Guest Post by Thomas J. Shepstone, originally posted at the ‘Energy Security and Freedom’ Substack.
A little over a year ago, a study titled “Warming Accelerates Global Drought Severity” was published in Nature, a climate-consumed journal that has lost all credibility among serious folks. The authors included multiple academics from the University of Oxford in the UK, an elitist institution if there ever was one.
The abstract of the study said this (emphasis and paragraphing added):
Drought is one of the most common and complex natural hazards affecting the environment, economies and populations globally. However, there are significant uncertainties in global drought trends, and a limited understanding of the extent to which a key driver, atmospheric evaporative demand (AED), impacts the recent evolution of the magnitude, frequency, duration and areal extent of droughts.
Here, by developing an ensemble of high-resolution global drought datasets for 1901–2022, we find an increasing trend in drought severity worldwide. Our findings suggest that AED has increased drought severity by an average of 40% globally.
Not only are typically dry regions becoming drier, but also wet areas are experiencing drying trends.
During the past 5 years (2018–2022), the areas in drought have expanded by 74% on average compared with 1981–2017, with AED contributing to 58% of this increase. The year 2022 was record-breaking, with 30% of the global land area affected by moderate and extreme droughts, 42% of which was attributed to increased AED. Our findings indicate that AED has an increasingly important role in driving severe droughts and that this tendency will likely continue under future warming scenarios.
The study also produced numerous headlines in popular media such as these:
- The New York Times (4 June 2025): “Higher Temperatures and a Thirsty World.”
- The Guardian (3 July 2025): “Weatherwatch: how ‘thirstier’ atmosphere is making droughts more severe.”
- ScienceAlert: “Our Atmosphere’s Growing Thirst Is a Hidden Cause of Worsening Droughts.”
Lead author Solomon Gebrechorkos wrote that atmospheric thirst caused ~40% - Earth.com:
- “How a thirsty atmosphere is making global droughts much worse.”
- Later follow-up: “Earth has become a planet where the air is always thirsty, and that’s quickly drying out the land.”
- Oxford / UC Santa Barbara / Cardiff University press releases (widely picked up): “Earth’s growing thirst is making droughts worse, even where it rains” and “The atmosphere’s growing thirst is making droughts worse, even where it rains.”
These used the same 40% figure and an “invisible sponge” metaphor. - Climate Central (October 2025): “Warmer, Thirstier Air Worsens Drought.”
Now, the whole thing has been retracted. Here’s that story, translated from the German publication Science Files:
Drought Catastrophe Cancelled: The Next Climate Change Junk Paper Has Been Retracted
By Michael Klein
September 16, 2026
Because the climate is changing, the atmosphere drinks more [perhaps out of frustration]; because the atmosphere drinks more, it becomes drier on Earth… Most of the authors from the not fully named “author pack” make their living at the University of Oxford, and they all announced the apocalypse by drying out in 2025: Since 1981, they calculated, droughts on Earth have become more severe and more intense;
- An increased “thirst” of the atmosphere made droughts from 2018 to 2022 40% more severe than in the 37 years before that.
- Comparing the two periods: 5 years since 2018 versus 37 years since 1981, the area affected by drought has become 74% larger, 58% of that due to an increased “thirst of the atmosphere.”
- Since 2022, 30% of the Earth’s land surface has been affected by moderate to extreme drought;
- With further climate change, all of this will become much worse.
These are the results that Gebrechorkos and his co-authors spread via the mainstream media, and these are the results that are all wrong.
The authors miscalculated, mixed up data, weighted them incorrectly, compared apples at the equator with dry ice in the Arctic. The comparison periods on which all the results that made it into the media are based are incorrectly coded, so data were assigned incorrectly…
The fact that the junk study has been withdrawn does not change the fact that the articles in the mainstream media, such as the one from ZEIT that we presented above, are still there, have not been provided with any correction, and even if they had been provided with a correction, it would remain largely without effect, because contributions like that of Gebrechorkos et al. (2025) are, in my view, only written in order to be distributed by the media and to hype up the climate apocalypse.
This is not a claim made off the cuff, but one that can be demonstrated from the original contribution by Gebrechorkos et al. (2025), a contribution that was designed in such a way that the “dryness” of the Earth and its soils estimated at the end — a largely arbitrary value, the result of an absurd calculation — is maximized.
This is why the entire climate movement is collapsing. It’s all built on hype by those with special interests in perpetuating a grift, in this case, a pursuit of academic praise and, no doubt, research money put up by other grifters.
