If there was an award for worst fact check of the year, the recent attempt by the French state-owned Agence France-Presse (AFP) to smear the Daily Sceptic would be the clear favourite to win. Taking issue with our report of a recent paper published by Nature that found no “surge” in global temperatures since 1970, the AFP author Manon Jacob branded the article “misleading” purely on the basis of a random selection of what other commentators had written on social media. The so-called fact check is so bad it could well be used in future journalism schools as an example of how not to take a poke at well-sourced material, just because you don’t like what is written.
Lesson one might look at how Jacob and his state paymasters start their mission in bold type with the following:
A 2024 research paper in the journal Nature found no statistically detectable surge in the global warming rate since the 1970s, but social media posts claiming this is evidence climate change is not real are false. The data in this study and numerous others confirms a steady increase in surface temperature during this period, according to its authors and independent scientists.
There is no attempt made to dispute what was written in the Daily Sceptic, just the immediate erection of a strawman to knock down. In Jacob’s world, if the Daily Sceptic reported that man had landed on the moon, AFP would call it “misleading” because some conspiracy berk said it was filmed in the backlot at Universal Studios.
It gets worse. The article’s heading reads: ‘Scientists found “no change” in global warming rate?’ Note the question mark, a punctuation that is absent in the heading of the Nature paper that states: “A recent surge in global warming is not detectable yet.”
Halfway through the article a large red cross is placed across the promoting tweet sent by Daily Sceptic Editor-in-Chief Toby Young that read:
A sensational paper in top science journal Nature has found “no change in the warming rate beyond the 1970s”, blowing holes in alarmist claims that global temperatures are surging, says Chris Morrison.
What is the problem here, it might be asked. The first part of the tweet is factually correct as evidenced by the paper itself, while the comment that follows is justified given the ubiquitous claims by alarmists that the recent temperature spike was evidence of accelerated warming. What might have upset AFP is that the message was retweeted almost 3,000 times, helped along by a push from Dr. Jordan Peterson and his four million-plus followers. The article was also reposted in a number of journals including the popular science site Watts Up With That?
Why did the author start by placing a question mark against “no change in global warming rate”? It suggests a lack of understanding of the difference between a consistent statistical rise in temperature since 1970 (despite earlier falls and two significant pauses) and a possible increase or “surge” in the recent rate of warming. The study’s warming trends were said to be misrepresented “to promote climate denial”. What follows later in the AFP hitjob is simply pure gibberish: “But using the article’s conclusions to claim there has been no additional warming since the 1970s is highly misleading, scientists say, noting that the models used in the study instead detect a consistent increase over time.” Why should the first part of this statement of “no additional warming” – a fact published in the Nature paper – be at odds with a “consistent increase” in temperatures over time?
The lack of “additional warming”, however misleading AFP finds it, was crucial to the findings of the paper and the Daily Sceptic was careful to accurately report what was written. Jacob and AFP have simply fallen into the trap of mixing up what others have said with what the Daily Sceptic clearly and fairly reported. The scientists said there was “limited evidence” for a warming surge. “In most surface temperature time series, no change in the warming rate beyond the 1970s is detected despite the breaking record temperatures observed in 2023.” The scientists said it was important to consider random noise caused by natural variation when investigating the recent pauses in temperature and the more recent “alleged warming acceleration”. I noted that the paper was an excellent piece of climate science work since it took a long statistical view and challenged the two-a-penny clickbait alarmists looking for a headline on the BBC. And, it would seem, at the French state’s news agency. The Daily Sceptic has been subjected to a number of nuisance fact checks from this quarter, as has Toby Young who is said to have “spread myths debunked by AFP in the past”. Certainly, AFP is on its game when it comes to smearing and cancelling opinions that detract from the global rollout of the Net Zero fantasy.
