By Paul Homewood
If the BBC have trouble answering complaints, it appears they just ignore them!
I currently have three complaints outstanding, one of which goes back to last September:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62rr5qe602o
My Complaint:
The headline states "Climate change is turbo-charging Somalia’s problems", and the article goes on to claim that "In 2022 the country experienced its worst drought for 40 years – an event scientists estimate was made 100 times more likely by human-caused climate change."
The claim about droughts is false and absurd. According to the official World Bank Climate Portal data, the 2022 drought was not unusually severe, and many previous droughts in the 20thC were much worse.
The data can be see here:
https://climateknowledgeportal.worldbank.org/country/somalia/climate-data-historical
And the annual rainfall graph is here:
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2024/09/22/75480/
Far from droughts getting worse in Somalia, rainfall trends have been increasing since the 1980s due to global warming.
In particular the catastrophic droughts of the 1970s and 80s were part of the Great Sahel drought, which killed 100,000s in sub Saharan Africa. Scientists at the time found that the drought was the result of global cooling. For instance, NOAA published an article in 1974 "Climate: Key to the World’s Food Supply", which stated:
"In the Sahelian zone of Africa …. are enduring a drought that in some areas has been going on for more than six years now, following 40 years of abundant monsoon rainfall. And the drought is spreading into Ethiopia and Somalia. Many climatologists have associated this drought with a global cooling trend."
http://web.archive.org/web/20171006183045/http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/journals/noaa/QC851U461974oct.pdf#page=5
A proper climate journalist would have been aware of this, unlike Rowlatt who is merely an activist with no climate qualifications whatsoever.
His claim that the drought was 100 times more likely due to climate change is based on worthless computer modelling, which clearly disproved by the actual data that Rowlatt should have reported instead
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-42251921
My Complaint
You claim:
"But it is "likely" that a higher proportion of tropical cyclones across the globe are reaching category three or above, meaning they reach the highest wind speeds, according to the UN’s climate body, the IPCC"
But this is what the IPCC actually say:
"There is low confidence in most reported long-term (multi-decadal to centennial)
trends in TC frequency- or intensity-based metrics"
They do go on to say "It is likely that the global proportion of Category 3–5 tropical cyclone instances and the frequency of rapid intensification events have increased globally
over the past 40 years."
However NOAA clearly state that such short term trends are meaningless:
"A number of measures of Atlantic hurricane activity have increased since 1980, but in the of case of metrics where much longer records are available, trends since 1980 are not representative of longer (e.g., century-scale) trends. "
NOAA also say:
"There is no strong evidence of century-scale increasing trends in U.S. landfalling hurricanes or major hurricanes. Similarly for Atlantic basin-wide hurricane frequency (after adjusting for changing observing capabilities over time), there is not strong evidence for an increase since the late 1800s in hurricanes, major hurricanes, or the proportion of hurricanes that reach major hurricane intensity."
https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/global-warming-and-hurricanes/
Your report also includes a grossly misleading chart, labelled "Major Atalntic hurricanes over last century". This shows a large rise in the number in recent years. However this increase is due to the fact that satellites can now spot these hurricanes in mid-ocean. In years prior to the 1990s, many major hurricanes occurred but were never actually spotted.
It is also a fact that until recent years hurricane hunter aircraft were unable to enter the strongest hurricanes as they were not robust or powerful enough. Again therefore meteorologists in those days were unable to measure wind speeds.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckg8dg3ke40o
My Complaint
You claim climate change has brought extreme weather from hurricanes to month-long droughts.
You then list a few random weather events, but fail to provide evidence that these are anything other than natural events. Nor that such events have been getting more frequent or extreme over time.
The report highlights typhoons, stating climate change may be increasing intensity. Yet last year the number of global Tropical Cyclones and the strongest ones were both below average. Nor does the official data show them becoming more powerful over time. ( Fig 1).
There is a section on heatwaves in Asia, which again fails to offer evidence they were in any way unusual. There is a reference to a heatwave in Delhi last May & June, yet the official temperature record from the Indian Met Office for those months last year shows temperatures were not unusually high there. ( Fig 2)
Another section of your report addresses the drought in the Amazon, but the World Bank Climate Portal states that rainfall there has increased by 5% in the last 30 years: (Fig 3) https://climateknowledgeportal.worldbank.org/country-profiles
Whatever the cause of last year’s drought, it is not part of any longer term trend and therefore cannot be “climate-related”.
Finally you highlight floods in Nigeria, Chad and Sudan. It is true the climate in these countries is now wetter than 40 years ago, but the 1970s and 80s marked the Great Sahel Drought across this swathe of Africa. Since then rainfall has returned to levels seen before 1970. The wetter climate has nothing to do with global warming, as implied. (Fig 4)
Throughout your report, you base your claims on Weather Attribution Models. However computer models are not evidence of anything, and can be manipulated to provide whatever results are desired. That is why they are widely derided by the wider scientific community.
The Figures referenced are here:
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2025/01/02/bbc-extreme-weather-complaint/
I have contacted the ECU to ask why these complaints have not been dealt with.
When I had the same problem last year, they apologised and said they had a backlog because some of their staff were working at home!
I suspect the real reason is that they cannot disprove my complaints.