When Every Temperature is Above Average

No, I did not invent this article’s catchy headline. It was inspired by Canadian lawyer Andrew Roman. It is catchy because it cannot be correct. Every country changes temperature at a rate that, when compared with the average of them all, shows half to be cooling and half to be warming. That is mathematical-definition material: they can all warm at once compared to their past, but they cannot all warm at once compared to the average of them all.

Andrew’s short biography is at his blog site.

I am a retired litigation lawyer with over 45 years of experience in constitutional, environmental and energy law issues. I have appeared at all levels of court including the Supreme Court of Canada, and in every Canadian province. I have been invited as a guest lecturer at almost all of the law schools in Canada. I am also the author of over 100 legal articles and a law book and have been an adjunct faculty member at four Canadian law schools.

Andrew’s blog article of November 6^, 2019, starts with these words.

If you read the recent media headlines that Canada’s temperature is warming more than twice as fast as the average, you would probably believe it, as I did at first, and fear that Canada is facing a unique climate emergency. 

But the same ‘warming twice as fast as average’ headline recently appeared for numerous other countries: Australia, Finland, China, Sweden, Russia, Britain, all of Europe, Singapore and Japan. How can all these countries be warming twice as fast as the average?

Surprisingly, these media stories are neither a joke nor a mistake. They are a trivial fact, turned into a frightening story by deceptively vague language.

Climate change is commonplace in our daily lives, in the news, even in sermons and always and everywhere in our schools, as Quadrant ‘s Tony Thomas and other contributors have so often reported. Here’s a thought: what reprimand would suit a principal who bare-face reported all his students to be above the school average. You need to be the climate game to get away with that.

Here’s a thought: what reprimand would suit a principal who bare-face reported all his students to be above the school average.

Andrew’s list starts with Australia, Finland, China, Sweden. Prudent scientists spot-check such lists. Let us start with Australia’s warming? I did a Google search for “australia is warming faster than average.” The first hit of some 31,900,000 results obliged, stating “Australia is Warming Faster than Global Average”.

The second hit led to The Guardian, which references a 2023 CSIRO/BOM paper by Grose et al containing this passage:

This change of 1.6°C is slightly greater than that from the linear trend in 1910–2021 of 1.44°C, mainly due to the warming in the early period and the effect of using a difference rather than a trend. This estimate of Australian historical climate warming is in line with the global land average, faster than the ocean average and the global average including oceans, but less than regions such as the Arctic or the large northern hemisphere continents.

Which all leads to the conclusion that the original statement in the title of this article is false, as was the Guardian‘s take on it. It all depends on what you choose to average, but it does not tell you that. You have to know whether these are temperatures over land, sea or both (this is for land). You have to know the start and end dates of the data. You have to know if the data are raw or adjusted. You have to know if those adjustments are the same for global and Australia (hard to discern). You have to know how different two temperatures are to be significantly different, not mere noise.

On to Finland, of which a Google search produces this 2022 article from the International Energy Agency:

Finland’s average annual temperature has risen more than 1°C in the past 150 years and is projected to continue increasing more rapidly than the global average in upcoming decades. Warmer temperatures are likely to reduce energy demand for heating.

People and groups, for reasons best known to them, tag along for the ride. The second search hit for little Finland explains itself: https://inhabitat.com/finland-is-warming-faster-than-the-rest-of-the-world/

We can make China the last spot test. Ever-reliable Bloomberg is first off the search rank with the headline “China Is Heating Up Faster Than The Global Average, Data Shows”.

27 Aug 2020 — China has seen faster temperature increases and rising sea levels than the global average rate over the past few decades, and experienced …

What is the story for Andrew’s Canada? I did a similar search, “canada is warming faster than average”. Again, the first hit obliged, with Canada’s Climate Institute in 2024 advising us that –

Canada is warming twice as fast as the global average, and Canada’s Arctic is warming nearly four times as fast –– Government of Canada 2019; Rantanen et al. 2022

So far, four out of four spot checks are verified. They express the theme of the title in no uncertain terms. The readers of these articles are invited to swallow the story, hook line and sinker.

As an aside, if you do a search similar to mine, you might get results in a different order. But the sense of it all does not change much.

What if the story is not grand enough? We have been looking at countries. What happens if we move up a notch to look at continents?

Yes, you guessed it. Every single continent is warming faster than average.

What happens if we move up a notch to look at continents? Yes, you guessed it. Every single continent is warming faster than average.

For Asia, the World Meteorological Organization reports in April 2024 that

Asia is warming faster than the global average. The warming trend has nearly doubled since the 1961–1990 period.

For Africa, a Google search finds Reuters 2023 advising that –

Africa endures more severe warming than elsewhere, posing risk of conflict.

For Antarctica, the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative in September 2023 reports –

Latest Observations: Antarctica Warming Nearly Two Times Faster Than the Rest of the World

When authorities such as the World Meteorological Organisation and International Energy Agency declare places to be warming faster than average, one can only respond that the concept is a nonsense. Good science at work? Hardly. Propaganda and the prostitution of science’s good name by those who for reasons of ideology or profit are determined to end fossil fuels and nuclear.

A prudent scientist also looks at the reverse argument. Here is what happens when Google is asked to search for “countries cooling faster than the global average”.

Top of the hit list was another bastion of activist reporting, The Washington Post, that had an article in 2022 on the topic “The surprising reasons parts of Earth are warming more slowly”. Among the slower candidates were East Antarctica, said to be due to a hole in the ozone layer; India, a consequence of air pollution and the North Atlantic (ocean) due to melting ice.

Not much of importance can be deduced from that search. Most of the hits avoid discussing the search topic head-on. But, it is an example in logic, of reductio ad absurdum  – (reduction to absurdity) – also known as argumentum ad absurdum (argument to absurdity) or apagogical arguments, the form of argument that attempts to establish a claim by showing the opposite scenario would lead to absurdity or contradiction.

I suggest that an above average absurdity has been established.