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Misattribution science

16 Jul 2025 | OP ED Watch

While we’re on the subject of attribution non-science, we routinely receives messages like “Climate Change Tripled Heat Deaths in European Heatwave” which sound as though someone has a pile of facts not a web of speculation. Especially when it intones that: “There is strong scientific consensus that climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of heatwaves globally, with Western Europe already experiencing an increase in extreme heat events in recent years. Studies have shown that human-induced global warming has made heatwaves in the region far more likely, with temperatures like the ones observed in the last few weeks in countries like France, Italy, Spain and the UK being much less likely without climate change.” But where is this consensus? Who measured it and how? And who measured these deaths? Is it science, or advocacy in a stolen lab coat?

Glad you asked… sort of. That Statista item continues:

“Scientists from the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at the Imperial College of London have conducted a rapid study to estimate the impact of climate change on the number of heat-related excess deaths caused by the latest heatwave across 12 European cities. The researchers used established epidemiological models to estimate heat-related excess deaths under the actual observed/forecast temperatures and conditions and compared them to a counterfactual scenario for which they deducted the estimated increase in heat extremes caused by a 1.3 degree Celsius increase in global mean surface temperature from the actual temperature levels.”

1.3 degrees. So on a day when the mercury reached 33°C, the number of deaths tripled compared to if it had only reached 31.7°C. Got it.

Words like “rapid study” should always put you on your guard, because they more or less say “leaping to polemical conclusion over normal procedures”. And indeed what we have here is one set of computer models about what would happen if some spuriously precise decrease in GMST had not happened compared to what did happen. And then based on the fact that fewer people would supposedly have died if it were cooler they said more people did die than did. QED. Or not, since:

“In conclusion, the autors [sic] found that roughly 1,500 of the 2,300 estimated heat deaths in the recent heat wave, or 65 percent, were a result of climate change increasing the heat by 1 to 4 degrees Celsius, meaning the death toll was roughly tripled by the effects of climate change.”

Roughly. Or not so roughly, since The Independent blared:

“London heatwave killed 263 people – with climate crisis to blame for most, study says”

Not 262. Not 264. Exactly 263. And how do they know the heatwave killed 263 out of however many people died in that time period, with the “climate crisis” killing most of them? Um uh scientists say. Or guess:

“An extra 263 people in London died during the recent heatwave, scientists have estimated, warning that the climate crisis has tripled the number of heat-related deaths across European cities. Global heating, caused primarily by humans burning fossil fuels and cutting down forests, made the searing temperatures that gripped much of Europe in late June and early July much more intense, researchers found.”

And who are these researchers? Why, our old enemies at World Weather Attribution:

“The heatwaves were up to 4C hotter across cities compared to a world without the climate crisis, the study from the World Weather Attribution group of researchers said. The first rapid study to estimate the number of deaths linked to the climate crisis in a heatwave found human-driven global heating was responsible for around 65 per cent of the deaths that occurred across 12 cities, including London, Paris, Madrid, Barcelona and Rome. The study found around 1,500 of the 2,300 estimated heat deaths were the result of the climate crisis – equating to a tripling of the number of deaths in the heatwave due to global heating. Last week, temperatures reached up to 34C in London, and an amber heat health warning was issued by the UK Health Security Agency.”

As we have already had occasion to observe, 34C is not very hot. It’s 93F. Humans have been encountering such temperatures and more since the invention of rock against head, and not dropping dead in serried ranks or issuing brightly coloured warnings. We originated in Africa, for goodness sake. Beware of the lion, sure. Beware of orange? Not so much.

Or so much if you’re an alarmist. Climate Home News wrote:

“Happy Friday from London, where I’m writing with the shutters down and a fan trained on me as the temperature reaches 32C (89F). As us Brits are trained from birth to see sunshine as good, neighbours are telling me to ‘enjoy the nice weather’. It’s only when challenged that they agree it is actually ‘too hot’ and ‘unbearable’ in a city with barely any air conditioning. A new type of study may end this cognitive dissonance. Scientists have just estimated that the European heatwave at the end of June killed 263 people - just in London. Of those deaths, 171 were the fault of climate change making the heatwave 2-4C hotter. These are casualty numbers greater than any of the terrorist attacks we’ve suffered.”