The AFP climate desk is run by Marlowe Hood, the self-styled “Herald of the Anthropocene”. As regular readers will recall, this climate champion was recently given €100,000 by the foundation of a large Spanish bank heavily involved in funding green projects. He was one of a gang of activists including Graham Readfearn of the Guardian and Michael ‘hockey stick’ Mann that secured the retraction in Springer Nature of an inconvenient paper written by a number of eminent Italian physicists. Led by Professor Gianluca Alimonti, it observed that the available data did not support a climate emergency. Hood claimed the data, which came mostly from IPCC sources, were “grossly manipulated” and “fundamentally flawed”. The paper was initially brought to wide social attention by the Daily Sceptic and Marlowe Hood started the cancellation ball rolling by writing – yes, you guessed it – an AFP fact check.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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The AFP objection is basically the same as the one I made here. Morrison is misleading. He has taken the scientists statement “A recent surge in global warming is not detectable yet” and turned it into “Scientists Find No Change in Global Warming Rate Since 1970 “. It’s clear from their wording (“A recent surge…”) that that is not what they are saying. There appears to be a surge, but you can’t say it is statistically proven. That is quite different to saying there isn’t a surge.
They set this out explicitly. They tested a possible changepoint at 2012, and said
“Elaborating, during the 1970–2023 period, the maximum difference in trends occurs in 2012, with the estimated segments being 1970–2012 and 2013–2023, respectively. Enforcing continuity between the two regimes, the estimated trends are 0.019 ∘C/year (first segment) and 0.029∘C/year (second segment), a 53% increase.” Now that is a best fit, and it a very considerable change of trend. But, they say, you can’t rule out the faint possibility that it was just one continuous trend since 1970. That is a long way from asserting that it really was just one trend.
Here is another statement they make:
“To detect a warming surge starting in 2010 and ending in 2024, the trend needs to have changed by 84% (equivalent to a trend of 0.034 ∘C/year from 2010–2024).”
Now they in fact found 53% as their central estimate. That is a very substantial surge. But the 95% confidence intervals include 0. That means there is a 2.5% or more chance that it was zero (or negative), so you can’t rule that out. But you certainly can’t say that you have proved it was zero. The best estimate remains 53%.
It is EMPTY NON-SCIENCE gibberish.. and I am sure you are totally aware of that fact.
There is no evidence of any CO2 warming by CO2 in the UAH data.
There is no empirical scientific evidence that CO2 causes ANY WARMING AT ALL.
The current ratio of CO2 to atmosphere, based upon a 427 ppm CO2 measure, is about 1/2340. That minute amount of atmospheric CO2 is not causing any warming detectable by devices used to measure atmospheric air temperature.
Really:
Ignorance worn as a badge ….
The Earth’s climate simulated by a beaker of water and ink. And you actually find this convincing?
Any video which claims infra-red radiation is heat is automatically suspect.
It’s interesting that the presenter here admits that the “280ppm” ink solution is already diluted, so it’s actually 28ppm (at 2:05 in the video).
Given the logarithmic scale of absorption, this change is highly significant. If he had actually used 280ppm and 390ppm solutions, the difference between them would have been much less apparent (a much smaller actual increase in “blackness” of the water).
Ink is also not a particularly good proxy for the supposed, or actual, action of CO2. the ink does not absorb and re-emit short wave radiation in a small band, it’s just absorbing a broad spectrum of the visible light (and possibly other frequencies). The ink demonstration also does not properly demonstrate the thermalization of the absorbed energy (via collisions with other air molecules, mainly N2 and O2) as the volume of the water is far too small for that, it is not a good proxy for the atmosphere.
So now 84% is actually 53%? lol
No. 53% is what was observed. 84% is what would be needed to rule out 0 at 95% confidence. Estimates of rate of change of rate are noisy.
So only 25% under to rule out 95% confidence. The séance is so settled. 😉
They are using surface data….. invoking CO2 is just nonsense.
I know you are well aware of that fact.
You are a disingenuous LIAR, not dumb.
The only surge has been intensifying alarmist hyperbole.
And the continuing spending surge of several $trillions to reduce CO2 emissions to, in turn, reduce global temps. Neither is detectable. What a fantastic waste of money that could have been used for so much good.
That is about to intensify in the UK at the budget – this coming week.
Starting with the old and the vulnerable.
Or just not spent at all.
If the world had spent the last 40 years and all that money on nuclear power, we would have leaped towards net zero.
Achtung! Stokes hast declared a surge, therefore it is and is bad!
