Deadly African Heatwave “Impossible” Without Climate Change, Claims BBC

Never one to shirk the opportunity for an apocalyptic headline, the BBC’s climate correspondent Matt McGrath has written up a story about how:

A deadly heatwave in West Africa and the Sahel was “impossible” without human-induced climate change, scientists say.

Temperatures soared above 48°C in Mali last month with one hospital linking hundreds of deaths to the extreme heat.

Researchers say human activities like burning fossil fuels made temperatures up to 1.4°C hotter than normal.

But the very next line goes on:

A separate study on drought in Southern Africa said El Niño was to blame, rather than climate change.

So the headline could have read: Southern African drought “impossible” without El Niño. But it didn’t. The story continues:

A number of countries in the Sahel region and across West Africa were hit by a strong heatwave that struck at the end of March and lasted into early April.

The heat was most strongly felt in the southern regions of Mali and Burkina Faso.

In Bamako, the capital of Mali, the Gabriel Toure Hospital said it recorded 102 deaths in the first days of April.

Around half the people who died were over 60 years of age, and the hospital said that heat played a role in many of these casualties.

Researchers believe that global climate change had a key role in this five-day heatwave.

A new analysis from scientists involved with the World Weather Attribution group suggests the high day time and night time temperatures would not have been possible without the world’s long term use of coal, oil and gas as well as other activities such as deforestation.

A sceptic might ask whether improved medical treatment has resulted in there being more people alive in their 60s and thus being subjected in advanced age to the heat that Africa is well known for, but that isn’t covered.

“For some, a heatwave being 1.4° or 1.5°C hotter because of climate change might not sound like a big increase,” said Kiswendsida Guigma, a climate scientist at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre in Burkina Faso. “But this additional heat would have been the difference between life and death for many people.”

A difference of 1.4-1.5°C would certainly make a difference to elderly people in the northern hemisphere surviving winter but that goes unmentioned.

To be fair to McGrath, despite the headline, the second half of the story provides some balance:

While the fingerprints of humanity are on this event, it’s not the same for the serious drought that has hit countries in southern Africa early this year.

Low rainfall saw crop failures in several countries leading to an estimated 20 million people facing hunger. Water shortages in Zambia and Zimbabwe saw outbreaks of cholera with states of disaster declared in both countries as well as in neighbouring Malawi.

Researchers looked at temperature and rainfall data to determine the causes of the drought.

They found that climate change did not have a significant influence on low rainfall during the December-February period across the region.

Instead, they believe that the El Niño weather phenomenon was to blame.

This upwelling of warm water in the Pacific is linked to impacts on weather in many locations.

Climate change or El Niño then? Whatever lights your fire, so to speak, it seems.

You can read the story in full and decide for yourself.

Stop Press: A Daily Sceptic reader has pointed out that the period in question (late March and early April) coincides with Ramadan. The two countries named are both Muslim-majority countries. Since many Muslims fast water as well as food, it seems unsurprising that when the month-long Ramadan fast coincides with the annual hot season, old people die at a greater rate for heat-related causes.