“You think you’ve got problems,” replied Niece Nellie. “I’m not going to get to play softball this spring!”
“I got a ‘D’ in biology last quarter. If I don’t get at least a ‘C’ for the semester, I’m not eligible for spring sports. Now I just got an ‘F’ on the last test. I even earned an ‘A’ one time, but now I blew it!”
Uncle Elmer asked to see her scores. They were: D, B-, C-, D (1st quarter) and B, A, C+, F (2nd quarter). Whipping out his calculator, Uncle Elmer did some quick figuring. “Good news, Nellie; you get to play ball! You forgot about how averages work. There can be some “outlier” scores, like the ‘A’ and the ‘F,’ but your average has gone up to a solid ‘C’!”
“Yoo-Hoo! Thank you so much Uncle Elmer. I just wish averages could help you with your problem about the cold weather!” Nellie responded.
8 WEEKS LATER
Uncle Elmer stopped by to watch softball practice. “Hey Nellie, you got your wish.”
“Huh?” she asked.
“You wished that averages could help me understand the cold. I got to thinking about how an average doesn’t mean you can’t still have extremes like your ‘A’ and your ‘F.’ So I did some research on the Wis. Initiative on Climate Change Impacts website. It explains that the cold weather we had this winter may be an outlier in the decades long climate trend. They looked at data beginning as far back as the 1800s. Even though Wisconsin weather can still have extreme temperatures, on average the temperatures are slowly rising in Wisconsin.
“For example, compared to 1950, spring now arrives 6-12 days earlier. Robins show up 13 days earlier than they did in 1990. The ice in Lake Mendota, Madison freezes over for 3 mos. now instead of 4 like in the 1800s.
“They say these changes cause a lot of economic and environmental problems. So I’m going to learn more and find ways to reduce my fossil fuel use because I like the Wisconsin I remember as a boy. Anyway, if things get worse, we can’t just blast off to another planet. This is the only one we’ve got. Nellie, we’re forever…Earthbound.”