Hmmmm . . . I wasn’t aware that statistics, in and of themselves, proved anything; only that they provided evidence. Example, if I roll a pair of fair dice 10 times and get one “2”, one “3”, two “fives”, two “sevens, one “eight”, two nines, and one “eleven” I don’t prove anything but I get crude evidence of the probability distribution of the sums from rolling those dice.
As another example, if statistics show that Seattle, WA, is overcast 66% of the time every April 26, what has that proven?
As for something “appearing to be”, like beauty (or ghosts) that can be solely in the eye of the beholder, and needs to be tested for objective truth by the Scientific Method just like the authors of the above-referenced Nature paper did.
“needs to be tested for objective truth by the Scientific Method”
Is that not just a long way of saying “proven”?
They say it well in their title:
“A recent surge in global warming is not detectable yet”
They clearly think there is a surge. They need more evidence to say it is statistically detectable. This is quite different to Morrison’s “found no “surge” in global temperatures since 1970″.
There is a surge from URBAN warming in the surface data from around 1970 due to massive urban population growth..
There is no evidence the urbanisation is accelerating, so there should be not expectation of accelerating urban warming.
There is no evidence of any CO2 caused warming in the UAH data.
agreed, however there was a recent surge in ocean temperatures.
An article stated,
“The increase in heat content of just 1% (60 ft of surface ocean) of ocean (very conservative), based upon the hypsographic taper shown in Exhibit 10B below, by 0.4°C in just 3 weeks (Exhibit 7D above), is 2.29 x 1022 joules. If this heat content had come through the atmosphere, global average temperatures would have risen by 4.5°C in a mere three weeks. Much of humanity would have perished.65 In claiming that the temperature SST increase in Exhibit 7D above only exists in the first 3 mm of ocean surface, and not substantiating this by means of Argo float comparatives, one has provided the answer by means of the assumption (petitio principii). The fact that climate science is not examining this white crow temperature increase, is highly concerning.”
The recent surge in ocean T was quite stunning, and could not happen from co2. The atmosphere is a thin blanket between the oceans, which have 1000 times the heat content, and solar input. And the oceans are a minor heat resivour compared to the mantle and core. We absolutely know that the recent ocean heat surge was not CO2 caused. And we know the recent cooling of the ocean T measurements, was likewise, not CO2 caused. Just as the sun goes through regular cycles and output flux, is is very possible, and there are decent theories that support a flux in geo thermal output that manifests into the oceans, where the crust is far thinner.
Now that we have the argo floats we can measure to a degree (within error bars) flux of ocean heat change into the atmosphere. The reason the climate alarmists are not making more then minor hey about a sudden acceleration in atmospheric T, is because it demonstrably comes from OHC flux. And the recent sudden cooling in that same OHC is, likewise, not possible from CO2.
Remember, without so much as a “how do you do” they erased the MWP, not even addressing it, just made a new graphic, and it was gone. This same crowd will be terrified of a T flux, even a warming one, that is proveably not CO2 related. And that event has happened.
BY the way, the lack of an slow down of PPM atmospheric CO2 during the Goverment mandated COVID shut down, and the presence of an accelerated atmospheric CO2 resulting from the recent Ocean warming, will also be strong empiracle evidence that CO2 is NOT the cause or driver of earth’s climate, and is, at best, a minor factor in earth’s climate.
It would be ironic if a “sudden surge” in warming, cooked the Global Warming goose.
No.
Nowhere in various descriptions of the Scientific Method will you find the words “prove” or “proof”.
Here is what Google’s AI gives as the steps of the Scientific Method:
1. Make observations/Ask a question,
2. Conduct background research,
3. Formulate a hypothesis,
4. Design and conduct an experiment,
5. Analyze data,
6. Draw a conclusion,
7. Communicate results.
Although I tend to agree with your initial argument regarding the invalid conclusion drawn of ‘no warming’, this is falling by the wayside. If there is a surge, it would be detectable. It’s not detectable, so there isn’t.
So still some nits being picked. It’s not a detectable surge, therefore statements that it has surged are demonstrably false.
If you get a hot day in summer, you can test whether that is statistically significant. Almost certainly not. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t a hot day.
They quantify surge as the change made by a breakpoint at, say, 2013. They say 55%, which is large. But there is a wide confidence interval which includes zero. So you can’t rule out that the surge was zero. You can’t rule out that it was 55% either – in fact that is the likeliest value. So it certainly isn’t a basis for saying the surge was zero.
