by Javier Vinós
The unlikely volcano, the warmest year, and the collapse of the polar vortex.
The climate events of 2022-24 have been were truly extraordinary. From an unlikely undersea volcanic eruption to the warmest year on record to the collapse of the polar vortex after three sudden stratospheric warming events. This rare convergence presents a unique learning opportunity for climatologists and climate aficionados alike, offering insights into a climate event that may not be repeated for hundreds or even thousands of years.
- January 2022, the unlikely volcano
Never before have we witnessed an undersea volcanic eruption with a plume capable of reaching the stratosphere and depositing a large amount of vaporized water. This extraordinary event occurred in January 2022 when the Hunga Tonga volcano erupted. The conditions for such an event are rare: the volcano must be deep enough to propel enough water with the plume, but not too deep to prevent it from reaching the stratosphere. Most undersea volcanoes do not produce plumes at all, which makes Hunga Tonga’s eruption all the more remarkable.
The Hunga Tonga volcano occupied a unique “sweet spot” at a depth of 150 meters the day before the eruption. In addition, the eruption itself must be exceptionally powerful for water vapor to rise into the stratosphere. The January 2022 eruption of Hunga Tonga was the most powerful in 30 years, since the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo.
Figure 1. The Hunga Tonga eruption from space.
Active undersea volcanoes at the appropriate depth are rare, and the likelihood of one erupting with such intensity is relatively low. We may be looking at an event that occurs once every few centuries, or maybe even once every millennium. Undoubtedly, it was an exceptionally rare event.
While the most powerful eruptions, such as Tambora in 1815, can indeed strongly influence hemispheric weather for a few years, our observations of eruptions such as Agung (1963), El Chichón (1982), and Pinatubo (1991) suggest that their effects dissipate within 3-4 years.
The idea that the Little Ice Age (LIA) was caused by increased volcanic activity is popular. However, the data suggest otherwise. Volcanic activity during the LIA was not unusually high, but rather lower than the Holocene average (although volcanic activity was exceptionally high in the early 19th century, towards the end of the LIA). The primary unusual climate forcing factor during the LIA was exceptionally low solar activity.
Volcanic eruptions that penetrate the stratosphere trigger significant radiative, chemical, and dynamical changes, with sulfur playing a key role. Volcanic sulfur dioxide (SO2) oxidates, combines, and aggregates forming sulfate aerosols. These aerosols scatter incoming shortwave radiation, resulting in reduced surface insolation and consequent surface cooling. They also absorb both incoming and outgoing infrared radiation, contributing to stratospheric warming.
The effect of the Hunga Tonga eruption, however, is quite the opposite. While there was some sulfur dioxide associated with Hunga Tonga, the main impact was from water vapor. Water vapor is a potent greenhouse gas, so the sudden 10% increase in stratospheric water vapor in a single day increased stratospheric opacity to outgoing infrared radiation. Unlike the lower troposphere, where the greenhouse effect is relatively saturated, the stratosphere, well above the Earth’s average emission altitude (about 6 km), experiences a much more pronounced effect from the addition of water vapor. Also, the increased stratospheric water vapor content enhances infrared emissions from the stratosphere, thereby cooling it significantly.
Figure 2. Stratospheric water vapor in ppm by latitude over time at 31.6 hPa altitude. The evolution of the Hunga Tonga water vapor is clearly seen from its tropical injection toward the poles.
The unlikely inverse volcanic eruption of Hunga Tonga is currently cooling the stratosphere while warming the surface. However, this effect will gradually diminish over time as the excess water vapor exits the stratosphere over the next 2-4 years. Figure 2 illustrates the movement of volcanic water from the tropical regions, where the dehydrated air from the troposphere enters, to the mid and high latitudes, where it will gradually leave the stratosphere in the coming years.
The question arises: why did it take more than a year to detect the effects of stratospheric changes on surface temperature after the explosion? Typically, radiative effects are expected to be instantaneous once water vapor or sulfate aerosols are placed in the stratosphere. However, our understanding of how volcanoes affect weather remains incomplete, and climate models struggle to accurately reproduce these phenomena.
Transport within the stratosphere is rapid in the longitudinal direction, but very slow with respect to latitude and altitude, with significant seasonal variations. Depending on factors such as the latitude of the eruption and the time of year, the effects of a volcanic eruption on weather can vary widely. The eruption of Tambora provides a precedent: it occurred in April 1815, but its effects on weather, which led to the “year without a summer,” were not detected until June 1816, a span of 15 months after the eruption. This historical example underscores the possibility that events occurring more than a year after an eruption could indeed be attributed to it.
- 2023, the hottest year on record
Beginning in June 2023, the last seven months of the year marked the warmest period on record, significantly exceeding previous records. Such an event is quite remarkable, given the considerable temperature variability observed from month to month. But how unlikely is it?
Using the HadCRUT5 dataset, we find that there have been 17 record-breaking warmest years since 1870. Any year in HadCRUT5 that beats all previous years becomes a record year, and the record increase is measured as the temperature difference above the prior record year (highest mark until then). For example, 2009 was the warmest year, but it was only 0.005ºC warmer than 2007, the previous record year. 2023 was the warmest year and was 0.17ºC warmer than 2016. It is the biggest difference from one record year to the previous record year in the entire series.
Figure 3 shows that in 2023, the temperature increase from the previous record was the largest in 153 years, at +0.17°C. This level of increase from previous records is remarkable, even for a year that has been recorded as the warmest on record.
Figure 3. The warmest years in the HadCRUT5 dataset from 1870 with the temperature increase from the previous record. 2023 constitutes the biggest jump.
In the warmest years, several months often stand out as the warmest (Figure 4, blue bars). In 2023, there were seven such months, trailing only 2016 and tying 2015. Notably, these seven warmest months were consecutive, spanning from June to December. The red bars in Figure 4 illustrate the number of consecutive record months for each record year. It’s clear from the figure that years in the data set with five or more consecutive warmest months coincide with very strong El Niño years: 1877-78, 1997-98, and 2015-2016.
Figure 4. The number of record months in the record years is shown in blue. In red is the number of those record months that were consecutive.
In 2023, the temperature statistics reflect conditions similar to the strongest El Niño years in over a century. But was this really the case? Determining whether El Niño was the catalyst for the record warming in 2023 is challenging. Relying solely on the surface temperature of the Pacific Ocean as the criterion for El Niño would lead to circular reasoning. El Niño is a complex phenomenon involving both the atmosphere and the ocean. The Multivariate ENSO Index (MEI v2) uses five variables – sea level pressure, sea surface temperature, surface zonal winds, surface meridional winds, and outgoing longwave radiation – to create a time series of ENSO conditions from 1979 to the present.
This index, when averaged over the entire year, shows that of all the record years since 1980, only 1997-98 and 2015-16 were the result of a very strong El Niño. 2023 was actually a weak El Niño year, despite very high sea surface temperatures.
Figure 5. Yearly average Multivariate ENSO Index values for the warmest record years.
We can conclude that 2023 stood out as an exceptionally unusual record-warm year. While it rivaled very strong El Niño years in terms of exceeding previous temperature records, it did not actually fall into that category. Remarkably, despite the lack of a strong El Niño, it managed to set the highest temperature record by the largest margin in the data set spanning a century and a half.
In an article entitled “State of the climate – summer 2023“, Judith Curry showed how unusual 2023 was in terms of the global radiation balance at the top of the atmosphere, the components of the surface energy balance, and the internal modes of climate variability driven by atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns.
The magnitude of the anomalies displayed in 2023 across a wide range of variables has never before been recorded. It is an unprecedented climate event in our records.
- January-March 2024, the collapse of the polar vortex
The polar vortex is a circular wind pattern that develops on rotating planets with an atmosphere. It results from the conservation of potential vorticity, a property depending on the Coriolis force and the potential temperature gradient. The potential temperature refers to the portion of the temperature of an air parcel that is not affected by its potential energy, and is often defined as the temperature the parcel would have if it were brought to the surface (1,000 hPa).
In the Northern Hemisphere, toward the end of summer, the Arctic experiences a sharp drop in temperature as the days shorten. To maintain potential vorticity, the wind around the polar regions intensifies in a west-to-east direction (known as the westerlies). The formation of the polar vortex in the stratosphere occurs when the prevailing easterly winds shift to westerly winds. This shift is evident in the zonal wind speed, which changes from negative to positive around September (see Figure 6). Finally, the vortex dissipates around April.
Winds in the stratospheric polar vortex can reach 180 km/h (110 mph) and form a formidable barrier to heat transport from the tropics. As a result, the atmosphere and surface inside the vortex become very cold and dry, reducing the energy loss to the planet, as cold surfaces radiate less.
In the atmosphere, as in any fluid, waves occur, the largest of which are planetary waves. These planetary waves originate in the troposphere as a result of large mountain ranges and temperature differences between oceans and land. They are most prevalent and pronounced during winter in the Northern Hemisphere. Under favorable conditions, these waves travel rapidly, similar to tsunamis, colliding with the boundaries of the polar vortex and imparting an easterly momentum. As a result, the winds that form the polar vortex reduce their speed, weakening it and allowing warmer air to enter, pushing cold air outward. This exchange causes colder winter conditions in the mid-latitudes.
When the winds slow enough to reverse direction, the polar vortex breaks into two or three smaller, displaced vortices. Stratospheric air entering the area previously occupied by the vortex descends, warming significantly in the process. This phenomenon, known as a sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) event, can raise temperatures in the polar stratosphere by up to 40°C in a matter of days. SSWs are relatively common in the Northern Hemisphere, typically occurring about once every two years. They often lead to harsher winter conditions in certain regions, especially eastern North America and eastern Eurasia, in the following weeks.
El Niño years typically promote SSW events and polar vortex breakdowns. This could be due to the increased ocean temperature contrasts during El Niño, which generate larger-amplitude planetary waves. Occasionally, about once every 10-20 years, two SSW events occur in the same winter. However, this winter’s extended period (November to March) marks the first time since records began in the 1950s that three SSW events have been observed. The breakdown of the polar vortex occurred in January, February, and March, as shown in Figure 6 from NOAA’s SSW monitoring. Each time, the red line representing the westerly wind speed dropped to the zero line. At this time of year, it is possible that the stratospheric polar vortex may not reform.
Figure 6. Westerly (positive) stratospheric zonal winds at 60°N (red line) reached the zero-speed line three times this year, indicating a sudden stratospheric warming event and polar vortex break down each time.
According to Adam Scaife of the UK Met Office, this event isn’t just unprecedented – it could be a once-in-250-year event. This finding comes from a recent statistical study of SSW events conducted using a seasonal forecasting system within a climate model. However, it’s important to note a caveat: climate models still struggle to accurately represent the stratosphere and fail to reproduce the observed phenomenon that La Niña years also increase the likelihood of SSW events.
The impact of three SSW events this winter isn’t particularly dramatic. While normal weather patterns may shift, leading to unusual temperatures and precipitation in some areas, the effects are temporary. However, these events do affect Arctic temperatures and therefore the amount of energy leaving the planet. The weakening of the polar vortex, as shown in Figure 6, results in increased heat transport to the Arctic this winter, leading to higher temperatures in the region.
Figure 7 illustrates this trend, with an orange line representing Arctic temperatures in 2023 according to the Danish Meteorological Institute, and a green line representing temperatures this year. Since the greenhouse effect is relatively weak during the Arctic winter due to limited water vapor in the atmosphere, the result is that more energy escapes from the planet due to the weakened vortex. This serves to mitigate and reduce the unusual warming observed in the second half of 2023, which contributed to it being the warmest year on record.
Figure 7. Arctic surface temperature for the year 2023 (orange) and 2024 (green), compared to the 1958-2002 average (blue).
Despite the additional heat being transported to the Arctic, leading to increased temperatures, there hasn’t been a corresponding decrease in Arctic sea ice extent. In fact, this winter’s sea ice extent exceeds the 2010-2020 average. It appears that, contrary to widespread fears of its disappearance, Arctic ice remains resilient and stable.
Figure 8. Arctic sea ice extent in 2024 compared to the 2001-10 and 2011-20 decadal averages from the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
- What can we expect in the near future?
The unlikely volcanic eruption is the likely cause of the extraordinary warming, which in turn led to the occurrence of the unprecedented three SSW events. Our understanding of the effects of these events supports this interpretation.
Historical data on the warmest years suggests a high probability that 2024 will again break the temperature record, similar to what happened in 1877-78, 1980-81, 1997-98, and 2015-16. However, if we have correctly identified a major cause of the warming as the Hunga Tonga eruption, we can expect that as the excess water vapor exits the stratosphere, it will induce a cooling effect at the surface, potentially lowering temperatures for the next 3-4 years. Studies such as Solomon et al. (2010) have already shown the negative impact on global warming of stratospheric drying. We should see the reversing of all the warming caused by the Hunga Tonga volcano.
In addition, other factors affecting temperatures, such as the decline in solar activity after the maximum of Solar Cycle 25 and a future shift of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation to its cold phase, could contribute to a large pause in global warming. Using the 2023-24 temperature as a reference point, we could even see some cooling in the coming years. These are indeed interesting times in terms of climate dynamics.
Some scientists believe that the significant reduction in emissions from shipping fuel burning as a result of new IMO pollution standards in 2020 account for a significant proportion of the additional heating of the atmosphere in 2023 and continuing this year.
Your thoughts?
I am sure the models will say that. However several clues point to a cause unrelated to the greenhouse effect.
– The warming was very abrupt, starting in June, not a progressive effect from a small change in forcing. This is typical of atmosphere-ocean interactions like El Niño.
– It was preceded by huge atmospheric anomalies, like Judy showed in her article.
– It took place at the right time of the year for being a tropical volcanic effect on the stratosphere affecting the lower troposphere. The same happened for 1815 Tambora. In the first autumn-winter after the explosion the effect reaches the northern hemisphere stratosphere (as seen in figure 2), and by the next late spring it triggers the lower troposphere and surface effects. This is due to the atmospheric transport being a bi-annual seesaw that tilts towards the winter pole.
Javier Vinos:
It might not make any difference, but the warming actually began at the end of February, when the long 2020-2023 La Nina ended, not in June, as you stated. The 2023 El Nino was officially declared on June 8, temperatures having risen from a La Nina level to an El Nino level over a 3-month period.
According to UAH lower tropospheric temperature, the anomaly didn’t get out of previous range until July, when it became +0.64°C
https://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_July_2023_v6_20x9-1.jpg
May and June 2023 were below +0.4°C, a not so unusual anomaly.
Thank you Javier for your most excellent article. I remember that shortly after the Hunga Tonga eruption plume was found to be largely water vapor that scientists were predicting that it would have a warming effect. It appears that they were right.
William Steckle:
There was no warming until about a year after the eruption, Jan 15, 2021-Feb 28 2022, which is typical of almost all eruptions.
No evidence that the extra moisture had any climatic effect.
“The unlikely volcanic eruption is the likely cause of the extraordinary warming, which in turn led to the occurrence of the unprecedented three SSW events.”
Good luck explaining the 2010, 2015, and 2016 records with Hunga Tonga. Perhaps you should consider what 97% of climate scientists say. They call it “Anthropogenic Global Warming.”
You realize, of course, that not only is there more CO2 in the atmosphere now than in, say, March of 2004. The ocean heat content is higher. The arctic ice volume is lower. And yes, the sulphur dioxide levels are down too. Your prediction of cooler years ahead is brave.
Dave
“ Your prediction of cooler years ahead is brave”
Not really. That .004 trace gas must be some powerful stuff to make the well studied, powerful physical phenomenon known as the AMO go paws up, with nary a whimper.
The predictions of feet of sea level rise decades ago were more brave. They did it in 1969, 1979 and 1983 and they were all wrong. If they were soothsayers I would have demanded a refund. This White House internal memo was written 55 years ago. That’s more than a half a century. And still, all Washington is dealing with is a few inches of sea level rise. Not meters. Not feet. Just a few inches, and just like the rest of the East Coast, some of that is due to subsidence.
I’m sure everyone involved in that memo is dead now. Otherwise, I would say they must be very embarrassed to have been so wrong about their prediction.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GJcYJeSWEAADOt6?format=jpg&name=large
Thanks for the link. Interesting to learn that Hugh Hefner was worried about climate change! Not sure that it is important that Nixon ( or whoever wrote that memo) got it wrong in ‘69.
Here is the full memo, both pages.
https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/virtuallibrary/documents/jul10/56.pdf
It was by the great sociologist Daniel Patrick Moynihan, sparked by the warnings by a 1965 report of the Environmental Protection Panel of the President’s Science Advisory Committee. See pages 111 – 133:
https://ozonedepletiontheory.info/Papers/Revelle1965AtmosphericCarbonDioxide.pdf
David,
“Not sure that it is important that Nixon ( or whoever wrote that memo) got it wrong in ‘69.”
It is important as a high level response to what might be the first warning of global warming by an official science committee – in 1969.
It’s not clear at this point that they “got it wrong.”
“That .004 trace gas must be some powerful stuff”
Now that the kid’s overhead light bulb has lit, and he’s realized how much power CO2 vibrational transition infrared lasers can handle, he should reinvent the Strategic Defense Initiative by the 4th of July
Unless the kilogram of anthropocene CO2 added to the air directly above him since 1776 takes umbrage at his radiative forcing denial, and condensing into a Senator Inhofe-sized dry ice snowball, conks him on the head.
“Your prediction of cooler years ahead is brave.”
So, do I get extra points for being right?
Sure, but you get banished if you are wrong. I just added a reminder to my calendar for 3/24/25: “check whether Vinos gets points”. Hopefully I will remember what that means a year from now.
Well, I do hope you have banished all those scientists and people who predicted the Arctic was going to get ice-free anytime now.
It is important to fight being biased if one wants to be fair.
Javier,
Don’t be too smug about arctic ice volume, a more direct measure of warming than arctic ice extent (area). Fig 11 in the attached suggests that only about half of the 1980 ice volume remains.
https://psc.apl.uw.edu/research/projects/arctic-sea-ice-volume-anomaly/
You might note that the melting rate appears to have slowed a bit the last few years, as mean surface temperatures have soared. I wonder if there is a connection. More of the radiative imbalance energy seems to be going into raising temperature rather than melting ice.
Areas where ice already exists and persists throughout the year would see more accumulation of ice. Expanding ice cover is a precursor to increased thickness.
Ice volume is not measured, it cannot be measured. It is modeled. Ice extent is calculated from images.
I’ve been saying since 2016 that the declining trend in Arctic sea ice had stopped. Tamino tried to ridicule me in an article entitled “Extreme Cherry Ice.” Guess what. It turns I understood better than him and the “ice experts” what is going on in the Arctic.
Javier,
I am not sure why you are so quick to say that ice volume is modeled, not measured. Of course it is not measured directly, like ice extent. But the authors of the study cited say they make spot verifications of their modeled ice thickness and, being scientists, make error estimates of the total volume accordingly.
You present yourself as an arctic ice expert. Do you dispute the claim of the best peer-reviewed science that present arctic ice volume is about half of what it was in 1980?
…”only about half of the 1980 ice volume remains.”
Wasn’t the baseline 1979 ice coverage…? Right after a cooling period where they thought the next ice age was on the horizon.
“Right after a cooling period where they thought the next ice age was on the horizon”
only if you believe the 1970s climate scientists and not the 2020s climate scientists
these days that cooling period is part of The Hockey Stick
which means, to them, Arctic sea is in a terrifying, inexplicable decline
think we may have discovered a climate terror feedback mechanism :)
> You realize, of course, that not only is there more CO2 in the atmosphere now than in, say, March of 2004. The ocean heat content is higher. The arctic ice volume is lower.
So what? You want to control the Earth like a shower knob? This feels like a new Christian evangelical religious system. Repent for ye sins of comfortable mechanised life!
Just don’t want the shower turned up hotter and hotter.
It’s not hotter, it’s less cool.
Thank you, Proff Mann,
“So what? You want to control the Earth like a shower knob? This feels like a new Christian evangelical religious system. Repent for ye sins of comfortable mechanised life!”
–
Please, what do you think about the Planet Surface Rotational Warming Phenomenon?
Link: https://www.cristos-vournas.com
But you certainly know that only visible light warms the ocean and that a warmer ocean releases more CO2 into the atmosphere.
This was written: It appears that, contrary to widespread fears of its disappearance, Arctic ice remains resilient and stable.
It appears that ice core data is not studied and understood. Warmest times in ice core records show the most ice accumulations. Warm times with less sea ice do the most to rebuild the sequestered ice on land. It snows most in warmest times when there is the most IR out in polar regions. This most IR out does the most cooling, years later as more ice is pushed into the oceans and spread on land to do the most cooling by ice thawing and reflecting.
It snows most in warmest times with most IR out.
