Bob Ward has a letter in the Telegraph bemoaning (quite correctly) attempts to link the hot weather in Russia and the Pakistan floods to climate change.
SIR – The recent extreme weather in Pakistan, Russia and China is not “proof of climate change” (report, August 11).
While increases in the intensity and frequency of heatwaves, droughts and heavy rainfall in some parts of the world are consistent with the expected impacts of the rise in average temperature, it is long-term trends in extreme weather that provide evidence for a changing climate.
Researchers must be careful about presenting the evidence for global warming. Every warm or wet event cited as proof may legitimise the erroneous portrayal of outbreaks of cold weather, such as those in northern Europe and eastern North America last winter, as evidence that global warming has stopped or does not exist. Such apparent contradictions increase public confusion.
I read somewhere that we're going to have another cold winter, at least according to some forecasters. I wonder if Bob read the same article.