Originally posted by zeeblebotPaul was drawing on the sum total of climate data gathered from the whole world. Zeeblebot is drawing on his anecdotal experience of one American city.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100715/ap_on_sc/us_sci_hot_month
Paul, 2 hours ago
I live in Los Angeles and we had the COLDEST June on record. I had to ware a winter jacket at night.
Which perception is more likely to be scientifically meaningful?
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Originally posted by FMFOr, it could just be that our record keeping is getting better, or simply that we haven't been keeping records for very long.
The proliferation of weather records in a relatively short space of recent time - THE coldest, wettest, longest, driest, hottest, deadliest... - would seem to suggest that something is amiss with the climate patterns we once knew.
In places that haven't kept records for more than 50 years or so, you would expect a warmest / hottest / coldest/ wettest/ driest etc year within the next 10 years or so.
Would anyone care to calculate the actual probability?
In places where records have been kept longer, they simply report it as "the ..... est year / month in the last x years".
If you think about it, these events should statistically happen in various places on the globe hundreds of times a year.
What is changing is the fact that they are being reported more often.
I am not saying nothings amiss with the climate, but I am saying that listening to weather reports and sensationalist news isn't going to tell you whether or not that is the case.