On 19 July, BBC Weather tweeted: “Another scorching day ahead in southern Europe. Whilst temperatures won’t be as high as yesterday in northern Spain, we could see highs of 46 or 47C for the islands of Sardinia and Sicily. #europeheatwave” The tweet has had 1,6 million views.
The same day, Monotti tweeted: “BBC tweets a temperature for Sicily which is 10°C HIGHER than the BBC app for Palermo, Sicily. What’s going on?” His tweet has been viewed 1,1 million times.
On the same day BBC was tweeting temperatures of 47oC while its app was displaying 37oC, No Tricks Zone explained in an article what had happened. The #europeheatwave hysteria started when climate sensationalist media outlets, such as Relotius Spiegel, uncritically cited a sloppily and manipulatively formulated 13 July report from the European Space Agency (“ESA”). ESA’s report first referred to “air” temperature and then later specified that it was, in fact, referring to surface temperature.
Surface temperature refers to the temperature right at the ground surface. Usually, weather reports use “air” temperatures which are measured two metres above the ground. The surface temperature is much hotter than the air temperature. In Sicily the temperature reached only 32°C over the weekend of 15 and 16 July – a far cry from 48°C reported, which illustrates the huge difference between ground surface temperature and readings taken two metres above the ground.
“Once the trickery was exposed, Spiegel quietly changed the wording in its 14 July report … It’s clear that the authorities and media tried to pull a fast one on the public but were caught again, thanks to careful readers,” No Tricks Zone wrote....<<<Read More>>>...