Libral: All scientists are right about everything
MAGA: All science is just wrong
Sane person: armageddinouttahere
All generalizations are dangerous, including this one.
I don’t think ANY science claims to be right in the sense of absolutely right- absolute truth. Both sides think much of science is pretty good but not all of it. The basic lab sciences- physics and chemistry are more likely get close to have good, testable theories. Other sciences get further from being able to “prove” beyond a shadow of doubt that their theories are “right”- though they may be good approximations. The further you get from lab science the closer you get to politics- who benefits and who loses from conclusions. Libs do tend to avoid criticism of any peer reviewed climate science, falsely assuming it must be right.
MAGA is more about politics than merely the climate issue.
Unfortunately MAGA has become a political movement.
As a philosophy and a policy I can agree.
And warmenistism has become a quasi-religious cult.
Data mining. Making a conclusion first, then mining the data until it screams “YOU ARE CORRECT”.
I have never seen a MAGA, or anyone else for that matter, say that “All science is wrong”.
Pointing out that the so called climate scientists are wrong most of the time, is just pointing out reality and it says nothing about any of the other branches of science.
To libs, climate non science is the only science that matters, so if anyone disagrees with it, it means they hate all science. 🙂
I must admit, “armageddinouttahere” is funny.
Liberal: All scientists are right unless they disagree with our belief systems.
There. Fixed it for you.
Published in climate obsessed Nature. Then retracted. Speaks poorly for Nature pal review. In the past, Nature has published other climate alarms comprising easily exposed clear academic misconduct, rather than just slop as here. I provided examples in several essays in ebook Blowing Smoke.
I have some doubts about peer/pal review when something that seems so obviously wrong gets published.
I had my doubts as soon as I read that the atmosphere is more ‘thirsty’, causing a 40% increase in global drought.
Air/wind that causes a drought must be below saturation. To do this it must already be dry or must be warmed to increase its water carrying potential.
If it is dry, (from raining prior to arrival), then the drought will not be global, since it is still raining.
If it is being heated to cause a lower relative humidity, then once the water vapour content has reached equilibrium at the new temperature then it will not require more water from the land or ocean to be extracted. For a similar change in air temperature, a cold saturated air will drop less moisture than a hotter saturated air. So rain should be more intense, and a warmer ocean is likely to the be source of the water, (since it covers more area than the land).
As air cools it gives up its excess water vapour as rain/ice. Unless that foundation has been cancelled then how can a warmer atmosphere cause drought? It has to rain somewhere else the atmosphere would be 100% cloudy.
If these papers are “easily exposed … academic misconduct” then why don’t you expose them and get Nature to retract the papers? Science is meant to be self-correcting but that is only going to happen if people correct the mistakes — which is what happened here.
Ah, mistakes. So much for peer-review looking for reality, or whatever you want to call it. Obviously if the “data” was right then the statistics were invalid. Who were the statisticians doing the peer-review?
Eleven authors, affiliated with nine universities/institutes across six countries, co-operated to produce this paper. It was then peer reviewed. Perhaps, with all those great minds having an input, the mistakes should have been spotted before publication.
What happened here, what happens routinely, is that bad science, perhaps intentionally, is hyped to support an agenda. Then, when it is exposed for what it is, the correction is not presented with the same degree of exposure. Wash, rinse, repeat.
This continual process distorts public perception and damages real scientific endeavor.
Science should not be used in this way. The “self-correcting” feature is virtually lost or long delayed.
Why don’t you expose them? If you can’t expose them yourself, you are admitting that you don’t know enough to do so. That kinda exposes why you should not be criticizing others, right?
Jim, you are as off base as Issac Walton. See my reply to him and treat as also a reply to you.
Funny how all of these mistakes always end up supporting the CO2 is going to kill us narrative.
Isaac, I once tried what you suggested. I was easily able to prove at the time that Marcott’s 2013 hockey stick published in Science was indisputable academic misconduct. Easy because all I had to do was compare his thesis with the Science paper on which he said it was based. I wrote up the compare/contrast evidence in a compelling illustrated fashion and sent it to Marsha McNutt, then editor in chief of Science. I know it was received, because her assistant emailed an acknowledgement. Then nothing.
So published the evidence sent McNutt as essay ‘A High Stick Foul’ in ebook Blowing Smoke, along with a long footnote on the Science alert and non-response. Read it and weep for ‘your side’ dishonesty.
