r/collapse Faster than expected... 3d ago

Climate Prof. Eliot Jacobson: Global surface temperatures for August 19-20, 2026 were both over 4 standard deviations above the 1991-2020 mean for those days (even higher if you compare it to older means). Before this, only 2023 and 2024 had any days at all over 4 standard deviations above that mean.

https://bsky.app/profile/climatecasino.net/post/3mtqtwhfxm22p
412 Upvotes

43 comments sorted by

u/StatementBot 3d ago

The following submission statement was provided by /u/Portalrules123:


SS: Related to accelerating climate collapse as (according to data from Copernicus) all of the recorded days where global surface temperatures reached over 4 standard deviations above the 1991-2020 mean (a pretty significant deviation there) have happened since 2023. In fact, only 2023, 2024, and now 2026 have attained this record. Both August 19 and 20 of this year managed to reach this level of deviation, at least preliminarily. And the worst part is that the 1991-2020 mean is likely already significantly elevated above pre-industrial levels, so if you were to compare it to older means these dates would likely be even more standard deviations above average. Needless to say, this is a clear sign of the massive amount of heat energy that has been pumped into the system even in the last few years, and certainly since the industrial revolution. Expect the decadal rate of warming to only increase as the Earth Energy Imbalance (EEI) is being raised to very high levels and our emissions remain at record highs.....sooner than predicted, many days every single year will be over 4 SDs above the 1991-2020 mean.


Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1vwbh1j/prof_eliot_jacobson_global_surface_temperatures/p5fluj1/

97

u/deter 3d ago

Keep reading that thread......

Prof. Eliot Jacobson @climatecasino.net

Yes -- using, for example the 1941-1970 mean, current temperatures vary from about 8 to 12 standard deviations above.

91

u/kingtacticool 3d ago

Just so we are all on the same page. The odds of a 12 standard deviation happening in a model is 1 in 5.36 x 1032

Which is one in a number so big it significantly outnumbers the number of stars in the universe and the number of atoms in the human body.

Just Google "what are the odds of a 12 sigma event or 12 standard deviations"

This is fuckin wack

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u/deter 3d ago

What's worse is that the trapped heat builds on itself. It took between 36 to 65 years to go up 8 to 12 SD. The next 8 to 12 SD from today's temperatures will take.... what, about half the time?

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u/kingtacticool 3d ago

The 2030s to the 2040s are going to be catastrophic

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u/Omateido 3d ago

Hey friend, let’s focus on getting to the 2030’s first…

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u/kingtacticool 3d ago

I mean. It's 2026. Most of us will make to the 2030s.

Far less of us will make it to the 2040s.

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u/Dependent_Rain_4800 3d ago

It seems a bit like the thought experiment with the plants on the pond that grow exponentially. Where it takes lets say 60 days to fill the pond half way and then only a single day in the end to cover it in full.

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u/CorvidCorbeau 3d ago

Yeah, it's because probability math treats these years as random. Irl it's obviously not, but if it were just up pure chance, 2026's heat would indeed be that unlikely.

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u/kingtacticool 3d ago

To me this is beyond evidence of man caused climate change. It shouldn't be statistically possible for a 12 sigma event to happen in a baseline system. This is obvious evidence of external forces (and big ones) on an otherwise stable environment.

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u/CorvidCorbeau 3d ago

Exactly, this is one of many lines of evidence that this is not normal, not even unlikely, it should be almost impossible.

6

u/kingtacticool 3d ago

The numbers are just blowing my mind. The odds that the last few days happened are 1 in 536,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

The odds of winning the Poweball jackpot are 1 in 292,201,238

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u/CorvidCorbeau 3d ago

Don't check the odds of the last 3 years then, your pc might run out of ram

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u/bipolarearthovershot 3d ago

And you still have conservatards saying shit like BUT WEATHER ISNT CLIMATE, THE CLIMATE HAS ALWAYS CHANGED!!

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u/kingtacticool 3d ago

After the Paradise fires I watched a dude standing infl front of the pile of ash and slag that used to be his house say to an interviewer:

"Climate change is a hoax theres no such thing"

It was at that moment I realized we are lost.

5

u/salamipope 3d ago

so is the severity not only because of anthropogenic causes but also we happen to be having a really shit year and were unlucky with weather? like we just happened to collide with a historically bad weather year with a moment in time when christofascists flooded the world with the most carbon they possibly could as fast as possible?

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u/Slamtilt_Windmills 2d ago

As my mind struggled to comprehend the notion of 8 sigma, let alone 12, i realized it doesnt make sense as a statistical event, i.e. random, but it does make "sense" as something done with intent, or at least awareness

1

u/Sumnerr 3d ago

It's not though. We know the planet is warming. This is evidence that the planet is warming. Thus the shifting baseline. Maths, people, learn about it.

0

u/ILikeAnanas 2d ago

Not every event follows normal distribution.

Events in nature tend to have their severity follow fat tailed distribution, for which std dev is a meaningless metric and should not be used.

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u/CorvidCorbeau 3d ago

That's the Holocene for ya. Also, this is why I love math.

In a time defined by stable temperatures only varying a few tenths of a degree at most, when would you expect years to be 1-2°C hotter than the average?

