Pete B wrote:

"nimbus" wrote in message
...


snipped.


in your dreams!suggest you go and take stats101 paying special

attention to the parts concerning signifinance


Meaningless and irrelevant!!

Statistics mean nothing other than what the future MIGHT be based on what
the past has been.

The weather and even more so, the financial worlds, are littered with total
failed forecasts based on statistical predictions from the recent past. What
statistics forecast the Stockmarket crashes just as the markets were,
unbeknown to even experts, peaking back in the late '90's? In the mid
1970's, climate statistics suggested a trend heading back downwards in
global temperature and the media hype was all about new ice ages. That all
looks very silly now doesn't it? I have little faith in statistics as a
future forecasting tool, the climate will do what nature dictates whatever
statistics may indicate about it.

As I said, I look forward to the real results of the coming year regarding
temperature levels to see whether the 5 years since the record was last
broken are a temporary blip on an otherwise continuing global temperature
rise or a real indication of a slowing of the rises over the last few years.

There are lies, damn lies and statistics.

yoke1 has already replied adequately, but I would like to add that I am
utterly mystified by your comments about statistics.The numbers are all
we have - like astronomers, we can't experiment, so we must use the numbers.
There is a great difference between statistical forecasting in the
worlds of economics and finance on the one hand, where there is no
meaningful theoretical basis for the forecasts, and that of geophysics
on the other hand, with a strong body of knowledge about the physical
behaviour of the atmosphere/ocean system.
What you don't seem to realise is that your original message in this
thread constitutes a statistical forecast itself, albeit a very bad one,
because it takes no account of significance. It is attempting to draw
inferences from the numbers and hence it qualifies as ststistics.

BTW, there is some evidence that strong ENSO swings (in the short term)
are themselves associated with warm episodes in the medium term.