Australia was literally on fire in December. Record heat made headlines in global media. So did the extreme rainfall in east Africa.
You and everybody else on earth can guess what climate alarmists blamed for both: man-made global warming, a.k.a. climate change.
But record cold in northern India at the same time didn’t make headlines in any major media in the United States or the United Kingdom.
Why? Because it didn’t fit expectations.
It’s a perfect example of climate alarmists’ obvious bias that’s seldom brought to light.
In December, east Africa received extremely heavy rainfall, causing widespread floods in Kenya and Djibouti. The floods impacted more than one million people and killed scores already challenged by extreme poverty.
During the same month, Australia recorded all-time highs. Widespread, devastating wildfires made the situation worse.
Climate alarmists predictably claimed these weather events for their propaganda.
Almost all news article about the Australian heat and wildfires ultimately blamed man-made climate change. But more than four-fifths of Australia’s wildfires were caused by arson, not climate change. And what caused the extreme hot weather was not global warming but a phenomenon called Positive Indian Ocean Dipole (PIOD).
PIOD is a seasonal weather phenomenon that can affect climate in east Africa, south Asia, and Australia all at once.
The same PIOD that caused Australia’s heat (but not its wildfires) caused the year-end floods in east Africa. It also caused extreme cold in northern India in the same month. Largely underreported in global media, the cold continued right through to the end of December.
Delhi, India’s capital, recorded its second-coldest December in 118 years. Intermittent cold waves gripped Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Delhi.
On December 28, the heart of Delhi recorded a minimum of 1.7˚C (35˚F). The temperature likely reached freezing outside the city’s urban heat island effect. The cold wave impacted everyday life for 29 million people in Delhi.
But neither CNN nor BBC headlines ever mentioned it. It runs contrary to their narrative. Winters are supposed to become warmer. Though the mainstream media do link the PIOD to the Australian heat and the east African floods, they never shy away from blaming man-made climate change and find ways to link both.
Now their new theory is that the PIOD itself has become more intense because of climate change. In other words, weather events are non-existent in their dictionary. Each and every extreme weather event is blamed on man-made climate change.
This is what happens when people read every weather event through the preconceived lenses of climate alarmism.
Closer inspection reveals no change in very hot days in Australia since World War I. So hot weather (short term) and hot climate (long term) have nothing to do with the wildfire outbreak.
December’s extremes — heat in Australia, flooding in east Africa, cold in India — all were caused by a strong PIOD, not climate change.
These weather events neither prove nor disprove man-made climate change. But they do expose the bias of climate alarmists who blame them on man-made global warming.
Originally published on The Patriot Post.
Photo by Jarosław Kwoczała on Unsplash.
louis wachsmuth says
.” Severe storms, possible tornadoes and flooding target the South on Friday through Sunday” Heavy rain and flooding also possible farther north from Midwest to Northeast. .Washington Post,, January 8 at 11:48 AM A powerful, springlike storm system will whip up a slew of weather hazards late this week into the weekend, unleashing bands of severe thunderstorms in the South while targeting areas farther north with heavy rain and potential flooding…. An appreciable risk for severe weather exists Friday from eastern Texas into Louisiana, Arkansas and southeastern Oklahoma. This includes the northern Houston suburbs, Shreveport and Alexandria, La., — hard hit by an EF3 tornado on Dec. 16…. In environments like this, characterized by moderate instability but high shear, tornadoes can develop quickly and erratically. Straight line winds exceeding 70 mph are possible in a number of locations…. Flood concerns will also accompany the system, primarily north of the severe weather zone. In fact, the greatest risk for significant rainfall and potential flooding exists from East Texas and Arkansas into the central Mississippi Valley, eventually encompassing parts of Illinois, Indiana and the Ohio Valley before perhaps affecting the Northeast into Sunday….Friday night and Saturday look to be the days for heaviest rainfall. A widespread two to four inches is possible with localized six-inch amounts. By Matthew Cappucci is a meteorologist for Capital Weather Gang. He earned a B.A. in atmospheric sciences from Harvard University in 2019, and has contributed to The Washington Post since he was 18. He is an avid storm chaser and adventurer, and covers all types of weather, climate science, and astronomy.
Hey Cornwall, tell us again the climate isn’t going crazy, no problems, just a conspiracy that perverts data, but all is well.
Andy Doerksen says
None of what you’ve listed there can be shown to be the result(s) of global warming. Moreover, you’ve ignored the weather /history/ of those regions. How do you know those aren’t part of a cyclic pattern that has been ongoing for many generations . . . ?
louis wachsmuth says
U.S. had 14 weather disasters costing $1 billion or more in 2019 Flooding rivers, wildfires, hurricanes, severe storms and tornadoes contributed to the costly weather disasters. Bloomberg | Jan 10, 2020 By Brian K. Sullivan The U.S. had 14 weather disasters costing $1 billion or more last year, with Midwest flooding accounting for almost half of the total, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Flooding from the Missouri, Mississippi and Arkansas rivers caused $20 billion in damage out of the total $45 billion, NOAA said Wednesday in a statement. Though the number of billion-dollar catastrophes in 2019 was close to the average for the past five years, it was more than double the inflation-adjusted historical norm since 1980. The Mississippi, Arkansas and Missouri Rivers all spilled their banks in late winter and spring, inundating farms and cities, delaying planting across the agricultural heart of the U.S. and choking off freight shipments. The deluge contributed to an ongoing trend since 2010 of more costly floods across the U.S. Adding to the roll of disasters were Hurricane Dorian and Tropical Storm Imelda, wildfires in Alaska and California, and severe storms bringing hail and tornadoes across the Great Plains and Midwest. There were 119 billion-dollar weather disasters in the last decade, reaching a cost of $800 billion. That’s about double the number that occurred from 2000 to 2009. Last year was the second-wettest on record for the contiguous U.S. with 34.78 inches (88.34 centimeters) of precipitation, almost matching 1973’s all-time high. North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan each recorded the most precipitation ever. The 48 states had an average temperature of 52.7 degrees Fahrenheit (11.5 Celsius), which was the coolest since 2014 but still warmer than normal. Georgia and North Carolina had their hottest years on record. To contact the reporter on this story: Brian K. Sullivan in Boston at bsullivan10@bloomberg.net
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Nope, all left wing lies, there is no problems,