The Weather Channel did its own debunking Tuesday of a widely discredited Breitbart article on climate change that was shared online by the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.
“Though we would prefer to focus on our usual coverage of weather and climate science, in this case we felt it important to add our two cents,” the article, which has no bylined author, reads.
“[T]housands of researchers and scientific societies are in agreement that greenhouse gases produced by human activity are warming the planet’s climate and will keep doing so,” it continues later, contradicting Breitbart’s claim that a supposed “plunge” in global temperature held promise that “[t]he last three years may eventually come to be seen as the final death rattle of the global warming scare.”
In fact, while the Breitbart article, which featured a video from TWC on the La Niña phenomenon, claimed that “global land temperatures” had dropped this year, it excluded all but one data set that supported that conclusion, and completely left out temperature data recorded over oceans. Taken together, according to TWC, the fuller data show that Earth’s lower atmosphere actually set a record high in November 2016, as scientists have claimed.
The Breitbart article—one of many dubious climate claims on the site—also asserts that “it can be argued” that record global temperatures over the past two years can be attributed to the El Niño weather phenomenon, which brings warmer weather, and that the following two years will be cooler as a result of La Niña.
While those phenomena do affect temperature in the short term, the science is clear: Trends in global temperature, independent of year-to-year shifts, show a clear warming pattern which is directly connected to human activity.
“Finally, to our friends at Breitbart,” the article concludes, “the next time you write a climate change article and need fact checking help, please call. We’re here for you. I’m sure we both agree this topic is too important to get wrong.”
