Hyper Alarmism: BBC Reports Absurd False Claim That Accumulated Heat In The Climate System Has DOUBLED In The Last 15 Years

The reporters are Matt McGrath and Mark Poynting. These are the breathtaking claims:

A recent, rapid heating of the world's oceans has alarmed scientists concerned that it will add to global warming.

This month, the global sea surface hit a new record high temperature. It has never warmed this much, this quickly.

Scientists don't fully understand why this has happened.

An important new study, published last week with little fanfare, highlights a worrying development.

Over the past 15 years, the Earth's accumulated heat has increased by 50%, with most of the extra going into the oceans.

"It's not yet well established, why such a rapid change, and such a huge change is happening," said Karina Von Schuckmann, the lead author of the new study and an oceanographer at the research group Mercator Ocean International.

"We have doubled the heat in the climate system the last 15 years, I don't want to say this is climate change, or natural variability or a mixture of both, we don't know yet. But we do see this change."

Firstly, you will note that the BBC’s claims and the claims of the lead author (in bold) are contradictory. The BBC says that the Earth’s accumulated heat has increased by 50% over the last 15 years, the lead author claims that it has doubled (an increase of 100%) over the same period. They can’t both be true. I checked the actual study and it turns out that neither of them are true. The BBC, as usual, is propagating total alarmist bullshit on climate.

Here’s what the actual study says:

This study builds on the first internationally and multidisciplinary Earth heat inventory in 2020 (von Schuckmann et al., 2020) and provides an update on total Earth system heat accumulation, heat storage in all Earth system components (ocean, land, cryosphere, atmosphere), and the Earth energy imbalance up to the year 2020. Moreover, this study improved earlier estimates and further extended and fostered international collaboration, allowing researchers to move towards a more complete view of where and how much heat is stored in the Earth system through the addition of new estimates such as for permafrost thawing, inland freshwater (Sect. 4), and Antarctic sea ice (Sect. 5). Results obtained reveal a total Earth system heat gain of 381±61 ZJ over the period 1971–2020, with an associated total heating rate of 0.48±0.1 W m⁻². About 89 % of this heat is stored in the ocean, about 6 % on land, about 4 % in the cryosphere, and about 1 % in the atmosphere (Figs. 8, 9). The analysis additionally reconfirms an increased heating rate which amounts to 0.76±0.2 W m⁻² for the most recent era (2006–2020). The drivers for this change still need to be elucidated, and they most likely reflect the interplay between natural variability and anthropogenic change (Loeb et al., 2021; Kramer et al., 2021; Liu et al., 2020); their implications for changes in the Earth system are reflected in the many record levels of change in the 2000s reported elsewhere (e.g., Cheng et al., 2022b; Forster et al., 2021; Gulev et al., 2021).

They quote the figure for the estimated increase in total heat content (most of which is in the oceans) but they do not say that it has doubled or increased by 50%. What has increased by approximately 50% over the period 2006 to 2020 (15 years) is the estimated rate at which heat is accumulating in the oceans and the rest of the climate system (land, atmosphere and cryosphere). This is very different, I’m sure you will agree and the cause, as admitted to by the authors, is unknown; the change in rate could in fact be predominantly natural in origin. They just don’t know. This is not the impression given by the BBC article, presumably in collusion with the lead author. I should complain to the BBC for this false information, but what is the point. They just keep doing it. Best to adopt the position that anything you read on the BBC, especially as regards climate change, is false until proven otherwise.

Just in case the BBC quietly amend their published article, here are the screenshots: