Climate change: Siberian heatwave ‘clear evidence’ of warming-BBC
By Paul Homewood
Why do the BBC need three environmental reporters, when all they do is cut and paste the latest alarmist study without actually doing any cross checking or ask awkward questions?
A record-breaking heatwave in Siberia would have been almost impossible without human-caused climate change, a study has found.
The Russian region’s temperatures were more than 5C above average between January and June of this year.
Temperatures exceeded 38C in the Russian town of Verkhoyansk on 20 June, the highest temperature ever recorded north of the Arctic circle.
The Arctic is believed to be warming twice as fast as the global average.
An international team of climate scientists, led by the UK Met Office, found the record average temperatures were likely to happen less than once every 80,000 years without human-induced climate change.
That makes such an event "almost impossible" had the world not been warmed by greenhouse gas emissions, they conclude in the study.
The scientists described the finding as "unequivocal evidence of the impact of climate change on the planet".
It is, says co-author Prof Peter Stott of the Met Office, the strongest result of any attribution study to date.
Attribution studies attempt to work out the role that human-induced climate change plays in major weather events.
Climate scientists use computer simulations to compare the climate as it is today with the climate as it would have been without human influence to see how likely different weather events would have been.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-53415297
As already pointed out, there was nothing remotely exceptional about the heatwave at Verhojansk last month, as temperatures were only half a degree higher than in 1988.
Now we have the full monthly data in, we can compare June temperatures at Verhojansk:
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/tmp/gistemp/STATIONS/tmp_RSM00024266_15_0_1/station.txt
While last month was a degree or two higher than usual, we can see that it was actually hotter in 1912!
Meanwhile there seems to be little trend in overall summer temperatures, with the hottest summer on record way back in 1917:
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/tmp/gistemp/STATIONS/tmp_RSM00024266_15_0_1/station.txt
If anything extreme was happening to the climate in Siberia, it would be immediately apparent in these graphs.
As is well accepted, the heatwave in Siberia last month was the result of loops in the jet stream, which brought hot air up from the south in conjunction with a large and fixed area of high pressure.. But there is nothing unusual about such a phenomenon.
HH Lamb found that not only did the same thing happen back in the 19thC, but that it was probably more common then:
HH Lamb: Climate, History and the Modern World- p 253
Lamb, Wahl and their contemporaries relied on meticulous analysis of actual data, rather than on the GIGO computer models used by Stott.
Strangely, while the BBC are quite happy to report Stott’s junk science, they omit to mention a study from the University of Exeter earlier this year. This conclusively found that the jet stream was not getting wavier.
Indeed, they point out that it is this very waviness which leads to a warmer Arctic, by bringing mild air from the south. Something, I might add, that anyone with half a braincell might have suspected.
https://www.exeter.ac.uk/news/homepage/title_778916_en.html
In true BBC fashion, Rowlatt does not miss a chance to ramp up the alarmism, by suggesting that a warmer Arctic is making our weather worse.
The changing Arctic climate is of huge importance here in the UK.
Four of the six main systems that determine this country’s weather are driven by conditions in the Arctic, said Dr Katharine Hendry of Bristol University.
She was one of the lead authors on a paper published last month that suggested a series of extreme weather events could be linked to changes in the Arctic.
The so-called "Beast from the East", in the winter of 2018, is one.
It involved Arctic air blasting the country, driving temperatures below 0C for several days. Over half a metre of snow fell in some areas.
The Beast from the East was a direct result of a Sudden Stratospheric Warming event, a perfectly natural and common event. It had nothing to do with a “warming Arctic” at all.
Indeed, Hendry’s paper actually admits the theory is just speculation:
If HH Lamb was still around, he probably would have pointed out the inconvenient fact that bitterly cold winters used to be very common!
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Why do the people at the MET office not look at historic records, before publishing the computer model that says only one chance in 80000 years of these temperatures occurring without man made warming.
For a start the computer model must be flawed and the statistics should be more scientific. The level of incompetence at the MET office is staggering, Professor Peter Stott should be held accountable for what you rightly identify, Paul….Utter Rubbish.
Because the Met Office are told the narrative and to find any data to back it up…..see Slingo.
So the Met Office & others (at BBC, etc) diagnose a hiccough as full indigestion and immediately declare on the basis of the hiccough the patient has cancer/is having a heart attack/has an ulcer/etc. and starts to operate.
Delinquent. And dangerous.
The tone of this piece on the evening news programmes was quite hysterical.
