Tim HolloJul 25, 2023

I'm finding it a little hard to work today with this in my head.

Antarctic ice extent is now 6.4 standard deviations below the mean. That is, I'm reliably told, a one in 13 billion year event.

We're about to see a lot of shit hit a lot of fans. And we are far from ready.

Business as usual is over. Politics as usual is over. We need to be putting our effort into building systems that can help us survive what greed and power and wilful blindness have wrought.

#ClimateCrisis #Antarctica

Show threadTom QuinnJul 25, 2023
@timhollo should be million, not billion. 13 billion is almost 3 times the age of our solar system.
Show threadTim HolloJul 25, 2023

@TomQuinn yeah, it's a probability factor. The number is correct, and mind boggling.

IF all else were equal, the chances of this happening would be once in the age of the universe.

The point is, all else is not equal. As someone said on Bluesky, it's measuring the same ice in the same Antarctica, but the whole world is different.

Show threadAral BalkanJul 25, 2023

@timhollo @TomQuinn Decimal place error?

6σ ~= once every 1.38 million years (given the time axis is daily events)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/68%E2%80%9395%E2%80%9399.7_rule#Table_of_numerical_values

68–95–99.7 rule - Wikipedia

Show threadderle
@aral This is not a daily but a yearly event, according to your table with 6.5\sigma and translating daily into yearly the approx of 1 in 13 billion does not seem of by much @timhollo @TomQuinn
Jul 25, 2023 at 12:57pmWeb
Show threadAral BalkanJul 25, 2023

@derle The chart is showing a daily mean not a yearly mean, no?

@timhollo @TomQuinn

Show threadderleJul 25, 2023
@aral That depends how you see the problem. This is one in number of independent events. Ice extend from one day to the next are probably not independent event. @timhollo @TomQuinn
Show threadDoug WadeJul 25, 2023

@aral @derle @timhollo @TomQuinn your argument is that the amount of Arctic sea ice is randomly determined on a daily basis? That each individual day is a separate event? You think that tomorrow, we could randomly be at +2 std deviations?

Yearly makes much more sense, imo.

Show threadOldTurk🗽Focus: #FreePeltierJul 26, 2023
@derle @aral @timhollo @TomQuinn 13billion would be a double sided distribution, single sided applies here