by Judith Curry
My talk on Climate Uncertainty and Risk, presented at the Annual GWPF Lecture
Video of the presentation [here]. My ppt slides can be downloaded here [ GWPF uncert & risk (2)].
Josh has prepared a cartoon montage:
Below is a transcript of my remarks:
I am delighted to be here this evening, to talk about my favorite topic – climate uncertainty and risk. To provide some context for climate uncertainty and risk, lets first consider the so-called climate certainties:
- The Earth’s climate is warming
- A warming climate is dangerous
- We’re causing the warming by emitting CO2 from burning fossil fuels
- We need to prevent dangerous climate change by eliminating CO2
These alleged certainties are associated with apocalyptic rhetoric from UN and our national leaders. Here are some of my favorites:
- “The clock is ticking towards climate catastrophe” – Ban-Ki Moon, UN Secretary General
- “We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator” – Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary General
- “Climate change is literally an existential threat to our nation and to the world” – Joe Biden, US President.
The UN Paris agreement targets NETZERO emissions by 2050 to keep warming to within 1.5 degrees. Policy makers and others are grappling with a number of issues in addressing the NETZERO challenge. These include the technical, economic & political feasibility, the priority of climate change relative to other problems, and unintended consequences of a rapid transition of our energy systems.
So how did we come to be between a rock and a hard place on the climate issue, where we are allegedly facing an existential threat. And the proposed solutions are both unpopular and infeasible? Well in a few words, we’ve put the policy cart before the scientific horse.
In the 1980’s, the UN Environmental Program was looking for a cause to push forward its agenda of eliminating fossil fuels and anti-Capitalism. With the help of a small number of well-positioned activist climate scientists, a 1988 UN conference in Toronto recommended that the world “reduce CO2 emissions by approximately 20% by the year 2005 as an initial global goal.” The implicit assumption was that the small amount of warming observed over the previous decade was caused by emissions, and that warming was dangerous.
1988 was the year that the UN established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or the IPCC. The first assessment from the IPCC in 1990 concluded that the recent warming was within the magnitude of natural variability. Well, that didn’t hinder the UN. They went ahead with the 1992 Treaty from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change that was signed by 196 countries, to prevent dangerous anthropogenic climate change caused by emissions.
The second IPCC assessment report in 1995 found pretty much the same thing as the first assessment report. However in the meeting with policy makers to write the summary, there was substantial pressure for a stronger finding. They came up with the word ‘discernible’, and then went back and changed the body of the report to be consistent. At that point, the IPCC lost any pretense of being independent or uninfluenced by politics. Apparently ‘discernible’ was sufficient to justify the 1977 Kyoto Protocol.
A number of leading scientists were deeply concerned about the policy-driven science of the IPCC. Pierre Morel, Director of the World Climate Research Programme, had this to say:
“The consideration of climate change has now reached the level where it is the concern of professional foreign-affairs negotiators, and has therefore escaped the bounds of scientific knowledge (and uncertainty).”
William Nordhaus, Nobel Laureate in economics, stated:
“The strategy behind the Kyoto Protocol has no grounding in economics or environmental policy.”
Mixing politics and science is inevitable on issues of high societal relevance, such as climate change. However, there are some really bad ways to do this, and we’re seeing all of these with the climate change issue. Policy makers misuse science by demanding scientific arguments for desired policies, funding a narrow range of projects that support preferred policies, and using science as a vehicle to avoid ‘hot potato’ policy issues. Scientists misuse policy-relevant science by playing power politics with their expertise, conflating expert judgment with evidence, entangling disputed facts with values, and intimidating scientists whose research interferes with their political agendas.
Apart from politicization, arguably the biggest issue is that we have oversimplified both the climate change problem and its solution. The UN has framed climate change as a tame and simple problem, with an obvious solution that is demanded by the science. The precautionary principle has been invoked, in context of speaking consensus to power. However, climate change is better characterized as a wicked problem, with great complexity and uncertainties, and clashing societal values. When viewed as a tame problem, the climate change problem is framed as being caused by excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which can be solved by eliminating fossil fuel emissions. Both the problem and solution are included in a single frame, whereby the science demands this particular solution. This framing dominates the UN negotiations on climate change.
There’s another way to view the climate change problem and its solutions. This framing views climate change as a complex, wicked problem. This framing of the problem also includes natural causes for climate change such as the sun, volcanoes and slow circulations in the ocean. This framing is provisional, acknowledging that our understanding is incomplete and that there may be unknown processes influencing climate change. While the UN’s framing is about controlling the climate, this other framing acknowledges the futility of control, focusing on managing the basic human necessities of energy, water and food. Economic development supports these necessities while reducing our vulnerability to weather and climate extremes.
Wait a minute. Don’t 97% of climate scientists agree on all this? Doesn’t climate science demand that we urgently eliminate fossil fuel emissions? Here is what all scientists actually agree on:
- Surface temperatures have increased since 1880
- Humans are adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere
- Carbon Dioxide and other greenhouse gases have a warming effect on the planet.
However, there’s disagreement and uncertainty about the most consequential issues:
- How much of the recent warming has been caused by humans
- How much the planet will warm in the 21st century
- Whether warming is ‘dangerous’
- And whether urgently eliminating the use of fossil fuels will improve human well being
Nevertheless, we are endlessly fed the trope that 97% of climate scientists agree that warming is dangerous and that science demands urgent reductions in CO2 emissions.
So how did we come to the point where the world’s leaders and much of the global population think that we urgently need to reduce fossil fuel emissions in order to prevent bad weather? Not only have we misjudged the climate risk, but politicians and the media have played on our psychological fears of certain types of risks to amp up the alarm.
Psychologist Paul Slovic describes a suite of psychological characteristics that make risks feel more or less frightening, relative to the actual facts. In each of the risk pairs below, the second risk factor in bold is perceived to be worse than it actually is.
- natural versus manmade risks
- controllable versus uncontrollable risks
- voluntary versus imposed risks
- risks with benefits versus uncompensated risks
- future versus immediate risks
- equitable versus asymmetric distribution of risks.
For example, risks that are common, self-controlled and voluntary, such as driving a car, generate the least public apprehension. On the other hand, risks that are rare and imposed and lack potential upside, like terrorism, invoke the most dread.
Activist communicators emphasize the manmade aspects of climate change, the unfair burden of risks on poor people, and the more immediate risks of severe weather events. The recent occurrence of an infrequent event such as a hurricane or flood elevates perceptions of the risk of low probability events. This then translates into perceptions of overall climate change risk. And so, our perceptions of climate risk are being cleverly manipulated by propagandists.
In spite of the recent apocalyptic rhetoric, the climate “crisis” isn’t what it used to be. Circa 2013 with publication of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, the extreme emissions scenario RCP8.5 was regarded as the business-as-usual emissions scenario, with expected warming of 4 to 5 oC by 2100. Now there is growing acceptance that RCP8.5 is implausible, and the medium emissions scenario is arguably the current business-as-usual scenario according to recent reports issued by the Conference of the Parties since 2021. Only a few years ago, an emissions trajectory that followed the medium emissions with 2 to 3 oC warming was regarded as climate policy success. As limiting warming to 2 degrees seems to be in reach, the goal posts have been moved to reduce the warming target to 1.5 degrees
The most recent Conference of the Parties is working from an expected of warming of 2.4 degrees by 2100, and half of this warming has already occurred. Instead of acknowledging this good news, UN officials continue to amp up the apocalyptic rhetoric. The rationale for continuing to increase the alarm is that the impacts are worse than we thought, specifically with regards to extreme weather. However, for nearly all of these extreme weather events, it’s difficult to identify any role for human-caused climate change in increasing either their intensity or frequency. Even the latest IPCC assessment report acknowledges this. Nevertheless, attributing extreme weather and climate events to global warming is now the primary motivation for the rapid transition away from fossil fuels.
This rationale commits the logical fallacy of conflation. There are two separate risk categories for climate change. The first is the slow creep of global warming, with impacts on sea level rise and glacier melting. The second is extreme weather events and interannual climate variability such as El Nino, which have little if anything to do with global warming.
The urgency of addressing emergency risk is being used to motivate the urgency of reducing the incremental risk from emissions. Reducing emissions will have little to no impact on extreme weather events. Ironically, attempts to reduce emissions are exacerbating energy poverty and unreliability, which increases emergency risk. One would logically think that if warming is less than we thought but impacts are worse, that priorities would shift away from CO2 mitigation and towards adaptation. However, that hasn’t been the case.
Underlying all this is an important moral dilemma that is implicit in climate policy debates. There’s a conflict between possibly preventing future harm from climate change, versus helping currently living humans. The UN policies are targeted at possibly preventing future harm. However, the UN climate policies are hampering the UN Sustainable Development Goals that focus on currently living humans.
In 2015, the world’s nations agreed on a set of 17 interlinked Sustainable Development Goals to support future global development. These goals include, in ranked order:
- No poverty
- No hunger
- Affordable and clean energy
- And development of Industry, innovation & infrastructure
- Climate action
Why should one element of Goal 13, related to net-zero emissions, trump these higher priority goals? International funds for development are being redirected away from reducing poverty, and towards reducing carbon emissions. This redirection of funds is exacerbating the harms of weather hazards and climate change for the world’s poor. Efforts to restrict the production of oil and gas is hampering the #1 goal of poverty reduction in Africa, and is restricting Africa’s efforts to develop and utilize its own oil and gas resources. The #2 goal of no hunger is being worsened by climate mitigation efforts, including restrictions on livestock and fertilizer. Industry and infrastructure require steel and cement, which are currently produced by fossil fuels.
Neglecting these sustainability objectives in favor of rapidly reducing CO2 emissions is slowing down or even countering progress on the most important Sustainable Development Goals. This statement from a recent UN Progress Report particularly struck me: “Shockingly, the world is back at hunger levels not seen since 2005, and food prices remain higher in more countries than in the period 2015–2019.”
Leading risk scientists and philosophers, who don’t have a particular dog in the climate fight, have expressed their concerns about how all this has evolved and where its headed. Norwegian risk scientist Terje Aven has this to say:
“The current thinking and approaches have been shown to lack scientific rigor, the consequence being that climate change risk and uncertainties are poorly presented. The climate change field needs to strengthen its risk science basis, to improve the current situation.”
Political philosopher Thomas Wells states:
“The global climate change debate has gone badly wrong. Many mainstream environmentalists are arguing for the wrong actions and for the wrong reasons. And so long as they continue to do so, they put all our futures in jeopardy.”
The diagram below summarizes the UN view of climate risk. I call this the “climate is everything” view, based on a recent cover story in Time magazine. Under this perspective, climate change is a big umbrella that subsumes extreme weather and energy policy, and causes many of the world’s problems. The most recent problem that I spotted is that climate change is harming Indonesian trans sex workers. Go figure. The “climate is everything” perspective is reinforced by a broader view, espoused by the UN and others, that the environment is fragile, there are too many people, capitalism is bad, and therefore we need global control of all these issues.
The following figure provides a different view, that is more consistent with a human centric perspective and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Further, this view is consistent with human flourishing and thriving, to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Most importantly, this view regards climate change, extreme weather, and energy policy as three different issues, albeit with a small overlap. Energy Policy is regarded as primary, since abundant energy is needed to manage whatever challenges from climate change and extreme weather that we may face in the future. And to spur human development – energy is the motive power that pushes the frontier of human knowledge and advancement.
Once we separate the incremental risk of warming from the emergency risks associated with extreme weather, the problems and their solutions become more tractable. My book Climate Uncertainty and Risk argues for a reset of climate and energy policy, that is consistent with the human centric perspective. First, we need to face some inconvenient truths about climate risk.
