Tous les articles par Alain Préat

Full-time professor at the Free University of Brussels, Belgium apreat@gmail.com apreat@ulb.ac.be • Department of Earth Sciences and Environment Res. Grp. - Biogeochemistry & Modeling of the Earth System Sedimentology & Basin Analysis • Alumnus, Collège des Alumni, Académie Royale de Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux Arts de Belgique (mars 2013). http://www.academieroyale.be/cgi?usr=2a8crwkksq&lg=fr&pag=858&rec=0&frm=0&par=aybabtu&id=4471&flux=8365323 • Prof. Invited, Université de Mons-Hainaut (2010-present-day) • Prof. Coordinator and invited to the Royal Academy of Sciences of Belgium (Belgian College) (2009- present day) • Prof. partim to the DEA (third cycle) led by the University of Lille (9 universities from 1999 to 2004) - Prof. partim at the University of Paris-Sud/Orsay, European-Socrates Agreement (1995-1998) • Prof. partim at the University of Louvain, Convention ULB-UCL (1993-2000) • Since 2015 : Member of Comité éditorial de la Revue Géologie de la France http://geolfrance.brgm.fr • Since 2014 : Regular author of texts for ‘la Revue Science et Pseudosciences’ http://www.pseudo-sciences.org/ • Many field works (several weeks to 2 months) (Meso- and Paleozoic carbonates, Paleo- to Neoproterozoic carbonates) in Europe, USA (Nevada), Papouasia (Holocene), North Africa (Algeria, Morrocco, Tunisia), West Africa (Gabon, DRC, Congo-Brazzaville, South Africa, Angola), Iraq... Recently : field works (3 to 5 weeks) Congo- Brazzaville 2012, 2015, 2016 (carbonate Neoproterozoic). Degree in geological sciences at the Free University of Brussels (ULB) in 1974, I went to Algeria for two years teaching mining geology at the University of Constantine. Back in Belgium I worked for two years as an expert for the EEC (European Commission), first on the prospecting of Pb and Zn in carbonate environments, then the uranium exploration in Belgium. Then Assistant at ULB, Department of Geology I got the degree of Doctor of Sciences (Geology) in 1985. My thesis, devoted to the study of the Devonian carbonate sedimentology of northern France and southern Belgium, comprised a significant portion of field work whose interpretation and synthesis conducted to the establishment of model of carbonate platforms and ramps with reefal constructions. I then worked for Petrofina SA and shared a little more than two years in Angola as Director of the Research Laboratory of this oil company. The lab included 22 people (micropaleontology, sedimentology, petrophysics). My main activity was to interpret facies reservoirs from drillings in the Cretaceous, sometimes in the Tertiary. I carried out many studies for oil companies operating in this country. I returned to the ULB in 1988 as First Assistant and was appointed Professor in 1990. I carried out various missions for mining companies in Belgium and oil companies abroad and continued research, particularly through projects of the Scientific Research National Funds (FNRS). My research still concerns sedimentology, geochemistry and diagenesis of carbonate rocks which leads me to travel many countries in Europe or outside Europe, North Africa, Papua New Guinea and the USA, to conduct field missions. Since the late 90's, I expanded my field of research in addressing the problem of mass extinctions of organisms from the Upper Devonian series across Euramerica (from North America to Poland) and I also specialized in microbiological and geochemical analyses of ancient carbonate series developing a sustained collaboration with biologists of my university. We are at the origin of a paleoecological model based on the presence of iron-bacterial microfossils, which led me to travel many countries in Europe and North Africa. This model accounts for the red pigmentation of many marble and ornamental stones used in the world. This research also has implications on the emergence of Life from the earliest stages of formation of Earth, as well as in the field of exobiology or extraterrestrial life ... More recently I invested in the study from the Precambrian series of Gabon and Congo. These works with colleagues from BRGM (Orléans) are as much about the academic side (consequences of the appearance of oxygen in the Paleoproterozoic and study of Neoproterozoic glaciations) that the potential applications in reservoir rocks and source rocks of oil (in collaboration with oil companies). Finally I recently established a close collaboration with the Royal Institute of Natural Sciences of Belgium to study the susceptibility magnetic signal from various European Paleozoic series. All these works allowed me to gain a thorough understanding of carbonate rocks (petrology, micropaleontology, geobiology, geochemistry, sequence stratigraphy, diagenesis) as well in Precambrian (2.2 Ga and 0.6 Ga), Paleozoic (from Silurian to Carboniferous) and Mesozoic (Jurassic and Cretaceous) rocks. Recently (2010) I have established a collaboration with Iraqi Kurdistan as part of a government program to boost scientific research in this country. My research led me to publish about 180 papers in international and national journals and presented more than 170 conference papers. I am a holder of eight courses at the ULB (5 mandatory and 3 optional), excursions and field stages, I taught at the third cycle in several French universities and led or co-managed a score of 20 Doctoral (PhD) and Post-doctoral theses and has been the promotor of more than 50 Masters theses.
energy and fields

China approves biggest expansion in new coal power plants since 2015

by P. Homewood, Feb 27, 2023 in NotaLotofpeopleKnowThat

When will Western leaders realise they have been hoodwinked by China?