The most cooling from that comes later after the more ice volumes and weight of ice is thawing over a larger area and ice is pushed into turbulent salt water. Open polar oceans are necessary to provide evaporation and snowfall needed to change ocean water to ice on land. The polar ice machines are powered by the sun. The mass of water that becomes ice and the mass of ice that becomes water and the areas of evaporation and snowfall and the areas of thawing all contribute to alternating warm and cold time periods that never properly correlate with external forcing. Internal cycles do resonate with external forcing, sometimes in phase and sometimes out of phase. Climate is coldest when the oceans are lowest and when there is the most ice area on land. Climate is warmest when oceans are highest and there is the least ice area on land. This is cause and not result.
Too much study is directed toward a static climate theory and models and the responses to changes in forcing.
Not enough study is directed toward a dynamic climate theory with warm energy stored in ocean currents and energy for cooling stored in ice. Ice is accumulated in volume and weight on land in cold places in warmest times. Ice causes cooling by thawing and reflecting as it spreads and depletes in coldest times, coldest times have the least IR out so the IR out in the warmest times that contributed to the formation of the ice is responsible for the coldest times with not enough IR out.
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Excellent work, Dr. Vinos. If the volcano’s effects are to last a couple of years into the future, then perhaps we can expect upcoming winters to feature similar activity in the Arctic stratosphere, leading to more energy escaping to space.
That’ll be interesting when coupled with higher albedo reflected with more built-up sea ice extent.
Javier … nice piece. Thank you. By the way, I finished your two recent books. And enjoyed them both.
An abrupt change in water vapor certainly could dramatically effect changes in the weather. There is a lot we do not know and take for granted when it comes to understanding the effects of water vapor and clouds on changes in climate. So, like CO2 should we also fear clouds? It is a ‘Saganesque’ question –e.g., how do we go from being really, really amazed about how really, really small we are to hallucinating like Carl Sagan did about America being responsible for tempting megalomaniac Saddam Hussein to retaliate against modernity by torching Kuwaiti oil wells? It was Sagan not America who tempted Hussein who swallowed Sagan’s line – hook and sinker – in an attempt to destroy the West and all civilization in an obliging replay of Sagan’s “nuclear winter” scenario.
Um….April Glaspie gave Saddam a very neutral message on the Iraq-Kuwait situation, and that was interpreted as a ‘green light’ by the dictator. Burning the oil wells was merely a tactic to inhibit any interference by the US or others. AGW not involved.
“A State Department cable recently published by
WikiLeaks confirmed that U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie did indeed have a conversation with Saddam Hussein one week prior to Iraq’s August 1, 1990, invasion of Kuwait. Amazingly, the released cable was entitled, “Saddam’s Message of Friendship to President Bush.” In it, Ambassador Glaspie affirmed to Saddam that “the President had instructed her to broaden and deepen our relations with Iraq.” As Saddam Hussein outlined Iraq’s ongoing border dispute with Kuwait, Ambassador Glaspie was quite clear that, “we took no position on these Arab affairs.”
https://sgp.fas.org/congress/2011/paul012611.html
QUOTE-
PUBLISHED: January 23, 1991 at 12:00 a.m. | UPDATED: October 26, 2018 at 5:42 a.m. Cornell University astronomer Carl Sagan says Saddam Hussein’s orders to torch Kuwaiti oil wells, if carried far enough, could unleash smoke clouds that would disrupt agriculture across South Asia and darken skies around the world.Jan 23, 1991
https://www.baltimoresun.com › bu…
Burning oil wells could be disaster, Sagan says
“… on the ABC News program Nightline. Sagan again argued that some of the effects of the smoke could be similar to the effects of a nuclear winter, with smoke lofting into the stratosphere, a region of the atmosphere beginning around 43,000 feet (13,000 m) above sea level at Kuwait,[38] resulting in global effects and that he believed the net effects would be very similar to the explosion of the Indonesian volcano Tambora in 1815, which resulted in the year 1816 being known as the Year Without a Summer. He reported on initial modeling estimates that forecast impacts extending to south Asia, and perhaps to the northern hemisphere as well.” (wiki)
‘“We have ten years to stop the catastrophe,” said the UN’s environmental protection boss. That’s one of the headlines collected by Bjorn Lomberg, author of “False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet.’ (New York Post, Nov. 12th, 2021)
Lomberg notes that, for more than 50 years, the United Nations and the media have regularly predicted we’re on the verge of calamity. And they always seem to forget about the last warning.,”
It’s always the same- western academia conjures up visions of an impending apocalypse unless they’re listened to and their solution is always the same- ditch Americanism and adopt liberal fascism.
You should be even more careful when impersonating an historian as there is always the danger of some primary source reading what you surmise.
In this instance you are (mis) quoting a 1991 National Review article I wrote, based on my prior criticism of ‘nuclear winter’ in Foreign Affairs, Nature, and The National Interest. the salient point is that Sagan’s polemic failed in no small measure because the scientific critique of the TTAPS model published in Science in 1983 was predicated on plain vanilla climate science and radiative forcing models, and so as a climate denier avant la lettre he came to a sad end instead of a Peace Prize.
Sagan’s dire prediction of a nuclear winter brought about by a huge atomic war, became an inevitable nuclear winner brought about by a small atomic war and finally, a desperate and vindictive ME despot setting oil wells on ablaze…
Although the percentage change of stratospheric water vapor across the event is large, it probably cannot explain the warmth and events of the last year. The problem is that the large % change amounts to only 1-3 parts per billion. That’s right, per billion. The increase in CO2 in the stratosphere since pre industrial is nearly 60x higher! Water vapor is a potent greenhouse gas, more so than CO2, but not nearly by enough to make up for this huge concentration difference. The CO2 signal has only warmed the earth around +1C. This water vapor increase probably warmed the earth less than 0.1 C, and likely substantially less than that.
If you do understand the greenhouse effect and radiative theory you should know that once the forcing from the change has taken effect a new equilibrium is reached. The increase in GHGs from many years ago is no longer altering the radiative balance today. The 10% increase in water vapor does not have to have a bigger effect than 200 years of CO2 increase to cause the warming observed in 2023.
The other thing that you are forgetting is that temperature is more variable the shorter the time frame. A volcano might cause a 0.4°C cooling one year and less than 0.1°C in a decadal average.
Since this event is unprecedented, we cannot really know how much warming it should cause. You (or models) are just guessing 0.1°C, but the observations show +0.5°C.
That’s all nonsense. Radiative effects unbalanced are instantaneous. The atmosphere today doesn’t care what CO2 was a century ago, it responds to the concentration today.
It is the change in radiative forcing that causes the warming.
ΔT(s) = ʎ ΔF
In 2023 the change in CO2 in the stratosphere was tiny, perhaps 2.5 ppm, or 0.6%. The change in water vapor was 10%, or 17 times higher. It is a lot more likely than the 2023 warming came from water vapor than from CO2.
Janos,
CO2 radiative forcings are generally taken for the difference from preindustrial – not the yearly increase in the forcing factor. The CO2 integrates (so does the energy imbalance) in the atmosphere and continues to increase the radiative forcing. (If you could demonstrate that you actually understand what you are talking about …)
Janos,
“It is the change in radiative forcing that causes the warming.”
No, the radiative forcing causes the warming. The change in radiative forcing results in the rate of increase (or decrease) in warming cooling.
Sorry, meant Javier.
Radiative forcing as per IPCC AR6 is:
“The natural and anthropogenic factors responsible for climate change are known today as radiative ‘drivers’ or ‘forcers’. The net change in the energy budget at the top of the atmosphere, resulting from a change in one or more such drivers, is termed ‘radiative forcing’.”
Past changes in forcers (once the system equilibrates) no longer change the net energy balance. The whole idea of net zero is that no emissions imply no change, and less emissions imply less change.
Hunga Tonga was a huge emission, thus a huge change.
This brings us nicely to Gavin Schmidt who is arguing that we may be in ‘uncharted territory’ because of a dangerous knowledge gap re. warming in 2023. He says in a Nature article that HTHH can only account for a ‘few hundredths of a degree’ warming but the Dessler et al study which he cites in defence of this is based on the equilibrium response to a quadrupling of CO2 and moistening of the stratosphere over a long period, which is NOTHING LIKE the instantaneous injection of huge amounts of swv we witnessed in 2022.
https://jaimejessop.substack.com/p/the-science-of-hunga-tonga-global-46d
https://jaimejessop.substack.com/p/gavin-schmidt-admits-he-hasnt-got
Very nice substack, Jaime.
Another weakness in your argument is that you assume there could only be those causes, but the unusual progression of ENSO over the last 4 years, including 3 years of consecutive La Niña, followed by rapid strong El Niño development, led to surface temperature signals associated with the ENSO evolution larger than any previous event likely since the 1870s. The reason is that each La Niña event stored heat in deep surface layers of the tropical oceans while accruing heat in the extratropics due to reduced westerly wind. The rapid evolution toward El Niño spring 2023 did not give enough time for the middle latitudes to cool before the El Niño emerged, so that the heat of El Niño coexisted with the heat left behind by La Niña, when normally El Niño surface warmth would have been moderately offset by cool signals in the extratropics. Additionally, some middle latitude warmth was enhanced by blocking ridge patterns that occurred over some ocean regions (such as the N. Atlantic) cause by breaking stationary Rossby waves forced by the unusual ENSO signal. Even the Southern Hemisphere sea ice anomaly is easily explained by this unusual ENSO signal, because the stationary Rossby waves in the Southern Hemisphere caused storms that broke up the ice and sustained meridional winds that then blew the ice out of the freezing zone.
Javier,
We saw more warming in 1877 without a known underwater volcano. The weather patterns that year were nearly identical to now, suggesting HTHH had little to no effect.
See:
https://x.com/aaronshem/status/1754156954836934925?s=46
“ Quick look: The 20th Century Reanalysis v3 has days in June and July 1877 at 16.7°C for global average. Today’s record is around 17.0°C.
Going from -60°S to 60°N shows similar or higher T than during 1997.
Of course, considerable uncertainty in data from 1877, especially over the ocean. But, if the El Niño was more intense, at higher end of ensemble solutions from SST reconstructions, then it’s possible days in June-July 1877 were on par or exceeded today?
Excluding polar regions might tip calculation to 1877 as 🌡👑
🔥 And, this occurred in 1°C cooler climate, so in terms of relative heat, humans experienced a global day almost 1°C hotter than today. That’s wild.”
https://x.com/ryanmaue/status/1677036625505730561?s=46
https://x.com/aaronshem/status/1753523237583978615?s=46
And, a very, very large north atlantic anomaly, just like now.
https://x.com/aaronshem/status/1765911204185166133?s=46
“but it was only 0.005ºC warmer than 2007”
Is that a statistically significant difference? Is a precision of 3 significant figures justified?
Obviously not. I am just using the central values from the dataset. They are good for comparative purposes, and show how unusual 2023 was in temperature terms.
Gavin Schmidt says:
“Climate models can’t explain 2023’s huge heat anomaly”
This is obvious because climate models cannot reproduce the effects of Hunga Tonga as it is unprecedented.
Javier, you wrote,
“Gavin Schmidt says:
“Climate models can’t explain 2023’s huge heat anomaly”
This is obvious because climate models cannot reproduce the effects of Hunga Tonga as it is unprecedented.”
Hunga tonga may be unprecedented, but the climate models are simply modelling the physics of the atmosphere. When water vapor increases in the stratusphere, this is of course incorporated in the initial conditions of the models. they are not simply tuned to some baseline atmosphere, but intended to apply the same laws of physics to any set of atmospheric conditions.
Climate models are known to contain dozens of errors and probably hundreds more unknown ones. The phrase that they are simply modeling the physics of the atmosphere doesn’t fly when we don’t understand many atmospheric phenomena.
Nothing beats observations. And observations support that the unprecedented warming is due to the unprecedented eruption.
Clyde, That’s a precision of 1 significant figure.
One digit (5) is shown in the thousandth’s place, but it is in context of similar calculations having digits in the tenth’s and hundredth’s places ( e.g. 0.170). Thus, the population of applicable calculations have a range of at least three orders of magnitude, implying that the original measurements justified a precision of three significant figures.
Yes, statistical analysis of original measurements justifies reporting three significant figures, but significant figures are not a substitute for statistical precision.
BABushaw: You need to learn about significant figures… you’re making the classic error of high schoolers. Up here in the Arctic, we are careful about our figures.
Back atcha, walrus.
http://www.astro.yale.edu/astro120/SigFig.pdf
Javier,
I realize that, as a climate skeptic, you were dearly love to explain 2023 as the result of hunga tonga but there is no data whatsoever to support this. it would be nice to point out that your claim is 100% speculation and that the timing of the warming does not fit with your theory. you might also consider the fact that record ocean temperatures around the planet (not just el nino) preceded the surface atmospheric warming by a few months, which strongly suggests that it is the actual driver of the unprecedented atmospheric warming and hunga tonga has pretty close to zero to do with it. but that would imply that 2023 was actually just another record year driven by increasing co2. so i do understand why it is necessary to imagine some other cause of the warming, as skeptics have been doing, unsuccessfully, for the last 40 years.
It seems you do not read the article and are just going with your gut feeling instead.
i read every word as well as dr. curry’s points about hunga tonga along with other articles elsewhere. scientists who have attempted to quantify the impact say it can explain only the tiniest fraction of 2023’s warming.
The ‘few hundredths of a degree’ study is dubious, being based on modelling the equilibrium response to an increase in swv due to a long term quadrupling of CO2: HTHH is obviously an instantaneous non equilibrium response. There is also other scientific literature which suggests that the short term warming due to the 10% increase in swv will be significant.
Dr. Vinos’ conclusions are further supported by real-time global temperature data. Temperature anomalies peaked in November and subsequently declined, coinciding with weakening stratospheric zonal winds in polar regions. This weakening facilitated the transport of heat from the tropics into the Arctic region, which allowed for increased energy to escape into space.
Aside from appeals to authority, where is your evidence that supports your assertion, DanB?
https://climatlas.com/temperature/jra55/jra55_globe_t2m_recent_2023.png
“I realize that…”
So, you presume of knowing my intentions, and then talk about speculation.
As a scientist, I want to know what causes climate change, particularly natural climate change, which is my specialty.
That Hunga Tonga caused a large part of 2023 warming is a hypothesis, with some evidence supporting it and no evidence contradicting it. That’s how science is done. It is different from religion where you just accept what you are told.
If you were to know how the climate system works, you would know that the atmosphere is cooler than the surface and the troposphere is warmed from below, creating a positive lapse rate (temperature decreases with altitude). Since the ocean occupies 71% of the surface and has a lower albedo than land, it receives most of the energy delivered at the surface. So we do know that the ocean warms the atmosphere.
Regardless of the cause, the increased heat we detect with thermometers or satellites when there is global warming must come from the ocean, because that is where the heat comes from. The increase in water vapor in the stratosphere increases stratospheric emissions cooling the stratosphere and decreasing the net radiative transfer between the surface and the lower troposphere. As a result, the ocean surface warms and then it warms the lower troposphere. This is what was observed in 2023 as a result of Hunga Tonga.
The proof that this is correct is that 96% of the Earth’s energy imbalance due to the increase in the greenhouse effect goes into the ocean.
It is good to know the difference between heat content and temperature, and to understand the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
It is good to know the difference between heat content and temperature, and to understand the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
Sure it is. That’s why I explain it quite well in my latest book, so people can understand why mixing Arctic winter temperature anomalies with those of the rest of the planet is like mixing apples and oranges in terms of heat content. Good for the alarm factor, but silly to understand what is going on with the climate in terms of heat transport.
Javier:
You say “as a result, the ocean surface warms , and then it warms the lower troposphere”
This would imply that there is a lag between the warming of the ocean surface and the warming of the troposphere.
However, if one uses the WoodForTrees.org plots of Hadcrut4 global temperature mean (for 1980-2023, for example), and the HADSETT3 global sea surface temp. anomaly for the same period, and takes the integral of each, the graphs are IDENTICAL, with no sign of any displacement.
This would imply that everything is warming up simultaneously, would it not?
There is a lag between ocean surface warming and global surface warming. This is figure 13.8 from my first book, and the delay is clearly visible:
https://i.imgur.com/iyAXLQ0.png
June 2013–January 2018 Niño 3.4 region sea surface temperature anomaly (black line, left scale), and monthly global surface average temperature anomaly (red line, right scale). Data from Australian Bureau of Meteorology and UK HadCRUT4.6 dataset.
Javier:
Your graph shows periods where the sea-surface temperature leads, and others where they do not.
For the graph to have any relevance, they would always have to lead.
burlhenry used global sea surface temp, not NINO.
It doesn’t change the process. Net heat transfer at the ocean-atmosphere boundary is in the direction from the ocean to the atmosphere, so the ocean warms the atmosphere and not the other way around. Whether you see a delay or not doesn’t change the direction of the net heat transfer. The ocean very efficiently transfers heat to the atmosphere through evaporation. The ocean gets that heat from the Sun.
The way the atmosphere affects this process is by reducing or increasing the transfer, thus causing the ocean to warm or cool. It does this mainly by changing wind speed, but also by changes in the greenhouse effect that alter the net IR radiation exchange at the boundary.
The title should be “The extraordinary weather events of 2022-24”. Best not to misuse the word “climate” like most alarmists the WMO do. Climate is the average weather that occurs over a 30-year period.
Correct. In fact, that was the title when I first wrote it. Then I changed it because I am guilty of wanting more people to read my posts. 🙃
30 years is a default period. Others can be used if specified.
It sounds like the events of 2022-2024 were more climactic than climatic for the some scientists and weather/climate aficionados.
So we are unlikely to get more eruptions from Hunga Tonga? Or because it blew its top already it won’t happen again?
We haven’t seen anything like this in the over 60 years we are observing the stratosphere. On top of that, powerful enough volcanic explosions are rare.
The Hunga-Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai is an active volcano and had an undersea eruption in 2009 that devastated the island’s life but didn’t reach the stratosphere, and another one in 2014 with similar results.
We didn’t know something like this could happen until it happened, so I don’t think we can properly calculate the chances of it happening again.
Thanks for the informative post, Javier.
“We didn’t know something like this could happen until it happened, so I don’t think we can properly calculate the chances of it happening again.”
I appreciate the before statement, there’s much humility in it.
Because of poor paleo resolution there’s few comps to measure contemporary data against legacy “peak interglacial” phenomenon; the evolution of tipping points–the timescales are simply too vast to capture paleo peak interglacial data to determine what “normal is”. It’s tiresome hearing the parrots song, “show me similar in the last 6k years” (a reference to the hockey stick). The correct question is “show me high resolution data for prior peak interlacials. Is the transient nature between interglacial and glacial understood? Science doesn’t have the capability to see prior hockey sticks in the paleo record, are these common occurances preceding climatic tipping points? Zealots are butt ends to decadal data, nothing else matters for “the” narrative; they know. What this mean is they have what are to be the “believed” answers. Climate, a tool for political acolytes.
All I would say to scientists of all persuasions is that the Hunga Tonga eruption was a fairly unique and rare event and so, much like the Mt St Helens Eruption 45 odd years ago, there is an opportunity for much novel- and rich learning to take place, as conditions the past two years have been distinctly far from the median.
Perhaps the most likely learnings will be about the resilience of the overall earth climate system to systemic shocks….and how return to conditions closer to equilibrium take place.
Great and interesting article, thanks.
Regards,
Jonny O
Regardless, we need to begin to understand what a lower solar activity means in the whole, since it is the sun that is the main source of energy. If you compare the solar cycles SC24 and now SC25, which will soon reach their maximum, with previous cycles during the 20th century, you now find markedly lower amplitudes in these last two cycles. There is hardly any doubt that the lower solar activity during the Maunder and Dalton minima had a connection with the lower temperature during those years.
For example, what does the sun’s reduced energy in UV mean for the temperature of the stratosphere, which in itself is a sign of lower activity? The longitudinal flow of ascending air mass from the equatorial region through the stratosphere towards the poles must be seen as a potential factor in the atmospheric circulation. What connection can there be here with, for example, SSW and the migrating air mass towards the poles?
Bjorn:
You say “There is hardly any doubt that the solar activity during the Maunder and Dalton minima had a connection with the lower temperatures during those years”
ALL of the lower temperature episodes during those years coincide with increased SO2 aerosol levels from volcanic eruptions somewhere around the world, and had nothing to do with solar activity.
See “The Definitive Cause of Little Ice Age Temperatures”
https://doi.org/10.30574/wjarr.2022.13.2.0170
“The unlikely volcanic eruption is the likely cause of the extraordinary warming, which in turn led to the occurrence of the unprecedented three SSW events. Our understanding of the effects of these events supports this interpretation.”
All these speculations are straight out of Handwaving 101.
I engage in the field of science and have experience making quality, empirically-backed predictions, on record, based on solar activity.
I have asked Vinos before to show his science experiments and results, but all we ever get is more handwaving, more stories, and more speculative and irrelevant assertions with little to no basis.
There are already published papers that cover some of the aspects of the topics I’ve worked on regarding El Niño and TSI, and one of them claims it should be possible to predict tropical changes using solar data. I have already done this successfully since 2014, as was recorded in my 4 AGU and 4 Sun-Climate Symposium posters.