Risks from climate change and extreme weather are fundamentally local. The risks are entwined with natural climate variability, land use, & societal vulnerabilities. Blaming weather catastrophes on fossil fuel emissions deflects from the real causes of our vulnerabilities, which includes poor risk management & bad governance. And finally, many people fear a future without cheap, abundant fuel and continued economic expansion, far more than they fear climate change.
There are also inconvenient truths about the UN climate & energy policies. The urgency of meeting NETZERO targets is causing us to make bad choices about future energy systems.
Wind & solar power is impairing grid reliability and increasing the cost of electricity. If we somehow reach net zero by 2050, we will notice little if any change in the climate before 2100, relative to natural climate variability. We can’t control the climate or extreme weather events by eliminating emissions.
Given that the UN has mischaracterized climate risk, it will come as no surprise that we are mismanaging climate risk. The left-hand side of the diagram summarizes elements of the UN approach to climate risk management. The right-hand side of the diagram is a perspective that I describe in my book, informed by modern risk science. This includes elements of what has been called Climate Pragmatism and Decision Making Under Deep Uncertainty
- On the left, we have a tame problem, while on the right we have a wicked problem
- On the left, we have global problem and a global solution, while on the right, problems and solutions are regional
- The left hand side seeks to control the problem, while the right hand side seeks to understand the problem and manage its impacts
- On the left, the focus is agreeing on the problem, while right focuses on agreeing on no-regrets solutions
- On the left, there is a focus on consensus and speaking consensus to power, while the right hand side acknowledges uncertainties and disagreements
- On the left we have the precautionary principle, while on the right we have robust decision making
- The UN strategy imposes targets and deadlines, whereas the strategy on the right uses adaptive management that is flexible, and incorporates new understandings as they become available.
In terms of politics, the UN strategy is deeply polarizing, whereas the strategy on the right seeks to secure the common interest of communities.
Once you separate energy policy from climate policy, the way forward for energy policy is fairly straightforward. A more pragmatic approach to dealing with climate change drops the timelines and emissions targets, in favor of accelerating energy innovation. The goal is abundant, secure, reliable, cheap & clean energy.
The energy transition can be facilitated by: accepting that the world will continue to need & desire much more energy; developing a range of options for energy technologies; removing the restrictions of near-term targets for CO2 emissions; and using the next 2-3 decades as a learning period with intelligent trial & error. All technologies should be evaluated holistically for abundance, reliability, lifecycle costs and environmental impacts, land and resource use. Without focusing on CO2 emissions, odds are that this strategy will lead to cleaner energy by the end of the 21st century than by urgently attempting to replace fossil fuels with wind and solar power.
The wickedness of the climate problem is related to the duality of science and politics in the face of an exceedingly complex problem. There are two common but inappropriate ways of mixing science and politics. The first is scientizing policy, which deals with intractable political conflict by transforming the political issues into scientific ones. The problem with this is that science is not designed to answer questions about how the world ought to be, which is the domain of politics. The second is politicization of science, whereby scientific research is influenced or manipulated in support of a political agenda. We have seen both of these inappropriate ways of mixing science and politics in dealing with climate change.
There’s a third way, which is known as “wicked science.” Wicked science is tailored to the dual scientific and political natures of wicked societal problems. Wicked science uses approaches from complexity science and systems thinking in a context that engages with decision makers and other stakeholders. Wicked science requires a transdisciplinary approach that treats uncertainty as of paramount importance. Effective use of wicked science requires that policy makers acknowledge that control is limited and the future is unknown. Effective politics provides room for dissent and disagreement about policy options, and includes a broad range of stakeholders.
My book Climate Uncertainty and Risk provides a framework for rethinking the climate change problem, the risks we are facing, and how we can respond. This book encompasses my own philosophy for navigating the wicked problem of climate change. As such, this book provides a single slice through the wicked terrain. By acknowledging uncertainties in the context of better risk management and decision-making frameworks, and with abundant energy, there’s a broad path forward for humanity to thrive in the 21st century.
Thank you
JC remarks
This was a very enjoyable evening, and I very much appreciate the invitation from GWPF
The important issue is to assess how powerful cognitive dissonance with perpetuate this nonsense. Will need a whole generation of ‘ scientists’ to die off or with increasing co2 and man made emissions and no increase in global temps they will have to reassess this unscientific hypothesis ?
It may take more than a generation. New Scientists do not get their degrees if they question the Science that is being taught. Proper science questions everything. Any one “so called consensus fact” that is wrong will cause everything that uses that as input to also be wrong. We must toss all consensus about climate, then start with data and figure this all out from basics.
Very GOOD LECTURE !!!
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https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Excellent talk! Thank you for your continued clarity on how best to think about a slightly warming climate.
The problem from the beginning is that the ipcc placed the precautionary principle on its head-
‘What neither the IPCC, nor Mr. Ban, nor most media commentators seem to grasp is that the precautionary principle works both ways. Which is riskier, trying to follow the climate-change rhetoric of the IPCC and Green groups by warping world economics and politics to deal (impossibly) with climate change, or facing up to the economics and politics of the real world. Completely changing the world’s economic and political basis for something that actually may not happen – and will most certainly not occur exactly as predicted – is for me a much, much riskier proposition, especially when one takes into account the fact that there will be benefits, as well as problems, from climate changes. Just remember that, if one takes all the models that exist for climate change, not just those of the IPCC, the error bar is for a change of between -2 degrees Celsius to nearly 7 degrees Celsius (a nine degree Celsius error bar in all). Even I think that climate is likely to vary (all the time) within such a range. It tells us nothing. It is a tautology.’ (Philip Stott)
Where do we now find ourselves? Do we believe all of the UN/Eurocommunist-inspired IPCC green initiatives designed to eliminate free choice in the marketplace have done anything more than signal the Left’s willingness to burn down in the house they’ve torched? If so, the EU is an actual case study. They’re returning to coal.
As Philip Stott predicted, in his article on cognitive dissonance, what follows is the usual insult and crapulent b.s. campaign from the Left–now raised to a fever pitch–before the prophets of global warming alarmism all get dragged down by the stone of dead cold logic. This final howling of the AGW Heaven’s Gate cult marks a point in time that does give rise to some hope.
Wagathon wrote:
As Philip Stott predicted, in his article on cognitive dissonance, what follows is the usual insult and crapulent b.s. campaign from the Left–now raised to a fever pitch–before the prophets of global warming alarmism all get dragged down by the stone of dead cold logic
Here’s the logic:
*the globe has warmed by 0.23 C/dedade over the last 30 yrs
*the globe has warmed 0.18 C/decade over the last 60 years
(both numbers come from NOAA data).
These are phenomenal rates! Unpreceded!
And they show no signs of stopping. Indeed, this past 12 months have been warmer than scientists can explain.
Deniers have lost. Badly. I think you will soon move to a new position: criticizing govts and society for not dealing with the problem in the 60s and 70s. After all, there was plenty of physics then that predicted this warming. You all will need to blame someone other than yourselves.
“Indeed, this past 12 months have been warmer than scientists can explain.” says Appell.
Strangely science has never been able to explain weather except after the event and even then they can’t use the data obtained to any useful effect.
Last night while you were sleeping how many lightning events were there and how many storms were involved? Our science doesn’t know the answer to either of those questions – it can only guess and the guess will not be an educated one until climate science becomes proficient in understanding all the many things it needs to know but doesn’t actually know.
And, as for your general and unhealthy alarmism, do you seriously believe any nation anywhere is going to hit meaningful net zero anytime in the next hundred years? If you do then you are a fool, period.
The sensible money says alarmists are getting quieter and quieter on the subject of net zero by the day as they slowly realise what the backlash will be if they try to maintain their position beyond the end of this decade. You may feel what it is like to be cancelled, Mr Appell. You’ll be in bad company too.
David Appell: “These are phenomenal rates! Unpreceded! [sic]”
It is difficult, if not impossible, to validate your assertion. Time acts as a low-pass filter, with uncertainties in age-dating, and with vertical diffusion of the values measured that are proxies for past temperatures, before even taking into account uncertainties inherent to the instruments used to estimate the proxy values. I would agree that the current warming, as measured with thermometers, appears high. However, I don’t think that the assertion of being “unprecedented” can be supported.
…and, the instrumental record has been corrupted and politicized. Still remembering Hansen’s comment, “Rivers will run red!
Clyde,
It is unprecedented until someone provides convincing evidence that it is not. Go ahead, tell us the century when there was a similar event to what is happening now. Note that proxy resolution is plenty good enough to detect such an event (>1 C rise in GMST over 50 years) over at least the last 20,000 years.
BA Bushaw (ganon1950) | May 6, 2024 at 2:18 pm |
Clyde,- Note that proxy resolution is plenty good enough to detect such an event (>1 C rise in GMST over 50 years) over at least the last 20,000 years.
BaBy – you keep making that statement – pretending that the resolution is high enough – but that simply is not true.
Your repeated statement is an activists distortion, not an accurate scientific assessment.
Nonclimatescientist,
I keep repeating it because it is true. You keep denying it, without supporting evidence – just shows you don’t know what you are talking about. Investigate Bølling–Allerød and Dansgaard–Oeschger events. Their temperature records show sufficient resolution and sensitivity to detect events like what is happening now back through the last glacial-interglacial transition.
So please tell us, in what prior century was there >1 C rise in GMST over a period of 50 years?
BAB: When someone makes an assertion, such as Appell did, the onus is on them to back it up if challenged, or at least acknowledge that they misspoke. “Unprecedented” means NEVER! Since Appell did not specify a length of time or any other caveats such as within the last 20,000 years, your attempt to pull his feet out of the fire fails. And, your limiting the time to the last 20,000 years suggests that you either don’t know the meaning of “unprecedented,” or you don’t care about writing with precision, only being concerned about winning an argument supporting your alarmist views.
Baby
You are darn good with the Activist agenda driven talking points.
Vinther
Joey,
Thanks, but unlike you, I’m good with science.
Clyde,
Complain to David about what you think of David’s comments.
BAB: “Complain to David about what you think of David’s comments.”
I did. But then you jumped in. Don’t you remember? So, I responded to your defense of Appell.
BAB, you asked “… in what prior century was there >1 C rise in GMST over a period of 50 years?”
According to Wikipedia, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dansgaard%E2%80%93Oeschger_event ] “Dansgaard–Oeschger events … are rapid climate fluctuations that occurred 25 times during the last glacial period.” Wiki goes on to say, “For example, about 11,500 years ago, averaged annual temperatures on the Greenland ice sheet increased by around 8 °C over 40 years, in three steps of five years, where a 5 °C change over 30–40 years is more common.” Britannica says much the same thing, except that they give a greater temperature range: “…, that is, as much as 5–15 °C “
BAB, you said, “Thanks, but unlike you, I’m good with science.”
You are obviously also an exemplar of humility.
Clyde,
Do you know what GMST is?
Clyde,
I’m not ashamed of my contributions to science or my understanding thereof. How about you?
BA Bushaw (ganon1950) | May 9, 2024 at 8:48 am |
Clyde,
Do you know what GMST is?
BA Bushaw (ganon1950) | May 6, 2024 at 2:56 pm |
Clyde – did you notice that Baby condemned you for citing Dansgaard to claim you were wrong , but took the opposite position 3 days earlier. Consistency is not BaBy’s forte.
