7 ms·

UK weather: February temperature jump was incredible, says climate expert

_nosaj 8y ago
It's always amazing to see otherwise intelligent people conveniently forget how statistics work when it comes to the climate.
- haxiomic 8y ago
  How so? What do you think they're incorrect about in this article?
- pablooliva 8y ago
  I am curious too. Please elaborate.
  - _nosaj 8y ago
    I'll elaborate. As many others have pointed out below, a single data point says nothing about a trend. It's statistics 101. I agree that man made climate change is a big problem, but I'm not willing to use every sensational event as confirmation of this.
    - JoeAltmaier 8y ago
      A sensational data point like that actually is a series of points. If you set a record, it depends on all the data that came before. One data point doesn't make it an exceptional measure, all those before do that. I understand denial is in play, as people worldwide come to terms with the mess we're in. Its a normal process. There's other stages as well - bargaining, anger, grief. Unfortunately we don't seem to have time for all that to play out.
      - _nosaj 8y ago
        You seem to be confusing trends and data points. In my original comment I was pointing out that a trend tells us a lot, while an isolated data point tells us almost nothing. My issue with the article is that the author uses a data point and frames it like a trend. It's sensational, sure, but it will only be statistically significant when we can observe a trend.
- sparkie 8y ago
  The weather is warm: "Proof of global warming" The weather is cold: "More proof of global warming" Climatologists are repeatedly telling us that local weather phenomenon are not indicative of overall climate, yet the same climatologists come out and try to sell their story when the weather warms up. Is it any surprise that people are not listening to them? Im skeptical of AGW claims, but I won't outright deny climate science. As a layperson, I just see a blatant double standard of reporting and it only adds to my skepticism. Is local weather indicative of climate or not? If yes, what about the unreasonably freezing weather just a few weeks ago across the atlantic? If no, then what is this article trying to sell?
  - Brakenshire 8y ago
    Here is the main BBC article, scroll down to "Does climate change have a role?" to see what they say about the climate change link, which is very measured: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47360952 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47360952 As the submission article says, in the UK a lot of the media coverage of temperatures 15C over what you might expect has actually been celebratory, 'cheery headlines such as “Fabruary” and reports about ice-cream sales.' I mean, you are certainly correct that a lot of media outlet are unreliable in reporting of science. I don't see why that would change your opinion either way. If an unqualified journalists writes an incorrect article in support of some position which you know to be true, you are hardly going to change your opinion on that account. And the incompetence of CNN does nothing to the overwhelming weight of evidence, and the overwhelming consensus of expert opinion on the topic.
    - andy_ppp 8y ago
      The GP conflates two things, facts being reported, and poor media coverage of partial facts or falsehoods. So therefore because the media report facts as well as non facts that means facts === non facts. Brilliant deduction isn’t it.
      - sparkie 8y ago
        I didn't conflate them but specifically pointed out that my opinion on media coverage does not imply denial of science, and my complaint is specifically about media coverage of "global warming", not necessarily the science itself. However, replace "facts" with "The outputs of our climate models," because the two are very different things. There are some tangible facts about global temperature and such which are measurable and reproducible. The models which link human carbon emissions to the temperature are not "facts", they are estimations based on the extent of our climate knowledge, and they are under constant revision. There's the claim that "the science is settled", but it absolutely is not. There are politicians hiding behind media coverage which keeps telling us it is settled, which resorts to ad hominem attacks on scientists who challenge the idea, and of course, all of the funding in climate science only goes to parties who are interested in continuing the scaremongering trend. I personally couldn't care much about whether the science is accurate or not anyway. The climate is going to change whether we do anything or not. I put more weight on dealing with real problems that exist right now than hypothetical problems that might exist next century. More money will be wasted trying to prevent a problem which probably can't be prevented, than spent on actual solutions which deal with the problem at hand.
globlist 8y ago
Get your daily dose of climate hysteria!
EGreg 8y ago
