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>Nor would anyone have thought that "record low sea ice" meant a record minimum if you hadn't brought it up You honestly believe that "record low sea ice" does

by soperj 9y ago

>Nor would anyone have thought that "record low sea ice" meant a record minimum if you hadn't brought it up You honestly believe that "record low sea ice" doesn't refer to the lowest amount of the year? There's no point in continuing to discuss it with you then. Alert receives 5 hours of daylight on March 7th. It receives 18-20 hours at the minimum. One makes it worth talking about, the other doesn't. Alert receives 0 hours of daylight as late as February 27th, so depending on the year, I'm not wrong.

nate_meurer 9y ago
> "You honestly believe that "record low sea ice" doesn't refer to the lowest amount of the year?" That's right, and this shouldn't surprise you. As an example, when the news talks about about "record-low snowpack" in a temperate mountain region, do you think they're talking about the "lowest minimum extent", measured at the end of summer when it's normal for snowpack to be low or zero? No, that would be stupid. They're usually talking about the "lowest maximum extent", or the lowest at some point early in the year, because that tells us how much water will be available from snowmelt, how much reservoirs will refill, potential for flooding/drought, etc. I think you're insisting on your own particular interpretation for the sake of argument, but it's certainly no more statistically useful or grammatically proper than the other ones.
mikeash 9y ago
I honestly believe that. The article clearly meant it that way. Why are you so insistent on interpreting it in a way which is clearly not what was stated? When someone makes an ambiguous statement which could be either true or false depending on how you interpret it, the right thing to do is to use the interpretation which makes it true. If I say "the heaviest cat ever recorded was nearly 50lbs," you don't come along and say "that's not true, lions and tigers weigh hundreds of pounds." You realize that I'm talking about domestic cats and go from there. They stated that there was a record low sea ice extent without saying exactly what was being measured. One measurement was a record, the other wasn't. Thus, clearly, they were talking about the one that set a record.
soperj 9y ago
Can't reply to you, so here it is. This is more akin to you saying the heaviest cat is 50 pounds, but I mention a 100 pound domestic cat, and you saying it was specific to a calico cat.
- mikeash 9y ago
  You're going to ignore everything in my comment except the analogy? Way to go.

by soperj 9y ago

nate_meurer 9y ago

> "You honestly believe that "record low sea ice" doesn't refer to the lowest amount of the year?" That's right, and this shouldn't surprise you. As an example, when the news talks about about "record-low snowpack" in a temperate mountain region, do you think they're talking about the "lowest minimum extent", measured at the end of summer when it's normal for snowpack to be low or zero? No, that would be stupid. They're usually talking about the "lowest maximum extent", or the lowest at some point early in the year, because that tells us how much water will be available from snowmelt, how much reservoirs will refill, potential for flooding/drought, etc. I think you're insisting on your own particular interpretation for the sake of argument, but it's certainly no more statistically useful or grammatically proper than the other ones.

mikeash 9y ago

I honestly believe that. The article clearly meant it that way. Why are you so insistent on interpreting it in a way which is clearly not what was stated? When someone makes an ambiguous statement which could be either true or false depending on how you interpret it, the right thing to do is to use the interpretation which makes it true. If I say "the heaviest cat ever recorded was nearly 50lbs," you don't come along and say "that's not true, lions and tigers weigh hundreds of pounds." You realize that I'm talking about domestic cats and go from there. They stated that there was a record low sea ice extent without saying exactly what was being measured. One measurement was a record, the other wasn't. Thus, clearly, they were talking about the one that set a record.

soperj 9y ago

Can't reply to you, so here it is. This is more akin to you saying the heaviest cat is 50 pounds, but I mention a 100 pound domestic cat, and you saying it was specific to a calico cat.

mikeash 9y ago
You're going to ignore everything in my comment except the analogy? Way to go.