By Paul Homewood
How the BBC lie, cheat and misinform:
Weather events, linked to a changing climate, brought misery to millions around the world in 2021 according to a new report.
The study, from the charity Christian Aid, identified 10 extreme events that each caused more than $1.5bn of damage.
The biggest financial impacts were from Hurricane Ida which hit the US in August and flooding in Europe in July.
In many poorer regions, floods and storms caused mass displacements of people and severe suffering.
Not every extreme weather event is caused by or linked to climate change, although scientists have become bolder in exploring the connections.
One leading researcher, Dr Friederike Otto, tweeted earlier this year that every heatwave happening in the world now is “made more likely and more intense” by human induced climate change.
In relation to storms and hurricanes, there is growing evidence that climate change is also affecting these events.
In August, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published the first part of its sixth assessment report.
In relation to hurricanes and tropical cyclones, the authors said they had “high confidence” that the evidence of human influence has strengthened.
“The proportion of intense tropical cyclones, average peak tropical cyclone wind speeds, and peak wind speeds of the most intense tropical cyclones will increase on the global scale with increasing global warming,” the study said.
Just a few weeks after that report came out, Hurricane Ida hit the US.
According to Christian Aid it was the most financially destructive weather event of the year.
The slow-moving hurricane saw thousands of residents in Louisiana evacuated out of its path.
That storm brought massive rainfall across a number of states and cities, with New York issuing a flash-flood emergency alert for the first time.
Around 95 people died, with the economic losses estimated at $65bn.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-59761839
We’ll ignore the rubbish spewed out by the far left Christian Aid, which we are used to seeing each year. Suffice to say that they use the familiar trick of picking a bad weather event and blaming it on climate change, with of course the mandatory emotive images.
Their claims about the economic damage are meaningless. As Roger Pielke has documented, normalised economic losses from US hurricanes show no trend since 1900. (Normalised losses take into account economic development – the fact that society now has more “things” to damage):
Let’s concentrate instead on the BBC commentary which I have highlighted:
In relation to storms and hurricanes, there is growing evidence that climate change is also affecting these events.
In August, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published the first part of its sixth assessment report.
In relation to hurricanes and tropical cyclones, the authors said they had “high confidence” that the evidence of human influence has strengthened.
“The proportion of intense tropical cyclones, average peak tropical cyclone wind speeds, and peak wind speeds of the most intense tropical cyclones will increase on the global scale with increasing global warming,” the study said.
Anybody reading that would assume that hurricanes are getting worse, and that global warming is to blame. This, of course, is the BBC’s deliberate intention.
Start with this claim:
In relation to hurricanes and tropical cyclones, the authors said they had “high confidence” that the evidence of human influence has strengthened
What this refers to however is just a catch all, referring to all types of extreme weather:
But what AR6 says about tropical cyclones is far from “high confidence”. They point up the increase in major hurricanes in the last four decades, but this is due to the AMO cycle. Longer term trends simply don’t exist, as the IPCC themselves admit.
NOAA’s own summary of AR6 comes to the same conclusion:
Now consider:
“The proportion of intense tropical cyclones, average peak tropical cyclone wind speeds, and peak wind speeds of the most intense tropical cyclones will increase on the global scale with increasing global warming,” the study said.
Note the word “will”! It is certainly true that that the IPCC has forecast all sorts of apocalypse. The problem is that they have found no evidence that this is actually happening.
More honest reporting from the BBC would have stated that there is no evidence that hurricanes are getting worse, although they might in future.
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
January 4, 2022
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