@ganon unprecedented, I think not. Refer to Dr James White
“Dr. James White, a paleoclimatologist, has made significant contributions to our understanding of Earth’s climate history. His work involves analyzing ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica to unlock ancient climate secrets1. These ice cores provide valuable information about past temperatures and atmospheric components. White’s research has revealed rapid climate changes, with temperature shifts of up to five to six degrees Celsius occurring in just a few years1. His dedication to studying Earth’s climate helps us predict its future and address the challenges posed by global warming. 🌍❄️
James White Image: Dr. James White (left) conducting fieldwork on Greenland’s ice cap.1
Learn more YT interview
https://youtu.be/Hqa9HNR9KTc?si=8nBg4GbDGD64BxzP
1 scientificamerican.com
2 en.wikipedia.org
3 earthmagazine.org
4 alankurschner.com
+2 more
“Perhaps we should not too quickly dismiss the many Biblical scholars who, over the centuries, have been quite convinced that the Bible teaches that the earth is unmoving at the centre of creation.” (Philip Stott)
So, who are you betting on… life on Mars?
I’m not betting on anything Stott says, unless I can bet against it. Pat’s quote is a good example, plenty more:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Stott#Views
I responded to a comment in Australia’s IPA magazine with: “You say that many speakers saw religion, particularly Christianity, as a basis for the recovery of Western values and civilisation confidence, and some explicitly called for a return to (Judaeo-Christian) religious beliefs.
“We live in a vast universe in which life must have arisen and passed away in many places at many times. I can’t understand why people would believe in a particular God on our small, remote planet as creating and directing us; although I accept that it will help many people to live a fruitful life, good for them and good for others.”
Pat Cassen wrote:
“Perhaps we should not too quickly dismiss the many Biblical scholars who, over the centuries, have been quite convinced that the Bible teaches that the earth is unmoving at the centre of creation.” (Philip Stott)
Wow. A (backwards) descent into mysticism and the supernatural.
BAB, you stated, “I’m not ashamed of my contributions to science or my understanding thereof. How about you?”
What I personally feel is irrelevant. It is the facts and logical argument that are important. Your attitude is anti-scientific because the ideal scientist is one who is a dispassionate observer and not emotionally involved and therefore trying to ‘prove’ their beliefs. There is little difference between you and a religious zealot who thinks that their devotion and pious behavior is more important than facts. Even the likes of Lord Kelvin can be wrong, and is likely to be so when they think so highly of themselves.
I wouldn’t be so quick to dispense with the real possibility of a knowing deception on the part of many, if not most AGW alarmist Western academics
BAB, you asked, “Do you know what GMST is?”
Depending on the context, it can stand for Global Mean Sidereal Time or Global Mean Surface Temperature. What is your point? Your communication skills leave a lot to be desired. Your high opinion of yourself does not compensate for being inarticulate.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/heat-wave-index-usa
Clyde, if you can’t figure out which GMST from the context, that says a lot.
OurWorldInData takes their data from EPA, who also provide:
https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-high-and-low-temperatures
https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-heat-waves
” The second is extreme weather events and interannual climate variability such as El Nino, which have little if anything to do with global warming.”
True. How about the converse? Global warming has a lot to do with extreme weather events and inter-annual climate variability.
BA Bushaw (ganon1950) | May 4, 2024 at 11:18 am | Reply
“True. How about the converse? Global warming has a lot to do with extreme weather events and inter-annual climate variability.”
Really – do you have any objective scientific studies that support that claim – Other than the agenda driven studies that use start dates with low periods of extreme weather events. Studies that include longer periods of time 150+ years.
You citations have all used truncated periods –
BabY wants to use a study starting in 1961 , a study published in the respectable scientific journal – yet 1961 is a low point.
Just one example of how the study falls apart when using a longer period
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/heat-wave-index-usa
Baby K,
Yes, really – I’ve already given references. If you want more, you can search “relationship between global warming and extreme weather events”
Nope, I sure don’t have studies that go back 150+years. There isn’t sufficient daily temperature data (needed for determining heat waves) going back 150 years. However, the data for the last 65 years is quite good, as previously explained, and convincing. Too bad you don’t understand, but no surprise.
Thanks, Judith. Great job!
An excellent article, with very useful diagrams.
Given the view JC is defending here, using the language of ‘human centric’, ‘flourishing’, and the importance of abundant, reliable, cheap fuel, that there was no mention of Alex Epstein’s book Fossil Future and its precursor, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels. This is precisely the philosophical framing of the issue he has been defending over a decade.
Check out my 2013 essay on thrivability
https://judithcurry.com/2013/08/04/bouncing-forward-not-back/
Also read Ch 14 of my book Climate Uncertainty and Risk, where I promote nuclear power (and provide reasons for transitioning away from fossil fuels in the long term)
The conflation of climate change and ecological overshoot is very confusing. I think that population is the elephant in the room, due to numbers and the human propensity to maximize energy consumption per capita (aka Maximum Power Principle).
Luis Gutierrez wrote:
The conflation of climate change and ecological overshoot is very confusing. I think that population is the elephant in the room, due to numbers and the human propensity to maximize energy consumption per capita (aka Maximum Power Principle).
OK. Sure. But so what? We’re not going to decrease population anytime soon, and certainly never enough (to 1B people? 3B?) to affect climate change. It will take centuries, unless you prefer that government tell people they are not allowed to have children. Do you?
Mr. Appell, you should provide numbers to back up your assertions, something which you rarely do.
The IPCC states that population is the major driver of anthropogenic contributions to climate change. The Stern Report bases its estimates of impacts of climate change on a population of 15 billion by the end of the century. Given that the real figure will probably be below 10 billion, how would you calculate the change in emissions?
Predicting the weather just 2 weeks out can be a dicey proposition but predicting the weather 30 years out is an impossibility that isn’t made any easier by calling it the climate. Like flipping a coin it will not matter if we devise a mathematical model to combine the data of the last 100 flips with a dataset reflecting the 100 flips before that — or even if you want to consider how many tails you got on the previous 1,000 flips — the odds for the next flip still will be 50-50. “The inconvenient truth remains,” according to Philip Stott, that “climate is the most complex, coupled, nonlinear, chaotic system known.”
Wagathon wrote:
Predicting the weather just 2 weeks out can be a dicey proposition but predicting the weather 30 years out is an impossibility that isn’t made any easier by calling it the climate.
It’s very clear that you don’t understand physics. Very clear.
Consider a swimming pool exposed to the atmosphere. The pool has warm spots and cold spots, as we all have experienced. It’s very difficult to predict the temperature change at every point in the pool over the next 5-10 days. Maybe you can do it for a day or two. That’s weather.
But it’s not difficult to predict the AVERAGE temperature of the pool, and its changes. You could start with Newton’s law of cooling and some basic thermodynamics. That’s climate change.
But I don’t think you care about the science, because you keep asking the same basic, dumb questions over and over again.
Humanity cannot cause an asteroid nor a volcano nor an iceberg but humanity can make seas rise? How awesome! Too awesome. Humanity’s contribution in the grand scheme of things is but the single beat of a butterfly’s wing — just a thought of a thing in a world we can imagine but not hear nor see nor effect in the slightest except perhaps in a part of the soul in a corner of the mind of an old man in a lounge chair nursing a Manhattan.
We now know that climate ‘science’ is just like weather science except that unlike meteorologists, climatologists like to make amazing and unverifiable claims about the accuracy of their forecasting, 50-100 years into the future.
‘GCM modelers do not dare make public short-period global temperature forecasts for next season, next year, or a few years hence. This is because they know they do not have shorter range climate forecast skill. They would lose credibility if they issued shorter-range yearly forecasts that could be verified.’ ~Dr. Gray
Nature has every thing under control.
She is just beginning the process, first little Ice Age, of the new Large Ice Age.
Enjoy the ride.
Man has no possibly way to alter anything.
Climate is not headed toward another Large Ice Age, not anytime soon.
Ice ages start when there is abundant warm water in the Arctic Ocean with a much higher ocean than now.
Climate cannot get to that condition because the water that would be needed to raise the ocean that much is tied up on land, mostly on Antarctica, Greenland and other cold places. It must get much warmer first with deeper oceans. Climate has not seen that condition for over a hundred thousand years.
Ice on Antarctica has been growing for millions of years, climate has alternated warmer and colder time periods all that time. Every warmer time put ice on Antarctic land with evaporation and snowfall which causes a colder time to follow. In each cycle ice accumulated and some of it became multi cycle ice.
Each cycle took water from the oceans and did not put it all back. This changes the amounts of water and ice the could take place in the northern ice ages and this is why the length of warm and cold times evolved. The amount of sea level rise influenced how much ice was taken off of land in the north. The last major ice age is the last one because of the ice that did not return to the oceans. The recent ten thousand years is the new normal.
Over the recent 10 thousand years, Milankovitch changes from warming the northern hemisphere the most to now warming the southern hemisphere the most. That is why the northern hemisphere has lost ice extent, not as much ice is needed to regulate the cooling. Over the next ten thousand years the Milankovitch warming will leave the south and return to the north, when this happens, more energy will power the northern ice machines and northern ice will advance. There will always be alternating warmer and colder time periods.
Climate is in long term stable Dynamic Balance, climate cannot achieve a stable Static Balance!
In warmest times some IR out is used in forming ice that does not thaw in the warm time, that IR out does no immediate cooling of the climate.
In coldest times IR out is not enough to cause the climate to be cold, the climate is cold in coldest times because ice is reflecting and cooling by thawing.
Indeed!
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https://www.cristos-vournas.com
popesclimatetheory wrote:
Over the recent 10 thousand years, Milankovitch changes from warming the northern hemisphere the most to now warming the southern hemisphere the most.
How much have Milankovitch forcings changed, in both hemispheres, since 1850?
Give your answer in W/m2.
PCT: give your numbers for each of the three Milankovitch cycles, and for the sum total. For each hemisphere.
Over the recent ten thousand years, every time it has gotten warmer than now, there was more evaporation and snowfall and ice accumulation in ice core records from both polar regions and every warmer time was followed by ice advancing, causing colder, we warmed out of the little ice age as ice had depleted and retreated. Water changes state and has self correcting influence by the minute, hour, day, – – – – hundred year, thousand year, etc.
The amount of ice spread on land and the amount of water in the oceans is a control that has always been considered a result. In warmest times sea ice thaws and evaporation and snowfall and ice sequestering rebuilds land ice until more ice spreads and causes colder. In coldest times, sea ice prevents evaporation and ice sequestering, ice thaws, depletes and finally retreats. This has been treated as a result but it is a powerful cause of climate self correction.
Yes, water is the moderating influence on Earth’s climate. And the various orbital and solar cycles influence whether the Earth is receiving more or less energy at any one time. Man is as important to the climate as a mosquito is to a whale.
popesclimatetheory wrote:
Over the recent 10 thousand years, Milankovitch changes from warming the northern hemisphere the most to now warming the southern hemisphere the most.
Really? What science says that??
Robert David Clark wrote:
Man has no possibly way to alter anything.
lol. Should man start to live on Mars, the very first thing they’re liable to do is thicken its atmosphere by getting more CO2 into it. Increasing its greenhouse effect, which is now only about 6 C.
Turns out its fairly easy to modify Earth’s climate–just emit a lot of GHGs, esp CO2. It’s what we would do in about ~50,000 years when the next ice age comes around. But we’re doing it far, far too soon, and without thoroughly understanding the consequences. We can’t even explain the current global heat wave. We really don’t know what 3-4 C of warming by 2100 will do, and don’t want to think about it.
