BBC exaggerated climate change in David Attenborough's Africa | Leo Hickman

David Attenborough says in the BBC series on the African continent has warmed 3.5c in the last 20 years

Natural History Unit of the BBC in Bristol is rightly respected worldwide. Nobody else can match the professionalism, vision and epic majesty of its programs, attracting wildlife around the world. For those looking for a reason to justify the BBC license, look no further than the production unit.

His last series - Africa - have concluded this week on TF1. The last episode was devoted to an examination of how the fauna of the continent was a "crucial moment in its history." Sir David Attenborough, the host and narrator of the series, told viewers that the pressures many endangered species now face when they come into conflict with the needs of local human populations. has also devoted a section of program challenges of climate change.

But it is in this section, which - as a meerkat sensing danger - my ears pricked. Unlike images of elephants walking on Mount Kilimanjaro, Attenborough said:

African climate is changing. Parts of the continent became hotter 3.5c in the last 20 years.

(for UK viewers based, here's a direct link to the event on the BBC iPlayer. Link expires Sunday, February 17.)

I had never heard this statement before stopping. If the rate of temperature increase has continued during, say, a hundred, then those parts of Africa 17.5C increase mortals! Can claim to be true?

I also noticed that some people on Twitter asking the same question. The next morning I called the press office of the BBC and asked where this information on a 3.5c increase in temperature over 20 years came.

told me it was a report published in 2006 by the "Working Group on Climate Change." The title of the report was "Africa - Up in Smoke 2: The second report on Africa and global warming from the Working Group on Climate Change and Development "and was" written and compiled "by Oxfam and the New Economics Foundation, with the support of a wide range of environmental NGOs and development, such as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, WWF, CAFOD and the Institute of Development Studies.

Page
5 contained the relevant passage (pdf)

The maximum temperature in Kericho, a mountainous region in the Rift Valley province, where most of Kenya's tea exports are grown, increased by 3.5 ? C in the last 20 years. In Lamu, on the northern coast of Kenya near Somalia to the east, the maximum temperature has increased by more than 3 ? C since the 1940s.11 Hadley Centre in the United Kingdom indicates that the temperature increases in many parts of Africa is twice the world average.

Notes

said 3.5c application was taken from a report by Christian Aid, also published in 2006, entitled The Climate of Poverty. On page 30 of the report (pdf), which says:

The speed at which glaciers are melting shows that Kenya warms. This is confirmed by field measurements. For example, the maximum temperature in Kericho, a mountainous region in the Rift Valley province, where most of Kenya's tea exports are grown, increased by 3.5 ? C over the last 20 years. In Lamu, Kenya, Somalia, north-east near the coast, the maximum temperature has increased by more than 3 ? C since 1940.

again, I looked at the notes to see where this statement comes. But you just said: "The conversation with the authors, February 2006." It is not clear that the authors had spoken with. (I'm still trying to get the co-author who wrote this paragraph.) Any party to this application, the authors quote Professor Eric Odada University of Nairobi, Kenya Meteorological Department and Peter Ambenje. I sent both for their help in cleaning, but have not heard any of them. (If I do, I'll add your message to the message.)

But I was curious why Attenborough would have used dark is something deeply buried in a report by an NGO in 2006 and make a statement that the arrest of a primetime BBC program Natural History 2013. Strange and dependence on the source report the term "high temperature" instead of the more normal (and understandable) "mean temperatures"

So I went to the press office of the BBC and asked if the production team or Attenborough himself, had double-checked and verified before issuing this statement. I also asked if the story was written and researched by someone else read Attenborough then leave, or if he himself had done.

few hours later, after talking to the production team of the program, sent me this statement:

is widely recognized within the scientific community that the climate of Africa has changed. Producers of the show have used a number of sources and statistics to illustrate this point, in this case from a report prepared by the Working Group on Climate Change and Development and supported by the data published by NASA.

press office sent me this research NASA has confirmed that the program was conducted by the "production" and not David Attenborough himself.

• Nasa
• But the link also perplexing. It is entitled "Science Briefs:. Global warming is changing life on a global scale by Cynthia Rosenzweig - December 2008 "
• Again, why the BBC article based on a somewhat obscure NASA and published in 2008? Why not use the latest scientific data?

The article itself provides a world map (pdf) showing regional changes in temperature. For Africa, it shows regional increases in temperature - not significantly Kenya, has to say - but the information is very basic and vague. He says he uses "linear trends of air temperature surface (HadCRUT3) between 1970 and 2004."

Anyway, this is not the "20 years" period mentioned in the narration Attenborough. But, however, I asked the Climate Research Unit of East Anglia University - who with the Met Office Hadley Centre, keep HadCRUT3 dataset (since upgraded to HadCRUT4) -. By his own vision of this particular claim

received this response from Dr. Tim Osborn:
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