Wednesday, February 09, 2005

NASA: Not good at Math

To determine if the Earth is warming or cooling, scientists look at average temperatures. To get an "average" temperature, scientists take the warmest and the coolest temperatures in a day, and calculate the temperature that is exactly in the middle of those high and low values. This provides an average temperature for a day. These average temperatures are then calculated for spots all over the Earth, over an entire year.


I thought that was the Median temperature.. i thought the average was the total temperatures in a given sampling divided by the total numbers of samples taken

if the bulk of the day was at 70* F but part of the day for 2 seconds was at 0* F and 100* F that doesn't mean the average temperature was 50

go back to Math class nasa

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