Mission Impossible: Attributing The Pacific Northwest Heatwave To Climate Change

Before I get to the mission ‘impossible’ I want to highlight another recent study which demonstrated just how extremely unlikely/impossible the maximum daytime temperatures recorded during the North West Pacific heatwave of 2021 were, if one assumes that the sole/primary driver of the conditions was ‘climate change’, i.e. the long term warming trend observed since 1950 or even 1850, depending on which temperature datasets are used.

Here is what that paper says:

Here, we identify and draw on the strong relationship between the climatological higher-order statistics of temperature (skewness and kurtosis) and the magnitude of extreme events to quantify the likelihood of comparable events using a large climate model ensemble (Community Earth System Model version 2 Large Ensemble [CESM2-LE]). In general, CESM2 can simulate temperature anomalies as extreme as those observed in 2021, but they are rare: temperature anomalies that exceed 4.5σ occur with an approximate frequency of one in a hundred thousand years.

Even using a ‘very hot’ climate model with an extraordinarily high climate sensitivity of 5.3C, these researchers could still only simulate the heatwave as a 1 in a 100,000 year event! In other words, they found that it was basically impossible, or, to put it more eloquently, it was a 5 sigma ‘Black Swan’ event which could not be linked to climate change.

The authors inform us as to the meteorological proximal cause of the extraordinary heatwave:

The proximal, meteorological causes of the heatwave are relatively clear. Around June 20th, a circulation anomaly developed in the western subtropical Pacific due to convection associated with the East Asian monsoon system (Qian et al., 2022). This perturbation seeded a Rossby wave train, which propagated eastward along a midlatitude wave guide, and modified the upper tropospheric winds associated with the wave guide as it progressed. By June 25th, an omega-block had developed over the PNW, which progressed eastward and intensified over the course of the heatwave (Neal et al., 2022; Philip et al., 2021). A cross-Pacific atmospheric river also transported latent heat into the region (Mo et al., 2022). The block caused an extended period of clear skies, increased solar radiation at the surface, and subsidence, all of which increased temperatures. Further, downslope winds from the Cascades and other mountain ranges were reported (Philip et al., 2021), causing additional heating. Similar causal factors have previously been identified for PNW heatwaves in general (Bumbaco et al., 2013; Qian et al., 2022); the difference for this heatwave was with respect to magnitude. The geopotential height anomalies associated with the omega-block were found to exceed those in any prior heatwaves within the period of the ERA5 record (Philip et al., 2021), and daily maximum temperatures at some locations exceeded prior records by 5–6°C (Overland, 2021; Philip et al., 2021).

The authors then tell us how this heatwave was intensified by a general summertime warming of the area in line with a more general warming of the planet (allegedly due to human influence):

The meteorological causal factors for the heatwave occurred on top of a changing mean state due to human influence on the climate system. Summertime daily maximum temperatures in the PNW have increased by 0.24°C per decade since 1960 (based on Berkeley Earth data; Rohde et al., 2013), or about 1.5°C in total over that period. Changes in the mean state alone will increase the probability, intensity, and duration of heat waves (Meehl & Tebaldi, 2004); this shift is a well-understood consequence of climate change. However, the magnitude of the temperatures during the PNW heatwave have raised the question of whether the probability of very extreme events is changing faster than would be predicted by a change in the mean. This hypothesis is not supported by a prior analysis of trends in the 50th and 95th percentiles of station data during peak summer from 1980 to 2015 (McKinnon et al., 2016), but results could differ for the most extreme events, and/or for the early summer period during which the PNW heatwave occurred. Similarly, Philip et al. (2021) did not find evidence of dynamical changes in climate models that would lead to increased probability of very hot extremes, but intriguingly also found that a nonstationary generalized extreme value (GEV) distribution fit to data through 2020 (i.e., not including the 2021 event) predicted that the probability of the 2021 event was zero (Philip et al., 2021). Could this result suggest that the 2021 event was truly drawn from a different distribution?

It is pointed out that daily maximum extremes increase along with the increase in the mean but there was no evidence to suggest that extreme high temperatures were increasing faster. It is also pointed out again that the probability of the 2021 PNW heatwave is zero, after applying a statistical GEV analysis. So, the super hot climate model predicts that the observed event might be expected to happen just once in a hundred thousand years and the statistical analysis concludes that the event was statistically impossible. But of course it happened. Ergo, we must conclude that it was in fact a ‘Black Swan’ or some other factors – such as land use changes, urbanisation, changes in meteorological dynamics, temperature corruption due to poor siting of stations – singularly, or in combination, caused the observed heatwave. The authors opt for the ‘Black Swan’ or ‘bad luck’ explanation:

Assuming a similar event does not occur in the near future, and without a clear physical link to climate change, the most likely explanation remains that the weather event itself was “bad luck.” While climate change added additional warming to the picture (approximately 1.5°C since 1960), the event would have been severe even without the climate change signal

Obviously, this conclusion will not sit well at all with the climate cultists, whose Mission Impossible is to link all such extreme heatwaves to climate change, even when they are impossible!

Enter our intrepid and oddly named trio from Columbia University, NY: Samuel Bartusek, Kai Kornhuber, and Mingfang Ting!

Even as global warming increases the severity and frequency of heatwaves, the magnitude of this event exceeded what many may have considered plausible under current climate conditions. While heat records are typically broken by small increments, this event shattered records by tens of degrees Celsius. Such an unprecedented event raises the pressing question of whether future projections of heat extremes are too conservative or their mechanisms inadequately captured by climate models. It is therefore important to understand the physical drivers of the event and assess their connections with climate change.

You see what they did there? They didn’t say ‘assess their possible connections with climate change. They anticipate the results of their own study even before presenting it. This sentence tells us that they will find a link to climate change – and they do, of course. The authors here, as in the previous study above, also outline the proximate causes, specifying atmospheric dynamics, plus dry soil:

The proximate causes of the heatwave were extreme anomalies in common heatwave drivers—high geopotential height (resulting from wave–wave interaction; Extended Data Fig. 1) and dry soil, which both exceeded their historical (1979–2020) ranges yet largely followed expected bivariate distribution relationships (Fig. 2a–c), as in simulated record-shattering heatwaves in similar regions. However, the peak temperatures of the heatwave markedly exceeded the linear regressions of temperature against geopotential height or soil moisture (by 4–5 °C), which are otherwise strongly predictive (Fig. 2a,b).

But even geopotential height (atmospheric pressure basically) and soil aridity fail to explain the severity of the observed event. So the authors conclude that there must be some non-linear drivers at work:

A multiple regression incorporating their simultaneous anomalies, confirms nonlinear temperature amplification maximizing during the peak of the event at ~3 °C (increasing ~7 °C by ~40%), an ~3σ amplification (Fig. 2c,d). Temporally, this amplification term behaved out-of-phase with geopotential height but in-phase with soil moisture (it increased as soils continued to dry despite declining geopotential height; Figs. 2d and 1d and Supplementary Fig. 4), raising the possibility that two-way soil moisture–temperature interactions contributed to these nonlinearities.

So, the authors are suggesting/stating that the event at its peak was amplified 3σ (from a 2σ event to a 5σ ‘Black Swan’ event) by soil moisture-atmosphere interactions. That’s their theory, which then allows them to claim that climate change contributed very significantly to the ‘impossible’ temperatures via the alleged long term impact of drying soils in the region. But they do at least acknowledge that atmospheric dynamics played an “important role” in the event.

A wavenumber-4 upper atmospheric circulation anomaly (Methods) was established since 19 June (before the heatwave) and strongly amplified (>1.5σ ) since 21 June (Fig. 1d and Extended Data Fig. 1). Accordingly, in late June the jet stream assumed a persistent ‘wavy’ configuration with strong meridional wind meanders (Extended Data Fig. 1 and Supplementary Fig. 2)—exhibiting a zonal-mean wind and temperature fingerprint for amplified planetary scale waves that some evidence suggests may become more frequent with warming. Further, convection in the western subtropical Pacific may have helped excite a late-June Rossby wavetrain extending towards North America that locked phase with the existing hemispheric wave, amplifying the geopotential height and temperature anomalies in the PNW and perhaps also strengthening the hemispheric wave (Extended Data Fig. 1), suggesting an important role for atmospheric dynamics in this event.

But, they claim that soil moisture anomalies caused by long term warming (climate change) amplified the heatwave into ‘impossible’ territory.

This substantiates that, in addition to other processes, land–atmosphere interactions probably amplified the heating, especially where and when it was strongest (Extended Data Fig. 5), although further analysis is needed to link 850 hPa-level behaviour directly to surface processes. Meanwhile, many of the most extreme areas that plausibly experience land–atmosphere temperature amplification have experienced multi-decadal summer drying, warming and increasing temperature variability (Extended Data Fig. 6; Conclusions).

Furthermore, ongoing trends favour the nonlinear regional-mean behaviour amplifying this heatwave—thus, while the extreme heat of 2021 was unprecedented, it was nevertheless mechanistically linked to historical regional climate change.

This of course ignores the impact of changing land use on soil moisture trends, it ignores the probable influence of creeping urbanisation on recent (post 1960) warming trends and it ignores the influence of multidecadal natural variability affecting the Pacific Northwest region.

They used a model to assess the importance of land-atmosphere interactions upon extreme high temperatures.

Using a model experiment tailored to evaluate the role of soil moisture in climate, we determine that in the PNW, soil moisture–atmosphere interactions probably make monthly scale temperature extremes of the magnitude of June 2021 many times more likely.

