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Interesting graphs, but it's a little confusing that all but one of them use difference of the metric (i.e. relative values) instead of absolute values -- what
by aglionby 7y ago
Interesting graphs, but it's a little confusing that all but one of them use difference of the metric (i.e. relative values) instead of absolute values -- what and when are the differences relative to?
- roter 7y agoThe titles indicate the baseline for each graph. e.g. "Global mean temperature difference from 1850-1900" They are plotting the anomalies which tend to be much more useful for climate studies than the absolute values. e.g. [0,1] [0] https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/monitoring-references/dyk/anomalies-vs-temperature https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/monitoring-references/dyk/anomalie... [1] https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/faq/abs_temp.html https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/faq/abs_temp.html
- aglionby 7y agoRight, so what is plotted is the deviation from the mean reading in the time range given? Thanks for the links, those are insightful.
- ocschwar 7y agoAll of these metrics have subtleties regarding the methodology, which makes the long term relative shifts more important than the absolute values.
- lopmotr 7y agoAbsolute sea level (from the bottom of the ocean?) is meaningless for people concerned about coastal flooding. Absolute temperature is also meaningless in deg C because the zero is arbitrary anyway. Even if they used kelvin, nobody cares how far we are from 0K.