1,000-Year Event? More Like Media Myth—Climatologist Exposes Overblown Weather Claims by Dr. Matthew Wielicki

When the media claims we’re experiencing a “once in 500-year” or “once in 1,000-year” weather event, they’re missing a fundamental point about how data works

• We can read signs of past floods, droughts, and shifts in temperature, but there’s a crucial limitation here: geological proxies don’t capture daily weather extremes...
• Proxies give us broad trends over long periods of time, not the kind of hyper-detailed weather data required to make statements about rare events like a “1,000-year storm.”
• The truth is, these assertions are built on shaky statistical ground, and there’s no real way we can be certain about the frequency of these events given how little data we actually have...