[Vision2020] Climate science temperature records and the media

[Paul Rumelhart]

You make a good point.  The only thing we know about these records is that they are notable for being at least of a magnitude to have broken the previous record for that day of the year.  We don't know how their magnitudes compare with each other.  However, I still find the direction the author took as being strange.  He or she didn't appear to have any information about their relative magnitudes, either.  So here is what there was to start from:

1.  1966 maximum temperature records were broken between July 1 and July 23.
2.  4376 minimum temperature records were broken between July 1 and July 23.

The author could have added any of the following to his or her article:  an explanation of what climate scientists thought might be causing the increase in maximum temperature records, an explanation of what they thought might be causing the increase in minimum temperature records, and/or an explanation of what they thought might have been causing them to happen together.

The author ultimately focused only on the first one.  I still find that odd.  It looks like the author missed out on what could possibly been a more informative article.  I'm still intrigued by the fact that they are happening at the same time, which seems far more notable to me than this run-of-the-mill "CO2 is killing us" article suggests.


Paul



________________________________
From: Art Deco <deco at moscow.com>
To: vision2020 at moscow.com
Sent: Thursday, July 28, 2011 11:44 AM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Climate science temperature records and the media


Suppose you were an airline looking to set fares 
on the basis of costs, including fuel.
 
One element of fuel cost is the weight of 
the passengers.
 
Suppose for a month there were 1966 
passengers over the average weight and 4376 passengers under the average 
weight.  Should you then contemplate lowering fares?
 
Suppose that the average over the average 
weight passenger was 30 pounds per passenger while the average under the 
average weight per passenger was 1 pound per passenger.
 
Hence, the total weight change would be 1966 x 30 
- 4276 x 1 = 58980 - 4276 = 54704 more than the average.
 
Hence, even though there were less over the 
average weight passengers, there accumulated mass was a lot more than the 
accumulated mass of the under the average weight passengers.
 
Just looking a raw under the average 
counts of anything does not reveal any conclusions beyond those 
counts.
 
Also, if for only one month out of 
twelve the under the average weight passengers outnumbered the over the 
average weight passengers, drawing conclusions from such a single month 
count would likely lead to an error.
 
I have not analyzed the numbers you have referred 
to in context, but unless you can show that no errors like as those shown above 
occurred, your question is not due serious consideration.
 
Perhaps you might gain some insight from both the 
following easy to understand books:
 
How to Lie with Statistics
Proofiness
 
w.
 


From: Paul Rumelhart 
Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2011 7:09 AM
To: Vision 2020 
Subject: [Vision2020] Climate science temperature records and the 
media
I ran into this story in the Seattle Times that came out 
yesterday:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2015737378_heatrecords27.html

It 
basically talks about the fact that there were 1,966 high temperature 
records broken or tied this month (presumably in the US, though they 
don't say), and compares that to the odd fact that there were 4,376 
minimum temperature records broken in the same period of time (July 1 
through July 23).  So, instead of contemplating why the focus has been 
on the extreme heat when there are twice as many extreme cold records 
being broken the article goes on to explain how high temperature records 
being broken is an expected part of climate change and how it's tied 
into greenhouse gases and how we can expect more and more of that as the 
years go by.  It then throws in a comment that some natural gas 
commodity trading advisor is unsure how extensive any cooling might 
be.

So why is the breaking of 4,376 minimum temperature records in July a 
non-issue, but the breaking of 1,966 maximum temperature records in the 
same period is fodder for the standard AGW grist mill?  Aren't both 
anomalies likely equally important?

If maximum and minimum 
temperature records being broken are right in 
line with anthropogenic global 
warming or climate change or whatever, 
then what kind of weather would 
disprove 
it?

Paul

=======================================================
 List 
services made available by First Step Internet, 
 serving the 
communities of the Palouse since 1994.   
               http://www.fsr.net                       
          mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
=======================================================

=======================================================
List services made available by First Step Internet, 
serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.  
              http://www.fsr.net                      
          mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
=======================================================
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20110728/123f5984/attachment-0001.html