The politics of our day is as dysfunctional as it’s ever been. Tons of people in the USA ALONE believe climate change isn’t even happening, let alone man-made. They have bought into the weird myth that moving to sustainable energy will harm the economy, and therefore are motivated to deny climate change (set aside the ridiculous mental gymnastics that entails, even if true). Our only hope for short term sustainability is a Carbon Tax and Dividend, which has been introduced as a bipartisan bill a few months ago[1]. I wish there would be more media coverage of it. It is much more realistic than the Green New Deal but the only person running for President I know that even mentions it on his campaign website is Andrew Yang. A carbon tax redistibuted to the people would avoid the yellow vest-like protests about disproportionately falling on the poor and middle class. Instead, it would be “Climate Justice” that even anarcho capitalists could support — corporations having to compensate people for polluting the common atmosphere with greenhouse gases. Such a dividend would incentivize voters to say “more carbon tax, please!” and cause electric vehicles to be produced, which represents CHOICE of energy generation instead of the fuel lock-in we have been subjected to by te fossil fuel industry since Edison designed electric cars 100 years ago (they are in the Edison museum). Unless you think the fossil fuel industry should enjoy free externalities and lack of competition in fuel generation for cars, you have no leg to stand on to oppose this even from an economic standpoint. https://citizensclimatelobby.org/carbon-fee-bill/ https://citizensclimatelobby.org/carbon-fee-bill/
- yellow_postit 8y ago
  “pauses the EPA authority to regulate the CO2 and equivalent emissions covered by the fee, for the first 10 years after the policy is enacted. “ seems like a giveaway if the carbon fee is too low for the bill you referenced. Also I found this to be a better explanation of the carbon fee bill in the US: https://energyinnovationact.org/how-it-works/ https://energyinnovationact.org/how-it-works/
- laythea 8y ago
  Whatever we can do is minor in comparison to the overall trend that the earth has for climate change, irrespective of humanity. To think we can effect a real change and avoid a natural change is to give yourself too much credit. We should still aim to live in a clean environment, but not with the goal of reversing climate change.
codeulike 8y ago
I had lunch in the garden on 21st feb. Sitting there in the sun without a coat. It was like June. It was really nice, and also really unsettling.
- thinkingemote 8y ago
  I took the day off to go on a long hike it was great but all the invisible dust on the air gave me an odd pain in my chest when I went to bed then it gave me a sore throat and asthmatic conditions which has only just cleared! Turns out the dust raised the pollution level to high with people being advised not to exercise! I suppose my ten mile hike up the hills was a bad idea.
AlexTWithBeard 8y ago
I think in order to be fair we shouldn't use local weather as an indicator of general climate: for every "we had trees blossom in January" story they're will be a "we had ice on the lake in June, you, hoaxers" answer"
laythea 8y ago
Climate change people. Key word is change. We will need to get used to adapting.
metacritic12 8y ago
To quote Scott Adams, why are people seeing a single data point as evidence for climate change, when those same people deride the alt-right for seeing cold weather in April in their town as evidence against climate change? It's behavior like this, reeking of bias in which singular data points count and which don't that gets the other side to think climate change is just a base/faith political belief instead of something derived from evidence. Even the article itself is editorially-suggestive. The question is posted throughout the article "what fraction is due to climate change? we don't know!". A single record-breaking 20C day above a trend of say 5C is 15C warmer, whereas the best guesses for the magnitude of human-caused sub portion of global warming is about 1C. The quote in the article say says the warm record is largely due to global warming is totally misleading in the R^2 technical sense, and even needs to be couched in the technical language of "well the trend of warmer temperatures..." For full disclosure, I believe climate change, but also that these singular data points have very little information value.
- apcragg 8y ago
  The thing is that small changes in the mean affect the long tail of the distribution in a very visible way. How is it biased to point out extreme weather events like this which are happening more frequently now than in the past? The NYT has a great graphic illustrating this point. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/07/28/climate/more-frequent-extreme-summer-heat.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/07/28/climate/more-...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- jellicle 8y ago
  "We know our village has been beset with wolves. We have hundreds of attacks in recent months." "This morning I found a sheep dead with bite marks." "Your singular data point doesn't mean anything!" To be more clear, the scientific offense of cherry-picking only applies when one intentionally picks a data point against the body of evidence. You can't look at each individual raindrop in a downpour and argue that each one is only a singular data point and therefore it ain't raining. You also misunderstand that a small increase in global temperature can, and is predicted to, cause very large, local, increases and decreases in local temperature, largely through disrupting the world's prevalent wind and water patterns.

