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Comment by antonvs | Hacker News Reader

"Global warming" involves extremes of temperature on both ends of the scale, and "coldest winters" are not inconsistent with that.

Think about a pot of hot water vs. one that's boiling. The surface of the water in the boiling pot is not smooth, it has peaks and troughs. The level of some of those troughs will be lower than the level of the water in a less energetic pot.

The situation with global warming is similar, although much less simple (pots of water don't have seasons, among other things.) More energy in the atmosphere and the Earth's crust translates into more extreme temperature fluctuations, both up and down. However, the average will inevitably be higher. Basic physics doesn't allow for anything else.

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It is more than this, too. It is called climate change for other reasons, and that is because while the global, overall, average temperature will rise, local temps could drop, or even stay the same!

Say we have a 3C temp rise, global average. Some places could have a 10C increase, others a -5C decrease average!

Look at coastal areas, like British Columbia, while inland the temps drop quickly. Or the British isles.

Ocean currents bring warm water north, keeping these places warm, but the currents could reverse! Or vanish!

Now you have temp drops, but in a local region, even with overall 3C rises...

I guess my point is, localized events mean almost nothing. The true tragedy of climate change is that by the time we can really verify it is happening, it will already have happened.

And some areas will have incredibly dramatic climate changes, others almost none. Think 10C average warmer, including for heat waves.

Edit: just realised you sorta said this, just in a different way. Will leave this here regardless.

It is called climate change because the oil industry PR people created a new word that defanged Global Warming.

Change is good right? Could be bad, could be good but times are changing.

*edit, boosted an existing phrase, Frank Luntz RNC Propagandist

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2003/mar/04/usnews.c...

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/6/21/1870021...

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/persuaders/in...

> Edit: just realised you sorta said this, just in a different way. Will leave this here regardless.

Yup, your description is a good complement to what I was getting at.

HEre on HT it may not necessary, but when talking to people not at ease with sciences, this sentence :

> Basic physics doesn't allow for anything else.

is very important. It means : you do not negotiate with physics. So, you do not negotiate on climate change. When I hear some politics I'm sometimes appalled by their lack of understanding of basic physics laws.

That's not at all what "basic physics" says.

For example, in a gas at a given temperature, some molecules are more energetic and some molecules are less energetic. The distribution of energy across molecules is called the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution and has been known, well, since Maxwell. The Maxwell-Boltzmann formula clearly shows that, if you increase the average energy per molecule, the probability of "cold" molecules goes down, not up as you are suggesting.

I am of course not suggesting that a can of gas is a good model for climate, but I want to point out that basic laws of nature push to the opposite direction than the one you are suggesting. Your wider point may well be true, but if so, it depends on more complicated mechanisms than just basic physics.

You applied that comment beyond its intent. With more energy in the atmosphere, "the average [temperature] will inevitably be higher. Basic physics doesn't allow for anything else."

How is this falsifiable? i.e. how would you prove that a weather extreme is not due to global warming? (general question, not specifically aimed at you).

Wait until there is enough data to see where it fits into trends.

It isn't. Climate is a statistics game. You cannot prove or disprove that a specific dice throw ended up 6 because the dice was unfair, but you can still make robust (and thus falsifiable) predictions over hundreds of throws.

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