Physical Address
23,24,25 & 26, 2nd Floor, Software Technology Park India, Opp: Garware Stadium,MIDC, Chikalthana, Aurangabad, Maharashtra – 431001 India
CLAIM
On August 7, 2022, the global average temperature is a mere 0.1C above the 1979-2000 base, with Antarctica -4C below which proves that global warming is not happening and the Earth is actually colder than believed.
FACT
Climate change assessments are based on the measurement of temperature changes over decades or more, day to day temperature fluctuations are common due to weather and other variables.
WHAT THEY SAY
A Twitter post is going viral with the claim that the Earth is actually colder than widely believed. It claims that the global average temperature is running a mere 0.1C above the 1979-2000 base, with Antarctica -4C below which proves that global warming is not happening. The Twitter post also has the recently trending ‘#ClimateScam’ hashtag that has been used by climate deniers to claim that climate change is not actually happening and is a ‘scam’.
Here is the Twitter post:
WHAT WE FOUND
The viral Twitter post cites a world temperature map created with the help of Climate Reanalyzer to claim that the Earth is actually colder than widely believed and climate change is not actually happening and is a ‘scam’.
Climate Reanalyzer is an online tool developed with support from the Climate Institute at the University of Maine that allows users to access global weather and climate data.
It is clear that the temperature map as seen in the viral Twitter post is created using the ‘Today’s Weather Map’ feature of the website where the current day’s average weather — temperature, precipitation, wind, and other variables are shown. Further, the ‘2m Temp Anomaly’ feature of the ‘Today’s Weather Map’ section has been used to finally arrive at the temperature map seen in the Twitter post. It refers to the departure of the current day’s forecasted temperature from a long-term mean for the same day of the year.
In the temperature map of the viral post, we can clearly see that the 1-day Average global temperature (global average temperature record of a single day) on August 7, 2022, has been compared with the global average temperature of the same day during the 1979-2000 base period to arrive at the conclusion that the global average temperature is running a mere 0.1C above the 1979-2000 base, with Antarctica -4C below.
Using the global temperature record on a single day of a year to claim that human-driven global warming doesn’t exist is baseless. Climate researchers have already confirmed that global warming assessments are based on temperature changes over decades or longer. Weather related short-term deviations are common but they cannot negate the long-term warming trends which are clearly based on data going back several decades or even more than a century.
Also, the ‘Data Sources & Additional Information’ section on the Climate Reanalyzer website itself clearly mentions that climate trends should be inferred from long-term data.
“The daily temperature anomaly values shown on these maps reflect current weather patterns, and therefore global and regional means can vary significantly from day-to-day and week-to-week. Climate trends should only be inferred from long-term datasets,” reads the web page.
The section further refers visitors to NOAA’s Climate at a Glance for monthly, seasonal, and annual global temperature change since 1880 which clearly shows significant temperature anomalies.
It has been already scientifically accepted that global temperatures have risen in an unprecedented manner in the last few decades but some social media posts like the one mentioned above are using selective data to claim that temperature changes have been insignificant or that climate change is not happening.
Update
The University of Maine has also confirmed that an image from the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer used in a tweet to claim that human-driven global warming doesn’t exist is baseless. They have published a blog post on their official website citing this Fact Check by Climate Fact Checks.
