Occasional Thoughts on Climate Change

[tacoman25]

On 12/25/2025 at 1:50 PM, WolfStock1 said:

 

Weather vs Climate.

When looking at climate looking at single month, or even a single year, is meaningless - it's noise.   You have to look at multi-year or even multi-decade averages to determine what's really going on.

Of course. It's just interesting that despite the warming we've seen, over the short term there can still be some very cold periods regionally. 

This convo started, of course, with short term extreme warmth examples - which also happened to a slightly less warm degree 100 years ago.

[SnoSki14]

15 hours ago, tacoman25 said:

Of course. It's just interesting that despite the warming we've seen, over the short term there can still be some very cold periods regionally. 

This convo started, of course, with short term extreme warmth examples - which also happened to a slightly less warm degree 100 years ago.

Because it's not linear or evenly spread out plus it's weather vs climate. Look at the grand scope and you'll see warmth dominate over both a larger area and time frame. 

For example despite December being cold in the northeast US it absolutely torched for 2/3 of the country with record breaking all time December warmth in many spots. 

[tacoman25]

6 hours ago, SnoSki14 said:

Because it's not linear or evenly spread out plus it's weather vs climate. Look at the grand scope and you'll see warmth dominate over both a larger area and time frame. 

For example despite December being cold in the northeast US it absolutely torched for 2/3 of the country with record breaking all time December warmth in many spots. 

Is that not weather?

And when you include AK, not even close to 2/3 of the country torched. Alaska is pretty big.

[tacoman25]

If December ended today, it would be Juneau's coldest on record. 

[SnoSki14]

On 12/27/2025 at 2:09 PM, tacoman25 said:

Is that not weather?

And when you include AK, not even close to 2/3 of the country torched. Alaska is pretty big.

The warm anomalies are so much more expansive and anomalous compared to the colder ones. 

[tacoman25]

On 12/29/2025 at 7:26 PM, SnoSki14 said:

The warm anomalies are so much more expansive and anomalous compared to the colder ones. 

Not when you include AK and Canada, which you can't with that map.

[TheClimateChanger]

 

[TheClimateChanger]

On 12/31/2025 at 2:49 PM, tacoman25 said:

Not when you include AK and Canada, which you can't with that map.

The post was referring to CONUS temperatures. While Alaska is part of the US, Canada is a separate country and has not, in fact, been annexed as of 1/2/2026. If we are going to include other countries, might as well tack on Mexico, which has been scorching. Or just do the entire Northern Hemisphere, which has been consistently running more than 1C above the 1981-2010 mean. 

http://www.karstenhaustein.com/reanalysis/gfs0p5/ANOM2m_mollw/ANOM2m_f144_mollw.png

 

[tacoman25]

15 hours ago, TheClimateChanger said:

The post was referring to CONUS temperatures. While Alaska is part of the US, Canada is a separate country and has not, in fact, been annexed as of 1/2/2026. If we are going to include other countries, might as well tack on Mexico, which has been scorching. Or just do the entire Northern Hemisphere, which has been consistently running more than 1C above the 1981-2010 mean. 

http://www.karstenhaustein.com/reanalysis/gfs0p5/ANOM2m_mollw/ANOM2m_f144_mollw.png

 

No, the original discussion that I have been a part of was also about Canada and AK. See the posts he was responding to. Context.

[chubbs]

A Finnish start-up has introduced the first commercial solid-state battery: light-weight, durable, fast charging, and inexpensive. If product claims pan out, EV performance, which is already matching combustion vehicles, will improve dramatically.

https://insideevs.com/news/783380/first-production-ready-all-solid-state-battery-official-specs/

 

[bluewave]

On 1/3/2026 at 1:22 AM, tacoman25 said:

No, the original discussion that I have been a part of was also about Canada and AK. See the posts he was responding to. Context.

This is probably the first time that Western North America experienced such an extreme temperature difference during the month of December.

https://bsky.app/profile/climatologist49.bsky.social/post/3mbnq36jn6c2y

 

 

Climatologist49

 

‪@climatologist49.bsky.social‬

 

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December 2025 temperature departure from normal for the U.S. and Canada.

 

12:41 AM · Jan 5, 2026

Everybody can

 

[WolfStock1]

3 hours ago, chubbs said:

... EV performance, which is already matching combustion vehicles... 

 

 

Not yet.

Sorry - could not let that slide.

"Performance" is a multifaceted thing, including speed, driving distance, fueling convenience, costs, build quality, etc. etc.   If the performance of the average EV and the average combustion vehicle in the US (what most of us care about) matched, their sales would be roughly equal, but they very much aren't; even before the recent subsidy removal.

[chubbs]

1 hour ago, WolfStock1 said:

 

Not yet.

Sorry - could not let that slide.

"Performance" is a multifaceted thing, including speed, driving distance, fueling convenience, costs, build quality, etc. etc.   If the performance of the average EV and the average combustion vehicle in the US (what most of us care about) matched, their sales would be roughly equal, but they very much aren't; even before the recent subsidy removal.

Yes I know what performance is. All the things you mention and more will improve significantly with solid state batteries. The US market doesn't tell you much about EV performance because the best EVs come from China, not the US, and those vehicles are excluded from the US market. However this new announcement may allow other countries to catch-up or even leapfrog China. We will see.

