By Paul Homewood
The usual disinformation from the BBC:
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A deadly heatwave in West Africa and the Sahel was “impossible” without human-induced climate change, scientists say.
Temperatures soared above 48C in Mali last month with one hospital linking hundreds of deaths to the extreme heat.
Researchers say human activities like burning Fossil Fuels (Renewable Energy) made temperatures up to 1.4C hotter than normal.
A number of countries in the Sahel region and across West Africa were hit by a strong heatwave that struck at the end of March and lasted into early April.
The heat was most strongly felt in the southern regions of Mali and Burkina Faso.
In Bamako, the capital of Mali, the Gabriel Toure Hospital said it recorded 102 deaths in the first days of April.
Around half the people who died were over 60 years of age, and the hospital said that heat played a role in many of these casualties.
Researchers believe that global climate change had a key role in this five-day heatwave.
A new analysis from scientists involved with the World Weather Attribution group suggests the high day time and night time temperatures would not have been possible without the world’s long term use of coal, oil and gas as well as other activities such as deforestation.
According to the study, climate change meant temperatures were up to 1.5C warmer than normal in Mali and Burkina Faso, and made the night even hotter at 2C above the average. Across the region as a whole the five-day temperature was increased by 1.4C.
“For some, a heatwave being 1.4 or 1.5C hotter because of climate change might not sound like a big increase,” said Kiswendsida Guigma, a climate scientist at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre in Burkina Faso.
“But this additional heat would have been the difference between life and death for many people.”
While intense heatwaves are still relatively rare in this region, researchers expect them to become more common as the climate warms.
With average global temperatures now around 1.2C warmer than pre-industrial levels, scientists say events like this recent one in Mali would occur once in 200 years. But if global temperatures breach 2C, powerful heatwaves would happen every 20 years.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-68835575
The headline is fraudulent. Even if temperatures had been a degree lower, it still would have been a heatwave.
But more to the point, what on earth is the BBC’s obsession with the Little Ice Age temperatures of 200 years ago? What possible relevance do they have to people living now, or for that matter their forefathers, or their forefathers.
You might just as well say temperatures would have been 5C lower in the Ice Age!
The article focusses on Bamako, the capital of Mali. But the population there is over 4 million, ten times that of 1976.
As Wikipedia points out, this staggering population explosion is having a massive effect on traffic and pollution.
Forget about the tiny underlying increase in global temperatures in the last few decades, UHI is probably now adding four or five degrees in the heart of the city where the official weather station is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamako#Demographics
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/homr/#ncdcstnid=30098003&tab=LOCATIONS
At the nearby site of Senou, a small town in Mali, there has been no temperature increase since the 1940s:
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/stdata_show_v4.cgi?id=MLM00061291&ds=14&dt=1
To make us all feel guilty, the article notes:
All because of fossil fuels!
Except that before fossil fuels, hardly anybody in Mali lived to 60 years of age!
So if you lived in Mali, which would you prefer?
Click this link for the original source of this article.
Author: Paul Homewood
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