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by thomas2718 2250 days ago
Predicting the weather is fundamentally different from predicting climate.

Let's play a coin game. We'll throw a fair coin 100,000 times. Beforehand, I predict the number of heads +-0.5%. If I'm right, 1,000$ for me, if I'm wrong, 1000$ for you.

The probability that my prediction is correct is more than 99.8%. Nevertheless, I can predict a single coin flip only with a 50% chance.

A single coin flip represents a weather forecast. Climate, however, is the long term average, represented by the total number of heads. Even if I cannot predict the individual events (like tomorrows weather), I can say something about the averages with high probability.