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The Washington Post reports that the "lower 48" states of the USA are enjoying spring-like weather. It quotes a meteorologist as saying 1495 record high temperatures have been reached during the month of February (as against 10 record lows); among them:
- Magnum, Okla., hit 99 degrees [Fahrenheit, 37.2° Celsius] on Feb. 11 — tying the state record for hottest winter temperature ever recorded. Yet it occurred two weeks earlier than the record it matched from Feb. 24, 1918, set in the town of Arapaho.
- Denver hit 80 degrees [Fahrenheit, 26.7° Celsius] Feb. 10 — its warmest February temperature on record dating back to 1872.
- Norfolk hit 82 degrees [Fahrenheit, 27.8° Celsius] Feb. 12, tying its warmest February temperature on record dating back to 1874.
[Ed Note: it is actually Mangum, OK, not Magnum. The original WaPo article is incorrect.]
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Springtime for America in February
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(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 20 2017, @03:58PM
We have pussy willows budding in central Alberta. In February. And record cold waves in other places. It's what happens when you pump more energy into a non-linear system. Which is the role CO2 play here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 20 2017, @04:03PM
Since energy can be transferred by radiation faster than convection, increasing IR active molecules (primarily CO2 + H20) should even out day/night and low/high latitude temperatures (ie like on Venus, where the temperature is very uniform). So I would expect cooling near the equator during the day and warming near the poles at night due to that. What we are witnessing is by hemisphere though, so it must be some more complicated mechanism.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 20 2017, @04:10PM
correction: "by East/West hemisphere"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 20 2017, @05:13PM
The difference between Earth and Venus is Earth has life. That has a major impact on climate
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Monday February 20 2017, @04:24PM
Could be Atlantic Ocean currents slowing down. They traditionally kept Europe warm.
Another think to keep in mind is that all of these records are weather, not climate. Though, when you get new records year after year, that suggests that climate is changing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 20 2017, @05:01PM
Exactly. A single six, or even a six two times in a row doesn't mean the die is biased. But if you get ten sixes in twenty rolls, it is not rational to assume the die is fair. Even though the result is certainly consistent with a fair die; every possible result is, including a million sixes in a row.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 20 2017, @05:15PM
And if a dice isn't fair, we can conclude CO2 emissions are causing the entire temperature increase, right?
This NHST-approach (where you test a strawman) needs to end before it destroys our civilization.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday February 20 2017, @05:30PM
This NHST-approach (where you test a strawman) needs to end before it destroys our civilization.
This is a red herring. We have a model and evidence supporting that model. It has nothing to do with null hypothesis significance testing.
And let us note that NHST is a valid scientific procedure no matter that it can be abused. I've discussed it here [soylentnews.org] and here [soylentnews.org]. For example, a classic place to use NHST in a valid way is when you have a large amount of complex data, have at best very poor models of the data, and want to quickly find possible patterns in the data (such as health care or customer data at a retail store or grocery). NHST can do that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 20 2017, @05:42PM
No one believes "the climate never changes"[dice is fair] null hypothesis, so rejecting it is a waste of time. It doesn't tell us anything about CO2, etc.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday February 20 2017, @06:26PM
No one believes "the climate never changes"[dice is fair] null hypothesis, so rejecting it is a waste of time. It doesn't tell us anything about CO2, etc.
I did say NHST was a red herring here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 20 2017, @07:30PM
You should have, NHST is bullshit that needs to die in the hottest fire we can find. We're rarely in a position where we don't have an established procedure, we usually have some sort of status quo that we want to evaluate other options to. The relevant question is usually whether or not there's enough evidence to support making a change in a particular direction, rather than whether or not we have sufficient evidence to support the status quo. The status quo virtually always has enough substance to justify it's use, we wouldn't be using it if it were complete BS.
There's a reason why spam filters typically run on bayesian inference rather than NHST.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday February 20 2017, @07:49PM
We're rarely in a position where we don't have an established procedure, we usually have some sort of status quo that we want to evaluate other options to.
I mentioned two such areas: health care and customer data for stores.
There's a reason why spam filters typically run on bayesian inference rather than NHST.
Who was claiming NHST was the only tool out there?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 20 2017, @09:22PM
We have pussy willows budding in central Alberta.
Can you, you know, grab them by the willows?
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday February 21 2017, @01:21AM
Nah... Hands are too small
:)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---