Human carbon pollution is heating the Earth incredibly fast. On top of that long-term human-caused global warming trend, there are fluctuations caused by various natural factors. One of these is the El Niño/La Niña cycle. The combination of human-caused warming and a strong El Niño event are on the verge of causing an unprecedented three consecutive record-breaking hot years.
Simply put, without global warming we would not be seeing record-breaking heat year after year. In fact, 2014 broke the temperature record without an El Niño assist, and then El Niño helped push 2015 over 2014, and 2016 over 2015.
Sadly, we live in a post-truth world dominated by fake news in which people increasingly seek information that confirms their ideological beliefs, rather than information that’s factually accurate from reliable sources. Because people have become incredibly polarized on the subject of climate change, those with a conservative worldview who prefer maintaining the status quo to the steps we need to take to prevent a climate catastrophe often seek out climate science-denying stories.
Into that environment step conservative columnists David Rose at the Mail on Sunday, parroted by Ross Clark in The Spectator and James Delingpole for Breitbart, all trying to blame the current record-shattering hot global temperatures entirely on El Niño. Perhaps saddest of all, the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee tweeted the Breitbart piece, to which Senator Bernie Sanders appropriately responded:
Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders)Where'd you get your PhD? Trump University? https://t.co/P5Ez5fVEwD
December 1, 2016
An über cherry-picked argument
The conservative columnists made their case by claiming that, with the recent strong El Niño event ending, temperatures are “plummeting,” thus blaming the record heat on El Niño. There are several fatal flaws in their case.
First, the “plummet” they cite is not in global temperatures on the surface where we live, and where temperatures are easiest to measure accurately, but rather in satellite estimates of the temperature of the lower atmosphere above the portions of Earth’s surface covered by land masses. Second, although the satellite data extend as far back as 1979, and the global surface temperature data to 1880, they cherry pick the data by only showing the portion since 1997. Third, the argument is based entirely upon one relatively cool month (October 2016) that was only cool in that particularly cherry-picked data set.
The argument is easily debunked. While there was a strong El Niño event in 2015–2016, there was an equally strong event in 1997–1998. The two events had very similar short-term warming influences on global surface temperatures, but according to Nasa, 2016 will be about 0.35°C hotter than 1998. That difference is due to the long-term, human-caused global warming trend. In fact, according to Nasa, even October 2016 was hotter than every month on record prior to 1998. These “plummeting” post-El Niño temperatures are still as hot as the hottest month at the peak of the 1998 El Niño.
In fact, just three days after the conservative columnists’ pieces came out, the November 2016 satellite data was published. It turned out to be the hottest November in the entire record. Oops.
Pushback from climate scientists and real science journalists
Climate scientists have strongly pushed back against this misinformation. Climate scientist Adam Sobel told the Guardian, “they’re not serious articles” and “grossly misinterpret” the data. For Climate Feedback, seven scientists graded David Rose’s piece, and gave it a “very low” credibility score of -1.9 (the lowest possible score is -2.0). The scientists described Rose’s article as “incredibly misleading,” “flawed to perfection,” and “completely bogus.”
Real science journalists have also taken the biased conservative pieces to task (I define real science journalists as those whose primary goal is to accurately inform readers about science, as opposed to fake science journalists whose primary goal is to distort science in order to advance an agenda). For example, see the Guardian, New York Times, Washington Post, Slate, Carbon Brief, and climate science bloggers.
Science, facts, and truth aren’t changed by ideology or opinion
Admitting that conservatives have pushed us into a post-truth world, Donald Trump supporter and CNN political commentator Scottie Nell Hughes said on The Diane Rehm Show:
People that say facts are facts, they’re not really facts … Everybody has a way of interpreting them to be the truth or not true. There’s no such thing, unfortunately, anymore of facts. And so Mr. Trump’s Tweets amongst a certain crowd, a large part of the population, are truth. When he says that millions of people illegally voted, he has some facts amongst him and his supporters, and people believe they have facts to back that up.
On issues of belief, like politics, it’s true that differing opinions are roughly equally valid. While policy questions can be supported by evidence and data, ultimately they often come down to subjective individual preferences and opinions. In science, that’s not true. A scientific theory or argument is either supported by evidence and data, or it’s not. Opinions are not equally valid. We all live on the same planet, in the same universe, governed by the same laws of physics. Whether we lean toward liberal or conservative ideology, those physical laws don’t change.
Unfortunately, conservatives are increasingly likely to deny this reality. As Trump’s chief of staff Reince Priebus told Fox News:
as far as this issue on climate change … he has his default position, which most of it is a bunch of bunk
This is effectively the default position of the Republican Party, and it’s the only major political party in the world in denial about scientific reality. The party can take that position because the conservative media outlets that its voters consume misinform them with post-truth nonsense like this.
Unfortunately, when it comes to science, we don’t get to choose our own truths. Scientists and science journalists effectively held the post-truth crowd accountable on this story. They’ll have their work cut out for them in the coming years.