5 ms·

The post ends with: "It actually was a once-in-a-century winter, which is good news for Boston, because it means we probably won't see another winter like this

by sfeng 12y ago

The post ends with: "It actually was a once-in-a-century winter, which is good news for Boston, because it means we probably won't see another winter like this in our lifetime." This may or may not be true, depending on how much climate change affects our environment during our lifetime.

ChuckMcM 12y ago
So very true, in the next glacial period Boston will, no doubt, continuously be under snow and ice. I find the national media's enthusiasm for making weather (not climate change, just weather) "news" rather sad.
- at-fates-hands 12y ago
  We have a local sports talk personality who likes to call them "weather terrorists" and makes fun of all the dire forecasts. Like the Monday we were supposed to get a foot of snow overnight that would cripple the city, make your commute hell and warned to stay inside and not venture outside unless you absolutely had to. Not only did we only get an inch, the temp came up to a balmy 35, the sun came out and by 1pm, the new snow had already totally melted.
  - ChuckMcM 12y ago
    I like that, weather terrorists! It is shorter than radical extremist meteorologists (a play on radical extremist theologians)
- NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago
  Weather news is the easiest way to push climate change propaganda. Just remember, the next Florida hurricane will prove global warming to be true!
- codyb 12y ago
  I'm not very sure the news is the place you want anything besides "news". And weather is certainly news in that when it is extreme it is an event which often affects millions of people. The best news stations (in my opinion) report without respect to personal belief. In that regard I respect the BBC for reporting news and not adding personal opinions, beliefs, or motives to it. When it comes to espousing on things such as climate change I (personally) expect that I'll have to do a fair amount of research on the matter to form an opinion. I recently read "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson. It was wonderful. In it he talks about how precarious a knife human existence sits on. The lack of ice ages in recent eras seems to be an outlier, and one of the biggest effects of climate change might be to knock us right into one. It was something I had not known and it was presented with detailed evidence as to why that may be the case. I'm not sure news organizations can or should offer these perspectives as they will either be presented in a manner which leaves a fair amount of details missing or in a manner which impedes upon the presentation of other news.
eCa 12y ago
> probably won't see another winter like this Once-in-a-century is averaged over many centuries. Sometimes things cluster. In 2002 parts of Europe were hit by a once-in-a-century flood [1]. In 2013 pretty much the same parts were hit by a flood that in many places were worse than the 2002 flood [2]. For instance, in Passau (on Donau), the waters were the highest since 1501 [3]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_European_floods http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_European_floods [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_European_floods http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_European_floods [3] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Hochwasser_Passau_2013-06-03.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Hochwasse...
- calinet6 12y ago
  One of the least understood facets of statistics. In random or natural distributions, we do not expect any kind of evenness or predictable spacing. Clustering of seemingly random events happens and happens often. Only when averaged over a sufficient number of samples can we make sense of patterns.
wiredfool 12y ago
Say you have an apparently independent random process and you sample a hundred or so values from it. From those, you could get an estimate of the population statistics, the mean, deviation, skew, and such. Now, on the n+1th observation, you wind up with something at 5 sigma. If the population is correctly characterized by the first hundred observations, then that data point is highly unlikely and not likely to be repeated. If the population is not independent, or is in the process of changing, then it's possible that the population statistics are invalid.
derobert 12y ago
Indeed. It's hard to avoid noticing that in the "10 worst" table, 8 of them came after the '78 season. I wonder what the L-score histogram looks like with data only through '78; did the '78 event also look like a 100-year storm?
- cowsandmilk 12y ago
  probably did. just using the figures in the chart, it would be: * 1978: 7.1 * 1948: 5.6 * others..... Looks like an outlier to me.
  - Shivetya 12y ago
    and you could go back to 1888 for a great blizzard, or even before then. The issue before us is that we don't have great records for an extended period of time for areas like North America. Get over to Europe and the Far East and we likely could come up with some historical accounting. The take away is this, severe weather, is easy to exaggerate the causes because so much of it is still unknown. The part I appreciate about the faux panic over climate change is that each day seems to bring about more understanding of what is happening and why.
drzaiusapelord 12y ago
Chicago had its worst 'once in 100 year' winter last year and this year also broke more than a handful of records both in snowfall and temperature. From what I can tell, the jetstream that usually blocks off Arctic air has weakened, thus raising the chances of cold air blowing on the midwest. We may be in a completely new winter pattern now. Or it may be a fluke, who knows, but its not safe to assume regular variability anymore. So far climate change has been blamed by some for the new higher frequency of this pattern. They may be right.
keypusher 12y ago
Gambler's Fallacy
deeviant 12y ago
That chance of a 1-in-a-x_amount_of_time event happening does not change right after it happens, at least in a strictly statistical since. Baring any actual physical factors, likelihood of such an event is the same every day.
- e40 12y ago
  That chance of a 1-in-a-x_amount_of_time event happening does not change right after it happens It would if it was based on bad or previous thinking and models. I think that's what the point was. We may need to throw out our old models, and if that happens this could be a lot more common.
baddox 12y ago
Or how much technology changes our lifetimes during our lifetime.

