Urban freeride on powder
| Tale group: | Weather observations |
| Class: | Climate change and weather |
| Themes: | Arctic, skiing, sunrise, wind |
| Continent: | Europe |
| Location: | Helsinki, Finland |
| Time: | Sat 13. Jan, 2024, 10:10 |
| Temperature: | -6o C |
White lines downtown – Urban free ride on powder
Chilly waves push shreds of ice against the slate-like piles on the arctic shore. I rest my skis for a moment to marvel the northern sun rising over rolling ice rafts. It is -6o C, but 9 m/s wind makes it feel bit colder. Breeze over the open sea has polished parts of the exposed and condensed snow to icy topping and also piled soft snow of yesterday’s blizzard to even 30 cm deep fields of powder.
Gusts of 14 m/s move the powder snow around; Ideal weather for a bit of urban freeriding. For almost two enjoyable hours I get the central slopes of Kaivopuisto for myself. Skiing home I encounter three young snowboarders heading towards the same slopes. Seems, that urban downhill sliding continuous downtown.
Due to good wind conditions electricity is cheap – according to our Exchange Price Electricity contract we only pay 7,37 c/kWh. So, after 2 hours and 22 minutes in the wind I justify myself relaxing sauna, trim my beard and wash some laundry.
CLIMATE VS. WEATHER:
First week of January 2024 was among the coldest in 100 years in Finland. Yet, climate is indisputably warming.
How can this be? And, actually in the Arctic the temperatures should rise even faster, than in average. The answer is two-part; polar vortex and the difference between a climate and weather.
CLIMATE:
Year 2023 was hottest year in possibly 100.000 years on Earth.
Copernicus, EU Space Programme
WEATHER:
End of year 2023 was cold in Scandinavia due to stable local cold airmass.
Finnish meteorological institute
STUDY
POLAR VORTEX: Too high combustion of hydrocarbons (oil, coal, gas) has triggered the climate change. In addition to global warming various irregularities in climate have increased.
Polar vortex – a large circular mass of cold air is a normal pattern close to poles. Past years polar vortex has weakened and sent away bursts of cold Arctic air. These cold fronts have remained even weeks over certain areas.
2023 HOTTEST YEAR: EU funded Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) is an organisation collecting and analysing long term weather data. By combining numerous climate key indicators, it has concluded 2023 to have been the hottest year since 1850.
Average annual temperature on Earth was 14,98 degrees Celsius, which is 1,48 degrees warmer than the pre-industrial 1850-1900. The report concludes that reasons for high temperatures are greenhouse gas concentrations, “El Niño” and other natural weather variations. Lowering fast the use of oil, gas and coal is essential in slowing down the climate change.
ENERGY TRANSITION: Humanity is in need of second energy transition. The first one took over hundred years: since 1850 coal and oil took over fire wood, animal and human muscle as sources of power. Now, after half of century of resisting, we are forced to speed up the phase out of fossil (coal, oil, gas) fuel towards saving energy and more sustainable power sources.
Wind, solar, wave and partially hydroelectric power are often considered sustainable. Nuclear power is non-fossil, but it has longer term environmental issues, which have not yet been solved in all countries.
Combined with the global population growth and climate crisis a notable change in habits of consuming energy is required from everybody, including people, corporations and countries. As the timespan is ten to thirty years and as we have been procrastinating too long, two-digit changes are needed.
Due to accelerated speed of both the sixth extinction and climate change any action has more impact if done soon. So, to support energy transition we all should consider what goods, flights, and resource
consuming services do we really need. And how frequently. We are over 8 billion. We count!
FLEXIBLE ENERGY MARKET: As energy transition advances, flexible use and production of power becomes more important. Energy plants are already making agreements with large factories to save energy or even to close down, if low energy output is prognosed.
Also increasing number of consumers energy contracts are “market-priced”. This means, electricity can be (almost) free, when there is lot of free capacity (sunny, windy day and all major power plants fully operational). Yet, if during extreme cold or heat there is not enough energy production and import, prices per kWh (kilowatt-hour) can tenfold or even more.
Price is an effective guide for both consumption and production of energy. But new structures are also needed in replacement of fossil fuels. Different energy storage systems (batteries, thermal and kinetic solutions) are being tested and constructed.
ASSIGNMENTS
A. YOU
A1. Dancing in the rain. Have you taken advantage of “bad weather”? Did you go out to dance – or swim in the rain? Or maybe testing how hot some dark stones or sand gets on a really hot midday? Or maybe after blizzard going out to play in the snow? Sometimes being out, when others are put can be fun. But also dangerous, if it really is a heavy storm. So do respect the weather – and climate, too.
B. SOCIETY
B1. Exchange price electricity. Green energy (wind and solar) is growing their share in global energy supply. As they follow the rules of nature, use of energy must also be more flexible than it is now. Growing number of households have electricity contracts, that are market priced. So, on a windy day with all major power plants producing in full capacity it is cheap or even (almost) free to charge electric cars, wash laundry, etc. But on a bad day prices per kWh (kilowatt-hour) can tenfold or even more. People with these kinds of contracts follow daily the price of electricity and on hourly basis decide, when to use machines with heavy need of electricity. Do you know such people? Why they have decided to take such contracts? Are they satisfied?
C. REVALUING NATURE
C1. Forests. Before and during early industrial revolution forest were vital source of energy as fire wood was the most important source of energy for mankind. In the fight against climate change and sixth extinction forests have different values. What are they? See “TIPS” below, if in doubt.
DISCLAIMER AND CITATIONS:
All gif-icons here have been produced by DebaTales.com.
The map with red Africa, Asia and Europe and blue Scandinavia base to weather data of EU Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) Climate Data Store (CDS), but is simplified.
TIPS
Click the bolded heading by the triangle to open the drop down TIP.
Revaluing forests:
For hunter gatherers forests supplied shelter and nutrition. In agricultural and early industrial societies, they supplied construction material and fire wood. Latest fashion has been to turn the lungs of our planet to paper, cardboard boxes, tissues and disposable packaging.
Despite improved recycling of paper and cardboard we should be able to save more of our forests to act as carbon storage, as trees naturally turn one critical greenhouse gas – carbon dioxide – to oxygen. Reforestation of once cut areas is beneficial, but fastest and most efficient way is to save the forests we still have. Trees grow lot slower than grass.
Especially old forests host many endangered species. Once lost they never return. Forests are too vital link on global ecosystem to be lost. So, we must rethink, how they are used and how to value them. Within next critical ten to twenty years, we need all the capabilities there is to limit the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
LINKS
Polar vortex: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_vortex
2023 hottest year: https://climate.copernicus.eu/copernicus-2023-hottest-year-record
Energy transition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_transition
Energy transition timeline: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/Energy_Transition_Timeline.pdf
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