They Never Used To Have Heatwaves in Mali!
By Paul Homewood
The usual disinformation from the BBC:
A deadly heatwave in West Africa and the Sahel was "impossible" without human-induced climate change, scientists say.
Temperatures soared above 48C in Mali last month with one hospital linking hundreds of deaths to the extreme heat.
Researchers say human activities like burning fossil fuels made temperatures up to 1.4C hotter than normal.
A number of countries in the Sahel region and across West Africa were hit by a strong heatwave that struck at the end of March and lasted into early April.
The heat was most strongly felt in the southern regions of Mali and Burkina Faso.
In Bamako, the capital of Mali, the Gabriel Toure Hospital said it recorded 102 deaths in the first days of April.
Around half the people who died were over 60 years of age, and the hospital said that heat played a role in many of these casualties.
Researchers believe that global climate change had a key role in this five-day heatwave.
A new analysis from scientists involved with the World Weather Attribution group suggests the high day time and night time temperatures would not have been possible without the world’s long term use of coal, oil and gas as well as other activities such as deforestation.
According to the study, climate change meant temperatures were up to 1.5C warmer than normal in Mali and Burkina Faso, and made the night even hotter at 2C above the average. Across the region as a whole the five-day temperature was increased by 1.4C.
"For some, a heatwave being 1.4 or 1.5C hotter because of climate change might not sound like a big increase," said Kiswendsida Guigma, a climate scientist at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre in Burkina Faso.
"But this additional heat would have been the difference between life and death for many people."
While intense heatwaves are still relatively rare in this region, researchers expect them to become more common as the climate warms.
With average global temperatures now around 1.2C warmer than pre-industrial levels, scientists say events like this recent one in Mali would occur once in 200 years. But if global temperatures breach 2C, powerful heatwaves would happen every 20 years.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-68835575
The headline is fraudulent. Even if temperatures had been a degree lower, it still would have been a heatwave.
But more to the point, what on earth is the BBC’s obsession with the Little Ice Age temperatures of 200 years ago? What possible relevance do they have to people living now, or for that matter their forefathers, or their forefathers.
You might just as well say temperatures would have been 5C lower in the Ice Age!
The article focusses on Bamako, the capital of Mali. But the population there is over 4 million, ten times that of 1976.
As Wikipedia points out, this staggering population explosion is having a massive effect on traffic and pollution.
Forget about the tiny underlying increase in global temperatures in the last few decades, UHI is probably now adding four or five degrees in the heart of the city where the official weather station is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamako#Demographics
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/homr/#ncdcstnid=30098003&tab=LOCATIONS
At the nearby site of Senou, a small town in Mali, there has been no temperature increase since the 1940s:
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/stdata_show_v4.cgi?id=MLM00061291&ds=14&dt=1
To make us all feel guilty, the article notes:
All because of fossil fuels!
Except that before fossil fuels, hardly anybody in Mali lived to 60 years of age!
So if you lived in Mali, which would you prefer?
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
It is a direct consequence of the greening of Mali, caused by CO2.
Deforestation to make charcoal for indoor cooking fires because affordable energy is forbidden. Cold kills 10x more than heat even in hot counties.
We know that around half of the weather observatories in the UK are only to be trusted to be accurate within plus or minus 2°C. Many of those only plus or minus 5°C. Borderline Junk, or absolute Junk status.
I wonder how many observatories there are in Mali and Burkino Faso. Have a guess how many of those are accurate to a decimal point of a degree and are comparable in situation, status, accuracy of records and so on twenty years ago. Or even back when they were French colonies. (Even our French cousins had naughty colonies, remember!)
Do the brave and honest African citizens, sending hundreds of their bravest and most honest citizens to annual COP Meetings as “Climate Scientists” enjoy reliable and affordable electricity? How many have air conditioning or even a desk fan? Sure, their Beloved Leaders will have air conditioning, iced drinks in their armour plated Mercedes Maybachs. Their dogs’ kennels will be maintained at a comfortable temperature.
How many desk fans could the surely well deserved annual remuneration of (say) Justin Lowrat provide?
You know that it will be false news (pure propaganda) from the BBC before you read it, because it is written by serial liar Matt McGrath.
I’m impressed that they managed to get a study written, peer reviewed, published and replicated/reproduced in just two weeks…
Remarkable stuff indeed. They were in a real hurry in case facts got in the way.
See below for what MSWX data depends on…
Article contains the usual weasel words e.g. “believe”, ” suggests” .
