South Sudan is experiencing “extreme heatwaves” and is shutting schools and cutting power, reports BBC meteorologist Matt Taylor. “It is exceptionally early for South Sudan to experience such heat – temperatures often exceed 43°C but only in the summer months, according to the World Bank’s Climate Change portal,” he states. Hot days in the capital Juba – five degrees north of the equator – are for some a big ‘climate change’ story, but it is difficult to read into the World Bank data the interpretation that Taylor wants to publicise. In fact it is impossible, since the data clearly show that average South Sudan temperatures peak in March and then fall away through the wet monsoon ‘summer’ months.
Quite how Taylor can draw the conclusion from the above World Bank graph that it is “exceptionally early” for South Sudan to experience such heat, in a place where temperatures often exceed 45°C “but only in the summer months”, is not clear. Anybody else looking at the graph would draw the opposite conclusion. Perhaps Taylor is unclear on the difference between rainfall totals (the blue bars, which do peak in the “summer months”) and average temperatures. He also seems to be unaware that South Sudan is equatorial so does not have a “summer” and certainly not in June through August.
In fact the “heatwaves” in South Sudan drew headlines in other climate-crazed mainstream media. The New York Times reported on March 20th that: “Climate change already worsened floods and droughts in the young nation. Now soaring temperatures are forecast for two weeks.” Both the BBC and NYT write about temperatures soaring well past 40°C, but, as is often the case, we must count the spoons and consult the original sources when dealing with such unreliable propagandists.
Read More: BBC Meteorologist Falsely Claims South Sudan is Experiencing “Extreme Heat” for March