 |
| Hurricane Harvey caused massive flooding in Port Arthur, Texas, in the summer of 2017. In a collaboration between statistician Mark Risser and climate scientist Michael Wehner, the researchers estimated that human-induced climate change increased Hurricane Harvey’s rainfall amounts by at least 18% [Risser and Wehner, 2017]. Credit: Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images |
Climate science needs its own specialized “climostatisticians” as integral members of multidisciplinary research teams.
“Climate is what you expect; weather is what you get!”
This old cliché rings true, for climate is the distribution of weather. Weather’s distribution depends on season, location, internal variability, and external influences, both natural and human. As it is weather, not climate, that is observable and measurable, any study of climate is inherently statistical in nature.
Read more...
