{"id":321165,"date":"2024-04-23T17:19:55","date_gmt":"2024-04-23T15:19:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=321165"},"modified":"2024-04-23T17:19:57","modified_gmt":"2024-04-23T15:19:57","slug":"wrong-bbc-and-reuters-no-evidence-proves-west-african-heatwave-is-unprecedented","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=321165","title":{"rendered":"Wrong, BBC and Reuters, No Evidence Proves West African Heatwave Is Unprecedented"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

By Linnea Lueken<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Multiple media outlets, including the BBC and Reuters, claim that a recent West African heatwave would be \u201cimpossible\u201d without global warming. This is claim is misleading and not supported by real-world data. The study cited in both articles is merely an attribution modelling study, which is not proof of the influence of climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In their article on a recent heatwave in West Africa and the Sahel, Reuters reports<\/a> \u201c[t]emperatures soared so high in Mali and Burkina Faso they equated to a once in 200-year event, according to the report on the Sahel region by World Weather Attribution (WWA).\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reuters continues: \u201cThe severity of the heatwave led WWA\u2019s team of climate scientists to conduct a rapid analysis, which concluded the temperatures would not have been reached if industry had not warmed the planet by burning fossil fuels and other activities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of World Weather Attribution\u2019s statisticians even went so far as to say that heat waves of that intensity wouldn\u2019t happen at all in the region in a \u201cpre-industrial climate.\u201d This claim is utterly unfounded, as those parts of Africa are known for being at least semi-arid, subtropical, and prone to drought and heatwaves. While temperature records are not very lengthy or complete for many parts of Africa, April is known to be the hottest month of the year for Burkina Faso in particular, and many parts of the Sahel region in general, where temperature maximums<\/a> on average are above 40\u00b0C \u2013 which is what the recent heatwave brought, meaning there is not justification for claiming the recent heatwave is historically unprecedented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Climate Realism<\/em> has frequently noted<\/a> that WWA\u2019s \u201crapid attribution\u201d studies are more in the realm of fantasy than fact, as they depend on virtual models of climate conditions that do not actually exist in real life. The model of the climate that an event like the recent Sahel heatwave is compared against is one which represents how the scientists guess things would have been had it not been for the burning of fossil fuels. All of their modelling begins with the unscientific assumption that any given weather event WAS influenced in a dangerous direction by climate change. It proves absolutely nothing, because the \u201ccontrol group\u201d is entirely fictional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The BBC<\/a> produced a slightly more balanced story, acknowledging that other climate experts say that El Ni\u00f1o is mostly to blame for at least some of the bad weather in Africa this year. Despite spending the vast majority of the article linking the heat wave to climate change, as Reuters does, the BBC at least acknowledged, \u201c[a] separate study on drought in Southern Africa said El Ni\u00f1o was to blame, rather than climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, as the Daily Sceptic<\/a> pointed out in reporting on the BBC\u2019s coverage, \u201c\u2026 the headline could have read: Southern African drought \u201cimpossible\u201d without El Ni\u00f1o. But it didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

El Ni\u00f1o has a wide range of effects that are often delayed in hitting Africa, lately it has been causing heatwaves and rainfall in cocoa producing countries like Ghana, which is acknowledged in other articles having to do with cocoa bean<\/a> production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In another Climate Realism<\/em> post<\/a> about cocoa production, H. Sterling Burnett also points out that this kind of weather is normal for the region, writing \u201cacross the region making up West Africa, it is common, not rare, for it to have heatwaves and heavy rains, interspersed with periods of drought.\u201d He points out that \u201cwet heatwaves\u201d are not uncommon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once again, attribution science is hardly science and proves nothing about climate change. It certainly can\u2019t determine whether human activities caused or even contributed to any given weather event. All of this is speculative at best. Frankly the enthusiasm with which supposed journalists and prominent media outlets embrace attribution modelling studies with no questions or skepticism whatsoever is an embarrassment to the profession. The BBC and Reuters ought to know better, and they should brush up on the facts before hyping scare-stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Multiple media outlets, including the BBC and Reuters, claim that a recent West African heatwave would be \u201cimpossible\u201d without global warming. This is claim is misleading and not supported by real-world data. The study cited in both articles is merely an attribution modelling study, which is not proof of the influence of climate change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":321169,"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":[691828309,691818056,691819348,691818514,691821240,691828310,691822250],"class_list":{"0":"post-321165","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-bbc-and-reuters","9":"tag-climate-change","10":"tag-drought","11":"tag-extreme-weather","12":"tag-heatwave","13":"tag-the-sahel","14":"tag-west-africa","16":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/09719heatwavepng.png?fit=1280%2C720&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1ly5","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":326546,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=326546","url_meta":{"origin":321165,"position":0},"title":"The BBC Promotes Bad Science About Heat, Floods, Drought, and Wildfires","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"06\/05\/2024","format":false,"excerpt":"A recent BBC article, titled \u201cHow climate change worsens heatwaves, droughts, wildfires, and floods,\u201d claims that climate change is linked to four types of extreme weather, specifically claiming it causes: extreme rainfall, worse heatwaves, longer droughts, and more wildfires. 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