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447 points Brajeshwar | 1 comments | 03 Sep 23 14:53 UTC | HN request time: 0.79s | source
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pard68 ◴[03 Sep 23 17:47 UTC] No.37372440[source]▶
I have never figured out how average global temperatures can be such a sure thing. Where I live (rural US) temperature forecasts for "right now" are always off, sometimes by three or four degrees. Currently the NWS says it's 98dF out, while my own thermometer reads 79dF, almost 20 degrees off!

I imagine this inaccuracy is because the nearest stations are over four hours away. I also imagine four hours to the nearest station is common for a large portion of the globe. I suspect this difference in forecasted temperature and the actual temperature is increasingly large the further back you go in time.

It seems like there is a lot of noise and dirty data to be so confident about a couple degree increase.

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1. teaearlgraycold ◴[03 Sep 23 18:21 UTC] No.37372816[source]▶
This is the difference between predicting a coin flip and predicting the proportion of heads after 1,000,000 coin flips. In one you’re completely off half of the time. In the other you’ll be accurate to many decimal places.

Basically, the concept of “What temperature is it outside my house?” And “How much have temperatures raised around the globe?” Are wildly different. The fact that the units are the same is misleading.