By Paul Homewood
This photo appears in an article yesterday, for AP written by Seth Borenstein:
https://apnews.com/13fd9ac84b56471db165f04779aa9989
It is the lead for a nonsensical article hyping climate alarm ahead of next week’s meeting in Poland.
Most of the points made have been well debunked already, but this photo tells us a lot about the misleading spin put by the likes of Borenstein, in support of their political agenda.
Just in case you can’t read it, this is what the caption says:
In this June 20, 2017 file photo, a local temperature sign reads 120-degree fahrenheit as temperatures climb to near record levels in Phoenix. Scientists say climate change is faster, more extensive and worse than they thought a quarter century ago.
The subliminal messages are easy to spot:
- 120F – Wow!! The vast majority of people simply cannot imagine a temperature like this. It must be exceptional.
- Near record levels – again, the message is that something extraordinary is going on.
- Climate change – that obviously explains it!
So let’s see what actually was going on in Phoenix.
The temperature at Phoenix Airport did actually peak at 119F on June 20th, which was also the highest temperature of the year:
http://climod2.nrcc.cornell.edu/
However, temperatures of that level are not unprecedented in Phoenix. The record temperature there is 122F, set in 1990, and a figure of 121F followed in 1995:
http://climod2.nrcc.cornell.edu/
Of course, Phoenix Airport has changed out of all proportion over the years, and temperatures are artificially inflated because of the surrounding tarmac and infrastructure.
There is a USHCN station nearby in the small town of Prescott, 82 miles away. Temperatures there are not directly comparable because it is at a much higher altitude. Nevertheless, the trends still tell a story.
Temperatures at Prescott peaked at 105F on June 21st.
This was actually higher than 1990 or 1995, unlike Phoenix. Indeed 105F is actually the record for Prescott. However, it ties with the mark set in 1925. (You will note that the Phoenix data only starts in 1940, so we don’t know if the temperature was higher there in 1925).
Either way though, Borenstein’s implication that the temperature at Phoenix last year was not a natural, weather event, but instead something caused by climate change is grossly misleading propaganda.
By coincidence, Tim Ball wrote this article about Borenstein last month for Technocracy News and Trends:
One thing that Dr. Tim Ball doesn’t like is scientific fraud coupled with journalistic propaganda to deceive and manipulate readers. Such is the case with Seth Borenstein who is neither scientist or traditional journalist; rather, he is a propagandist with a singular agenda to advance global warming dogma. ⁃ TN Editor
Borenstein has a journalism degree but claims to be a science reporter. He might have claim to the journalism label except that everything he writes is biased, misleading, distorted, and wrong because he only presents one side of each story. It is no surprise that he is exploiting the latest claims of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). His article demonstrates that he is a master of propaganda and fake news.
The full article is here. But this latest example of how Borenstein deceives his readers is a classic example of what Dr Ball wrote about.
