The so-called hiatus in global annual average temperature between 2002 – 2014, once controversial to some but now well-established in the peer-reviewed literature, ended in 2014 with the start of a series of record-breaking El Nino events that spiked global temperature with a subsequent fall-back. Now a new study into the effect of man-made aerosol pollution adds to likely reasons for the end of the hiatus, and may point to lower estimates for future global warming.
An international research team writing in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, uses satellite data to show that concentrations of aerosol particles have decreased significantly since 2000. This is good news as cleaner air benefits health, but it also reduces particles’ which have a cooling effect on the terrestrial climate.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), by 2019 the global temperature had risen by 1.1 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels due to increasing greenhouse gasses from burning fossil fuels. At the same time the combustion of fossil fuels emit aerosols which cool our climate by reflecting sunlight and increasing the reflectivity of clouds.
Professor Johannes Quaas, a meteorologist at Leipzig University, and colleagues from Europe, China, and the US have published robust observational evidence of significant reduction of aerosol pollution and improved global air quality.
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When taken together with a couple of super-strong El Nino events which temporarily drove up global temperature (see graph below), the new findings suggest that the global warming hiatus — clearly evident prior to 2014 — may not have ended yet. If NASA’s satellite data are confirmed, it would suggest that much of the very moderate changes in global temperature this century may have been driven primarily by cleaner air and naturally-occurring El Ninos.
Global temperature changes 2000-2022. Source: Met Office/HadCRUT5…
Amidst the European energy crisis, it’s easy to miss other events that are of significance to the discussion about the climate-change movement.
Among them are a series of setbacks to green policies in China and India.
These countries — representing three billion people — have delayed implementation of renewable energy commitments and aggressively increased the production and consumption of fossil fuels.
At the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, Chinese and Indian leaders — along with their counterparts from Russia and Turkey — explicitly declared that they cannot be coerced into reducing fossil fuel consumption, calling for an “increased investment in oil and gas production and exploration.”
As usual, the mainstream media neither published this news in headlines nor discussed how the proliferation of fossil fuels in these countries make the so-called net zero measures in the West irrelevant to the objectives of climate alarmists.
As the world’s second biggest coal user and home to 1.3 billion people, India has deemphasized its commitment to transitioning to renewable energy.
According to reports, the country fell significantly short of its solar-installation targets, jeopardizing its overall transition goals.
India’s Economic Times reported that at least 25 gigawatts (GW) of solar power projects that were expected to be operational or nearly complete faced delays or uncertainties.
The deferrals of solar installations now make it impossible to attain the planned addition of 450 GW in renewable capacity by 2030.
The Times says India “added 10 GW of solar capacity in 2021, while it needs to add close to 30 GW every year to be able to meet the target.”
The National Solar Mission — India’s internationally renowned solar energy strategy — is in disarray, with only half its promised capacity in place.
India considers coal plants an integral part of its energy sector.
by P. Homewood, Sep 23, 2022 in ClimateChangeDispatch
For years the ‘experts’ have been telling us that the Arctic would soon be ice-free in summer.
Al Gore notoriously warned us in 2009 that ‘there is a 75 percent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years.’
He was, of course, just a politician. But a whole host of supposed Arctic scientists were all busy issuing similar warnings at the time. [bold, links added]
In 2007, for instance, Professor Wieslaw Maslowski told us that northern polar waters could be ice-free in summers within just five to six years.
In December of that year, Jay Zwally of Nasa agreed, giving the ice till 2012. A year later, in 2008 Professor David Barber went one step further, saying the ice would all be gone that very summer.
For sheer persistence in getting it wrong, however, the prize must go to Peter Wadhams, professor and head of the Polar Ocean Physics Group in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge:
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• In 2012, he predicted that the Arctic would be ice-free by 2015/16.
• In 2014, he thought it might last till 2020.
• In 2016, he confidently predicted the Arctic would be ice-free that summer (though curiously he now defined ‘ice-free’ as less than 1 million square kilometers).