Wagathon wrote:
The problem from the beginning is that the ipcc placed the precautionary principle on its head-
The next problem is that many of the people just agree that CO2 is causing warming and then push back on various factors, keeping the discussion in the Home Ballpark of the alarmists with their own Umpires where they can use the precautionary principle to win most conflicts.
Science must be questioned and other factors that regulate climate must be studied, discussed and understood and taught, all outside of always talking about small changes in the atmosphere. Water changes states and makes changes in the climate that are huge compared changes by CO2. When much ice is spread on land and oceans are lower the climate is much colder. When little ice is spread on land and oceans are higher, the climate is much warmer. Water in its changing states is not considered in climate theory as any kind of control, only as a result. The elephant in the climate is being controlled by a small fly.
I like the skeptical flavor.
One thing that is missing, so far as I know, is a serious, data-heavy, study of what a +1.5 C world would look like after reasonable adaptations have been made. As a working hypothesis, I think the world as a whole whould be a better place to live. However, this is not true of all regions. One of the adapations would be for people to gradually migrate toward the North, or South where the climate is better.
In any case, why are there not such studies-rather than the frequent gloom and doom?
Note, for example, the large migration of people in the USA who can afford it to the hot South, out of cold North. As a resident of Colorado, I can testify that the climate has greatly improved, by modulating our horrible winters.
David Seckler wrote:
As a resident of Colorado, I can testify that the climate has greatly improved, by modulating our horrible winters.
Lots of people in Colorado disagree with you.
https://www.denverpost.com/2021/11/29/colorado-ski-industustry-climate-change-2021/
The pitch repeatedly talks about a climate problem.
Could you explain in plain English, with numbers, if possible, what the climate problem you refer to is.
Rate of global warming = 0.20-0.25 C/decade.
Except the globe isn’t warming at that rate.
Also, the warming we’re seeing is due to a reduction in cloud and an increase in sunshine, due to a cleaner atmosphere.
https://www.scirp.org/pdf/ijg_2024032514494686.pdf
Adam, Yes, it is warming at that rate (or more): 1973 – 2023 temperature increase = 1.05 C (HadCRUT 5.0.2.0) = 0.21 C/decade. Similarly: 1993 – 2023 -> 0.31 C/decade.
I note that David said nothing about the causes. Your attribution is incomplete. Your reference does not include integration of the absorption over the CO2 14.9 um band in the water window including the wavelength dependence of the emission source (the peak emission is near 10 um, but intensity is still 50% of peak at 14.9 um). Thus, they cannot arrive at quantitative results sufficient to say that particulate decrease is responsible for all (most) warming.
I flagged the talk at The Times and The Australian, so hopefully it will be seen by many.
Scientists don’t take blog posts seriously. They’re interested in peer reviewed articles, for obvious reasons.
Obvious reasons being information control.
jim2 wrote:
Obvious reasons being information control.
Exactly.
There’s no reason to pay attention to anything that isn’t rigorous enough to gain the approval of a few peer reviewers. And to present the information to the scientific community, who pay attention to journals and not blogs. For good reason.
Pal Review you mean?
Funny how this amazing Peer Review always failed to pick up the scientific fraud perpetuated by Mann & his cronies.
https://climateaudit.org/2024/04/18/twisted-tree-heartrot-hill-revisited/
Then I guess we can safely assume that you are not a scientist. Is there any other reason we should take what you say seriously?
Yet again Judith denies me the opportunity to get comments sent by email.
If any of the denizens actually receive comments by email, pls let david know how you are accomplishing this. This is something that I do not control
This is an option that can only be set by individual users who (whom?) want to get an email alert that someone has responded to their comment. One newspaper that I use has this ‘feature’ available. Climate &etc. does, too. The actual carrying out of the option is built into the blog software, untouched by human hands.
Obviously, each user must opt-in, comment-by-comment. When I leave this at Climate &etc., it will appear as an option at the bottom of the form in which you leave your identity info. Maybe there’s a bug in the software that Climate &etc. is using?
How rigorous your approach is. Something doesn’t work? Whine that it’s Judith acting nefariously. Seriously, fool. You have to do it with every new post and it doesn’t always work. WordPress is not a super brilliant platform.
“Not only have we misjudged the climate risk, but politicians and the media have played on our psychological fears of certain types of risks to amp up the alarm.”
The UK Met Office say that major heatwaves like in 2003 and in 2018, will happen every other year by 2050, that’s who our politicians listen. I say all our major heatwaves are solar driven, without which they would not even occur.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQemMt_PNwwBKNOS7GSP7gbWDmcDBJ80UJzkqDIQ75_Sctjn89VoM5MIYHQWHkpn88cMQXkKjXznM-u/pub
Ulric Lyons wrote:
I say all our major heatwaves are solar driven, without which they would not even occur.
Dude, study some physics. At least through college freshman physics. To avoid looking silly, if nothing else.
Hey if you were smart enough you could have extrapolated the type of physics at play from the nature of the correlations, it’s obviously not gravitational. My physics education began aged 5 when my dad was head of UK rocket development. Desmond King-Hele was in the team at guided weapons, he looked for correlations between the gas giants and climate, I guess you would have been just as rude to him, because of your political bias.
There are few intellectual situations more emotionally traumatizing than living with uncertainty. Children crave predictability, knowing what is going to happen next. After childhood, the same need basis for certainty molds people’s choices such that they become vulnerable to and follow ideologies that provide simple answers to complex problems. Predicting weather for tomorrow, let alone 30 years hence becomes unsettling for people seeking a future view and preparing themselves: should I bring my umbrella?
To me, the emotional component to the climate change conundrum is so individual, utterly lacking in any rationale as to how to live one’s live and have a perspective about one’s future. Intimidating vulnerable people and their fears of the future appears to me to be the focus of the climate change catastrophists agenda; a fear based campaign. Pretty common in a mass control movement.
RiH: it is inherently impossible to predict climate.
Unless you know the future human emissions of CO2, CH4, N2O, aerosols, also volcanic eruptions and solar irradiance, it is impossible to predict future global warming.
So stop expecting it.
But keep fighting it with lots of money :-)
Uncertainty and risk- hopefully, it’s not already too late to address the insanity of the Left’s social cascade of mass delusion before the dysfunctional social mechanism of global warming alarmism makes a wasteland of our Western culture. Mann’s ‘hockey stick’ science and the continuing parroting of a mythical 97% consensus among scientists that AGW theory is true are examples of a social cascade that help keep the global warming hoax and scare tactics alive. Believing the oceans are warming when there has been no global warming going on 3 decades, depending on the data source used, is another cascade.
Mann’s hockey stick was true, expected by heuristic analysis, and confirmed by many studies using different statistical methods.
But I no longer expect you to care about facts.
Heuristic analysis, what a nice name for “hide the decline”.
AD HOC COMMITTEE REPORT ON THE ‘HOCKEY STICK’ GLOBAL CLIMATE RECONSTRUCTION
(Report authored by Edward J. Wegman, et al.)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
(Excerpts)
e.g.,
________________________________________
“While the work of Michael Mann and colleagues presents what appears to be compelling evidence of global temperature change, the criticisms of McIntyre and McKitrick, as well as those of other authors mentioned are indeed valid.
________________________________________
Speaking of statistical methods, it was demonstrated that the algorithm used by Mann to create the ‘hockey stick’ will create similar graphs from noise. It might change your view if you cared about facts.
David Appell | May 4, 2024 at 7:14 pm | Reply
Mann’s hockey stick was true, expected by heuristic analysis, and confirmed by many studies using different statistical methods.
But I no longer expect you to care about facts.
Apple – you are not only well aware of the corruption in the paleo community – buy you likely have first or second hand knowledge
Long proxies with nearly straight shafts but no blade – low resolution.
https://climateaudit.org/2021/08/26/pages2019-30-60s/
https://climateaudit.org/2021/09/02/pages19-0-30s/
https://climateaudit.org/2021/09/15/pages-2019-0-30n-proxies/
https://climateaudit.org/2016/08/03/gergis-and-law-dome/
https://climateaudit.org/2014/11/07/gergis-and-the-pages2k-regional-average/
Pages 2k
A basket of honest paleo reconstructions
I certainly believe Mann’s HS has been proven true by multiple studies using different statistical methods
– Hint – the different statistical methods cant overcome the limitations of the low resolution proxies
‘The papers of Mann et al. in themselves are written in a confusing manner, making it difficult for the reader to discern the actual methodology and what uncertainty is actually associated with these reconstructions. Vague terms such as “moderate certainty” (Mann et al. 1999) give no guidance to the reader as to how such conclusions should be weighed.’ (Wegman, ibid)
WeatherNation was correct about the -350-degree Faren height moon surface being a big part of what is happening right now. I missed that.
I am still right about the Finger Lakes.
The Atmospheric River on the north side of the Upper-Low is next, Northeast to Southwest.
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We should inform people every possible way, because people do not know physics, and therefore people only listen to what scientists say.
I also believed what scientists were saying about CO2 greenhouse warming danger. It was not my specialty, so I had to relay on scientists who were specialists on the matter.
And what I heard worried me as everyone else.
I got even more worried one day, when thinking of our fate in CO2 polluted atmosphere.
Then, something changed in mind – wait a minute, I said, CO2 ~ 400 ppm in Earth’s thin atmosphere (1 bar at sea level) is a trace gas in a thin atmosphere, it is almost nothing out there.
Also I started questioning, how do the plants manage with so little CO2 around? How it comes plants still survive ?
What I came to is that plants absorb CO2 not directly from atmosphere, but the CO2 first is deluted in water.
And I started my own research. It took me a lot of time reading everything I could find in Internet.
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https://www.cristos-vournas.com
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There are legitimate questions regarding how dangerous warming is and what should be done to either mitigate it or adapt to it.
Perhaps if the skeptical community showed a speck of humility and admitted they were 100% wrong about (1) the fact of the warming, and (2) the cause of the warming, they might find more willingness to engage regarding adaptation vs. mitigation.
Dr. Curry,
Why is it that you only look at extremist statements on one side of this debate? If you want to find stupidity worthy of mockery, there is plenty of it on the skeptical side, no?
For instance, there is Congressman Stockman of Texas who claimed that forecase sea level rise did not make sense because melting ice cubes do not raise the water level in a glass. Then there’s science titan Congressman Jeff Miller (r) from florida who said that if humans are changing the climate “then why did the dinosaurs go extinct?” And let’s not forget Congressman Louie Gohmert (R) who seriously asked a scientist at the bureau of land management if “there is anything we could do to change the moon’s orbit” to change the climate. If you want to mock, there is a huge reservoir of material waiting for you on the side of the skeptics. it doesn’t actually weaken the skeptics’ arguments any more than naive statements from non-climate-scientist believers weaken the arguments of climate scientists who worry about AGW.
Dan B, if you are referring to Curry’s current post, I do not see it mocking extremists. There are plenty of stupid statements on both sides of the climate issue, but that in of its self has noting to do with well grounded and presented arguments.
For politicians to avoid making stupid statements would require them to forever keep their mouths closed.
DanB – If you are going to mock someone – you should mock what the got wrong, not what the got right
DanB –
As others have stated, there lots of idiotic statements by illinformed skeptics. However there are lots of claims made by the AGW who likewise get things pathetically wrong often highly distorted data.
very common problems thoughout the renewables, misrepresentations of LCOE, “fossil fuel subsidies; paleo reconstructions with the extensive over confidence in the resolution of the proxies, etc if not outright corruption.
Distortions of the changes in frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. Note the multitude of peer reviewed studies BaB has posted which use cherrypicked start dates.
another example was your defense of the study showing that 12% of asthma cases caused by gas stoves. That study is a borderline academic fraud, yet You (DanB) defended the study.