_____________________________________________________________________
The current solar-induced warming period from SC25 was predicted in 2018 in my AGU poster, “Extreme Weather and Climate Events are Limited by the Duration of Solar Cycle Irradiance Extremes.”
https://i.postimg.cc/8zPV44F8/AGU-2018-Fig-14c-Solar-Cycle-25-Warming.png
The 2023 El Niño was predicted by me at the 2022 Sun-Climate Symposium as a function of SC25 solar activity level and duration, and my 2023 Symposium poster recorded the climate responses and the solar connection; both posters are on LASP’s website.
The 2023 El Niño is at least the tenth consecutive step-up in the tropics from the solar minimum to solar maximum as shown here with ERRSTv5. The odds of nine cycles behaving this way without solar forcing were 1.6(10^19):1, basically impossible.
https://i.postimg.cc/7hvjBJz5/Solar-Cycles-and-Tropical-Step-Changes.png
https://i.postimg.cc/J7Dq1ryh/Annual-Spotless-days-vs-annual-SN.png
The start of the 2023 El Niño began according to my prediction:
https://i.postimg.cc/yYHJsrg8/Sunspots-TSI-Eq-OHCa-and-CO2a-last-year-10-Oct23.png
The sun delivered strong and long duration high TSI in 2022/23:
https://i.postimg.cc/C1yZ4GzV/NASA-CERES-TSI-Composite-Feb-2024.png
The upcoming solar cooling period won’t start until 2027±1yr, and since TSI is still high above the decadal ocean warming threshold, we will continue to see high ocean temperatures in 2024.
The first year of sea surface temperature change from the last solar cooling period was successfully predicted by me (AGU 2018) within the margin of uncertainty of HadSST3, 0.02°C, based on the expected changes in sunspots and TSI.
_____________________________________________________________________
The large increase in water vapor content shown in the Figure seem to support Javier’s idea. Could it not have amplified what you have been predicting?
“Could it not have amplified what you have been predicting?”
Not much if at all. I made this graphic a while back to show the WV effects of HTHH did not follow earlier precedent, as the Upper Atmosphere Water Vapor Content data indicated.
1) UAWVC trend follows the SST trend (lagging T)
2) Upticks in UAWVC follow Niño and SST spikes (lagging T)
3) But the HTHH spike preceded the 2023 El Niño (leading T)
https://i.postimg.cc/3xnxz1xK/Had-SST4-and-AURA-UAWVC-since-2005.png
The annual AURA surges follow the annual insolation cycle, with annual maxima regularly in boreal winter.
As UAWVC normally follows SST, not causing a feedback loop, it appears the extraordinary HTHH ~16% WV enhancement event was an interesting outlier but without power over the climate.
It injected about 68K Olympic-sized swimming pools of WV.
Compare that to the release of excess reservoir waters, “Since flood operations began, enough water has been released from the lake to fill 540,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.”-MSN, and that was from just one area.
The scale of the HTHH WV plume was hardly anything compared to the volume of rains and snows from atmospheric rivers the Western US received over the course of a few weeks causing the floods. Imagine the millions of swimming pools of WV that several atmospheric rivers would carry across the Pacific.
Does Javier also claim atmospheric rivers cause global warming?
“All these speculations are straight out of Handwaving [sic] 101.” claims Bob Weber.
But the UN and its many tentacles just love hand wavers. Even now the WHO has been accessing Spanish ‘flu and COVID-19 in terms of likely repeat intervals. The WMO has conjured up zero real evidence for carbon dioxide as the control knob from the IPCC’s many reports and yet persists and continues hand waving about it along with Mann’s thoroughly debunked stick-trick.
At least Javier Vinós gives us plenty of meaningful information to help us follow his lines of thinking and there is not a trick in sight.
The only hand wavers are those alarmists who cannot produce evidence about CO2 or even about why the planet is warming because it has engaged the wrong scientists for the wrong reasons and now has additional mitigation problems that were not there two decades ago. The wreckage of wind turbines and PV installations will cost a huge amount to clean up. Are emissions down? No. Are the problems being solved? No.
Didn’t we see the same wreckage from the WHO with SARS-CoV-2. These tentacles of the UN are not fit for purpose and need to be made to explain the many errors they have made and continue to make.
If they show contrition then we can find out what keeps going wrong. But that just isn’t going to happen with the power hungry bureaucrats running these awful bodies.
The smooth surface planets and moons (Earth included), the strong specular reflection in planet radiative energy balance is neglected.
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
There is a DETERMINISTIC relationship between the planet spin (N), the planet average surface specific heat (cp) and the satellite measured planet average surface temperature (Tsat).
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
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Javier
You commented one time on WUWT, that the knowledge of climate science was superficial.
I completely agree.
I suspect that scientists in 2100, after 110 years of additional research since the first IPCC report, will look back at 1990 as being in the “dark ages” in terms of knowledge about all the dynamics involved with our climate.
Maybe not as primitive as medical science using leaches a few hundred years ago, but 35 years after that first report there are still major gaps in our understanding.
So here we are, stuck with having governments using outdated insights when making visionary public policy.
As always, another excellent article.
Ceresco,
Interesting that you comment on the quality of science using an analogy in which “leeches” has your wrong spelling.
Easy to be a generalist, harder to be a specialist?
Geoff S
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“ The next big climate deadline is for meat and dairy. Now, more than 200 environmental and agricultural scientists say we must also drastically reduce meat and dairy production.”
“ You either stop eating meat to stop society from collapsing; or you stop eating meat because society has collapsed: either way your days of eating meat are coming to an end.”
The authors of these 2 statements are irrelevant. What is relevant is that this kind of mentality exists. It doesn’t exist in mental institutions, which then could be easily dismissed. It’s mainstream in some climate alarmist circles.
Who are the whack jobs in these debates? Who are the extremists? It’s not the skeptics.
Will the next frontier be clamping down on exhalation of humans? Should we start exhaling only every other breath? We all have a duty to avoid extinction of our species, after all. Hold your breath until you turn blue.
Javier,
Since you have quoted the title of Gavin’s article in Nature, I thought I might quote you from the article itself:
“Other theories put forward by climate scientists include fallout from the January 2022 Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha‘apai volcanic eruption in Tonga, which had both cooling effects from aerosols and warming ones from stratospheric water vapour, and the ramping up of solar activity in the run-up to a predicted solar maximum. But these factors explain, at most, a few hundredths of a degree in warming (Schoeberl, M. R. et al. Geophys. Res. Lett. 50, e2023GL104634; 2023).”
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00816-z
Gavin’s opinion is inconsequential, and Schoeberl et al. modeling study appears to be wrong in the light of evidence.
So we have models being unable to reproduce 2023 warming and models misrepresenting volcanic eruptions. Clearly the path forward is to go with the evidence, not with the models.
The idea that the Little Ice Age was caused by increased volcanic activity is irrational. Large tropical volcanic eruptions have a positive influence on the North Atlantic Oscillation, causing 1-2 milder boreal winters following the eruption.
Conversely, many large eruptions occur soon after extreme cold boreal winter periods.
Ulrich Lyons:
No, my comment is not irrational. It is factual.
ALL VEI4 and larger volcanic eruptions initially cool the planet by injecting SO2 aerosols into the stratosphere, usually for a period of 14-16 months Most of them also cause planetary warming to pre- eruption levels, or a bit higher, when they eventually settle out, about 18-30 months after the eruption. The descending H2SO4 droplets coalesce with some of the industrial SO2 aerosols in the troposphere, flushing enough out on the way down to clean the air enough to usually cause an El Nino (unless quenched by another eruption).
You have a VERY poor understanding of the effects of volcanic eruptions.
The Maunder Minimum lasted about 70 years, which tells us that this cold period can hardly be related to volcanic activity. As you yourself write, the duration of volcanic ash in the atmosphere can remain 14-16 months, which seems to be a fact according to the literature, but no more.
Bjorn:
The Central England Instrumental Temperatures data set spans the years 1650-present, which includes all but the first 15 years of the Maunder minimum, and all of later ones.
Between the 200 year period 1650-1850, there were 65 known and 4 unknown (unobserved), eruptions, with 54 VEI4, 10 VEI5, 4 VEI6, and 1 VEI7. There was only 1 eruption during the 18 year warm period, 1721-1739, so over the course of ~182 years, there more than 69 x 1.5 = 103.5 years of cooling from eruptions (the cooling from the 15 VEI5-VEI7 eruptions lasted even longer than 1.5 years, with a published estimate of 15 years for the VEI7 eruption).
As shown in the plot of the Central England Instrumental Temperatures data set, every temporary temperature decrease is associated with temporary cooling from a volcanic eruption.
If the cooling were due to decreased sunspot activity, there would be a constant temperature decrease, with NO temporary excursions.
There is no reason volcanic cooling can’t be superposed on cooling for a second reason.
Jim2;
I totally agree.
burl, fortunately, I had not seen your comment, the first 14 words of my comment are copied from the post. I certainly have the correct understanding, the positive influence on the NAO is real, and is why no extreme LIA winters were caused by large tropical volcanic eruptions. Javier also follows the science, quote:
“For example, the response of the polar vortex to a low latitude eruption in the following winter has been well studied, because it produces the surprising effect of a warmer winter in the Northern Hemisphere.”
IIRC, during the little Ice Age there was less high explosive volcanic activity, but during the maunder min there was an increase in low level volcanic activity.
In the summer of 1783, the UK was engulfed in low altitude dust and fumes for about 3 months from the Laki eruption in Iceland, while central England had its fourth hottest July since at least 1659.
Ulric Lyons:
The fact that England had a very hot July in the summer of 1783 is probably not related to the Laki eruption, but rather to a local heat dome.
Most of the eruption was due to immense lava flows, with occasional bursts of Sulfur Dioxide that reached the tropopause and circulated around the Earth, causing global temperatures to decrease.
The Central England Instrumental Temperatures data set shows only a significant temperature decrease for 1783-4, further indicating that the warming was only local.
burl, the regional heatwave was exacerbated by the low altitude aerosols and dust, known as the “Laki haze” across Europe. The fog was so thick that ships stayed in port, unable to navigate, around 23,000 people died in the UK, and many more sheep in the highlands.
The following extreme cold winter certainly has no connection with the eruption. There are a series of four them on the same heliocentric Jovian configuration, in 1422, 1603, 1784, and 1963. And a second series with Neptune on the opposite quadrature, in 830 and 1010, the only two times that the River Nile is known to have frozen over.
https://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/Solar
Ulric Lyons:
I don’t understand why you say that the following extreme winter had nothing to do with the Laki eruption.
“Globally, 95 Mt of SO2 reacted with atmospheric water to form 200 Mt of sulfuric acid aerosols Almost 90% was removed by acid rains, or fogs, while 10% (20 Mt) stayed aloft for over a year”
The temperature record shows a very cold period for 1783-4, with no other nearby eruptions. Where else would have the cooling SO2 aerosols have come from, except from Laki?
SO2 aerosols don’t cause such winters, solar variability does.
Ulric Lyons:
SO2 aerosols (a mist of Sulfuric Acid) ALWAYS cause global cooling.
In the NASA Fact sheet on aerosols “Atmospheric Aerosols: What are They, and Why Are They So Important? they state that volcanic SO2 aerosols “reflect sunlight, reducing the amount of energy reaching the lower atmosphere and the Earth’s surface, cooling them”
Apart from seasonal effects, I have never seen any temperature change that could be attributed to solar variability.
burl,
the negative North Atlantic Oscillation episodes causing the mid latitude cold waves are discretely solar driven at less than weekly scales.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0273117713005802
Dr J Vinos: Thank you for another thought provoking and well written article. Your Figure 1 pic of the volcanic eruption is a reminder of nuclear detonations conducted by militaries and seems similar in scale. Maybe not exact but maybe analogous in scale.
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In respect of the timing of the warming, the delayed response might simply be a result of the disappearance of cooling aerosols combined with the continued persistence of warming stratospheric water vapour:
“So here’s my suggestion: we are beginning to see rapid warming now, in summer 2023, because the radiative warming effect of the water vapour is no longer being cancelled by the aerosol cooling effect of Tonga. It’s as simple as that. On that basis, we can expect further warming over the next year or two and, with the possibility of a moderate El Nino developing in the central Pacific, that will add to the warming by the end of this year and we may be seeing a very significant rise in global temperature which of course the climate propagandists will attribute to anthropogenic greenhouse gases, so be warned; there could be much hysteria ahead, even the global declaration of a ‘climate emergency’.”
https://jaimejessop.substack.com/p/satellite-data-confirms-july-2023
Yes, it might have contributed, but nothing is simple about the response to a stratospheric-impacting volcanic eruption. There’s radiative changes, chemical changes, and dynamic changes. For example, the response of the polar vortex to a low latitude eruption in the following winter has been well studied, because it produces the surprising effect of a warmer winter in the Northern Hemisphere.
We are still far from understanding the full effects of volcanic eruptions, and it doesn’t help that everyone is different and the effect is very dependent on the geographical location and time of the year of the eruption.
Almost like the science isn’t settled . . . . . .
BTW I was confusing the Schoeberl et al paper earlier with the Wang et al, 2020 study (4xCO2 response). Sorry about that. Interestingly, Schoeberl et al get their ‘few hundredths of a degree’ result by summing the net radiative effects of cooling aerosols and warming swv, but the aerosols were probably rapidly washed out and all gone by summer 2023, whereas the swv is far more persistent.
Another climate event. Oh, HAIL!
Instead of collecting rays, panels from the Fighting Jays Solar Farm in Guy were hammered by hail. SkyDrone13 captured thousands of rows of shattered panels – damage more concerning to Kaminski than what happened to his home.
Experts said that most of the time, large solar farm panels are made of compound cadmium telluride.
This is something Kaminski is worried about because he uses well water.
“That’s what we take a shower with, we drink with,” Kaminski explained. “It could be in our water now.”
https://abc13.com/fighting-jays-solar-farm-guy-texas-fort-bend-county-tx-hailstorm/14559628/
It’s ~2500 football fields large!!!
https://fightingjays.com/project-map/
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Summer 2023 had strong negative North Atlantic Oscillation conditions, that was driving the very warm sea surface anomaly in the North Atlantic. I had predicted a very wet July 2023 for the UK, on the basis of a low solar period causing a deeper negative NAO episode.
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/pna/norm.nao.monthly.b5001.current.ascii.table
Since late 2022 there has been another decline in albedo:
https://i0.wp.com/wattsupwiththat.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Net-Solar_albeddo_NH_SH.webp
To look at the 2023-24 warming the first commandments are:
First you have to look at the clouds
-then you have to look at the clouds and the shortwave radiation
-then you have to look at the clouds and relative humidity
-and then the longwave radiation radiation and greenhouse effect.
So how is the stratospheric water vapor affecting cloudiness?
And how do other eruptive materials influence cloudiness?
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2020JD032752#:~:text=Stratospheric%20water%20vapor%20%28SWV%29%20is%20recognized%20as%20a,is%20hypothesized%20to%20substantially%20amplify%20the%20surface%20warming.
That paper can’t be trusted. Very unnatural conditions (4xCO2) and a tropical hotspot that is missing from observations.
What papers of yours can be trusted?
BAB: From the abstract of your beloved paper: “To test this hypothesis, we use a global climate model to quantify the surface warming contributed by the SWV change in the context of the quadrupled CO2.”
At this point, normal scientists would stop reading. In addition to Javier’s valid criticisms, it is absurd to think that a hypothesis can be tested with a model! Sheeeshhh! Ignore the paper.
By the way, there is far too much ice this year in the Arctic — can’t find anyplace to haul out and relax.
Can We Power the EPA’s EV Fantasy?
https://www.wsj.com/articles/can-we-power-the-epas-ev-fantasy-electrical-grid-energy-vehicles-a786d535?st=q7pfe7sbqv19pr2&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
“ For EV enthusiasts, this overhaul is doable with the right amount of money. Yet they’re naive about the magnitude.”
It seems the only thing that has an inexhaustible supply is naivety.
This study estimates that if there are 400 million EVs by 2040, it would reduce oil consumption by only 6%. Oil is a fraction of total CO2 emissions and CO2 is responsible for a fraction of global warming.
All that idealism which might have just a minuscule effect on global temperatures.
https://media4.manhattan-institute.org/sites/default/files/R-0319-MM.pdf#page=20
Kid … I have a response in moderation. Thanks for the piece. Absolutely fantastic!
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Thank you Dr. Vinos for a fascinating article.
This winter has indeed been very warm in NW Europe as was last winter. Can you say anything about the timing of a reversion cooler? Do you expect next winter to be warm again or already we will revert cooler in NW Europe? If cooler than do you expect less warm but still warm or do you expect cold? Thank you!
The strength of the polar vortex changes from winter to winter, but since 1997 it has been weaker on average. This means more heat enters the Arctic in winter, warming it, and more cold exits the Arctic, cooling the midlatitudes.
The heat enters the Arctic mainly through the North Atlantic and North Pacific, thus causing warmer winters in NW Europe and Alaska.
The cold exits the Arctic mainly through Canada toward Eastern North America, and through Eastern Eurasia, causing harsher winters there. As an example, the winters in Siberia and Mongolia are the coldest in a long time:
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/21/asia/nearly-5-million-animals-dead-in-mongolias-harshest-winter-in-half-a-century-climate-intl-hnk/index.html
Scientists don’t understand it because models tell them Arctic warming is due to CO2 when, in reality, it is due to a weaker polar vortex and increased heat transport, which is the way I defend climate changes naturally.
This situation is likely to continue until after the next solar minimum, but it is hard to make predictions because a shift of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation to its cold phase would greatly affect heat transport, and we don’t know if/when the AMO will change phase.
Javier – interesting observation on the polar vortex. Has your observation that there has been an increase or decrease in polar vortexes or that the polar vortexes flow through different regions some years and other regions other years ie through north america some years and other years through east asia or europe.
I am not aware of any studies on the detailed location of the vortex. The closest study I know is:
Kretschmer, M., et al., 2018. More-persistent weak stratospheric polar vortex states linked to cold extremes. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 99(1), pp.49-60.
It’s figure 6.d shows the result, in winter’s temperature trend, of a more frequently weak vortex since the mid-90s.
“Using cluster analysis, we identified dominant patterns of the stratospheric polar vortex in boreal winter. We showed that the polar vortex weakening over the last four decades was a result of more-persistent weak polar vortex states (cluster 7) and less frequent strong polar vortex events (cluster 1) rather than an overall weakening. This shift in polar vortex states can account for most of the recent winter cooling trends over Eurasian midlatitudes via stratosphere–troposphere coupling.”
What they don’t say, because they would be excommunicated, is that it also accounts for most of the recent winter warming trends over the Arctic via stratosphere–troposphere coupling.
thanks
Javier said
“Scientists don’t understand it because models tell them Arctic warming is due to CO2 when, in reality, it is due to a weaker polar vortex and increased heat transport…”
They must be doing a double-think. IPCC and Met Office circualtion models predict increasingly positive NAO conditions with rising GHG forcing, hence they project hot hot hotter drier summers and milder wetter winters for say the UK.
But a more positive NAO state strengthens the PV, and drives a colder AMO and Arctic. Warming of the AMO and Arctic occurs under negative NAO conditions, which normally increase during centennial lows in solar activity.
I realised this in 2013 from studying NAO and AMO index series, but it is really hard work getting others to take it on board.
Typically, there would be more colder winters for NW Europe during a centennial solar minimum, despite the warmer AMO.
And as we saw in December 2010 and in March 2013, there is nothing stopping little ice age cold records being reached or broken.
I can think of two pertinent reasons why. 1) The solar forcing has produced fewer deeply negative North Atlantic Oscillation episodes than is typical during this centennial minimum. 2) Critically, the timing of the deeper negative NAO episodes has mostly been outside of the winter seasons.
My solar based UK predictions for last winter was colder from 25 Nov, milder from 12 Dec, colder from 1 Jan to 23 Jan, and a very mild and very wet Feb. The NAO did go negative at the start of January, but the cold was delayed to the UK for about a week, maybe due to the MJO.
NAO index:
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/pna/month_nao_index.shtml
CET mean temp
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/graphs/2023/daily_meantemp_cet_2023.png
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/graphs/2024/daily_meantemp_cet_2024.png
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Javier
You made the following statement in the 7th paragraph.
“The primary unusual climate forcing factor during the LIA was exceptionally low solar activity.”
Do you have any insight in the level of solar activity in the 19th, 20th and this early part of the 21st century.
Same question for circa 1000 AD forward
thanks for any insight
From 1700 we have sunspots as a solar activity proxy. Since solar cycle length is variable, I like to calculate the solar cycle anomaly, by adding all the sunspots from a cycle and dividing by the number of years in the cycle, and then subtracting the average:
https://i.imgur.com/xw8sT8u.png
It gives a better idea of how active each cycle has been.
