August’s heat in Houston was a 1-in-10,000-year event

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://blog.chron.com/sciguy/2011/09/august-in-houston-was-a-1-in-10000-year-event/

August’s heat in Houston was a 1-in-10,000-year event

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The good thing about data is that it always gives you more than you expect. This data set is no exception to the rule, especially when drilling down to the data for August, with which we are most interested.

If we look at the histogram for the average temperature data for August, then the most apparent feature is the skewness; the cooler averages are clearly slightly more preferred. (The red bars represent the Gaussian distribution expected for the average and standard deviation of the data.)



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Under most climate models, the monthly average temperature for August in 2100 http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-spm.pdf">would be higher than it is now. However, even if we assume that the August monthly average temperature were raised by a full degree Fahrenheit to 84.6°F, the probability of having another August this warm is still only about 1 in 1,000. But if the typical monthly average temperature for August rises to 86.8°F, then this August becomes something that happens a couple of times each century.

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[ananda]

1. Here in austin, 30 out of the 31 days of August were well over 100 degrees.

nt

[LonePirate]

2. Wait until a second 1-in-10,000 year event occurs next year.

We've seen nothing yet. It wouldn't surprise me if Texas becomes inhospitable for human life within the next century.

[OKIsItJustMe]

3. Note that the last paragraph I quoted regards an increase of < 2°C in the average temperature

So… this once in 10,000 years event is likely to happen a few times a century…