China approved the construction of another 106 gigawatts of coal-fired power capacity last year, four times higher than a year earlier and the highest since 2015, research shows.

Over the year, 50GW of coal power capacity went into construction across the country – up by more than half compared with the previous year – driven by energy security considerations, the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) and Global Energy Monitor (GEM) said on Monday.

“The speed at which projects progressed through permitting to construction in 2022 was extraordinary, with many projects sprouting up, gaining permits, obtaining financing and breaking ground apparently in a matter of months,” said GEM analyst Flora Champenois.

The amount of new capacity connected to the grid had slowed in recent years after a decline in new approvals over the 2017-2020 period, but it is set to rebound over the next few years, driven by concerns about power shortages.

Many of the newly approved projects were identified as “supporting” baseload capacity designed to ensure the stability of the power grid and minimise blackout risks, the CREA-GEM report said.

However, many were being built in regions that already had a clear capacity surplus, and power supply problems would be better addressed by improving grid reliability and efficiency, the authors said.

China suffered a wave of blackouts in September 2021 as a result of coal supply shortages, cutting off thousands of homes and factories. A long drought last year also saw a dramatic drop in hydropower generation and the rationing of electricity.

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climate-debate

The test that exonerates CO2

by J. Vinos, Feb 26, 2023

Most people don’t have a clear understanding of the greenhouse effect (GHE). It is not complicated to understand, but it is usually not well explained. It is often described as “heat-trapping,” but that is incorrect. Greenhouse gases (GHG) do not trap heat, even if more heat resides within the climate system due to their presence in the atmosphere. The truth is that after adjusting to a change in GHG levels, the planet still returns all the energy it receives from the Sun. Otherwise, it would continue warming indefinitely. So, there is no change in the energy returned. How do GHGs produce GHE?

GHGs cause the atmosphere to be more opaque to infrared radiation. As solar radiation heats mainly the ocean and land surface of the planet, GHGs absorb thermal emission from the surface at the lower troposphere and immediately pass that energy along to other molecules (typically N2 and O2) through collisions that occur much faster than the time it would take to re-emit the radiation. This warms the lower troposphere. The density and temperature decrease rapidly through the troposphere, so molecules are colder and more separated at the upper troposphere. Now GHGs have a chance to emit IR radiation so when they finally collide with another molecule, they are colder so GHGs have a cooling effect in the upper troposphere and stratosphere.

Because GHGs make the atmosphere more opaque to IR radiation, when they are present the emission to space from the planet normally does not take place from the surface (as happens in the Moon). Part of it still takes place from the surface through the atmospheric window, but most of it takes place from higher in the atmosphere. We can define a theoretical effective emission height as the average height at which the Earth’s outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) is being emitted. The temperature at which the Earth emits is the temperature at the effective emission height in the atmosphere. That temperature, when measured from space is 250 K (-23°C), not 255 which is the calculated temperature for a theoretical blackbody Earth. That temperature corresponds to a height of about 5 km, which we call the effective emission height.

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climate-debate

Greenland Temperatures Rose 1°C In 1994 … Since Then They Have Been ‘Relatively Constant’

by K. Richard, Feb 27, 2023 in NoTricksZone

A warming event that spans only one year, with decades of stable temperatures before and after, would not appear to align with rapidly rising human CO2 emissions or a gradually rising atmospheric CO2 concentration.

From 1958 to 2020, as CO2 rose from 320 ppm to 410 ppm, Greenland had a warming period of 1°C that lasted one year – 1994. Over the next 26 years (1994-2020) and spanning the years 1958 to 1993, there have been “relatively constant” temperatures across Greenland (Zhang et al., 2022).

These temperature trends appear to align much better with phases of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), Greenland blocking indexes (GBI), and volcanism better than they do with any anthropogenic causal agents.

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unclassified

The 2022 Hurricane Season

by P. Homewood (pdf), Feb 2023 in GWPF

Contents

About the author iii Executive summary v

  1. Introduction 1
  2. Observational methodologies 1
  3. US landfalling hurricanes 3
  4. Atlantic hurricanes 5
  5. Global trends 7
  6. What do the IPCC say? 8

Notes
About the Global Warming Policy Foundation 10

Executive summary

It is widely believed that hurricanes are getting worse as a consequence of climate change. This belief is fuelled by the media and some politicians, particularly when a bad storm occurs. This be- lief is reinforced because the damage caused by hurricanes is much greater nowadays, thanks to increasing populations in vulnerable coastal areas and greater wealth more generally.

