[mikeash]

“Record” refers to past data. “Record breaking” means you’ve exceeded the past data, not that you’ve exceeded anything that has ever happened.

For example, regular and reliable temperature records only go back to the late 1800s, so any “record breaking” temperature just means it hasn’t happened since 1888 or whatever.

[soperj]

Would you include these stones as data? They're certainly a record of low water levels.

[eesmith]

A "record" has multiple shades of meaning. For example, temperature records must be officially observed, using (sufficiently) modern weather instrumentation. That's why https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_weather_records says "remotely sensed observations such as satellite measurements, since those values are not considered official records."

This thread spun off into pedantry when you used the phrase "record breaking drought".

I know that there have been record breaking temperatures. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_European_heat_wave comments that in Germany "Both April and May set new temperature records as the warmest April and May since modern record-keeping began in 1881."

Note the 'modern record-keeping' associated with 'new temperature records', and that those records are only 150 years old.

It's certainly true that there are older weather records. 10.1023/A:1005505113244 describes weather journals including one which covers the drought of 1540, which was "the most outstanding" one of the last half of the 1000s. 10.1007/s10584-014-1184-2 is "Based on more than 300 first-hand documentary weather report sources" from that time, to describe the 11-month-long Megadrought of 1540.

So, who are you quoting when you use the phrase 'record breaking drought', and what definition are they using?

[soperj]

>So, who are you quoting when you use the phrase 'record breaking drought'

Quoting the article on which this comment is being made.

[eesmith]

The article does not use the phrase "record breaking drought".

The phrases are: 1) "They are known as the "hunger stones," and they were chosen in the past to record low water levels", 2) "As Europe wilts in the sweltering, record-breaking harshness of summer 2018", 3) "with water levels hitting record lows in Europe".

The last two provide links where I think it's clear that they refer to modern record keeping, eg, daily measurements of temperature, rainfall, water depth, etc.

[mikeash]

No, they are not the record being referred to here.

[soperj]

Clearly not. When you just dismiss any records that are below the current drought, then all droughts can become record breaking.

[mikeash]

That is not what’s being done. “The record” is a defined set of data that’s considered to be reliable. In this case, it covers the period starting when consistent, scientific meteorological observations were being regularly recorded.