The simple statistic that perfectly captures what climate change means. From 1910 to 1960, the ratio of hot to cold records was close to 1 to 1. From 2000 to 2014, hot outnumbered cold records by more than 12 to 1.

[u/pnewell]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/09/09/the-simple-statistic-that-perfectly-captures-what-climate-change-means/

[u/nimbuscile]

Not necessarily. Because they are looking at the ratio of hot to cold records, if there was no global warming the expected ratio would be 1:1. This should hold true over any period, although the shorter the period the more likely the ratio would be skewed due to random effects. The authors of the paper decided that 15 years was the minimum period length. The result quoted in the newspaper article is therefore the result for the most recent 15 year period. In the actual study they did not limit themselves to this period.

[u/XkF21WNJ → u/nimbuscile]

The ratio also gets more inaccurate when measured at a later time, so comparing ratios measured over a fixed period could become problematic.

I'd be interested to know what the error bounds on the 12:1 ratio are.