2020 officially saw a record number of $1 billion weather and climate disasters.

Yes, always find the actual report and read that rather than the media article, which 100% of the time will be spun or just plain wrong. Unfortunately, though, the vast majority of the public won't do this as they scroll the headlines on their phone on the bus/train. The media know this perfectly well and know they have latitude to influence accordingly.

Would you class, for example, that report by a "serious" paper (The Irish Times) posted by Oneiric yesterday that refered to the temperature warnings last week as being "unprecedented", even though the warning system was only introduced a few years ago? Or RTÉ's pathetic apology for failing to mention that the same heatwave was due to climate change? I mean, when the public read this there's only one message they're receiving, and it's not the right one.

The daytime temperatures were on the very high side of 'normal' apart from NI where record maximum temperatures were exceeded, but the night time temperatures not falling below 20c for 2 nights in a row, this is unprecedented in the instrumental record, so although the alerts themselves aren't in use for that long, even if they had been used for a century, they would never have had the opportunity to warn about this kind of night time event up until last week. You mightn't like the use of the word 'unprecedented' because it is emotive, but if it's also accurate, then the journalist has a leg to stand on.

In relation to RTE's statement, They apologised for not covering climate change stories globally, not specifically the recent Irish heatwave, more comprehensively because their only science correspondent was focused on Covid. The statement was that they acknowledge that they have been remiss in their coverage and promise to do better in future. They're assembling a team dedicated to climate change issues which i think is a good thing, because this is a very complex issue that requires people who are knowledgeable to be able to report it accurately, and ask the right questions

https://www.rte.ie/news/analysis-and-comment/2021/0726/1237408-climate-change/

'Unprecedented extreme heat warning', now, I wonder why that would be...

"The new Extreme Heat Warnings were introduced at the start of June 2021. They are intended to raise awareness of the negative aspects of heat, and to promote advice everyone can use to keep safe and to help keep the country running"

Extreme Heat Warnings in the UK | Royal Meteorological Society (rmets.org)

As I have pointed out before, and will keep pointing out, we are literally being spoon fed disinformation, often via linguistic trickery and/or 'lying by omission' on a daily basis (and not just regarding climate) and people gobble it up every single time... while at the same time accusing others of actively engaging in disinformation.

Welcome to our Brave New World folks.

Ok, it was the first time to record two consecutive "tropical nights", so there now have been 8 in total in the "digital record" (whatever that is).

https://twitter.com/MetEireann/status/1418187655087599617?s=19

Yeah, that's a strange one alright. I have a problem with the expression even during the day but at night?

Why weren't extreme heat warnings introduced earlier in the UK

Hmm, Let me think. what could it be? could it be that the Met office didn't know about hot weather? No, they probably knew about that. Could it be that they didn't have any weather alerts or warnings until 2021? No, couldn't be that either they had gale warnings since 1861

What could it be that made them think that 2021 is the time to introduce extreme high temperature warnings?

Oh yeah,it's the fact that they actually need them now, after over 2000 people died in the multiple extreme heat events that occurred in 2020 and have again re-occurred in 2021 while in the past extreme heat in the UK was rare and short lived, but in 2021, heatwaves are more common and have longer duration, and the nights are not cooling as fast as they did. The previous ' Heat Health Alert service' that only covered England and was administered by the NHS and only really communicated to health sector workers is not adequate in a climate where any of the UK countries could experience intense long duration heatwaves during the period between May and October each year

I would think it's more a simple case of the growth of social media. Having colour-coded warnings make sharing the info much easier (while also generating a lot of clicks, because isn't that what it's really all about?). www.meteoalarm.eu was set up because of the internet, not because the weather need was so drastic. Without the internet would we instead have been getting fliers in the door every time there was a weather warning issued?

Channel 4 hard at it, I see. Four articles on the same day, three of which are from non-Science reporters who, as per Akrasia's terms and conditions, can be disregarded.

these these go to 11. . . the UK met office has done a Spinal tap.

Amazing the tosh that will be spewed out in blind defence of the disinformation spewed out by the press... The great informed preaching to us what they think the press were 'really' saying as opposed to directly addressing what they were actually saying.

Given that this heatwave lasted a full consecutive ten days in many parts of the country, which is possibly a record for the number of station that did record such, I took a look at Shannon's data (which goes back to Sept '45) which is located in a region of the country that tends to bare the brunt of such weather and averaged out a 10 day running mean max and mean min up to the 28th of this month.

Notable stand outs:

The recent heatwave did occur sooner than would be the average frequency for a heatwaves to re-occur (only 3 years after that great heatwave of 2018).

Maxima:

The heatwave of June/early July 2018 resulted in the highest 10 day mean max being recorded at this station with an extraordinary 28.2c being reached by July 3rd. 10 day average peak this time around reached 27.8c, which a small being lower that that of its 2018 rival, is still impressively higher than the next max figure of 27.2c in early July 1995.

Minima:

The highest running 10 day mean minima during the recent heatwave reached 15.5c on the 24th July, which, while sickeningly high, falls short, by no small measure, to that of the 16.4c in late August 1983 or the 16.9c in early August 1995.

All this data from Met Eireann.

Conclusion. The recent heatwave was, in terms of brute strength, the 2nd warmest in this recorded series with regards consistently high max temps but in terms of consistently warm nights, both 2021 and 2018 didn't really impress at all. 2013, 2006, 1997, 1995 and 1983 (as mentioned) all had higher readings and July 1984 saw a similar values with regards consistently warm minima as this more recent episode.

Classic flick! Spinal Tap always had to go that one notch higher for the sake of rock and roll. One member couldn't just die in classic rock and roll fashion by choking on his own vomit; no, that would be too lame. He had to go that one notch further by dying instead by choking on someone else's vomit. 😝

I see Storm Evert, which had one Channel 4 reporter above almost wetting himself with joy with the timing of the event, did as predicted overnight and today and brought just wet weather to England and gusts overall in the 50-80 kph range. Only on Scilly Isles, off the far southwest coast, did it bring anything remotely of interest (111 kph gust). Another storm in a teacup, but one that was already being included in the growing list of human-induced "severe" weather events.

Imagine if the 1979 Fastnet storm, or the 1961 ex-hurricane Debbie, had happened nowadays. Channel 4 would be interrupting programming to bring the latest nasty fossil fuels have thrown at us.

There is massive pressure on scientists to express the dangers of climate change while suppressing any data or theories indicating that the impact of it is not as bad as pushed in the media. In many cases their funding depends on it.

So is the met office scientist lying or mistaken in your opinion?

I don't know. All I know is that in Ireland at least, two of our 3 wettest winter months occured 26+ years ago (1990, 1995) while our wettest days for 2 out of 3 winters months all occurred 27+ years ago (1954, 1994).

2015 was the only year this century to break a monthly daily rainfall record for any season (December). It also broke the monthly record (also December) while 2000 is the only other year this century to break a monthly record (November). All other record still stand from the 20th century.