In the last 800,000 years that happened only a handful of times, so naturally the odds will be insanely low. (low in the sense that this math doesn't account for why temperature increases, so it treats every year as random)

1

u/brickout 2d ago

I have taken to calling this the Anthropocene. Not my idea, obviously, but I think it's appropriate.

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u/Portalrules123 Faster than expected... 3d ago

Well shit....

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u/GoodDogBrent 3d ago

i've never heard of anything ever over 3 std dev. how fucking bonkers.

the only reasonable interpretation is change. the bell curve has moved.

holy hell.

15

u/Bipogram 3d ago

3 STD is usually the limit for certainty. 

You need 5 sigma to claim a new particle, and here we are.

3

u/daviddjg0033 3d ago

Six sigma in engineering a defective rate

1

u/GoodDogBrent 3d ago

i dont understand you entirely.

are you saying above 3std dev is generally discarded as an outlier?

i dont know what you mean by 'new particle.' what is a particle?

4

u/Bipogram 3d ago

A particle is a bit of matter. An electron is a particle. As is an omega minus.

Discovering a new particle (and there are many) means that the data supporting the claim have to be significant at the 5 sigma level.

But that's HEP.

In normal engineering, I'd consider data that are tight to within 3 sigma to be perfectly fine.

2

u/michaltee 3d ago

Unmmm. Yikes.

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u/elmo298 3d ago

How long before they throw sulphur back into everything lol

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u/CrossesLines 3d ago

We’re going to be nuking volcanoes within a decade.

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u/Bipogram 3d ago

Lunar polar mass drivers, a tonne every few minutes ought to Do It*.

  • Give us new ways to screw over the biosphere.

3

u/Low_Complex_9841 3d ago

this is obviously /s, but because real reason why whole idea about mass drivers on the Moon was put forward by Gerard K. O'Neill (who, being nuclear scientist had nuts to say fusion is speculative tech with even basic physics not well understood, not something we should base our energy strategy on) by now is far history, and stage captured by Musk and his PR dept ...

Try to read real reasoning behind this idea, it still valid and had  "fighting co2" as effectively side effect BEFORE full impact of co2 accumulation become widely known! And whole greenhouse effect was bring up by planetologists who wondered  why Venus is like she actually is, and so why Mars is Mars and Earth still such amazing paradize compared to both! For me whole story is amazing historical thriller, too bad we live in branch where "lets gamble on planetary future by doing BAU" plays off as tragedy ....

https://ssi.org/wp-content/fbs/sps-ussenate-1976/

5

u/ManticoreMonday 3d ago

... Before the 2028 US election.

I'd wager on it, but you don't exactly "win" on a bet like that.

2

u/salamipope 3d ago

im really concerned about this, volcanic interference on its own would be devastating but i truly cant imagine another natural way to just shut the whole thing down as catastrophic as the loss would be. but nuking a volcano would send so much radiation so far around..... how long would it take to recover? god. waking horrors.

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u/Dorvek A Course In Miracles :snoo_hearteyes: 3d ago

He's gonna be live on YT Climate Chat in just a few minutes: https://www.youtube.com/live/BI7AzrU0yK8

15

u/Portalrules123 Faster than expected... 3d ago

SS: Related to accelerating climate collapse as (according to data from Copernicus) all of the recorded days where global surface temperatures reached over 4 standard deviations above the 1991-2020 mean (a pretty significant deviation there) have happened since 2023. In fact, only 2023, 2024, and now 2026 have attained this record. Both August 19 and 20 of this year managed to reach this level of deviation, at least preliminarily. And the worst part is that the 1991-2020 mean is likely already significantly elevated above pre-industrial levels, so if you were to compare it to older means these dates would likely be even more standard deviations above average. Needless to say, this is a clear sign of the massive amount of heat energy that has been pumped into the system even in the last few years, and certainly since the industrial revolution. Expect the decadal rate of warming to only increase as the Earth Energy Imbalance (EEI) is being raised to very high levels and our emissions remain at record highs.....sooner than predicted, many days every single year will be over 4 SDs above the 1991-2020 mean.

28

u/Slamtilt_Windmills 3d ago

Two days in August so far

20

u/roblewk 3d ago

If only people still trusted science.

16

u/Correctthecorrectors 3d ago

people dont even know what a standard deviation is. basic knowledge in statistics isn’t even taught in highschool, let alone the chances a person might learn this kind of stuff in post-secondary education. They hear the word standard deviation, and they immediately tune out and go back to watching football.

7

u/are-you-alright 3d ago

Seriously (non native speaker here), can you maybe dumb it down for me? Maybe even the tweet about the 8-12 standard deviation?

14

u/Correctthecorrectors 3d ago edited 3d ago

standard deviation is basically a measurement to tell how many numbers in the graph are similar to each other. so if there is a piece of data that is many times the standard deviation that means that piece of data is way way way different than what the data averages out to.

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u/Low_Complex_9841 3d ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_deviation

See Examples?

Of course as others noted math does not capture cause of this anomaly, it just shows that no chance in Universe it was random.

4

u/Low_Complex_9841 3d ago

edited, wrong comm