Climate Science Glossary

Term Lookup

Enter a term in the search box to find its definition.

Settings

Use the controls in the far right panel to increase or decrease the number of terms automatically displayed (or to completely turn that feature off).

Term Lookup

Term:

Settings

Beginner Intermediate Advanced No Definitions Definition Life:

All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

Home

Arguments

Software

Resources Comments

The Consensus Project

Translations

About Support

	Climate's changed before
	It's the sun
	It's not bad
	There is no consensus
	It's cooling
	Models are unreliable
	Temp record is unreliable
	Animals and plants can adapt
	It hasn't warmed since 1998
	Antarctica is gaining ice
	View All Arguments...

Latest Posts

Myth Deconstruction - Cold (EN)

Reference

Deconstructing climate misinformation to identify reasoning errors
Cook, J., Ellerton, P., & Kinkead, D. (2018). Deconstructing climate misinformation to identify reasoning errors. Environmental Research Letters, 13(2), 024018. Link to PDF & Link to Supplement

Step-by-step deconstruction

The table below is inspired by the simplified supplement and may differ slightly from what is shown in the GIF. This is mostly due to make the text fit into the available space which made it necessary to reword some of it.

1	Identify claim	It’s cold outside, so global warming isn't happening.
2	Argument structure	Premise 1: Some areas of the world are experiencing record cold temperatures. Conclusion: The Earth is not warming.
3	Inferential Intent	Deduction
4	Validity	INVALID Conclusion doesn't follow from premise. Global warming doesn't mean that cold will never happen anywhere.
4a	Hidden premises	Premise 1: Some areas of the world are experiencing record cold temperatures Premise 2: If the Earth is warming, no areas can experience cooler weather than usual Conclusion: The earth is not warming.
5	Check premises	Premise 1 is true (it's however also an anecdote!). Premise 2 is false: impossible expectations. The overall planet warming does not mean every part of the planet is warming - some areas can show cooling.
6	Status of claim	FALSE With the added hidden premise, the argument is made valid but contains a false premise.
7	Summary of fallacies	Impossible expectations: Global warming doesn't mean that cold events never happen. Instead, it means cold events are less likely to happen over time. Global warming is like rigging the weather dice, making it more likely to get hot days.