Arguments
Software
Resources
Comments
The Consensus Project
Translations
About
Support
Latest Posts
- Fact brief - Has human-caused climate change increased extreme weather?
- Skeptical Science New Research for Week #47 2024
- Durability of carbon dioxide removal is critical for stabilizing temperatures
- Sabin 33 #3 - Solar panels generate too much waste and will overwhelm landfills
- Here’s how governments could fix their Paris climate commitment failures
- 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #46
- Skeptical Science New Research for Week #46 2024
- 20 fact briefs published in collaboration with Gigafact!
- Sabin 33 #2 - Are toxic heavy metals from solar panels posing a threat to human health?
- 2024 will be the first year above 1.5°C
- 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #45
- Fact brief - Is there an expert consensus on human-caused global warming?
- Skeptical Science New Research for Week #45 2024
- The planet is ‘on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster,’ scientists warn
- Sabin 33 #1 - Are electromagnetic fields from solar farms harmful to human health?
- Volunteer activity: Evaluate automated climate misinformation debunkings
- 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #44
- Fact brief - Are most glaciers growing?
- Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles thanks to the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law
- Skeptical Science New Research for Week #44 2024
- The hidden health toll of hurricanes
- Climate Adam: Is climate change fuelling mega hurricanes?
- Jobs in wind, solar, and energy storage are booming. Is your state keeping up?
- 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #43
- Fact brief - Do volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans?
- Skeptical Science New Research for Week #43 2024
- Why widening highways doesn’t reduce traffic congestion
- Climate Risk
- Welcome to the world of personal air conditioning
- 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #42
Archived Rebuttal
This is the archived Basic rebuttal to the climate myth "It's freaking cold!". Click here to view the latest rebuttal.
What the science says...
|
A local cold day has nothing to do with the long-term trend of increasing global temperatures. |
It's easy to confuse current weather events with long-term climate trends, and hard to understand the difference between weather and climate. It's a bit like being at the beach, trying to figure out if the tide is rising or falling just by watching individual waves roll in and out. The slow change of the tide is masked by the constant churning of the waves.
In a similar way, the normal ups and downs of weather make it hard to see slow changes in climate. To find climate trends you need to look at how weather is changing over a longer time span. Looking at high and low temperature data from recent decades shows that new record highs occur nearly twice as often as new record lows.
New records for cold weather will continue to be set, but global warming's gradual influence will make them increasingly rare.
Basic rebuttal written by Jim Meador
Update July 2015:
Here are related lecture-videos from Denial101x - Making Sense of Climate Science Denial
This rebuttal was updated by Judith Matz in September 2021 to replace broken links. The updates are a result of our call for help published in May 2021.
Updated on 2015-07-09 by pattimer.
THE ESCALATOR
(free to republish)