Stats + Stories Global Weirding | Stats + Stories Episode 362
Apr 24, 2025
Brett Falk is a research professor at the University of Pennsylvania and directs the Crypto and Society Lab, focusing on climate data and extreme weather. He discusses the concept of 'global weirding' and its alarming effects on weather patterns as temperatures rise. Falk explains how even small temperature increases can amplify the intensity of heat waves and hurricanes. He also highlights the critical impact of these changes on public health and coral reefs, emphasizing the necessity for effective communication of climate statistics to connect with everyday experiences.
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Father-Son Research Partnership
- Brett Falk collaborated with his dad, a Harvard researcher, combining math and economics expertise.
- They started working together after noticing interesting statistical behaviors in gun violence data.
Small Shifts Amplify Extremes
- A small shift in a population's distribution can drastically increase extreme outcomes.
- For example, a 5% speed increase can greatly multiply the number of marathon runners breaking elite times.
Understanding Statistical Truncation
- Truncation in statistics refers to focusing only on the extreme tail of a distribution.
- Small changes in the overall distribution heavily impact this truncated extreme region.