Now Here's a Thing

I ran across an article claiming greater accuracy in global temperature records. The error corrected looks to be (adjusts reading skepticals) 3 one-thousands of one degree (0.003 degrees). I misremember if it's in Centigrade or real money, the point is that the margin of change is below the level of accuracy of the measuring devices.

Being a fan of the Houston Oilers, I remember fondly the great running back and half-assed passer Earl Campbell. (Pastorinini hands off to Cambell to the right. Earl takes it to the left. #34 up the middle. (if you think First down!). I am not going to accept a stat that tells me that he averaged 3.141592683 yards per carry. The average pretends to a level of accuracy that the original stats don't. (But dayum! That flea-flicker where he threw that TD pass LEFT-HANDED! Dayum!). The records are kept in units of one yard, as determined by a guy on the sidelines with a stick*.

This is the problem as I see it in the great Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming scare, You know, the one that used to be Nuclear Winter, that had All The Best Minds convinced in the 1980s that right here right now there should be worldwide famine, cannibalism, and all kinds of nasty stuff. I'm damn near middle-aged, and I remember that crap.

I was taught in High School (I'd learned it earlier) that an average of averages is statistically meaningless. Also, that an average can never be more accurate than the original data. And also that cheerleader's panties are removable.

I've dealt with this stuff. Automated recording, site-specific planning, and all that. And I know that if your results don't please you, then you fuck the model, not the data.(There are sooooo many bad jokes that can be made here, but really most models have an attention span measured in cocaine. BTDT). If you must diddle your data you're not doing science, you're doing propaganda.

My prediction, free and for nothing, gratis,is that the Southern hemisphere will show a slight cooling. because volcano. (BTW, the hole in the ozone layer, the one in Antarctica, was directly above a newly found active volcano. Whoda thunk.) The eruption of Mt St Helen discharged the equivalent of three thousand years of human output, and so far as I can tell Microsoft (hiss, display crucifix, squirtgun of holy water) is still there.

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* Not to be putting down sticks. I am a great believer in appropriate technology, and sometimes a stick is exactly the tool that's needed.

** (Mother avert your eyes) Sweet Fuck All