4 ms·
There is really no shortage of introduction articles, starting from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globa
by yk 9y ago
There is really no shortage of introduction articles, starting from Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming
or Nasa:
https://climate.nasa.gov/ https://climate.nasa.gov/
or by now, just inspecting the measured global temperature by eye
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/ https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
Of course, these are introductory texts, so you should expect that there are some simplifications. You can of course just read the IPCC report,
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/syr/ https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/syr/
however be advised that they are on the cold side of the estimates. (Really if you would read the IPCC report with the same critical eye you are trying to nitpick the NY times, you would see that each and every scenario includes at least a plateau in emissions, they just don't have a scenario were emissions just rise like in the last 100 years.)
> First off, your observation of the ridiculous x-axis labels. Really, "Extremely Hot" Is that supposed to scare me or something?
You could of course inspect the linked paper, "Extremely hot" refers to summers that were once in thirty years hot in the time period from 1951 to 1980. It is just an accurate label.
- jack9 9y ago"Extremely hot" without predicated value is cannot be an accurate label in any context. It's a relative label, alone. In this case it's means "largest positive normalized value". The proposition that it is accurate by existence on a graph, is dishonest. That isn't constructive.
- yk 9y agoAny label needs context, consider the label "3" or even "9 m/s^2," the first can refer to anything the second to an acceleration or to a gravitational field strength. In the case of weather, "extremely hot" is just what one would call a summer that is hotter above the usual variability. I would argue, that the label is rather good for the context of a NYT article in that the reader would refer to that category as "extremely hot."
- wlesieutre 9y agoYes, they are relative values. The whole point of the article is to make a relative comparison of temperatures now to what they used to be. It's not trying to present absolute measurements. The average reader gets no meaningful understanding from "Global average temperatures are up 0.5 degrees Celsius. But looking at a graph like what's presented here, you can realize that a person in 1950, if asked what the weather was like on one of those red days, would tell you "It's goddamn hot, I can't remember it ever being this hot here." and now we get those temperatures all the time. If you want raw data and absolute comparisons, there are plenty of places to get it. This is an NYT article written to help people understand in concrete terms that things have changed.