Then what they do is construct a statistical generalised extreme value curve using the output from the model, rather than observations. Furthermore, they don’t use global mean surface temperature to ‘shift’ the distribution upwards, they use PNW mean surface temperature, which we might expect to be more significantly influenced by localised natural variability over the period in question, but which is nevertheless automatically attributed to ‘climate change’!

Consequently, the likelihood of the standardized temperature anomaly of June 2021 dramatically increases when soil moisture can interact with the atmosphere. We fit generalized extreme value (GEV) distributions to the yearly ensemble-maximum June mean temperature anomaly (Methods) of each ensemble, with their location parameters non-stationary in 5-year-smoothed annual PNW-mean surface temperature (PNWMST). We use PNWMST as a covariate instead of global mean surface temperature (GMST) to account for differing PNW-mean climate responses to global temperature between model configurations. Estimated empirical return periods are overlaid on the model curves, with each datapoint shifted in temperature by the dependence of the GEV location parameter on PNWMST. Fits and datapoints for each ensemble can thus be compared at a consistent baseline: at the observed PNWMST level of 2020, the GEV models estimate a ~400-fold increase (95% CI: 0.03–4,000,000) in the likelihood of the observed monthly anomaly of June 2021 between prescribed and interactive soil moisture ensembles, transforming it from an extremely unlikely ~500,000-yearly (~1,000–∞) event to a ~1,400-yearly (~150–∞) event.

Goodness me! Amazing! What was once an event not expected to occur more than once in half a million years has now become an event which is expected to recur every 1400 years. That’s pretty good going, but it’s still rare even in their shape-shifted land-atmosphere interacting climate. Too rare; they need it to be much more common in order to generate the necessary amount of public alarm about an event which probably has almost nothing to do with the ‘climate crisis’. So here’s where they really go to town on the ‘data’.

Increasing event likelihood driven by climate change

Recent climate change has rapidly increased the likelihood of the 2021 heatwave: over the past 70 years, such an event has multiplied in probability from virtually impossible to a multihundred-yearly event (Fig. 4). As above, we apply GEV analysis, a targeted approach for estimating extreme value statistics and an established method for attributing climate extremes to anthropogenic warming. We note that assessing the probability of this event in temperature alone—despite its multivariate extreme characteristics—probably conservatively estimates its increasing likelihood as a compound event, given simultaneous trends in other variables such as soil moisture.

Our Mission Impossible agents literally perform miracles in order to get the job done.

We apply GEV analysis to yearly-maximum June–August daily temperatures extending back to 1950, to maximize sample size and robustness, with both location and scale parameters non-stationary in 5-year-smoothed GMST (Methods). Results reveal drastic historical changes in heatwave probabilities: a hypothetical daily 8 °C regional temperature anomaly is estimated to have been virtually impossible in the 1950–1985 climate but has become an ~50-yearly event in the climate since 1986 (Fig. 4b). Similarly, the 2021 heatwave (an ~10.4 °C peak anomaly, far exceeding the historical range) was virtually impossible even at the average global temperature over 1986–2021 (return period 95% CI: 1,500–∞) but by 2021 has become a ~200-yearly event (25–∞)—thereby experiencing an infinite increase in probability (at least ~13-fold). Its probability increase since 1950–1985 is likewise infinite (at least ~500,000-fold). Furthermore, the probability of an event exceeding the magnitude of 2021 will increase rapidly under further increasing GMST—projected to recur ~10-yearly before 2050.

Bloody hell! Is that not scary enough for ya? There’s been an infinite increase in the probability of searing heatwaves just since 1985! The ‘climate crisis’ has changed the climate of the Pacific Northwest beyond all recognition basically (you could say it’s been FUBAR’d) – what once was impossible has now become possible and in a few more years, it will become routine. But they can only perform this miraculous ‘scientific’ feat by including the observed ‘impossible’ 2021 heatwave in their statistical calculations.

In including 2021, we follow refs. 45,46,49, assuming that the observation of 2021 is drawn from the same distribution as historical observations, since the study region was not selected solely to maximize local extremity but rather for a large-scale regional perspective, reducing (but not eliminating) selection bias. Alternatively, however, the excluding-2021 fit estimates a finite maximum possible temperature well below the 2021 observation even under current warming (Fig. 4b), questioning its validity. We note that the including-2021 fit is not rejected by a Kolmogorov–Smirnov test (Supplementary Figs. 9 and 10) despite its poor fit in similar analyses, which maintained a fixed scale parameter and analysed a smaller region more concentrated on the extreme. Ultimately, both fits underscore dramatic increases in heat-extreme probabilities resulting from gradual warming: in both, an ~1,000-yearly event in the 1950s would currently resemble an ~5-yearly event and has been surpassed many times (Fig. 4a). Furthermore, comparing future projections of a 2021-magnitude event, the fits roughly converge, both projecting <10-yearly recurrences by 2.5 °C GMST above pre-industrial temperatures. Notably, this threshold only increases to 2.75 °C GMST in a GEV fit with stationary instead of non-stationary scale parameters.

This is what their GEV fit including 2021 looks like:

The red curve in fig b, which fits past observations, does not intersect the 2021 event (dashed line). Their new distribution, which includes 2021 (but fails to align with any previous observations) intersects the 2021 event at about 200 years, allowing the authors to make their wild claims above.

The authors conclude the following:

Notably, land–atmosphere coupling and temperature variability increases are strongest where soil moisture is climatologically moderate instead of the driest areas—thus, in the PNW, drying may increase temperature variability more than in already arid regions like the southwestern United States. In accordance with recent research demonstrating the emergence of heat-amplifying land–atmosphere feedbacks in regions not historically experiencing them and, moreover, projections of widespread mid century soil moisture regime shifts including the PNW37, we suggest that the 2021 heatwave may represent an alarming manifestation of a shifting regime across much of the PNW from wet to transitional climate, making such events more likely through strengthened soil moisture–temperature coupling—however, further research is required to substantiate this.

In a final part of this series, I’ll be looking at this claim.

The Future Is White At The BBC But Climate Change Is ‘Inherently Racist’

No, seriously. This is not sarcasm. Tune into BBC Future; do not adjust your TV. Do double-check your TV Licence direct debit though – just to convince yourself that you are actually paying for this. So what is BBC Future all about then?

We believe in truth, facts, and science. We take the time to think. And we don’t accept — we ask why.

Aww, isn’t that nice? They believe in truth, facts and science. Brilliant. Except truth, facts and science do not require belief – unlike God. They require only honest observation and critical appraisal to verify to the best of one’s ability that they are indeed the facts which might reasonably approximate to the truth and that science does indeed plausibly explain those facts. Of course, if you can’t, or won’t do this, then you do need belief – the belief in ‘experts’. But then, if that was the case, then you would just accept, without asking why, which is what BBC Future insist they don’t do! So they directly contradict themselves in their boastful blurb.

We look for answers to the issues facing the world in science. You’ll find stories here on almost every topic that matters. Psychology. Food. Climate change. Health. Social trends. Technology.

What links them all is our approach. Through evidence-based analysis, original thinking, and powerful storytelling, we shine a light on the hidden ways that the world is changing – and provide solutions for how to navigate it. Energised by the everyday, we think no topic is too small to be fascinating. Inspired by obstacles, we believe no subject is too overwhelming to tackle.

Bear these boasts in mind when considering the following BBC Future article on climate change:

Why climate change is inherently racist

When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, it was the city’s black neighbourhoods that bore the brunt of the storm. Twelve years later, it was the black districts of Houston that took the full force of Hurricane Harvey. In both cases, natural disasters compounded issues in neighbourhoods that were already stretched.  

Climate change and racism are two of the biggest challenges of the 21st Century. They are also strongly intertwined. There is a stark divide between who has caused climate change and who is suffering its effects. People of colour across the Global South are those who will be most affected by the climate crisis, even though their carbon footprints are generally very low. Similar racial divides exist within nations too, due to profound structural inequalities laid down by a long legacy of unequal power relationships.

Zambia clearly demonstrates this injustice of climate change. Average carbon footprints in Zambia are very low, coming in at just 0.36 tonnes per person per year – less than one-tenth of the UK average. Nevertheless, the country is facing environmental disaster, including a prolonged drought which left over a million people in need of food assistance in 2021.

“Zambia has been experiencing the negative impact of climate variability and change for the last three decades,” says Zambian climate scientist Mulako Kabisa. “The biggest impact has been increased temperature and reduced rainfall, resulting in climate shocks that include droughts and floods.”

These changes in rainfall and temperature have resulted in crop failure, livestock deaths and reduced the country’s GDP, she adds. “Droughts in particular have led to livelihood loss for the smallholder-dominated agricultural sector, because production is dependent on availability of adequate rain.”

‘Evidence based analysis’? No, this is a masterclass in deceptive mixed message reporting and the deliberate obfuscation or ignorance of relevant facts. In this respect, the BBC does at least live up to part of their boast: ‘evidence-based analysis, original thinking, and powerful storytelling’. This is great story-telling, but certainly not original thinking (similar messaging re. ‘climate justice’ is repeated ad nauseum throughout the left wing media) and it bears little resemblance to an ‘evidence-based analysis’, as we shall see.

The evidence part of this analysis consists entirely of the unremarkable observation that poorer communities tend to be disproportionately affected by extreme weather events, in particular severe flooding, and that poorer communities, in both the global north and the global south, tend to be populated by people who are non-white. They got that right, but it’s got sod all to do with climate change per se being inherently racist.

