Wrong, CNN, Heatwaves Aren’t Becoming More Frequent or Severe
By
Anthony Watts
June 25, 2025
In the article “Heat waves are getting more dangerous with climate change — and we may still be underestimating them,” CNN boldly claims that human-induced climate change is making heatwaves “more common, intense and longer-lasting,” and that we are likely underestimating the risk. This is false, refuted by actual long-term temperature records. The available evidence clearly suggests that while urban areas do experience warmer nights due to the well-documented Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect, there is no global trend of increasing heat wave frequency or intensity after accounting for urbanization, data quality, and the selective reporting that plagues much of the mainstream climate narrative.
CNN does briefly acknowledge that overnight temperatures are increasing in towns and cities, pointing to the UHI effect as a culprit. However, they conveniently skip over the larger implication: these localized temperature increases are not evidence of a trend attributable to climate change. They are a function of sprawling urban development, asphalt, concrete, and waste heat from human activity, not a signal of global warming, much less a planetary crisis. Studies show that rural temperature stations, far from the heat-retaining concrete jungles, do not show the same rate of warming as urban stations.
Climate at a Glance: U.S. Heatwaves presents historical data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) which show that heat waves were far more severe in the 1930s than they are today. The number of days exceeding 95°F in the 1930s dwarfs anything seen in recent decades, as seen in Figure 1 below.
https://climaterealism.com/2025/06/wrong-cnn-heatwaves-arent-becoming-more-frequent-or-severe/
