>> And when Nate says it, you know its factually true. ;)
So, when Nate says it, it isn't just weather, it is actually climate. Right?
Nate downloaded the data from the same source as everyone else (including you) could.
What Nate doesn't tell you -- and he knows it so he could have -- is that there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING you can do to make 100 years weather or climate data tell you whether something constitutes a meaningful trend, and whether it is "caused by" humans or just the normal, ordinary variations of weather and/or climate patterns.
In his article "Nate" says that AGW is a "plausible" explanation. This is a value judgment that "Nate" isn't really any more equipped than you or me to make. I can say, for example, that normal variations in weather patterns are a "plausible" explanation and I would be just as correct.
"Nate" said:
"In only 0.2 percent of the simulations (out of 1 million trials) did I wind up with at least five of these days having occurred since 2000."
I would point out that in playing the game of video poker, the probability of a single hand ending in a Royal Flush is about 0.000025. Yet, people still hit them. Furthermore, I have hit 3 in a single day of playing. I have also gone two full years -- with many thousands of video poker hands -- without hitting a one. So, even unusual events happen, and when the variance is high enough, they can even form subclusters on the tails of probability distributions. I would tell any person that it is not "plausible" to expect multiple Royal Flushes in a day of play. Yet, it happens with some frequency.
"Nate" is not being dishonest, but he is providing you with an ever-so-slight tinge of bias; just enough to make those who really don't comprehend numbers lean one direction or the other. |
