If you live in europe, please check in with your elderly neighbours. Hot temperatures can be deadly for old people

top 87 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] 155 points 4 months ago* (19 children)

What a horrendous color map. The true anarchy in this post is the cartographers use of hue.

  • source
  • hideshow 19 child comments
  • [–] 45 points 4 months ago (8 children)

    Exactly what I was thinking. There are 3 different off-white colors that indicate vastly different temperature variants. This map is incredibly ambiguous. Which white zones are -8° below average, roughly the same as average, or 13° above average?

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 8 child comments
  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago (4 children)
  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago* (2 children)

    Do you honestly believe that someone like Joe Rogan could actually understand a graph with this much ambiguity?

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 12 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    Why the fuck is there white between red and red?

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago*

    It goes red-black-white-red. And since temperatures rarely jumps 5°c without gradient, the map will have black and gray area surrounding any white that represents +13, and white will surround and red that represents +18°.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 7 points 4 months ago*

    I might be the only one who doesn’t mind the color scheme. For the temperature range on the map, the only colors that don’t fit into the typical blue-to-red gradient are the green for really cold, which makes the coldest anomalies really pop, and the white for really hot. I get the complaints about white being used for both normal average temperature and for extreme heat, but it’s easy to tell which is which by the neighboring colors, and it almost looks as if France got so hot that it got a third degree burn, which chars the flesh, nerves included, and no longer feels like anything - thus insensate white.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 5 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    So MAYBE, and I'm pulling this out of my ass with no background here, but expectation is temperature doesn't jump, but flows as a gradient. Using France as the start, we've white fading to dark greys then reds, which is the hottest of the three white possibilities. As going hotter then that gets pink again, the top end is white in France. We then decrease down the scale until we get those. green pockets. Light green/white touching green would signify the lower of the three white temps. Not a great map, but perhaps it's an understood practice with the field. After all, how do you convert a quantitative scale into qualitative data. You can't really just number everything (people have shit attention spans and they'll gloss over immediately. Anybody who's delivered technical data to management can attest to that lol) Color works well for that, but has a limited useful spectrum. Getting too specific in a single spectrum muddies the graphic (what's the exact color over Lisbon here? This kinda salmony guy? So 8? Or closer to 9?)

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 6 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    So there is a lot of work on this in color theory, and you can go deep into this.. Here are a few chapters on the matter: https://slcc.pressbooks.pub/maps/chapter/9-2/ , https://courses.ems.psu.edu/geog486/node/876 , and this part in particular https://courses.ems.psu.edu/geog486/node/877

    Basically, their use of brightness within hue bins makes this a non-function. Notice how its gets whiter closer to 0 and closer to 13. If two values of Y can get plugged into a function and they both return 0 for the expected X term, thats a non-function.

    Temperature, or rather, difference in temperature from expected, which is whats being plotted here, is about divergence from normal.

    To fix this map, pick a divergent color scheme, center 0, then create bins at either a specific interval or at quantile intervals.

    Something like this: https://colorbrewer2.org/#type=diverging&scheme=RdYlBu&n=11

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 child)

    While I do appreciate the information on better infographic creation, the example map has such a small range comparably. There's over 30 values, not to mention the shades in-between values. I think a two color gradient would end up being very smooth at this scale. Sorta looks to generally drop in temperature as you go east here, nice red to blue fade.

    Expanding the color palette does give more room for distinction, but that's seemingly how they got where they did.

    To be fair, from my friends who've actually had color theory and graphic design classes, STEM folks tend to do a poor job of communicating well.

    So eh. Maybe it's pointless for me to argue against it.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago*

    To be fair, from my friends who’ve actually had color theory and graphic design classes, STEM folks tend to do a poor job of communicating well.

    it's a way of thinking about your audience, i think. when i worked in accounting and had to present to and teach accountants: simple formatted tables, stuff that looks like excel, it didn't need to be bright or colorful. it just needed to have colors that were unobtrusive. i'm working in music now and if my seminars don't have showmanship (and if i use powerpoint at all) i'm hosed. different audiences have completely different styles that they are used to communicating with, and if you adapt to that you're going to have more success

    so like, i'm sure the STEM folk are fine at communicating within their field. outside? well, a few of my uncles were engineers. does it show?

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 50 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    That is absolutely brutal. I really hope people are finding ways to escape the heat.

    Separately, this visualization is bad in a way I have never seen before: a scale of pink to dark red, where dark red actually represents 2 completely different numbers!

  • source
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago

    Many just can't escape it, for many reasons. People are dying, and this will only become more and more common and even worse. We only see the short term effects now too, it'll be so much worse after some years when the long term effects become clear. Crops dying, water shortages, infrastructure damage etc.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 36 points 4 months ago (5 children)

    Warm summer? Pfft. It's the coolest summer for the rest of our lives!

