In their recent articles “June is the new July: Why summer calories come sooner,” Washington Post (WAPO) claims: “Heat waves in Canada, the United States and the Nordic countries are part of a dangerous new climate model in recent days.” This narrative is false, or at best misleading. [emphasis, links added]
The data do not show a meaningful trend for earlier or more intense heat waves worldwide.
There is evidence that much of the increase in early seasonal heat can be attributed to urban heat island (UHI) effects and misunderstandings about regional variability rather than any shocking global change.
“In recent days, the heat waves in Canada, the Northeast and Northern Europe have one thing in common: they happen at the beginning of the season.” Write Wapo, continue:
“This timing expresses a broader trend that is related to human-caused climate change… The hottest decade has arrived in the past decade.”
One of the most critical oversight in the WAPO article is that it ignores the role of the urban heat island (UHI) effect on recorded temperatures and trends.
As cities expand, local thermometers used to measure temperatures increasingly reflect urban heating rather than global trends.
UHI is a well-documented phenomenon, where cities are significantly higher in temperature than their rural environments due to centralized infrastructure, asphalt and human activities, reporting biased surface station temperature records and average levels.
As cities expand, local thermometers used to measure temperatures increasingly reflect urban heating rather than global trends.
Studies show that UHI exaggerates a significant warming trend, especially in densely populated areas.
When Toronto, London and Paris report records in early summer intense, We must ask whether these records reflect global climate change or whether they are primarily cultural relics that measure the temperature of increasingly urbanized locations.
NASA's research acknowledges the problem, pointing out that urban areas may be several levels warmer than surrounding rural areas. Additionally, research published by Dr. Roy Spencer shows that the homogenization process used by NOAA and other institutions tends to integrate urban warming into surrounding rural stations, artificially enhancing a clear warming trend.
However, mainstream media like WAPO often ignores the impact of UHI on reported temperature trends.
The article repeatedly composes early heat waves as evidence of a “dangerous new climate model.” But anyone who has taken root in meteorology can explain Weather variability always causes summer to start from year or later. This is not new; normal.
Meteorological history tells us that the beginning of similar summer conditions fluctuates naturally for centuries, affected by jet flow patterns, ocean oscillations, and other large-scale global and regional atmospheric drivers. A few years later, summer seemed to have arrived early. I've been late for the other years.
There is no consistent, evident trend toward an earlier global summer. The problem is that Wapo has occupied a few years in recent years and infers dangerous trends from noisy datasets that are essentially involving short time frames.
To further support its shocking argument that summer heat is earlier and lasts longer, WAPO cited the University of Maine’s Climate Change Institute (CCI) that average temperatures in the northern hemisphere have exceeded 21°C earlier in recent years than in 1979-2000.
However, what Wapo and CCI ignore are satellite datasets, which are much less affected by UHI than satellite datasets and provide more reliable global measurements.
Satellite records measured the temperature increase significantly and the trend of smaller warming. Satellite data from UAH (University of Alabama in Huntsville) suggest that most of the narrative of “record fever” is not spreading globally at all.
WAPO also reflects on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) claim that heat waves are “longer, more frequent, more frequent, and more intense over the past seven decades.” However, EPA claims are undermined by government data.
Data from the National Center for Environmental Information (NCEI) show that the 1930s, especially during the Dust Bowl, experienced some The worst heat wave in American history is more severe and extreme than it is now.
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, the number of days over 95°F in the 1930s has resulted in the number of everything in recent decades.
For example, North America’s record temperatures (134°F in Death Valley) were set in 1913, long before industrial carbon dioxide rose, WAPO blamed the current heat event.
The heat wave frequency in the mid-20th century was significantly higher than today, when unadjusted rural temperature records were observed.
The data show that state heat records set during the single decade (23) of the 1930s were more than all records set by 55 years (16) since 1970 (23) and far less than six records since 2000, and in the two decades that were allegedly the hottest, they were recorded.
Over the past 90 years, the U.S. frequency has plummeted. But anyway, thank you for your unfounded publicity https://t.co/qkwws7jqnp pic.twitter.com/s2gin0c4xz
— Tony Heller (@TonyClimate) June 25, 2025
This article inevitably melts Greek wildfires and early glaciers in the Swiss Alps as if these local events were proof of planetary transformation.
However, as documented in climate realism, wildfires are strongly influenced by forest management practices, human ignition sources and short-term weather patterns, far exceeding any modest changes in global temperatures.
Similarly, glacier melting is a complex process that is affected by snow accumulation, dust deposits, and even local black carbon in vehicles and industries.
The overall attribution of CO2 emissions is the reason for ignoring the overall simplification of these key local variables.
This story is another example of Wapo's failure to do his homework while actively promoting climate alert narratives.
Rather than investigating UHI with well-documented effects, natural weather variability, and flaws in climate model predictions, Wapo once again causes damage to readers by default to lazy reports that assumes all calories are artificial and that any arbitrary mean deviation from any 20th century is the cause of panic.
They were previously asked to gather such sensational reports here, here and here, but they persevered, perhaps because of fear of selling.
As long as the media likes it Washington Post Prioritize climate bait over reliable science and they will continue to erode public trust. That's it Real, Dangerous trends here.
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