
NOAA: U.S. Records Warmest March; More than 15,000 Warm Temp Records Broken - molecule
http://www.commerce.gov/blog/2012/04/09/noaa-us-records-warmest-march-more-15000-warm-temperature-records-broken
======
joshuahedlund
Meanwhile the global temperature anomaly for March 2012 came in at a searing
0.11 degrees C above normal.[1]

But of course more comprehensive data like that isn't quite as attractive.

(I still think the record US March counts more as evidence for global warming
than against it. But it's not nearly as strong of evidence as some people wish
it to be.)

[1][http://reason.com/blog/2012/04/04/global-temperature-
trend-u...](http://reason.com/blog/2012/04/04/global-temperature-trend-update-
march-20)

------
abtinf
You know what is interesting about that article? The total lack of statistical
insight.

"The average temperature of 51.1 degrees F was 8.6 degrees above the 20th
century average for March and 0.5 degrees F warmer than the previous warmest
March in 1910."

Without standard deviations, who cares?

And clicking through to the main article, I'm surprised by how many words can
be written without saying anything of consequence. Even the graph showing
Green Bay temperature looks like nothing more than a plot of noise.

Edit: Now that I think about it, the lack of basic statistical disclosures is
pretty damning evidence that nothing significant has happened.

~~~
nl
Do you get standard deviations when you watch the summary today's weather on
the news? I think the statistical detail was appropriate.

If you are seriously proposing that _standard deviation_ makes an average _8.6
degrees_ above normal insignificant then you are going to have to present some
pretty compelling evidence. NOAA do generally know how to do some basic math.

~~~
tedunangst
If the standard deviation is 10, then 8.6 degrees above the mean _is_
insignificant. Providing a number like 8.6 without the s.d. is presenting
_zero_ evidence. That's like page two of my statistics textbook.

~~~
scott_s
It's a _press release._ Most people don't know what a standard deviation is.

~~~
tedunangst
I was replying to the parent comment, not the story, and the claim that we
could somehow determine the significance of 8.6 without knowing more. As for
press releases, "It was hot" is probably a sufficient level of detail for most
people. :)

~~~
nl
We are talking about weather. A little common sense will let you decide if 8.6
degrees is significant.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3820795> for the calculations if you
insist.

------
MaysonL
The significant fact was the 33-1 ratio between new high temperatures and new
low temperatures. Unprecedented.

------
ctdonath
Funny how nobody wants to consider that we are, in fact, nearing the end of a
periodic high in long term global temperatures.
<http://donath.org/Photos/TempChange.PNG>

------
th0ma5
I think the data is significant as a record of what happened, but the greater
conversation about climate change should continue even if the data showed
record cold temperatures. Also of note is the Arctic oscillation
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_oscillation> and as others mentioned La
Niña. Washington state is interesting too as the normal trend of Pacific
Northwest's somewhat temperate patterns were disrupted a little.

------
patrickgzill
In the long run it means little (this single data point, I mean) - after all,
it was almost as warm in 1910...

~~~
rsanchez1
I wonder if people back then also ran around saying the sky is falling. It's
not like the people in 1910 did anything to stop global warming. They
continued industrialization worldwide and ended up on the other temperature
maximum of the past 100 years. It's characteristic of any cyclic process.

~~~
redwood
Some would have you believe that we should have stopped burning fossil fuels
in 1910 to avoid all the emissions over the next century. Did the gains of 100
years of machines outweigh the effect on climate? that's the question.

~~~
samiru
Yes.

------
joejohnson
From a month ago: [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/02/new-yorks-second-
wa...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/02/new-yorks-second-warmest-
winter-history-february-2012_n_1317141.html)

Numerous cities around the world had record-breaking or near record-breaking
winters (warmest winters on record).

~~~
lostlogin
Presumably numerous cities around half the world had warm winters. We had a
wet, cold summer down here.

------
zitterbewegung
Its going to be a hot summer. Probably a bunch of wave of heatwaves across the
midwest.

~~~
thesis
La Niña is at fault for some of the warmer winter weather. Just because we had
a warm winter does not mean we're going to have a boiling summer.

------
recoiledsnake
Wonder what has Fox News to say now?

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=P...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=PRXIOPnQ8Vw#)

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN7-k-RXvSQ>

Note: I am in no way implying that a hot summer is evidence of global warming.

~~~
beedogs
However, as evidenced every winter on Fox and the Drudge Report, the existence
of snow is always indicative of global warming being a myth.

------
wthseriously
I'm just wondering how this article got pushed to the HN front page? If this
were an article with substantial evidence against global warming such as the
many articles and arguments provided in Crichton's State of Fear, would it be
posted here? No. And that's my problem with this. The fact is that if we were
actually capable of understanding what was causing global climate change, we
would be able to predict the weather, and... we can't. We should instead be
focusing on how we utilize our resources. That is something we can actually do
something about. But don't try to provide statistical evidence of global
warming just to "raise awareness" and prove that you are right. You'll never
be able to do it. Focus on something that has a purpose. Tell people to go
watch Medicine Man again, and maybe Sean Connery can convince them to stop
cutting down rainforests. Do something freaking useful for once.

~~~
anotherthrow
>if we were actually capable of understanding what was causing global climate
change, we would be able to predict the weather

This conditional is (obviously) false. Given your argument seems to rely on
it, your argument is not sound.

~~~
wthseriously
Good catch. "Predict the weather _more than 10 days in advance_ ", I should
have said.

Prove to me what is causing global climate change. My point is that we cannot
even predict the weather more than 10 days in advance, and even that is not
totally reliable. Once we get to the point where we can reliably predict
weather for years and years (say- more than a few thousand), then we can
determine if we actually _have_ substantial climate change, and maybe by then
we'll know what really causes it. At this point, we are still guessing. We're
using educated guesses, but they are based on possible coincidence.

