These hyperbolic claims are now commonplace and easily dismissed with historical data.
“Hottest month in human history” has a certain ring to it. But some scientists say that ring isn’t true.
Rolling Stone’s headline absurdly (and falsely) declared on Aug. 1, that July was the “hottest month in human history.”
Although the story included the more accurate caveat “recorded history,” Rolling Stone didn’t tell readers records only go back a limited period of time. For example, NOAA’s records began in 1880. That’s not even close to the totality of “human history.” It’s not even all of the history of the U.S.
Meteorologist and climate researcher Dr. Roy Spencer disputed that claim. He wrote that “July 2019 was not the warmest on record” because the claims were based on “a fairly limited and error-prone array of thermometers.” So did WeatherBell meteorologist Joe Bastardi. But their criticism didn’t prevent the media’s hot air hype.
“The last five Julys have been the five hottest of all time,”a CBS online report by Sophie Lewis claimed. It’s amazing how CBS News (or NOAA for that matter) could possibly know that since records have been kept for less than 150 years.
All those reports ignored critics like Spencer and Bastardi. A meteorologist and principal research scientist at the University of Alabama, Spencer criticized the media for reporting hottest month claims without nuance.
On Aug. 2, he argued that “current official pronouncements of global temperature records come from a fairly limited and error-prone array of thermometers which were never intended to measure global temperature trends.”
Spencer wrote that there are three flaws with those records including the impact of Urban Heat Island Effect at land thermometer sites, changing methods of recording ocean temperatures and “notoriously incomplete” geography (many places aren’t measured).
After utilizing what he considered a more accurate measuring technique called “reanalysis,” Spencer found, “July 2019 was actually cooler than three other Julys: 2016, 2002, and 2017, and so was [the] 4th warmest in 41 years. And being only 0.5 deg. F above average is not terribly alarming.”
Hmm. Fourth warmest in 41 years. Not exactly headline fodder.
