Friday, November 17, 2006

Weather is not Climate

A good article from ABC news on why one season of fewer than normal Atlantic hurricanes (or a few months of lower than average temperatures) do not refute the contention that the planet is in the midst of a warming trend (ie. Global Warming). A nice quote:

"Choosing shorts or long underwear on a particular day is about weather; the ratio of shorts to long underwear in the drawer is about climate."
— Charles Wohlforth, "The Whale and the Supercomputer"


Being Canadian, I prefer hockey analogies. The thesis that scoring per game has gone up (from 5.27 goals per game in 1997 to 6.21 towards the end of last season) is not refuted the occasional
1-0 game.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Goes to show that journalism majors know little about science or math. To paraphrase Frank Herbert, author of DUNE, "Weather is climate. Climate is weather."

Anonymous said...

Goes to show wingnut anonymi process events in the real world through the lens of science fiction (...or increasingly, video games).