Do Dice Play God?: The Mathematics of Uncertainty by Ian Stewart

Author:Ian Stewart [Stewart, Ian]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781782834014
Google: fXFfDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Profile
Published: 2019-06-05T23:00:00+00:00

Global Temperature Trends 1880–2020.

THE ‘BEAST FROM THE EAST’ was different. A typical British winter storm comes from the west as a region of low air pressure driven by the jet stream, which is a huge vortex of cold air circling the North Pole. Instead, unusually warm conditions in the Arctic in 2018 drove a lot of cold air south, which in turn drove more cold air from Siberia into central Europe and thence to Britain. This also led to storm Emma, and the combination created up to 57 centimetres of snow, temperatures down to –11°C, and killed sixteen people. The unusually cold conditions persisted for over a week, and a lesser event of the same kind occurred a month later.

America, too, has experienced similar events. In 2014 many regions of the USA had a very cold winter; Lake Superior was covered in ice until June, a new record. By July most eastern states other than those bordering the Gulf of Mexico were experiencing weather up to 15°C cooler than normal. At the same time, eastern states had significantly hotter weather. The same thing happened again in July 2017, which was the coolest July on record in Indiana and Arkansas, and cooler than usual over most of the eastern USA.

If, as climate scientists confidently assert, human activities are causing the world to get warmer, why do these unprecedentedly cold events keep happening?

The answer is: Because human activities are causing the world to get warmer.

It’s not getting warmer by the same amount everywhere. The warming is greatest near the poles: exactly where it can do most damage. Warmer air at the North Pole pushes the jet stream south, and also causes it to weaken, so that it changes position more frequently. In 2014 this effect transported cold air from the poles into the eastern USA. At the same time, the rest of the country received unusually warm air from equatorial regions because the jet stream developed an S-shaped kink. It was one of the ten warmest Julys on record in six western states – Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California, Nevada, and Utah.

Anyone with internet access who genuinely wants to resolve the apparent paradox of unusual cold snaps in a warming world can easily find the explanation, along with the evidence supporting it. You just have to understand the difference between weather and climate.

THE CLIMATE IS ALWAYS CHANGING.

This objection to climate change is an old favourite. US President Donald Trump has repeated it in his tweets about global warming and climate change. Unlike many objections, this one deserves an answer. The answer is: No, the climate is not always changing. This may strike you as a silly thing to say, given that some days it’s bright and sunny, some days it’s raining cats and dogs, and some days everything is buried under a thick layer of snow. Of course it’s changing all the time! Yes, it is. But what’s changing is weather, not climate. They’re different. Not, perhaps, in everyday language, but in their scientific meaning.

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