This is just a repetition of the all too familiar message that wealth tends to be concentrated in countries whose populations are predominantly white and, within those countries, in communities which are also predominantly white. At least, that’s how it used to be: wealth is now increasingly concentrated into the hands of an elitist globalist few (who also happen to be predominantly white). In other words, billionaire whites have been hoovering up wealth at an alarming rate in the last few years and the victims of that recent cash grab have been whites and blacks. What this means is that relatively wealthy white populations are becoming poorer and the predominantly non-white ‘global south’ is sliding into extreme poverty, with all the inherent dangers which that poses. What it also means is that poorer white communities are also disproportionately affected by this money and power grab. Is this racist? No, it just means the globalist elite are robbing all people equally, but because the Third World and poorer communities in general didn’t start off equal in the first place, they are going to suffer more. So also with ‘climate change’. We can debate the causes of these inequalities until the cows come home but what we cannot do is label bad weather as ‘inherently racist’!

The personnel profile of BBC Future looks inherently racist to me. Hmm, maybe it’s my poor eyesight, but I can’t see much diversity there, can you?

This privileged group of presumably middle class white people are pontificating to the rest of us not so privileged black, brown and white people that climate change is inherently racist against non-whites, even though its mitigation in the form of a retrogressive top down imposed net zero agenda is not, because ultimately, it’s going to affect all humans on this planet, very badly. I don’t know about you, but I’m personally sick of being patronised and spoke down to by these hypocritical, scientifically and historically illiterate meddlesome left wing eco-freaks and Marxists at the BBC and elsewhere. Just who the hell do they think they are? The self-appointed governors of our future is who.

So let’s get down to the nitty-gritty of actual climate change shall we. The one indisputable fact is that, since the 1970s, for whatever reason, the world has warmed fairly rapidly, after having cooled fairly rapidly from the mid 1940s to the 60s and 70s. It’s also true to say that, for whatever reason, the world has warmed generally since the end of the Little Ice Age around the middle of the 19th century. Climate activists tell you it’s your fault and ‘climate justice’ activists point to white people and say it’s their fault (and that of their ancestors) for having the temerity to initiate firstly, national industrial revolutions, which lifted their populations out of poverty, and subsequent to that, an unequally spread global industrial revolution which resulted in billions of people (of all races) being propelled out of extreme poverty. Climate zealots wish to reverse this process.

We can all agree that the Industrial Revolution kicked off in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries and from there, spread globally. More particularly, Great Britain, which had an empire in those days, initiated this global industrial revolution – which is presumably why us brits are being punished by a net zero agenda which is being imposed harder and faster than almost anywhere else in the world. So if ‘climate change’ is inherently racist, we would expect Europe and the global north to be getting off lightly whilst the global south suffers terribly no? Oh dear, this is where the ‘evidenced-based analysis’ starts to break down, because, according to climate change zealots themselves, Europe has been heating at twice the global average since 1991. Oops.

It’s not just a case of simple temperature rises either, it’s also a case of worsening impacts according to Climate Alarmist HQ The Guardian. Europeans (the same pesky white Europeans who allegedly caused all this chaos in the first place) are suffering disproportionately from extreme weather events, especially heatwaves and flooding. Stick that in your ‘climate justice’ pipe and smoke it BBC Future!

Temperatures in Europe have increased at more than twice the global average in the last 30 years, according to a report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

The effects of this warming are already being seen, with droughts, wildfires and ice melts taking place across the continent. The European State of the Climate report, produced with the EU’s Copernicus service, warns that as the warming trend continues, exceptional heat, wildfires, floods and other climate breakdown outcomes will affect society, economies and ecosystems.

From 1991 to 2021, temperatures in Europe have warmed at an average rate of about 0.5C a decade. This has had physical results: Alpine glaciers lost 30 metres in ice thickness between 1997 and 2021, while the Greenland ice sheet has also been melting, contributing to sea level rise. In summer 2021, Greenland had its first ever recorded rainfall at its highest point, Summit station.

Human life has been lost as a result of the extreme weather events. The report says that in 2021, high impact weather and climate events – 84% of which were floods and storms – led to hundreds of fatalities, directly affected more than 500,000 people, and caused economic damages exceeding $50bn.

“Europe presents a live picture of a warming world and reminds us that even well-prepared societies are not safe from impacts of extreme weather events,” said the WMO secretary general, Prof Petteri Taalas. “This year, like 2021, large parts of Europe have been affected by extensive heatwaves and drought, fuelling wildfires. In 2021, exceptional floods caused death and devastation.”

What could be the cause of this extreme weather trend in Europe I wonder? ‘It’s climate change innit’ intone the scientifically and factually challenged eco-zealots and neo-Malthusian climate justice warriors in perfect unison. But is it? No, as it turns out. The proximate cause is a shifting jet stream according to recent research:

Accelerated western European heatwave trends linked to more-persistent double jets over Eurasia

Persistent heat extremes can have severe impacts on ecosystems and societies, including excess mortality, wildfires, and harvest failures. Here we identify Europe as a heatwave hotspot, exhibiting upward trends that are three-to-four times faster compared to the rest of the northern midlatitudes over the past 42 years. This accelerated trend is linked to atmospheric dynamical changes via an increase in the frequency and persistence of double jet stream states over Eurasia. We find that double jet occurrences are particularly important for western European heatwaves, explaining up to 35% of temperature variability. The upward trend in the persistence of double jet events explains almost all of the accelerated heatwave trend in western Europe, and about 30% of it over the extended European region. Those findings provide evidence that in addition to thermodynamical drivers, atmospheric dynamical changes have contributed to the increased rate of European heatwaves, with implications for risk management and potential adaptation strategies.

So, in Western Europe, the place responsible for starting the Industrial and Economic Revolution, powered by the exploitation of fossil fuels to provide cheap, reliable, abundant energy, it’s the jet stream which is entirely responsible for the trends in extreme weather and not climate change!

Heatwave Deaths Propaganda

If heat kills, why did a lot more people die in summer 2021 compared to 2022?

Inevitably, as we proceed headlong into a chilly October, with the promise of high energy prices, blackouts and energy rationing during a long possibly harsh winter, and massive excess deaths due to the cold, the media is hyping the supposed excess deaths caused by the record breaking temperatures experienced (very briefly) in the UK this year. The ONS and UKHSA have joined forces to publish a study. Here’s how they explain what they’re doing:

ONS reports on mortality in regular weekly and monthly releases. UKHSA reports on mortality caused by specific public health incidents, such as periods of prolonged heat, in annual reports.

As both organisations publish on mortality during heat-periods, we have combined the releases to include both organisation’s statistics to give a more comprehensive picture and help users understand the difference.

The usual suspects in the media are salivating over this combined report, e.g. the usual misleading crap and ‘climate crisis’ propaganda in the eco-fascist Guardian:

More than 2,800 more people aged 65 and over died in England during this summer’s heatwaves than would have otherwise, figures show, marking the highest excess death toll caused by heat in at least two decades.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) recorded 43,755 non-Covid-related deaths of people in the 65-plus age group during this summer’s heatwaves in England.

This was 2,809 more deaths than would be expected based on the surrounding fortnight, the highest number since the introduction of the heatwave plan for England in 2004.

Bob Ward, from the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science, said: “These figures confirm the fear that the record-breaking temperatures this summer caused a record number of deaths. Most of these deaths were preventable and the government refused to take additional precautions even though it knew its heatwave plan was not fit for purpose.

“The threat to lives and livelihoods from summer heatwaves is undoubtedly increasing due to climate change. The prime minister must now act decisively by initiating a national heat risk management strategy that can be properly put in place ahead of next summer and prevent further unnecessary suffering and death across the country.”

You can always rely on Knob Ward to turn the climate change bullshit dial right up to number 10. But note, they are talking exclusively about the UKHSA analysis here, which is an estimate of heat deaths based on a statistical model, not simply actual registered deaths, as with the ONS figures. I quote:

• Across all five heat-periods of 2022, adjusting for registration delays, the estimated total excess mortality (excluding coronavirus (COVID-19)) in England was 2,803 for the most vulnerable age group (those aged 65 years and over), the highest number since the introduction of the Heatwave plan for England in 2004.
• This analysis was compiled by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) using a statistical model to adjust for registration delays to estimate excess mortality (excluding COVID-19) during heat-periods.

It is important to note the differences between the UKHSA’s methodology for calculating heatwave excess deaths and that of the ONS. The fake news media doesn’t do this of course because their prime intention is to deceive and sell the public a narrative. The published report clearly sets out the differences:

4.Impact of methodological differences

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) measure refers to the number of deaths occurring during periods of heat (including all causes), whereas the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) estimated excess deaths (excluding coronavirus (COVID-19)) during heat-period figures are based on a statistical model. This makes an adjustment to account for registration delays. Interpretation of the analysis presented in this report should consider these differences in methodology.

Here is how the ONS count excess deaths:

Excess mortality during heat-periods

• the deaths registered in England and Wales
• all ages and broad age-group
• all causes (combined and break down)
• deaths that occurred and were registered by 7 September 2022
• uses the five-year average as a baseline, or the preceding and subsequent days relative to the number of heat-period days.

Upwards of 90% of deaths are registered by 7 Sept, so this gives a pretty accurate picture of actual deaths occurring from all causes and for all ages, compared to the 5 year baseline.

