A collage of three photographs – two weather maps and one weather report – has gone viral on social media.
The first image showed temperatures on a green map from 2009, the second one showed temperatures in a similar range on a red colour map from 2019.
The third image showed a weatherman presenting the weather report while standing in front of graphic made of fireballs.
The claim along with the viral image said that television channels were purposefully changing the colour of the weather maps to create panic and exaggerate the impacts of climate change.
The claim went viral while Europe was reeling under a severe heatwave that lead to several forest fires.
However, we found that the claim was false. The first two maps showed different indicators, while the third image was edited to change the background of the report.
The caption with the viral screenshot said, "Climate crisis manipulation by German media."
The photograph was shared by several social media users on Facebook and Twitter, archives of some can be found here and here.
We conducted a reverse image search of the first image on Yandex search engine and found the image on a German news channel "Tagesschau" which is managed by ARD broadcasting service.
The article, which was published in 2019, carried a comparison between two the first two weather maps – one from 2009, and one from 2019.
The article was a clarification published by ...
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