Small numbers, big impact

Global climate differences can be miniscule when described in number terms, but of massive impact when seen on the ground.

Climatic changes so far this year are pointing towards new records, but the rather small numbers escape the understanding of a populace accustomed to measuring things and making judgements of seriousness from numbers that have multiple noughts on the end – that is millions or billions.

Climate change’s impact can vary dramatically with small single digit percentage changes and although the difference maybe small, its impact is on a huge entity and so the result is both significant and so meaningful.

The National Climate Date Centre from the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) lists some of the 2014 numbers in its “Global Analysis - October 2014”.