Ross Clark Ross Clark

Don’t blame all ‘weird’ weather on climate change

Why can’t the great and good of the climate establishment mention higher temperatures, disappearing sea ice and rising sea levels without also throwing in floods, droughts, hurricanes and wildfires?

Al Gore does it, David Attenborough does it and UN General Secretary Antonio Guterres did it at the opening of his annual climate beanfeast in Spain yesterday. You know the sort of thing: we’re heading for more extreme weather, “weather weirding” or whatever. There is hardly a single adverse weather condition which does not now attract some comment blaming it on man-made climate change.

It matters because while there is good evidence of rising temperatures, evidence for wilder weather is tenuous at best.

The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) published its preliminary observations today for 2019. Averaged global temperatures for the first ten months of this year, it claims, were 1.1

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