Much Attribution About Nothing

In a recent Vancouver Sun story called Environment Canada scientists can now rapidly link heat waves to climate change​ Nathan Gillett from Environment Canada describes his faster Climate Change attribution algorithm:

We’re comparing how often, say, a heat wave as strong as the one we observed in B.C. occurs in the present climate with how often it occurred in the pre-industrial climate without human influence, and we use climate model simulations to do that.

The Sun reporter adds that … where it used to take months to create a report, now they can do it in days. This means that statements like, climate change made B.C.’s 2021 heat dome 150 times more likely, will be available to the media in a more anxiety-timely manner.

They will then be able to quickly involve their UBC contacts, who will provide further sage observations such as that obtained from Lualawi Mareshet Admasu, a PhD candidate in atmospheric sciences: The temperate summers people knew in the 1960s and ’70s have changed drastically, and he said we need to adapt.

​The young grad student from Ethiopia wasn’t alive in the 60’s and 70’s, and despite having lived in Vancouver for only a few years, it appears he doesn’t need to review actual local data to know what our summers used to be like. However, there are a few contrary top-10 records from the Environment Canada maximum averages at YVR airport that he should consider:
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      Hottest Years       Summer (J/J/A)
        1958  15.4 C           1958  23.8 C
        2004  14.9 C           2004  23.2 C
        2015  14.9 C           2021  23.2 C
        1940  14.8 C           1967  23.0 C
        1941  14.7 C           1961  23.0C
        1987  14.7 C           2015  23.0 C
        1998  14.7 C           2003  23.0 C
        1992  14.6 C           2009  23.0 C
        1995  14.6 C           1998  22.4 C
        2016  14.6 C           2019  22.3 C
        2023  14.6 C           2023  22.3 C
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NASA tells us that the last 10 years were the hottest ever measured on Earth. So how come that’s not the case here in Vancouver? It looks like Climate Change peaked for us in temperate 1958.
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The 2021 heat dome was obviously a significant event … and according to the experts, was apparently 150 times more likely due to Climate Change. That weather must have involved the hottest daily temperatures Vancouver has ever experienced, right? No:
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       Hottest Day
       2009  34.4 C
       2009  34.0 C
       1960  33.3 C
       2021  32.4 C
       2021  32.3 C
       1990  31.9 C
       1998  31.9 C
       1960  31.7 C
       1961  31.7 C
       2021  31.7 C
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People did die in the 2021 heat though, but was it due to extreme conditions that no human can withstand? Again, no. Those four hot-for-Vancouver days would have been normal summer weather for the majority of cities in the world. Our government and elder care facilities just weren’t prepared for what would have been business as usual elsewhere.

The Sun reporter apparently believes that: Stronger heat waves doesn’t mean balmier beach weather but rather the potential for more deadly events. In most populated areas on the planet however, temperatures in the low thirties indeed mean balmier beach weather, not catastrophe.

To emphasize her hyperbole, the reporter purports that Climate Change is currently evident in the deaths of hundreds making the 2024 Haj pilgrimage. She sets out: Earlier this week, a report in The Guardian said that more than 500 pilgrims had died on the journey to Mecca from heat-related illness as a brutal heat wave pushed temperatures above 51 C.

First, official temperatures for Mecca were actually below the 43 C norm for June, averaging just under 40 C from June 10 to 23, 2024 – it was not a brutal heat wave given the time and place. The 51 C temperature was from the courtyard of the Great Mosque at the Kaaba, encircled by thousands of pilgrims, without shade.

Second, the majority of heat-related deaths occurred enroute to Mecca involving non-registered pilgrims who were not allowed entry into the air conditioned cooling facilities along the way, reserved for the registered (paying) faithful.

Third, hundreds making the Haj trek die each year from heat, illness and trampling. In 2015 2,400 died in one stampede-like event alone. High death toll is the norm.

Finally, the timing of Haj moves with the Islamic lunar calendar. Previous dates were later in the year (cooler) and subsequent dates will be earlier in the year (cooler). This year the event took place at the hottest time of the year.

Back to Vancouver, in 1958 we experienced 41 summer days above 25 C, and the next closest year had only 25 such days:
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       25.0 C + Days
         1958      41
         1967      25
         1998      25
         2004      25
         2021      25
         2018      23
         2009      22
         1961      20
         1985      19
         2003      19
         2023      19
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This is an incredible meteorological anomaly. If you plug that into Environment Canada’s algorithm, how much more likely did Natural Variation make 1958’s extraordinary heat run … 300, 500 times?

The climate modellers hover over their computer programs, believing they know the likelihood of daily weather events that took place before records were kept. Given that global industrialization began towards the end of several centuries of cold called the Little Ice Age, it probably is a little warmer today … naturally … but natural climate change doesn’t sell the news nor garner research funding.

Attribution simulation is just a sad clown, trotted out on stage as part of the Climate Change tragicomedy that government and the media are forcing us to sit through.
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