If said surge first manifested in the oceans, and this one did, then CO2 is not related or cogent to the surge. That is the problem the alarmists have,
They took a chaotic system of immense inputs and energy content, far far above the even potential affect of a minor increased in CO2, and tried to make CO2 the control knob for earth’s climate. So even if and when some warming occurs, (like has happened hundreds of times in earth’s history) they are miles and miles from showing that this VERY small factor in earth’s immense climate energy constructs, is the cause. And this recent likely surge has all the hallmarks of being a surge to the atmosphere FROM the oceans.
BTW, did you ever answer the ten hard questions here, https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/10/24/chris-martz-asks-climate-fundamentalists-ten-fundamental-questions/
As far as I know, you commented, but did not engage.
This is quite different
If it’s not detectable, they have not detected it. If they haven’t detected a surge, then they haven’t found a surge. The statement is accurate. Just because it uses different (synonymous) words doesn’t invalidate it. It is not even vaguely “quite different”.
Would you equally support people suggesting there was a downturn in global temperatures for those times where there was any trend downwards?
No. Here you want your cake and to eat it too. Either play by scientific and/or statistical rules or don’t.
It’s pretty much irrelevant given most of the population wouldn’t understand the subtlety between warming and the rate of change of the warming. Anything that muddies the water on the impending climate disaster must be suppressed.
‘A 2024 research paper in the journal Nature found no statistically detectable surge in the global warming rate since the 1970s, but social media posts claiming this is evidence climate change is not real are false’
If you are going to comment, it’s usually well worth while choosing your words carefully.
‘What is a ‘detectable surge”? How is a ‘surge’ defined? Is it ‘greater than 4C per century for at least 30 years’? That would be a 1.2C increase in 30 years, after all. Is that enough for a ‘surge’ or does it need to be greater than 6C per century for 30 years (that would be 1.8C in 30 years)?
‘Climate change is not real’: what on earth does that statement mean? I don’t think there’s a person on earth that suggests that earth’s climate has been identical the past 400 million years, after all.
So what specific period of time are we talking about when discussing ‘climate change’? And what do we define as a ‘change in climate’?
Which parts of the world are we discussing when talking about such changes? How about on land, in the oceans and in the atmosphere?
The only words I think are suitable to use are ‘social media posts CLAIMING’……
That suggests that social media posts don’t argue as totalitarians, they make claims which are open to challenge using evidence.
Whether or not the claims made are correct or not, it is at least a suitable use of language when saying that certain statements are up for discussion, as opposed to being declared to be inviolably true or -false.
“‘What is a ‘detectable surge”? How is a ‘surge’ defined? Is it ‘greater than 4C per century for at least 30 years’?”
That indicates the other confusion that Morrison flirts with but doesn’t quite say. The scientists aren’t saying the uptrend is in doubt – they get an average of about 2C/century since 1970. They are debating about whether the evidence proves that it has changed since 1970. And so they set out the requirement for proving a ‘surge’:
“To detect a warming surge starting in 2010 and ending in 2024, the trend needs to have changed by 84% (equivalent to a trend of 0.034 ∘C/year from 2010–2024).”
This is just one of their examples. So they are saying you might see a surge, but you can’t say it’s proved until it reaches 85% (a very high value).
So those scientists you speak of are claiming something happened (a surge) but cannot measure it, detect it, or show it.
They can measure it.
Nick Stokes is rightly pointing out that they can measure it.
But that they cannot be sure they have detected it as it is so small compared with natural changes that it may well be entirely natural.
And they can clearly show that they cannot distinguish the change in temperature from an entirely natural change.
Nick Stokes is right to point out that this does not mean that the change is entirely natural and that man has no effect.
Also, the article is right to point out that this does not mean that the change is not entirely natural and that man has any effect.
The confusion comes down to the fundamental difference between climatology and science; the null hypothesis.
In science, the null hypothesis is that two things are independent unless proven otherwise. So we cannot say “Clouds and UFOs float in the sky; we can see clouds are real so we know UFOs exist”.
But in climatology the null hypothesis is reversed.
It is assumed that atmospheric CO2 emissions cause temperature changes unless proven otherwise. So in climatology (not in science) we can assume that a trend exists in temperature if a trend exists in CO2.
