110f in Phoenix" has been newsworthy previously (eg 3 straight weeks of 110+), it makes even more sense.

>socially meaningful geographic boundary

For you ... and maybe a minor percentage of the US, which, btw, makes up only 4% of the total world population.

>again socially meaningful

As I commented elsewhere, nature doesn't care when you start counting days.

>110 and imperial are sensible given usage of Fahrenheit and decimal systems in the US.

And so? Countries that use Celsius are warmer? Colder?

>the issue of "110f in Phoenix" has been newsworthy previously

Do you live in Phoenix? This is the first I've ever come across such piece of news. Ever.

> For you ... and maybe a minor percentage of the US, which, btw, makes up only 4% of the total world population.

Yes truly strange to find a discussion about the American city of Phoenix here on this website given that the US “only” has 4% of the world’s population.

Does it matter though? Nothing in this metric indicates a slight of hand by the author.

Picking a year, starting with the first day of said year in the most prevalent format of calendar and then counting days in which it has been uncomfortably hot is exactly the way I would choose to get the point across.

The fact that there exists such a place in the US is probably more important than that this place was choosen because it scored highest in above metric.

>days in which it has been uncomfortably hot is exactly the way I would choose to get the point across

I'm glad it works for you but what if 100F is uncomfortably hot for me?

>The fact that there exists such a place in the US is probably more important than [...]

Come on, I'm sure it's not the hottest place in the US, a quick google search gave me Death Valley, CA.

I feel like a lot of the climate change claims are just confirmation bias

Well..

Is a year really "arbitrarily chosen"? After all it's defined by our solar system. And for the start date of Jan 01, I would go out and claim, that years are most of the time compared starting Jan 01. It would be much more random to start this record on Feb 20.

Yes one may debate if 110 as the cutof to count days in is "the best choice", but well, it's in the US and we humans like nice numbers ;)

But all these values are not excluding like your example.

>that years are most of the time compared starting Jan 01

In accounting, maybe, nature DGAF about when people file taxes, lol.

Deteriorating climate and mass shootings are the only two subjects the news covers these days. Both very important issues it seems nobody is doing enough to address. Most people are desensitized to it at this point.

Or, the more likely reason, people eat these two subjects up and they make for good headlines. Positive news doesn’t sell

Hence, nobody is doing enough to make them "not" in the news anymore. Meaning making good progress on solving them.

I don't think a year with 54 days above 110 degrees "eclipses" a year with 53 days above 110 degrees. In fact, I'd say it was not at all noteworthy.

Like ericjmorey says below in another post: "This would make it unsurprising to see this record broken within 49 years."

Hardly news! Snooze!

What if it immediately followed a streak of 36 days above 110F?

To paraphrase Bill Clinton: "that would depend on what the definition of "it" was."

IOW "a year with 54 days above 110 degrees" that, as you say, " immediately followed a streak of 36 days above 110F" thus totaling a year with (no less than) 90 days above 110 degrees would be noteworthy.

Perhaps you have experienced such a stretch of days? Which planet?

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