It’s worthwhile noting that Global Environment Outlook 7, the UN flagship report on the global environment, includes a good dozen of references to the works of Justin Sheffield, Sergio M. Vicente-Serrano, Chris Funk and Jian Peng, who are now known as certified producers of junk science. Corollary the above-mentioned UN report must also be retracted as a publication that builds on junk science. JMHO.
Everybody on all sides of this issue stand to lose money, influence and prestige and as a consequence deny and resist the bogus tent poles of the GHE/GHG/CAGW circus tent.
ABSTRACT:
Earth is cooler with atmosphere/water vapor/30% albedo not warmer.
Ubiquitous RGHE heat balance graphics don’t plus violate GAAP and LoT.
Kinetic heat transfer processes of contiguous atmospheric molecules render a surface BB impossible.
RGHE is bogus & CAGW is a scam!
FACTS & EVIDENCE:
Tent Pole 1: Remove the Earth’s atmosphere or even just the GHGs and the Earth becomes much like the Moon, no water vapor or clouds, no ice or snow, no oceans, no vegetation, no 30% albedo becoming a barren rock ball, hot^3 (400 K) on the lit side, cold^3 (100 K) on the dark. At Earth’s distance from the Sun space is hot (394 K) not cold (5 K).
That’s NOT what the RGHE theory says.
EVIDENCE:
RGHE theory says “288 K (15 C) w – 255 K (-18 C) w/o = a 33 C colder ice ball Earth.” 255 K assumes w/o case keeps 30% albedo, an assumption akin to criminal fraud. Nobody agrees 288 K is GMST plus it was 15 C in 1896. 288 K is a physical surface measurement. 255 K is a S-B equilibrium calculation at ToA. Apples and potatoes.
Nikolov “Airless Celestial Bodies”
Kramm “Moon as test bed for Earth”
UCLA Diviner lunar mission data
JWST solar shield (391.7 K)
Sky Lab golden awning
ISS HVAC design for lit side of 250 F. (ISS web site)
Astronaut backpack life support w/ AC and cool water tubing underwear. (Space Discovery Center)
Tent Pole 2: The GHGs require “extra” energy upwelling from a surface radiating as a BB.
EVIDENCE:
According to TFK_bams09 atmospheric power flux balance, numerous clones and SURFRAD the GHGs must absorb an “extra” 396 BB/333 “back”/63 2nd net W/m^2 LWIR energy upwelling from the surface allegedly radiating as a BB. These graphics & data tables contain egregious arithmetic and thermodynamic errors.
Tent Pole 3: Because of the significant (60% per TFK_bams09) non-radiative, i.e. kinetic, heat transfer processes of the contiguous participating atmospheric molecules the surface cannot upwell “extra” energy as a near Black Body.
EVIDENCE:
As demonstrated by experiment, the gold standard of classical science.
For the experimental write up see:
https://principia-scientific.org/debunking-the-greenhouse-gas-theory-with-a-boiling-water-pot/
Search: Bruges group “boiling water pot” Schroeder
CONCLUSION:
No RGHE, no GHG warming, no CAGW or mankind/CO2 driven climate change.
Down-voted for incessant spam. We get it.
And unreadability.
Downvote for abuse of GAAP.
If the first 500 iterations of your theory did not manage to convince anyone, why do you believe the 501st will be any different?
They should read what the IPCC says:
IPCC AR4 Chapter ten Executive Summary
Mean Precipitation
For a future warmer climate, the current generation of
models indicates that precipitation generally increases in the
areas of regional tropical precipitation maxima (such as the
monsoon regimes) and over the tropical Pacific in particular,
with general decreases in the subtropics, and increases at high
latitudes as a consequence of a general intensification of the
global hydrological cycle. Globally averaged mean water
vapour, evaporation and precipitation are projected to increase.
Precipitation Extremes and Droughts
Intensity of precipitation events is projected to increase,
particularly in tropical and high latitude areas that experience
increases in mean precipitation. Even in areas where mean
precipitation decreases (most subtropical and mid-latitude
regions), precipitation intensity is projected to increase but
there would be longer periods between rainfall events. There
is a tendency for drying of the mid-continental areas during
summer, indicating a greater risk of droughts in those regions.
Precipitation extremes increase more than does the mean in
most tropical and mid- and high-latitude areas.
_____________________________________________________________________
170 words and one but; blah…blah…blah…
Hardly a recipe for severe drought.
You want to be published? You want to keep your job? You want to be accepted by your peers that want the same things? Join and be published, keep your job, and be part of the “in crowd”. Fight the propaganda machine and be cancelled. Research institutions and universities are controlled by money/grants and the people that control the same. The question is how did all those in control allow their integrity to be compromised?
