2012 hottest year on record in contiguous U.S., NOAA says

Interesting.

So first we limit our data set to the contiguous 48 states. Do you think that perhaps including Alaska, the coldest state in the nation, might alter their outcome? Nah. Must just be a coincidence they left that one out. Or do you think that perhaps when you consider the climate of our planet, you should include perhaps more than one country in your data set? Would including Canada, for example, which is to our north and generally colder than the United States, perhaps alter the findings? Nah, I’m sure that’s just another coincidence.

Then, taking that data set, we compare it to all temperature records for all of recorded weather history, which goes all the way back to… 1895. If my math is right, that’s 118 years. If memory serves, scientific consensus — and you know how we love scientific consensus — is that the planet is somewhere around 4.5 billion years old. Which would make 118 years roughly… oh… 0.00000026% of the planet’s life. I’m pretty sure even PPP would not accept that sample size. But certainly we can trust the scientists when they tell us that 118 years worth of data makes things definitive.

Of course, even bringing any of this up makes me anti-science. Sad I’m so unwilling to consider data.

Shump on January 9, 2013 at 9:20 AM