Here’s how the UKHSA estimate their heatwave deaths:

Estimated excess mortality (excluding COVID-19) during heat-periods

• the deaths registered in England
• aged 65 years and over
• removes deaths that tested positive for coronavirus (COVID-19)
• adjusts the number of deaths registered by 13 September 2022 to account for registration delays
• uses a +/- two-week baseline (average daily deaths excluding COVID-19 across the 14 non-heat-period days before and after each heat-period)

So unlike the ONS, the UKHSA adjust the number of deaths to supposedly account for registration delays, they focus only on the over 65s and, crucially, they do not use a set baseline; they employ a constantly shifting baseline comprised of the 14 days before and after each heat period! Why the hell do that? In my opinion, it renders their results basically meaningless and certainly very difficult to compare with excess deaths during other years, which the media does, explicitly pointing out that the number of excess deaths was the highest “since the introduction of the heatwave plan for England in 2004.” So what? That statement is meaningless when the baseline they are referencing is not average excess heat period deaths measured over several years, but an average based on a couple of weeks before and after the excess deaths occurred! Absurd. They may argue that this gives a more accurate, real-time estimate of the impact of the specific heat period but I’m fairly sure there are many confounding influences which might muddy this simple picture.

The ONS analysis is even more intriguing. Here’s their graph of excess mortality during heat periods for the years 2016-22.

You will note that 2022 doesn’t stand out at all as being particularly unusual. 2021 does though. There might be a few more deaths added during September, but it’s not going to make a great deal of difference. here is what the ONS say:

From June to September each year, the average number of deaths per day was higher on heat-period than non-heat-period days. This was largest in 2021 (191 more deaths on heat-period than non-heat-period days on average) which saw a record high temperature of 32.2°C on 22 July 2021. Data for 2022 are to August and subject to registration delays. While ONS expect around 92.3% of deaths occurring during this time have been registered (based on 2012 to 2021), comparisons of 2022 with previous years should be treated with caution.

Wait, what? “Record high temperature of 32.2C on 22 July 2021”. It wasn’t a record in any sense of the word; that just happened to be the highest daily maximum temperature recorded all summer, which is hardly outstanding as English summers go! In fact, summer 2021 was pretty average, especially in comparison to summer 2022 where England saw temperature in excess of 35C on quite a few days and recorded 40+C on the 19th July at several widely separated stations in southern and eastern England. So if very high temperatures are killing people, we would expect 2022 to record more deaths than 2021, notwithstanding adjustments for humidity, but I doubt there was a significant difference between the two summers as regards that particular aspect. Why did a lot more people die in 2021?

The report gives a lot of confusing data about 2022 and various other years, but for a comparison of 2022 with 2021, in the context of the five year period 2016-2021, we have the following:

3,271 excess deaths have been recorded during heat-periods in 2022 in England and Wales. This is an average of 82 excess deaths per day, and 6.2% higher than the five-year average.

The heat-period with the largest number of excess deaths was H2 (10 to 25 July) with 2,227 excess deaths (10.4% above average), an average of 139 excess deaths per day.

From 2016 to 2021, deaths were above the five-year average in every heat-period, with a total of 12,598 excess deaths (9.3% above average, 119 average excess deaths per day).

In England, from 2016 to 2021, observed deaths were above the five-year average in every heat-period, with excess deaths ranging from 149 (28 to 30 June 2019) to 1,858 (16 to 23 July 2021). This was not the case for Wales, where excess ranged from 29 deaths below average (2 to 9 August 2018) to 185 deaths above average (16 to 23 July 2021)

So, in 2021, there were 1858+185 (=2043) excess deaths in England and Wales from 16-23 July (8 days). This gives a daily excess death rate of 2043/8=255. Compare this to 10-25 July 2022 when the daily excess was 139. So, we must ask the question: why were so many more people dying in 2021 during a heat period in mid July (which was a lot less severe and prolonged than the heat period in mid July 2022)? If it was primarily heat stress which was killing people, this doesn’t make sense.

It gets even more confusing when the ONS reveal that it is only over 70s who experienced these excess death rates during heat periods in 2022 and in fact, people under 70 generally were less likely to die than expected. Here is the graph of excess deaths for summer 2022 divided into those aged 70 and older and those under 70.

You can clearly see that even during the peak heat period, excess deaths of under 70s barely rose above the 5 year average and were below average for most of the time, whereas deaths in the over 70s were soaring. How does that work?

Sure, older people are generally more susceptible to heat stress, thus might be expected to succumb at a greater rate than younger people, but we were told that with 40C+ temperatures, even the young would be dropping dead from heat stress. That’s what they said. In their thousands they said. In fact, it was the UKHSA who were saying that even the fit and healthy would succumb. Now they’re telling us it was only the over 65s.

Thousands of people could die in the coming heatwave, experts have warned, as the government triggered the first ever national emergency heat red alert with a record 40C (104F) temperature forecast for south-east England on Tuesday.

The level 4 heat alert announced for Monday and Tuesday by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) means “illness and death may occur among the fit and healthy, and not just in high-risk groups”.

My general impression is that heatwave deaths in 2022 are being hyped for political reasons during a period when excess deaths in general are running very high and have been doing so even outside of so called climate changed heatwaves. It is clear that there is some link between heat stress and death but it is not at all obvious that heat stress is the main cause of mortality. Something was killing a lot of people during the unremarkable summer of 2021. It wasn’t degrees Celsius. I wonder what it was?

Here We Go Again! Pakistan Floods Nothingburger ‘Attribution’ Study Hyped by the BBC and its Warmist Lead Author

Regular as clockwork now, within days or weeks of an extreme weather event, be it flooding, heatwave or devastating storm, the climate crisis hypesters sell it to the public as the latest ‘evidence’ of their entirely mythical man-made ‘climate emergency’ whose solution requires a very illiberal dose of global communism. The Pakistan floods are no exception and World Weather Attribution has rushed out an analysis, which the BBC hypes like mad, as does its lead author, quoted by the BBC, in order to try and convince us all that a very inconclusive study is somehow scientific evidence that global warming played a ‘significant role’ in the Pakistan floods.

Here’s the BBC hype:

Climate change: Pakistan floods ‘likely’ made worse by warming

Global warming is likely to have played a role in the devastating floods that hit Pakistan, say scientists.

Researchers from the World Weather Attribution group say climate change may have increased the intensity of rainfall.

Read further than the headlines though and you will actually discover that – amazingly – the BBC is a bit more balanced in its reporting than the lead author of the study. Here for instance:

Right from the start, politicians pointed to climate change as having made a significant contribution to the desperate scenes.

But this first scientific analysis says the picture is complex.

But extreme rainfall events are hard to assess. Pakistan is located on the edge of the monsoon region where the rainfall pattern is extremely variable from year to year.

Further complications include the impact of large-scale weather events such as La Niña, which also played a role in the last major floods in Pakistan in 2010.

During the 60-day period of heaviest rainfall this summer scientists recorded an increase of about 75% over the Indus river basin, while the heaviest five-day period over the provinces of Sindh and Balochistan recorded a rise in rainfall of around 50%.

The researchers then used climate models to determine how likely these events would be in a world without warming.

Some of the models indicated that the increases in rainfall intensity could all be down to human-caused climate change – however there were considerable uncertainties in the results.

The lead author, Friederike (‘Freddie’) Otto, is not so reserved about her own inconclusive analysis. She is quoted as saying:

“Our evidence suggests that climate change played an important role in the event, although our analysis doesn’t allow us to quantify how big the role was,” said Friederike Otto from Imperial College London, one of the report’s authors.

“What we saw in Pakistan is exactly what climate projections have been predicting for years. It’s also in line with historical records showing that heavy rainfall has dramatically increased in the region since humans started emitting large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. And our own analysis also shows clearly that further warming will make these heavy rainfall episodes even more intense.”

“So while it is hard to put a precise figure to the contribution of climate change, the fingerprints of global warming are evident.”

This is total bullshit. If you cannot quantify the influence of man-made climate change on an event, if you can identify various other natural influences which also likely played a role, then you cannot, by definition, state that your scientific “evidence suggests that climate change played an important role in the event.” But the weasel word here is ‘suggests’. ‘Scientists’ suggest, empirical evidence does not. It either stands up to scrutiny or it does not. Just to drive home the point that Otto is in fact misrepresenting the results of her own analysis, here is what that analysis says:

Many of the available state-of-the-art climate models struggle to simulate these rainfall characteristics. Those that pass our evaluation test generally show a much smaller change in likelihood and intensity of extreme rainfall than the trend we found in the observations. This discrepancy suggests that long-term variability, or processes that our evaluation may not capture, can play an important role, rendering it infeasible to quantify the overall role of human-induced climate change.

I’ll be going through the actual study when I get the time and reporting on its main conclusions, but it looks very much like, having failed to find any significant, conclusive, scientific and observation-based evidence that climate change played a significant role in the Pakistan floods, the authors and the media have just winged it to give the public the impression that the study did find evidence of a significant role. Appalling.

Environment Agency: You Will Drink Treated Raw Sewage and Be Happy – Because Climate Change

Hot on the heels of Pol Pot Belly telling us we will freeze this winter and be happy – because evil Putin Nazi and Global Warming – the head of the Environment Agency now informs us that we must drink recycled sewage because of climate change.

People must be ‘less squeamish’ about drinking water from sewage, says agency boss

Squeamish? No, I’m not squeamish. I’m not eating bugs and I’m not drinking recently flushed human effluent, no matter how ‘safely recycled’. End of. FRO, go forth and multiply etc., etc. I’ll put a bucket outside to capture the rain water which these lying zealots say does not exist and grow my own food rather than submitting to such deprivations. No doubt they’ll tell me I can’t ‘illegally divert’ the water which falls from the heavens or grow my own food without a licence. Let them try that. Just let them try.

