{"id":280578,"date":"2023-09-26T19:22:12","date_gmt":"2023-09-26T17:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=280578"},"modified":"2023-09-26T19:22:30","modified_gmt":"2023-09-26T17:22:30","slug":"no-washington-post-antarctica-didnt-have-the-most-intense-heat-wave-ever-recorded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=280578","title":{"rendered":"No, Washington Post, Antarctica Didn\u2019t Have the \u201cMost Intense Heat Wave Ever Recorded\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From ClimateRealism<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Anthony Watts<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On September 24th, 2023, Kasha Patel<\/a>, a writer for The Washington Post<\/em> (WaPo) created a story that is likely in the top 10 most false and egregious climate scare stories ever published. Titled, \u201cScientists found the most intense heat wave ever recorded \u2014 in Antarctica<\/a>,\u201d the story isn\u2019t just false, it is doubly so because the research paper<\/a> it is based on is also seriously flawed. In this case, peer review at Geophysical Research Letters<\/em> (GRL) failed to catch and correct the most basic abuse of the definition of a \u201cheat wave.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The leading paragraph of the WaPo story said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In March 2022, temperatures near the eastern coast of Antarctica spiked 70 degrees Fahrenheit (39 degrees Celsius) above normal \u2014 making it the most intense recorded heat wave to occur anywhere on Earth, according to a recent study<\/a>. At the time, researchers on-site were wearing shorts and some even removed their shirts to bask in the (relative) warmth. Scientists elsewhere said such a high in that region of the world was unthinkable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WaPo also provided a normal temperature, for reference with some \u201cunbelievability\u201d from the lead author of the paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Temperatures in March, marking a change into autumn on the continent, are typically around minus -54 degrees Celsius on the east coast near the Dome C. On March 18, 2022, temperatures peaked to minus -10 degrees Celsius. That\u2019s warmer than even the hottest temperature recorded during the summer months in that region \u2014 \u201cthat in itself is pretty unbelievable,\u201d said Blanchard-Wrigglesworth, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, it is important to point out that the so-called \u201cheat wave\u201d really wasn\u2019t warm at all; the shorts and shirt removal was completely for show, rather than science.  Since most people in the United States use the Fahrenheit temperature scale, which isn\u2019t mentioned at all in the WaPo article citing the actual high temperature recorded, it was easy for reporter Kasha Patel to sneak by the idea that it was actually warm at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

-10 Celsius is actually 14 degrees Fahrenheit<\/strong> \u2013 which isn\u2019t warm, much less a \u201cheat wave\u201d by any definition. Patel can\u2019t be forgiven for not mentioning this in the article because anyone can get the conversion simply by typing it into Google, like this example.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that isn\u2019t the worst journalistic violation Patel makes. She mentions \u201c70 degrees Fahrenheit (39 degrees Celsius) above normal\u201d in the first paragraph, but neglects to offer the same reference when it comes to the actual temperature \u201cminus -10 degrees Celsius,\u201d clearly to hide the fact that at 14\u00b0F, it is still well below freezing (32\u00b0F) and not warm at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The author of the paper also makes a false claim in the GRL paper right in the title: \u201cThe Largest Ever Recorded Heatwave\u2014Characteristics and Attribution of the Antarctic Heatwave of March 2022<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By several meteorological definitions, the Antarctic temperature event doesn\u2019t qualify as a heat wave at all. For example, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in their website \u201cSciJinks\u201d for kids defines it as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A heat wave is a period of unusually hot weather that typically lasts two or more days. To be considered a heat wave, the temperatures have to be outside the historical averages for a given area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At -10 Celsius\/14 degrees Fahrenheit in Antarctica, \u201chot\u201d is not even close. Even kids will understand this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On an academic level, a peer reviewed paper \u201cOn the Definition of a Heat Wave<\/a>\u201d published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, clearly defines what a heat wave actually is, in table 7:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As you can see, at 14\u00b0F, Antarctica\u2019s March weather event wasn\u2019t even close.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And finally, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) defines<\/a> a heat wave as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2026a period during which the daily maximum temperature exceeds for more than five consecutive days the maximum normal temperature by 9 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius).\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the case of the March Antarctic temperature event, according to the GRL paper abstract<\/a>, it only lasted 4 days, and so failed that test too. Clearly, despite GRL and WaPo wanting to call it a \u201cheat wave,\u201d by three different definitions, it was not, and the paper author and the WaPo reporter abused the definition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, there\u2019s this in the GRL paper: \u201cWe find that the heatwave was made 2\u00b0C warmer by climate change, and future end of century heatwaves to be 5\u20136\u00b0C warmer, suggesting the possibility of near-melting temperatures over the East Antarctic ice cap during extreme heatwaves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the WaPo reporter, who failed to catch that this wasn\u2019t a heat wave at all, reported properly:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The complete role of climate change is still under investigation, although the new study asserts that the warmer atmosphere didn\u2019t play a large role boosting temperatures. The team ran a suite of computer models running scenarios that included increased greenhouse gas emissions vs. a world that did not. They found climate change only increased the heat wave by 2 degrees Celsius.