Data Falsifies ABC News’ Claim that 2023 Displayed Dangerous Heat Trends
By
Linnea Lueken
January 2, 2024
A recent article at ABC News titled, “2023 was the year of record heat temperatures,” makes a slew of claims about global warming in 2023, including that extreme heat is becoming more common and more disastrous. These claims are misleading. While the planet has modestly warmed since the end of the Little Ice Age, and high temperatures were recorded this year in various locations, there is no evidence that recent temperature trends constitute an emergency or signify global change. New local records for both heat and cold are set almost every year. Many of the examples cited by ABC News are misattributed to greenhouse gas emissions, as opposed to other human causes and a variety of natural influences that climate scientists acknowledge contributed to this year’s warmth.
A team of four contributors write that “record-eclipsing temperatures will no longer be an anomaly if greenhouse gas emissions that fuel global warming continue at the current pace,” and that “hotter-than-normal temperatures could soon become the norm if fossil fuel extraction does not significantly decrease before 2030.”
ABC also mentions the goal of keeping warming to no more than 1.5 °C – but this value is arbitrary, as admitted by climate scientists and discussed very recently at Climate Realism in “Reason is Right, There is No ‘Climate Cliff’.” ABC neglects to mention that this threshold is not a scientifically established one, but rather a political talking point.
https://climaterealism.com/2024/01/data-falsifies-abc-news-claim-that-2023-displayed-dangerous-heat-trends/