Britons need to be “less squeamish” about drinking water derived from sewage, the head of the Environment Agency has said.

Sir James Bevan outlined measures ministers, water companies and ordinary people should take to avoid severe droughts.

He believes homeowners must seriously consider drinking recycled lavatory water or face the threat of shortages in as little as 20 years.

Suppliers are planning “toilet-to-tap” systems that will turn sewage from lavatories, sinks and bathtubs into drinking water by treating it.

Writing in The Sunday Times Sir James, the agency’s chief executive, said: “We will need to be less squeamish about where our drinking water comes from.

It’s the usual arrogant, dismissive spiel from the privileged ruling elite to the peasantry: put up and shut up. Why? Because it’s ‘necessary’ for the greater good, to preserve a dwindling resource. Because science and facts and evidence and experts and stuff – and because we know best.

“Part of the future solution will be to reprocess the water that results from sewage treatment and turn it back into drinking water.”

He said it was “perfectly safe and healthy, but not something many people fancy”.

It is hoped that the measure will ease the pressure on rivers, groundwater and reservoirs, which are being depleted by climate change.

‘Depleted by climate change’ eh? That can only mean that there is less water going into our rivers, ground water reserves and reservoirs because it is raining less. Sure, really hot summers might evaporate some surface water, but that is a minor issue. the major issue is supply of water – all year round, not just in summer. So let’s look at the supply issue shall we. The Met Office provide us with this graph of annual precipitation since 1836:

Notice something? Yeah, it got wetter, not drier.

“Yebbut, this is for the UK as a whole, not England, where climate changed droughts are really becoming a problem.” Hmmm:

“Yebbut, this is for England as a whole, not SE England, where climate changed droughts are really becoming a problem.” Hmmm.

This is the annual precipitation data for central and SE England for 2000 to 2021 (last column highlighted yellow):

Here’s the same for the years 1836 to 1875:

Only two years where the annual total was above 1000mm and several years where it was below 600mm. Compare this with the 21st century data: four years above 1000mm and no years where the total fell below 600mm. Conclusion: the 19th century was much drier in central and SE England than the early 21st century, which is allegedly the era of the Climate Changed Drought.

“Yebbut, this is annual precipitation, not summer, when climate changed droughts are really becoming a problem.” Hmmm.

No overall long term trend. Similarly with Spring and Autumn:

The only season where we see a definite trend to wetter conditions is during winter, when reservoirs, rivers and ground sources should be replenished:

So, Mr Head of the Environment Agency: what’s happening to all our lovely free water that drops out of our leaden grey winter skies such that we are now forced to drink treated raw sewage? Because it ain’t ‘climate change’ wot stole it, that’s for damn sure, you lying sod.

UK Heatwave Attribution II

‘It would have been impossible if it hadn’t happened!’

Yep, that is the basic conclusion of the experts’ rigorous statistical analysis of the two day extreme heatwave which occurred in parts of the UK on the 18th and 19th July. Even the all singing, all dancing, super sophisticated climate models running on mega expensive main frame computers using enough energy to power a small town concluded that it was an event which shouldn’t have happened. So, what did the authors of this attribution study conclude? They deduced the following: Without human-caused climate change temperatures of 40°C in the UK would have been extremely unlikely Like, wow. Remember the old Sherlock Holmes saying?

“Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”

Well World Weather Attribution have gone one better:

“If you exclude the probable and can’t eliminate the impossible, then what remains must be the truth.”

In which case, ‘No shit Sherlock’ becomes ‘That is some shit Sherlock’.

You think I’m joking don’t you? I’m not joking. So, fasten your seatbelts, fix your grins (or grimaces) on permanent and allow me to lead you into the dark heart of extreme weather attribution.

There are no less than 21 expert authors of this report, coming from a total of 17 prestigious global academic institutions including our very own (Chinese owned) Imperial College London and the Met Office. So it must be the business, right?

Event Definition

The magenta box is the study area and the authors chose to analyse the one day maximum temperatures on the 19th and the average of the two day maximum temperatures on the 18th and 19th inside the study area.

To investigate the extent to which human-caused climate change altered the frequency of occurrence of the extremely high temperatures, across the region affected by the most extreme heat (see Figure 1), we choose to analyse the 2-m temperature over land in the region 51.25-54 ºN, 3.5W-0.5 ºE (highlighted by magenta box in Fig. 1). This region covers the area of the red alert warning issued by the Met Office, including London, and the station where the daily maximum UK temperature record was broken on the 19th of July 2022. To account for the event itself, which lasted two days and nights, as well as for the record breaking temperature, we decided to use two event definitions, i.e. we analyse the annual maximum of 2-day average temperatures over this region as well as the annual maximum of the daily maximum temperature (TXx). Additionally, we analyse the change in frequency and intensity of the maximum observed daily temperature of 2022 at 3 locations: London’s St James Park, Cranwell in Lincolnshire which is geographically close to Coningsby, where the new UK record has been set, but has a longer observed time series, and Durham, which although is located outside the red alert area, has a very long record going back to 1880 and also experienced very high temperatures given its latitude of ~54.78 North. Temperatures at Durham were 36.9ºC, breaking the previous record by 4ºC.

Including Climate Change and Excluding Everything Else

That’s what the authors do here. They assume that the long term rise in global temperature (attributed almost entirely to man-made greenhouse gases) is the main driver of very brief periods of extreme temperatures locally. They mention other factors which might also have an influence, but then totally ignore them in order to arrive at their event attribution!

In most parts of the world there is very high confidence that the duration, intensity and likelihood of extreme heat has increased dramatically due to human-induced climate change (Seneviratne et al. 2021). This is particularly also the case in Europe, including the UK. The first event attribution study related to the European heatwave of 2003 (Stott et al 2004), and more recently, the joint UK temperature record set during the 2018 heatwave was found to be 30 times more likely due to human activity (McCarthy et al 2019).

Long-term changes in heatwaves are influenced not only by globally well-mixed greenhouse gases but also by more localised influences, including aerosol trends (Péré et al., 2011), land use changes (Cowan, Hegerl, et al., 2020), vegetation and soil moisture changes (Seneviratne et al. 2010, Donat et al., 2017), irrigation (Thiery et al., 2017), and urbanisation effects (Heaviside et al., 2017). Furthermore, the meteorological conditions conducive to heatwaves could change regionally by potential changes in mean atmospheric circulation or in the frequency of specific weather patterns leading to extreme heat (Horton et al., 2015).

Heatwaves, on the scales people experience them, are strongly influenced by the local energy budget that determines the use of energy between evaporation and heating, set by the land surface, vegetation, irrigation, and urbanisation. Other factors such as circulation changes or aerosols may also be important and feedbacks may well be misrepresented in climate models during these extreme circumstances (Vogel et al. 2018). Many of these drivers and feedbacks are not well-simulated in current climate models as evidenced by striking discrepancies between observed and modelled trends and variability in certain regions of the globe. Van Oldenborgh et al. (2022) show that the discrepancies cannot always be explained by natural variability and in some cases are well outside the range of CMIP historical simulations even in well-understood regions (Cowan, Undorf, et al., 2020; van Oldenborgh et al., 2018).

That’s what you call eliminating the probable.

Statistical Analysis – Temperatures at 2 Stations were so Extreme they were Impossible!

You read that right. Impossible. They had to include the impossible event in the trend in order to make it fit the statistical trend! Got that?

Although the attribution analysis in this study is performed with gridded data for events that are defined as regional averages, as an additional line of evidence, we also analyse the trends in annual maxima of daily maximum temperatures at 3 locations where peak temperatures were reported during the event, and estimate the return period of the 2022 records in the current and a 1.2 ºC cooler climates. Fig. 2 shows the time series of annual maxima at 3 stations- St James’s Park (Fig. 2(a)), Durham (Fig. 2(b)) and Cranwell (Fig. 2(c)). All stations show increasing trends for this period, consistent with global warming signals observed for Central England temperatures (CET; Karoly and Stott, 2006).

Here comes the best bit (my bold):

Fig. 3 shows the trend fitting methods described in Philip et al. (2020) applied to the annual maxima of daily maximum temperature, for these three stations. The behaviour of the location parameter with respect to the GMST (panels a,c,e in Fig. 3) is found to increase with GMST. At St James’s Park and Durham, the chances of observing 2022 values are only possible, when the possibility of the event occurring is included in the fit; Fig. A(b, d)). At Cranwell, such temperatures are still extremely rare, with a return time of 1600 years when the event is not included in the fit (Fig. 3(f)). By including the 2022 event in the fit, the return times of the 2022 event, although rare, are found to be significantly reduced- 590, 1100 and 150 years, respectively, for the three stations (not shown).

What on earth is going on here? To get to the bottom of what they are saying you have to dig a little deeper.

Generalised Extreme Value (GEV) Distributions

Very briefly, this is what the authors use to generate their upper bound extreme temperatures, based on the long term rise in mean global surface temperature. Don’t quote me on this, because I’m not familiar with the exact statistical methods they use to generate extreme values, but basically I believe they assume a normal distribution of local temperature, with extreme tails, like so:

When global mean surface temperature increases, this normal distribution ‘shifts’ to the right by an equal amount and what happens is, extreme high temperatures, previously virtually impossible under the old normal distribution become more likely, though still rare. This method assumes that the rise in global mean surface temperature is the only factor which affects the consequent increase in the probability of experiencing extreme high temperatures. Hence the authors cite Phillip et al (2020) above, which says (my bold):

It is assumed the events follow a theoretical distribution, such as a Gamma distribution (based on all data) or one of the extreme value distributions discussed below that is based on events in the tail only. If the event is not very extreme, a normal distribution can also be used. In general this implies that we assume that more moderate extremes behave the same as the more intense extreme that is under investigation, and these provide the higher number of events necessary to detect a trend.

