Not to be too pedantic but your back of the envelope probabilities are based on inaccurate assumptions and probably several orders of magnitude off. Specifically, your not just assuming uniform but also independent from one day to the next. A more accurate treatment would be to assume conditional dependence from one day to the next (the Markov property). Once you have a record hot day, you are significantly more likely to have another record hot day following it.
That said, it’s still low probability, just not as low as what you’re saying.
If we stick with your 1/44 assumption, we can then assume 50% chance that the following day will also be a record setting day (probably too low still but the math is easier). Your one week estimate would be (1/44)*(1/2)^6.
You did not calculate that right. What I wrote comes out to 1/2816, which is fully 8 orders more likely than your initial estimate. And this number is still probably a lot lower than the true probability.
There are A LOT of independent lines of evidence that point very strongly to the conclusion that humans are causing a massively disruptive change to the earth’s climate. This heatwave is not the nail in the coffin, it’s just (small) data point. Trying to oversell it like you are only serves to entrench deniers who will assume that you are making an intentionally misleading argument.
Not to be too pedantic but your back of the envelope probabilities are based on inaccurate assumptions and probably several orders of magnitude off. Specifically, your not just assuming uniform but also independent from one day to the next. A more accurate treatment would be to assume conditional dependence from one day to the next (the Markov property). Once you have a record hot day, you are significantly more likely to have another record hot day following it.
That said, it’s still low probability, just not as low as what you’re saying.
Any thoughts on how I could incorporate that for a better back of the napkin?
If we stick with your 1/44 assumption, we can then assume 50% chance that the following day will also be a record setting day (probably too low still but the math is easier). Your one week estimate would be (1/44)*(1/2)^6.
Great so then it’s only a 1 in half a trillion chance if I calculated that right, I’m feeling better now
You did not calculate that right. What I wrote comes out to 1/2816, which is fully 8 orders more likely than your initial estimate. And this number is still probably a lot lower than the true probability.
There are A LOT of independent lines of evidence that point very strongly to the conclusion that humans are causing a massively disruptive change to the earth’s climate. This heatwave is not the nail in the coffin, it’s just (small) data point. Trying to oversell it like you are only serves to entrench deniers who will assume that you are making an intentionally misleading argument.