  • source
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • [–] 28 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    Let's go from white to red, then when it gets hotter back to white followed by red

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 12 points 4 months ago (8 children)

    Wtf did the map burn a hole in France?

  • source
  • hideshow 8 child comments
  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    Someone running a magnifying glass over there

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    it was too hot. France has evaporated.

    we should stop global warming before we lose a place we care about

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 23 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    Whose decision was it to make "6" and "18" such similar colors

  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago*

    Whoever had to extend the scale in a hurry because the numbers were literally unthinkable when it was made. This year people who can have lunch in death valley national park are getting cooler temperatures than London.

    Those people near death valley are living in (mostly shitty) homes built for extreme heat, with central air thick insulation and light colored exteriors, double pane windows, entry vestibules in the nicer ones, all the things nobody in england has only seen outside american TV.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 22 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    ...so is northeastern France -8, 0, or +13? What a fucking stupid color scale

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 9 points 4 months ago (5 children)

    While yes, a 14c deviation from average temperatures is fucking insane, so is this map. The scale is cooked.

  • source
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    What's it measuring against average temperature for this time of year because Europe does get hot at this time of year we know that. It's also not as bad as the heat wave we had 6 weeks ago. Not too underestimate our awful the weather currently is.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 8 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    Not only are the colours bad, but the numbers are too? How is a max of 18 in summer worrying? We are way above those numbers.

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 7 points 4 months ago

    Possibly the worst color scale I've ever seen on a chart

  • source
  • [–] 7 points 4 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 8 points 4 months ago

    The product of human activity, Donald Trump's deregulations, everyone trusting China with their manufacturing (given their own lax systems of regulation), and the rampant building of data centers.

    We are all partially guilty, and the phrase "fry in hell" is of our own making.

  • source
  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago

    What a great time to visit such a rural paradise that is Lithuania!

  • source
  • [–] 6 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    Europe needs to normalize air conditioning. I'll never forget the most miserable summer of my life was in germany. Summer gets hot there just like most other places, but in Europe, domiciles don't have AC 🥵

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago

    This will probably start to change if this is now the reality but at least historically the reason Europe didn't have air conditioning was it wasn't worth it for the 4 days of the year that it would be used.

    The other reason being that houses won't design to be air conditioned, we don't have ducted heating so if I bought an air conditioner and had it installed in a room it would air condition that room, if I wanted air conditioning in my house I would have to have a unit fitted in each room, that's going to get expensive. Alternatively I could buy this £15 fan from Lidl.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago

    I have medical documentation saying I need adequate temperature control and I have offered my landlord to pay all costs associated with installing AC and still they banned me from having AC 😭.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago

    @A404 States around the world absolutely fucking failed regarding Climate Change.Be it mitigation or prevention even the bare minimum was too much to ask for.Here in Germany activists even won a lawsuit upholding the law? To quote Proudhon : "Laws: We know what they are, and what they are worth! They are spider webs for the rich and mighty, steel chains for the poor and weak, fishing nets in the hands of government."

  • source
  • [–] [S] 3 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    Where else could i cross-post this?

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago*

    Hunh. I'm betting that's the first time Le Mans has had something so massively impactful in common w/ Laredo, TX. 🫢

  • source
  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    so what is the unit? because it's a hell of a lot warmer than 18C. Difference from... what historical average?

    it says 2m temperature anomaly and if it got 18 degrees C hotter outside in two minutes i think i'd just accept death. i must be misreading something.

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago* (4 children)

    The graph stops at 18°C, that's the temperature it should be not the temperature that it is. Also why does it have two whites, white is apparently both zero and 13, which is bizarre because it's definitely hotter than 13 everywhere in Europe right now and probably in Iceland as well. This map makes no sense.

  • source
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (3 children)

    So why am I in Japan experiencing a slightly cooler summer (so far, yes I realize there is plenty of time to get fucked)?

  • source
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago

    Because this is our first proper rainy season in years. We'll start to get fucked hard from the first week of July. Typhoons might help a bit more this year, but more of those is due to climate change too.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago

    I honestly wouldn't be able to cope in such temperatures. I'm glad Denmark is in the middle of the map here, wedged right in the sweet spot. Even then, it's going to be unbearable next weekend and I'm slowly preparing for it.

  • source
  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago
    [–] 1 point 4 months ago

    We used to have backbone. The count rised taxes too high and people picked up their pitchforks and torches. Now the rich elite makes planet inhabitable and no one cares to even complain about it loudly.

  • source
  • 21 comments in c/climate_lm@slrpnk.net view that post