For the past 1,000 years you need to resort to ¹⁴C, which is confirmed by auroral records.
https://i.imgur.com/EWcYohh.png
An idea of how low was the LIA and how high were we in the 20th century is given by the long term reconstructions, like that of Wu et al. 2018.
https://i.imgur.com/gzGAeTs.png
thanks
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This article “Temperature”
https://www.climate-veritas.com/?page_id=26
shows that global cloud cover has declined the last 20 + years, actually 40 years (NASA CERES satellite data) in the last 2 figures with explaining text:
“The following figures show the latest CERES satellite data for absorbed shortwave (SW) radiation, the global cloud cover and the corresponding temperature change from 2000 to 2024. Note that decreasing cloud cover corresponds to a lower albedo which causes more solar radiation to be absorbed which raises the earth’s temperature. Green house gases play no role in the warming of the planet. It is warmed because more solar radiation is absorbed because of decreasing cloud cover. “
“Green house gases play no role in the warming of the planet. ”
It is warmed because of orbital forcing.
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
The question is, then, what caused the decrease in cloud cover.
The problem is nobody knows the answer to that. Anthropogenic climate change defenders say the increase in CO2 did it, by increasing the temperature and reducing relative humidity. So, they think it is a feedback.
Svensmark’s theory fails, because there is less solar activity, so there are more cosmic rays, and there should be more clouds, not less.
Heat transport theory (The Winter Gatekeeper) provides an explanation, as humidity and clouds are also transported by the atmosphere, and the increase in transport that has taken place since 1997 is carrying them away from the tropics, where most solar energy arrives.
None of the theories has the evidence, but The Winter Gatekeeper is the only one that has an explanation for when the change in cloud cover started: 1997.
https://www.mdpi.com/atmosphere/atmosphere-12-01297/article_deploy/html/images/atmosphere-12-01297-g009-550.jpg
Dübal, H.R. and Vahrenholt, F., 2021. Radiative energy flux variation from 2001–2020. Atmosphere, 12(10), p.1297.
In 1997, as in 1976, a climate shift took place caused by an abrupt change in global equator-to-pole heat transport. One of the chapters in my book explains it.
Javier:
The cloudiness decreased in 1997 because of the strong 1997-98 El Nino, April 1997-June 1998. (Always fewer moisture nucleation sites during an El Nino).
Perhaps that is the reason given in your book.
Orbital forcing causes the global warming.
Atmosphere becomes warmer.
Evaporation increases.
–
Evaporation takes place at the surface, clouds formation in the atmosphere’s volume. So evaporation increases, but relative humidity decreases.
The reduced relative humidity decreases cloud cover.
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/doug-proctor-climate-change-is-caused-by-clouds-and-sunshine/
In 2011 I produced a low quality technical report on Tallblokes Talkshop, connecting Bright Sunshine Hours to Maximum Daily Temperature changes in the CET database, 1930 to 2010. I say low quality because I didn’t know how to use the original data but used the averaged data (smoothed). Regardless, in Fig 4, I showed that increases and decreases in Bright Sunshine Hours was well correlared to changes in Maximum daily temperatures, which, of course, is what the alarmists/regular folks notice.
I made a prediction, which didn’t happen, though I could use the Paul Ehrlich excuse that the idea wasn’t wrong, just got the timing wrong …
I used Bight Sunshine as a proxy for low cloud cover. All of us know low cloud days are warmer. I also looked at AMO and PDO cycles. Removing the Cloud cover influence and the combined Oceanic warming/cooling cycles did reveal a secular increase in temperatures, but not much, that would be CO2.
I haven’t seen such a study done with high quality analysis. But the principles look simple. And the impact on daily temperatures look dramatic.
What causes cloud cover changes? Can’t discuss that until we agree it’s significant. Also, where is it significant and when? Details matter: the oceans or Arctic, summer or winter, day or night? Warmer or cooler. Maybe that’s why it hasn’t been studied: global datasets smear the data. Like saying no significant rise in gun shootings in the US by combining every inch of the US, including lakes and rivers.
Anyway, did what I could.
The attempt to link SSWs to HTHH a year+ later just doesn’t fly.
What about in prior years when the UAWVC concentration was less? Before HTHH, in 2020/21, there was a SSW of similar strength as the SSWs of this year and last year, and in years before 2020.
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/SSW/gif_files/T_10mb_6090N_2020-2021.png
The UAWVC concentration nearest the Arctic was nearly the same at the same time of year last year as during this season’s SSWs, so did the HTTH WV cause the SSWs in early 2023 too?
Next look at the 10hPA temperature variability from last year. It was as negative an anomaly on Jan. 1 as it was positive on Feb. 1 and later in Feb., so did the HTHH WV cause both variations? How?
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/SSW/gif_files/T_10mb_6090N_2022-2023.png
How can any possible 2023/24 HTHH WV SSW forcing be discerned from prior precedents? Such influence can’t be discerned from zero.
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/SSW/gif_files/T_10mb_6090N_2023-2024.png
The hypothesis that a great part of the observed warming in 2023 is due to a response to the Hunga Tonga eruption is consistent with our knowledge of the greenhouse effect and the effect of volcanic eruptions on weather.
Confirmation of this hypothesis will come over the next few years if there is a pattern of progressive warming in the lower stratosphere matched by progressive cooling at the surface within a timeframe consistent with the decay after a strong eruption.
“Confirmation of this hypothesis will come over the next few years if there is a pattern of progressive warming in the lower stratosphere matched by progressive cooling at the surface within a timeframe consistent with the decay after a strong eruption.”
You are dreaming, misleading yourself and everyone else.
The 10hPa temperature hasn’t shown any progression either side of the mean for at least 6 months out of each year since HTHH.
What is that timeframe? Where are your numbers?
Your response is just more handwaving!
Don’t your realize there will be a normal decay at the surface from the future La Niña and also from the descent from the solar maximum that has nothing to do volcanic eruptions or HTHH?
These “extraordinary climate events” are so named because people as a group lack knowledge about climate and are unable to know what is ordinary and what is extraordinary.
So, some people constructed global climate models whose large size might reflect climate complexity. It is a personal choice to accept or be sceptical of these models and it is something of a sin to promote or criticise their findings in the style of selective example propaganda.
The condition of the human person is important to many of us, whether or not we experience extraordinary events. Maybe there can be important increases in understanding the human body by creating large computer models of life.
I will believe the global climate model outputs when I see models of the human body working and making predictions that can be verified by observations. The body seems more important to me than the climate.
We need major advances in scientific understanding of complexity (including Judith’s “wicked” problems) before useful outcomes emerge from the large volume of babble we currently see in climate research and opinion and propaganda. The phrase that comes to mind is “Physician, heal thyself.” Geoff S
This Wood for Trees figure, showing the differentials of several parameters, supports the notion that the rate of temperature rise (HADCRUT data) is decreasing. The data of the past suggest that in the next decade an expectation of a decrease of the temperature itself is not unrealistic but time will tell.
The maximum of Arctic sea ice decrease lags ~10 years the maximum of temperature increase.
Aligning the trends of temperature and log CO2 and also accounting for the influence of NH3 a climate respons for CO2 (TCR) of 1.1 K can be deduced.
https://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/derivative/mean:180/mean:180/scale:12/plot/hadcrut4gl/derivative/mean:180/trend/scale:12/plot/esrl-co2/log/derivative/mean:24/scale:51/mean:24/offset:0.0035/plot/esrl-amo/derivative/mean:180/mean:120/scale:6/plot/esrl-co2/log/derivative/mean:24/scale:51/mean:24/offset:0.0035/trend/plot/nsidc-seaice-n/derivative/mean:180/mean:12
A climate response for CO₂ cannot be deduced, because the implicit assumptions that go into the deduction, like all temperature change is caused by CO₂, are likely to be wrong.
Javier,
I think it is only ones like you that make up false claims such as, “all temperature change is caused by CO2,” so that you can falsify your own claim in a silly attempt to deny that GHGs are the MAJOR cause of global warming over the last 50 years.
You claim to be an expert/specialist on natural climate change. Could you give a reference to any of your peer reviewed papers related to climate change – I don’t seem to find any on Researchgate? Thanks.
“I think it is only ones like [Javier] that make up false claims such as, “all temperature change is caused by CO2,” so that you can falsify your own claim in a silly attempt to deny that GHGs are the MAJOR cause of global warming over the last 50 years.” says BA Bushaw (ganon1950).
The above extract is clear evidence of an alarmist completely failing to comprehend the plain simple English presented to them (deliberately perhaps) determined as they are to smear the author at any cost rather than admit to their own major shortcomings in argument and understanding.
No wonder alarmists en masse are panicking.
Question: How much warming since 1850 is assigned to natural causes when calculating climate sensitivity to CO₂?
Answer: Nothing
Assumptions that are taken, sometimes implicitly, without consideration, are the bane of the scientific method, which cannot operate over the assumptions.
We ignore how much of the warming since 1850 has a natural cause, therefore we cannot calculate the climate sensitivity to CO₂.
Diagnosing Climate Sensitivity Assuming Some Natural Warming
Question: Who is a climate scientist?
Answer: A climate scientist is someone that researches climate using the scientific method.
Question: Is it required to publish articles in scientific journals to be a climate scientist.
Answer: There is no such requirement.
Javier,
“We ignore how much of the warming since 1850 has a natural cause, therefore we cannot calculate the climate sensitivity to CO₂.”
You can only speak for yourself, not “we”. Thanks for your answer – it is quite clear.
Lass,
Sure, I only quoted Javier and asked for references to his scientific publications on climate (there are none). He does a fine job of smearing himself.
I understand what is presented – I just don’t believe what is presented, nor the qualifications of the presenter.
Polly finds comfort in flocks, it’s quite clear.
Trunks,
It is clear that you find comfort in insults, because you are not able to discuss science.
Javier,
Here are links to 12 peer reviewed papers that say we do know how much of the current warming is caused humans (essentially all). As you have done, you are free to admit your lack of knowledge, but you are not free to assign that ignorance to other people.
https://skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=57
ganon is regressing when he links Skeptic Science. What next, Ladies Home Journal?
Kid, That would be “Skeptical”, and the links I reference are peer-reviewed papers. That they are compiled in a SkepticalScience figure is only a convenient listing (otherwise I would have referenced the whole article). That you dismiss those 12 papers with a stupid insult is typical.
And Polly doesnt squawk science, he just wings it with appeals to authority. Always the flocker.
Trunks,
Actually, what I “squawk” is references to published, reviewed scientific literature. It is apparent how much that upsets some of the denizens – to the point that some, particularly you, think name-calling, insults, and personal attacks, are the appropriate response to scientific literature. Doesn’t bother me – just an indication of intellectual immaturity and inability to refute the science.
ganon
When a golfer lines up his putt and looks at it from 15 different angles and then leaves the putt short by 4 feet, we say that he fell in love with the line. He forgot the overall.
That is important because it’s a scientifically proven fact that 100% of putts that are short of the hole, don’t go in.
It seems as if some hardcore AGW apocalyptic acolytes have forgotten the overall. They ignore the predilection of our species to believe in end of the world scenarios. They’ve gone history illiterate and dismissed the past variability of our climate. They don’t want to consider that there are plausible explanations for the temperatures of the last 50 years. The holes in the establishment narrative are big enough for Refrigerator Perry to walk through.
Besides coming out of the coldest epoch of the Holocene, and not being that far removed from the top decile of the last 9,000 years of solar activity, being in the warm phase of the AMO, having the temperature data possibly affected by UHI, having lost 87% of wetlands since 1700 and having massive alterations of the global landscape, and repeated failures of analyzing future sea level rise, we have 6 billion more humans on our planet than we had in 1800.
If a few herds of heifers are public enemy #1, then the beer breath of 7 billion more people must count for something.
Shutting down the global economy for speculative benefits is very short sighted.
The only references to published, reviewed scientific literature come from skepticalscience.com. There is absolutely no other science in the world of BA Bushaw of many identities.
George,
If you’d pay attention, my references come from myriad sources. In this case, skepticalscience simply provided a convenient list of links to original literature. If you’d like to respond to/refute the conclusions of those papers, I’d be glad to read. If you just want to attack the messenger, I’m not interested.
“skepticalscience simply provided a convenient list of links to original literature” – which all go to skepticalscience.org. BA, did you attempt to follow a single link?
BA Bushaw,
The problem with your list of references is that not a single one of them attempts to quantify the indirect effect of changes in solar activity. This effect is known to exist and is required to explain a multitude of climate changes that took place in the course of the Holocene whenever solar activity was very low.
So, we could say: “If we ignore known solar effects on climate, we can rule out natural effects on climate.”
But then our models are unable to explain past climate changes we know occurred. When a large part of our climate scientific community rejects the method of multiple working hypothesis developed by Thomas Chamberlin, you know those scientists are not applying the scientific method properly and are more likely to lose their way in science.
As an example, Rohling, E., et al., 2002. Holocene atmosphere-ocean interactions: records from Greenland and the Aegean Sea. Climate Dynamics, 18, pp.587-593. say:
“In view of these findings, we call for an in-depth multi-disciplinary assessment of the potential for solar modulation of climate on centennial scales. Potential mechanisms for transmission of solar variability to climate change were discussed by Van Geel et al. (1999) and Beer et al. (2000). Moreover, a climate model suggested that in/decreases in stratospheric ozone production, due to in/decreases in UV radiation, would lead to warming/cooling of the lower stratosphere, which in turn would affect the meridional extent of atmospheric cells (Haigh 1996). Since this is exactly the type of reorganisation in the climate system that was inferred previously to explain the GISP2 ion series (i.e. the Polar Circulation Index for strength and extent of the polar vortex; Mayewski et al. 1997) and which is further supported in the present study, we consider that targeted investigations of Haigh’s (1996) mechanism are particularly relevant.
This is obviously the mechanism I support in my books, because studying natural climate change and sticking to what the evidence shows is the best way to be in the correct side of the climate debate. In due time this will be recognized, as it always happens in science.
Publishing scientific findings in books is a millenary tradition. Thousands of people read my books. If I published in articles I would be kept out of the most important journals and I would publish in second rate journals. Very few people read most articles. Most science these days goes unread, while everybody cites a few articles. I see all the time fantastic climate articles that have been cited only 3-4 times.
The important thing in science is to be right and to make your findings known. The path I have chosen to accomplish that seems more efficient than the one you suggest. Time puts everyone in their place.
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kid,
If when you say “beer breath,” you really mean anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, then yes, those count for something, in fact, quite a lot. The other human effects (aerosols, land use) are small by comparison.
ganon
Then it seems a solution to our problem is to stop breathing. Sort of a modern day version of the Viet Nam story of destroying a village to save it.
I need a link to show that losing 87% of wetlands has a small effect. Losing wetlands can have an effect on the micro climate so I would like to see a global analysis. Deforestation has had a deleterious effect on the Amazon. I suspect this is an area research ripe for the taking.
Or maybe it’s like the lack of recognition by the establishment of the obvious effects of geothermal activity in West Antarctica in spite of voluminous studies. A new study just came out this week.
“ The future evolution of the Antarctic Ice Sheet depends on its stability, which describes how sensitive it is to environmental change. A key factor influencing ice sheet stability is how much thermal energy is transferred into its base from Earth’s interior: a parameter called geothermal heat flow. If the level of heat supply is high, melting at the base of the ice sheet is encouraged, resulting in enhanced sliding toward outlet glaciers at the continental perimeter. Consequently, ice loss is accelerated, and the likelihood of glacial collapse is increased. Therefore, an accurate map of Antarctic geothermal heat flow, including how this parameter varies from region to region, is needed to produce high quality projections of Antarctic ice mass loss and therefore global sea level change”
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2023GL106274
cerescokid wrote:
Then it seems a solution to our problem is to stop breathing
Breathing is carbon neutral. You should certainly know that already.
02
Take it up with ganon. He says otherwise.
Usually you two are both on the wrong side.
Kid,
No, you are the one that is making up the stupidity about breathing, You said, “Then it seems a solution to our problem is to stop breathing.” Don’t attribute your made up idiocy to other people.
I quote ganon
“ If when you say “beer breath,” you really mean anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, then yes, those count for something, in fact, quite a lot.
Kid,
Yes, I wrote that and I stand by it. I also stand by the statement that your “Then it seems a solution to our problem is to stop breathing.” is idiotic.
Curious George,
No, they do not link to skepticalscience.org
The links are in the figure caption and link directly to the original literature. E.g., “Tett et al. 2000” links directly to:
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2000JD000028
Hope you are bright enough to figure out the other 11 links (the text is blue).
Sorry, I got it backwards. I was looking at the list of links at the bottom of the page, and overlooked the headline. :-)
Thanks, George.
Getting things backwards is not unusual around here.
Here it comes, here it comes … your 19th nervous breakdown.
“The Coming Electricity Crises”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/electric-grid-crisis-biden-administration-climate-policy-energy-artificial-intelligence-cfc10b68?st=qr9bf2uk3t2hyag&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Javier,
Solar effects are not ignored. You just like to pretend that they are ignored.
Being a scientist involves more doing literature research on/with a bunch of Wiki articles.
… involves more than doing …
Javier,
See, IPCC AR6 WG1 Fig. 7.6. Solar effective radiative has been considered, and since 1750 it has been found to have a slight cooling effect (-0.02 W/m^2), less than 1% of the warming forcing of GHG’s.
Good luck with your search for fame and being “right” – I have my doubts.
https://mega.nz/file/o3cTjYSZ#49UAykMhLTzQXN_Vwx-V58vqdj8uisFYGfrg1WfR3cA
Good luck finding an official definition of a scientist that leaves me out. You clearly haven’t read my work, so you don’t know what my research involves.
Indirect solar effects are not included. Show me how are they included. AR5 has this to say about them:
“Two mechanisms have been identified in observations and simulated with climate models that could explain these low amplitude regional responses (Gray et al., 2010; medium evidence). These mechanisms are additive and may reinforce one another so that the response to an initial small change in solar irradiance is amplified regionally (Meehl et al., 2009). The first mechanism is a top-down mechanism first noted by Haigh (1996) where greater solar ultraviolet radiation (UV) in peak solar years warms the stratosphere directly via increased radiation and indirectly via increased ozone production. This can result in a chain of processes that influences deep tropical convection (Balachandran et al., 1999; Shindell et al., 1999; Kodera and Kuroda, 2002; Haigh et al., 2005; Kodera, 2006; Matthes et al., 2006). In addition, there is less heating than average in the tropical upper stratosphere under solar minimum conditions which weakens the equator-to-pole temperature gradient. This signal can propagate downward to weaken the tropospheric mid-latitude westerlies, thus favoring a negative phase of the Arctic Oscillation (AO) or NAO. This response has been shown in several models (e.g., Shindell et al., 2001; Ineson et al., 2011) though there is no significant AO or NAO response to solar irradiance variations on average in the CMIP5 models (Gillett and Fyfe, 2013).”
AR6 goes silent on these indirect mechanisms known to exist but not reproduced in CMIP models.
Thank you for your concern about my success. I am starting to be invited to give conferences in other countries. There are people who want to understand my hypothesis before deciding how viable it is.
Javier,
How do you know what I have and have not read? I form my opinion of you both from your comments here and from your books.
I am sure you are a scientist. Would you mind telling us the field of your PhD?
Good luck with “making conferences”.
ganon
Daniel Kahneman died this week. He was a psychologist known for his work in behavioral economics and authored the book “Thinking Fast and Slow”. He won a Nobel Prize for his work. Even though he was not an economist, he is most well known for the advancements he made in economics.
I took a number of courses in psychology and economics in the 1960s. There were no fields known as behavioral economics or evolutionary psychology. The prevailing view was genetics or socialization in psychology and rational economics.
Both fields have benefited since then from contributions made by scientists who were not psychologists or economists.
The problem in climate science is that all the incentives favor sticking to one theory. Such a culture stifles creativity and scientific inquiry and diminishes work by scientists who are engaging in research for no reason other than to expand our knowledge.
It’s been awhile since I read Javier’s book but he discussed a paradox about a certain topic. Maybe paradoxes wouldn’t be considered paradoxes if we had a more complete understanding of the universe rather than holding on to antiquated views of how we think the universe works.
BTW, how is your book coming along?
Kid,
I’m not writing a book, and I don’t claim to be a climate scientist – I wrote peer reviewed scientific papers. How about you? Have you written any books or peer reviewed papers, or are your comments on this blog your best/only output?
There you go, kid. If only you had published, i.e., a peer reviewed paper describing why zebra’s have stripes, such alone would make you proficient enough to adequately tease apart leading edge arguments about climate.
If the trend is 10s of thousands of years long, go with the trend. It’s a vanity no brainer. We”re not talking about a head and shoulders trend pattern here for Polly; one who prefers Preen anyway. Regardless, Polly’s an expert at pecking apart climate arguments. How can a colorful bird be vain, he asks?
ganon
I’m more equipped to sniff out the truth about this than a scientist because I spent 2 decades working with legislators on a daily basis, so I can smell BS from a mile away. But the more important skill I obtained, I got in the first grade. I can read.
A person doesn’t need to be a scientist to think like a scientist. Some climate scientists are more like hustlers than traditional scientists. The most outspoken are the worst enemy in efforts to gain a level of credibility. Climate scientists and journalists seem to have forgotten their jobs are not cheerleaders for liberal causes.