But is this belief correct, or is it a misconception? This study has carefully analysed official data and assessments by hurricane scientists, and finds:

• 2021 and 2022 recorded the lowest number of both hurricanes and major hurricanes glob- ally for any two year period since 1980.

• The apparent long-term increase in the number of hurricanes since the 19th century has been due to changes in observational practices over the years, rather than a real increase.

• Data show no long-term trends in US landfalling hurricanes since the mid-19th century, when systematic records began, either in terms of frequency or intensity.

• Similarly, after allowing for the fact that many hurricanes were not spotted prior to the sat- ellite era, there are no such trends in Atlantic hurricanes either.

  • Globally there are also no trends in hurricanes since reliable records began in the 1970s.
  • Evidence is also presented that wind speeds of the most powerful hurricanes may now be overestimated in comparison to pre-satellite era ones, because of changing methods of meas- urement.

• The increase in Atlantic hurricanes in the last fifty years is not part of a long-term trend, but is simply a recovery from a deep minimum in hurricane activity in the 1970s, associated with the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation.

These findings are in line with those of hurricane scientists generally, as well as official bodies such as NOAA and the IPCC.

climate and geology

Early Cretaceous shift in the global carbon cycle affected both land and sea

by University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Feb 22, 2023 in ScienceDaily

Geologists doing fieldwork in southeastern Utah’s Cedar Mountain Formation found carbon isotope evidence that the site, though on land, experienced the same early Cretaceous carbon-cycle change recorded in marine sedimentary rocks in Europe. This ancient carbon-cycle phenomenon, known as the ‘Weissert Event’ was driven by large, sustained volcanic eruptions in the Southern Hemisphere that greatly increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and produced significant greenhouse climate effects over a prolonged time.

Scientific research in recent decades has confirmed that major changes in the global carbon cycle caused significant changes in the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans 135 million years ago, during the early Cretaceous Period. A range of questions remain about the details of climate change dynamics in that era. This new research, involving wide-ranging chemical and radioactivity-based analyses of rock strata in Utah’s Cedar Mountain Formation, helps fill in that knowledge gap by confirming that such carbon-cycle shifts were recorded on land in ancient North America.

The carbon cycle is one of Earth’s fundamental environmental phenomena, involving the ongoing transfer of carbon among the atmosphere, oceans and living organisms, as well as soils, sediments and rocks in the solid Earth. The cycle is crucial to biological processes for living things on land and sea. When large-scale changes in the cycle occur, they can produce major shifts in climate and the oceans’ biological conditions.

“We’re studying how the global carbon cycle has functioned in the past, how changes are recorded in the sedimentary rocks around the world,” said Joeckel, a professor in the School of Natural Resources at Nebraska. The environmental phenomena he and his colleagues analyzed “are exactly the kind of things we’re talking about today, as people increase the input of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at a much-accelerated rate by burning fossil fuels.”

Joeckel, the Nebraska state geologist, headed the Utah fieldwork and organized the study, published as a peer-reviewed paper in a special February issue of the journal Geosciences.

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unclassified

Do European tree ring analyses indicate unusual recent hydroclimate?

by F. Bosse  & N. Lewis, Feb 23, 2023 in WUWT

Not really.

A recent paper (M. B. Freund et al 2023, MBF23 thereafter) in “Nature communication earth and environment” investigates the variability of the summer drought events since 1600. It uses the method of “stable isotope analyses C13/O18” to extend the “Standardised Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) from 1950 to now back to 1600.

The paper describes and uses a multi proxy network over large parts of Europe (see Fig. 1 of MBF23) to reconstruct the history of summer droughts for a longer historic period. It finds interesting results about the dependency of those events on volcanos and solar forcing. It’s a worthwhile read and we were interested in whether the headline title is justified and likewise this claim in the Abstract:

“We show that the recent European summer drought (2015–2018) is highly unusual in a multi-century context…”

Thanks to the authors the used SPEI reconstruction annual data are available, so we were able to perform calculations to check these assertions.

An apparent first “confirmation” of the headline title of the paper appears in Figure 3a in MBH23:

Fig.1: A reproduction of Fig. 3a of MBH23. Annual European mean SPEI-data in blue/red, the low pass filter output is shown in black.

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energy and fields, renewable energy

New geological study proves that the green energy movement is impossible to achieve

by R.A. Bishop, Feb 17, 2023 in LifeSite.AmericanThinker

…

…

The comprehensive study found that the current estimated metal reserves are woefully deficient in almost every category.  The table below lists base and rare earth metals requirements to build the new grid and E.V.s.  Deficits are yellow-highlighted.  For example, copper is an integral part of a high-voltage grid system, coming up short by a shocking 3.7 billion tons.  Can we dig enough open mile-deep ore pits to meet that shortfall?  Improbable.

