The ratio of new record highs to record lows continues to get bigger, more extreme. While the ratio of record highs to record lows was close to 1 to 1 during the 1970s, the number of new record highs has greatly outpaced the number of new record lows, as average temperatures have increased substantially over the last 30 years.
In 2011, there were 2.8 times as new many record highs as record lows in the USA, up from 2.3 times as many record highs as record lows in 2010, and up from 2.03 more record highs than lows for the decade of 2000 to 2009.
This pattern of increasing numbers of new record highs compared to new record lows is just a piece of the enormous evidence that the planet is warming and the pace of warming is accelerating. Of course, some simply deny these facts or develop extensive conspiracy theories of a massive hoax. Others assert that the rising temperatures are not a result of the rising concentrations of heat trapping gas in the atmosphere or that humans are not the cause of the rising concentrations of heat trapping gas in the atmosphere. Yet, the fact of rising concentrations of heat trapping gas in the atmoshpere or that human activity, especially these days in China, causes concentrations to rise is not sanely disputed.
The flight from facts that are inconvenient and the dash to mad, dangerous fantasy goes well beyond global warming and is across the political spectrum: shale gas is a ponzi scheme; gas is as dirty as coal; evolution is a fraud; grotesquely charged that September 11th was an inside job; President Obama is not a natural born US citizen. Though mad and dangerous they are, many of these positions are advanced or coddled by leading figures or groups within our society.
No society can succeed unless it faces facts honestly and then discusses thoughtfull what to do.
I think this is one of the best ways to illustrate to the public how global warming is happening and going to occur in the future. It is still going to get cold - we will even have record cold, it's just that we are going to have more record warmth. The ratio might be 10-1 in 50 years, but we will still have record cold days. So just because it gets cold or we have a snowstorm doesn't meant the global warming isn't real.
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