I was living and working in Mali in 1973/4 and – admittedly well into the desert – the temperature got to well over 50C in the summer. The big scare news at that time was that the desert was moving south rapidly and would soon make living in the country impossible. The US was sending huge amounts of food aid at the time as agricultural output was collapsing. Somehow the population increased rapidly after that and the desert never got to the south of the country. Maybe the climate fluctuates and it is wrong to extrapolate using a few years of data.
My wife’s relatives in Sindangan in Zamboanga del Norte Mindanao Philippines. Say they have had a drought since December. This is unusual as it is normal to have rain for most of the year. No doubt the BBC could make a nice headline out of this. So is this Climate Change . When does changes in weather become climate change. If the climate has changed this year what does that mean. If the trend continues for a number of years then maybe we can say that the climate has changed in that region. This would likely be a short term trend but it might become a medium term trend. But if there is a long term change to the climate in that region. We could observe the effect but could we determine the cause. It is a tropical region the climate is affected by many factors. But anyhow what could we do about it. We could try to build reservoir’s to capture the rain when it falls and any other practical methods. But we could not change the climate. What makes people think we can change the climate by changing our lifestyles. Maybe If I drive my car less this will lesson the drought in Sindangan or I could try whistling Dixie.
Matt MacGrath also filed this under “Climate” on the BBC website.
Water extraction and weight of buildings see half of China’s cities sink
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-68844731
Checking Chinese sea levels here
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_global_country.html?gid=1272
Doesn’t indicate a problem.
I forgot to highlight this “The researchers say the land is sinking faster than the seas are rising, but together they would put hundreds of millions at risk of flooding.” Suggesting any sea level rise is probably due to the land sinking. But it’ll go in my appeal.
I always like to try to investigate the original papers to see how robust they are and whether the press release matches. Digging in I find their temperature data are taken from WSMX, itself based on ERA5 satellite data mixed in with whatever few land based readings are available. The paper that introduces the WSMX product (3 hourly, 0.1 degree geographic resolution) cautions
You don’t say.
Meanwhile the paper itself begins
I wonder how they coped before electricity. They point out in their conclusions
Presumably record keeping was even worse in the past when there were no UN agencies taking an interest. Even though the era of French colonial government was undoubtedly more efficient than today’s, mortality data in the general population would not have been a priority. At least they admit that Ramadan fasting probably contributed to deaths and hospitalisations.
The paper proper is at the Grantham Institute here https://doi.org/10.25561/110771
It’s the first time I’ve tried looking at one of these attribution studies in detail. I know that others have concluded they rely on circular arguments that prove nothing. Some things I noted on a first read through:
so the last decade is based on RCP8.5, as well as all future projections if alarmism. Over-attribution is baked in.
Translation: We assume that the probability distribution of temperatures follows a particular form without showing any evidence that the form is appropriate. However, having made that assumption we do some data fitting on the basis of the very short satellite era record from which we claim we can deduce the probability of the recent extreme event. We ensure this is rated highly unlikely by constraining the spread (variance) of the assumed probability distribution.
They run correlations between local maximum temperature trends and GMST Global Mean Surface Temperature (based on NASA GISTEMP) to assert that the latter is causing the former. Correlation is not causation, and Paul’s evidence suggests that UHI is a major factor.
It’s models all the way down.
Exactly. It bases its claims on a model without CO2. But that model assumes CO2 does what the CO2 does stuff model assumes – that CO2 does stuff. You can’t prove CO2 was responsible by assuming CO2 does what you assume in the model.
It really is laughable.
”
“For some, a heatwave being 1.4 or 1.5C hotter because of climate change might not sound like a big increase,” said Kiswendsida Guigma, a climate scientist at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre in Burkina Faso.
“But this additional heat would have been the difference between life and death for many people.”
Oh aye…
Human core body temperature varies by about +/- 1C in the range normally 36.5C to 37.5C. An external air temperature of 1.5C would have no effect on core temperature which is the same for people in Burkina Faso as it is for people in Lapland – it why we have a circulatory system and sweat glands and Humans can survive in all climates.
There is no mention of any health emergency on the hospital website that I can find. It’s certainly not prominent, which would be fairly important I would have thought.
I have been trying to write a response on this but the red veil comes down. As usual from the BBC climate weasel inchief McGrath whose education as a journalist only does not seem to stretch to the ability to question but just regurgitate. As usual we are treated to “scientists say”, the BBC authority term to impress the proles who like them have no ability to question.
Also, I have tried and failed to find reference to EXACTLY where this 48 degree temperature was recorded. I expect I would be at the airport, with all that “cooling” concrete around. Suspiciously if it had indeed occurred I would have thought all the usual suspects would have reported it.