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At -8\u00b0C (17.6\u00b0F) versus -10\u00b0C (14\u00b0F), there\u2019s still no significant effect. Antarctic ice didn\u2019t melt, and there was no \u201cshirtless\u201d weather even though it was hyped in the article. It was all for show, roping in low-information readers who wouldn\u2019t question \u201cscience\u201d and the journalistic skills of WaPo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, the damage is in the headline, which most people read without reading such explanations further down in the article, much less in the scientific literature itself. Readers come away with the false impression that Antarctica has a heat wave like what they might experience in the summer where they live, and that\u2019s the biggest lie of all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shame on WaPo\u2019s Kasha Patel for not catching and correcting this, and double shame on the editors of GRL for not catching and correcting the false claim of a heat wave in the paper before they published it. We deserve better than this sort of half-baked science and reporting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Anthony Watts<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anthony Watts is a senior fellow for environment and climate at The Heartland Institute. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watts has been in the weather business both in front of, and behind the camera as an on-air television meteorologist since 1978, and currently does daily radio forecasts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He has created weather graphics presentation systems for television, specialized weather instrumentation, as well as co-authored peer-reviewed papers on climate issues. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He operates the most viewed website in the world on climate, the award-winning website wattsupwiththat.com.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Kasha Patel, a writer for\u00a0The Washington Post\u00a0(WaPo) created a story that is likely in the top 10 most false and egregious climate scare stories ever published. Titled, \u201cScientists found the most intense heat wave ever recorded \u2014 in Antarctica,\u201d the story isn\u2019t just false, it is doubly so because the\u00a0research paper\u00a0it is based on is also seriously flawed. In this case, peer review at\u00a0Geophysical Research Letters\u00a0(GRL) failed to catch and correct the most basic abuse of the definition of a \u201cheat wave.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":280587,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691818326,691818056,691820965,691818940,691822983,691821138],"class_list":{"0":"post-280578","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-antarctica","9":"tag-climate-change","10":"tag-hottest-ever","11":"tag-national-oceanic-and-atmospheric-administration","12":"tag-the-washington-post-wapo","13":"tag-world-meteorological-organization-wmo","15":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/image-784.png?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1aZs","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":263541,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=263541","url_meta":{"origin":280578,"position":0},"title":"No, WaPo, a Texas Heat Wave has Nothing to Do with Global Climate Change","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"23\/06\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"The Washington Post\u00a0(WaPo) has published a story claiming that the heat wave in Texas this week is \u201ctied to climate change.\u201d This is false \u2013 it is a weather event, not a climate event. Texas experiences heatwaves on a regular basis, and history shows that Texas experienced event greater heat\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Climate change\"","block_context":{"text":"Climate change","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=climate-change"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/0-Weather-Climate.jpeg?fit=1024%2C768&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/0-Weather-Climate.jpeg?fit=1024%2C768&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/0-Weather-Climate.jpeg?fit=1024%2C768&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/0-Weather-Climate.jpeg?fit=1024%2C768&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":241812,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=241812","url_meta":{"origin":280578,"position":1},"title":"The Washington Post Gets Iceberg Story Right","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"27\/01\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"This is factually true, and WaPo should be praised for publishing a scientifically-sound article on spectacular natural phenomena without attempts trying to tie it to climate change.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/image-1172.png?fit=1198%2C1183&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/image-1172.png?fit=1198%2C1183&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/image-1172.png?fit=1198%2C1183&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/image-1172.png?fit=1198%2C1183&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/image-1172.png?fit=1198%2C1183&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":297674,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=297674","url_meta":{"origin":280578,"position":2},"title":"Un-educated Climate Alarmists are Dumbfounded to Learn Antarctica\u2019s Record-breaking \u201cHeatwave\u201d Increased Antarctica\u2019s Ice Sheet!","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"21\/01\/2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Click-bait media, such as the Washington Post, fear mongered the headlines, \u201cScientists found the most intense heat wave ever\u201d. 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For example,\u00a0The Washington Post\u00a0story Antarctic\u00a0\u201cHeat Wave\u201d piece on Concordia Station back in March of 2022. Or this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Antarctic\"","block_context":{"text":"Antarctic","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=antarctic"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/0wapo-antarctic-heat-wave-4.jpg?fit=1088%2C706&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/0wapo-antarctic-heat-wave-4.jpg?fit=1088%2C706&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/0wapo-antarctic-heat-wave-4.jpg?fit=1088%2C706&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/0wapo-antarctic-heat-wave-4.jpg?fit=1088%2C706&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/0wapo-antarctic-heat-wave-4.jpg?fit=1088%2C706&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":410029,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=410029","url_meta":{"origin":280578,"position":4},"title":"No, Washington Post, Climate Change Isn\u2019t Killing Washington, DC\u2019s Trees\u2014Urban Stress Is","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"24\/10\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"In The Washington Post\u2019s (WaPo) article, \u201cClimate change is coming for D.C.\u2019s trees, and the city won\u2019t look the same,\u201d the authors claim that climate change is killing off Washington, DC\u2019s tree canopy. 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