“Almost every whim of the weather and every peculiar environmental phenomenon can be traced back to climate change.”
“Almost every whim of the weather and every peculiar environmental phenomenon can be traced back to climate change.”
By Doug Sheridan
Sven Titz writes in NZZ, if a large part of the German-language media has its way, almost every whim of the weather and every peculiar environmental phenomenon can be traced back to climate change.
This is especially true when serious damage occurs or there are spectacular images. So practically every day. There's always a storm raging somewhere in the world. Thanks to mobile phones, there are also tons of photos and videos today. It is often claimed that these are events that would not have happened without climate change.
This mania now leads to bizarre misinterpretations. When some shallow canals in Venice ran almost empty for a short time in February, it sounded all over the country that one of the causes was the drought in northern Italy and ultimately climate change.
However, the water level in Venice's canals is the same as in the adjacent Adriatic Sea, the part of the Mediterranean Sea with which the city's lagoon is connected. The low water level was caused by a rare combination of the new moon and high air pressure. It was not caused by the drought—and therefore also not by climate change.
A particularly popular treasure trove for wild weather stories is the USA. At the end of December, the onset of winter suddenly put large parts of the country in a state of frost. It wasn't long before some declared the drop in temperature to be record-breaking and blamed it on climate change.
However, extreme temperature fluctuations have always been part of the meteorological cookbook in the USA. The reason is the Rocky Mountains, which slow down the west winds due to their north-south orientation. As a result, arctic cold air can penetrate far south unhindered. "Blizzards" are the names of the typical snowstorms that often occur as a result.
So, did the two phenomena have nothing to do with climate change at all? Well, there's a connection, but both the dry canals in Venice and the cold snap in the US occured despite climate change.
Because of global warming, sea levels are rising—slowly but steadily. The level rises by three to four millimeters per year. In the canals of Venice, low water levels have therefore become much rarer. Episodes of extreme freezing cold are also becoming rarer due to global warming. This applies to North America as well as to Europe.
To Sum It Up: The knee-jerk association of weather anomalies with climate change can't be explained solely by ignorance or thoughtlessness. Scientific studies paint a more complex picture of the change. Some weather developments definitely go in a problematic direction, but others do not.
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