Data centers are creating ‘heat islands’ and warming the land around them by up to 16 degrees Farenheit

7 months ago by silence7 to c/climate

The vast data centers that power artificial intelligence are so energy hungry that they’re heating up their surroundings, according to new research. It’s an alarming finding given the number of data centers is predicted to explode over the next few years.
panda_abyss 35 points 7 months ago

This study is crap.

No statistical significance, control groups, numbers, or models. Just rolling average temperature vs temperature.

They don’t say how they filter out trends or seasonality. They don’t look at switch point models or do difference in difference. And it’s a non reviewed preprint.

This research needs an actual statistician to use their data and fix it, because as is, this is not worth seriously discussing.

Edit: okay downvotes. I’m not saying there isn’t something here, I’m saying this study does nothing to support the hypothesis seriously.

We have data picking and choosing to throw out data, we have no statistical rigour, and we have no comparison against other rural land transformation activities.

We already know about urban heat islands, is this just that? That’s an important question when trying to say data center use is the issue.

It probably is an issue, the chart is compelling, but without better work none of this is actionable.

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TheObviousSolution 19 points 7 months ago

Dude, it's just a single downvote. It wasn't even made by anyone who bothered to make their own comment in the thread.

This study itself is bad, but it arguably promotes better studies to come out and nobody is doubting that AI data centers are just huge sources of heat radiation and energy consumption. The study you want takes time, effort, and will undoubtedly receive pushback . At the very least, it gave an excuse for CNN to talk about the issue.

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Zombie 5 points 7 months ago

Complaining about downvotes? That's a downvotable offense.

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ryannathans 2 points 7 months ago

Chart?

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ryannathans 7 points 7 months ago

That.. Is consistent

I wonder if there were trees or shade something in the before and direct sun in the after

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panda_abyss 5 points 7 months ago

And that’s why I want to see someone else take their data and do this justice

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RicoBerto 23 points 7 months ago

16 is so much!

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Asafum 11 points 7 months ago

"I hear you, you're concerned about climate change, I get it. So how about more heat!"

...ughhh

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ZombieCyborgFromOuterSpace 3 points 7 months ago

Suddenly the plot of the science fiction movie The Arrival doesn't seem so fictional any more.

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SaveTheTuaHawk 2 points 7 months ago

The effect here is not the heat, it's the utter waste of energy to generate that heat.

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FudgyMcTubbs 4 points 7 months ago

What could go wrong?

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ZombieCyborgFromOuterSpace 2 points 7 months ago

16 degrees ?!?!?!?!?! Holy shit

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Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.

As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades: Graph of temperature as observed with significant warming, and simulated without added greenhouse gases and other anthropogentic changes, which shows no significant warming

How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world: IPCC AR6 Figure 2 - Thee bar charts: first chart: how much each gas has warmed the world.  About 1C of total warming.  Second chart:  about 1.5C of total warming from well-mixed greenhouse gases, offset by 0.4C of cooling from aerosols and negligible influence from changes to solar output, volcanoes, and internal variability.  Third chart: about 1.25C of warming from CO2, 0.5C from methane, and a bunch more in small quantities from other gases.  About 0.5C of cooling with large error bars from SO2.

Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:

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