Quite how Justin Rowlatt has landed this job, I don’t know. His Wikipedia entry still lists him as South Asia Correspondent. Then he popped up as Environmental Analyst and now he’s Chief!
BBC employs amateur climate commentators – shock news!
Hes a ‘correspondent’ to boot, which normally means they get to roam around the World, but its likely for this one he hasnt left London for the Siberian heatwave
A study has found… Scientists say… It’s going to be catastrophic…a climate emergency. Clear evidence!… makes the science settled??
The CRUTEM4 data is readly available , up to DEc 2019. This is the official record of land temperatures in gridded areas across the globe. The grids can be visualisd in Google Earth , and opening each grid box gives you the data and graphical seasonal data for each grid . For siberia , that enormous area,there are dozens of grids and it is interesting to look at the winter (Dec-feb) anomalies compared to summer (June to Aug) anomalies.
To take some examples ;
A; near the ocean : 77.5N, 12.5E max wnter anomaly 5C in 1950, but virtually zero anomaly in summer.
82.5N 57.5E ; 15C anomaly in 2010, virtually zero anomaly in summer
B: Further inland: 62.5N, 72.5E max winter anomaly 5C regularly from 1930 to 2010
67.5N 152.5E , same latitude as verkhoyansk winter max anomaly 6C in 2018, max summer anomaly 4C in 1990
C: verkhoyansk: nearest 2 grid boxes;
67.5N, 132.5E winter , $C in 1980, 1995 and 2008, summer anomaly less than 2C recently, 2C in 1915
67.5N 137.5E max winter anomaly 2C in 1994, max summer anomaly in 1990
Conclusions : more lkely to see significant anomalies in winter (when av temp is way below 0C) and in general , in the non systematic examples looked at summer anomalies are low. One grid did show a spring anomaly in recent tims of 15C , but I do not know ff that is exceptional or not.
Now all this data has been through the homogenisation mill so is as official as it can be , and has been collected via the generous funding from the UK taxpayer and Phil Jones , bless him, has worked his socks of to get it to the eyes of that distinguished prof and the far less distinguished journalists of the BBC. All of whom then ignore it :
Had posted this on the “About” page yesterday but more relevant here to this feature
Paul. I avoid BBC news as much as possible (as it has less veracity and more bias than China Today and RT). However this morning i was listening on Sounds to last night’s Folk Show on Radio 2 and this started with the 11.00 news.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000ktt1
Lead item – a report from Justin Rowlett all about a Met Office report about the Arctic melting (record temperatures, fires etc) and specifically aligning this to man made global warming.. The usual stuff.
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/press-office/news/weather-and-climate/2020/prolonged-siberian-heat-almost-impossible-without-climate-change—attribution-study
Interesting thing was the 00.00 news report that followed the Folk Show.. Nothing mentioned at all. Not a word. This is a mystery. Are BBC deliberately targeting “folkies” (as the natural followers of green issues) who would catch the news before the programme but would have switched off by the end?
I had a quick look on BBC web to see if this was widely promoted elsewhere. Nothing on news pages but a video put up yesterday covering the same topic. Dont know about other news coverage on radio/tv
https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/53418023
Full of dodgy info that you have debunked previously but probably worth debunking again
even more b*llocks from BBC yesterday “Summers could become ‘too hot for humans’”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-53415298
I’d still much rather trust the BBC than the propaganda spouted by China or Russia
Except that ordinary people recognise that for what it is. Too many people still trust ‘Auntie’!
Siberian fires are not that unusual.
1940s positive Siberian Arctic anomalies.
https://www.climate4you.com/ClimateAndHistory%201900-1949.htm
e.g. See Air Temperature graphic “1940 06-08 versus average 1900-1929”.
Of course hot areas are not always the same place/size, Siberia is a big place and as well as hot climate change this June, there was some cooler local weather/variation!
The Met Office is in the thrall of BEIS:
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/met-office
Met Office is an executive agency, sponsored by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy.
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-business-energy-and-industrial-strategy
Building a stronger, greener future by fighting coronavirus, tackling climate change, unleashing innovation and making the UK a great place to work and do business.
The Minister is Alok Sharma, who was given Claire Perry’s COP 26 job, prior to the event being postponed for Covid 19. It will now be held in November next year, still in Glasgow. Sharma is a strange mix, who has voted against CCS and a green deal and has supported Heathrow expansion.
