AAP FACTCHECK – A study in a prestigious scientific journal proves global warming is a hoax because it found that temperature rises have not surged, social media posts claim.
The claim is false. The study found that the rate of global warming has not accelerated since the 1970s, but it did find that temperatures have been constantly increasing.
The claim is in a Facebook post sharing a screenshot of another social media post featuring a graph of temperatures from 1850 to the present day.
“Global warming is a hoax. Just ask Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama who recently bought multi million dollar water front estates,” the Facebook caption said.
The caption of the post in the image states: “NEW – A statistical investigation published in Nature finds no detectable acceleration in global warming rates post-1970s.”
The study in the journal Nature is titled “A recent surge in global warming is not detectable yet” and scrutinises global mean surface temperature records from 1850 to 2023.
The study aimed to confirm whether fears of global warming rates accelerating were justified or detectable using statistical modelling.
It found no detectable surge in the rate of global warming since the 1970s, despite record-high temperatures being observed in 2023.
That year was the warmest year on record globally, with warming approaching the Paris Agreement threshold of 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, the World Meteorological Organization reported.
Figure 1 in the Nature study (Page 2) showed that temperatures had increased since the 1970s but at a constant rather than an accelerating rate.
The study’s lead author from the University of California, climate change expert Claudie Beaulieu, said the claims in the posts did not align with the research.
Associate Professor Beaulieu said that while the study did not detect a surge in global temperature rises, it still found that the earth was consistently heating.
“Our study affirms steady warming at an alarming rate, and we must continue to step up our efforts to address climate change,” Assoc Prof Beaulieu told AAP FactCheck.
The Verdict
False – The claim is inaccurate.
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