ARRRRRRRGH!

[tsaiko]

Here's a concept I wish more people would understand.

Weather is like me flipping a coin and saying whether it's heads or tails.

Climate is like 20,000 people all over the world each flipping one coin 40,000 times and recording the general trend of number of heads versus number of tails.

I swear if I hear one more idiot make the statement "Well, last spring/summer/fall/winter has been cooler than normal so global warming is false" or "This spring/summer/fall/winter was the warmest/driest/wettest on record. Global warming is at fault!" I am not going to be responsible for my actions. This is like me flipping a coin 10 times, it coming up heads 7 times, and saying "The odds of me flipping this coin and it coming up heads are 7 out of 10." Sorry, no. It doesn't work that way no matter how much you may want it to.

This is the #1 reason I refuse to debate climate change in people.

Comments

[mechante-fille.livejournal.com]

I agree about specific weather trends not having anything to do with climate change.

However, regardless of the cause, it has rained in Maine more days than it hasn't the past month or so, which is not necessarily directly related, as all of NE has had a lot of rain, but it brings up in the news the fact that the water level has raised. Again, whatever the cause, it is happening. Maine has the most coastline of any other state b/c of all the islands (disclosure: this is a contested point by at least one other state), so we are possibly seeing the effects sooner. The higher waters means closer off-shore storms (and some smaller beaches will just be swept away), which threatens our tourist economy. Which, of course, is why we are paying attention. It all comes back to money.

Hm, maybe I should think about moving inland...

Ooh, I wonder if they need you to map that?

[tsaiko.livejournal.com]

Rain is not going to cause any sea level rise. It's just not. The volume of water needed to raise sea level is immense and an increase in rain, even over several months, just isn't going to cut it. Now if you had an increase in rain over several years and somehow found a way to slow down evaporation at the same time you might have a problem. Until then I wouldn't worry about rain falling.

Melting glaciers on the other hand...

[mechante-fille.livejournal.com]

That's not what I meant? No, the rising water will bring an increase in storms, which will affect tourism, which is being talked about now, especially, because with the recent unrelated rain and t-storms, our tourist industry is in the toilet. So it brings up the 'what will we do when this becomes a regular thing, due to the creeping water level' question.

So, yeah, rising water level=more rain, not the other way around.

[skyknyt.livejournal.com]

NO WAI I SAW THIS GUY ON FOX NEWS LAST NIGHT WHO SAID THAT IT WAS ALL A CONSPIRACY AND WE GOT TOOOOOOONS OF SNOW THIS WINTER





>_< uuuuuuuuuuugh

[eslington.livejournal.com]

Fox News gets legal okay to misinform public (http://www.ceasespin.org/ceasespin_blog/ceasespin_blogger_files/fox_news_gets_okay_to_misinform_public.html), back from 2003.

[tsaiko.livejournal.com]

You mean Fox News lies? I am shocked, shocked I tell you. I thought all their news was "Fair and balanced."

Oh wait. If that was true, they wouldn't have been sued (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News_Channel#Slogan) until they changed their slogan.

[alice_montrose]

Well, they blame global warming all right... and keep doing so... but who is at fault for said global warming? They forgot to mention that. They also forgot to mention that we're between two ice ages here, so it's really a series of factors contributing to the screwed up weather patterns - some of them man-made. But yes, "unpredictable" weather is what happens when people mess with the atmosphere for too long.

[itlandm.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm happy to discuss climate as distinct from weather. But not with Americans, because their real world, including climatological data, depends on which party they vote on, which again depends on how they feel about abortion or their grandmother.

You know, if this continued long enough, I wonder if we could get something similar to the Rapture. One day you wake up and there are only Democrats or only Republicans, because their worlds have split totally and moved on in different directions. Hey, it would make for an awesome SF story. Come to think of it, it would be a bit like DC's "World without grown-ups" event, wouldn't it?

[m-steelgrave.livejournal.com]

This is like me flipping a coin 10 times, it coming up heads 7 times, and saying "The odds of me flipping this coin and it coming up heads are 7 out of 10."

I distinctly remember a question involving this in my third grade math class. People could not understand that no matter how many times a coin was flipped with a certain outcome, the chances of either side landing face-up were still 50/50.

And Fox news just sounds like Charlie Brown's teacher to me.

[jaysons-lady.livejournal.com]

On the weather topic, I just wish we would get some of that rain ya'll are getting up north to come down here. I think we've gotten maybe 1/4 inch in the past three weeks. Too bad there isn't a way we could move the rain to where it's needed.

(I do believe in global warming, and humanity's part in affecting the planet. I am also neither a republican or a democrat.) (The paternal side of my family doesn't believe in global warming at all, but then they also only watch Fox news.)