But I am not without sympathy for some of them. If they believe their life mission is to save humanity from the scourge of CAGW, I appreciate the immense pressure they must feel. What a load on their shoulders it must be.
Maybe that is how they rationalize falling into line and putting the interest of science behind the urgent call to save civilization.
I was all in during the 1980s. Why not since I hadn’t done any research into the “science”. About a decade ago I took a deep dive, reading hundreds of studies. Each succeeding year the preponderance of evidence supports being skeptical of the catastrophic outcomes. Instead of the end of civilization by 2050, as some of the cultists have proclaimed, there will just be more moving the goalposts out a few more decades.
Why would anyone think being 1.5C above the coldest period in the Holocene will be unendurable? In fact what would be so bad about 2.5C above that level.
I’m a geologist, 48 years at it. I understand deep time, which activists ignore as irrelevant, but I also understand shallow time – last couple thousand years. In the Rockies near home I see evidence of the last 170 years.
Not only has there been big changes, AND rapid changes, but the biosphere did just fine. In fact, the biosphere was most robust when temperatures and CO2 were MUCH higher than today, and the Arctic was tropical – even though the Earth was still tilted and there was dark in the winter period.
I live in Calgary. I arrived at a population of about 600k. It’s grown to about 1.6 million. I used to say it’s changes were okay right up to the day I moved into my new house at the edge of the city. I gather new arrivals are saying the same thing.
The status quo isn’t necessarily the best situation. My technical knowledge says a warmer, more CO2 atmosphere would be much better for the biosphere, including more people. Managed better than now, absolutely, but intrinsically better for life. But the anyihumanists and antitechnologist urban elites want to keep Calgary just as it is, preserving their lifestyles and fearful of change.
Ceresco,
Thanks for your history and personal opinions. As for your closing question, see:
“What Does Global Land Climate Look Like at 2°C Warming?”
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2022EF003330
To the best of my knowledge, the 2.5 C you ask about is more than (worse) than the 2 C discussed in the paper.
Short pants,
If a trend, in less than 100 years, has shown more change than the over the last 10,000 years, maybe it would be best to take it seriously and try to understand where it is going. Good to see you can’t give up juvenile behavior – guess you don’t have much else.
ganon
Thank you for making my point. So we get more of the increases that we have been getting over the last 150 years. And exactly what is so deleterious about what we have been going through for the last 150 years? Humans have been dealing with all those metrics ever since we have inhabited the planet. For all those Snowbirds who travel south in the winter or year round can just stay put.
At least they didn’t say that Lady Liberty would drown.
If you thought you made a point, you didn’t. But thanks for trying.
Kid said, “I can read.” Maybe, but quite apparent you don’t understand what you read. And yes, I made a point with a reference – you just didn’t bother to read or understand.
ganon
I absolutely understood what I read. Maybe you can’t comprehend the concept of deleterious. 2040 will be just like today was envisioned to be by those in 1980 who thought our climate would be a disaster and end of civilization. It’s not. Your problem is you can’t admit you are wrong. I’ve tried to help you see the light with uncountable links to data without any apparent effect.
Kid,
I have never said, “Our climate would be a disaster and end of civilization.” (That is your statement, and it doesn’t apply to me.) I think it is a possibility, but not that it “will” happen. You seem to be the one that has a false certainty of what “will” happen in the future. My hope is that civilization will be able to deal with climate change, despite people like you who deflect from and try to minimize the problem.
ganon
A WH memo in 1969 said by 2000 T could rise by 7F and SLR could be 10 feet. Didn’t happen. NCAR said in 1979 that by 2000 SLR could be a couple of feet. Didn’t happen. In his March, 1982 Congressional testimony , James Hansen said SLR could be 2 feet by 2025. It’s been a few inches since. In 1983 EPA said SLR could be 12 feet by 2100. We are only about 3% of the way there. The Pentagon had a report in 2004 that in 20 years major European cities could be underwater. Another failed analysis.
Any rational person ought to sit back and reflect on why there were so many errors in assumptions. I can imagine that in 2090, with still no significant increase in acceleration of the SLR, there will still be holdouts, sitting by the shore waiting for another 11 feet in the next decade, bound and determined to go down with the ship on the idea of CAGW.
There are cultists who are now saying civilization will end in 2030 because of global warming. At least they will need only 6 years to be proven wrong. Then they can be deinstitutionalized and join the rest of us.
Kid,
So what? Science advances; you are apparently stuck in the past.
“The idea that the Little Ice Age (LIA) was caused by increased volcanic activity is popular. However, the data suggest otherwise. Volcanic activity during the LIA was not unusually high,”
That is a misunderstanding of the current science of the LIA.
They hypothesis is not a string of volcanoes throughout the entire LIA. It’s that a series of volcanos in the late 1200s cooled parts of the northern hemisphere enough to create a negative ice-albedo feedback that lasted for centuries. See
“Abrupt onset of the Little Ice Age triggered by volcanism and sustained by sea-ice/ocean feedbacks,” Gifford H. Miller et al, GRL (2013).
DOI: 10.1029/2011GL050168
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2011GL050168/full
The LIA wasn’t global.
David Appell:
“The LIA wasn’t global”
You, they, are mistaken. It WAS global
https://doi.org/10.30574/wjarr.2022.1.3.0170
Javier,
I have your second book. I read the first 50 pages before I stopped – that was more than enough. That, and your writings on this blog are the basis for my opinion.
I’m sorry you didn’t like it. However, you missed the basis of my hypothesis about natural climate change through changes in heat transport and all the evidence that supports it.
No I didn’t miss it. The importance of heat transfer and redistribution in the flow of Earth’s surface fluids is well known.
“The importance of heat transfer and redistribution in the flow of Earth’s surface fluids is well known.”
You write like it is understood to the point that it can be dismissed as a major cause of climate change. It can’t. That is why models are not effective long term.
And the effect of solar activity on heat transport is not known, despite all the available evidence. That part is not known. It is original.
Rob, no, it can’t be dismissed – it is an essential part of the climate system. As I said, it is well known, and the more we know, the better.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-74331-2
The relationship between solar activity and ocean heat content is well known since White et al. 2003:
https://doi.org/10.1029/2002JC001396
The study you link, based on information flow techniques, adds little as it is basically a correlation analysis. The causal influence has never been in doubt, as changes in ocean heat content cannot affect solar activity. It is the mechanism which matters.
And none of these studies say anything about horizontal heat transfer dependence on solar activity, which is one of the new aspects of climate change I’ve researched.
The volcanic LIA hypothesis is clearly wrong on two accounts:
– We know the effect of volcanoes is temporary, just after another string of volcanoes in 1790-1820 the world started to warm and glaciers all over the world started to recede.
– Volcanic activity was much, much higher during the Holocene Climate Optimum than during the last 2000 years.
The LIA was global, as indicated by glacier growth all over the planet. See for example Solomina et al. 2015.
Javier
Those who are still holding on to the belief that the MWP and LIA were not global are ignoring the extensive research of the last 25 years indicating otherwise. The motivation for ignoring such research I will leave to the psychologists.
Cerescokid,
The motivation is to maintain the fiction that CO₂ is the climate’s control knob and, therefore, we are fully responsible for recent climate change, but we can stop it by going net-zero carbon.
If the MWP and LIA were global we have very powerful natural climate change forcings unaccounted for and, therefore, possibly acting today undetected. If this is true, going net-zero carbon will accomplish nothing.
The opposition to a global MWP and LIA is just a mechanism to maintain their fiction, when the evidence shows otherwise. They don’t care about climate science. They just care about transforming society in a non-democratic way, because most people would oppose the planned changes if they are not being scared.
The LIA changed the position of the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone by 5° latitude. It was a change in global atmospheric circulation and global energy budget similar to those caused by Milankovitch forcing, only at a smaller scale.
https://doi.org/10.1038/NGEO554
Who’s the denier?
Some fragments from the discussion here, then a question for those trying to resolve issues at the leading edge of climate science.
Javier, the first sentence in the essay: “The unlikely volcano, the warmest year, and the collapse of the polar vortex.”
Midstream in this thread the discussion initially appears contradictory:
Petter: “…global cloud cover has declined the last 20 + years, actually 40 years (NASA CERES satellite data)”
Javier: “The question is, then, what caused the decrease in cloud cover.”
Christos: “Evaporation takes place at the surface, clouds formation in the atmosphere’s volume. So evaporation increases, but relative humidity decreases. The reduced relative humidity decreases cloud cover.”
“On average, total annual precipitation has increased over land areas in the United States… Since 1901, global precipitation has increased at an average rate of 0.04 inches per decade” https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-us-and-global-precipitation Fewer clouds: https://www.businessinsider.com/earth-less-bright-space-cloud-coverage-oscillation-climate-2021-10?op=1
Some areas receive more precipitation, some regions are more arid. Science indicates fewer clouds, yet there’s more evaporation. There’s higher regional atmospheric intensity; more precipitation (a net gain overall), and more aridity in other regions.
My question is more relative; the transient nature of climate as it moves from peak interglacial to glacial. While science has strong decadal data, good centennial data, spotty millennial data, and low resolution paleo data; altogether none of the science describes the transient nature of climate as moves it moves from peak interglacial to glacial. Sound expectations would be useful, if it were possible to acquire detailed data from prior peak interglacial phenomenon, (I’m not referring to big picture climate movers of climate, i.e. solar) but what do tipping point events look like?
So Javier, you would never say that an unlikely volcano, the warmest year, and the collapse of the polar vortex is evidence of transition to a new glacial, but it could be. One couldn’t say the changing precipitation patterns is indication of a transition to a new ice age. If the precipitation pattern sways towards heavy accumulating snow at the poles, increasing sea ice extent; this could be indication of cooler times ahead, an inflection point; it would be arrogant, irresponsible, to say that’s what might happen, just like it would be arrogant to unequivocally state warmer times ahead.
Point being, science doesn’t know what normal is, it would take much more science to attain adequate confidence levels, more observation, study. Science can’t describe transient events, indicators, from the last peak interglacial; yet most science arrogantly states that it knows todays climate, it’s settled because of a near-term blip on the climate map—a burp by hoary climate says it all, maybe it’s just a burp before going to bed. Who really knows.
Javier:
You say that volcanic eruptions were much, much higher during the Holocene Climate Optimum than during the past 2000 years.
I did a fact check of your statement, using “Volcanoes of the World”, third edition (2010), by counting all VEI4 and higher eruptions, the only ones that have any climatic effect.
For the 4,000 year Climate Optimum, there were 164 such eruptions, or 0.4 eruptions/per century
For the past 2,000 years, there were 490 eruptions, or 2.4/century, which is 6X more.
So, the Holocene Climate Optimum was a warm period because there were many, many FEWER volcanic eruptions than over the past 2000 years!
I don’t know where you got your data, but it obviously B.S.
Burlhenry, your data suffers from a detection problem, as many volcanic eruptions of the past have not been detected.
My data is from multiple sources using different techniques:
https://doi.org/10.1006/qres.1996.0013
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2009.07.014
Javier:
Your first reference stated that their ice core data found 850 volcanic signals , with 700 of them before the start of the Holocene Climate Optimum, leaving 150 for the Optimum period (I found 164).
The data from the other paper was also for prior to the Optimum.
Neither of your references support your claims.
The Minoan Warm Period, the Roman Warm Period, and the Medieval Warm Period were all periods of low volcanic activity, and the Holocene Climate Optimum was no exception.
Jungletrunks,
“what do tipping point events look like?”
Good question, but the answer depends on how you define a tipping point.
If you push a pencil toward the edge of a table, it reaches a tipping point and falls. It is irreversible.
But in climate most changes are reversible, in a few years, decades, centuries, millennia. Glaciations and deglaciations are reversible. Abrupt climate events during the Holocene, like the LIA, were reversible. Every tipping point in climate will be followed by its opposite tipping point in due time. As they are not irreversible, I do not consider them tipping points.
Every interglacial shows a point when it starts declining its temperature into a neoglaciation period. This happened for the Holocene 5,000 years ago. After a few thousand years the temperature decline accelerates because positive feedback factors to cooling are recruited. This point can be considered glacial inception, as it is when sea levels start decreasing.
You can see how it looks for the Eemian:
https://i.imgur.com/L4HJZqx.png
I appreciate your reply, Javier.
A trend is defined by 3 points of higher highs, with each higher point followed by a higher low print; or conversely, 3 prints of lower lows, each followed by a higher low. In context of climate this of course relates to directional temperature signals over time. The before metric can be further parsed; long, intermediate, or short term trends.
Since 30 years is defined as a climate data point; I determine 100 years as encapsulating a trend direction, or orherwise the beginning of a reversal. Within this 100 year period, there’s either continuation, or a trend break establishing itself. It’s this inversion I refer to in my prior comment about tipping points, the trend reversal.
Using the before metric to determine trend means a reversal can’t happen in a lifetime, but hints of one may be determined, increasing snow and ice extent at the poles, for example.
Burlhenry,
Please find in the following figure, in red, the volcanic sulfate quantification from the first reference summed by century, together with a quadratic fit. I think it is very clear that the Holocene Climatic Optimum enjoyed a much higher volcanic activity than the rest of the Holocene afterward.
https://i.imgur.com/uQWPtkP.png
Volcanic data from:
https://doi.org/10.1006/qres.1996.0013
Javier:
Your first reference “A 110,000 Yr Record of Explosive Volcanism…..” found ~850 volcanic cycles (700 of these from 110,000 to 9000 yr ago), leaving only 150 (presumably VEI5-7’s) for the 4,000 year Holocene Climate Optimum, and presumably earlier. If there were many, many more, as you claim, they would have shown up in the ice cores!
Apart from the Hunga-Tonga eruption, no other VEI4 or higher eruptions are known that did not cause global cooling due to their sulfate aerosols, yet your proxy graph shows extreme warming AND cooling (from supposed proxy eruptions) at the same time!
It cannot be not proof of anything.
Volcanoes have become a wild card of carbon-revisionist “palaeoclimatology”. Where climate cools – one kind of volcano is invoked. And when it warms – another kind of volcano does that as well. It makes explaining past climate trends real easy. Only one word is needed: volcanos.
https://ptolemy2.wordpress.com/2019/07/16/the-cult-of-carbon-dioxide-is-leading-palaeo-climate-research-on-a-road-to-nowhere/
https://ptolemy2.wordpress.com/2023/01/04/the-end-permian-mass-extinction-was-a-glaciation-event/
https://ptolemy2.wordpress.com/2020/07/05/the-ordovician-glaciation-glaciers-spread-while-co2-increased-in-the-atmosphere-a-problem-for-carbon-alarmism/
Burlhenry,
The data is here:
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/greenland/summit/gisp2/chem/volcano.txt
Download it and study it, as I did.
Javier;
Thank you for the ice core data. It will take me a while to study it.
Burl,
Thanks, as usual, your reference returns “DOI not found”.
https://doi.org/10.30574/wjarr.2022.13.2.0170
Not Burl, but you’re welcome.
Thanks Joe. Typical Burl “paper”.
Why do you complain? He published a peer-reviewed article in a science journal. This is what you recommend.
Javier,
I complained that he couldn’t make a proper reference to his own work. As for publishing in a scientific journal – maybe you should try it … that is, if you have done anything original and publishable as such.
I am not the only one that thinks what I have done is original. Several scientists like Will Happer and François Gervais, who wrote the foreword for the English and French editions think so. Roy Spencer considers it one of two possible natural climate change mechanisms that are unaccounted for:
“Some researchers have published unorthodox evidence for non-CO2 origins of climate change, for example, through changes in the transport of energy from the tropics to high latitudes (27) and the sun’s modulation of galactic cosmic rays, which in turn can affect cloud formation. (28) Since clouds are the Earth’s natural sunshade, reducing global temperatures below what they would be in the absence of clouds, a solar effect on climate remains a possibility.”
(27) Javier Vinós, Climate of the Past, Present, and Future: A Scientific Debate, 2nd ed. (Madrid: Critical Science Press, 2022).
(28) Henrik Svensmark, “Influence of Cosmic Rays on Earth’s Climate,” Physical Review Letters, Vol. 81 (1998), pp. 5027–5030.
https://www.heritage.org/environment/report/global-warming-observations-vs-climate-models
I will publish my research in a journal when I am invited to do so by the journal. Otherwise, I will not waste my time trying to get past the gatekeepers, when climate scientists don’t want to read that they have been wrong all along. If one of them wants to find out, he can read my books.
Javier, Don’t worry – you won’t be invited, but I imagine WJARR would post whatever you want to write, if you are willing to buy a DOI number. BTW, I must have missed the field of your PhD?
I am not worried. I no longer need to publish articles, and I will not pay to have my research published.
Do your research. I am easy to find.
BA Bushaw,
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Javier-Vinos
Dr. Vinos’ work goes back to January 1987. He has over 100 citations. I quickly searched ‘Javier Vinos biology’, and it was the second link. Not sure what point you’re attempting to make here.
The only defamatory content I could find slandering him was a tweet by user ‘Ceist8’. I’ve interacted with this account before; it’s probably a sock puppet.
Ducky2,
Thanks, I am familiar with Dr. Vinos’ Researchgate profile. Did you happen to notice the subject of his research before 2022? Did you happen to notice all his “expert” peer reviewed publications on climate? – oh wait, there aren’t any.
My first book, Climate of the Past, Present and Future. A scientific debate is peer-reviewed. The reviews are included in the book. One of the reviewers is anonymous and didn’t like the book. The other two liked it.
So, in this discussion, one of us recognizes doing climate research and has published peer-reviewed works on climate science that have already been cited in other works, and the other doesn’t. I think you are disqualifying yourself by your own standards.
Javier,
The difference is I never claimed to be a climate scientist and have not written books about it. Therefore, there is nothing to disqualify. The same does not apply to you. If you’d like to disqualify my qualifications and publication record in physical sciences, go for it.
BABushaw,
I don’t say I’m a climate scientist either. I say I’m a scientist, and my doctorate in sciences doesn’t have any restrictions on what I can research or not.
I say I am an expert in natural climate change, because I am. I have acquired a lot more knowledge about how the climate changes naturally than most people, and I can demonstrate it, because I have written a small part of what I know in my books. Being an expert in something is not about having a piece of paper that says so, but about having more knowledge on the subject than most people.
To judge my level of expertise you will have to know how much I know first. For that you will have to read my books. Saying I don’t know enough without finding out how much I know shows you don’t really know what science is about. You speak without first hand knowledge.
Javier
A new paper in Climate Dynamics cites your book on the subject of solar periodic forcing of climate:
https://rdcu.be/dCXYX
Hi Phil,
Yes, ResearchGate also informed me.
Thank you.
Volcanoes as you know are the palaeoclimate carbon-revisionist wild card. Whenever climate changes don’t align with CO2, then volcanoes are invoked. They can either warm (mafic) or cool (felsic) as needed.
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The very POWERFUL the Solar Irradiated planet surface Rotational Warming Phenomenon ( N*cp )^1/16
When comparing the various different planets and moons (without-atmosphere, or with a thin atmosphere, Earth included),
when comparing their the satellite measured the average surface temperatures (Tsat), the temperatures
RELATE, (everything else equals), as their (N*cp) products’ SIXTEENTH ROOT.
( N*cp )^1/16
or
[ (N*cp)¹∕ ⁴ ]¹∕ ⁴
Where:
N – rotations/day, is the planet’s axial spin.
cp – cal/gr*oC, is the planet’s average surface specific heat.
(Tsat.planet.1) /(Tsat.planet.2) =
= [ (N1*cp1) /(N2*cp2) ] ^1/16
–
–
Link: https://www.cristos-vournas.com
“As an approximation, the average flux will give the average temperature.”
–
The approximation of Earth’s
Te = 255K, when compared with the Earth’s actual the average surface temperature
Tmean = 288K…
–
When 288K – 255K = 33°C, that approximation is what leads to mistaken conclusion the Earth’s average surface atmospheric greenhouse effect is so much big +33°C !
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Hansen et al have a mailing that reads like a direct response to Javier’s thinking here. Asserts nothing special about Hunga Tonga effect, temp rise must be due to something else. They nominate maritime bunker regs, and a much higher climate sensitivity than the IPCC proposes.
Link: https://t.co/yuaJlzGFlL
According to Hansen, New York is already underwater, so I guess he is wrong.
Good of you to show your true character and intellect.l
BA, as one of the perennial antagonists that refutes any theories, challenges, observations or studies of others familiar with climate science; just what are your climate qualifications? I did see something about a patent for a type of laser spectrum analysis. I have not seen any climate science rationale other than repeating the political science, CO2 = anthropogenic causation. Your typical response is a name-calling, disparaging method that does not present any rebuttal of why you think it is wrong. Your approach is, that it is not science unless published in the “science is settled”, “the science is not debatable”, political science publications. If science is always finite; if it wasn’t for questioning the rationale, we would still think the earth round rather than elliptical.
I suppose you took your pseudo name from Legend of Zelda too…
J. Anderton
I have no formal climate qualifications. My qualifications and publications are in chemistry and physics; however, part of the physics studies included nonlinear dynamics and chaos, as well as small molecule spectroscopy and photophysics; both are relevant to climate change.
