A little delayed in posting this…
Warnings: 1) this is a joke; 2) figure’s linear fit may cause night terrors in mathematicians
Punxsutawney Phil puts up with a lot. Every year he wakes up from hibernation and makes a televised forecast. And every year, meteorologists and ivory tower academics (like me) reproach the little rodent for doing what he loves — predicting the early or late coming of spring. I think it’s time we all embrace Phil’. Not Phil the meteorologist, but Phil the climatologist. The figure below shows the years in which Phil predicts a long winter (a zero) or and early spring (a one). What you’ll notice is that Phil’s prediction of an early spring has become a lot more common since ~1980. I think we can all agree that this is clear evidence that Phil knows that climate change is real! Climate change is sometimes described as loading the dice toward warmer weather outcomes. Obviously Phil knows this; he is not flipping a fair coin. So, you heard it here first. Phil knows climate change is real. Long live Punxsutawney Phil, the oldest climatologist on the planet.