However, he says he believes ““climate change is one of the greatest challenges the world is facing” and used his role in DFID to launch a UK aid package in September 2019 aimed at protecting around a billion people in developing nations from natural disasters and extreme weather events driven by climate change.”
https://www.edie.net/news/9/Alok-Sharma–What-we-know-about-the-COP26-President-s-views-on-climate-change/
It can be no surprise that the Met Office is under instruction to support the political agenda with any faux science it can muster. It is ably supported by the BBC, who are worried about hanging on to their licence fee.
In June 2019, the BEIS Select Committee, took “evidence” from Gail Bradbrooke of Extinction Rebellion, Isabella O’Dowd, Climate and Energy Specialist, WWF and Baroness Bryony Worthington, European Director of the US Environmental Defense Fund, a body funded by Jeremy Grantham.
Bryoni Worthington’s boss, President of EDF Fred Krupp, is on the Grantham advisory board. She was the architect, with Ed Miliband, of the CCA, that massive millstone around the neck of the UK.
https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/business-energy-industrial-strategy/news-parliament-2017/climate-change–net-zero-target-evidence-17-19/
They hold all the cards.
“Temperatures exceeded 38C in the Russian town of Verkhoyansk on 20 June, the highest temperature ever recorded north of the Arctic circle”
More about Verkhoyansk
https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/07/13/siberian-heat-larming-climate-scientists/
The highest temperature ever recorded….. and “how long” is that record? What about what happened during the Medieval warm period, the Roman warm period and the Minoan warm period? This obsession with records is meaningless unless there are stable inputs to the process and some linearity of outcomes established. The wobbly jet stream attests to instability therefore the total meaningless of obsessing over records unless of course there is an agenda which needs them. How accurate are historical records and how do they compare to proxy data? This OBSESSION with what happens at an exact instant in time in one place and extrapolating its meaning is not science. Are you aware for example that Roald Amundsen navigated the North West Passage in 1903-1906 in a wooden boat, something not possible again with modern icebreaker led navigation until 2009! What does that tell you about what is going on? It is highly complex and there is is shear buffoonery to claim this demonstrates anything about human influence. This is not science, this is politically motivated, tax payer funded fodder for activism.
You might want to take a look at the linked material. Thank you.
you might want to look at geological history and physics!
Are you a climate change denier?
That’s a common way to lie about how “special” something is. One of our weathermen would quote records from a station that had been operating only since 1995. He didn’t mention this fact…..
Chaamjamal, someone jumping to the wrong conclusions about your post is one thing, but asking them whether they’re a “climate change denier” just isn’t funny. Well, not very 😉
‘Why do the BBC need three environmental reporters, when all they do is cut and paste the latest alarmist study without actually doing any cross checking or ask awkward questions?’
Three legs for their stool? Or how they stand their shit up 😉
The BBC were strangely silent when Greenland recorded a record low in January.
Their unbalanced reporting was painfully clear last autumn when there was not a mention of the Climate Intelligence Foundation (Clintel) paper by (then) 500 professional climate scientists stating there was no climate emergency and that modest CO2 growth had benefits for food output, while they gave lead coverage over 11,000 “scientists” promoting the usual alarmist message, including ‘Professor Mickey Mouse’, experts on snake preservation whatever that is, but not a climate scientist in sight.
The pic in the bbc article is i reckon, of a bloke setting fires not dousing them and although he is likely creating a firebreak – said photo could have been shot in, Verkhoyansk, Dalby Forest or Wyoming. Indeed, the ever so wonderful bbc have form for this sort of jape, just ask Holy Green Joe Attenborough and filming polar bears., ‘hibernating’ in the zoo..
Been trying to find out what Justin Rowlatt graduated in. Anyone know?
Doesnt mention what his degree was in on his wikipedia page .. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Rowlatt although this does show he is a perfect BBC person and highlights his “ethicalness”.
However … it seems his 1984 degree was PPE according to the Mansfield College magazine. So he is not qualified!!!
The BBC and “climate scientists” seem to have their heads in the sand, like these XR demonstrators, so they don’t accidentally see any actual facts or records https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/highlands/2341319/climate-change-campaigners-urge-world-leaders-to-pull-heads-out-of-the-sand-in-highland-beach-demonstration/
cant they stay there for a couple years, since according to their calculations, sea level will have risen enough to drown them
Thanks Paul – the usual calm counterpoise to the BBC’S dishonest Alarmist gibberish.