As others have stated, the distortions and misrepresentations are a problem on both sides of the scientific debate.
DanB –
The idiotic statements and beliefs on both sides are a problem.
Prime examples of the AGW activists getting things pathetically wrong using highly distorted data and/or highly delusional understanding of basic concepts.
Renewables,
LCOE,
Tax subsidies,
Extreme weather event frequency or intensity using cherrypick start dates, etc
Dr. Curry quoted very high level people. Why should she worry about what a few congressmen say? Also, why should she quote people on the skeptical side? She’s pointing out the problems with alarmists, not skeptics.
Bjorn Lomborg … A new study shows that to achieve 100% solar or wind electricity with sufficient backup, the U.S. would need to be able to store almost three months’ worth of electricity every year.
https://nypost.com/2024/04/09/opinion/taxpayer-subsidies-havent-made-wind-and-solar-power-cheaper-or-better-for-americans/
The paper he quotes:
Based on the presented analyses, the 100% reliance on solar or wind energy in the Northeast region is not feasible without massive energy storage which is between the 24.1%–28.3% and 17.4%–35.5% of the annual energy consumption for solar and wind respectively. The nationwide connectivity can reduce these storage needs to the national averages (22.4% for solar and 24.9% for wind) or perhaps further if all the power generation moves to the more favorable places; however, even in Texas (one of the most Southern state with the best solar and wind resources), there exists substantial spatial variability in renewable energy resources (Kumler et al., 2019).
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2023.1076830/full
… existing storage/backup capacity is seven minutes. Three months equals approximately 129,600 minutes.
The failure of Western academia has never been more obvious to everyone than today. Michael Crichton said this day was coming. “In recent years,” Crichton warned, “much has been said about the post-modernist claims about science to the effect that science is just another form of raw power, tricked out in special claims for truth-seeking and objectivity that really have no basis in fact. Science, we are told, is no better than any other undertaking. These ideas anger many scientists, and they anger me. But recent events have made me wonder if they are correct.”
Curry’s speech was a well measured and comprehensive statement on the climate change issues. The question remains whether the content and delivery of such statements can, at least, influence the way climate change and the policies emanating from it are discussed.
Politicians, as they are prone to do, will not change their ways unless and until the early effects of implemented policies are felt by the voting public. The question then will become one of whether the next step in their tool box of needing more of the same to fix the problem appeases the public.
Interesting that climate change activists see the need for portraying current time disasters as climate change related, since the voting public is less likely to react to talk of disasters further into the future. The counterpoint to this is the voting public reacting to immediate problems arising from implementation of policy attempts at mitigation.
It all hinges on the politicians abilities to make climate change an immediate emergency for implementing their mitigation policies and to counter the immediate problems of that implementation with the oft successfully tried canard of needing more of the same as a fix.
Presently, the concentration of carbon dioxide in a cubic meter of dry air is 424 ppmv at STP. The mass of carbon dioxide is 0.833 grams. The mass of 1 cubic meter of dry air is 1.2929 kg at STP. I have concluded that this small amount of carbon dioxide cannot cause “global warming.”
I suspect that the recent global warming is due to less pollution and cleaner air.
The mass of water in a cubic meter of dense fog is typically .5 grams. “The mass of 1 cubic meter of dry air is 1.2929 kg at STP.” I conclude that this small amount of water cannot impede my vision through the dense fog.
I conclude harold doesn’t understand molecular spectroscopy.
I am a retired organic chemist with a B.Sc.(Hon) and a Ph.D.,
and I am very familiar with IR molecular spectroscopy.
I stand by what I said. There is too little carbon dioxide in the air to cause “global warming.” Water is the main greenhouse gas.
Use Google to obtain the essay “Climate Change Reexamined ” by Joel Kauffman. The essay is 26 pages. On page 735 is shown the IR absorption spectrum of a sample of Philadelphia city air. Integration of the spectrum determined that water adsorbed 92% of the IR light and carbon dioxide only 8%. However, it is likely that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the city is much lager than that at remote location.
Harold,
So you think molecule number, not optical extinction, is determinative? What field was your PhD in?
I stand by what I said. You don’t understand saturated absorption, lineshapes, and collisional broadening in gas phase molecular spectroscopy. You are right that CO2 only absorbs about 8% of the IR that water does. But that 8% is up from about 5% – It makes the difference. Water vapor, OTOH, is self limiting by condensation.
CO2 in the air at 416 PPM vs 50,000 PPM in warm tropical air…
The mass of CO2 is 0.817 grams. The mass of water is 40.8 grams. These values are for 1 cubic meter of air.
The ratio of water molecules to CO2 molecules is:
50,000 ppm/416ppm=120. In the tropics water is an IR hog.
The average concentration of water vapor in the atmosphere is 0.4% or 4000 ppm, not 50,000 ppm. Why you all cherry pick (maximum value, or specific tropical location) lies to make your case. So obvious, it is funny.
BA Bushaw (ganon1950) | May 7, 2024 at 9:35 am |
The average concentration of water vapor in the atmosphere is 0.4% or 4000 ppm, not 50,000 ppm. Why you all cherry pick (maximum value, or specific tropical location) lies to make your case. So obvious, it is funny.
Dont cherry pick says the guy that regularly cites cherrypicked data
Joey,
I cite scientific papers published in respected journals so that people can read them, if interested. I find that more satisfying that citing nothing, understanding nothing, and making lame attacks and insults as deflections, when you’re not capable of discussing the science.
When the sun comes out the fog disappears and while the ppm of CO2 remain the same the relative humidity will no longer be 100%.
Bushaw
So what if you cite scientific papers published in respectable journals
Choosing a decade with the lowest (or near lowest ) level of extreme weather events for the start period for the purpose of showing an increase in “extreme weather events” is intentionally deceptive. Should be readily apparent why they study authors chose to truncate the first 60 years of the century.
Publishing the study by “climate Scientists:” in a “respectable journal” doesnt change the fact that using a cherrypicked start date is intentionally deceptive. That behavior should be condemned. You instead chose to defend and embrace the deception.
M. Starkey,
Complain to the cited authors (or make your own citations) if you don’t like their methods or conclusions. I believe them.
You said, “Should be readily apparent why they study authors chose to truncate the first 60 years of the century”
Yeah, because they didn’t want to use incomplete data that would make the heat wave frequency increase look like even more than it really has been. I’m sure that if they had, you would accuse them of using incomplete and imprecise data.
baby kangaroo,
Your reference has had 3 citations in 8 years. I’m sure it is very important.
Thank you, Judith!
At the risk of repetition, this is in line with:
CO2 is not in control of climate
We are not in control of CO2
Climate change is a given, not a problem.
CO2 mitigation is a problem, not a solution.
David,
“There’s no reason to pay attention to anything that isn’t rigorous enough to gain the approval of a few peer reviewers. And to present the information to the scientific community, who pay attention to journals and not blogs. For good reason.
There are legitimate questions regarding how dangerous warming is and what should be done to either mitigate it or adapt to it.”
Dan,
“Perhaps if the skeptical community showed a speck of humility and admitted they were 100% wrong about (1) the fact of the warming, and (2) the cause of the warming, they might find more willingness to engage regarding adaptation vs. mitigation.”
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https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Remember the era of the liberal fascists politics of personal destruction? You must hold your tongue or be marginalized, demonized, knocked and mocked – how Kafkaesque! Remember how quick the AGW Alarmists and their comrades were to denigrate William Gray and associate legitimate scientific skepticism with those who deny the Holocaust ever existed? Now, the Left actually is denying the Holocaust ever happened and teaching anti-Semitism in public schools!
“Apparently ‘discernible’ was sufficient to justify the 1977 Kyoto Protocol.”
It was 1997.
we humans have no more control over weather (and by extension, global warming) as has actually happened before in Earth’s history…
‘Geological records corroborate ancient myths and legends reporting that the Earth’s ice-age ended abruptly in a period of excessive warmth… At the height of the Bølling-Allerød period [at the end of the Oldest Dryas, c. 14,700-12,700 years ago], winter temperatures in the British Isles had increased by 25 degrees centigrade and summer temperatures by 8 degrees centigrade to levels typically found in that region today. In Chile, summer temperatures warmed by 12 degrees centigrade, reaching a level significantly higher than the average temperatures that have prevailed there during the present interglacial’ (Paul A. LaViolette, Earth Under Fire: Humanity’s Survival of the Ice Age)
The CO2 is a trace gas in the Earth’s actually thin atmosphere
(1 bar at sea level).
One should use the spectroscopy methods to accurately measure the existence of ~ 400 ppm CO2, or 1 molecule CO2 in 2500 molecules of air.
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https://www.cristos-vournas.com
It is by itself a scientific achievement the CO2 was ever detected, and its content measured in the Earth’s thin air.
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https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Why Io is warmer than Europa?
Io vs Europa (Tsat 110K vs Tsat 102 K) comparison
“It takes Io about 42.5 hours (1.77 days) to complete one orbit around Jupiter (fast enough for its motion to be observed over a single night of observation). Io is in a 2:1 mean-motion orbital resonance with Europa ”
–
Io is in a 2:1 mean-motion orbital resonance with Europa,
also Io average surface specific heat is cp = 0,145 cal/gr*oC, whereas Europa is cp = 1 cal/gr*oC.
Thus, Io rotates twice as fast, but Io has 1/0,145 = 6,89 smaller average surface cp.
Both Io and Europa have the same Albedo a = 0,63
Io has warming factor =(β*N*cp)¹∕ ⁴ = 1,8647
Io has average surface temperature measured by satellite
Tsat.io = 110K
Europa has Tsat.europa = 102K
And Europa has warming factor =(β*N*cp)¹∕ ⁴ = 2,5494
But also Europa is characterized as the smoothest object in entire solar system.
So, Φeuropa = 0,47 vs Φio = 1.
Let’s compare:
[(1,8647 /2,5494) /0,47 ]¹∕ ⁴ = 1,116
110K /102K = 1,07
the 1,116 and 1,07 are very close ~ 3% difference.
which means the comparison is performed correctly.
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https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Spectroscopic methods are used precisely because CO2’s 15 um band absorbs strongly in the IR water window.
https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/about/co2_measurements.pdf
Absorption:
A = -log(Iₜ/I₀) = εcℓ
if ε (molar extinction coefficient) and ℓ (path length) are large – they are – then the concentration (c) can be small and still have absorbance A>2 (99% absorption). A visible analog for those that must “see to believe”: Consider a liter bottle of water, then add a drop of food coloring to it (concentration = 0.005%) – can you see the color? This is nearly 10 times lower than the concentration of CO2 in air. Then one must ask, how much does retaining an excess ~3% of surface thermal emissions change earth’s temperature. Next consider that molecular collision times are about 0.1 nanosecond at STP, while the CO2 bending vibration has a radiative decay lifetime of ~1 microsecond, 10,000 times slower than the collisions. Thus, single CO2 molecules can cycle, absorbing a photon and then collisionally deactivating, millions of times a second; converting the absorbed surface emission photons to atmospheric molecular motional (VRT) heat.
That’s right.
Also they visualise the CO2 interaction with upgoing IR EM energy as some tiny billiard balls (photons) striking some other tiny billiard balls (the CO2 molecules).
By doing so, by visualising, they inevitably conclude, that surely, at their path through the atmosphere, all the 15μ photons should met with and collide with some CO2 molecule, which molecule happens somewhere along the path blocking the passage to the 15μ photon.
It is a mistaken thing to do – visualising the EM energy /matter interaction process.
Molecules are not balls, and photons are not balls either.