It's always amazing to see otherwise intelligent people conveniently forget how statistics work when it comes to the climate.

haxiomic 8y ago
How so? What do you think they're incorrect about in this article?
pablooliva 8y ago
I am curious too. Please elaborate.
- _nosaj 8y ago
  I'll elaborate. As many others have pointed out below, a single data point says nothing about a trend. It's statistics 101. I agree that man made climate change is a big problem, but I'm not willing to use every sensational event as confirmation of this.
  - JoeAltmaier 8y ago
    A sensational data point like that actually is a series of points. If you set a record, it depends on all the data that came before. One data point doesn't make it an exceptional measure, all those before do that. I understand denial is in play, as people worldwide come to terms with the mess we're in. Its a normal process. There's other stages as well - bargaining, anger, grief. Unfortunately we don't seem to have time for all that to play out.
    - _nosaj 8y ago
      You seem to be confusing trends and data points. In my original comment I was pointing out that a trend tells us a lot, while an isolated data point tells us almost nothing. My issue with the article is that the author uses a data point and frames it like a trend. It's sensational, sure, but it will only be statistically significant when we can observe a trend.
sparkie 8y ago
The weather is warm: "Proof of global warming" The weather is cold: "More proof of global warming" Climatologists are repeatedly telling us that local weather phenomenon are not indicative of overall climate, yet the same climatologists come out and try to sell their story when the weather warms up. Is it any surprise that people are not listening to them? Im skeptical of AGW claims, but I won't outright deny climate science. As a layperson, I just see a blatant double standard of reporting and it only adds to my skepticism. Is local weather indicative of climate or not? If yes, what about the unreasonably freezing weather just a few weeks ago across the atlantic? If no, then what is this article trying to sell?
- Brakenshire 8y ago
  Here is the main BBC article, scroll down to "Does climate change have a role?" to see what they say about the climate change link, which is very measured: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47360952 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47360952 As the submission article says, in the UK a lot of the media coverage of temperatures 15C over what you might expect has actually been celebratory, 'cheery headlines such as “Fabruary” and reports about ice-cream sales.' I mean, you are certainly correct that a lot of media outlet are unreliable in reporting of science. I don't see why that would change your opinion either way. If an unqualified journalists writes an incorrect article in support of some position which you know to be true, you are hardly going to change your opinion on that account. And the incompetence of CNN does nothing to the overwhelming weight of evidence, and the overwhelming consensus of expert opinion on the topic.
  - andy_ppp 8y ago
    The GP conflates two things, facts being reported, and poor media coverage of partial facts or falsehoods. So therefore because the media report facts as well as non facts that means facts === non facts. Brilliant deduction isn’t it.
    - sparkie 8y ago
      I didn't conflate them but specifically pointed out that my opinion on media coverage does not imply denial of science, and my complaint is specifically about media coverage of "global warming", not necessarily the science itself. However, replace "facts" with "The outputs of our climate models," because the two are very different things. There are some tangible facts about global temperature and such which are measurable and reproducible. The models which link human carbon emissions to the temperature are not "facts", they are estimations based on the extent of our climate knowledge, and they are under constant revision. There's the claim that "the science is settled", but it absolutely is not. There are politicians hiding behind media coverage which keeps telling us it is settled, which resorts to ad hominem attacks on scientists who challenge the idea, and of course, all of the funding in climate science only goes to parties who are interested in continuing the scaremongering trend. I personally couldn't care much about whether the science is accurate or not anyway. The climate is going to change whether we do anything or not. I put more weight on dealing with real problems that exist right now than hypothetical problems that might exist next century. More money will be wasted trying to prevent a problem which probably can't be prevented, than spent on actual solutions which deal with the problem at hand.

globlist 8y ago

Get your daily dose of climate hysteria!

