> there is compelling evidence [1] that such extreme weather phenomena are becoming more common [0].
The links looked interesting, so I followed them. The second one was an abstract [0] saying, basically: "the last 50 years have seen more of these types of events", fair enough. The first one [1], though, had a paragraph that stuck out to me (apologies for the long quote):
> “It’s tough, though,” Butler continues, “because we don’t have a very long record of observations of the stratosphere. We’ve only been observing it directly since the 1950s. That’s not very long to understand what kind of natural variability the polar vortex might be capable of. One researcher did a historical reconstruction by correlating the overlapping portions of the North Atlantic Oscillation index—which goes back much farther—and the polar vortex record, and then extrapolating the polar vortex record farther back in time using the NAO index. It showed no long-term trend, and no big differences in recent decades compared to previous decades.”
and then near the end, as the conclusion:
> Still, by most of the metrics experts use to describe winter climate, Overland agrees the big picture is clear: on average, winters are warmer and cold extremes are less likely than they were a century ago.
How is this article cited as evidence that extreme weather phenomena are becoming more common? How is the science.org article able to claim that there have been more in the last 50 years when we've only been observing them for ~70 years?
Anyone able to shed some light here?
[0] https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abi9167
[1] https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/...