Their (false) assertion that the heat wave in Siberia is “impossible without man made global warming” begs the question why if CAGW is a “scientific fact” do they have to work so hard continually trying to convince themselves and everyone else?
But the latest shout from the UN/IPCC echo chambre. Having silenced dissent, the green enterprise can now operate free of competent challengers who could expose the absurd claims. Science has been supplanted by propaganda.
This article — clear evidence of BBC’s agenda.
‘Why do the BBC need three environmental reporters, when all they do is cut and paste the latest alarmist study without actually doing any cross checking or ask awkward questions?’
Reporters?
NO!
They have overemotional, left-wing ‘journalists’ of hype and mischief.
Once again I say …
Excuse me for being slightly sceptical, but the charts shown all appear to show an increasing trend despite individual high spots that alarmists could suggest are cherrypicking?
So they should coming out of the LIA, what would you expect them to do?
That’s a valid reason for a sceptic, but not one the alarmists will be interested in. It’s all about perception – “You say temperatures aren’t rising; they clearly are if you show a trend line.”
This is desperate stuff. Climate change is being pushed out of the news by coronavirus and they are beginning to panic.
just another example of how insidious this is within the BBC.. Listened to “the 3rd degree” this week – a Radio 4 quiz show between university students and professors. question about significance of Newlyn to maps etc. Answer is that it defines sea level . Steve Punt presenter comments they should change it as “because of current rate of CO2 emission by 2030 it will be defined by which floor of the Shard it reaches at high tide”.
Mind you, they also maintained that Der Rosenkavalier was composed by Johann Strauss
Mean Sea Level is a bit more complex.
Worlweatherattribution.org did the study (or is it an opinion piece or speculation who knows!) that the BBC base their article on.
It is all models proving models, circular reasoning of the worst kind. Justin loves such stuff.
Stories like this are just distractions.
The inconvenient truth is that both surface and satellite observations are not keeping up with their models:
If the looming La Niña has the usual cooling effect it will be interesting to see if GISS and NCDC have the nerve to discover some unrecognised warming in an obscure part of the global system where there is little data, as they have done previously:
Let us ignore all the good work and comments above and just read what is written
“An international team of climate scientists, led by the UK Met Office, found the record average temperatures were likely to happen less than once every 80,000 years without human-induced climate change.
That makes such an event “almost impossible” had the world not been warmed by greenhouse gas emissions, they conclude in the study.
The scientists described the finding as “unequivocal evidence of the impact of climate change on the planet”.
It is, says co-author Prof Peter Stott of the Met Office, the strongest result of any attribution study to date.
Attribution studies attempt to work out the role that human-induced climate change plays in major weather events.
Climate scientists use computer simulations to compare the climate as it is today with the climate as it would have been without human influence to see how likely different weather events would have been”.
Oh it is the BBC so they always just have to slip the word “record ” in somewhere to jazz it up!
A spoiler. The final paragraph undermines the whole of the climate charade. We are talked down to by the mob who’s knowledge is limited to a few sound bites and told the science is settled, meaning man = warming=climate change. The final paragraph shows them clearly admitting that they clearly have NO IDEA and are just ASSUMING a role for man, exactly what they have been trying to do ( and keep failing to prove) for the past 35 years! This was the framing BS for the IPCC and every scientist who went along with such a clearly scientifically flawed thesis in return for money should hang their heads in shame, oh and donate all their ill gotten gains to BLM!
So! Onto the dissection!
First paragraph is to disarm the impressionable reader. Puff about “international teams of climate scientists” led by our very own Met office Boffins no doubt all wearing white coats, wearing glasses carrying clipboards and standing around in huddles in corridors looking serious….Spiffing what. Meaningless promotional puff. Also, exactly WHAT is a climate scientist? Answer he/she/it does not exist. There is no such individual field of study. It is not like physics or chemistry or biology, certainly there is no degree course in it because it is so broad (no doubt 100 courses are in the process of fabrication as we speak, no doubt to be run from the gender studies department). Climate science is an umbrella covering a whole range of other sciences including rols for statisticians ( oh dear, they are not scientists) and model builders ( they are also not scientists, oh dear oh dear…more on those fine chappies later).
Second paragraph. No it means nothing of the kind dear politics or media studies graduate. What it means is that an agent is at work which you have not modelled for or you have the proportional impacts of your input wrong, nothing more nothing less. In fact, the IPCC models are focussing on CO2 yet very strangely they also never work so clearly something other than CO2 must also be at work. The lack of critical thinking from these supposed adult(s) drawing salaries is shocking. Also there is no such thing in science as “almost impossible”, there is highly unlikely with a correctly assigned probability which are the words this paid buffoon, sorry boffin should have used as the output is statistical!
