Shifty Science

A recent story distributed around the province by Glacier Media proclaims: Climate change making incoming B.C. heat up to 5 times more likely: scientists
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The scientists involved are from Climate Central who created a digital mapping system which claims to show how much more likely hot temperatures around the world have become due to Climate Change. Their model supposedly computes what the average temperatures should be without Climate Change and then compares them to actual temperatures on any given day.

From the Glacier article, this is Climate Central’s disturbing Climate Shift Index​ (CSI) map for BC on May 12, 2023:

Areas in white apparently show places not impacted by Climate Change that day, while dark red purports that the temperature is at least 5 times more likely to have occurred because of Climate Change.

Basically, they are comparing actual temperatures against an adjusted norm that is 1.3 C cooler than official Environment Canada means, because today’s temperatures are thought to be 1.3 C warmer since pre-industrial times. From this, the white neutral areas on the map are actually cooler than real averages, and this false norm leads to a bias in the data towards warm temperature gradient representation.

This is not “science”, it’s propaganda.

To demonstrate how incorrect the CSI can be, when conditions are colder than normal the map should display a gradient of grey colours, with dark grey representing conditions that are 5 times less likely to occur given Climate Change. The period December 19 to 22, 2022 was a very cold stretch in Vancouver, yet the December 21, 2022 CSI shows only white colouration for the Metro area, indicating that we were apparently experiencing average temperatures.

This is simply wrong given that the -10 C mean temperature at the airport on December 21, 2022 is the record-low for that date for the full 86 year history at the YVR weather station. It is 13 C lower than the 30-year average (+3 C) for that date. This should have established the darkest shade of grey on the map over Vancouver according to Climate Central’s CSI colour scale, but that wasn’t the case.

The news article’s bias is just as bad as the “science” behind it. Vancouver had been experiencing relentless lower than normal temperatures since last November. The current May warm up is welcome relief, but the Glacier reporter only sees it as an opportunity to alarm his readers. Why didn’t he do a piece in April about the persisting cold? Probably because he’s a Climate Change embellisher and balanced reporting is not in his interest.

The reporter had likely been waiting quite a while for the right weather system to show us the new Climate Shift Index toy he found. However, like all poorly-glued-together models, it belongs in the garbage.