[tacoman25]

5 hours ago, bluewave said:

This is probably the first time that Western North America experienced such an extreme temperature difference during the month of December.

https://bsky.app/profile/climatologist49.bsky.social/post/3mbnq36jn6c2y

 

 

Climatologist49

 

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December 2025 temperature departure from normal for the U.S. and Canada.

 

12:41 AM · Jan 5, 2026

Everybody can

 

Yeah, that really captures it. The extreme cold was greater than the extreme warmth, as far as anomalies go.

[forkyfork]

denier board

[Brewbeer]

The average new EV sold in the USA today in 20% more expensive than the average new petroleum powered vehicle.  EVs in the US are still mostly sold to the higher end / luxury market, the number of vehicle models available at the lower end of the market is extremely limited (but increasing). 

And I agree that in the higher end and luxury class vehicles, EVs equal or exceed petroleum powered vehicles in all aspects but one, and that is refueling convenience, which is arguable, since arguably it is more convenient to refuel your vehicle overnight in your garage or driveway than it is to dedicate a trip to a petroleum dispensing facility.

As soon as Honda or Toyota makes an Accord or Camry EV that is on par in price and weight to the petroleum versions, I'll be going for a test drive.  Battery tech is advancing rapidly and it won't be much longer before EVs have a much greater presence in the USA.

[forkyfork]

2 minutes ago, Brewbeer said:

The average new EV sold in the USA today in 20% more expensive than the average new petroleum powered vehicle.  EVs in the US are still mostly sold to the higher end / luxury market, the number of vehicle models available at the lower end of the market is extremely limited (but increasing). 

And I agree that in the higher end and luxury class vehicles, EVs equal or exceed petroleum powered vehicles in all aspects but one, and that is refueling convenience, which is arguable, since arguably it is more convenient to refuel your vehicle overnight in your garage or driveway than it is to dedicate a trip to a petroleum dispensing facility.

As soon as Honda or Toyota makes an Accord or Camry EV that is on par in price and weight to the petroleum versions, I'll be going for a test drive.  Battery tech is advancing rapidly and it won't be much longer before EVs have a much greater presence in the USA.

 

 

 

lol

[A-L-E-K]

6 minutes ago, forkyfork said:

lol

[tacoman25]

47 minutes ago, forkyfork said:

denier board

Lame cop out. Who here has "denied" climate change is happening?

Some of you think that if people aren't freaking out and claiming the world is ending due to climate change, they're deniers. It's not that binary, that's not reality.

"Oh no, someone pointed out that it's not record heat everywhere, all the time - they are a clearly a DENIER! Burn them at the stake."

[Brewbeer]

@A-L-E-K @forkyfork  Antique Honda currently at 329,827 and running great.  Taking it to Boston Friday to help son move furniture into his new apartment, 200+ mile round trip. 

 

 

[WolfStock1]

5 hours ago, tacoman25 said:

Lame cop out. Who here has "denied" climate change is happening?

Some of you think that if people aren't freaking out and claiming the world is ending due to climate change, they're deniers. It's not that binary, that's not reality.

"Oh no, someone pointed out that it's not record heat everywhere, all the time - they are a clearly a DENIER! Burn them at the stake."

 

This.

I don't think the "sky is falling" people realize just how foolish they look when anyone who doesn't toe the sky-is-falling line must be a denier; and as a result how counter-productive it is to their cause.

[bluewave]

18 hours ago, tacoman25 said:

Yeah, that really captures it. The extreme cold was greater than the extreme warmth, as far as anomalies go.

That may not have been the case since the anomalies were based on 1991-2020 means which were the warmest on record. Notice the warm departures in the Southwest were sufficient for many sites to record their warmest December on record. Those warm departures were only lower due to the much warmer 1991-2020 normals. The cold departures to the north would also be smaller based of the previous colder 30 year means.

 

Climatologist49

 

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 December 2025 temperature ranking (since 1895). A lot of the West had their warmest December on record and nearly everywhere out west had a top 5 warmest December.

 

10:26 PM · Jan 1, 2026

Everybody can reply

[tacoman25]

4 hours ago, bluewave said:

That may not have been the case since the anomalies were based on 1991-2020 means which were the warmest on record. Notice the warm departures in the Southwest were sufficient for many sites to record their warmest December on record. Those warm departures were only lower due to the much warmer 1991-2020 normals. The cold departures to the north would also be smaller based of the previous colder 30 year means.

 

Climatologist49

 

‪@climatologist49.bsky.social‬

 

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 December 2025 temperature ranking (since 1895). A lot of the West had their warmest December on record and nearly everywhere out west had a top 5 warmest December.

 

10:26 PM · Jan 1, 2026

Everybody can reply

Sure, but a 30 year period is standard for anomalies. So my statement stands. And it's also only fair to acknowledge how much larger that area of extreme cold anomalies in NW Canada/AK was.

Canada saw their coldest December temp in 50 years last month: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/canadas-coldest-temperature-in-50-years

That's a whole country. It was objectively an impressive and extremely cold period up north, no reason to downplay this.