Boo climate change! And if you don’t boo it enough your tedious activist neighbour upstairs will “challenge” you until you do. Boo temperatures soaring into the high 80s! Yay a “new type of study”. Or not, because as we also just said, while “rapid study” may be the hot new thing it shouldn’t be. Attribution science is actually a way of stacking the deck.

Hence an item in Nature that we’ve objected to previously boasting the headline “People were wrecking the climate 140 years ago – we just lacked the tech to spot it”. Um, if we were “wrecking the climate” we wouldn’t need a computer to notice. It goes on:

“Models suggest that human-caused global warming would have been detectable in the nineteenth century with today’s know-how.”

Exactly. Because “today’s know-how” means the kind of computer models that blame everything on man-made climate change including it being cooler in Queen Victoria’s day than in that of Charles III. If their modeling says anything you put in is man-made climate wreckage, it tells you nothing you want to know about climate and everything you need to know about their modeling.

The CHN piece even included a comment from the usual suspect laying bare the polemical rather than intellectual foundation:

“Friederike Otto – godmother of attribution science – said that being fast is vital as straight after a heatwave is ‘when people talk about it’.”

Whereas taking sufficient time to get it right is for shmoes, apparently.

By the way, in case you’re confused about conflating two studies by two sets of researchers, there’s only one even if Statista and The Independent don’t seem clear on where they work. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that they confirm what the journalists already thought:

“The study found around 1,500 of the 2,300 estimated heat deaths were the result of the climate crisis – equating to a tripling of the number of deaths in the heatwave due to global heating.”

Which is like global warming but more rhetorical. Especially if you deliberately study conditions in major cities, indeed writing that they “were selected due to being major urban centres”, but only mention the Urban Heat Island effect when discussing remedies, not distorted input data.

Now for some more mathiness:

“The researchers from Imperial College London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) estimated there were 263 excess deaths in London due to the heatwave from 23 June to 2 July – 173 of these deaths were due to hotter temperatures because of the climate crisis.”

And the other 90 to what? Hotter temperatures despite the climate crisis? What we have here is not a “strong scientific consensus”. It’s a small subset of scientists with a novel and congenial method of leaping to conclusions without all that tedious mucking about with data and testing of hypotheses. And by congenial, we mean to journalists given to the same.

Thus when you get an article “Europe hit by storms and wildfires after heatwave - is climate change also to blame?” you know it will break the rule that rhetorical questions in headlines are always answered “No.” So here Euronews instead shrills:

“Europe has been experiencing dozens of extreme weather events in recent weeks, from blistering heatwaves to raging storms. Many of these rapidly fluctuating phenomena have already been attributed in part to human-induced climate change. And they are only expected to increase in frequency and intensity due to global warming, scientists say, bringing further substantial damage and loss.”

This passage waves two other red flags. Or the same one twice, in the suspiciously collective passive voice of “have already been attributed” and “are only expected to increase”. Attributed by whom? Expected by whom? With reason?

Oh yes. Of course. Because experts say:

“Experts warn that Europe should brace for another summer of weather whiplash as it oscillates between droughts and floods.”

Experts here being, it seems, the entirely unbiased European Environment Agency. Oh, and:

“Climate data scientist Max Dugan-Knight at Deep Sky Research warns there is a clear link between the wildfires and climate change.”

Deep Sky Research being a totally unbiased outfit with a “Remove Carbon” button on its main web page that “analyzes the latest climate data and applies novel modeling techniques to understand and model our changing climate in a way that accurately represents the extreme climate we’re in.” Whether we are or not. And it’s part of Deep Sky that bills itself as “The World’s First Technology Agnostic Carbon Removal Project Developer”.

So exactly who you’d call to evaluate such a claim if you knew “Yes” was the only acceptable answer, complete with “hydroclimate whiplash” in case it rains, dries up, or does both in different places.

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