August 14, 2023

Climate is the description of the long-term pattern of weather in a particular area, according to NASA. We think of Florida or Aruba having a warmer climate, compared to Maine or Canada.

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Weather is short term, whereas climate is long term.

As NASA explains:

The difference between weather and climate is a measure of time. Weather is what conditions of the atmosphere are over a short period of time, and climate is how the atmosphere “behaves” over relatively long periods of time.

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What is meant by “long periods of time”? Given the Earth’s age of around 4.5 billion years, one might think these long periods of time should be in the millions of years. But instead scientists look at averages over extremely short periods of time, e.g., 30 years.

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Putting those numbers in perspective, if the Earth’s age was a single day, this 30-year period would represent 0.006 second. How short a time period is this?

Light, which can travel around the globe 7.5 times in one second, would only travel 112 miles in this small fraction of a second. But that’s the small observation period of our climate which forms the basis of claims of man-made of climate change.

That would be like embarking on a weight loss journey and weighing yourself every minute, not seeing any change, or seeing a small gain or loss after drinking a glass of water or relieving yourself, respectively.

Planet Earth has experienced ice ages followed by warming, numerous times, all occurring before humans existed or had any significant influence on the world around them.

NOAA explains, “The most recent glacial period occurred between about 120,000 and 11,500 years ago.” In terms of Earth’s age, this is still far less than a blink of an eye, 0.0003 percent of the Earth’s history. Perspective is important in discussing climate change. Making dramatic pronouncements based on a few dozen years’ measurements is foolish and hardly scientific.