Significance Tests in Climate Science

Abstract

A large fraction of papers in the climate literature includes erroneous uses of significance tests. A Bayesian analysis is presented to highlight the meaning of significance tests and why typical misuse occurs. It is concluded that a significance test very rarely provides useful quantitative information. The significance statistic is not a quantitative measure of how confident we can be of the 'reality' of a given result.

arXiv comment9 pages

Cited by in corpus (2)

• On the likelihood of non-terrestrial artifacts in the Solar System
• A ten-year historical analysis of urban PM10 and exceedance filters along the Northern Wasatch Front, UT, USA