Roger Pielke Jr.'s Blog: Why Rare Events are a Certainty

More specifically, there are three reasons why the question of whether extreme events are increasing due to specific causal factors is difficult to answer with certainty: (1) a short data record, (2) specific extremes occur infrequently and (3) a range of legitimate methodological approaches to the issue. In such circumstances it would be easy to be fooled by randomness and black swans. The good news is that the best policies in these conditions do not require certainty about causality, they instead emphasize robustness to uncertainty and ignorance.