by sfeng 12y ago

ChuckMcM 12y ago

So very true, in the next glacial period Boston will, no doubt, continuously be under snow and ice. I find the national media's enthusiasm for making weather (not climate change, just weather) "news" rather sad.

at-fates-hands 12y ago
We have a local sports talk personality who likes to call them "weather terrorists" and makes fun of all the dire forecasts. Like the Monday we were supposed to get a foot of snow overnight that would cripple the city, make your commute hell and warned to stay inside and not venture outside unless you absolutely had to. Not only did we only get an inch, the temp came up to a balmy 35, the sun came out and by 1pm, the new snow had already totally melted.
- ChuckMcM 12y ago
  I like that, weather terrorists! It is shorter than radical extremist meteorologists (a play on radical extremist theologians)
NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago
Weather news is the easiest way to push climate change propaganda. Just remember, the next Florida hurricane will prove global warming to be true!
codyb 12y ago
I'm not very sure the news is the place you want anything besides "news". And weather is certainly news in that when it is extreme it is an event which often affects millions of people. The best news stations (in my opinion) report without respect to personal belief. In that regard I respect the BBC for reporting news and not adding personal opinions, beliefs, or motives to it. When it comes to espousing on things such as climate change I (personally) expect that I'll have to do a fair amount of research on the matter to form an opinion. I recently read "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson. It was wonderful. In it he talks about how precarious a knife human existence sits on. The lack of ice ages in recent eras seems to be an outlier, and one of the biggest effects of climate change might be to knock us right into one. It was something I had not known and it was presented with detailed evidence as to why that may be the case. I'm not sure news organizations can or should offer these perspectives as they will either be presented in a manner which leaves a fair amount of details missing or in a manner which impedes upon the presentation of other news.

eCa 12y ago

> probably won't see another winter like this Once-in-a-century is averaged over many centuries. Sometimes things cluster. In 2002 parts of Europe were hit by a once-in-a-century flood [1]. In 2013 pretty much the same parts were hit by a flood that in many places were worse than the 2002 flood [2]. For instance, in Passau (on Donau), the waters were the highest since 1501 [3]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_European_floods http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_European_floods [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_European_floods http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_European_floods [3] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Hochwasser_Passau_2013-06-03.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Hochwasse...

calinet6 12y ago
One of the least understood facets of statistics. In random or natural distributions, we do not expect any kind of evenness or predictable spacing. Clustering of seemingly random events happens and happens often. Only when averaged over a sufficient number of samples can we make sense of patterns.

wiredfool 12y ago

Say you have an apparently independent random process and you sample a hundred or so values from it. From those, you could get an estimate of the population statistics, the mean, deviation, skew, and such. Now, on the n+1th observation, you wind up with something at 5 sigma. If the population is correctly characterized by the first hundred observations, then that data point is highly unlikely and not likely to be repeated. If the population is not independent, or is in the process of changing, then it's possible that the population statistics are invalid.

derobert 12y ago

Indeed. It's hard to avoid noticing that in the "10 worst" table, 8 of them came after the '78 season. I wonder what the L-score histogram looks like with data only through '78; did the '78 event also look like a 100-year storm?

cowsandmilk 12y ago
probably did. just using the figures in the chart, it would be: * 1978: 7.1 * 1948: 5.6 * others..... Looks like an outlier to me.
- Shivetya 12y ago
  and you could go back to 1888 for a great blizzard, or even before then. The issue before us is that we don't have great records for an extended period of time for areas like North America. Get over to Europe and the Far East and we likely could come up with some historical accounting. The take away is this, severe weather, is easy to exaggerate the causes because so much of it is still unknown. The part I appreciate about the faux panic over climate change is that each day seems to bring about more understanding of what is happening and why.

drzaiusapelord 12y ago

Chicago had its worst 'once in 100 year' winter last year and this year also broke more than a handful of records both in snowfall and temperature. From what I can tell, the jetstream that usually blocks off Arctic air has weakened, thus raising the chances of cold air blowing on the midwest. We may be in a completely new winter pattern now. Or it may be a fluke, who knows, but its not safe to assume regular variability anymore. So far climate change has been blamed by some for the new higher frequency of this pattern. They may be right.

keypusher 12y ago

Gambler's Fallacy

deeviant 12y ago

That chance of a 1-in-a-x_amount_of_time event happening does not change right after it happens, at least in a strictly statistical since. Baring any actual physical factors, likelihood of such an event is the same every day.

e40 12y ago
That chance of a 1-in-a-x_amount_of_time event happening does not change right after it happens It would if it was based on bad or previous thinking and models. I think that's what the point was. We may need to throw out our old models, and if that happens this could be a lot more common.

baddox 12y ago

Or how much technology changes our lifetimes during our lifetime.