It is assumed that the main changes in the distribution are due to global warming. In the global mean temperature, the influence of natural forcings over the last 70 or 120 years has been very small compared to the anthropogenic forcings (Bindoff et al., 2013). If we take the smoothed global mean temperature as a covariate, both anthropogenic and natural forcings are included. Note that while using smoothed global mean temperature we cannot attribute changes to local forcings, such as aerosols, irrigation, and roughness changes, which can also have large influences on extremes (Wild, 2009; Puma and Cook, 2010; Vautard et al., 2010). This should always be kept in mind and checked when possible. If factors other than global warming are important for changes in the distribution, attribution to global warming alone is not appropriate and additional investigation should be conducted.

It is assumed that the distribution of temperature extremes shifts due to global warming without changing the shape.

So there you go. Using their GEV fit, the authors of this current attribution study make the above assumptions (i.e. they exclude the probable) and they find that, in 2 stations out of 3, the temperatures recorded would be impossible even in a world which is 1.2C warmer due to global warming! Thus, they have to shoe-horn those ‘impossible’ extreme temperatures into a new statistical distribution in order to arrive at realistic probabilities of the return times.

Climate Model Simulations Also Fail To Simulate Extreme Temperature Observations

The climate models also confirm the results of the statistical analysis, namely that the extreme high temperatures recorded, especially on the 19th, are just too extreme. In fact, the climate model simulations predict only a 2C rise in extreme temperature for this event, not a 4C increase as observed.

As has been observed in previous attribution studies on European heat waves (e.g. Vautard et al., 2019), climate models show a systematically lower trend than the observations which in particular means that the change in intensity in the models is much lower than in observations. They also often show too high variability. Even for models that do capture the trend, this often happens for the wrong reasons as has been assessed in van Oldenborgh et al. (2022). Using De Bilt in the Netherlands as an example they found that in many locations the discrepancies between observed and modelled trends are much larger than can be expected on the basis of natural variability and model spread alone.

Because of this systematic discrepancy, providing quantitative synthesised estimates of the change in intensity and frequency is difficult as the upper bound is very ill defined and largely infinite, while the lower bound is almost certainly an underestimation given the model deficiencies.

The change in intensity is only about 2C in the models, while it is 4C in the observations.

The observational analysis shows that a UK heatwave as defined above would be about 4C cooler in preindustrial times.

To estimate how much of these observed changes is attributable to human-caused climate change we combine climate models with the observations. It is important to highlight that all models systematically underestimate the observed trends. The combined results are thus almost certainly too conservative.

These are not ‘cool’ models either; the authors’ list of models included in the analysis contains some very ‘hot’ models indeed.

It’s not the full list above but CAN ESM and HadGem GC3.1, just for example, have equilibrium climate sensitivities well in excess of 5C, so if anything, you would expect the climate ensemble simulations to overestimate the increase in extreme high temperatures, not seriously underestimate it.

There is obviously something very amiss here. The models and the statistical analyses fail miserably to account for the observed 2 day extreme temperatures and especially the 40C+ temperatures recorded very briefly on the 19th. Something else is going on. It’s not global warming. My guess is that it is a combination of changing atmospheric circulation patterns, increasing urban encroachment upon weather stations and changes in land use, all contributing to the very high temperatures observed.

But hey, when you’re a climate ‘scientist’ and your models don’t work and your statistical analysis requires you to make the impossible possible, then you just say it was Climate Change (TM) wot dunnit regardless; therefore we should be afraid, be very afraid, because even the Science (TM) underestimates the severity of what’s happening.

Jordan Petersen on the Globalists’ Sustainability Agenda

‘The free market is the best model of the environment we can generate.’

This article is too important not to repeat in its entirety. Originally printed in the Telegraph here:

“Deloitte is the largest “professional services network” in the world. Headquartered in London, it is also one of the big four global accounting companies, offering audit, consulting, risk advisory, tax and legal services to corporate clients.

With a third of a million professionals operating on those fronts worldwide, and as the third-largest privately owned company in the US, Deloitte is a behemoth with numerous and far-reaching tentacles.

In short: it is an entity we should all know about, not least because such enterprises no longer limit themselves to their proper bailiwick (profit-centred business strategising, say), but – consciously or not – have assumed the role as councillors to believers in unchecked globalisation whose policies have sparked considerable unrest around the world.

If you’re seeking the cause of the Dutch agriculture and fisheries protests, the Canadian trucker convoy, the yellow-jackets in France, the farmer rebellion in India a few years ago, the recent catastrophic collapse of Sri Lanka, or the energy crisis in Europe and Australia, you can instruct yourself by the recent pronouncements from Deloitte.

Whilst not directly responsible, they offer an insight into the elite groupthink that has triggered these events; into the cabal of utopians operating in the media, corporate and government fronts, wielding a nightmarish vision of environmental apocalypse.

Outlandish claims

In May this year, Deloitte released a clarion call to precipitous action trumpeting the climate emergency confronting us. Called ‘The Turning Point: A Global Summary’, it is a stellar example of a mentality more common among officials in the EU: one of fundamental bureaucratic overreach (and one which generated Brexit – a very good decision on the part of the Brits, in my view) that threatens the very survival of that selfsame EU. 

The report opens with two claims: first, that the storms, wildfires, droughts, downpours, and floods around the globe in the last 18 months are unique and unprecedented – a dubious claim – and implicitly that the “science” is now at a point where we can say without doubt that experts can and must model the entire ecology and economy of the planet (!) and that we must modify everyone’s behaviour, by hook or by crook, to avoid what would otherwise be the most expensive environmental and social catastrophe in history.

The Deloitte “models” posit that “climate impacts” could affect global economic output, and say that unchecked climate change will cost us $178 trillion over the next 50 years – that’s $25,000 per person, to put it in human terms.

Who dares deny such facts, stated so mathematically? So precisely? So scientifically?

Let’s update Mark Twain’s famous dictum: there are lies, damned lies, statistics – and computer models.

“Computer model” does not mean “data” (and even “data” does not mean “fact”). “Computer model” means, at best, “hypothesis” posing as mathematical fact.

No real scientist says “follow the science.” Yet this is exactly what bodies such as the EU consistently pronounce, pushing for collectivist solutions that do more harm than good.

Solutions in sovereignty 

What might we rely on, instead, to guide us forward, in these times of accelerating trouble and possibility?

Valid authority rests in the people. Truly valid structures of authority are local, not centralised for reasons of efficiency and “emergency”. This must not become the generation of yet another top-down Tower of Babel. That will not solve our problems, just as similar attempts have failed to solve our problems in the past.

Ask yourself: are these Deloitte models – which are supposed to guide all the important decisions we make about the economic security and opportunity of families and the structures of our civil societies – accurate enough even to give those who employ them any edge whatsoever, say, in predicting the performance of a stock portfolio (one based on green energy, for example) over the upcoming years?

The answer is no. How do we know? Because if such accurate models existed and were implemented by a company with Deloitte’s resources and reach, Deloitte would soon have all the money.

That is never going to happen. The global economy, let alone the environment, is simply too complex to model. It is for this reason, fundamentally, that we have and require a free-market system: the free market is the best model of the environment we can generate.

Let me repeat that, with a codicil: not only is the free market the best model of the environment we can generate, it is and will remain the best model that can, in principle, ever be generated (with its widely distributed computations, constituting the totality of the choices of 7 billion people). It simply cannot be improved upon – certainly not by presumptuous power-mad utopians, who think that hiring someone mysteriously manipulating a few carefully chosen numbers and then reading the summarised output means genuine contact with the reality of the future and the generation of knowledge unassailable on both the ethical and the practical front.

The impact of delusional thinking

Why is this a problem? Why should you care? Well, the saviours at Deloitte admit that there will be a short-term cost to implementing their cure (net-zero emissions by 2050, an utterly preposterous and inexcusable goal, both practically and conceptually). This, by the way, is a goal identical to that adopted last week by the delusional leaders of Australia, which additionally committed that resource-dependent-and-productive country to an over 40 per cent decrease by 2005 standards in “greenhouse gas emission” within the impossible timeframe of eight years. This will devastate Australia.

Here is the confession, couched in bureaucratic double-speak, from the Deloitte consultants: “During the initial stages the combined cost of the upfront investments in decarbonization, coupled with the already locked-in damages of climate change would temporarily lower economic activity, compared to the current emissions-intensive path.”

The omniscient planners then attempt to justify this, with the standard empty threats and promises (the suffering is certain, the benefits ethereal): “those most exposed to the economic damages of unchecked climate change would also have the most to gain from embracing a low-emissions future.” Really? Tell that to the African and Indian populations in the developing world lifted from poverty by coal and natural gas.

And think – really think – about this statement: “Existing industries would be reconstituted as a series of complex, interconnected, emissions-free energy systems: energy, mobility, industry, manufacturing, food and land use, and negative emissions.”

That sounds difficult, don’t you think? To rebuild everything at once and better? Without breaking everything? Fixing everything in a few decades in a panicked rush while demonising anyone who dares object?

And what will it take to do so? Here’s the most alarming part: nothing more than “a coordinated transition” that “will require governments, along with the financial services and technology sectors to catalyze, facilitate and accelerate progress; foster information flows across systems; and align individual incentives with collective goals.”