The EM energy is a wave. Molecules is the matter. What they do is to interact – they do not collide as some billiard balls do.
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Light is both photons and electromagnetic waves. When a molecule “extracts” energy from the field, it absorbs a quantized photon. No, they are not billiard balls, but they do have measurable cross-sections, from which opacity and molecule-molecule collision time distributions can be calculated.
“The EM energy is a wave” – no, it is many, many waves; each photon has its own wave (more formally, wave packet). The electromagnetic field is not “a” wave unless it comes from a laser.
“Also they visualise the CO2 interaction with upgoing IR EM energy as some tiny billiard balls (photons) striking some other tiny billiard balls (the CO2 molecules)”
Who are “they”, certainly not people with even a moderate background in modern physics. Perhaps, you are “they,” describing your own (very antiquated) visualization of the process.
“The electromagnetic field is not “a” wave unless it comes from a laser.” Isn’t laser light composed of photons?
George,
Yes.
It is far more helpful to visualize the interaction of the electrons and protons.
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Photons cannot collide with molecules because photon have no mass.
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Christos, the proper term would be “interact”, and photons and matter interact all the time. And both change because of it.
“they do have measurable cross-sections…”
–
How could that be?
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Molecules have cross-sections, photons have wavelengths (energies).
How do you measure a molecule’s cros-section? BTW, are the molecules of spherical shape?
And, do molecules swell or shrink?
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Christos,
“How do you measure a molecule’s cros-section? BTW, are the molecules of spherical shape?
And, do molecules swell or shrink?”
For photons, cross-section can be determined from absorption by a sample of known concentration and length. If you’re from Missouri, you can use electron microscopy.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-0910-3
Molecules are not spherical – see the TEM “photos” of pentacene in the above paper.
Molecules rotate and vibrate and are “fuzzy” in that sense, but also quantum mechanically. The equilibrium positions of the nuclei and electron probability distributions change with the particular quantum state of the molecule. So yes, they can swell and shrink. In fact, some vibrations are called “breathing” modes.
Thank you, BA Bushaw.
When solar irradiated, the larger atoms get warmed at higher temperatures.
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
When solar irradiated, a plate of gold gets warmer than a plate of polished coper.
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Excellent presentation!
Reminds of the ending of the film ‘2012’. The ultra rich sailing into the sunset, and species extinction, since none on board had the ability – or desire- to ‘work the soil for a living’.
A second point, quote “The foundations of a civilisation are, first, a reliable food source that is available throughout the year. Then there follows the setting up of the infrastructure necessary for its generation and efficient distribution and the overall regulation of the society. This will allow that society to grow into a civilisation proper and also liberate its members to attain other objectives starting with art, great buildings such as the early temples, trading and seafaring, the development of writing, and science and the development of metals.” Add to that the great development and improvement to the quality of life of the last century. It goes hand in hand with population growth.
The idea of population control, a link that brought about the dark ages. And the cyclic wax/wane of population brought on by the ~980 yr Eddy cycle. (we are presently at a peak). Year 536 “536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’ ” was one Eddy root. https://www.science.org/content/article/why-536-was-worst-year-be-alive
This was a comment to the Douglas Proctor post below.
???
I don’t think counter-planetary warming policies have the objective of preventing planetary warming from CO2: I think limiting consumerism, free market capitalism and the human population are the true objectives.
I say this because high cost, LIMITED energy reduces consumption, first by making a multitude of companies making consumer products bankrupt (a scaling problem of costs), and second, by making the costs of goods high, reducing consumption by reducing access/demand. However, high costs are not a deterrent to the wealthy, power holding elite, so that the less available products are still available to those at the top.
No environmental policy stops or even inhibits the Bezos or DiCaprios from owning and running mega yachts, mansions by the sea or personal jet aircraft.
In a limited-resource universe, there isn’t enough for 9 billion humans to live a 1st world lifestyle. This belief hasn’t changed since the Club of Rome’s 1972 book, Limits to Growth, came out:
“The report’s findings suggest that, in the absence of significant alterations in resource utilization, it is highly likely that there will be an abrupt and unmanageable decrease in both population and industrial capacity. Despite the report’s facing severe criticism and scrutiny upon its release, subsequent research consistently finds that the global use of natural resources has been inadequately reformed since to alter its basic predictions.” WIKIPEDIA.
The developed world is depopulating, and has been for years. Population growth continues elsewhere. Population control WAS a big topic for years but the subject has disappeared recently because, I think, the population “in need” of control is Black and Brown, raising an existential problem (racism) to the virtue-signalers hiding in the eco-movement. The only thing left for them is to attack consumption. Which is done directly – like Gates’ anti-beef/dairy activism, and indirectly through energy costs and availability.
The sad thing is these fights will continue poverty, discourage upward social and material improvement for billions. But it WILL protect the Bezos-DiCaprio “leadership” from a reduced lifestyle – a demand from the top going back before Rome and before Athens.
I’m astonished that the eco-warriors don’t mention this obvious outcome. But perhaps I shouldn’t be: it’s the Bezos-DiCaprios who are funding the Limiting Growth/Consumption activists. Biting the hand that feeds you, kinda problem, I guess.
The hypocrisy of AGW alarmists amazes. As for instance, taking $3M mega yacht on a 3,000 mile journey across the Atlantic to avoid the COS emissions involved in emissions involved in flying, e.g….
“As part of this mission, Hermann and Team Malizia are sailing environmental activist Greta Thunberg to the UN Climate Action Summit in New York City. The boat sets sail today, August 14, from England on the approximately two-week long journey across the Atlantic. The Swedish teen does not fly due to the impact flying has on the environment. When Greta was invited to join the summit, Team Malizia raised their hands to get her to the summit emission-free.”
It was never good marketing when Al Gore would fly around the world in his private jet to preach to the rest of us that our use of petroleum products was no better than a heroin addiction. Similarly, it’s a stretch for Prince Albert to say we must, “move away from a society that is obsessed with consumption and consumerism,” and that, “we need to reexamine our lifestyles and consider how our actions and daily life are affecting our world,” from the helm of his French-made 197-foot yacht, Slipstream in Port Hercule, the Port of Monaco, where rich and connected folk aboard glamorous private motor yachts and cruise ships from around the world come to play.
So of course… an IPCC climate conference there so that all of those concerned would have a comfortable place to meet and talk about the lubing catastrophe of climate change. Why did the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) hold its December 6-9 meeting in Monaco? How different was it from pretending to save the world while sipping margaritas on a veranda in Cancun with Hollywood swells?
What better guarantee of objectivity and transparency could we hope for than dedicated global warming alarmists gathering in Monaco to charter a course that Leftist politicians will approve. Receipts from the gaming industry funds this 700 year old monarchy which has been ruled by the Grimaldi dynasty since 1419. Monaco’s vision of sustainability is being a favored destination for the world’s rich and famous and royals and upper class.
Farmers in Wisconsin and Iowa and blue-collar voters in Ohio and Michigan and rural voters across the country caught on to the real danger this country faces and it’s not global warming. The people are tired of lifetime professional politicians, tenured academics and government bureaucrats with a sense of entitlement who feel free to use cherry-picked data, phony statistics and fear mongering to push their feel-good, politically-correct, ideologically-driven global warming agenda, no matter what the cost or who gets left out in the cold.
Not quite. But see https://newint.org/features/2010/01/01/history It is nearly right.
A dominant and old problem is pressure from the dominant peer group that demands religiously that all sing from the same hymn sheet.
A look at my orange tree is an eye opener. The ground underneath is littered with dropped small and medium sized new fruit (the June drop is in full swing -early, or may be still to arrive). Nature has an extremely cruel way of eliminating excess. Humans found a way in agriculture to subvert nature’s demand/directive, but it has other ways (two being an induced lemming mentality and poor leadership of society). Abrupt climate change is one of nature’s WMD, but which can be subverted by humans with agrarian management. Yet we fail because we can’t see beyond our noses, let alone see the proverbial trees.
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This is known as the slow walk.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GNIzqeQXEAAXfBQ?format=jpg&name=medium
Little Joey,
Bottom line is that heat waves have been increasing for the last 65 years, pretty much in lockstep increasing GMST, which, beyond the data, is logically, noise theory, and thermodynamically sensible. That the “yabut” non-scientist doesn’t like that, or the references I give, is immaterial.
‘winters in regions like East Asia and North America are becoming colder.’ ~ Earth.com
And, that is despite the corruption to the official record of uhi/ tarmac effects…
Wags – did you read the article, or just the first sentence?
https://www.earth.com/news/why-winters-are-getting-colder-while-world-is-getting-warmer/
Recognizing the inadequacy of global warming alarmist models to deal with strong winds in polar regions and circulation patterns in general…?
“heat waves have been increasing for the last 65 years”
Sure, if you say so. In lockstep with an evolving definition of marriage.
The references I’ve quoted also say so. Thanks for the silly deflection – guess it shows you are not able to discuss the subject.
I must be thick – what references did you quote?
Curious George | May 11, 2024 at 1:59 pm |
I must be thick – what references did you quote?
George – those were the references/studies with the truncated data sets – you know the ones with a start decade in which the frequency of heat waves at a low point in the multi-decadal cycles.
George,
“I must be thick” – maybe a little.
Increasing heat and rainfall extremes now far outside the historical climate. npj Clim Atmos Sci 4, 45 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-021-00202-w
https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-high-and-low-temperatures
https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-heat-waves
https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/about/co2_measurements.pdf
By this definition, an Arctic winter snowstorm is a heat wave.
“By this definition, an Arctic winter snowstorm is a heat wave.”
Some things require common sense. If having a mathematical test bothers you (others are available), go with a descriptive common sense definition:
U.S. National Weather Service defines a heat wave as a spell of “abnormally and uncomfortably hot and unusually humid weather” spanning two days or more. Probably doesn’t apply to Arctic snowstorms.
BA, I expect a definition which satisfies a common sense. Maybe we can agree that this matter is not as simple as it seems to be. I agree that we can find a definition according to which heat waves have been increasing for the last 65 years.
BA Bushaw (ganon1950) | May 9, 2024 at 7:22 pm | Reply
Bottom line is that heat waves have been increasing for the last 65 years,
Yep – increasing for the last 65 years – That is not in dispute
Why not use – the last 150 years. – Drill down in greater detail and longer period for context – your talking point based on truncated data sets kinda evaporates
Please define a heat wave.
Joe,
I’ve already told you several times. If you don’t understand me, you’ll have to read the papers and ask the authors to explain it to you.
George,
You’re asking joe to provide the definition of a heatwave? LOL
” A definition based on the Heat Wave Duration Index is that a heat wave occurs when the daily maximum temperature of more than five consecutive days exceeds the average maximum temperature by 5 °C (9 °F), the normal period being 1961–1990. The same definition is used by the World Meteorological Organization.” [Wiki: Heat wave]
Joe, you’ll have to do your 150-year dream study yourself, nobody else has the needed data.
By this definition, an Arctic winter snowstorm is a heat wave.
The media had a field day with this “heat wave” in Antarctica from 2022.
“ This record-shattering event set a new all-time high-temperature record of -9.4°C on 18 March near Concordia Station on the Antarctic Plateau in East Antarctica, with temperatures some 30°C—40°C above average.”
Apparently they thought the conversion challenged would miss that it was still 17F below freezing.
They have no shame.
Here’s one view on North Pacific heat waves …
https://phys.org/news/2024-05-north-pacific-due-china-aerosols.html
The Planet Surface Rotational Warming Phenomenon is not constrained by the Holder’s inequality between integrals.
