You claimed that if global warming were occurring we would see record high temps every 200 days.



No, that is not what I said. I said that without any warming or cooling, statistically, we would have to have temps. that broke all historical data every 200 days (if historical records have been kept for 200 years.) If there was a warming trend, that would bias this "once every 200 days" event to a more frequent occurrence.



This is fundamentally incorrect since record high temps are not random events.



No, it is not. Without global warming or cooling, you would have randomness in these "spikes". Record high temps. are just as likely to occur this year as they are to occur any other year, that records have been kept (assuming no warming or cooling again). When you look at a set of 200 items, and one is "the most" of something (so that there can be only one of these) Statistically, you will find that item once every 200 times you look for it. Just because you happen to have found it on your third "pick" this time, doesn't mean that it isn't random. Your next try could result in you finding it on your 200th pick.





As I explained, it is entirely possible that a record high temp could be followed by, for example, 3 years of gradually warming temps without reaching that record high temp again.



I agree, but this throws out the on average statement I made. You are basically arguing that the sample size isn't large enough, so there can be instances where what I said might not be true. I agree that there are instances when this might not be true. But, when things are taken on average this sample size issue becomes non-important, and what I said will be true most of the time.



For instance, you could see 600 days of no records broken, then 3 days in a row of all historical data being broken. On average, you would have 1 out of every 200 days breaking all historical data. If you look at the data on day 500 and see no records broken, this doesn't mean that the 1/200 is invalid.





In otherwords, global warming could be occurring without record high temps every 200 days.



No, not on average it couldn't.



Rodney

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