A variety of mainstream media outlets claim Antarctica is burning up, registering unusually hot temperatures due to climate change, citing a recent study as the source for their stories. The stories misrepresent the study’s findings and the science. The peer reviewed paper that the headlines reference clearly states that a short-term weather event was the cause, not climate change. Also, contrary to media’s claims, there was no “heat wave,” since the official meteorological criteria for calling this event a heat wave was not met.
The photo above shows the headline of SciTechDaily: Earth’s Last Frontier Burns: Record-Breaking Heat Strikes Antarctica in Winter. Elsewhere, The Economic Times weighed in with Antarctica’s record heat wave: A threat to global sea levels and ice integrity, while CNN blared ‘Astonishing’ Antarctica heat wave sends temperatures 50 degrees above normal.
First, let’s refute the obvious. As is clear in the photo with the SciTechDaily headline above, nothing was burning in Antarctica despite the claim of a “continent afire.”
SciTechDaily says this:
In March 2022, the most intense heat wave ever recorded on Earth hit Antarctica, just as organisms in the southern region braced themselves for the long, harsh winter ahead. The extreme weather raised temperatures in parts of Antarctica to more than 70°F above average, melting glaciers and snow even in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, one of the planet’s coldest and driest regions.
Putting that paragraph and those headlines in the proper perspective, we turn to the definition of a heat wave from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA):
A heat wave is a period of unusually hot weather that typically lasts two or more days. To be considered a heat wave, the temperatures have to be outside the historical averages for a given area.
While there were in fact less cold than normal temperatures in Antarctica during a one-day weather event, the temperature only briefly went above freezing, so there was no measurable melting. The practice of applying a “heat wave” label to such an event is erroneous.
The paper the media referred as the source of their alarming headlines says, “Record high temperatures were documented in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica, on 18 March 2022, exceeding average temperatures for that day by nearly 30°C.”
Further, the data they provide in the form of figure 1 shows the temperature in several location in Antarctica:
As you can see in the temperature graphs on the right side of the figure (b) in March 2022, there were some brief spikes in temperature for one day (circled in red), where the freezing temperature of 0°C (32°F) was approached or exceeded. After that, temperatures immediately returned to normal for the area.
So in the context of NOAA’s heat wave definition above, the two-day minimum criteria were not met so referring to the brief temperature spike as a “heat wave” was erroneous or fake news.
The peer reviewed paper said the cause of the event was, “[a]n atmospheric river caused extreme weather in the Antarctic Dry Valleys in March 2022 with temperatures 25°C above average conditions.” Even the title of the peer reviewed paper, “Response of a Terrestrial Polar Ecosystem to the March 2022 Antarctic Weather Anomaly,” and calls it a weather anomaly.
A single day weather event, that briefly caused temperatures to go above normal doesn’t meet the meteorological definition of a heat wave, or a signal of climate change since it is not indicative of a long term 30-year trend of temperatures on the continent.
Despite these scientific facts, the mainstream media outlets reporting the event described it variously as “[a] threat to global sea levels and ice integrity,” an “astonishing heat wave,” and a “burning continent of Antarctica” in the eyes of the media.
The level of exaggeration, to use CNN’s word, is astonishing.
The “news reporting” on this study and the weather anomaly it discussed is all too typical of the effort by media organizations to blame every weather event that falls even slightly outside the norm for no matter how brief a period of time as caused by climate change – even when the underlying research makes no such connection. Weather is not climate. They operate on completely different time scales.
This sort of reporting is unprofessional, a disgusting disservice to the public who the media is supposed to inform, not mislead and indoctrinate.
Anthony Watts is a senior fellow for environment and climate at The Heartland Institute. Watts has been in the weather business both in front of, and behind the camera as an on-air television meteorologist since 1978, and currently does daily radio forecasts. He has created weather graphics presentation systems for television, specialized weather instrumentation, as well as co-authored peer-reviewed papers on climate issues. He operates the most viewed website in the world on climate, the award-winning website wattsupwiththat.com.
Originally posted at ClimateREALISM
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Keep whacking the climate moles, AW. Lots of them to whack. TY for all you do.
A new game for kids! Whack a Schmo!
We all gonna die! 38 F in Antarctica!!!
Going from lethally cold to just cold is now a heat wave?
If all you have in your “climate journalism” pantry is bullshit, then that’s what you have to serve up.
Day after day after day after day . . .
Even an occasional smattering of garnish in the form of quotes from the Pope doesn’t alter the sumptuousness of the serving – it’s still crap.
I asked Perplexity AI why I should believe the BBC in 10 lines. Two of the reasons were its balance and independence.
