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The polar vortex is hitting the brakes

climate.gov

71–80 of 349 posts

Re: The polar vortex is hitting the brakes

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are used to Celsius, sure. But the point the op was making is Fahrenheit was designed with humans in mind and Celsius with the changes of the state of water. Your average person didn't really care what temperature water boils at, just that it is hot.

> Fahrenheit was designed with humans in mind If there was a design, it's not clear what the intent was. It seems about twice as precise as it needs to be (i certainly can't perceive 1F°—for all intents and purposes, 70 feels about the same as 69 and 71) and doesn't seem to correlate to any scale that is immediately based off the needs of humans. At least compared to celcius.

This is very interesting, because I absolutely can feel one degree F difference in house temperature.

I wonder if using a lower resolution scale dulls the senses like other forms of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity

Re: The polar vortex is hitting the brakes

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would "they" privatize the weather? How dramatic.

Trump's choice for the head of NOAA is Barry Lee Myers, the 81 year old CEO of Accuweather who, with no scientific background, has been lobbying for years to dissolve the National Weather Service. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Lee_Myers

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Re: The polar vortex is hitting the brakes

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fahrenheit was designed with humans in mind If there was a design, it's not clear what the intent was. It seems about twice as precise as it needs to be (i certainly can't perceive 1F°—for all intents and purposes, 70 feels about the same as 69 and 71) and doesn't seem to correlate to any scale that is immediately based off the needs of humans. At least compared to celcius.

This is very interesting, because I absolutely can feel one degree F difference in house temperature. I wonder if using a lower resolution scale dulls the senses like other forms of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity

I live in the US and can't change my thermostat, so I don't think that's it.

I'm sure I could feel the difference if i split myself between two rooms with one degree difference. I just don't think this is a useful granularity—I typically move the thermostat by 2-5 degrees at a time.

Re: The polar vortex is hitting the brakes

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30 is hot. 20 is nice. 10 is cold. 0 is ice. Not hard to remember for converting Celsius to how humans typically perceive temperature.

My problem isn't remembering the scale, it's that Fahrenheit offers me double the effective resolution and descriptive accuracy without awkward decimal points in the numbers used. I like my room at 73F, not 72F or 74F, and I can feel the difference. That's 22.77C. :-/

My main observation in temperature scale and imperial lengths discussions om the Internet is that Americans seem to have a strange aversion against fractional parts of numbers, as if those were irrational.

(On the other hand a lot of Americans consume fava beans.)

Re: The polar vortex is hitting the brakes

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Celsius is useful if you're a beaker of water. Fahrenheit is useful if you're a human.

Nah, Celsius is useful if you're a human. Fahrenheit is useful if you're an American.

Agreed, there's a reason most of the world uses it.

Re: The polar vortex is hitting the brakes

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30 is hot. 20 is nice. 10 is cold. 0 is ice. Not hard to remember for converting Celsius to how humans typically perceive temperature.

Cool yeah let's compress the entire scale to 0-35 and waste the other 65 up to 100 lol yeah what a great scale

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Re: The polar vortex is hitting the brakes

#79
post #35
post #6

Interesting article. We are past the usual -20 or lower six weeks where I am so feels like a typical year. If I choose a random northern place like Rankin Inlet NU it is still cold up there with a low of -33 tonight. It is a sign of the times when I think huh, climate.gov… is that a reputable source?

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Minus 33 (the temp the parent referenced) is about the same in Celsius and Fahrenheit. I’m an American that lives in Europe but travels to MN/WI for family and noticed that convergence.

Re: The polar vortex is hitting the brakes

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are used to Celsius, sure. But the point the op was making is Fahrenheit was designed with humans in mind and Celsius with the changes of the state of water. Your average person didn't really care what temperature water boils at, just that it is hot.

> Fahrenheit was designed with humans in mind If there was a design, it's not clear what the intent was. It seems about twice as precise as it needs to be (i certainly can't perceive 1F°—for all intents and purposes, 70 feels about the same as 69 and 71) and doesn't seem to correlate to any scale that is immediately based off the needs of humans. At least compared to celcius.

Farenheit set 100F to be his wife's internal temperature. 0F was the freezing point of brine and humans are mostly brine. F is human centric.[0]

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

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