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https://www.cristos-vournas.com
One view of the foundation/legal/activist play book …
Mr George Soras’ ‘ Open’ Society funding the Tides Foundation.
Oh those Foundations!
Foundations are a way for wealth to escape taxation and continue to be self-directing. Most would say that the Red Cross deserves its tax-free status. Yet, would we agree that giving migrants maps, contact numbers, food and other assistance, while they are in Central America, for the long journey to America? There are many similar examples where certain activities cross the line from what is generally perceived as charity to alleviate a hardship from one party to an activity that will have an effect on a third party. What is the definition of charity? What is the goal of charity? If a charity is funded by Exxon, is the activity tainted? What if the funders are from Silicon Valley? The Catholic Church? Who decides?
The structure has been abused, and probably from day one. If it costs us $1 to run our government, and someone is given tax exemption, amounting to $0.1, then the taxes have to be raised $0.1 on the rest of us. Each of us funds all charitable foundations, whether we agree with their giving or not.
The foundations claim they are giving benefits to society that government can’t, or can’t do efficiently. I’m sure some do. I’m also sure not all do.
Bill Fab – I work with several foundations. Your comments are reasonably accurate in context for the large national foundations including many of the private college endowment foundations (yale, harvard, oberlin, etc).
One of the problems is the definition of exempt purpose has become overly broad, that allows the foundation to stray fairly far from funding an operating charity with an actual exempt purpose – ie a charity that is actually providing charitable program services. Note that a private foundation only has to distribute approx 5% of net assets to operating charities to maintain the lower 1% tax rate on investment income ( 2% tax rate if it fails to distribute the 5% required distributions)
one of the exempt purposes is “education” and “sciences”. Education includes funding a schools operations, teachers comp, textbooks buildings maintenance, etc. Education also includes educating the “public” on policy issues – Global warming. Science includes both actual research and advocacy.
bill and Hillary’s Global foundation was somewhat similar in that very little, if any, of the disbursements went to any charities with actual program services. That foundation also had issues with “pay for play”. not surprising no DOJ investigation.
Thanks for the technical info, Joe.
I’ve watched the social behavior of foundations for a while. By that I mean, how they function as a social mechanism. From the outside it seems that altruism has taken a back seat to … accounting. They are businesses and need to be run efficiently. Given the large amounts of capital they have/control, I’m of the opinion that the structures don’t need to have tax exemption any more. I’d do away with it completely. And I’m including religions, too. [Was that an earthquake I just felt? ;-) ]
If humanity actually is responsible for causing an extinction in the modern era it will have to be the 6th extinction because there already have been 5 major extinctions on Earth before any people were around to cut down and burn a single log. If we are ever able to predict species extinction rates on Earth it will only be when we can appreciate change wrought by inevitable natural climate change ebbs and flows and accept to our chagrin that humanity is not the cause.
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What else – just adapt.
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https://www.cristos-vournas.com
“However, climate change is better characterized as a wicked problem, with great complexity and uncertainties…”
Regardless of the specific area of research, when digging down deep enough the complexities and uncertainties are immense. Antarctica is a microcosm for all the other issues of climate science. Most likely the public believes the rise in temperature of 1 C has been responsible for all of the angst about the future of the Antarctic, and yet the reality is much more complex, as is our knowledge and lack of knowledge of the interrelationships and interdependencies of all the processes involved.
These are a few of those areas being researched.
“ Geothermal heat flow (GHF) is a key basal boundary condition for Antarctic ice-sheet flow.” Li, 2024
“ Geothermal heat flow is a key parameter in governing ice dynamics, via its influence on basal melt and sliding, englacial rheology, and erosion. It is expected to exhibit significant lateral variability across Antarctica. Despite this, surface heat flow derived from Earth’s interior remains one of the most poorly constrained parameters controlling ice sheet evolution.” Hazzard 2024
“ Our results suggest that model simulations of this region systematically underestimate meltwater production using current GHF models” McCormack 2022
“ Geothermal heat flow (GHF) is the dominant fac- 1 Introduction tor affecting the basal thermal regime of ice sheet dynamics.
But it is poorly defined for the Antarctic ice sheet.” Huang 2024
“ We show that the rapidly retreating Thwaites and Pope glaciers in particular are underlain by areas of largely elevated geothermal heat flow, which relates to the tectonic and magmatic history of the West Antarctic Rift System in this region. Our results imply that the behavior of this vulnerable sector of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is strongly coupled to the dynamics of the underlying lithosphere.” Dziadek 2021
“ Our finding of a substantial volcanic heat source beneath a major WAIS glacier highlights the need to understand subglacial volcanism, its hydrologic interaction with the marine margins, and its potential role in the future stability of the WAIS.” Loose 2018
“ The presence of such a volcanic belt traversing the deepest marine basins beneath the centre of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet could prove to be a major influence on the past behaviour and future stability of the ice sheet.” deVries 2017
“ The high geothermal heat flux may help to explain why ice streams and subglacial lakes are so abundant and dynamic in this region.” Fisher 2015
“ Geothermal heat flow is a boundary condition for modelling ice loss. In particular, the fast-changing Thwaites Glacier of West Antarctica, and the outlet glaciers of the Wilkes and Aurora Basins of East Antarctica, are locations of great concern.” Reading 2022
“ Uncertainty in earth rheology causes large uncertainty in projected glacier mass loss.” Book 2022
“ Precipitation over Antarctica remains largely unknown, despite its crucial role in the surface mass balance of the Antarctic ice sheet. Using unprecedented observations covering an entire year, this work describes a previously unknown mechanism that leads to the sublimation of a large fraction of snowfall in the lower atmosphere, resulting from the interaction of precipitation and katabatic winds” Grazioli 2017
“ Despite its importance, the interaction between the Southern Ocean and the Antarctic Ice Sheet is not well represented in models at present (Nowicki & Seroussi, 2018). The lack of comprehensive and sustained ocean observations along the Antarctic margin makes it difficult to understand ocean dynamics and replicate them in ocean models.” Dinh 2024
“ Unprecedented mass gain over the Antarctic ice sheet between 2021 and 2022 caused by large precipitation anomalies” Wang 2023
“….Tinto and Bell 2011 suggested a similar scenario for Thwaites Glacier by arguing that about 55–150 years ago the ice stream may have unpinned from the western part of a submarine ridge located 40 km seaward of its modern grounding line.“ Larter 2014
“ Our data reveal a volume of groundwater within a >1-kilometer-thick sedimentary basin that is more than an order of magnitude larger than the known subglacial system. A vertical salinity gradient indicates exchange between paleo seawater at depth and contemporary basal meltwater above.” Gufstafson 2022
“ Earth’s crust deforms under the load of glaciers and ice sheets. When these masses are removed, the crust rebounds at a time scale determined by the viscosity of the upper mantle. Using GPS, Barletta et al. found that the viscosity of the mantle under the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is much lower than expected. This means that as ice is lost, the crust rebounds much faster than previously expected. Although estimates of total ice loss have to be revised upward, the surprising finding indicates that the ice sheet may stabilize against catastrophic collapse.” Barletta 2018
Links to the above studies.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2023GL106201
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2023GL106274
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2022GL098539
More links
https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/18/103/2024/tc-18-103-2024.pdf
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-021-00242-3
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-04421-3
Yet more
https://www.lyellcollection.org/doi/full/10.1144/sp461.7
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1500093
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-022-00348-y
More
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X22004344
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1707633114
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2023GL106377
More links
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2211711120
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ad0863
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379113004101
Last two
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm3301
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aao1447
Thanks, Kid.
This is certainly an interesting comment!
https://judithcurry.com/2024/04/18/how-we-know-that-the-sun-changes-the-climate-part-i-the-past/#comment-1005625
Gives new meaning in comparing the global warming alarmist agenda to a trash fire.
‘Most of the world’s energy is from fossil fuels. Raising prices of oil, coal and natural gas to limit their use would have an obvious result. Climate action through increased energy costs will likely harm the poor the most, both in rich and poor countries.’ ~Bjorn Lomborg
Worth noting in Jacobson’s multitude of studies for 100% renewable electric generation by 2050 for 145 countries includes a very nominal per capita increase in electric usage. Especially unrealistic assumption for most of the african continent and other poor countries whose current per capita electric usage is a mere fraction of the industrialized world. Lets doom the poor countries to perpetual poverty.
Government-funded Western academia’s global warming hysterics raises the big question- when did people start trusting the government? That never happened, which points to the real problem: trust has nothing to do with it. We’re dealing with the 47% who out of self-interest support the government irrespective of truth.
A planet does not emit at a SINGLE temperature.
— And,
two planets with the same mean surface temperature (Tmean) may emit dramatically different amounts of INFRARED radiative energy.
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https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Two planets with the same mean surface temperature may emit, on the average surface area, may emit dramatically different amounts of IR outgoing EM energy.
Moon’s average surface temperature is Tmoon = 220 K
Mars’ average surface temperature is Tmars = 210 K
Moon’s average surface Albedo a =0,11
Mars’ average surface Albedo a =0,25
It can be demonstrated that for the same Albedo Mars and Moon would have had the same average surface temperature.
The solar flux on Moon is So =1361W/m²
The solar flux on Mars is S =586W/m²
It is obvious, that for the same average surface temperature, the emitted amounts of energy from Moon, on the average surface area, are dramatically higher than the emitted amounts of energy from Mars.
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
There is a simple explanation for the discrepancy: Mars has an atmosphere that is 95% CO2 and has 15 times the absolute concentration found on Earth (optically thick for CO2 and enough pressure that collision times allow thermal redistribution). Also (1-a) = fraction absorbed, is the relevant absorption coefficient, not ‘a’ (the reflected part). (1-a) = 0.75 is not so different from 0.89.
Also, the 210 C temperature on Mars, moves the BBR spectral peak close to the saturated CO2 14.9 um absorption band.
Now, if Moon had Earth’s Albedo, Moon’s average surface temperature would have been 206,7 K.
So, 288K – 206,7K = 81,4C difference.
And here we have the opposite example:
Two planets emitting the same amounts of IR outgoing EM energy, may have dramatically different average surface temperatures.
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https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Atmosphere of Venus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Venus
Height Temp. Atmospheric pressure
(km) (°C)……….(atm)
0 462 92.10
5 424 66.65
10 385 47.39
15 348 33.04
20 306 22.52
25 264 14.93
30 222 9.851
35 180 5.917
40 143 3.501
45 110 1.979
50 75 1.066
55 27 0.531 4
60 −10 0.235 7
65 −30 0.097 65
70 −43 0.036 90
80 −76 0.004 760
90 −104 0.000 373 6
100 −112 0.000 026 60
Venus has a runaway atmospheric greenhouse effect.
Albedo a = 0,76 (Bond), S= 2601 W/m²
(1 – 0,76)*2601 W/m² = 624 W/m²
Earth Albedo a = 0,306 (Bond), So = 1361 W/m²
(1 – 0,306)*1361 W/m² = 945 W/m²
Let’s compare:
Earth 945 W/m² 1 atm., CO2 0,04%, 14 (°C)
Venus 624 W/m² 0,235 atm., CO2 96,5%, -10 (°C)
Venus
624/945 = 0,66
0,235*96,5 = 22,68
0,66*22,68 = 14,97
Earth
945/945 = 1
1*0,04 = 0,04
1*0,04 = 0,04
Let’s continue the Venus/Earth comparison :
14,97/0,04 = 374 times more CO2 but the temperature is -10(°C)
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https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Geothermal differences re Mars vs Moon- e.g., there are volcanoes on Mars.
Fossil fulz rulz.
