How is it possible to measure the temperature of the entire lower atmosphere of the planet over a period of a year, and how reliable is such a measurement?
How is it possible to measure the temperature of the entire lower atmosphere of the planet over a period of a year, and how reliable is such a measurement?
Originally Posted by Strokey_McDingDong
Well, when calculating the average temperature of the entire globe over the course of a year, you don't expect to have a precision of a fraction of a degree afterwards. That is, the variance of the mean of a wide range of temperatures should be larger than a fraction of a degree. But that's just my line of thinking.
They are claiming to have significant figures up to a hundredth of a degree, after doing some kind of crazy averaging over wide ranges of temperatures across the globe and through all seasons.
How is it possible to measure the temperature of the entire lower atmosphere of the planet over a period of a year, and how reliable is such a measurement?
Originally Posted by Strokey_McDingDong
Yea, yea but they are measuring the entire lower atmosphere of the globe across all seasons ... and are reporting a single number with high precision, up to a hundredth of a degree.
I don't get how that is possible.
If the "global temperature" is an average, then you'd expect the average temperature of the earth across all seasons to have a higher variance than a hundredth of a degree.
There's also uncertainty in that it's not possible to sample the entire lower atmosphere, so they must be doing some kind of approximating, which again you'd not expect to have a super high precision.
NASA and other agencies use a combination of above ground (and sea) thermometers and satellite and aircraft based infrared sensor arrays to measure temperatures. From those they use modeling to determine temperatures at different levels and times which are cross referenced for accuracy by random checks against the model. That’s kinda a simplistic view of what they do but I think it conveys the idea.