After a long discussion we determined that BBC was no more independent of UK government than any news agency in China, In fact the UK regulator Ofcom has banned a Chinese agency for misinformation. I found that out after learning the BBC World Service reach in China had been reduced after China retaliated for UK banning China State owned CGTN.
Perplexity agreed that China did not regard the BBC as a balanced reporter.
Bullshit runs wide and deep through BBC and their ABC in Australia. Both are propaganda arms of respective governments. Government funded media has become an echo chamber for governments intent on taking an ever increasing slice of production.
Australian and US citizens sick of the woke BS can now get temp[orary residency in Russia:
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/08/19/putin-signs-decree-granting-residency-to-foreigners-who-share-traditional-russian-values-a86074
Russia will accept immigrants from Australia and USA but not UK.
I reckon AI – Artificial Intelligence is properly named.
In that, it really is “artificial”.
It only serves up that which its “narrative” algorithms compile.
Not much different from Wikipedia, where content is edited to maintain the “progressive” narratives.
If you offer a different or “more context” version of an entry there, it’s a sure bet that your submission will be rejected, or over-edited almost immediately.
A joker named Connolly was the gatekeeper of all climate content there a few years back, and only “consensus” content was published.
It got so bad that the Wikipedia chiefs had to intervene and take Connolly off the gig.
I would describe the BBC as an arm of the Labour Party and arm of the green extremists in the UK rather than not being independent of government.
“Antarctica is Burning“
I know in the Artic, ancient tree stump have been revealed.
Who ignited the tree stumps in Antarctica?
PS At what temperature does snow and ice actually “burn”?
PPS Maybe the “Burning” of the Antarctic is what is causing “The Oceans to Boil”?
(Dump some dry ice into a sink full of water and it will appear to boil. I did that as a child.)
The WMO has a much better definition of heat wave:
“The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) defines a heat wave as a period during which the daily maximum temperature exceeds for more than five consecutive days the maximum normal temperature by 9°F (5°C), the “normal” period being defined as 1961–1990.”
Heat Waves | Encyclopedia.com
Precise and measurable – no adjectives.
The UK Met office no longer use the WMO definition, they have replaced it in 2018 with:
“A UK heatwave threshold is met when a location records a period of at least three consecutive days with daily maximum temperatures meeting or exceeding the heatwave temperature threshold, dependant on location.” (currently that is just 28ºC max)
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/learn-about/weather/types-of-weather/temperature/heatwave
At a stroke they can now claim that the UK is ‘suffering’ more frequent heatwaves. I’m pretty sure we haven’t experienced a single heatwave that meets the WMO definition for many years, if not decades.
Then, of course, to a Brit, a “heat wave” is anything above 80F.
But if that had ever happened before, even just once a century, then the ice core values will be smoothed.
That’s heresy!
Good point!
In Britain the Met Office repeatedly warned of thunderstorms and hail in the run-up to this weekend and has a penchant now for pre ordaining the projected events will have on motorways. A twister was reported in the southern counties recently which causes little harm and no injuries. Prior to this we have had advance warnings of heat spikes, the only evidence of which was a change to a lighter weave jumper and a brief period of uninterrupted sunshine. It’s really the old story dressed up, If you come to Britain bring warm rainware. It is the wars and rumours of wars thing. Although the predictions never quite live up to their billing, are soon forgotten, is of little importance, the main thing is that a constant threat is presented by the weather as being a portent of ‘things to come’. Our news nowadays, from the national broadcaster and other actors amongst those who are want to cut and paste from activist sites, has a spot reserved for weather upheaval somewhere in the world. The political shenanigans know no shame. They are determined to have their way.
And surely such a claim should qualify as “misinformation” which is a big thing with governments at the moment.
Disinformation = misinformation intended to deceive.
The objective of nearly all modern journalists is not to inform but to entertain. We really have very little old fashioned who, what, when, where and why journalism in the US any more.
Looking at the highly variable temperature trends on those graphs, it appears this is an area that experiences chinooks, or more technically lee waves.
All young women in Calgary keep their bikinis ready for one day use during a strong chinook in early spring. But the strongest waves occur in the fall.
Perhaps this was an exceptionally strong lee wave – characterized by strong wind perpendicular to a mountain range with an abrupt drop on the down wind side. Strongest wave, best climb for gliders, is associated with wind at least 40kt at ridge height gradually increasing with altitude above the ridge but no backing or veering with increasing altitude, almost laminar. The arcing down segments of the wave cause considerable compression of the air with concomitant dramatic rise in temperature.
The Hoak wave strikes again!
So there was an unusually warm day two and a half years ago in Antarctica, and somebody in the media tells us now that it’s “burning up”? What were the temperatures in Antarctica since then?