Weather Temp Records
 

I am no statistician, but every day we learn new temperature records are broken.

But if we add new days to the total number of days in the "population", won't we always be setting new records - both highs and lows?

IOW, don't our records only go back around one hundred years?

While looking at record low temps for 7/4 I saw in the LATimes that the record low was 46 in 1900.

Thomas Jefferson took the temp twice a day and logged it.

Official records, 1914....amateur records 1766-ish. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007...her.features11

But still, we don't know the history of all the actual highs and lows for the earth, so we really don't know today if they're records or not.

So, what's the point? We don't know a lot about the ancient earth's day to day's conditions. If it happened in my lifetime, it's a personal record. ;)

Apparently there are other ways of measuring temperatures from the past.
Things like different algae sizes frozen in glaciers. The bigger the algae the warmer the temperature.

Realistically these methods are inheriantly inaccurate compared to modern thermometers etc but climate sientists put a lot of effort into getting things right.
That doesn't mean they are though.

Locally it seems we've gone the other way. Remembering back to childhood...
Our winters seem longer/colder and our summers are brutal but brief.

Personally. I Think things are changing... How? I don't know but this is a very short time frame.

In my inarticulate way, I guess what I am trying to say is that record setting temps are insignificant because as we add additional days to the total population of days we will always have more records. No?

Just like sports. If enough time passes, someone else will come along who can jump higher, run faster, eat more hot dogs, do more 'roids, etc.

Just like the Olympics. I still don't get it.

Peter, yes we do know about periods. How do we know what the highs and lows were from year to year? Anomalies occur. Maybe it was over 130 (134 in 1913) in Death Valley once in awhile. Doesn't tell us much.

Ice core samples can give an overall picture of temps but nothing local like say, BFE or Schenectady, NY.

Ice cores.. People make assumptions like 'the earth has always rotated about the same axis' (it hasn't). ...or that a day is always 24hrs (it's not)

For example; Here is a cool picture showing the drift of the Tropic of Cancer. (earth tilt)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...m_27%2B800.jpg

And then there's that shifting magnetic field....

JB, What do you know of Schenectigrad?

Beyond that it's in NY....Bubkis.

The point is that it gives the media & statisticians a data point to enter into a column. To say that yesterday was a record high or low is both ignorant and arrogant. At some point in history the temperature has been warmer or cooler than yesterday a bazillion times.

And comparing this century's data with last century's, or 1,000 centuries ago is meaningless. The earth is constantly changing and evolving. Not too long ago, most of North America was buried under ice. The earth does not care that humans are here. Within the blink of an eye, we will be gone and the earth will continue along just fine.

Yes - thank you. You said it better with less words!

What you say makes no sense.

You don't add up the temperature on successive days, which sounds like what you're thinking about.

Look at it this way. You measure the temp of your refrigerator, set thermostat at 34F and you never open the door. Day 1, the temp ranges from 28F to 45F as the fridge settles down to a stable temp. On days 2 and future days, temp ranges from 30F to 36F. You can go on as long as you like, there will never be another high record or low record set. Even through you are adding extra days to the "population" in yourspeak.

This works if you are indifferent to your own existence and that of your children and their children and everyone else.

Humans will always adapt. The fact that we are still here is the proof :)

what he said is not indifference. ..it's acceptance. Sure, you can delude yourself into thinking that 'man' can control such things ...stop change.

still don't understand what you're saying

the real point tho - is that we are seeing historical high temperature records exceeded by new highs at a great rate; lows not so much

joebob - the British survey (Royal Navy?) goes back further

to go back even further, you look at things like tree ring growth widths, ice cores & etc.

glib generalities - the issue we are concerned about is the trend -- the things you mention are "noise" imposed on a trend

here is some education for you guys on ice cores:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/03/science/earth/lonnie-thompson-climate-scientist-battles-time.html?hpw

If you lost your home is a fire, your arms in an accident, your loved one to an illness, you would adapt. What's that proof of?

completely bogus - it is very clear that we can alter climate

we can also alter smallpox incidence, polio...

I'm not adding anything up. I'm just stating that if there is an ever increasing number of data points, you will always have more record setting highs and lows. Therefore, they are insignificant except as a news story.

And what is the precision on those methods? ...I mean c'mon...

Around here an ElNino vs LaNina trend will drastically change the rain thru the summer, or warmth thru the winter. ...which will help (or hurt) tree ring size. . ..and yet, there was no global temp change driving tree ring growth.

I know it sounds smart to say "well, we can extract the temperature trends by____" But really, without stating the precision they may as well tell fish stories... "it was THIS BIG..." ...and they would have better understood precision.

You are flat out wrong.

Go back to my refrigerator example. Are there more record highs and lows as the months go by? The number of data points is increasing.

Do you want more example to show your error? Suppose you kept track of how much beer you drink each day of your life. The high record would probably be set sometime in your twenties. Why aren't you setting new high records every decade, bigger and bigger beer binges into your eighties and nineties? The number of data points is increasing.

Just because you continue gathering data points does not mean you will necessarily keep recording progressively higher highs or lower lows.

You'll notice that you are the only one who seems to believe this, on this thread.

I think you are missing the point. Yes, if you have an ever increasing number of data points over time records will fall. However, the pace these records are being set at is much faster pace than we did 50 years ago. I read that roughly 25 states had their warmest spring ever. These records are being set because the earth is getting warmer and not just because we have more data points. Maybe you realize that but it doesn't seem that way.

JYL - perhaps you are correct, and if so I will admit it. But I think even Luke above fails the same way the media does in his "warmest springs ever" quote. How do you know - we have not had accurate measurement device like we do now for much more than the last century. And we are talking about a degree F or two here.

I think the point he was trying to make was if you go to an extreme, say 10,000 years, you can see that at some point the highs and lows of average climate were much different; ice ages and such.

You honestly don't think we realize that when they say "warmest spring ever" they are saying warmest spring since they kept official records? We all realize they don't know what the temp was on this date 20,000 years ago.

Do you doubt temps have been going up these past 100 years and it's because it's getting warmer and not because of more data points? That is a fact and I'm not sure how you could say otherwise.