CNN in the article “As climate change changes, heat waves are becoming more and more dangerous, and we may still underestimate them.” [emphasis, links added]
This is wrong and refuted by actual long-term temperature records.
The available evidence suggests that although urban areas do experience the well-documented urban heat island (UHI) effect, the nights do experience warm nights, but There is no global trend to increase the frequency or intensity of heat waves after considering urbanization, data quality, and selective reports that plague many mainstream climate narratives.
CNN does admit briefly that overnight temperatures in towns and cities are rising, pointing out that the UHI effect is the culprit. However, they conveniently skip the bigger meaning: these localized temperature rises are not evidence of trends attributed to climate change.
They are functions of urban development, including asphalt, concrete and waste heat in human activities, rather than signals of global warming, let alone a planetary crisis.
Studies show that rural temperature stations far from heating concrete jungles, far from heating, show the same warming rate as urban stations.
Climate at a glance: The U.S. heat wave introduces historical data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which shows that the heat waves in the 1930s were more severe than today.
As shown in Figure 1 below, in the 1930s, days above 95°F exceeded everything in recent decades.
Nearly a century ago, the intensity and frequency of heat waves were worse. CNN chose to ignore this broader historical context.
In addition, about Climate Realism Prove that mainstream media likes to focus on short-term peaks and isolated events while completely ignoring cooling trends and full history.
One article is “CNN ignores long-term data, claiming that heat waves are getting worse,” how CNN conveniently masks data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which contradicts their claims and shows For example, in the 1930s and 1950s, heat waves were more common and severe.
CNN's article relies heavily on attribution research, especially from the World Weather Attribution (WWA) project, which claims that today's heat waves are “double to hundreds of times” due to climate change.
These studies are based on climate model simulations, rather than observed temperature data or trends. As Watts discusses thoroughly in it, the problem with attribution models usually starts with the assumption that the warmest assumption is that the warmest is due to human activities and then “discover” warming in its consequences.
This is a classic case of confirmation bias wrapped in scientific terms. Logically, this is called a logical fallacy, especially confirming its results.
Climate Realism For example, WWA used to be here, here and here repeatedly debunked the previous attribution “research”.
To support its assertion that the heating waves are worsening, CNN seeks famous climate alerts, with the opinions of famous sponsors of Friederike Otto and Michael Mann.
“Every heat wave that happens today is hotter than the heat wave without human-induced climate change,” WWA director Otto told CNN.
What else did Otto say? After all, she runs an organization that makes extraordinary heatwave claims, which are actually claims backed by real-world data.
Her clear statements are not fundamental in hard, observant data, but consistently projected to a warmer model than actually observed in models with known tendencies to be hot.
The fact that these models cannot even accurately predict regional temperatures or temperature trends, let alone individual heat waves, is conveniently omitted from the coverage of CNNs.
“Climate models may underestimate the relationship between today's climate change and sustained summer weather and predict the potential for this extreme future to increase,” Mann warned.
Therefore, for Mann, the flawed model warms more than the underestimated heat wave occurrence and severity. However, the data cannot be found in the data.
If anything, the observed evidence suggests that the effects of human greenhouse gas emissions on heat waves are exaggerated by climate models used by WWA rather than low-key.
Even the sensational claims about European heat waves collapsed under review. As climate realism points out, these events are good within the scope of natural variability.
When past temperature records were carefully reviewed, we found that similar and even more extreme heat events occurred before industrial CO2 emissions began to rise sharply.
In addition, CNN has recycled tired telescopes, that heat waves are becoming increasingly “deadly”. However, Global data consistently suggest that even if the population triples, the death toll related to climate and temperature has dropped.
Bjorn Lomborg repeatedly states that the death to weather-related events, including calories, has dropped by more than 95% since the 1920s, thanks in large part to better infrastructure, forecasting and adaptation. See Figure 2.
CNNs usually rely on “rapid attribution research” because it relies almost entirely on this article, but in the traditional sense, this kind of research is not real research, nor is it peer review in the traditional sense.
Within hours or days after the event, attribution studies were quickly driven away to drive narratives of climate change leading to specific events.
They do not carefully analyze and check whether climate change plays a role in activities. The latter study requires time and detailed research, rather than a click of a button on a computer, with the built-in assumption that climate change can lead to events, and the only question is how much.
Attribution “science” is not science at all, because it is currently composed. Instead, it is a tool designed to strengthen narrative rather than objectively studying the causes of weather events.
Recent heat events pale compared to the extended heat waves experienced in the decade of the “Dust Bowl” in the 1930s and the extended heat waves in the 1950s. CNN's comparison of cherry picking can actively distort public understanding of climate and weather history.
This is not the first time that CNN uses climate data quickly and loosely. They have been called out before, including Watts, because this type of fear-driven report ignores long-term records rather than flashy headlines.
CNN's ongoing misrepresentation of climate data suggests that accuracy is less sensational to them. Maybe that's because of fear of selling, but it certainly won't explain.
Ultimately, CNN's report here is a damaging to public understanding. They rely on shaky models, neglect of historical context and failure to address the well-known urban heat island effect, all point to agenda-driven narrative rather than serious journalism.
If CNN really cares about notifying listeners, then now it will correct these errors. Instead, they have been peddling the same frightening stories, perhaps because of the admission that otherwise would undermine their hard-working sales crisis.
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