Bias Media Reporting on Temperature: Highlight Hot, Ignore Cold

High Temperatures in Greenland and Antarctica get headlines, cold temperatures are ignored. In climate change, only hot temperatures qualify as climate. Cold temperatures are just weather. When is the last time you saw 'coldest ever' in a headline? ¹ Here's a scary scenario from Seth Borenstein: “Nearly impossible without man-made global warming, the Siberian heart wave is producing climate change's most flagrant footprint of extreme weather, a new flash study says. A two week study found the greenhouse effect multiplied the chance of the region's prolonged heat by at least 600 times, and maybe tens of thousands of times. The study, which has not gone through peer review, looked at Siberia from January to June, including a day that hit 100 degrees F (38 C).” ²

Others in the media also highlighted this issue. If only they had waited for two more weeks! Verkhoyansk became a poster child for climate change on June 19 and 20 because of a high temperature. On July 7 they had abnormal cold and enough snow to build snowmen and the locals were huddling around fires wondering where that 38C record went. ³ Anthony Watts pointed out how absurd this all was, especially since it also happened 100 years ago, before the climate change was even a glimmer in leftists eyes. And, because with 24 hour sunlight at the peak of the summer solstice, the area is bound to get hot, because there's no 'night' to cool off. Of course, that didn't stop opportunistic trough-feeding scientists from taking advantage of the situation, claiming it was all part of a disturbing pattern. ⁴ Australia was literally on fire in December 2019. Record heat made headlines in global media. So did the extreme rainfall in east Africa. Guess what climate alarmists blamed for both: man-made global warming. But record cold in northern India at the same time didn't make headlines in any major media in the United States or the United Kingdom. ⁵ Why? Because it didn't fit expectations. It's a perfect example of climate alarmists' obvious bias that's seldom brought to light. Almost all news articles abut the Australian heat and wildfires ultimately blamed man-made climate change. But more than four-fifths of Australia's wildfires were caused by arson, not climate change. And what caused the extreme hot weather was not global warming but a phenomenon called Positive Indian Ocean Dipole (PIOD), which is an irregular oscillation of sea surface temperatures in which the western Indian Ocean becomes alternately warmer then colder than the eastern part of the ocean.

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The same PIOD that caused Australia's heat (but not its wildfires) caused the year end floods in east Africa. It also caused extreme cold in northern India in the same month. Largely under reported in global media, the cold continued right through to the end of December. ⁵ Here's news about Australia that you have most likely not seen in the media. Spring snow has fallen in Ballarat and even part of mid north South Australia, and regional NSW. In many places Australians are reported to be confused, mistaking white stuff for blossoms and other things. Snow blanketed central Victoria as Ballarat recorded the coldest September day in more than 50 years. The snow was thick enough for some to start skiing amid an unusual cold snap at the end of September. ⁶ Delhi, India's capital, recorded its second coldest December in 118 years. But neither CNN or BBC headlines ever mentioned it. It runs contrary to their narrative. Winters are supposed to become warmer. On Sunday August 16, the National Weather Service in Las Vegas, Nevada sent out a Tweet highlighting a new maximum daily temperature of 130 F in Death Valley. Predictably, the media jumped on this number with the Los Angeles Times saying ' possibly the highest mercury reading on Earth since 1913'. Not so! Temperatures as high as 135 F are common in the central part of the Saudi Arabian Desert. Go only one hour south of Riyadh in the Rub' Al-Khali for temperatures that make Death Valley look air conditioned. ⁵

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Even the Drudge Report got into the act putting the 130 F temperature headline front and center. While climate crusaders would like you to think the 130 F temperature is more 'proof' of global warming aka 'climate change' induced by fossil fuel use putting more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the irrefutable fact is that in 1913, carbon dioxide in our atmosphere was about 43% lower than today at 290 ppm in 1913 compared to the 'climate crisis' level of 414 ppm today. And, back in 1913, over 100 years ago of 'global warming , Death Valley's official weather station at Greenland Ranch hit an all-time record of 134 F, and also hit 130 F or higher three times that July. ⁷ In April 2020, the Northern Hemisphere experienced its 2nd largest 2-month drop in temperature in the 497-month satellite record. Though climate alarmists often claim Canada is warming twice as fast as the globe, the real untampered data show the 5 of 9 stations in Canada for which complete data exist, have had no warming trend in the month of March since 1986. Additionally, only one station shows a warming trend since 1998. Spring seems to be taking more time to arrive in Canada.⁸ Record highs don't prove extreme global warming. It's no surprise that local record highs become more common during a warming period. The mercury has been rising since the end of the Little Ice Age, so it is nearly inevitable that new records will be set each year. The records are indeed one evidence of warming, but they're no evidence of its cause. More importantly, the record highs apply only to the modern measurement era, after widespread temperature measurements began in the 1870s for much of the developed world and not until the mid-1900s for much of the rest of the world. They don't include the similar phases of steep temperature increases that would have occurred during the Roman Warm Period and the Medieval Warm Period. ⁵

References

1. Joanne Nova, “Jan 2020: coldest ever day in Greenland -65C comes, goes, no one notices,” joannenova.com.au, February 20, 2020
2. Seth Borenstein, “Climate change makes freak Siberian heat 600 times likelier,” apnews.com, July 15, 2020
3. P. Gosselin, “Polar ice surprises! Svalbard well over average, Arctic ice remains steady, Antarctic ice growing,” notrickszone.com, April 28, 2020
4. Anthony Watts, “NOAA satellite records second largest 2- month temperature drop in history,” wattsupwiththat.com, May 1, 2020
5. Vijay Jayaraj, “Record heat and cold expose climate alarmists' bias,” cornwallalliance.org, January 4, 2020
6. Joanne Nova, Global warming causes snow in SA, Victoria, and NSW and 'coldest day for 50 years,'” joannenova.com.au, September 25, 2020
7. Anthony Watts, “Media hypes new 130 F Death Valley temperature- but it's still short of the 134 F all-time record,” wattsupwiththat.com, August 17, 2020
8. Kenneth Richard, “New study finds the Larsen Ice Shelf (Antarctic Peninsula) has cooled more than 2C since 1991,” notrickszone.com, June 8, 2020