That combination means Georgia’s success in luring this development comes with a side effect: Power is a big source of tension. The clean-energy goals of companies and governments are running up against the need for projects to break ground fast. So far, climate advocates fear the imperatives of growth mean more fossil fuels.
Georgia’s main utility, Georgia Power, has boosted its demand projections sixteen-fold and is pushing ahead on a hotly contested plan to burn more natural gas. Critics warn it will yield higher bills and unnecessary carbon emissions for decades. Some companies are scrambling to secure bespoke renewable-energy deals to power their development.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/ar-BB1mfhwf
AI is about energy. And energy is now about AI. The vast amounts of computing power used to train generative AI and natural language models means that these two things are intertwined.
So prevalent is the data center narrative in the energy industry right now, that there’s some discussion of Big Tech companies influencing the future path of global decarbonization efforts.
To see just how dominant the data center narrative has been, take a look at Dominion Energy Inc., which says it’s connected 94 data centers over the past five years that are collectively consuming about four gigawatts of electricity — or roughly the output of four nuclear reactors and enough to power about three million homes
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-08/the-power-industry-is-quickly-becoming-one-big-ai-play
Rest assured jim2, all that money spent on AI will solve all mankind’s problems. Just imagine that in a few years AI will design a super intelligent life form will replace humans and restore balance to the universe.
https://singularityhub.com/2024/05/09/google-deepminds-new-alphafold-maps-lifes-molecular-dance-in-seconds/
It’s worse than we thought!!!
The bill will be immense. If average global temperature rises are to be limited in line with the 2015 Paris Agreement, climate finance globally will need to increase to about $US9 trillion ($13.6 trillion) a year globally by 2030, up from just under $US1.3 trillion in 2021-22, according to a report last year from the Climate Policy Initiative.
A separate report released last month found that Europe will need to invest €800 billion ($1.3 trillion) in its energy infrastructure to meet 2030 climate goals, and a total of €2.5 trillion to complete the green transition by 2050.
Former US presidential candidate John Kerry, who stepped down from his role as the US special climate envoy in March, puts the challenge of meeting this bluntly: “We don’t have the money.”
https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/the-13-6-trillion-question-how-do-we-pay-for-the-green-transition-20240507-p5fpwo
I know what! Let’s pull some numbers from our collective arse.
38 trillion dollars in damages each year: World economy already committed to income reduction of 19 % due to climate change
https://www.pik-potsdam.de/en/news/latest-news/38-trillion-dollars-in-damages-each-year-world-economy-already-committed-to-income-reduction-of-19-due-to-climate-change
It is amazing with all this damage the human population has continued to grow rapidly.
Maybe we are space aliens after all!
Funny to hear recently, story of the 2 chatbots- AI – having a discussion with one another and it was totally intelligible. It would be interesting to have a similar discussion about AGW with the requirement that all arguments and conjectures conform with the scientific method. The discussion would end quickly when both in inevitably agreed that based on the facts, nothing is happening now that cannot be explained by natural causes.
Dr. Curry,
It has been over a year since I read Koonin’s “Unsettled”, and nearly as long as since I read your book on Climate Uncertainty and Risk. My main takeaway from Koonin was his advice for scientists to stick to science and let policy makers do the policy making. Since there is little science in this piece, and lots of policy advice (much of it dubious), I gather you have moved on from science.
‘Despite the statements of numerous scientific societies, the scientific community cannot claim any special expertise in addressing issues related to humanity’s deepest goals and values… Any serious discussion of the changing climate must begin by acknowledging not only the scientific certainties but also the uncertainties, especially in projecting the future.’ ~Dr. Steven Koonin
I am skeptical of this paper and won’t trust it unless and until someone I trust vets if for cherry-picked data, sound basis for conclusions, appropriate and correct use of statistical methods, etc.
The summer of 2023 was hotter than any other in the Northern Hemisphere for the past two millennia, according to a study published Tuesday in Nature. And as scorching as 2023 was, the coming summer could be even hotter — largely because of manmade climate change heating the planet, compounded by an El Niño weather cycle.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-14/last-summer-was-the-hottest-in-2-000-years-and-2024-could-top-it
https://issuu.com/johna.shanahan/docs/210712_glaciers_reveal_tree_stumps_from_a_warmer_t
Worth noting that the advancing and subsequent retreating of the glacier likely indicates a much larger swing in temps that reflected in the paleo reconstructions.
jim2 –
The lead author of the cited article is Jan Esper. Have you read any other articles by Esper? I wonder if doing so might temper your skepticism. Try this one:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277379116301469
Very nice article. But that isn’t the same thing as a trusted source vetting a published article.
You may read about the HISTORIC!!! flooding in Brazil. Actually, it happened in the past, 1941.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1941_Porto_Alegre_floods
Interested to see lengths to an opinion piece but behind a paywall so I can only imagine what Hayek quotes may be referred to in the opinion-
‘Opinion: Friedrich Hayek tried to warn us about the ‘social justice’ left
Opinion: Friedrich Hayek tried to warn us about the ‘social justice’ left. Friedrich Hayek tried to warn us about the ‘social…’
Can’t imagine many possible, e.g.,
‘We are ready to accept almost any explanation of the present crisis of our civilization except one: that the present state of the world may be the result of genuine error on our own part and that the pursuit of some of our most cherished ideals has apparently produced results utterly different from those which we expected.’
Friedrich A. von Hayek, The Road to Serfdom
Hayek obviously foresaw the ‘woke’ movement and betrayal of Leftist Western academia on the altar of liberal Utopia.
any of us are astounded by the ways in which society is being changed by people and bodies that did not exist or have much significance a couple of decades ago. There are recommendations by people like Steve Koonin that scientists needs more say in guiding the future – but that does not address who selects anthe scientists and who gives them authority.
In some other sectors of society sport being one, there is effort put into ensuring that scores are measured and stored accurately. There are high-level commissions with strong powers who rule over some sports. Science is a little like sport of you think of measurements in the manner of keeping scores. If csores are wrong or questiopned, there are mechanisms of correction. If there is deliberate alteration of true scores, there are schemes for punishment.
IMHO, right now the scientific world needs a new organization at each level where good could be done. We now have examples of alleged corruption of science, such as the Rockefeller Foundation and the LNT theory, see Prof Edward Calabrese; and emerging evicence of corruption of the established scientific procedures for Covid “vaccines”.
But, there is no existing body of which I am aware that has, as its main function, the detection and investigation of scientific corruption. Yet, we have it in sport.
As I scientist, I have seen many examples of climate change research that is corrupt. Some other older and experienced people like Rud Istvan have also written about this.
(Today, I am feeling my age on our 60th wedding anniversary. It was spent by both of us being sick with flu-like symptoms and self with C-reactive protein elevation into the 60s. When you are like this, you do not feel adequate to develop important social suggestions. One can but hope that other scientists, concerned by the present flood of science nonsense and with reputations to back their concerns, will pick up on the threads of what I have written, or even make it into an article that Dr Curry might consider accepting here.
But … but … it’s PEER REVIEWED!
Fake studies have flooded the publishers of top scientific journals, leading to thousands of retractions and millions of dollars in lost revenue. The biggest hit has come to Wiley, a 217-year-old publisher based in Hoboken, N.J., which Tuesday announced that it was closing 19 journals, some of which were infected by large-scale research fraud. In the past two years, Wiley has retracted more than 11,300 papers that appeared compromised, according to a spokesperson, and closed four journals. It isn’t alone: At least two other publishers have retracted hundreds of suspect papers each. Several others have pulled smaller clusters of bad papers.
https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/05/15/1449205/flood-of-fake-science-forces-multiple-journal-closures
Another “win” for “green” energy. From Jo Nova’s site:
The glut in solar power in Australia is so big that next year solar panel owners in Sydney will have to pay 1.2c a kilowatt hour to offload their unwanted energy between 10am and 3pm. Nearly a million homes in Sydney have solar panels, but only 7% of them have batteries, which means basically, thousands of homes installed hi-tech generators that aren’t very useful. Worse, other homes were forced to pay part of the costs for them. The only winner was China.
Finally, a tiny part of the strangled free market is re-asserting itself, which might slow down future installations, or trick a few people into installing a $9,000 battery. Naturally this unpredictable rule change will hurt the poorest solar owners, but benefit those wealthy enough to afford a battery.
You will have to look up her blog, links don’t work here.
Jim2 – you are touching on one of the fallacies of the LCOE computation.
Most commentators point out the LCOE only computes the cost of generation with the costs of maintaining the stability of the system, including the backup generation storage costs.
What is omitted is the LCOE when wind or solar production is low. ie when the wind isnt blowing or the winter when solar output is 1/2 or 1/3 of summer production. The LCOE is vastly higher during those periods
What is also omitted is when wind and solar is over producing – ie when producing more that what can be used. What is the LCOE for the electricity used vs electricity produced.
Those issues become very apparent when wind and solar have high penetrations in the production mix. So long as the penetrations are low, then the corrected LCOE can remain obscured with “averages”.
This new Texas power company’s electricity comes with a home battery
https://electrek.co/2024/05/09/texas-power-company-home-battery-base/
“Base Power just became the only licensed electricity provider in Texas to offer customers an all-in-one monthly energy service, home battery, and installation, and solar isn’t required.
Base Power operates in deregulated areas of Texas”
Nice to see some competition on our side of the meter! Just add solar and you can have your own grid-tied microgrid. I bet there are a lot of Australians who would sign up for something like this.
https://www.basepowercompany.com/
If it works for them, that’s great. But I do note my genny cost $400, not $2000.
$400 gensets don’t have 120 & 240 output, instant start or instant auto transfer. Oh, and be sure the battery in your CO detector is good.
My $300 2000KW DC/AC inverter will power my house for 3 days when I plug it into my Chevy Volt.
One of these days they will sell bi-directional EVs with cheap snap-on adaptors that will turn every house into a Virtual Power Plant.
https://connectder.com/
My gen set will supply power as long as natural gas is up and running. And I have other options even if that goes down the tubes.
Just curious… In the last few years have you needed to fire up your gen set and for how long? In my area blackouts seem to be happening more often due to local weather events and are taking longer to repair. Not counting winter storm Uri I have had 3 blackouts that I needed to switch on my backup system since 2021, the worst being 26hrs.
We have short blackouts, but nothing requiring the genny so far. Knock on wood.
“If you only expose one side of your body to the Sun, the other side won’t burn at all.
Probably why rotisseries rotate the meat – even the temperature out.”
Yes, exactly. And the slow rotation is not enough either, the slow rotation also destroys the meat. When rotation is slow, meat gets burnt from outside and its inside remains raw.
The faster rotation makes more heat to get in.
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
EVs are finally showing the truth about what a dog of a deal they really are. They have a 5 year depreciation rate of about 50% compared to 40% for a ICEV.
Experts are already saying that electric cars have a way worse depreciation rate than gas-fueled cars. Hertz, now realizing this, has put up its rental Teslas for sale, and for a time, they were selling fast, but reports are starting to say that used EVs are a bad purchase.
There’s a reason why Hertz is getting rid of its EVs. Aside from the depreciation, Teslas are also expensive to maintain and repair. Before people realized this, many had already gone and bought the vehicles from Hertz, as mentioned in Gizmodo.
A salesman working for the company in Smithtown said that at one point, they were selling as many as 30 Teslas in a week but has since slowed down. Buyers seem to have forgotten to register that used cars are different from used rental cars, with the latter being more prone to wear.
https://www.itechpost.com/articles/122396/20240516/hertz-selling-used-rental-teslas-realizing-maintenance-cost-evs.htm