Breitbart Used A Weather Channel Report To Deny Climate Change. Their Response Is Perfect
The Weather Channel just gave Breitbart the internet version of the hand and issued a rare public rebuke of the fascist hate rag.
After the right-wing propaganda machine spun a Weather Channel segment into a fake news story, claiming global temperatures are falling, the most-watched channel on cable television had to respond.
Note to Breitbart: Earth Is Not Cooling, Climate Change Is Real and Please Stop Using Our Video to Mislead Americans
Global warming is not expected to end anytime soon, despite what Breitbart.com wrote in an article published last week.
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 — especially because a video clip from weather.com (La Niña in Pacific Affects Weather in New England) was prominently featured at the top of the Breitbart article. Breitbart had the legal right to use this clip as part of a content-sharing agreement with another company, but there should be no assumption that The Weather Company endorses the article associated with it.
Long story short, the cracking sharp staff at Breitbart cited a weather.com report about La Nina and used it to claim that earth was cooling at the fastest rate “in recorded history.” The problem: that statistic was taken from a single measurement taken over land in the middle of a La Nina cycle.
Rubbish, the nation’s weather authority said in its embarrassing repudiation of the conservative news purveyor. The thing is, La Nina events lead to dramatically lower temperatures, period, and temperatures fluctuate more over land than over the earth as a whole.
The 2015-16 El Nino was probably the strongest since accurate measurements began, with the water up to 3C warmer than usual. It has now been replaced by a La Nina event – when the water in the same Pacific region turns colder than normal.
This is the fake news equivalent complaining that the liquor store is too cold while sitting inside the walk-in beer freezer. The Weather Channel elaborates, as only The Weather Channel can.
Land-plus-ocean data from the other two satellite groups, released after the Breitbart article, show that Earth’s lower atmosphere actually set a record high in November 2016.
Breitbart couldn’t even get the dates right in their article, The Weather Channel writes. The fake climate story said that “without the El Niño (and the so-called “Pacific Blob”) 2014-2016 would not have been record warm years.” The response:
TRUTH: NOAA data show that the 2014-16 El Niño did not even begin until October 2014.
Truth: Breitbart should refrain from embarrassing themselves in the future and just stop trying to write about climate change. It’s just too difficult to look smart when the entire world’s scientific community simultaneously says you’re not.
