Scientist claims that July 2023 is the hottest July in 120,000 years.
My question is: how can scientists accurately and reproducibly state this is [the hottest month of July globally in 120,000 years](https://www.theage.com.au/environment/climate-change/the-hottest-july-in-120-000-years-what-s-in-store-for-australia-this-summer-20230719-p5dpm3.html)?
In: 4028
No one can accurately compare today’s weather to the weather every July for the last 120,000 years. Scientists don’t even agree on the temperature today. It’s all estimates, and estimates have significant error rates.
They do **not** accurately know “global temperature” 120 000 years ago.
Furthermore, they do not accurately know it 120 years ago.
Furthermore, they do not accurately know it today.
Well, okay, maybe for today they do not know it *precisely*.
Those who claim are lying or… Nudging the truth a bit… Or a lot.
So, can not explain what is not true.
To answer your question, scientists don’t KNOW what the temperature was 120K years ago. They are making an educated GUESS. They are probably correct; However, history is littered with examples of “science” being quite sure of something, and then a new technology “disproving” long held scientific theory.
Has the earth continued to get warmer since the last Ice Age?
I remember when the climate theory in the 70s was we were going to freeze to death by 2000. Oops!
We don’t really know, we can make educated guesses with statistics, we are using gasses in ice cores which are more accurate but there could still be factors we couldn’t know about. We are also relying on tree growth rings. We are taking data from various sources and trying to make a statistical model which sometimes involved filling in data sets with random numbers to help with the stats. As science gets more into politics things also start getting funny. Studies won’t release their full data sets because they don’t want people to manipulate the stats to come up with different results. All the hottest this or that on record is sensationalism and more politics than science. The real message is that we can tell with some degree of confidence that the climate is getting warmer the further back you try to take that and the more accuracy you try to place the less confident you become.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2014/02/04/global-warmings-tree-ring-circus/amp/
It’s not 100% accurate, it’s an estimation. That’s a very important concept in science. So scientists can estimate it using a variety of methods but they’ll never know for sure.
They can’t. Simply impossible. They can guess, estimate, use science to make assumptions, but it is quite impossible to accurately state ANY temperature more than about two hundred years ago. And, even now, a “global temperature” is nothing more than an average of “assumed accurate” thermometers in few locations around the world.
Example, there is a slightly depressed area in the town I live in, with a road that passes through it. There are no thermometers in that area, and the temperature there is ALWAYS 5-10 degrees lower than the surrounding area. Therefore, the temp in that area is not factored in to the “global temperature” or even the LOCAL temperature.
What does that mean? We can’t even accurately know the CURRENT global temperature.
Navy Aerographer with almost 30 years experience in the field.
Fact: They really don’t. Imagine every-other-assumption made by science that is proved wrong. They REALLY don’t know.
For a 500 page ELI a reasonably intelligent adult, try “A Vast Machine”. Essentially a history of how we know what we know in climate science. http://pne.people.si.umich.edu/vastmachine/index.html
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