Comments by "Old Scientist" (@OldScientist) on "July set to be world's warmest month on record in an ‘era of boiling’, says UN - BBC News" video.
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Another artless piece of propaganda from the BBC. At the height of northern summer in July, of 176 countries in the Northern Hemisphere, only China and Albania have broken their national records, which is a little disappointing considering all the scary reporting. It's more what you would expect from a slowly warming world (~0.1°C per decade UAHv6 and NOAA-STARv5) which is of course what we're living in.
Heat waves have not been increasing in intensity or frequency in the United States. Data from NOAA's Climate Reference Network shows no sustained increase in daily high temperatures in the United States since 2005 when that network began. In recent decades in the United States, heat waves have been far less severe than they were in the 1930s. At that time Heatwaves were more than 6 times worse with greater frequency and covering a larger area than the last decade (EPA). The most severe heatwave year was 1936, and was about 13 times worse than current. This year only 4 US states have achieved higher temperatures than 1936. Many states in 1936 achieved temperatures 15° hotter than the present. The all-time high temperature records set in most states occurred in the first half of the twentieth century. So far in 2023 (upto 1st August, 2023) the percentage of US Historical Climatology Network Stations reaching or exceeding 95°F (35°C) is at a record low (1895-2023) of 51%. The record high was 1931 at 93%. The trend has been consistently downwards since that point. The climate crisis was 90 years ago. We missed it.
Then there's the breathless gibberish about Arizona. Phoenix was incorporated in 1881, NOAA only has continuous data from around 1940. So recorded history for Phoenix in this instance is about 80 years (not that long climatically) and the record for 1930s (when heatwaves were much worse) is mostly incomplete. Also Phoenix's population has expanded exponentially in that time from a few tens of thousands to a few million. This has dramatically increased the Urban Heat Island effect resulting in temperatures 10°F (5°C) higher during the day (Scientific American, 2019). This alone explains the record high temperatures.
As I'm sure everyone is aware, Phoenix is in the Sonoran desert, which is characterised by long summers and extremely high temperatures. And that's exactly what's happening. There's nothing unusual or unexpected here.
Climate change saved 555,103 lives in England and Wales between 2001 and 2020 (ONS, 2022). There are over 5 million excess deaths per annum globally due to abnormal temperatures from the 2000-2019 study led Prof. Guo of Monash University. It found that over 90% of excess deaths were caused by excess COLD rather than excess heat. This applied globally including in the hottest continent, Africa. So, in a world with increasingly mild temperatures, there will be less excess death. Warming is good not bad.
There is no objective observational evidence that we are living in a global climate crisis.
The UN's IPCC AR6, chapter 12 "Climate Change Information for Regional Impact and for Risk Assessment", section 12.5.2, table 12.12 confirms there is a lack of evidence or no signal that the following have changed:
Air Pollution Weather (temperature inversions),
Aridity,
Avalanche (snow),
Average precipitation,
Average Wind Speed,
Coastal Flood,
Agricultural drought,
Hydrological drought,
Erosion of Coastlines,
Fire Weather (hot and windy),
Flooding From Heavy Rain (pluvial floods),
Frost,
Hail,
Heavy Rain,
Heavy Snowfall and Ice Storms,
Landslides,
Marine Heatwaves,
Ocean Acidity,
Radiation at the Earth’s Surface,
River/Lake Floods,
Sand and Dust Storms,
Sea Level,
Severe Wind Storms,
Snow, Glacier, and Ice Sheets,
Tropical Cyclones.
There is no objective observational evidence that we are living through a global climate crisis. None.
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