Surviving The Next Little Ice Age In Argentina

[steveinbsas]

It appears winters are getting colder in Buenos Aires and homes were not built with the proper insulation and/or heating systems.

This winter may be colder in Capital Federal and in the north of Provincia Buenos Aries, but down around Bahia Blanca this winter has been much warmer than any of the previous seven winters I've lived through. July has always been the coldest month of the year here, but there hasn't been a single "hard" frost and I haven't stopped cutting the grass.

For the past six months I've been reading as much as I can find about the possible consequences of the Grand Solar Minimum which has been predicted by a number of climate scientists. Some disagree on how severe the cooling will be and how long it will last. One scientists predicts we are on the verge of a full ice age but others assert any cooling will be brief and not offset the effects of AGW in the long rum.

Adapt 2030 has posted about the grand solar minimum almost daily and predicts that the price of food world wide will rise dramatically in the next few years as a result of crop losses which have already begun. In July adapt 2030 posted two videos on YouTube which are relevant to those of us who live in the Southern Hemisphere.

This adapt 2030 video is about the wind in Australia, but it's worth noting that, at a similar latitude to South Australia, the wind around here (something Bahia Blanca is famous for) has also diedL

Wind Power Disaster in Australia Leads to Impending Economic Crisis

https://www.youtube....h?v=6aJ081PNFC0

Thees a map that appears at the 6:30 in the video. You can see the warmer (yellow) area which includes the area around Bahia Blanca as well as the blue (colder) area that includes the upper portion of the Provincia Buenos Aires.I found the same map on the Skeptical Science website. It can be seen in this article from Skeptical Science:

https://www.skeptica...arm-Period.html

Adapt 2030 (among others) predicts that the "safest" zones for agricultural production during the grand solar minimum will be between 30 degrees north and 30 degrees south latitudes and areas above 40 degrees latitude could become significantly colder than normal (with crop damaging storms).

Here's the other video by adapt 2030 which may be of interest to those who would like to know about recent crop losses in the Southern Hemisphere and what is likely to happen in the coming years:

Cold Sweeps the Southern Hemisphere Major Crop Damage

https://www.youtube....h?v=kFHc7AZCeGU


PS: I didn't know anything about the Grand Solar Minimum or the Little Ice Age when I moved here in 2010. I just followed the advice: "Buy land where you can grow your own food," anticipating the next financial collapse and the higher food prices that will come with it.

 

[Winterfell]

I'm glad the subject is back on "the table", I was considering bringing it back myself. I joined this forum (after being a non-committal reader of it for a while) exclusively in order to be able to reply to that other thread about the cold, heating and insulation.

To say that winters are getting colder here is absurd. This country's historic temperature records can easily prove how it used to be much colder in the past than it is today.

Argentines of a certain age who grew up in Argentina can testify winters used to be way colder than they are now. It was normal to see morning frost, breath-stream as you talked (in daytime), and getting chilblains, none of which happens in Buenos Aires anymore.

I was thinking about a few Mafalda strips (mid to late 1960s), the ones taking place during winter, you can see the characters drawn with puffs of breath steam coming from their mouths as they talk. That was a normal winter here and there's your non-scientific bit of graphic proof.

Whoever thinks now it's colder than before hasn't got the foggiest clue, and is talking bollox. Then there's that claim about cold weather being "a novelty" in Buenos Aires, which is a totally mad thing to say. It also sounds vaguely insulting or arrogant in my opinion.

I saw a street market vendor, the week before last, when it was about 17°C and jungle humid, said vendor was wearing a woolly hat, a wool poncho, a scarf over all that, and gloves. In my mind it's got more to do with hysteria than anything else.

I think people are so much getting easily used to global warming, that now they're freaking out about "the cold" and fear of dying of pneumonia when it's mostly always double digits degrees all year round.

 

[Ceviche]

I miss the harsh winters of BA.

 

[Winterfell]

Winters used to be harsher alright, and the way I remember it, people knew it was normal and lived through it without making much of a fuss.

People used overcoats (not used anymore, take note), and on days of max 9°C nobody freaked out, because it was winter and it was normal, that's what normal winters were like, so people got on with it and nobody got panicky like I see it today in much warmer conditions.

Scene from last month, June 2017

A short line outside of a Pago Fácil ("No more than 2 people inside of the shop at any one time").
The woman in charge of the shop makes an exception and lets an older lady come inside telling her, compassionately:

"Come in, madam, don't stay out with this cold!"

This was said using a tone of voice as if saying "OMG you poor soul! You will die of hypothermia if you stay out here in this horrendous ice storm."

It was 16° or 17°C. With a heavy rainforest kind of air too.

 

[RandomS]

Is it possible that average BMI in population has decreased and that's why people are feeling chillier?

Less body fat = feeling cold?

 

[wineguy999]

Is it possible that average BMI in population has decreased and that's why people are feeling chillier?

