How far from a forest fire do you have to be for a daily temperature record to count? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by Lawyerator@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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There have been some impressive (and scary) temperature records set in the past couple weeks. That said, there are parts of Canada that are currently on fire that likely have a daily temperature in the hundreds of degrees. Clearly that doesn't count for any sort of temperature record. What I'm wondering is: where's the dividing line? How far away from a big fire do you have to be to record a valid daily temperature?

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[-] BitSound@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

The scary temperatures you see in news headlines are basically unaffected by the fires. Wikipedia has a good overview:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_surface_temperature

The overall issue with global warming is not that one place gets super hot once and sets a record. Otherwise I could make news headlines by setting my house on fire and getting "hottest temperature ever! (at my house)". Those local hotspots of fire will affect the average global temp only a tiny bit, because the earth is a big place and there's lots of places not currently on fire. The thing to worry about is the reverse actually: because the earth is warming, fires are increasing everywhere, and then everybody will be next to a fire on that blessed record-setting day.

[-] ShadedCosmos@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

Approximately two

[-] fictitiousexistence@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

This is the correct answer.

The dividing line is 2. You must be 2 away from a big fire.

Yes. 2 is it.

[-] intensely_human@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago

2 is really important because of the inverse square law. At a distance of 2, the power level you’re feeling is 1/4. However if you were using different units and were, by those units, 3 from your power source what you’d be feeling would be multiplied by 1/9.

this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2023

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