Third paragraph. ” the <> (oh them boffins again) describe the findings as unequivocal evidence of the impact of climate change on the planet”. What!!! Are you saying a 4.5 billion year old continuous process…… is CONTINUING??? Shock horror! We are all doomed!
Paragraph four. Proff Stott and his strongest result. Strange language for someone who should know how to describe “an assumed significant change based on models” (if their modeling is correct of course) but remember readers, we are talking about the product of MODELS here, not empirical data!
Paragraph five. “Attribution studies attempt to work out the role that human-induced climate change plays in major weather events”. This is the framing handcuffs for the shockingly unscientific IPCC, NOT investigating the possible cause(s) but specifically starting from a conclusion where humans are blamed and then modelling to support that claim. It is not science to start with a conclusion, (well maybe political science).
Paragraph six is the paragraph where they hang themselves. “Climate scientists use computer simulations to compare the climate as it is today with the climate as it would have been without human influence to see how likely different weather events would have been”.
May I ask WHY they need to use “computer simulations”? We have geological history which is empirical data so why do they need yet more moduws? The answer as in every case for the products of the climate fiction factory is because when MODELLING is performed, the modellers control the input and therefore the possible output. When empirical data is used that anoyingly constrains the output ( We can’t have nasty real data getting in the way of our money generating theory). Secondly and unforgivably they ASSUME that there is statistically significant empirical data based evidence in existence to support claims about specific human involvement in planet temperature ( real numbers please boffins) and by a significant leap of faith, in the rate of climate change ( more real numbers please boffins). Empirical data does not exist for either. Also as a caveat neither does data exist to prove the greenhouse effect either exists or any quantification of the magnitude of man released influence. Man releases 3% of the total annual CO2 flux. This 3% was removed from the Carbon Cycle in geological history ( not normal) and is now being put back where it belongs (normal). We are being told to “believe” that 3% and its variables have more effect on global temperature and by inference climate than the other 97% and its variables! All I can say is that 3% has some very special “modelled” properties indeed!
Thank you for your patience. I will finish with the following:
There have been FOUR warmings in recent human history which are referenced in both human historical form AND more importantly in geological history. Anyone attempting to perform honest science and wanting to find out what happened before humans started driving a around in our SUVs has three recent human free examples to check and understand first. It follows that to try and make claims based on models (ignoring the earlier warmings), that humans are responsible for perceived climatic changes today without first proving what caused those earlier warmings and demonstrating unequivocally that those processes are not active today is simply not credible science. Indeed even if, were the empirical data to exist which demonstrated the cause(s) of those earlier warming are not active today, that would mean only that another agent is at work. That in now way automatically means man liberated CO2 is the culprit, that is unless of course you go all post modernist and play fast and loose with a lot of other science for example the physics of CO2 and Water Vapour (empirical data) and critically geological history (more empirical data).
Who needs empiricism anyway in this post Enlightenment post modernist world when we can make models to “believe” in? I am sure it is time for someone to claim empiricism is racist….oh dear, I think they already did…….
Hi Paul
I think you pointed out in an earlier post that the 38°C for Verkhoyansk on 20 June had been deleted but I can’t find the link. However, it has still not been reinstated, see here:
https://climexp.knmi.nl/data/xgdcnRSM00024266.dat
The highest temperature shown in the record for Verkhoyansk is 37.3°C, which occurred on 25 July 1988.
‘Prolonged Siberian heat almost impossible without climate change – attribution study
The recent prolonged Siberia heat from January to June 2020 would have been almost impossible without the influence of human-caused climate change, according to a rapid attribution analysis by a team of leading climate scientists.’
Argumentum ad ignorantiam.
Their problem is that if they claim that the record was caused by climate change, they will get – correctly – pummeled for idiocy. So this schtick – attribution – is claim, “Well, this really couldn’t happen without man made climate change. Therefore, man made climate change.”
It simply doesn’t matter if “man made climate change,” whatevertheheckthatis, made it at trillion times more likely: THAT IS NOT EVIDENCE THAT IT IS THE CAUSE.
Any “more likely attribution” is an appeal to ignorance. An amateurish fallacy. By highly paid people.
The British Bullshit Corporation is running a mini series all next week about how the public are misled and believe lies about things like smoking, vaccines, and, of course, climate change…