A clearer statement of totalitarian inclination could hardly be penned. 

Certain outcomes versus predicted outcomes

The one thing the Deloitte models guarantee is that if we do what they recommend we will definitely be poorer than we would have been otherwise for an indefinite but hypothetically transitory period.

Yet any reduction in economic output (however “temporary” and “necessary”) will be purchased at the cost of the lives of those who are barely making it now. Period.

Have you noticed that food has become more expensive? That housing has become more expensive? That energy is more expensive? That many consumer goods are simply unavailable? Can you not see that this is going to get worse, if the Deloitte-style moralists have their way? How much “short-term pain” are you going to be required to sustain? Decades worth? All your life, and the life of your children?

It’s very likely. For your own benefit. Remember that.

All this painful privation is not only not going to save the planet, it’s going to make it far worse.

I worked for a UN subcommittee that helped prepare the 2012 report to the Secretary-General on sustainable development. Whether or not it was a good idea to contribute to such a thing is a separate issue: I do believe at least that the report would have been much more harmful than it was without the input of the Canadian contingent. We scrubbed away several layers of utopianism and Cold-War era conceptualisation and cynicism. That was something.

I garnered a key and crucial insight from the several years’ work devoted to my contribution: I learned that the fastest and most certain pathway forward to the future we all want and need (peaceful, prosperous, beautiful) is through the economic elevation of the absolutely poor. Richer people care about “the environment” – which is, after all,outside the primary and fundamental concern of those desperate for their next meal.

Make the poor rich, and the planet will improve. Or at least get out of their way while they try to make themselves rich. Make the poor poorer – and this is the concrete plan, remember – and things will get worse, perhaps worse beyond imagining. Observe the chaos in Sri Lanka, if you need proof.

There are clearly more important priorities than costly and ineffective emergency climate change reductions. Bjorn Lomborg’s work (among others such as Marian Tupy and Matt Ridley) has demonstrated that other pressing problems could and should take political and economic priority, from the perspective of good done per dollar spent.

Money could and should be spent, for example, to ensure the current health and therefore future productivity (and environmental stewardship) of currently poor children in developing countries. How about remedying the actual world of pain and deprivation of such children rather than saving the hypothetical world, and the hypothetical world of future children, in abstraction?

Stirrings of revolt

Citizens are waking up to this. Dutch farmers and fishermen are rising up, Canadian truckers are pushing back. Such protests are spreading, and increasing in intensity. As they should.

Why? Because, Deloitte consultants, and like-minded centralists are pushing things too far. It will not produce the results they are hypothetically intending. This agenda, justified by emergency,  will instead make everyone poorer, particularly those who are already poor. This use of emergency force will, instead, make the lives of the working men upon whom we all depend for our daily bread and shelter more difficult and less rewarding.

Finally, this use of emergency force will also make the “environment” worse, not better. Why? If you wreck your temporary economic havoc, to (eventually) remediate the world, those whom you sacrifice so casually in the attempt will descend into chaos. In that chaos, they will then, by necessity, turn their attention to matters of immediate survival – and in a manner that will stress and harm the complex ecosystems and economies that can only be maintained with the long-term view that prosperity and nothing else makes possible.

Critics of my view will say “we have to accept limits to growth.” Fine. Accept them. Personally. Abandon your position of planet-devouring wealthy privilege. Join an ascetic order. Graze with the cattle. Or, if that’s too much (and it probably is) then purchase an electric car, if you want one (but no diesel-powered emergency backup vehicle or electric power generator for you). Buy some stock in Tesla. That’s probably the best bet (but you don’t approve of Elon Musk, do you?). Stop flying. Stop driving, for that matter. Get on your bike, instead. In your three-piece business suit. In the winter, if you dare. I’ll splash you with icy and salty slush as I drive by, in my evil but warm Ford Bronco SUV, and help you derive the consequent delicate pleasure of your own narcissistic martyrdom. 

Save the planet with your own choices. But quit demanding that the rest of us blindly follow your diktats. Quit demonising and castigating us, merely because we don’t just happily cede to you all the extant power. We’re not evil just because we don’t believe that you are omniscient. We’re not evil just because we don’t want you to assume omnipotence and omnipresence too.

There is simply no pathway forward to the green and equitable utopia that necessitates the further impoverishment of the already poor, the compulsion of the working class, or the sacrifice of economic security and opportunity on the food, energy and housing front. There is simply no pathway forward to the global utopia you hypothetically value that is dependent on force. And even if there was, what gives you the right to enforce your demands? On other sovereign citizens, equal in value to you?

An alternative solution

A better way forward would be to prioritise the problems that beset all of us on this still-green, functional and increasingly abundant planet with the requisite focus and attention demanded of a true political class, elected by the people, capable of and willing to  look at everything, trying to fix where necessary, trying to maintain as much freedom and autonomy as possible, and stop simply capitalising narcissistically on the mere appearance of action, knowledge and virtue.

We should obtain true, cooperative consent from those affected – farmers, truckers, working-class people who have turned in irritated desperation to figures such as Donald Trump – and work with them, rather than forbidding them with your power or improving them so they will be finally worthy of your time and attention. Help replace dirty energy with clean, if you must, but do it on your own dime, and make sure that the results are cheap and plentiful, if you want to help the poor, and the planet.

The warning bells are ringing. Listen to them, before they turn into sirens.

We will not advance without resistance through the straits of your enforced privation. We will not allow you to steal and destroy the energy that makes our lives bearable (and that produces our food and shelter and housing and the sporadic delights of modern life) just to address your existential terror (particularly when it will fail to do so in any case). We will not allow our children to be criticised first for having the temerity to merely exist and then be deprived of the prosperous and opportunity-rich future we strived so hard to prepare for them. We remain unconvinced of your frightened and self-congratulatory moralising and intellectual pretension, ignorance of the limits of statistics, and misuse of arithmetic.

We do not believe, finally and most absolutely, that your declared emergency and the panic you sow because of it means that you should now be ceded all necessary authority.

So leave us alone, you centralisers; you worshippers of Gaia; you sacrificers of the wealth and property of others; you would-be planetary saviours; you Machievellian pretenders and virtue-signallers, objecting to power, all the while you gather it around you madly.

Leave us alone, to prosper or not, as a result of our own choices; as a result of our own actions; in the exercise of our own requisite and irreducible responsibility.

Leave us alone. Or reap the whirlwind. And watch the terrible destruction of what you purport to save, in consequence.”

Here is the Youtube version, narrated by Petersen himself.

Countering the ‘Driest July in England’ Hype

Here’s the data from the Met Office’s England and Wales Precipitation database. I had to use the Wayback Machine to access it. They seem to have changed the address of the old website access. Maybe it’s available elsewhere, I don’t know. Whatever, the Met Office don’t seem to be very keen to refer to their own data.

https://web.archive.org/web/20220115150136/https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadukp/data/ranked_monthly/HadEWP_ranked_mly.txt

You will notice that, up until 2021, there were no 21st century dry Julys in the top 20. Of the top 5 driest July months on record in England and Wales, four occurred in the 19th century. 1911 was the odd one out. It is extremely unlikely that July 2022 will come anywhere near the drought conditions experienced in 1800 and 1825, before alleged man-made global warming supposedly ruined the climate of the British Isles. 2022 might make the top 20 or might displace 1911 in the top 5 (unlikely), but that does not prove anything about the supposed effect of climate change upon summer precipitation in England and Wales (and I can tell you, Scotland has not experienced a particularly dry July – neither has Cumbria!)

Update:

Here’s the data for summer:

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadukp/data/ranked_seasonal/HadEWP_ranked_seasonal.txt

The driest summer since 1766 is 1995, the second driest 1976. 1800 comes in at third. The only 21st century summer which makes the top 20 is 2018 and it’s way down the list. Three out of the top 5 driest summers in England and Wales occurred in the 19th century. So much for the ‘hotter, drier summers’ narrative.

The Shepherd Boy Who Cried Wolf – A Theory of Lockdown Herd Mentality

I responded to a tweet from Mark Changizi recently (screenshot because I’m sure they’ll erase my account – and Mark’s too – soon):

As you can see, Ben replied, which set off a brief conversation.

I think the ‘I’ll never understand that’ comment may have been a challenge to my subconscious because I spent half the night awake, tossing and turning, with my brain refusing to shut down and I’ve come up with an explanation of sorts for what are the most puzzling and deeply disturbing series of events I have ever experienced in my entire life; namely the last two years of lockdowns and Covid hysteria. I’m sure it’s not original and that many people have come up with similar explanations, but it’s original to me and represents to me a simple theory based upon my own personal observations which adequately explains the facts as I experienced them.

So I’ll start with events as I experienced them. With the scare-stories coming out of China about a deadly new zoonotic plague, I believed, at first, that they were real and not exaggerated. I had a reasonable knowledge of previous zoonoses and it seemed quite plausible that a virus originating in bats had indeed jumped from bat to human via an intermediary host and was now spreading from person to person, causing serious disease in a significant number of people and death in an estimated 3.4% (34 times more lethal than ‘flu) of those infected. That was the official line we were fed and I ate it up.

The WHO and China cried wolf, so I reacted accordingly on the evidence I had. I purchased some FFP3 high filtration masks with the intention of minimising the risk of myself and my partner being infected with airborne respiratory virus particles whilst shopping in supermarkets. It seemed sensible to me and went against government and medical advice at the time. I got some odd looks from the normies and my partner was aggressively challenged on one occasion for choosing to wear a mask. The mask wearing didn’t last more than a few weeks, because I felt physically and psychologically uncomfortable with them. But the point is, I was fearful enough to wear one, against official advice, yet very few other people were, or maybe even then the vast majority relied exclusively on what they were told by the ‘experts’.

