{"id":455380,"date":"2026-07-13T09:56:50","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T16:56:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=455380"},"modified":"2026-07-13T09:56:52","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T16:56:52","slug":"no-usa-today-4th-of-july-heat-was-not-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=455380","title":{"rendered":"No, USA Today, 4th of July Heat was NOT \u201cClimate Change.\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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

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

A USA Today story, \u201cWas that climate change? Scientists ponder a deadly July 4 weekend<\/a>,\u201d claims that extreme heat in some parts of the country over July 4th<\/sup> weekend was caused by climate change, and is part of a pattern of climate-induced July extreme weather events. This is false. For one, it is not at all unprecedented to have extreme heat in summer, and the other weather events that USA Today references are also not evidence of climate change. USA Today relies on single event attribution studies, which are not actual data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The article begins by claiming that \u201cearly July brought historic extreme weather for the fourth year in a row, and scientists again see the \u201cfingerprints\u201d of climate change in a deadly Fourth of July.\u201d The historic extremes they point to are different kinds of weather that weren\u2019t even actually unprecedented, in completely different parts of the world. The author cites \u201ca record-smashing heat wave\u201d<\/a> in 2023, implying this was some kind of world-wide single event, but links to an article where heat records were described as being broken in various places across the country and the world, and in different<\/em> months<\/em>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Statistics say that some kind of temperature record is broken somewhere on the planet any given day, it\u2019s not evidence of a trend. Average temperatures have risen modestly in the world over the past century and a half, but extreme heat has not been driving those averages. As Climate Realism<\/em> has pointed<\/a> out in many<\/a> articles<\/a> covering<\/a> various heatwaves<\/a> over the years, data does not show that extreme heat is becoming more common, not even in the United States, which media often claims is seeing worsening heatwaves. (See figure below)<\/p>\n\n\n

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

Even more embarrassing for USA Today, they then listed Hurricane Beryl in 2024 as further evidence of the \u201cfourth year in a row\u201d of \u201cextreme weather\u201d they want to attribute to climate change. That isn\u2019t even a heatwave. It isn\u2019t even occurring in the United States, and the \u201chistory\u201d it made was by being an early Category 5 storm, the storm it beat was by just two weeks. This is absurd cherry-picking. Extreme weather occurs every day on the planet, and again, somewhere, SOME kind of record is being broken, especially if the net of possible conditions is cast wide enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is no long term trend<\/a> of worsening, or earlier arriving hurricanes, which would point towards a \u201cfingerprint of climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, USA Today then points to another disconnected weather event as the evidence that 2025 was part of this supposed pattern: the deadly floods in Texas. Again, these were not caused by climate change, there is no long term trend of flood severity on the Guadalupe River<\/a>. Expert hydrologists reported at the time that \u201cthis kind of outcome was a known risk.\u201d That same river valley experienced major floods more than a dozen times over the past century, and has experienced worse floods than the 2025 one in the past, it wasn\u2019t even a record-breaker, which makes it a bad example even among a list of bad examples for the author\u2019s point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rest of the article relies entirely on the say-so of climate activist and attribution groups Climate Central and World Weather Attribution. These are not legitimate scientific bodies, and their claims regarding recent heatwaves being \u201cvirtually impossible\u201d without climate change have been thoroughly debunked in the Climate Realism<\/em> post by meteorologist Anthony Watts \u201cNo, New York Times, Climate Change Isn\u2019t Causing Modern Heat Waves<\/a>,\u201d so I will not relitigate them here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This USA Today article is an embarrassing example of journalistic negligence and demonstrates a lack of understanding about weather history and how record-setting works when 365 days of an entire planet is your sample size. Heatwaves are deadly, yes, but they are not becoming more deadly or extreme over time, and their danger is easily mitigated with human innovations like air conditioning. USA Today should know these things, but they apparently prefer climate narrative over facts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

A USA Today story, \u201cWas that climate change? Scientists ponder a deadly July 4 weekend,\u201d claims that extreme heat in some parts of the country over July 4th weekend was caused by climate change, and is part of a pattern of climate-induced July extreme weather events. This is false.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":455390,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"A USA Today story, \u201cWas that climate change? Scientists ponder a deadly July 4 weekend,\u201d claims that extreme heat in some parts of the country over July 4th weekend was caused by climate change, and is part of a pattern of climate-induced July extreme weather events. This is false.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"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":[691844048,691818113,691844049,691818056,691820674,691821044,691821160],"class_list":["post-455380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-4th-of-july","tag-climate-activist","tag-climate-central-and-world-weather-attribution","tag-climate-change","tag-extreme-heat","tag-usa-today","tag-weather-events","fallback-thumbnail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1UsQ","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":268401,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=268401","url_meta":{"origin":455380,"position":0},"title":"Wild Weather News Spreads Like\u00a0Wildfire","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"07\/19\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"World Weather Attribution and its alarming report were trumpeted by Time magazine, touted by the NOAA website Climate.gov , and featured by CBS News, CNBC, Scientific American, CNN, the Washington Post, USAToday, and the New York Times, among others.","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\/07\/OIG-38.jpeg?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/OIG-38.jpeg?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/OIG-38.jpeg?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/OIG-38.jpeg?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":271366,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=271366","url_meta":{"origin":455380,"position":1},"title":"Top climate scientists rubbish claims July was the hottest month ever \u2013 Public being \u2018misinformed on a massive scale\u2019","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"08\/04\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Professor Mass said the climate was \u201cradically warmer\u201d around 1000 years ago during what\u2019s known as the Medieval Warm Period, when agriculture thrived in parts of now ice-covered Greenland. \u201cIf you really go back far enough there were swamps near the North Pole, and the other thing to keep in\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\/08\/00july-2021-was-earth-s-hottest-month-ever-climate-change-359331-1_1280.jpeg?fit=1200%2C844&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/00july-2021-was-earth-s-hottest-month-ever-climate-change-359331-1_1280.jpeg?fit=1200%2C844&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/00july-2021-was-earth-s-hottest-month-ever-climate-change-359331-1_1280.jpeg?fit=1200%2C844&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/00july-2021-was-earth-s-hottest-month-ever-climate-change-359331-1_1280.jpeg?fit=1200%2C844&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/00july-2021-was-earth-s-hottest-month-ever-climate-change-359331-1_1280.jpeg?fit=1200%2C844&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":290368,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=290368","url_meta":{"origin":455380,"position":2},"title":"Wrong, USA Today, a 1.5\u2103 Temperature Rise Is Not a Scientifically Established Climate Threshold","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"12\/07\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"By H. 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