Multiple media outlets, including the BBC and Reuters, claim that a recent West African heatwave would be “impossible” without global warming. This is claim is misleading and not supported by real-world data. The study cited in both articles is merely an attribution modelling study, which is not proof of the influence of climate change.
In their article on a recent heatwave in West Africa and the Sahel, Reuters reports “[t]emperatures soared so high in Mali and Burkina Faso they equated to a once in 200-year event, according to the report on the Sahel region by World Weather Attribution (WWA).”
Reuters continues: “The severity of the heatwave led WWA’s team of climate scientists to conduct a rapid analysis, which concluded the temperatures would not have been reached if industry had not warmed the planet by burning fossil fuels and other activities.”
One of World Weather Attribution’s statisticians even went so far as to say that heat waves of that intensity wouldn’t happen at all in the region in a “pre-industrial climate.” This claim is utterly unfounded, as those parts of Africa are known for being at least semi-arid, subtropical, and prone to drought and heatwaves. While temperature records are not very lengthy or complete for many parts of Africa, April is known to be the hottest month of the year for Burkina Faso in particular, and many parts of the Sahel region in general, where temperature maximums on average are above 40°C – which is what the recent heatwave brought, meaning there is not justification for claiming the recent heatwave is historically unprecedented.
Climate Realism has frequently noted that WWA’s “rapid attribution” studies are more in the realm of fantasy than fact, as they depend on virtual models of climate conditions that do not actually exist in real life. The model of the climate that an event like the recent Sahel heatwave is compared against is one which represents how the scientists guess things would have been had it not been for the burning of fossil fuels. All of their modelling begins with the unscientific assumption that any given weather event WAS influenced in a dangerous direction by climate change. It proves absolutely nothing, because the “control group” is entirely fictional.
The BBC produced a slightly more balanced story, acknowledging that other climate experts say that El Niño is mostly to blame for at least some of the bad weather in Africa this year. Despite spending the vast majority of the article linking the heat wave to climate change, as Reuters does, the BBC at least acknowledged, “[a] separate study on drought in Southern Africa said El Niño was to blame, rather than climate change.”
So, as the Daily Sceptic pointed out in reporting on the BBC’s coverage, “… the headline could have read: Southern African drought “impossible” without El Niño. But it didn’t.”
El Niño has a wide range of effects that are often delayed in hitting Africa, lately it has been causing heatwaves and rainfall in cocoa producing countries like Ghana, which is acknowledged in other articles having to do with cocoa bean production.
In another Climate Realism post about cocoa production, H. Sterling Burnett also points out that this kind of weather is normal for the region, writing “across the region making up West Africa, it is common, not rare, for it to have heatwaves and heavy rains, interspersed with periods of drought.” He points out that “wet heatwaves” are not uncommon.
Once again, attribution science is hardly science and proves nothing about climate change. It certainly can’t determine whether human activities caused or even contributed to any given weather event. All of this is speculative at best. Frankly the enthusiasm with which supposed journalists and prominent media outlets embrace attribution modelling studies with no questions or skepticism whatsoever is an embarrassment to the profession. The BBC and Reuters ought to know better, and they should brush up on the facts before hyping scare-stories.
