[chimprich]

> Totally unjustified, sensational nonsense.

I wish we had a pithy term for people underplaying exceptional events (complacency-mongering?) to show off how unflappable they are, because it would be nice to use it in this case.

Temperature records being broken are, by definition, exceptional events. In this case, the UK's temperature record was broken by 1.5C, which is a huge increase.

> This was in 1911

Cherry-picking a data point. There's a very significant trend of hotter days and record breaking occurring in the past few years. One outlier in a century of data doesn't mean very much (and your source of a paragraph from an Australian newspaper in 1911 seems to get the value wrong).

[ibejoeb]

Sorry you can't think of a name to call me.

This is as much cherry-picking as the linked article is. It's one measurement.

> source of a paragraph from an Australian newspaper

The link is an Australian paper, too.

[ubercow13]

The 38.7C and the 100F were also each one measurement. Also it's not just one measurement, at least 33 places broke the all time temperature record of the whole country today (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-62217282)

[ibejoeb]

Right. A temperature measurement on one day is a temperature measurement on one, regardless if its 1911 or 2022.

[ubercow13]

Yes, the trend is in higher maximum temperatures on individual outlier hot days. That doesn't make it insignificant, so I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.

[ibejoeb]

I'm objecting to the sensationalism and overtly incorrect account of the temperature being 40C and the runway melting. What good does that do? "Approaching" 40C isn't 40C. Depending on who you ask, it was 38C there. I guess it's also approaching 50C, why not...

Where are you finding this trend data? It's not in any of these materials. Please share if you have it. I've seen all sorts of trends, but they always start after the last cycle, when it was very hot in '30s.

[ubercow13]

I'm not sure if you're just being disingenuous but the title says 'as temperatures in UK near 40°C', not specifically at the location of the runway, which I guess is overtly incorrect in the sense that it's an understatement, as it exceeded 40C at multiple places today.

This article has at least some stats about hottest days going back before the 30's: https://www.rte.ie/news/weather/2022/0719/1311135-uk-hottest...

[chimprich]

> The link is an Australian paper, too.

I think you missed my point. To spell it out: a modern Australian news outlet should be easily able to report accurate data. In 1911 they presumably relied on the telegraph (small "t") and human transcription, leading to a high probability of errors.

And, indeed, an error seems to have occurred in this case. The maximum recorded temperature for that year was actually 36.7 °C (98.1 °F) [0]. This was presumably due to errors in transcription, rounding errors, or (ironically) deliberate sensationalism.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_weather_records