Skepticism is a two-way street – sorry if you don’t like it if I am skeptical of unsubstantiated denials of the “accepted” science. Since I do not have climate “qualifications,” I do my best to provide references, evidence, and data, rather than personal opinions. If you don’t like my references, go ahead and refute them. As for name-calling, I try not to initiate that, but I am perfectly willing to respond in kind, if so attacked.
Have a good day.
BA Bushaw
With your knowledge and interest in chaotic-nonlinear system dynamics, here’s a new paper in Climate Dynamics that might be interesting. It’s about dimensionality of chaos in climate, particularly the ocean:
https://rdcu.be/dCXYX
Phil,
Thanks, I downloaded a copy after you first posted the link this morning. I have (so far) only made a quick scan, but will read in detail.
Thanks again.
Phil,
Here is one in return, relevant to the discussion.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-021-05872-z
It does not agree with Javier’s hypothesis about solar cycles and secondary solar effects (whatever they might be, e.g., changes in spectral distribution) being a significant forcing compared to GHGs.
I should point out that I believe in stochastic oscillations (marginally chaotic system), I just don’t believe any of the known ones have the magnitude or time signature (shape and rate of temperature change) to explain the warming over the last 1/2+ century. I would also point out that the CO2 and temperature record of the last few thousand years already exhibit mathematical “catastrophes” – one should be open to the possibility that physical and human catastrophes may follow.
https://berkeleyearth.org/dv/10000-years-of-carbon-dioxide/
J Anderton,
When ganon started commenting here, I called him out within days of his appearance.
He might be an ageing chemist with susbtantial past wpork experience in his field, but he has been relentless in his criticism of sceptical comments about climate research.
He is a shill. Nothing worth reading.
Geoff S
This is from a July, 2022 study.
“ This eruption could impact climate not through surface cooling due to sulfate aerosols, but rather through surface warming due to the radiative forcing from the excess stratospheric H2O.”
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2022GL099381
And this is from NASA.
“ The sheer amount of water vapor could be enough to temporarily affect Earth’s global average temperature.
“We’ve never seen anything like it,” said Luis Millán, an atmospheric scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. He led a new study examining the amount of water vapor that the Tonga volcano injected into the stratosphere, the layer of the atmosphere between about 8 and 33 miles (12 and 53 kilometers) above Earth’s surface.”….
“ The excess water vapor injected by the Tonga volcano, on the other hand, could remain in the stratosphere for several years.
This extra water vapor could influence atmospheric chemistry, boosting certain chemical reactions that could temporarily worsen depletion of the ozone layer. It could also influence surface temperatures. Massive volcanic eruptions like Krakatoa and Mount Pinatubo typically cool Earth’s surface by ejecting gases, dust, and ash that reflect sunlight back into space. In contrast, the Tonga volcano didn’t inject large amounts of aerosols into the stratosphere, and the huge amounts of water vapor from the eruption may have a small, temporary warming effect, since water vapor traps heat. The effect would dissipate when the extra water vapor cycles out of the stratosphere and would not be enough to noticeably exacerbate climate change effects.”
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/3204/tonga-eruption-blasted-unprecedented-amount-of-water-into-stratosphere/
It is indirect solar effects, not secondary. They are effects that are not directly caused by the change in solar energy but rely on changes caused to other climate mechanisms, for example the transmission of planetary waves in the atmosphere, recruiting their energy and momentum to cause changes in atmospheric circulation.
They are known and have been shown to happen, but nobody is taking them into account and are not included in models.
It is well known that global-scale multidecadal variability is missing in climate models.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-018-0044-6
Javier
“ It is well known that global-scale multidecadal variability is missing in climate models.”
An interesting future article on Climate Etc. would be all the ways that models don’t get it done. Although, there is just so much space.
BA Bushaw
“I should point out that I believe in stochastic oscillations (marginally chaotic system)”
If so the paper will hopefully be of interest as it focuses on how climatic chaos comes to reside at the marginal borderline region causing pattern such as oscillation. In your case I am preaching to the choir.
There are those who deny any intrinsic dynamics, oscillatory or otherwise, arguing that any and all climate changes are “one damn thing after another” with external causation, the climate itself being entirely passive. Which is wrong.
The paper is not really about warming and CO2, except tangientially; more about chaos fundamentals giving rise to “natural” background climate change against which anthropogenic change needs to be measured.
Geoff,
SKepticism is a two-way street. Judging by your claims (and lack of evidence for them.
Geoff,
Thanks for the comment. It says a lot more about you than me.
BA Bushaw
Regarding Feliks et al 2021, it’s interesting to speculate if the oceanic circulation models used could test the hypothesis in my paper that sites of upwelling and downwelling near coastlines are a source of interannual oscillations.
The suggestion of sunspot cycle periodic forcing is also interesting – this aligns with similar work cited in my paper by White and Liu 2008, Geophys Res Lett 35: L19607 (Nonlinear alignment of El Niño to the 11 year solar cycle)
BA Bushaw (ganon1950) | April 2, 2024 at 9:12 am |
Geoff S, SKepticism is a two-way street. Judging by your claims (and lack of evidence for them.
…….
Response:
Eschew prolixity and pleonasm when you write a garrulous jeremiad of gallimaufry based on your prejudiced feelings.
Geoff S
(Attributed to an unknown blogger).
Happy Easter, everyone!
Snowing here in Arizona!
Are you in Flagstaff? In Tuscon we have rain.
Happy Easter! Lucky you!
Here in Greece, this year we have another month to wait for our Easter.
And it is 25 C in Athens today!
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Rob … second attempt. Prescott. Enjoy your day.
Wagathon on Carl Sagan: | March 25, 2024 at 10:07 am |
“It’s always the same- western academia conjures up visions of an impending apocalypse unless they’re listened to and their solution is always the same- ditch Americanism and adopt liberal fascism.”
That’s an hilarious inversion of the history of the Climate Wars.
Sagan’s nemesis in the ‘nuclear winter’ affair was being rebutted not just by NCAR’s Steve Schneider in the same journal that ran his” Apocalyptic Predictions ” piece, but two house organs of the Reagan administration, The National Interest and the Wall Street Journal !
Here’s what went down:
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2016/04/nuclear-winter-wages-of-hype.html
Once the story broke, the left turned indignant as well:
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2017/07/history-of-climate-science-lessons.html
Nuclear power is The Way.
US Shale Drillers Seek to Power Oil Patch With Small Nuclear Reactors
…
Oklo’s 15-megawatt system would be far smaller than the conventional reactors used today, which typically produce 1,000 megawatts of electricity. (A megawatt is enough to power 200 typical Texas homes.) Supporters say small nuclear plants would be a good fit for powering industrial sites, especially in far-flung locales. Some companies are also interested in tapping heat from reactors, such as chemical giant Dow Inc., which has said it’s planning to power a Texas facility with a system from X-Energy Reactor Co.
Nuclear power is increasingly seen by policy makers as a key part of the fight against climate change. While there’s a growing push to eliminate fossil fuels, Oklo CEO Jacob DeWitte said it’s going to take a long time to curb the demand for oil. Incorporating nuclear power into the drilling process would help reduce greenhouse gases while oil is still needed.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-01/us-shale-drillers-seek-to-power-oil-patch-with-small-nukes
The regulatory hurdles to get small reactors built would make them to slow and expensive for industry under this administration.
True … but don’t underestimate the donor class to get things done. The more ‘renewables’ on the grid, the less dependable. AI and super-computing, not to mention chip and other manufacturers require stable power sources 24/7/365. That reality isn’t being addressed with the base environmental policy of this admin. I’m thinking that will have to change in a continuing Dem admin. Frankly, I’m not sure if the same impetus holds for a Trump admin, as NG will probably be unleashed, stabilizing the grid.
Yep – AI + EVs + electrify everything else isn’t going to be supported by wind and solar. We’ll be using nat gas for a very long time and petroleum as well.
Rob, why doesn’t the administration site modular nukes on Federal lands, self insure and have a blanket EPA authorization to do so?
I’m sure there are thousands of reasons this would be difficult. Are any of those reasons good ones?
It’s not a regulatory hurdle, it’s a political hurdle. Just sayin’.
Well … in politics there’s ideology … and then there’s money. If the power players have a need that contradicts the prevailing ideology, that ideology will be … revised. Most of the tech barons support the progressive cause, so long as it benefits them. However, it’s become apparent that unreliable power is not in their long term interests. Even industrial owners can not tolerate power interruptions. When that gets down to the EV owners, etc then I have a feeling the narrative on nuclear will change, if not way before then. The modular designs and new waste disposal efforts (the Finns just opened a new facility) may or may not be much different (I don’t have a nuclear physics degree), but there’s enough of a difference to ‘sell’ it.
Follow the money. And the money is moving toward small modular reactors.
WSO solar magnetic field observations for March 20, 2024.
http://wso.stanford.edu/gifs/Polar.gif
http://wso.stanford.edu/gifs/north.gif
http://wso.stanford.edu/gifs/south.gif
Javier: “…indirect solar effects… They are effects that are not directly caused by the change in solar energy but rely on changes caused to other climate mechanisms, for example the transmission of planetary waves in the atmosphere, recruiting their energy and momentum to cause changes in atmospheric circulation.”
I’ve really enjoyed this essay you’ve presented. From a layman POV, while it doesn’t mean much, I think you’re really on to something that’s not properly appreciated. I’m interested in thoughts about the role that indirect effects of energy have in relationship to trend—how the forces of extraordinary events may imprint on, or specifically effect a weak trend in particular, where these same effects may not effect momentum during periods of an already strong upward temperature trend. I feel that the intensity of energy on trend at various stages in time perturb the effects of momentum in varying ways dependent on the strength of trend at a given point in time. I’ll try to describe this in my own non-scientific way.
I’d like to focus attention on a few generalist thoughts for the before; in context of the current waning interglacial peak (from a big picture perspective); specifically how energy from small events can have outlier effects within their respective dimension, during a “weak momentum” trend period. I know some will immediately jump on the notion that the hockey stick is a strong trend; I’ll explain why I think it’s not a strong trend in relationship to a long-term weakened interglacial climate topping pattern.
So while a big mover of climate comes from the “direct” solar effect of Milankovitch cycles, over millennia; yours is a very reasonable granular hypothesis, it entertains how indirect solar effects, and other natural phenomenon effect climate mechanisms nearer-term. I’m suggesting here that these extraordinary events you describe perhaps have out-sized effects specifically because of diminished primary interglacial thrust momentum, in consideration that climate has reached a near peak state within the current interglacial.
To illustrate an interpretation of energy momentum in context with trend, I’ll use a couple of simple analogies: A professional weight lifter can do many barbell reps because they’ve developed mass to store energy, but they will always reach a point of exhaustion as they near the end of a set; if a sparrow were to land on the weight lifters barbell at peak set, the lift will fail. The sparrow has little weight, but it creates out-sized causation at a specific moment, at the end of a rep cycle. Another analogy: the financial stock market describes many trending patterns, the hockey stick is one of them. There are specific chart trends used as indicators to demonstrate weakness; the “rounding top”, “head and shoulders”, the “bump and run” (the latter often follows a hockey stick, representing the “bump”). The energy that propels stocks is found in a stocks under valuation, money flow pushes stocks ever higher over time. Once input energy wanes the market for a stock becomes volatile—small relative purchases (a weak energetic event) can drive a stock straight-up if there are no sellers, often this creates a hockey stick trend pattern within smaller time scales. But choppy, weak energy, in a topping pattern can’t sustain itself; the stock will collapse. The collapse too requires little energy; though momentum can build on the way down just as easily as it did at the beginning phase of moving up.
Your hypothesis about indirect solar effects, and other mechanisms.. recruiting their energy and momentum…seems to make a great deal of sense. Perhaps there’s a argument to describe all peak interglacial trend periods as being more volatile because less forceful outliers more easily perturb momentum as long-term forces wane?
Javier is quite correct to point to the importance of the remarkable Hunga Tonga eruption and it’s significance to climate research can’t be under-estimated.
It provides a unique opportunity to test some of the theory associated with radiative dynamics of IR and radiation in general in the atmosphere.
There are three versions of the CO2 radiative warming theory in circulation, two false, one fantastically complicated and possibly true.
Version 1: Sun warms earth surface making it emit IR which normally shoots straight out to space all the way from the surface but CO2 like the troll under the bridge stops those photons getting through, or like a blanket retaining heat.
This version is believed by 97% of the population and is utterly false since IR photons only transmit a few tens of meters in the atmosphere. Saturation.
Version 2. We finally figured out that version 1 is crap so here’s another try: There is an emission height, around the top of the troposphere, high enough so that IR photons emitted here can make it out of the atmosphere. Our underlying assumption is that with increasing height in the atmosphere, air gets continually colder. CO2 with its absorption and emission of IR pushes the emission height higher. So the net emission occurs higher up where the air is colder, reducing IR emission. But energy in has to equal energy out so the whole world heats up until emission is equalised again. Smart huh?
This version rests on the assumption that air gets continually colder with height. But it doesn’t. The assumption is completely false. Air cools with height only up to the top of the troposphere, after which with increasing height into the stratosphere air gets warmer. Can you see the problem this causes to the version 2 argument? When the emission height is pushed into the stratosphere (which it is – even “preindustrial” emission height was at top of troposphere) the emission height mechanism will cause cooling, not warming, with increasing CO2 in the air. Take a look at the temperature profile of the atmosphere with height. Arrhenius should have done this before proposing his warming(cooling) theory. This false version is believed by 2.99% of the population.
Version 3. This is a fantastically complicated version in which every wavelength of IR has its own unique emission height and subtle effects at the “shoulders” of troughs in the IR absorption spectrum are able to cause a net warming with increasing CO2. To show this you need hundreds of equations and thousands of lines of computer code. But on a good day – this version will yield some CO2 warming of the atmosphere. This version is understood by about 0.01% of the population.
Well – the Honga Tonga volcano has just changed the radiative properties of the atmosphere by injecting so much water vapour into it, as Javier has explained. This effect is temporary and will subside. To curious scientists this is just the sort of perturbation of the atmosphere’s radiative system that promises to test the above hypotheses and get some valuable experimental data on radiative dynamics of the atmosphere.
So presumably scientists are busy using the Hunga Tonga perturbation of atmospheric radiative dynamics to test hypotheses such as CO2 radiative warming. Or maybe they’re not. Do they really want to know?
Phil Salmon:
Although Hunga-Tonga injected a huge amount of water into the stratosphere, it also injected 0.18 million tons of SO2 aerosols into the stratosphere. A typical VEI4 eruption injects about 0.2 million tons, which temporarily cools the Earth by about 0.2 deg. C. but no cooling was observed from Hunga-Tonga, which was very strange.
This cooling occurs because volcanic SO2 aerosols are reflective, and reflect away enough of the incoming solar radiation to cool the Earth beneath.
They eventually settle out, in about 18 months, and temperatures rise to pre eruption levels because of the cleansed air, and usually enough higher to form an El Nino.
Hunga-Tonga formed its El Nino essentially right on schedule, 17 months later.
It seems to me that another source of warming was off-setting the expected cooling from the eruption, and I can’t imagine how extra water in the stratosphere would do that.
Burl
Maybe the seawater scrubbed out much of the sulphate?
So it stayed in the ocean.
Phil Salmon:
Some were undoubtedly dissolved in the water, since the amount detected by satellites was no more than that normally detected
for VEI4 eruptions, and Hunga- Tonga was a VEI5.
But the reported SO2 measurement was made of the atmosphere by satellites,
“…the Honga Tonga volcano has just changed the radiative properties of the atmosphere by injecting so much water vapour into it, as Javier has explained. This effect is temporary and will subside. To curious scientists this is just the sort of perturbation of the atmosphere’s radiative system that promises to test the above hypotheses and get some valuable experimental data on radiative dynamics of the atmosphere.”
Well said, though it’s also an instructive event for interested non scientists too, particularly those with sincere, apolitical interests about climate science–“truth” in a word; specifically relative to: “the sort of perturbation of the atmosphere’s radiative system that promises to test the above hypotheses”. Time is past due for testing a politically settled theory.
There is a strong relation between the solar system planets and moons their respective rotational ratio (N), and the planets and moons their respective average surface temperature (Tmean).
–
Link: https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Planets’ and moons’ mean surface temperatures relate (everything else equals) as their (N*cp) products’ sixteenth root.
In two days, another upper low will reach California with precipitation.
https://i.ibb.co/LJvdphs/gfs-o3mr-250-NA-f060.png
Elections have consequences. In this case, bad consequences.
Support for the energy transition will wane if ordinary citizens aren’t able to keep the lights on, a lawyer for Shell Plc argued as a crucial climate case got underway.
Lawyers for Shell said on the first day of the appeal in The Hague that a 2021 ruling ordering the oil and gas giant to slash its greenhouse gases faster had no legal basis, would be ineffective and counterproductive and could have disastrous consequences for the Netherlands.
“If people can no longer pay for their energy or that energy is no longer reliable when you press the button or want to cook food and turn on the gas stove, the support of people in the country here but also in other countries for the energy transition will be lost,” Daan Lunsingh Scheurleer, Shell’s lawyer, said in court on Tuesday.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-02/shell-says-support-for-the-energy-shift-will-wane-if-prices-soar
Here’s a good review of the “alarmist” viewpoint covering the “big picture” with lots of references.
https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/3/4/pgae106/7638480
That is not a “good review”. It is merely alarmist, anti west dribble.
That is an alarmist paper
1st paragraph distortion of wildfires
1st paragraph using misleading data for loss of antarctic sea ice
3rd paragraph could have been written by Paul Ehrlich
5th paragraph – typical distortion of subsidy[ies]
Fig 2 – Dubious graph of SST for all of 2023 and highly implausible increase in SST of 0.5c in from jan 2023 to dec 2023
Joe, they reference their claims. You don’t, so it’s just personal opinion. Thanks anyway.
BAB
I listed / cited the paragraph and the issue associated with the paragraph.
Anyone with a good understanding of climate science will recognize the problems.
Sorry that you were unable to pick up on the problems.
Joe, you said:
“Anyone with a good understanding of climate science will recognize the problems.”
Great, please explain the “problems” that you recognize, using refuting references.
Thanks
BAB – As I previously stated, anyone with a good understanding of climate science will recognize the problems
Did you bother to read the paper or paragraphs cited.
BaB – the references are not hard to follow
Fn 5 describing the increases in Wildfires cites a city using cherry pick dates. never a good sign of a robust study
Fig 2 shows an increase of SST of nearly 0.5c in 12 months during 2023. Is that credible? compare and contrast with the rate of warming over the last 100 years is 1.0c to 1.5c.
Fn29 on subsidies is a link to a paywalled advocacy paper , not to an actual study. Is that what you mean by the “authors substantiating” their work?
Paragraph 3 is a regurgitation of Paul Ehrlich. Is he still being worshipped in your circles
M Starkey,
“Fn 5 describing the increases in Wildfires cites a city using cherry pick dates. never a good sign of a robust study”
If that is Ref 5: Don’t know what you are talking about. What city; where is it mentioned in the paper?
“Fig 2 shows an increase of SST of nearly 0.5c in 12 months during 2023. Is that credible? compare and contrast with the rate of warming over the last 100 years is 1.0c to 1.5c”.
Yes, it is credible, although in the paper’s graph it is 0.3 C rise over the year. Inter-annual variability is of the same magnitude, and El Niño came into full effect during the year in question. C&C 100 years: A span of 100 years with observed internal variability (e.g., ENSO) will have multiple occurrences of >0.3 C/yr.
“Fn29 on subsidies is a link to a paywalled advocacy paper , not to an actual study. Is that what you mean by the “authors substantiating” their work?”
If that means Ref. 29, It is available, no paywall:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01586-w. What is wrong with an advocacy review paper referencing advocacy papers?
“Paragraph 3 is a regurgitation of Paul Ehrlich. Is he still being worshipped in your circles”
So what? Although that’s an interesting image. He has never been worshiped in any of my circles: scientifically, that would be nuclear physics – exotic isotopes and forensics, ultra-trace detection.
Javier,
“It is why the scientific consensus has exactly zero value. ”
Not true, science involves weighing the evidence for and against a hypothesis where “absolute truth” cannot be known (that would only be in math and logic). The community of scientists is judging the evidence, and the degree of consensus is important.
I do understand why someone who disagrees with the scientific consensus thinks it has “exactly zero value”.
“It is why the scientific consensus has exactly zero value”
Unfortunately, Polly, most scientists aren’t climate scientists. For relativity sake, go to a vet the next time you have an ailment.
Shortpants,
Haha, irrelevant analogy.
“Haha, irrelevant analogy.”
Haha; but not really—you astute climate wannabe scientist, you.
Yes, it is an alarmist paper. I find nothing wrong with that. It is obvious to many, particularly climate researchers, that there is a lot to be alarmed about. If you don’t think so – you’re entitled to your skeptical opinion – but I have yet to see any significant evidence that ACC is not a problem and is not accelerating.