I looked at what was happening in Wuhan with the extreme lockdowns and people actually being welded inside their homes, dogs and cats being thrown out of high rise apartment windows because residents were terrified of catching some deadly disease from them and it made me extremely uneasy. Something was very badly wrong. Then lockdowns were implemented in Italy and Johnson issued some stern advice to the British populace on March 16th 2020, based on Professor ‘Pantsdown’ Ferguson’s projections of millions of fatalities in the absence of non-pharmaceutical mitigating measures to control the spread. I thought people would heed that advice. I was wrong. They carried on more or less as normal. I remember being quite irritated by that, thinking that this would result in compulsory restrictions and sure enough Pol Pot Belly went the full monty a week later and shut the entire country down, going beyond even the recommendations of the Ferguson Imperial paper. Why was that?

Around this time, it was becoming obvious that the lethality of the virus had been grossly overestimated by China and the WHO and that it was more comparable to ‘flu, albeit a lot more lethal to people in their 80s and 90s, but less lethal to younger age groups, especially children. There were also disturbing rumours that it was a ‘gain of function’ virus escaped from the Wuhan lab. The facts changed but the ‘science’ didn’t. It grew legs and started running, right across the globe. Hence ‘3 weeks to flatten the curve’ turned into months and months of ridiculous, society destroying, human rights busting and economy flattening restrictions. By April, I was a fully-fledged Covid sceptic and never looked back once as our world fell apart. But the majority sucked it up, much to my amazement and increasing horror and I never could figure why, until perhaps now.

So here’s the explanation I have come up with. Myself and a significant minority of others are Outsiders – people on the edge of the herd, who tag along with the herd, but are not really part of it. When China and the WHO and successive governments and health ‘experts’ cried wolf, we were the first to hear and respond. Some, better than me, realised this was a scam right from the word go and responded by rejecting the (mis)information they were receiving. I was caught up in that frenzy of misinformation and false alarm for a short while, then quickly came to my senses.

Meanwhile, the Herd did not register alarm. They were quite content to continue grazing, oblivious to the apparent danger, whilst they gazed with complacency at the jittery actions of the Outsiders, having either not heard the Shepherd Boy’s warning, or ignored it. This was where Britain was on March 16th. The roads were still full of traffic, people were going out and about, all living their lives more or less normally, without a sense of alarm or impending doom. The Old Normal was still very much alive, existing in a state of stubborn inertia. Then on March 23rd everything changed. Pol Pot Belly addressed the nation urgently and told the British people what to do. He told them to stay at home, not to gather together, avoid all unnecessary contact etc. and he told them that he was shutting the country down – shops, schools, cinemas, gyms, theatres, virtually every place of commerce, work or leisure that was not deemed ‘essential’ and he told them that this would be the law. Only then did the Herd register the cry of alarm from the Shepherd Boy. Inertial resistance disappeared and they acted as one to the perceived threat.

This is vitally important to understand. Myself and others on the fringes of the herd responded as individuals to the perceived threat. The vast majority, the Herd, acted as a single entity. All rational, independent thought was extinguished at that moment in preference for moving as one, with the Herd, away from danger. This happened because the Herd were told to move. It needed that definite, unequivocally stated order for them to act, which they did, in perfect synchrony. The shops emptied, the roads, the parks, town centres became like scenes from a post apocalyptic movie. The Age of Lockdown had begun. the problem is, the Herd never really stopped running, because once told, it was difficult to untell them. They could never stop running as a unit. All that could happen is that individual members of the Herd would gradually slow their flight as they came to realise that the threat was no longer imminent or in fact they were too weary to keep running. As Charles Mackay said, nearly two hundred years ago:

“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.”

This brings me back to Ben Irvine and his theory that it was the unions who pushed the government into lockdowns, not the other way round. I don’t know if that is the case. It was the Shepherd Boy who first cried wolf and I don’t know for sure the true motivations of the Shepherd Boy for doing so, or the true identity of the Shepherd Boy or whether somebody else was instructing him.

Modern human society is obviously a lot more complex than a herd of animals. It is structured into special interest groups. The academics, the unions, the medical profession, politicians, the main stream media, science ‘experts’ are all examples of those special interest groups. So it could be that, before the main Herd reacted to the Shepherd Boy’s definite cry of alarm, these groups reacted early, just like the Outsiders, but most importantly, not as individuals but as a group. They then attempted to communicate this alarm to the Herd, on behalf of the Shepherd Boy but also on behalf of themselves and their special interests in supposedly ‘staying safe’ or else adopting the saviour mentality that they were charged with the unique responsibility of keeping the Herd safe.

None of this contradicts my sincerely held view that the Shepherd Boy’s intentions in crying wolf were mailgn. I believe that is amply demonstrated by the abundant evidence of ill intent on the part of bad actors that we have now.

My fear is that, having been spectacularly successful with Covid, these bad actors are now trying exactly the same tactics with climate change alarm, to nudge us into yet another new normal, which will be even worse than lockdowns. So far, the Herd seems somewhat scattered and confused on this issue and not ready to act as one again, but the nudge merchants are not giving up, having tasted so much power and controlling influence with Covid. They are determined to change the world permanently – to their advantage – and they see climate action to supposedly ‘fight’ an alleged ‘climate crisis’ as their way of doing that. That along with phoney wars.

UK Heatwave Analysis I: Total Model Failure So . . . . . . It must be worse than we thought!

That’s the basic message from World Weather Attribution who have – of course – run off a quick-fire, non peer-reviewed attribution analysis of the two day ‘heatwave’ which affected the UK on July 18th and 19th which – of course – concludes that it was man-made climate change wot dunnit.

Here’s what they say about their study, which we’ll look at in detail in Part II:

• The likelihood of observing such an event in a 1.2°C cooler world is extremely low, and statistically impossible in two out of the three analysed stations.
• The observational analysis shows that a UK heatwave as defined above would be about 4°C cooler in preindustrial times.
• To estimate how much of these observed changes is attributable to human-caused climate change we combine climate models with the observations. It is important to highlight that all models systematically underestimate the observed trends. [My emphasis]. The combined results are thus almost certainly too conservative.
• Combining the results based on observational and model analysis, we find that, for both event definitions, human-caused climate change made the event at least 10 times more likely. In the models, the same event would be about 2°C less hot in a 1.2°C cooler world, which is a much smaller change in intensity than observed.

This is a roundabout way of saying basically that the two day heatwave which was observed was not predicted by any climate models. The average maximum two day temperature observed was twice the intensity of that predicted to occur by the climate models. Hence, they all completely and comprehensively failed to simulate this event by a very wide margin (100% to be exact). In a normal world, this would prompt scientists to conclude that the models were faulty and that perhaps the science and a priori assumptions which are built into them need to be re-examined. Or they would ask themselves, did some other factor or factors contribute significantly to this event? But no, in the world of post-normal, post Enlightenment ‘science’, the conclusion is that the models are right, but not right enough, in that they underestimate how bad heatwaves are getting, so then we get the inevitable siren call of alarmists everywhere: “Arrggghhh, it’s much worse than we thought! Urgent action is now super-urgent! Act now or we’re all going to die!”

Friederike Otto, one of the scientists at WWA is quoted as saying in the Guardian (of course):

Friederike Otto, a senior climate lecturer at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change, Imperial College London, said: “In Europe and other parts of the world we are seeing more and more record-breaking heatwaves causing extreme temperatures that have become hotter faster than in most climate models.

“It’s a worrying finding that suggests that if carbon emissions are not rapidly cut, the consequences of climate change on extreme heat in Europe, which already is extremely deadly, could be even worse than we previously thought.”

It’s not the first time WWA have done an attribution analysis of a heatwave and found that the climate models just don’t simulate the observed temperatures, therefore, by definition, cannot be used to positively attribute the event to alleged man-made climate change. I wrote about it here. But that doesn’t stop them doing so. They pulled exactly the same trick with a heatwave in June 2019, telling us how climate change made the event more likely even though the models failed to simulate the observed event by a large margin.

This consistent failure is, apparently, not cause to re-examine the accuracy of the models, it just means that we should be even more afraid! Hence the Graun states boldly:

Extreme heat in western Europe has increased more than climate models have predicted. While models estimate greenhouse gas emissions increased temperatures in this heatwave by 2C, historical weather records suggest the heatwave would have been 4C cooler in a world that had not been warmed by human activities.

Climate experts are concerned this means the impacts of global heating will be even more drastic than previously thought.

Meteorologists have said the results of this study are “sobering” as they confirm what was previously feared – that climate change is having a large impact on temperatures, making extreme heat more likely.

Experts have called for rapid cuts in emissions to prevent the situation from worsening. Extreme heat kills thousands of people across Europe, and it is thought hundreds of excess deaths in the UK were caused by the recent heatwave.

The Graun headline and sub-title says it all:

Climate breakdown made UK heatwave 10 times more likely, study finds

Recent extreme temperatures were higher than those simulated by climate models, analysis reveals

Then comes the inevitable picture of a fire, in all likelihood started by arsonists, just to drive home the fear narrative.

Only post normal climate scientists and their mouthpieces in the main stream media could turn a failure of The Science into a reason to act faster and harder based on the failed predictions of the models which underpin The Science!