We’ve been subjected to another fatuous ‘fact check’ attack from Reuters, this time stating that the Daily Sceptic was responsible for “misleading” claims circulating on social media that the average U.K. temperature had not increased over the last two decades. Just one small problem. The fact check actually concedes the point we are making, then sets up a strawman by making a different point – that temperatures in the last 20 years are a high in the last 150 years, something we never disputed. And it calls us misleading.
Reuters you should be better than this.
On June 20th, we reported that there had been no change in average U.K. temperatures for more than two decades. The story was based on Paul Homewood’s annual U.K. weather report and was published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation. Homewood noted that, based on the Met Office’s own statistics, the average temperature for the decade 1998-2007 was the same as the current 10-year running average – both coming in at 9.4°C. At this point, we added to the story by suggesting that that Homewood could also have observed that with an average temperature of 9.17°C, the 2010s were cooler than the 2000s, with an average temperature of 9.31°C. From these figures and trends it is fair to argue the point, as we have done on numerous occasions, that atmospheric warming has run out of steam over the last 25 years. The largest global heat boost occurred in 2016 at a time of a very powerful natural El Niñooscillation, and there has not been much extra warming either before or since. In fact, on a global level, according to accurate satellite data, the temperature has paused for the last nine years.
Reuters has asked the Met Office’s Chief Press Officer Grahame Madge to provide the obligatory gotcha quote: “The Met Office’s preferred smoothing pattern for the U.K. temperature series clearly shows warming over the last two decades.”
However, the gotcha backfires when Madge then admits that it’s all about the chosen ‘smoothing pattern’: “The alternative smoothing method for the data, used for a graph published in the blog, doesn’t replicate precisely the same trend,” Madge added.
So, having conceded the main point, Madge (and Reuters) deftly switch to a completely different point: “Regardless of the method, however, both show ‘considerable warming’ since 1884 and that ‘the most recent two decades are clearly much warmer than the rest of the series’, [Madge] says.”
Right, the last two decades are the warmest since the end of the Little Ice Age in the 19th Century. We’ve never disputed that. Quite what it has to do with the claim at issue – that temperatures haven’t risen over the last 20 years – is anyone’s guess.
Read More: Latest Reuters ‘Fact Check’ is Even More Feeble Than Usual – and That’s Saying Something!
