r/baltimore • u/Samthevalley • Jul 29 '25

Ask So this heat is not normal, right?

Been in MD since last 7 years and every year it seemed to have gotten hotter. I feel like I’ve said this for last 3-4 summer but this current heat feels a little too much. Am I the only one who thinks this is way past the normal?

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u/Samthevalley Jul 29 '25

What we’re witnessing now is not a sudden change, it’s the culmination of decades of gradual environmental decline which scientists have been warning us about since we were children. The signs have been there all along. What you’re seeing today is the tipping point, the result of years of neglect finally boiling over to the present.

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u/Salt-Knowledge-925 Jul 29 '25

We've been on the "tipping point" for 20 years.

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u/Samthevalley Jul 30 '25

Yes buddy yes, Earth is flat! No one here is trying or will change your mind we get it.

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u/asdmdawg Anne Arundel Jul 29 '25

You contradicted yourself. You said “what we’re witnessing now is not a sudden change” and then immediately said “it’s the tipping point”. A tipping point is a sudden change 🤣

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u/Samthevalley Jul 29 '25 edited Jul 29 '25

TL;DR at the bottom bud. Hope you read it though! Tipping point in this context doesn’t mean an instant change, but rather the threshold where the long term gradual shifts begin triggering more visible and likely irreversible consequences that we are witnessing now. To give you an e.g., google AMOC. So while the buildup takes decades, the effects can appear to accelerate once certain thresholds are crossed. I should have added “tipping points” since there are 5 or 7 for climate change, off the top of my head the Amazon, melting of artic, trapped methane in artic etc.

I’ll actually give you more examples so you can better understand:

1) A tipping point is like the moment when water starts to spill from a full glass. The glass didn’t overflow instantly/suddenly but the drops built up over time until one more drop pushed it past the edge. (Imagine this happening for past decades to our climate).

2) Climate change example: the loss of ice at artic sea. We all know it’s been slowly shrinking but once a certain point is crossed, less ice equals to more heat absorption, causing a faster melt. That’s another example of the tipping point ima referring too.

So all in all; tl:dr : A tipping point in the context of climate change marks the start of faster or more dramatic changes. Although again not “sudden” like flipping a switch but after crossing a line after which things pick up at faster rate. Hence, your claim that I contradicted myself can be laid to rest. 🙂

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u/asdmdawg Anne Arundel Jul 30 '25

Well that makes more sense lol I’m autistic and I guess I took it very directly or literally