To paraphrase the axiom, “Hard times don’t build character, they reveal it” I would say their integrity was not compromised, it never existed in the first place..
Look up aether theory academic enforcement in physics for a smaller example before Einstein put it to bed. Unfortunately there will be no Einstein to clear up the messy climate science realm.
Such an Einstein would not get his papers past the ‘peer review’.
Einstein did not do that, Michaelson/Morley did.
Science, real science, if full of these clever inventions. And then having them contradicted or transformed beyond recognition.
“Fields” are another mental invention – we have absolutely no idea how action at a distance happens – gravity, electric and magnetic influence likewise. Elsewhere “particles” are invented such as “gluons”. The nature of nature is still enormously unknown.
Look up aether theory academic enforcement in physics
Or string theory? Maybe it’s changed – it’s been many years – but “The Trouble With Physics” gets into that lock-in. Seems to be a bit of a pattern.
Money.
Do we have permission from formerly prestigious journals to celebrate the El Nino enhanced storms off Baja Mexico adding much needed rain in the southwestern US? Look up similar but stronger conditions in 1983 that raised Lake Mead levels to records.
Here in Colorado we are hoping this El Nino-caused storm brings us some much needed rain.
Been happening in eastern Utah-SW Colo. almost all of September, the great epic mega drought is gone. Parts of E Utah have seen flash gully washers not seen for more than six or seven decades.
But its all caused the CO2 of course.,
So, Nature has lost touch with nature.
+50
Thanks, RG. Nature has often had articles about forests and forestry. They usually get it wrong- based on my 50 years actually working in forestry. The articles are usually lame- yet they’ll have up to 100 people as co-authors. I find that bonkers.
As Judith Curry has said, ‘academics in search of fame and fortune’.
Where’s Eldrosion to explain “peer reviewed” for us again?
+100
Don’t say her name three times.
Probably looking up some ad hoc reference paper to try and rescue this attempted confirmation of the assertion of AGW.
But, but, but, it was published in a PEER review journal, so how could it possibly be wrong?
Just ask our resident flame warriors.
I’m guessing it’s because the Peer Review process has been politicized by those getting their money through government grants because they toe the AGW line.
Too much revealed so we can eliminate the words “I’m guessing.”
Serious question: Who initiated the retraction?
As to Leo’s pot here – correct – To grasp the magnitude of the agitprop, one need go to the source. As an old Forensic Historical Correlations Analyst (Mil. & Civ. Every political or Military operation must have the elements of deception to focus the opposition away from the operation at hand. There are good and not good climate scientists. There is accurate and non accurate weather station placement – blah blah to infinity. So to cut to the chase with genesis and an example:
– 1928 – Origin or genesis of the Totalitarian New World Order. ( Read Environmental) This through Environmental mental fear application. At the Sixth Party Congress held in Moscow in 1928, Communists wrote and approved “The Program” to bring in the New World Order. What most Americans cannot comprehend is the real nature of this diabolical criminal scheme. The Program of the Third International called for a global environmental program for transformation of all human beings on earth to accept the New World Order. These and other facts are brought to light by General Benton Partin in his videotape, Globalism: The Program. This through the above 1923-6 continuing Rockefeller Psychopolitics education program.
No matter if the science of global warming is all phony… climate change provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world.”- Christine Stewart, former Canadian Minister of the Environment
“The data doesn’t matter. We’re not basing our recommendations on the data. We’re basing them on the climate models” Prof. – Chris Folland, Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research
“Global Sustainability requires the deliberate quest of poverty, reduced resource consumption and set levels of mortality control.” ( Read Eugenics ) – Professor Maurice King
“the resultant ideal sustainable population is hence more than 500 million but less than one billion.” – Club of Rome, Goals for Mankind
“Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class – involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, air-conditioning, and suburban housing – are not sustainable.” – Maurice Strong, Rio Earth Summit
“The common enemy of humanity is man. In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.” – Club of Rome, premier environmental think-tank, consultants to the United Nations.
“The earth is not dead matter. She is alive. Now begin to speak to the earth as you walk. You can speak out loud, or just talk to her in your mind. Send your love into her with your exhalation. Feel your heart touching upon the heart of the planet. Say to her whatever words come to you: Mother Earth, I love you. Mother Earth, I bless you. May you be healed. May all your creatures be happy. Peace to you, Mother Earth. On behalf of the human race, I ask forgiveness for having injured you. Forgive us, Mother Earth”– US Student Textbook, “Prayer to the Earth”
Scientists are like dysfunctional family – This B.S. must end. More “F”ing Fabian Socialist mentally ill “climate” educated in the socio-communist environmental process is a death sentence.
