On Wed, Jan 9, 2013 at 2:55 AM, Robert Kern <robert.k...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 08/01/2013 06:35, Chris Angelico wrote: >> ... it looks >> quite significant to show a line going from the bottom of the graph to >> the top, but sounds a lot less noteworthy when you see it as a >> half-degree increase on about (I think?) 30 degrees, and even less >> when you measure temperatures in absolute scale (Kelvin) and it's half >> a degree in three hundred. > > Why on Earth do you think that the distance from nominal surface > temperatures to freezing much less absolute 0 is the right scale to compare > global warming changes against? You need to compare against the size of > global mean temperature changes that would cause large amounts of human > suffering, and that scale is on the order of a *few* degrees, not hundreds. > A change of half a degree over a few decades with no signs of slowing down > *should* be alarming.
I didn't say what it should be; I gave three examples. And as I said, this is not the forum to debate climate change; I was just using it as an example of statistical reporting. Three types of lies. ChrisA -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list