Five problems with the Express’s latest foray into climate science
Monday’s Daily Express provided a helpful run-through of some rather tired climate skeptic memes, courtesy of columnist Leo McKinstry. It didn’t deviate from the Express’s editorial line on climate change, which appears to be broadly supportive of arguments that a) It isn’t happening and b) It’s not our fault anyway.
Unfortunately, we’re guessing the picture of ‘climate science’ presented in the article isn’t one scientists would recognise. Here are five ways the article gets it wrong:
1. Global warming is still happening
McKinstry begins with the familiar skeptic argument that recent global temperature data show global warming “is not happening”. He says:
“According to recent studies from the Meteorological Office there has been no significant increase at all in the world’s temperatures since 1997”
Adding:
“Met Office admits that there will not be any global warming over the next four years.”
This argument has done the rounds recently, following the release of the Met Office’s analysis of global temperature data, and its latest decadal forecast projecting temperatures up to 2017.
We’ve gone over the detail of these arguments extensively in the past few days – see here and here if you want more. But seeing as this is all referencing Met Office data, what is the considered view of the Met Office on this issue? As it said last week:
“Small year to year fluctuations such as those that we are seeing in the shorter term five year predictions are expected due to natural variability in the climate system, and have no sustained impact on the long term warming”.
This reiterates the Met Office’s expectation that global temperatures will continue to rise in the 21st century. In response to a specific claim last week that the Met Office had “admitted there is no evidence that global warming is happening”, The Met Office clarified it has “not said this at any point.”
2. Himalayan glaciers aren’t all stable, and globally glaciers are in retreat
“[T]here is a mounting catalogue of evidence that contradicts the apocalyptic rhetoric from the Greens”, the article suggests. On glaciers, for example, McKinstry says:
“[T]hree years ago the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change dramatically warned that because of global warming the glaciers of the Himalayas would melt away by 2035. Yet already this prediction appears to be nonsensical.”
Why? Because, he says:
“A new study by French experts using satellite data has shown that the Himalayan glaciers have actually lost no ice over the past decade”
Rather than a case of “apocalyptic rhetoric”, the IPCC projection that glaciers in the Himalaya could disappear by 2035 is now generally recognised to have been a mistake highlighting poor referencing, rather than apocalyptic scaremongering.
But if the 2035 figure was an error, what about the new study cited in the Express which suggests Himalayan glaciers aren’t melting?
The study in question, which was referenced in the Mail as early as April last year, suggests that glaciers in the Karakoram mountain range – which, as an aside, is distinct from the Himalayas – are growing slightly. This is interesting, but as we noted when we covered the paper at the time, it’s not representative of the global trend – globally, glaciers are shrinking.
Professor Graham Cogley, a glaciologist at Trent University in Canada, described the findings of the study as “anomalous compared with the global average”, explaining:
“Global average glacier mass balance is unequivocally negative â?¦ It is … unclear why the Karakoram glaciers diverge from the global average. It seems that, by a quirk of the atmospheric general circulation that is not understood, more snow is being delivered to the mountain range at present, and less heat.”
In other words, this study cited in the Express as evidence that Himalayan glaciers are not losing ice is an example which runs counter to the global trend. (And doesn’t actually refer to the Himalayas.)
3. The Antarctic is losing ice, not gaining it
The article moves on to how much ice there is at the poles, suggesting that:
“The ice might be shrinking in the Arctic but at the southern end of the planet, the Antarctica sea ice has been growing since satellites first measured it 33 years ago.”
Antarctic sea ice is indeed growing, and actually reached a record high last year. But as we noted here, sea ice is only part of the story. Most of the ice in the Antarctic is in the vast Antarctic ice sheet on land – and research shows the ice sheet lost more than 70 billion tonnes of ice between 1992 and 2011.
This loss dwarfs the small gain in sea ice volume, and together with the loss of sea ice seen in the Arctic, this means that the earth is losing ice overall.
4. Human activity is making weather more extreme
What about extreme weather events? The article says:
“Every flood, every storm, every prolonged burst of sunshine is cited as more evidence of climate change but in reality, our weather is no more extreme than it ever was.”
It would clearly be foolish to suggest that every weather event was a sign of climate change, but of course that’s not something a scientist would say.
There is some general evidence that a warmer world gets more extreme weather – a recent study found that between 1950 and 2000, greenhouse gas emissions contributed to more intense precipitation over two thirds of the northern hemisphere. Other research suggests the world is experiencing five times as many months with record-breaking temperatures than would be expected on a planet that wasn’t warming.
The Express article picks on the example of US hurricanes, claiming:
“[I]n the United States the average annual incidence of hurricanes over the past half century has been lower than it was in the first 50 years of the 20th century.”
Recent data suggest the incidence of tropical storms, the strongest of which are called hurricanes, in the Atlantic has increased since 1878. But this is a grey area – observations for the first part of the century are sparse and scientists are reluctant to say conclusively how much influence climate change has had. More clearly, there is evidence for an increase in the intensity of tropical storms associated with an increase in sea surface temperature.
Extreme weather is a complicated area, which is why it’s worth being wary of simplistic statements, and worth quoting the caveats in full. The IPCC concluded in its recent special report on extreme weather – (p.7):
“There is evidence that some [weather] extremes have changed as a result of anthropogenic influences â?¦ It is likely that anthropogenic influences have led to warming of extreme daily minimum and maximum temperatures at the global scale. There is medium confidence that anthropogenic influences have contributed to intensification of extreme precipitation at the global scale. â?¦ The uncertainties in the historical tropical cyclone records, the incomplete understanding of the physical mechanisms linking tropical cyclone metrics to climate change, and the degree of tropical cyclone variability provide only low confidence for the attribution of any detectable changes in tropical cyclone activity to anthropogenic influences. Attribution of single extreme events to anthropogenic climate change is challenging.
5. Global warming can’t be explained away by natural variation
Climate change, says McKinstry:
“…is not as the result of our selfish overconsumption and excess but because of a host of other factors, such as solar activity.”
A recent analysis of global temperature throughout history shows that although the earth has seen substantial natural climate change in the past, natural factors alone can’t account for the overall warming trend over the past 150 years. Solar forcing is “marginally detectable” in 20th century warming, say the authors.
So much evidence for the human fingerprint on climate change now exists that a draft of the next IPCC report concludes there is now “incontrovertible evidence” that atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased in the last 200 years, causing the average temperature of earth’s atmosphere to increase.
So overall, a not very good take on climate science. But on the plus side, at least the article manages to avoid warning that we’re about to plunge into an ice age.