View Single Post
Old 03-25-2007, 06:56 PM   #45
Seraph
Quintesson
 

Join Date: September 12, 2001
Location: Ewing, NJ
Age: 42
Posts: 1,079
Quote:
Originally posted by ZFR:
quote:
Originally posted by Seraph:
The "I've had lots of snow, so global warming isn't a problem" is a strawman argument. The relationship between temperature and snowfall is increadibly complex, and most of the time is isn't possible to come up with a simple relationship between the two. So, unless there is a lot of reasearch behind it, attempts to use snowfall as evidence that the climate is/isn't getting warmer should be treated as an attempt to deliberatly confuse the issue.
Then tell me this. Why does it work the other way round? Why do people keep saying "there has been no snow, so global warming must exist"? [/QUOTE]It doesn't. As evidence it is just as meaningless.

However, as an argument point it does have an advantage:
If "lots" in "I've had lots of snow, so global warming isn't a problem" refers to an abnormal amount of snow, then it can be used to say "If you have an abnormal amount of snow then it's evidence of something abnormal in the climate". So that argument frequently isn't internally consistant.
Seraph is offline   Reply With Quote