The main issue is money – the fact this administration is sucking the hidden funding from the NGO environmental movement is monumental to gaining the true word STEWARDSHIP.
THE WORD IS STRATEGY – not verbosity – lower is not better – KISS is the activity not bombardment – people instinctively know – what the average person needs is how to fix, not the continued screaming on fear porn.
As to the terms liberal and progressive-
There are no liberals they died off around 1930. Democrat, low tax, small government and property ownership. The word is used to pretend the “good” of taxation of your work verse the term “conservative” (defined as to keep) as in ones hard earned funds verse (wealth distribution)to force everyone to sit in the bottom of the barrel. Socialism is simply a control society. Production (the State) and on. So the progressive is actually regressive. Again, Socialism is a top down enslavement operation, using language to sell slavery.
Good Day Raven6 1965 -1993 and on in education of the individual.
I don’t think you understand MAGA. MAGA was a political slogan created by Donald Trump when he ran for a second term in office. It was political shorthand. It stood for changing a basket of misguided policies that had been put in place under the Biden and Obama administrations. These included energy scarcity by restricting oil, natural gas, and coal; unrestricted immigration from third world countries; DEI and racial preferences; hollowing out national defense; gender confusion; throwing away tax money on fraudulent social welfare programs and foreign aid including kickbacks by NGO’s; and a general anti-America attitude. The new media, which is basically more political activism than news, instead of equating the slogan with past political slogans (like for example The New Frontier, the Great Society, the New Deal, I Like Ike) tried to present it to their readers as some kind of new stereotypical cult. MAGA was and is a campaign slogan. Now I have to go polish my Tippie Canoe and Tyler too campaign button.
Ah, Trump used the term “Make America Great Again” and the red had with the “MAGA” emblazened on it. But somehow the left made it a derogatory term that making America great again was a bad thing. Why was making America a great country again a bad thing?
If one hates this country and wants to tear it to the ground, as most on the left do, then making America great again is a terrible thing.
The left has never forgiven the US for winning the cold war.
No, Make America Great Again was a large part of the 2015-2016 campaign.
MAGA as a philosophy and as a policy is something I embrace.
MAGA transformed into a political movement is something I back away from.
The expression “MAGA Republican” is a meaningless derogatory expression.
It started life as a political movement.
Didn’t Nature magazine recently announce that whatever droughts that have been occurring lately have had only a minor negative impact on agricultural output globally. This is probably because that sector of the economy has kept evolving and developed new hybrid crops, fertilizers and general farming techniques to keep their businesses operating at near-peak efficiencies. The alarmists try to get us to believe that crop production is still carried out as it was 150 years ago, and is ever more susceptible to a changing climate.
Hasn’t Nature magazine noticed the satellite data that shows every desert and arid zone around the world is shrinking? High or low, hot or cold, more rain, more plant growth.
These guys are doing with lies what we should be doing with the truth. They weren’t targeting the scientific community or academia, they were zeroed in on the public at large, the average guy. They think if they can keep the average guy jacked up they can keep their pathetic charade going just a little longer. We need to reach that same group showing them that they have been lied to and cheated by scoundrels like these guys for better than three decades.
Agreed.
The difficulties lie in finding the correct approach and developing the means.
Fortunately WUWT is in place and there are others, too, but none can compete with those enslaved by their ideology, their religion.
Did they make grave mistakes and then publish or did they know what they were doing and carefully mixed and matched disconnected data to invent evidence for what they knew to be false?
Has any detailed explanation been given about the misuse of data?
An interesting question. Eleven authors and not one of them spotted any flaws in their work?
The record of the peer review is here:
https://media.springernature.com/original/springer-static/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41586-025-09047-2/MediaObjects/41586_2025_9047_MOESM1_ESM.pdf
Proof positive that peer review is just sooooo effective.
Many of our trolls still try to claim that any paper that hasn’t been through their “peer” review process, isn’t worth reading.
I still maintain that sites like WUWT do a much better job of peer review than do the traditional journals.
Oxford eh.
And Southampton, Cardiff, Wallingford, California, Ghent, Leipzig, Zaragoza, Thuwal (Saudi Arabia). Eleven authors across nine institutions in six countries. International collaboration at its best (or worst).
Is “atmospheric evaporative demand” just another term for relative humidity (or its inverse)?