EGreg 8y ago

The politics of our day is as dysfunctional as it’s ever been. Tons of people in the USA ALONE believe climate change isn’t even happening, let alone man-made. They have bought into the weird myth that moving to sustainable energy will harm the economy, and therefore are motivated to deny climate change (set aside the ridiculous mental gymnastics that entails, even if true). Our only hope for short term sustainability is a Carbon Tax and Dividend, which has been introduced as a bipartisan bill a few months ago[1]. I wish there would be more media coverage of it. It is much more realistic than the Green New Deal but the only person running for President I know that even mentions it on his campaign website is Andrew Yang. A carbon tax redistibuted to the people would avoid the yellow vest-like protests about disproportionately falling on the poor and middle class. Instead, it would be “Climate Justice” that even anarcho capitalists could support — corporations having to compensate people for polluting the common atmosphere with greenhouse gases. Such a dividend would incentivize voters to say “more carbon tax, please!” and cause electric vehicles to be produced, which represents CHOICE of energy generation instead of the fuel lock-in we have been subjected to by te fossil fuel industry since Edison designed electric cars 100 years ago (they are in the Edison museum). Unless you think the fossil fuel industry should enjoy free externalities and lack of competition in fuel generation for cars, you have no leg to stand on to oppose this even from an economic standpoint. https://citizensclimatelobby.org/carbon-fee-bill/ https://citizensclimatelobby.org/carbon-fee-bill/

yellow_postit 8y ago
“pauses the EPA authority to regulate the CO2 and equivalent emissions covered by the fee, for the first 10 years after the policy is enacted. “ seems like a giveaway if the carbon fee is too low for the bill you referenced. Also I found this to be a better explanation of the carbon fee bill in the US: https://energyinnovationact.org/how-it-works/ https://energyinnovationact.org/how-it-works/
laythea 8y ago
Whatever we can do is minor in comparison to the overall trend that the earth has for climate change, irrespective of humanity. To think we can effect a real change and avoid a natural change is to give yourself too much credit. We should still aim to live in a clean environment, but not with the goal of reversing climate change.

codeulike 8y ago

I had lunch in the garden on 21st feb. Sitting there in the sun without a coat. It was like June. It was really nice, and also really unsettling.

thinkingemote 8y ago
I took the day off to go on a long hike it was great but all the invisible dust on the air gave me an odd pain in my chest when I went to bed then it gave me a sore throat and asthmatic conditions which has only just cleared! Turns out the dust raised the pollution level to high with people being advised not to exercise! I suppose my ten mile hike up the hills was a bad idea.

AlexTWithBeard 8y ago

I think in order to be fair we shouldn't use local weather as an indicator of general climate: for every "we had trees blossom in January" story they're will be a "we had ice on the lake in June, you, hoaxers" answer"

laythea 8y ago

Climate change people. Key word is change. We will need to get used to adapting.

metacritic12 8y ago

To quote Scott Adams, why are people seeing a single data point as evidence for climate change, when those same people deride the alt-right for seeing cold weather in April in their town as evidence against climate change? It's behavior like this, reeking of bias in which singular data points count and which don't that gets the other side to think climate change is just a base/faith political belief instead of something derived from evidence. Even the article itself is editorially-suggestive. The question is posted throughout the article "what fraction is due to climate change? we don't know!". A single record-breaking 20C day above a trend of say 5C is 15C warmer, whereas the best guesses for the magnitude of human-caused sub portion of global warming is about 1C. The quote in the article say says the warm record is largely due to global warming is totally misleading in the R^2 technical sense, and even needs to be couched in the technical language of "well the trend of warmer temperatures..." For full disclosure, I believe climate change, but also that these singular data points have very little information value.

apcragg 8y ago
The thing is that small changes in the mean affect the long tail of the distribution in a very visible way. How is it biased to point out extreme weather events like this which are happening more frequently now than in the past? The NYT has a great graphic illustrating this point. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/07/28/climate/more-frequent-extreme-summer-heat.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/07/28/climate/more-...
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
jellicle 8y ago
"We know our village has been beset with wolves. We have hundreds of attacks in recent months." "This morning I found a sheep dead with bite marks." "Your singular data point doesn't mean anything!" To be more clear, the scientific offense of cherry-picking only applies when one intentionally picks a data point against the body of evidence. You can't look at each individual raindrop in a downpour and argue that each one is only a singular data point and therefore it ain't raining. You also misunderstand that a small increase in global temperature can, and is predicted to, cause very large, local, increases and decreases in local temperature, largely through disrupting the world's prevalent wind and water patterns.