And just because the trend is not statistically significant is no reason to cease believing in it.
It’s a matter of faith.
“Nick Stokes is right to point out that this does not mean that the change is entirely natural and that man has no effect.”
Well, I didn’t talk about causes and neither did the authors. It is a statistical analysis of a model in which there are various trends postulated, with random variation. No cause is supposed, and goodness of fit to the temperature record is the sole criterion.
“ It is a statistical analysis of a model “
That’s hilarious !!
A statistical model based on meaningless and corrupted surface data.
It is junk science.
Yes! . . . statistical analysis of the outputs of any model is junk science.
That bears repeating, with emphasis!
“No cause is supposed”
Ha, true of one paper. However is is one hundred percent guaranteed that the alarmists will try to blame any surge, regardless of cause, on mankind’s CO2 emissions. And they will insist that any surge is harmful, and ignore any benefits.
However this recent likely surge, has all the hall marks that it originated within earths oceans, as that is what led the atmospheric T increase.
…and that is what led past historical atmospheric CO2 increases.
hi single down voter, that fine, but ?
The French remain the old enemy.
O, just come off it!
History dear boy
What is the problem…? Blind faith and feelings. The vibe.
“”The researchers said these feelings should not be suppressed in an attempt to reach supposed objectivity.
…
“If you don’t acknowledge your emotions, then where are you going to get that impetus to do better as a scientist?” Maharaj said. “We should not continue to trivialise the fact that we are climate scientists and we have emotions too.””
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/oct/25/we-have-emotions-too-climate-scientists-respond-to-attacks-on-objectivity
Who needs objective science anyway.
Many see a doubling of the number of angels on the head of that pin. Personally, my immediate concern is the temperature drop of 27C that is to occur between the high today and low of this coming Thursday.
“”Many see””
With the aid of psilobyn fungi, ayahuasca etc
Musicians have a thing called the zone… Badly put on my part, the zone is a fleeting moment when your consciousness (as you are playing) seems to leave your body and is in the music itself. It’s rare and if you have ever experienced it as I have you never forget it. But, and it is a big but, most musicians need to employ the use of a substance to enhance the perceptions in order to get there. Poets etc have similar issues..
No need to comment on the size of someone’s posterior.
“C’mon, Simone, let’s talk about your big but.”
“”No need to comment on the size of someone’s posterior.””
Then don’t, I didn’t,
Now might be snow on Tuesday.
It would be nice for more ski resorts than just Wolf Creek to open.
Q When is a surge not a surge?
A When it is not detectable.
WUWT readers might be interested in the etymology of the Gibberish language. It has a very interesting history.
The Gibberish language originated in a pre-modern form on the Isle of Gibber, a small island in the Irish Sea which was eventually drowned by sea level rise happening as a consequence of the Medievil Warm Period
When it became evident that their continued presence on the Isle of Gibber was becoming untenable, the Gibbers quickly migrated off their island to Ireland.
Realizing that the Celtic language as spoken in Ireland was not suitable for maintaining their cultural and religious traditions, the Gibbers then migrated to a sparsly populated rural area of Central England where Gibberish could be spoken without interference from other cultural and religious populations.
As the industrial revolution in England began to accelerate in the mid 1800’s, the isolated Gibber community in Central England discovered that their language had become exceptionally useful in expressing the knowledge of new technologies and new scientific concepts.
Speakers of Gibberish found lucrative employment opportunities in the urban areas of England. These opportunities continued to expand throughout the late 19th Century into the 20th Century.
A large community of Gibbers eventually migrated from Central England to the city of London where their Gibberish language skills played an important role in supporting England’s war efforts in World War I, in World War II, and in the post-war United Kingdom.
In the late 20th Century and early 21st Century, the Gibberish language has now become an important tool in the fight against climate change.
So much so that critics of the Gibberish language, and of those who speak it most fluently, might very well find themselves convicted of a hate crime and be locked up as political prisoners in one of Keir Starmer’s jails.
So the fact-checker doesn’t understand the difference between “warming” and “warming rate”. Basic fail. Maybe it’s a problem in translation.
No, it’s innumeracy. Progressive journalists don’t “do” numbers.