Less body fat = feeling cold?

Your equation is correct, but it would appear average BMI is up in Argentina...considerably.

 

[Winterfell]

There I was arguing against the idea that "winters are getting colder" (when there's a surplus of evidence the exact opposite is happening)

… and now we're entering a "people are getting thinner" debate, when there's a surplus of evidence the exact opposite is…


Oh never mind

***

PS

It goes without saying but I'll say it anyway: We still are in midwinter, 24° forecast for today. It was 23° yesterday at one point in the afternoon when I checked.

 

[Girino]

http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1905856-invierno-adelantado-el-mes-pasado-fue-el-mayo-mas-frio-de-los-ultimos-60-anos

PS: you people are pretty aggressive in writing. What happened to you? This forum used to have a lot of voices but now it is a soapbox for some frustrated old foxes...

 

[Winterfell]

Serafina:

The very cold days mentioned in La Nación's article were a small handful of scattered days dotting an otherwise freakishly warm winter, after a very warm autumn. Average temperatures such as the ones mentioned in the article, result from "blending" all the numbers together.

2 or 3 days of very low temperatures in a whole month do change the average in a way that the story told is different than the history lived. The record lows are the same, anyone can understand that 3 cold days in a warm month is not the same as a consistently cold month.

A consistently warm winter (after a consistently warm autumn), dotted by punctual properly cold days, is not a cold winter. We are having a consistently warm winter dotted by cold days here and there, and the alarmist articles get published, illustrated by photos of people piling on kilos of woollen clothes and snow accessories looking like they're freezing to death, and readers eat it up.

A small number of properly cold days do provide the numbers for calculating averages. An average is not the real story nor it is the whole story. The record lows come from those scattered very cold days, and it is a travesty to use that combined data to claim it's getting colder overall when anyone can prove the exact opposite is happening just by checking any global weather website looking at all temperatures day by day worldwide.

This country's weather history and its temperature records should be readily available to anyone willing to do the proper research, unlike the La Nación article which reads like published hearsay and a hack job, not a properly researched piece of good journalism.

Right now as I type this in mid-winter, it's 21° and I am wearing spring clothes, as anyone with sense would in this kind of weather. Yesterday it was between 23° and 25° mid afternoon, very heavy and even hotter in the Subte B, where I saw people wearing coats, scarves and some of them even hats on the train. There's no arguing when it comes to personal feelings, I personally think it's like a collective hysteria.

I grew up in Buenos Aires quite some time ago and I do remember the winters of many decades ago, unlike you and unlike, it seems, Mr. Mauricio Giambartolomei author of the article you present as proof.

PS

A counterargument to all of this being "pretty aggressive".

Your own messages (the ones about cold weather being "a novelty" in Buenos Aires etc.) they could be interpreted as a provocation. Patronising.

Also, dropping a link to an article for all answer, like you did, isn't exactly a delicate move either. It looks to me like going "Ha! Get a load of this! You got owned".

 

[Girino]

I'll articulate my answer.

I just posted a question asking about heating option in Buenos Aires and why indoor heating seems to be failing me in Argentina.
I come from a colder weather so I am not bothered by Argentinian winter (which I find mild), but I am bothered by the fact I am suffering cold weather INSIDE my Argentinian home(s). My neighbors all have electric heaters / additional heaters inside their homes which I consider a sign that properties lack of a proper heating system.
Hence, given that I read that article and that many other (local) people complained about weather getting colder (no scientific data to back up this, which I find irrelevant - I am not interested in the temperature trend in Argentina or elsewhere, I just want to be able to live in a place where I don't have to wear a jacket indoor -in fact I wrote "it looks like" and not "since winters are getting colder").


Now, I post such post saying "why does it feel that cold inside an Argentinian home" and the answer I get is

"Sissy, you don't want to mess with me. I am superego-ed NASA engineer with over a century of experience. Plus I am Argentinian and I lived in Argentina when your mama wasn't still born. Ahahahah. Stupid people that complain about the weather. Ahahaha. They don't know cold weather. I worked in Alaska and that's cold weather. Where you'd get that ludicrous idea that winters are getting colder? Kiss the ground where I step on."

Followed by an accolade of "Yeah, ain't it entertaining what Argentinian wear when it's just 10°C degree?" [ceviche, stop Michael Jackson-ing yourself]]. Luckily, a bunch of people replied with their experience without falling in the provoking path of posts by other forum members whose entertainment seem to make fun of other people (other forum members, Argentinians, etc).

It is also understandable why people stopped posting on this forum. They get insulted, made fun of and trolled around.

I don't care where you were born, have lived or worked or how many degrees you have. The only degrees I care are those inside my apartment. Please be respectful of other member. You don't know when you might need someonelse's experience or help. They sure ain't sharing theirs if you treat them the way you do.
Some long standing forum members have switched to PMs only because of people like YOU!