False claims suggesting that the BBC has been misreporting temperatures in southern Europe have been spreading on social media.
A clip of Neil Oliver, a GB News presenter, accusing the BBC “and others” of “driving fear” by using “supposedly terrifying temperatures”, has been viewed more than two million times.
For the past few weeks, an intense heatwave has been sweeping through parts of southern Europe and north Africa, with extensive wildfires breaking out in Greece, Italy and Algeria - leading to more than 40 deaths.
Speaking about the fires on Rhodes on GB News on Monday, Mr Oliver accused the BBC, and other broadcasters, of trying to “make people terrified of the weather”.
We haven’t even begun to see the impact of this year’s el nino event, yet… https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/20/us/2024-hotter-than-2023-el-nino-nasa-climate/index.html
“It’s really only just emerged, and so what we’re seeing is not really due to that El Niño,” Schmidt told reporters. “What we’re seeing is the overall warmth pretty much everywhere – particularly in the oceans. … The reason why we think that’s going to continue is because we continue to put greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Until we stop doing that, temperatures will keep on rising.”
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“We anticipate that 2024 is going to be an even warmer year because we’re going to be starting off with that El Niño event,” Schmidt said. “That will peak towards the end of this year, and how big that is is going to have a big impact on the following year’s statistics.”