BA Bushaw (ganon1950) | April 2, 2024 at 7:08 pm | Reply
Yes, it is an alarmist paper. I find nothing wrong with that.
We noticed you found nothing wrong with the paper – Even after numerous issues were pointed out to you.
Sorry you grasp of science is so weak,
Joe, sorry, you made no arguments or substantiations for your claims. The authors did. I believe them, not you, based on the given evidence.
ganon
I’ve been reading this hand wringing stuff for 60 years. If this is new to anyone they haven’t been paying attention. Twitter was ablaze with this study today. I’m sure for adolescents this must be believable and terrifying. For anyone who has been reading the same thing for decades it’s a big yawn.
Kid,
Funny how a lot of it is turning out to be correct, even if the time frames may be off – maybe because of the hand wringing.
ganon
Hundreds of millions dead from famine. Sun blocked from pollution. Death of agriculture. The oceans will be dead and all the fish will disappear. Urban dwellers will be wearing gas masks. Run out of oil by 2000. New Ice Age coming. 2 feet of SLR in 2000. All of civilization will end. Whole nations will be wiped off the earth from rising seas.
And today the nutjobs are predicting 4 billion dead, revolution, feet of SLR by 2050. mass extinction of wildlife by 2030. It never ends.
It might be that every few years some organizations are dreaming up fund raising strategies and they say, hey, let’s write a report how the earth is going to end and think of how many donations we can get to help save Mother Earth. There is no limit to human gullibility.
Where are the adults when we need them?
Kid,
Without sources or quotes, those are just your made up predictions – fabrications of what some unspecified people said 30 – 50 years ago. Like I’ve already said, you are stuck in the past, and can’t argue in the present. Try to be one of the adults that can carry on a logical discussion with facts.
There are two kinds of commenters on here. Those who have no knowledge of the real world except for links. The others actually lived through those times and read about and saw the news coverage in real time. I know what I read and what I saw in real time. Were you in a cave the last 60 years?
“ The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s, the world will undergo famines. Hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.”– Paul Ehrlich – The Population Bomb (1968)
Because of increased dust, cloud cover and water vapor “…the planet will cool, the water vapor will fall and freeze, and a new Ice Age will be born,” Newsweek magazine, January 26, 1970.
“New York will probably be like Florida 15 years from now,’ – St. Louis Post-Dispatch Sept. 17, 1989
“We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation,” biologist Barry Commoner, University of Washington, writing in the journal Environment, April 1970.
“By 1985, air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half,” Life Magazine, January 1970.
“ In the next 50 years fine dust that humans discharge into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuel will screen out so much of the sun’s rays that the Earth’s average temperature could fall by six degrees. Sustained emissions over five to 10 years, could be sufficient to trigger an ice age.” – Washington Post – July 9, 1971
If you were paying attention then you wouldn’t need links.
gannon
Please tell me you were paying attention back then.
https://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Screen-Shot-2016-11-03-at-5_shadow.jpg
kidd,
Like I said 55 years ago and no quotes (the actual words and context are important). My prior comment holds.
Yes, I was aware back then, although Rachel Carson and pesticides received a lot more attention than Ehrlich and population growth induced climate change.
ganon
There should be some things that are beyond debate. Fifteen years ago I had exchanges with those who said it was a myth that there was discussion of a coming ice age in the 1970s. Since I followed the coverage in real time I knew that was absurd.
These articles recall what I recall about the quotes for that period.
Enjoy
https://reason.com/2016/04/22/happy-earth-day-a-reprise/
https://fcpp.org/2010/04/22/earth-day-predictions-1970/
Kid,
Thanks – entertaining, but still decades old and taken out of context. Also, they are not scientific statements (just because something is said by a scientist, does not make it scientific).
BA Bushaw (ganon1950) | April 3, 2024 at 11:53 am |
(just because something is said by a scientist, does not make it scientific).
Bab – that is a very good description of the article you linked.
https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/3/4/pgae106/76384
“just because something is said by a scientist, does not make it scientific.”
I agree 100% on that. It is why the scientific consensus has exactly zero value. The opinions and beliefs of scientists do not constitute science. There couldn’t be a less democratic endeavor than science, where one person can be right and everybody else wrong.
“I do understand why someone who disagrees with the scientific consensus thinks it has “exactly zero value””
If you knew a little bit more of the history of science, you would know that every scientific revolution involved the dead and burial of a prior consensus.
Copernicus, Louis Agassiz, Einstein, Alfred Wegener, Milankovitch, Barbara McClintock, Stanley Prusiner, and hundreds more achieved immortal fame through the killing of a prior consensus.
The promotion of the toxic idea that a consensus has value in science is just another symptom that science is going through a low, dark period.
Of the six figures from that review, that includes Mann and Oreskes among its authors, only one contains scientific data that shows:
– Unusual surface warming since June 2023
– Unusual sea surface warming since March 2023
– Unusual Antarctic sea ice extent since April 2023
In fact they have to use global sea ice levels because Arctic sea ice levels are above the 20-year average.
This is supposed to be evidence that the Earth is at risk, because “human development has ushered in an era of converging crises: climate change, ecological destruction, disease, pollution, and socioeconomic inequality.” And they propose as a solution a change in our way of life, putting the UN in charge, penalize non-compliant countries through trade restrictions, and promoting women.
There is such a disconnect between the problem and the solution that it defies common sense.
We are dealing with a point-in-time weather anomaly. If the volcano had caused cooling as they usually do, we would be hearing that weather is not climate, that climate is the 30-year average, and that the volcano would not affect the long term trend.
There’s quite a few studies telling that this volcano should cause warming, not cooling, and that surpassing +1.5°C was a possible outcome.
Millán 2022 (https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2022GL099381),
Sellito 2022 (https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-022-00618-z),
and Jenkins 2023 (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01568-2).
Why do they ask us to follow the science since they don’t do it?
It pains me to say that, as with most polemic exercises in the grand Groucho Club of Rome tradition, parts of it are not wrong- peer review rarely fails completely.
March record temperature supports the volcano hypothesis against the Niño hypothesis. After a strong El Niño, global temperature anomaly should start decreasing in march and fall rapidly, so by June a great deal of the anomaly is gone. Warming from a volcano should be more persistent and fall more slowly.
However, if it is the volcano, we should expect about three years of a negative forcing as the stratosphere dries up. So, at least three years of cooling from where we are now is the most plausible scenario.
Fossil fuels rule …
The likes of Shell Plc and Woodside Energy Group Ltd. expect liquefied natural gas consumption to rise more than 50% through 2040. Their optimism is underpinned by explosive growth in the developing world — particularly China, India and Southeast Asia — as it moves away from coal.
That’s a major change for the global LNG industry, which for much of its 60-year history has been dominated by richer nations. Utilities in Japan and the UK have been willing to pay almost any price — either for long-term contracts or more recently spot shipments — to ensure energy security.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-04-03/shift-in-lng-demand-to-developing-nations-is-making-market-more-price-sensitive
More momentum for SNRs. If the US wants to “win the race” for technology, it should be in this arena, not PVs or wind mills.
The refiner and fuel retailer is exploring a partnership with state-controlled Nuclear Power Corp. of India Ltd. to use small modular reactors, or SMRs, in its refineries for clean power, Alok Sharma, Indian Oil’s director for research and development, said at a conference in New Delhi Wednesday.
As several bigger projects face delays, policymakers are promoting small-scale nuclear technology with a capacity of up to 300 megawatts, which is quicker to build and easier to adjust to the requirements of the grid. To boost the nascent sector, the Indian government is considering allowing private firms to manage and operate reactors.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-03/indian-oil-in-talks-with-state-nuclear-firm-for-small-reactors
Hello Javier, great article and a strong case. For those of us still skeptical that stratospheric injection of a single large cloud can dominate changes in the average temperature of the lower troposphere over several years, can this effect be measured directly right now by CERES or similar satellites and quantified in terms of the net radiative balances by layer? I refer to the below statement:
“The unlikely inverse volcanic eruption of Hunga Tonga is currently cooling the stratosphere while warming the surface.”
Since seeing the 2000-2020 TOA measurements and several decades’ correlation between sunlight hours and temperatures, I tend to assume any large fluctuation most likely happened in the SW due to cloud cover changes, but only by default.
As far as I know, it cannot be measured directly. Solomon et al. used temperature-SWV correlation, and line by line calculations of changes in radiative forcing to build their case.
https://web-static-aws.seas.harvard.edu/climate/seminars/pdfs/solomon_rosenlof_2010.pdf
But I suppose the temperature profile over the next few years should provide additional evidence.
Thanks Javier, that is a shame. We certainly have a lot of climate satellites right now, perhaps we will learn one is making the necessary layer measurements.
OTOH, CERES should at least be able to tell us whether the TOA changes for the warmer months happened in the SW or LW bands. A strong LW result wouldn’t prove Hunga as the cause, but eliminating SW would certainly strengthen the case immensely, at least imho.
Tall Dave:
“The unlikely inverse eruption of Hunga Tonga is currently cooling the stratosphere while warming the surface”.
There was no observable climatic effect from the Hunga Tonga eruption until about a year after the eruption. It normally occurs within less than about 2 weeks.
James Hansen’s new paper:
Global Warming Acceleration: Hope vs Hopium
29 March 2024
James Hansen, Makiko Sato, Pushker Kharecha
https://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2024/Hopium.MarchEmail.2024.03.29.pdf
What are everyone’s thoughts?
ducky2,
“What are everyone’s thoughts?”
–
Please, ducky2, what do you think about the Planet Surface Rotational Warming Phenomenon?
Link: https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Christos,
I am flattered that you seek my opinion on your research. I’d be delighted to provide you with my thoughts, along with any constructive criticism. However, I’ll first need to take time to review and scrutinize your research.
Thank you, ducky2.
“I’d be delighted to provide you with my thoughts, along with any constructive criticism.”
Yes, please. Thank you again.
Christos.
The High Priest of the Climate Doomers has spoken. To your knees!
Hansen is the one taking (h)opium. His failed past predictions should have made him realize he is way off course.
The purpose of a system is what it does. Hansen’s predictions were all very successful in creating more funding.
Javier,
If you understood the history and philosophy of science, you would recognize that saying, “scientific consensus has absolutely zero value” is simply stupid and hyperbolic. Consensus is not all of science, nor does it certify the “correct answer,” but it is an important part of the process, whether it be advancing existing theories or testing new hypotheses. I wish you success in finding consensus for any “new” hypotheses that you might have, but I doubt it.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258807233_The_pivotal_role_of_perceived_scientific_consensus_in_acceptance_of_science
Consensus doesn’t add anything to science except resistance to change. Consensus is always conservative, while science is evolutionary or revolutionary.
Barry Marshall was given a Nobel prize, but he had to drink a broth of H. pylori because he could not beat the consensus of decades of medical doctrine holding that ulcers were caused primarily by stress, spicy foods, and too much acid. He said: “everyone was against me, but I knew I was right.”
That’s the value of your consensus. The only thing that has value in science is the evidence. Properly collected data should be timeless. Not like in climate science where a change in the temperature datasets makes hundreds of articles on the global warming hiatus worthless. Climate science is a joke, like psychology, only on purpose.
Javier,
Thanks, your thoughts and biases are understood.
Gotta like this “consensus science” concept. It saves a person the time and effort from doing any independent critical thought or analysis of the consensus. Never have to develop or use any of those critical thinking skills
Joe,
Being skeptical of the consensus (if you have a viable objection, which is also subject to skepticism) is essential to science. The objective is not to “save time”.
Javier –
“…every scientific revolution involved the dead and burial of a prior consensus.”
And yet is not every scientific revolution essentially the replacement of the prior consensus with a new consensus? Does that new consensus have “exactly zero value”? Does science proceed only by revolution? Is Newtonian classical mechanics, Maxwellian electrodynamics, etc. “dead and buried”?
Sorry, Javier, you cannot justify your consensus defying theories by an appeal to Copernicus et al.
“Does that new consensus have “exactly zero value”?”
Yes. Zero value to any practitioner of science. It may even have a negative value. Science advances through the collection of evidence, hypothesis building, experiments and hypothesis testing. Any appeal to an authority is a fallacy in science, and a consensus is a form of collective authority. Are you familiar with the motto “Nullius in verba“? a new form could be “Nullius in consensuses.”
We don’t need to prove that every authority or every consensus has always been wrong to dismiss them as a scientific argument. Only the evidence is always right because it has been produced by the Universe through its laws and mechanisms. Science is the labor to reach the correct interpretation of the evidence.
xxxxx
It’s the extraneous, icky activist stuff infecting climate science that has put the consensus under the microscope. This entire field is suspect just because there is the perception that public relations is as important as the actual scientific findings. Who thinks a discussion of multiple parallel cell lineages in the developing mammalian cerebral cortex would warrant such political attention about whether there is a consensus? This contemporary debate is perceived to be as much of a case study in political science and social psychology as the actual science. It’s the disconnect between the actual data and the portrayal of that data in the public domain that is troubling to some.
This testimony before Congress about deep sixing the MWP doesn’t exactly engender confidence in the integrity of some of the actors.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GJ2w1hvWgAAcQCV?format=png&name=900×900
I get why it’s an important issue. I’m sure some scientists believe they are doing God’s work in helping to save humanity. That’s some heady stuff. Cutting corners or manipulating data to save the world could be easily rationalized. But justifying the consensus because there is a correlation doesn’t cut it. There are plausible explanations for some of the warming besides CO2.
“Consensus” in Science? What Is That?
Takeaways from this chapter
• “Consensus” in Science, when it pertains to the interpretation of data, does not exist.
• Although data or facts may stand the test of time, their interpretation is always susceptible to revisions.
• Indeed, nothing is ever settled in Science.
• If a group of people claim “consensus” on the interpretation of some data, then typically other “forces” are at play that have nothing to do with Science.
• This “consensus” may have the unwanted outcome of unwittingly slowing down progress.
• Ultimately, however, scientific progress occurs because of the existence of an objective material reality that is the final judge of the validity of a scientific statement.
https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198825623.003.0014
do you seriously not see the fallacy of these statements? If nothing is ever settled in science, then there can be no such thing as objective “progress”, since whatever viewpoint we may move toward could be entirely wrong. the theory of evolution was not progress, because it is not settled. relatively, quantum mechanics, tectonic plate theory are not progress, because they are not settled. and never will be. is the light bending during an eclipse proof of relativity? according to your view, absolutely not. it is just another data point for which there might be an alternative interpretation. you say, “scientific progress occurs because of the existence of an objective material reality that is the final judge” but please give an example of this “objective material reality” that is not, in fact, just more data that is open to interpretation.
note: relativity is correct. the theory of evolution is correct. the planet is warming due to increased co2. all of the world’s sophistry and wishful thinking will not change this.
DanB:
“the planet is warming due to increased CO2”
Nonsense!
This is just an unproven hypothesis.
DAn B – “the theory of evolution was not progress, because it is not settled. relatively, quantum mechanics, tectonic plate theory are not progress, because they are not settled. and never will be. ”
Dan – Do you get to pick what scientific theories are settle and which are not based on your biases?
The broad concept of evolution is settled (generaly accepted), yet the details remain very much unsettled.
The general concept that levels of co2 have some effect on temps is reasonably settled. However, the scientific consensus among climate scientists and the advocates that co2 is the primary driver/ control knob of climate has all the hallmarks of agenda driven politics masquarating as settled science.
“do you seriously not see the fallacy of these statements?”
The person that wrote that is a scientist, and he knows what he is saying. Science does not advance by settling on truthful theories but by discarding incorrect theories. But every theory not yet discarded is waiting for evidence it can’t explain to show if it should be discarded or modified.
You cite relativity. It is a good example. Newtonian physics applies well to what happens on Earth, but cannot explain certain things that happen in the Solar System. General relativity works well for the Solar System, but runs into problems to explain stars within galaxies, and groups of galaxies. This was discovered in the 1930s. Since physicists could not produce a better theory, they invented dark matter. After 80 years of looking for it, no evidence of dark matter has been found. With the advances in computing, dark matter looks a not so good solution. Since the 1980s a new theory is competing with general relativity. It is usually called Modified Newtonian Dynamics. It is not the only alternative that is being discussed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternatives_to_general_relativity
Here you have a nice video from Sabine Hossenfelder: Is Dark Matter Real?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4sw3-__pGo
As you can see, nothing is ever settled in science. In other fields of science, dissent and debate is not only tolerated, but known to be the normal process of scientific research. Climate science is one of the few examples, if not the only one, where scientists are attacked for dissenting with the consensus.
Javier,
Thanks for all your comments – just more evidence to be weighed.
Sure. I thank you for your comments too. After all it is my article.
I don’t care for a consensus on my hypothesis. I do not value any consensus. All I care is that my hypothesis is shown less incorrect than the “enhanced CO₂ effect” hypothesis. In that aspect my hypothesis is doing quite well so far. It explains more things and solves some paradoxes. Whether it is accepted or not will not say anything about its correctness.
Javier:
What, exactly, IS your hypothesis?
Good question, burlhenry. Javier does a good job of describing the effects of the Hunga Tonga erruption, but it’s an apisodic description for cause and effect. I don’t see a hypothesis in his discussion?
Spelling, “episodic”.
My hypothesis is clearly explained in my books (particularly in the second), together with a lot of the evidence supporting it. It was succinctly described by Roy Spencer as:
“Some researchers have published unorthodox evidence for non-CO₂ origins of climate change, for example, through changes in the transport of energy from the tropics to high latitudes.”
A more complete brief description is:
The Winter Gatekeeper
The greenhouse effect is strong in the tropics and weak at the poles in winter. As a result, increased heat transport to the poles makes the planet cooler because they act as cooling radiators. Increased heat transport in winter makes the Earth spin faster.
The climate exhibits decades-long heat transport regimes separated by abrupt shifts. These regimes manifest as oceanic oscillations that reflect different transport intensities, resulting in different surface temperature trends.
Heat transport and energy loss from the Arctic is determined by the strength of the polar vortex, which is undermined by atmospheric planetary waves. These waves are modulated by multiple factors, including the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation, multidecadal oceanic oscillations, El Niño, volcanic eruptions, and solar activity. They act as the gatekeepers of winter heat transport.
Solar activity affects El Niño, the Earth’s rotation rate, and heat transport. Its climate effects are manifested in Arctic temperatures and the frequency of cold winters in the Northern Hemisphere. Its short-term effects are often obscured by the other gatekeepers, but the energy change caused by solar activity anomalies is cumulative. Over several decades of solar divergence, it becomes important, and when it persists for a century or two, it causes the most significant climate changes in thousands of years.
High solar activity in the period 1933-1996 was responsible for the retention of more energy in the climate system and global warming.
Javier.
Thank you.
But how does it explain our modern warming, 1980-present?
The Winter Gatekeeper Hypothesis takes you through most, if not all, of all the processes of the climate. The study of climatology is about those processes, which is the movement of energy/heat and its effects about the planet.
For anyone interested in climate, why you wouldn’t want to read it is a head scratcher.
What appears special about contemporary warming is that certain meteorologists are busy looking for it and, in some cases, ensuring it is present by trickery alone. Is that really science?
Then these same alarmists blame their deceptions upon global carbon dioxide for which human beings are responsible for a very small quantity of an already small global amount of the gas.
In science we are warned not to be biased in looking for evidence to support theories. It is a pity we have a crop of alarmists who do not understand why that is true especially the ones who claim to be of PhD standard – they do know better.
Javier puts a lot of effort into making his papers not just readable but involving to read. I have found his papers refreshingly interesting and often worthy of deeper thought before reading on.
At this stage I think it would be foolhardy to write him off in the manner some alarmists have done here especially as their camp is mostly bereft of any straight forward research and scientific endeavour (e.g. Mann et al).
Javier,
You write:
“In other fields of science, dissent and debate is not only tolerated, but known to be the normal process of scientific research. Climate science is one of the few examples, if not the only one, where scientists are attacked for dissenting with the consensus.”
True enough, but climate consensus dissenters expose themselves to attack:
– Many have an integrity problem. Harde, Berry, Skrable, the late Salby … refuse to acknowledge their clear mistakes and instead personally attack those who point them out. You and other disssenters allow the nonsense they publish to stand without criticism. Your silence suggests truth is not your highest priority. It therefore taints your own work
-Commercial interest, e.g. Exxon-Mobile, have been shown to have surpressed dissemination of their own research supporting the consensus. Their behavior makes one wonder who else values commercial interests over truth, who else is on the take.
-Public policy decisions are time sensitive and necessary according to the consensus. While you seem to complain that dissenters are not being heard, in fact the “3%” appear to control a major US political party, though that may be changing.
David Andrews | April 6, 2024 at 1:09 pm |
Javier,
You write:
“In other fields of science, dissent and debate is not only tolerated, but known to be the normal process of scientific research. Climate science is one of the few examples, if not the only one, where scientists are attacked for dissenting with the consensus.”
David’s response to Javier “True enough, but climate consensus dissenters expose themselves to attack:”
David – the dishonesty occurs on both sides of the political and sciences side of the debate. However, the dishonesty runs astonishly deep on the “climate science consensus ” side of the debate. Its difficult to place trust in the climate science when the dishonesty runs so deep.