They want people to believe the atmosphere is a living, breathing being and we need to act to prevent extinction.
Someone a week or so past tried using this to show why CO2 was drastically changing the climate. I pointed out that with more water vapor and the lapse rate, that more precipitation would fall. I think it was one of the warmists that accepts all peer reviewed papers as gospel.
Apologies for being slightly off topic, although vaguely related to countering negative hype and doomsaying!
As usual, I’m keeping a close eye on Arctic sea ice.
Interestingly, after melt season finished very abruptly a few days before the equinox, the ice rebound has been noteworthy.
A very fast refreeze has resulted in Arctic sea ice extent for end of September being the highest recorded since 2014, as well as being ahead of years: 2007; 2008; 2010; 2011; and of course ahead also of 2012.
In a previous post, I did predict this. It wasn’t difficult. The Beaufort Sea had only just dropped below the 15% threshold days before the end of the melt. With that same region forecast to drop below -5C, it didn’t take a rocket science to realise that the region would refreeze quickly.
The encouraging aspect of this is that it appears as though there may be the prospect of more 2-3 year ice re-establishing itself in that region. As a way to counter some of the negative hype, here’s some good news😁
This is particularly surprising, given that during May and early June, Arctic sea ice was at a record low for the time of year.
From early June, however the trajectory changed, so that 2026 joined other tailenders.
Early August then saw the decline level off earlier than usual. With another brief levelling off mid- August, 2026, was now heading for finishing around the lowest 10.
Now at end of September, the quick refreeze means that 2026 sits at 17th lowest in the record, and roughly half way between the lowest recorded in 2012 and the mean line (1979- 2025)
Still a long way from average but a recovery nonetheless 😁
A few months ago I predicted we could start seeing an increase in sea ice around this year’s minimum. My theory is Arctic sea ice drives the 60-70 year cycle and AMO. It was due for a phase change based on the last transition in the mid 1990s. This fast sea ice increase continues to support my view.
If my theory is correct, we should be seeing Arctic sea ice continue to trend upward over the next decade. Along with this change we can expect to see Arctic cooling and cloud increases which will help drive global cooling. Naturally, I expect the alarmist community to blame all of this on CO2.
“high-resolution global drought datasets for 1901–2022”
1901.
Six British colonies united on January 1, 1901, to form the Commonwealth of Australia, with Edmund Barton serving as the first prime minister.
The inaugural Nobel Prizes were awarded in Stockholm, Sweden, on December 10, 1901.
British engineer Hubert Cecil Booth patents a vacuum cleaner that removes dust by suction.
A quick search reveals Solomon Gebrechorkos is an Ethiopian name. He obtained his post grad qualifications in Germany (and technical university PhD). He got a Geography department research post at the University of Southampton in 2019 and then one at Oxford University in 2023. I would guess he is in his mid thirties.
This appears to be a diversity appointment. I will not judge him on appearance or qualifications – after all the great English scientist Michael Faraday was not an Oxford or Cambridge graduate or researcher – but on his actual writing and where it was published.
Take his retracted Nature paper. He echoes the assertion, “Not only are typically dry regions becoming drier, but also wet areas are experiencing drying trends” that I have read others making and then goes on to offer “proof.” But was it not Einstein who said that it would only take one scientist to prove a hundred wrong? Similary empirical observations from one large area can blow this claim sky high.
South Africa is a large country, five times the area of the UK and twice that of Ukraine. Over 90% of the land is classified as arid, semi-arid and drylands. Most rain falls in the eastern parts, with a natual pattern of droughts and floods. During droughts the runoff is way below average but in the wet years way above. A system of large dams, especially those built from 1964-1994, has helped the country adapt to these weather conditions.
Gebrechorkos’ assertion is often made by the South African media. Reality is, however, different. Since 2020 the country has had good rains each year with the largest dams filling and even overflowing. Presently the dams are at 99% and this is early in the summer rainfall season. Water shortages are largely due to the failure to maintain pumping equipment, damaged pipes, power outages, uncontrolled pollution of water and non functioning purification units. The real problem is not CO2 and the weather conditions in our world. It is our failure to maintain infrastructure, to adapt to and to make better use of variable weather conditions.
Gebrechorkos should recognize from the modern history of Ethiopia and its neighbors, Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia and Eritrea that we have a man made problem not a climate problem. This is made worse by the mix of climate fraud and diversity fraud. Can he prove South Africa is an outlier and that there are no other drier areas that are becoming wetter? I doubt it.