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longship

(40,416 posts)
7. Well put
Wed Apr 18, 2012, 12:47 AM
Apr 2012

But the purpose of my post was to kill these inevitable claims that a particular weather anomaly is a direct result of global warming. Because weather is a messy, messy business, it is never correct to attribute a particular weather pattern to a global climate trend. The two may be correlated, but that does not imply causality.

It's like the rain dance fallacy. I danced, and I danced, and I danced, and finally it rained. Therefore, my dancing caused the rain to come? No! It is gonna rain eventually so my dancing has no causal connection.

Climate science uses data accumulated over decades, centuries, millenniums, and longer time periods to predict long term projections. It does not predict warm months, cold months, tornado outbreaks, hurricane seasons, droughts, deluges, etc. It only addresses effects observed over the periods it studies, decades, centuries, etc.

The weather guy or gal on the tube may be a very educated person on weather patterns and their causes and effects over the next few days. In Wichita, KS this past week they undoubtedly saved many lives. But none of them were doing climate science.

Expertise in one does not imply expertise in the other. They are two entirely different sciences.

I hope I have made this more clear.

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