A few examples,
MMann’s behaviour exhibited throughout the 12 years of litigation with Steyn and Simberg. He perjured himself upwards of 200 times.
Paleo reconstructions, quite a bit of corruption throughout the paleo reconstruction community.
– repetitive claims of high temporal resolution in the proxies over the last 5k-6k years, therefore comparison to instrumental record is solid- yea right! They may be high resolution of some proxies currently used in reconstruction compared to other proxies, yet they remain low resolution compared to instrumental records
– numerous ” scientific ” studies regarding subsidies received by the fossil fuel sectors. All based on flawed logic and distortions, yet no climate scientist calling out the distortions.
Renewables – Rebutals to 33 anti renewable myths regarding Solar Wind and Ev’s – the article I posted yesterday. chocked full of outright dishonesty.
The behavior and dishonesty of the “climate science” community is the primary reason there is such a high level of distrust of the science.
ganon,
Part of my career involved science (including modelling) to find more mines. Typically about a dozen scientists were in the core team for each discovery. Was consensus important?
No, we did not strive for consensus, we paid attention to measurements and observations, particularly those appearing to challenge the consensus views of others.
The bottom line was that a new mine was either present or absent. What is more, new mines are devoid of thought processes. They exist in complete ignorance of human constructs like consensus. They were present or absent, no matter what we believed.
It is instructive to study geology in the context of what is not known in the consensus writings that typically fill text books. An important example is the typical lack of colloidal processes in ore and mineral creation. Most sediments routinely include a sediment fraction fine enough to be formally classed as colloidal particle size, yet the consequences of this are hardly discussed.
We held corporate seminars every couple of years, inviting some of the cream of those independent scientists we did already employ. Typically, 50 or so scientists were locked up for several days to justify their continued employment by advancing research of interest. The outcome was never consensus. Fifty scientists after those few days usually emerged with more than 50 central ideas.
(Maybe we would not succeed if asked to design a new aircraft rather than find a new mine. Science has different courses for different horses, but you, ganon, have one track in mind, not what we sought when taking on new staff.)
Geoff S
Geoff,
Sure, anything you say. Thanks for sharing your scientific experience.
Javier (or Roy Spencer ) makes the following comment ‘ ” High solar activity in the period 1933-1996 was responsible for the retention of more energy in the climate system and global warming.”
I cant say whether Javier’s hypothesis is correct or wrong.
Through one of the major arguments made by climate scientists is that CO2 is the driver of the warming since the changes in solar activity has been very limited-ie the solar activity for the last 100-150 years has been very stable and therefore the warming over the last 100-150 years cant be due to the sun. Further, the changes in solar activity over the last 50 has been very small.
The line of thought that the lack of changes in solar activity is proof that the sun is not a factor seems quite dubious. It would seem that changes in solar activity will not manifest in temperature for several decades instead of near immediately.
Essentially equivalent to changes in solar output are near instantaneous, almost like the change in heat from the adjustments on a gas stove. Yet that is one of the arguments of the Co2 global warming advocates.
Its more likely that changes in solar output take years or decades to manifest in the earths climate. For that reason, Javiers theory strikes my as a plausible theory and more likely possibility. keep in mind, far more is unknown than known. Why is the consensus so solid among climate scientists when the unknown vastly exceeds the known.
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Nothing more reassuring than a UN official giving her opinion about the cause of global warming.
I take back all the negative things I said about those IPCC reports.
UN climate change advisor, Ayisha Siddiqa: “The climate crisis is man-made. And it’s not just man-made—it’s white man-made.”
“It is the result of capitalism, years of colonialism, years of racial oppression.”
“The way that we save our planet is when we protect the most vulnerable communities among us, and this includes black trans women.”
Never miss an opportunity to raise awareness about identity politics.
cerescokid wrote:
Nothing more reassuring than a UN official giving her opinion about the cause of global warming.
We don’t need a UN official; scientists figured this out many decades ago…..
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The Faster a Planet Rotates – the more Solar Energy a Planet Accumulates.
–
Link: https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Christos:
“The Faster a Planet Rotates-the more Solar Energy a Planet Accumulates”
Venus rotates very slowly, taking 243 Earth days, and has a very high surface temperature, 460 Deg. C.
This appears to directly contradict what you are claiming.
Thank you, burlhenry, for your response.
“Venus rotates very slowly, taking 243 Earth days, and has a very high surface temperature, 460 Deg. C.
This appears to directly contradict what you are claiming.”
–
What you said about Venus is correct. But it doesn’t contradict what I am claiming:
Because, had Venus rotate faster, Venus would accumulate more Solar Energy.
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Christos:
No, I think the slower it rotates, the hotter it will get. On Earth, for example, cast iron patio furniture exposed to continuous summer sunshine for a few hours becomes too hot to touch.
If it were exposed to continuous solar radiation for longer periods of time, over billions of years, it should accumulate much solar energy, leading to its current temperatures.
I note that Venus is omitted from most of your illustrations and Tables. Why is that?
Thank you, burlhenry, for your response.
“On Earth, for example, cast iron patio furniture exposed to continuous summer sunshine for a few hours becomes too hot to touch.”
That is correct. Now, put that iron patio furniture on Venus’ orbit, it will become even much hotter. because Venus’ orbit is closer to the sun. Rotational Warming Phenomenon is one of the factors that rise planet average surface temperature (Tmean).
The EM energy comes from sun. Thus the closer to the sun – the higher the planet or moon average surface temperature.
Also the Albedo plays a major role. The higher the average surface Albedo – the lower the average surface temperature.
Venus, in comparison with Earth, has a very thick atmosphere. There is a strong Atmospheric Greenhouse Effect on Venus’ surface.
Earth has a very thin atmosphere. Earth’s Atmospheric Greenhouse Effect is insignificant.
It is so much insignificant, Earth to be considered like a planet without-atmosphere.
–
burlhenry,
“I note that Venus is omitted from most of your illustrations and Tables. Why is that?”
I have a special page for Venus, and other with atmosphere the Giants Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, along with Earth and Titan. The calculations involve atmospheric greenhouse effect there.
It is insignificant for Earth and Titan.
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Christos Vournas:
You are sidestepping the fact that Venus has a very slow rotational rate. It is hotter because of its slow rotational rate, and it is closer to the sun.
Yet you claim fast rotational rates are the cause of higher temperatures. Venus clearly does not fit your model, nor does Earth, since we have had both Ice Ages, and soaring temperatures , with the same rotational rate.
burlhenry |wrote:
You are sidestepping the fact that Venus has a very slow rotational rate. It is hotter because of its slow rotational rate, and it is closer to the sun.
Why does slower rotation increase a planet’s temperature. (Physics, not math.)
Thank you, burlhenry, for your response.
“Yet you claim fast rotational rates are the cause of higher temperatures.”
Yes, the faster rotational rates are one of the causes of higher temperatures.
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
“What you said about Venus is correct. But it doesn’t contradict what I am claiming:
Because, had Venus rotate faster, Venus would accumulate more Solar Energy.”
What an interesting hypothesis !
Just how rapidly do you expect the accumulation of solar enegy by rotating bodies to increase ?
Thank you, Russell, for your response.
“Just how rapidly do you expect the accumulation of solar enegy by rotating bodies to increase ?”
The Rotational Warming is a UNIVERSAL PHENOMENON, because what we have found is that
the satellite measured planets and moons the average surface temperatures (Tsat) Kelvin
RELATE, (everything else equals, namely the same Solar flux, the same Albedo,
the same factor Φ – or any combination resulting to the same value of Te),
as the planets’ and moons’ their respective (N*cp) products’
the SIXTEENTH ROOT.
(Tsat.planet.1) /(Tsat.planet.2) ==[(N1*cp1) /(N2*cp2)] ^1/16
Where:
N – rotations/day, is the planet’s axial spin.
cp – cal/gr*oC, is the planet’s average surface specific heat.
**********************
Example: Planet 2 rotates twice as fast as Planet 1.
(N2) = 2*(N1) everything else equals,
(T2) = (2)^1/16 *(T1) = 1,0443*(T1)
If (T1) = 250K, (T2) = 1,0443*250K = 261K
(T2) = 261K
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Christos, answer Russell’s question without your ridiculous math (which includes the fudge factor Phi). Explain the physics, not just a bunch of iffy equations.
Thank you, David, for your response.
“Christos, answer Russell’s question without your ridiculous math (which includes the fudge factor Phi). Explain the physics, not just a bunch of iffy equations.”
There is a DETERMINISTIC relationship between the planet spin (N), the planet average surface specific heat (cp) and the satellite measured planet average surface temperature (Tsat).
In addition, it was mistakenly believed, that the not reflected solar energy part, regardless of the planet rotational rate, is entirely absorbed.
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Javier,
We saw more warming in 1877 without a known underwater volcano. The weather patterns that year were nearly identical to now, suggesting HTHH had little to no effect.
See:
https://x.com/aaronshem/status/1754156954836934925?s=46
And:
https://x.com/ryanmaue/status/1677036625505730561?s=46
“Quick look: The 20th Century Reanalysis v3 has days in June and July 1877 at 16.7°C for global average. Today’s record is around 17.0°C.
Going from -60°S to 60°N shows similar or higher T than during 1997.
Of course, considerable uncertainty in data from 1877, especially over the ocean. But, if the El Niño was more intense, at higher end of ensemble solutions from SST reconstructions, then it’s possible days in June-July 1877 were on par or exceeded today?
Excluding polar regions might tip calculation to 1877 as 🌡👑
🔥 And, this occurred in 1°C cooler climate, so in terms of relative heat, humans experienced a global day almost 1°C hotter than today. That’s wild.”
And:
https://x.com/aaronshem/status/1753523237583978615?s=46
And, a very, very large north atlantic anomaly, just like now.
https://x.com/aaronshem/status/1765911204185166133?s=46
Also see this thread by Paul Roundy explaining this year’s weather without need of HTHH: https://x.com/paulroundy1/status/1703022743699013976?s=46
In this case, it is the unusual evolution of the El Nino Southern oscillation phenomenon. First, we had three consecutive years of La Niña. These events allow the Earth to absorb net heat from the sun.
They do it in two different ways. The first is that they pile up warm water volume in deeper surface layers of the tropical oceans largely out of contact with the atmosphere.
Second, La Nina events reduce mid latitude wind driven evaporation and increase mid-latitude incoming solar radiation over the oceans. So each consecutive La Nina event further warms the mid latitude ocean.
After that, What mattered to this year’s heat is that we moved rapidly from La Nina to El Nino. Normally there would have been a neutral year or two in between, and the neutral year would have allowed more of the mid latitude and tropical heat to escape to space by radiation before the El Nino emerged. Instead, El Nino emerged incredibly rapidly, liberating the tropical stored heat while the mid latitude La Nina Heat remained in place. The result is a much higher Global surface temperature this year.
Not to mention that the El Nino event itself is achieving a very strong amplitude and maybe among the top Nino 3.4 events in a century.
The closest event in the historical record to the evolution of consecutive La Nina events followed by strong El Nino emergence was probably 1876.https://insidescience.org/news/historys-greatest-el-nino-may-have-caused-severe-19th-century-famine#:~:text=An%20exceptionally%20strong%20El%20Ni%C3%B1o,that%20killed%20tens%20of%20millions.&text=(Inside%20Science)%20%2D%2D%20What%20may,globally%2C%20a%20new%20study%20finds.
So it’s not surprising at all that this year is associated with extreme weather outcomes above the climate change trend.
Aaron, to judge the strength of an El Niño event by sea surface temperature alone means that if something else warms the ocean you will be misled into thinking it is a strong El Niño.
But ENSO is an atmosphere→ocean coupled phenomenon where the Southern Oscillation refers to pressure differences between the Western and Central Pacific, and it is all linked to the strength of the trade winds.
When everything is considered, as in the MEI multivariate ENSO index, it turns out that 2023 Niño was not a strong one. It was weaker than 2016, 1998, 1992, 1987 and 1983.
https://www.psl.noaa.gov/enso/mei/
The MEI isn’t a good measure of this el niño due to the unusual progression. Waters that normally cool before initiation were pushed into other parts of the ocean making the el niño region less warm relative to the ocean. The rossby wave propagation also caused other marine heatwaves. The MEI is biased low by this.
The MEI in 1877 was not as high as those either. But the global anomaly way more substantial than this one, especially if you consider lack of pole coverage.
The timing, the extreme north atlantic warming, california precipitation, were all similar and higher back then. It’s even likely there was similar antarctic sea ice anomalies.
https://psl.noaa.gov/enso/mei.ext/ext.ts.jpg
https://psl.noaa.gov/enso/mei.ext/
I haven’t dug into it, but there might be some answers in the supplementary data here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-021-00697-1
“The MEI isn’t a good measure of this el niño”
So you say, but again, if we look at the Southern Oscillation Index, which is the atmospheric pressure part of ENSO, what we see is that the 2023 El Niño had higher values (was weaker) than 2016, 1998, 1992, 1987 and 1983.
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/soi/
I see you are convinced this was one of the strongest Niños, however an important part of the data does not support that interpretation.
Relying on temperature alone falls into the circular reasoning trap. “It was a strong Niño because the ocean was very hot. The ocean was very hot because it was a strong Niño.” It means you can’t tell if you are right or wrong.
1876 was a very long time ago, so the data we have for it is not very good. Any comparison with what is happening now leaves a lot of room for interpretation.
Yes, but the similarities in the data we have suggest that the volcano is likely only a small contribution.
This makes clear that the weather can drive large forcing changes on many timescales, even without volcano or human impact.
Javier:
ALL El Ninos are caused by decreased levels of SO2 aerosol pollution in our atmosphere, and their magnitudes are related to the amount of decrease in those pollutants.
And, again, there’s the 1870s event that was basically the same with no known underwater explosive volcano.
Remember, there was no coverage at the poles back then, if there was the anomalies would likely be much, much higher. If you were to mask the areas today that lack coverage then, today’s anomalies would be much smaller.
aaron,
I think it’s a mistake to focus just on el nino to explain this year’s warmth, just as it’s a mistake to attribute it to hunga tonga. The el nino sector is a small piece of the planet’s oceans and the oceans are record warm nearly everywhere. we are so fixated on el nino we’re ignoring something of historic magnitude – the oceans are experiencing warmth that is even more unprecedented that the atmosphere’s warmth. since this warmth also preceded the atmospheric warming it is pretty reasonable to assume that simple heat conduction from SSTs back into the atmosphere explain the record surface temperature warmth. https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/
March 2024 was warmer globally than any previous March in the data record (Copernicus Climate Change Service/ECMWF).
https://climate.copernicus.eu/surface-air-temperature-march-2024
– tenth month in a row that is the warmest on record for the respective month of the year
– March 2024 1.68°C warmer than an estimate of the March average for 1850-1900
– 0.73°C above the 1991-2020 average for March with an average ERA5 surface air temperature of 14.14°C
– global-average temperature for the past twelve months (April 2023 – March 2024) highest on record, 1.58°C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average
Thermometers cannot measure the outdoors air temperature.
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
OK. Why can’t thermometers measure a temperature outdoors?
Thank you, David, for your response.
“OK. Why can’t thermometers measure a temperature outdoors?”
Thermometers are in thermal equilibrium with indoors enviroment, where air is enclosed. That is how thermometers measure indoors air temperature.
Remove air, and thermometer would still have the same temperature.
The outdoors air is not in thermal equilibrium with the thermometer.
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Who has a GLOBAL record of air temperature before satellites?
Who has a GLOBAL record of times before mid-1900’s?
Who has an air temperature record accurate to 1/100’s of a degree?
Ground air temperatures cannot be more accurate than 1 degree, because of all the disturbances of the locality. Gotta go up with radio sondes and hope they measure simultaneously, which they don’t.
So when warming seemed to pause in the 2000s, did you scold all the skeptics who claimed that warming had paused? and explain that we cannot measure temperatures correctly so warming may not have paused? i didn’t think so.
Where was the pause in the 2000s?
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v4/#
“Just how rapidly do you expect the accumulation of solar enegy by rotating bodies to increase ?”
Simple:
(Tsat.planet.1)/(Tsat.planet.2) =[(N1*cp1)/(N2*cp2)]^1/16
Where:
N – rotations/day, is the planet’s axial spin.
cp – cal/gr*oC, is the planet’s average surface specific heat.
**********************
Example: Planet 2 rotates twice as fast as Planet 1.
(N2) = 2*(N1) everything else equals,
(T2) = (2)^1/16 *(T1) = 1,0443*(T1)
If (T1) = 250K, (T2) = 1,0443*250K = 261K
(T2) = 261K
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
There’s your problem …
Mars’s gravity influences our planet’s deep-ocean currents, according to a study reported in Nature Communications this week.
https://www.science.org/content/article/mars-may-be-having-profound-impact-earth-s-deep-ocean-currents
May-be-science.
jim2 wrote:
Mars’s gravity influences our planet’s deep-ocean currents, according to a study reported in Nature Communications this week.
Did this suddenly change about 1975, when modern warming took off?
I suppose humor escapes you, Appell.
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Russell,
“Just how rapidly do you expect the accumulation of solar enegy by rotating bodies to increase ?”
When a planet or moon rotates faster, its surface’s temperature is less differentiated. This results in rising the surface average temperature.
Because for a sphere (it is a well known and explained phenomenon), for the same IR energy emission, the less differentiated the sphere’s surface temperature – the higher the average surface temperature.
But it is about a phenomenon, when sphere has been previously warmed, or, when sphere has its own inner source/sources of energy.
Planet or moon gets its surface energy from the interaction processes with the incident solar EM energy.
When interacting, part of the solar energy gets reflected as SW EM energy.
The rest is the not reflected portion of the incident solar SW EM energy.
Most of it gets transformed into IR outgoing EM energy, without being absorbed.
Only a small part gets absorbed in form of heat in inner layers.
–
When planet or moon faster rotation, less gets transformed into IR outgoing EM energy, and more is accumulated in inner layers.
For planets and moons, it is different then.
For the same IR emission, the faster rotating planet or moon accumulates more solar energy – thus the faster rotating planets and moons are warmer. Their surface temperatures are less differentiated, and, also, their surfaces accumulate more solar energy.
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https://www.cristos-vournas.com
There is a DETERMINISTIC relationship between the planet spin (N), the planet average surface specific heat (cp), the planet Corrected Effective Temperature (Te.correct) and the satellite measured planet average surface temperature (Tsat).
(Tsat) /(Te.correct) = (β*N*cp)^1/16
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https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Everybody has a right to their own Utopia.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GLbsyBoXgAAEofG?format=jpg&name=medium
Solar power is a destructive curse on reliable energy sources. We need to stop deploying solar immediately. It is unmanageable.
While churning out fossil-free electricity has never been more urgent, surging renewables and a slump in power prices are undermining operations of atomic plants that are still the cornerstone of electricity grids in several parts of the continent.
The signs are that they are facing some tough times ahead. Demand hasn’t recovered fully since the energy crisis and the region’s wind and solar parks are producing more power than ever, which is eating into the share that both nuclear and coal plants send to national grids.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-09/european-nuclear-plants-put-out-of-work-by-green-power-surge
“The idea that the Little Ice Age (LIA) was caused by increased volcanic activity is popular.”
According to Marchitelli et al., 2020: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-67860-3 changes to solar wind changes have a huge affect on earth’s seimicity:
“In this paper, we analyze 20 years of proton density and velocity data, as recorded by the SOHO satellite, and the worldwide seismicity in the corresponding period, as reported by the ISC-GEM catalogue. We found clear correlation between proton density and the occurrence of large earthquakes (M> 5.6), with a time shift of one day. The signifcance of such correlation is very high, with with probability to be wrong lower than 10⁻⁵” [meaning one in 10000] … In this paper, we demonstrate that it [the correlation] can likely be due to the effect of solar wind, modulating the proton density and hence the electrical potential between the ionosphere and the Earth … our hypothesis only implies that the proton density would act as a further, small trigger to cause the fracture on already critically charged faults, thus producing the observed large scale earthquake correlation.”
My comment: Surely what triggers earthquakes will also cause volcanoes? It seems to me that they wrote paper for earthquakes because there are so many and one can, consequently, claim good statistical correllation due to the amount of data. There are far fewer volcanoes, so the same strong statistical correllation cannot be claimed.
Also: read this article : https://phys.org/news/2023-06-intriguing-earthquakes-cosmic.html and their paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1364682623000664
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The shifting crusts and volcanic eruptions, oscillations of solar activity on multi-Decadal to Centennial and Millennial time scales with variations in gamma radiation and the role of the big planets, Saturn and Jupiter — and a changing North Pole and variations in the magnetosphere — all are a part of a holistic process that is the Earth’s climate.
You forgot atmospheric composition.
The Left warned us that stress- and anxiety-caused mental illness and even cancer will be brought about by human CO2-caused higher ambient temperatures and catastrophic weather conditions. What we’re learning is that the Left already has gone insane just worrying about global warming.