Remembering the great media beat-ups blaming Sahel drought on global warming. You could not make this stuff up. Is Global Warming Really Harming Africa’s Sahel Region? Thanks to an alert reader who says – The bias towards alarm is verging on the ridiculous.
Thanks Warwick. This one really is staggering.
As you say, decades of beatups about how the Sahel will suffer under greenhouse gas warming. All the time data show rainfall increasing in the Sahel. Then finally they come up with a model that says yes, GHG warming is causing the improved rainfall.
And then what? They tie themselves in knots trying to show that even though it’s good, it’s bad:
“The Reading scientists say the findings show just how fragile and sensitive the African climate is to man-made climate change…. The scientists added that while these results suggest that climate change has had some beneficial effects for this part of Africa in the short term, the long-term impacts will be very different as greenhouse gases continue to accumulate in the atmosphere…These [impacts] include heatwaves, sea level rise, flooding and drought, leading to potential crop failures, water shortages, and disease…. Professor Sutton added: ‘These positive short-term impacts were accidental. No-one was trying to bring them about. Nevertheless, such major changes show that by continuing to emit greenhouse gases, we are seriously upsetting a natural system that we don’t even fully understand, and this system is our home…Our new study shows that our activities are not just causing problems for future generations. They are causing major changes now…Continuing on the current path of greenhouse gas emissions will lead to more serious and widespread impacts. I trust the governments meeting later this year in Paris will appreciate the gravity of this message.’ ”
As you say, the bias beggars belief. Even if GHG warming produces a major benefit to the poorest people on earth, that’s just another reason to stop it now before we all fry.
Who knows whether the study – which is only another pile of modelling results – really proves that increased GHGs are making Sahel rain recover. But the fact that such a conclusion has to be presented in such a distorted and politicised fashion has me more worried about the state of our scientific culture than the climate.
That the rainfall hasn’t recovered to the same levels as in the 1940’s & 50’s should suggest that CO2 isn’t the relevant factor.
Crops, such as corn are shown to improve much better under dryer conditions, when subjected to elevated CO2: www.co2science.org/data/plant_growth/dry/z/zeam.php