~~~
anotherthrow
>"Predict the weather more than 10 days in advance", I should have said.

That's false too. Predicting climate doesn't require predicting the weather.
Compare: suppose you have a slightly biased coin - maybe 0.75 chance heads,
0.25 tails. I certainly can't predict the next throw, or the throw ten out -
and without a hell of a lot more knowledge I'll never be able to. But I can be
extremely good predicting the heads/tails ratio for sequences of throws in the
future.

>Prove to me what is causing global climate change.

No, I can't do that, as I'm not an expert and this is a very complicated area.
I suspect that nor are you. In such a situation, it's rational for us to defer
to the body of expert opinion (although there are extremely interesting issues
in decision theory and philosophy about how one should do so). Expert opinion
is pretty unanimous about what is likely causing climate change, and there are
no serious reasons to suppose bias. So let's defer to them.

~~~
nirvana
>Expert opinion is pretty unanimous about what is likely causing climate
change

Actually it isn't. I submit that most scientists do not believe in AGW. Want
me to prove it? I can't. I submit that most glaciers are expanding, rather
than retreating. Want me to prove it? I can't, and _for the same reason._

There are an uncounted number of glaciers out there. Nobody has even counted
them-- I meant that literally-- certainly nobody is doing a survey of a
statistically significant number (a number we don't know because nobody has
counted them, glaciers are really common) to determine whether they are
expanding or contracting.

However, it is very common to hear from AGW proponents that glaciers are
shrinking. Why? Because every chance they get, proponents of AGW, who are
politicians, highlight glaciers shrinking. "There are no more snows of
kilimanjaro" being a very famous example.

Same thing with scientists. Do you have a census of scientists? Have you
surveyed them all? Can you provide me a statistically significant sample of
the scientists who have looked into AGW and given a scientific argument on it
one way or the other?

You can't. What you're doing here is repeating a political claim. A political
claim that has the very convenient feature of excluding from any debate the
very possibility of science.

Thus every AGW debate ends up being about politics and not science, because
once someone tries to introduce some science, they are immediately shut down
by AGW supporters asserting that all the scientists are unanimous.

Have you ever met a scientist? Find two scientists married to each other and
they're not unanimous about anything. Hell, find an honest scientist by
himself, and he isn't unanimous.

Ask 12 scientists for their theories on something and you'll get 18 theories.

The idea that scientific opinion is unanimous about AGW is really quite
absurd, if you think about it.

FWIW, I can disprove AGW really easily. Mars is getting hotter. The IR
absorption of CO2 is lower than water vapor. CO2 is a tiny fraction of the
atmosphere. The planet is actually getting cooler since the solar maximum on
the short end (despite CO2 going up) but getting warmer since the last ice
age-- as it has always done. Mainstream perception of AGW is that there's some
CO2 level that will result in runaway temperature increases-- this is
historically false, as CO2 has, in the past, been vastly higher than it is
today without any runaway effect. Pluto and Mars have been getting warmer
exactly during the time of the rise in popularity of the AGW theory, they have
no cars on them. (its the sun that is driving it.)

Did you know that the earth started out with a CO2 atmosphere with very little
oxygen? The rise of algeal and plant life started converting that CO2 to
oxygen and terraformed the planet into the oxygen atmosphere we have now.

BTW, CO2 tends to rise as the temperature rises, but unlike the graphs Al Gore
showed in his movie (Which had been offset in time for "dramatic effect", this
rise actually happens _after_ the temperature increases.)

All of the above are basic scientific facts, many are not in dispute, though
you can find lots of AGW propaganda sites "debunking" these "denier myths".
(if AGW is so scientific, why the need to call people names?) I've followed
hundreds of links to these blogs over the years, the vast majority assert they
are "myths" and don't defend the assertion, a lot of them make up magical
excuses (the most amusing was the claim that the effects of human created CO2
are different from naturally occurring CO2) ... and the ones that cite actual
"peer reviewed research" almost always misrepresent it, or flat out lie about
what the papers actually say.

They're pretty much completely relying on people giving up their hands and not
doing any research and "believing the experts".

>there are no serious reasons to suppose bias.

Of course there are. The advocates of AGW are not scientists but politicians.
And what are they pushing legislatively? The ability to control CO2. Since CO2
is produced by everything from beer and bread making to the very act of
breathing, the power to control CO2 is the power over everybody. They have a
vested interest in this control. The IPCC is a wing of the UN, the UN has been
lobbying for years for the power to institute a global tax. A global tax on
CO2 would go a long way towards making the UN a global government, which is
what they want. Al Gore-- the primary spokesman for the movement in the USA--
is not a scientist, but does own a carbon credits trading firm and stands to
make billions if Cap & Trade passes.

There have been numerous incidents of scientists being coerced into publishing
results only if they conform to the AGW hypothesis. APL started refusing to
publish any letters that questioned the issue-- tantamount to a rejection of
science itself. And naturally, government funding goes to labs to prove AGW,
not to objectively research the question.

I've worked in a national lab, including on a controversial question, and been
thru the peer review process. The idea that there's no bias is silly. Even in
non-controversial things, there's always bias. Peer review is often about not
stepping on the toes of someone whose long held theory is undermined by your
results.

Science involves bias at every level all the time.

~~~
nirvana
Downvotes with no comments. Proof positive that Hacker News is not a place
where intelligent discussion can take place.

The votes only reflect how closely one adheres to the partisan political
correctness of people who come to HN.

And HN is full of people who are not to well educated on a variety of
subjects, but think they are experts.