Table 1 Below is the study’s table estimating the years to produce the required metals at the current production rates.  For example, lithium would take almost 10 millennia to achieve.  In addition, these scarce minerals must be mined, transported, and processed, relying exclusively on fossil fuels, which would create more carbon emissions and deplete hydrocarbon reserves.

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climate-debate

It is Time to Bury the Grand Solar Minimum Myth

by J. Vinos, Feb 19, 2023 in WUWT

Fourteen years ago, a new climate myth was born. A grand solar minimum (GSM) was in the making that would not only reverse global warming but plunge the planet into a new Little Ice Age, surprising the warming alarmists and causing undue suffering. The time has come to bury that myth.

1. The origin of the myth

The deep solar minimum of 2008-2009 was a complete surprise to solar physicists. They did not know that solar activity could become so low because it had not occurred during the time of solar observations with modern instrumentation. In 2009, a solar scientist named Habibullo Abdussamatov published a paper in Russian in which he argued that the following years would see a major cooling based on the onset of a new GSM. His evidence was

  • The low solar activity of the then ongoing solar cycle (SC) minimum 23-24.

  • A bicentennial cycle in solar activity that supposedly decreased solar activity after 1600 and after 1800

  • The pause in global warming since 1998

Figure 1. From Abdussamatov 2009. “The Sun defines the climate”. Nauka i Zhizn, N1, pp. 34-42.

This prediction reached the West and became very popular, like any catastrophic prediction, actually. Articles about the arrival of a GSM proliferated on climate blogs, such as the one on WUWT: The ‘Baby Grand’ has arrived.

Other scientists, such as Livingston & Penn and de Jager & Duhau, joined Abdussamatov in 2009 in proposing the arrival of a GSM, though being more cautious about its climatic effects. It went so far as to threaten the global warming narrative at a time under assault from the Pause and Climategate. Thus, none other than Stefan Rahmstorf came to their defense saying that according to the models

“a new Maunder-type solar activity minimum cannot compensate for global warming caused by human greenhouse gas emissions.”

(Feulner & Rahmstorf 2010)

2. 2012-2015, the myth’s golden years

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biology+acidification, climate-debate

Microbes that co-operate contribute more carbon emissions

by Imperial College London, Feb 13, 2023 in ScienceDaily

Despite being small, microbes, and especially bacteria, contribute a lot to the global carbon cycle — the movement of carbon in various forms through nature. Its level in the atmosphere, and so its influence on climate change, is controlled by a series of sources and sinks, such as respiration and photosynthesis respectively.

Now, new research from Imperial College London and University of Exeter scientists has shown that, when warmed, bacterial communities that have matured to co-operate release more carbon dioxide (CO2) than communities that are in competition with each other.

The results are published in Nature Microbiology.

Co-author Dr Tom Clegg, who led the theory development from the Department of Life Sciences (Silwood Park) at Imperial, said: “Our findings have far-reaching implications given the significant contributions that bacterial communities make to the carbon cycle. We show that changes in bacterial species interactions can rapidly and substantially increase the carbon emissions from natural ecosystems worldwide.”

Bacteria — like humans — respire, taking in oxygen and releasing CO2. Of the many factors that control their level of respiration, temperature is particularly important.

Bacteria form communities of different species in all habitable environments, including in soil, puddles, and in our guts. When communities first form, the bacterial species are often ‘competitive’, each trying to get the best resources.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Climate Expert: What The Media Won’t Tell You About Tornadoes

by R. Pielke, Feb 13, 2023 in ClimateChangeDispatch

This is the latest post in an ongoing series, titled “what the media won’t tell you about…”, which is motivated by the apparent systemic inability of the legacy media to play things straight when it comes to extreme weather and disasters.

Climate change is real and important, but its importance is not an excuse for the pervasive climate misinformation found across the legacy media. [emphasis, links added]

Here are the previous installments in the series, which are among my most popular posts and which have gone unchallenged.

What the media won’t tell you about…

Today’s post focuses on U.S. tornadoes. This year so far has seen a lot of tornadoes — 178 were reportedthrough February 11th, the 2nd most since 2005 and well above the 2005-2022 mean of 66 to date.

Of course, nowadays wherever there is extreme weather, journalists rush to claim a connection to climate change no matter what the science actually says.

For instance, after a tornado outbreak last month, the Associated Press reported that the tornadoes had been “juiced by climate change.”

Similarly, The Washington Post said that in the past it was difficult to tie tornadoes to climate change but now, “science is accumulating to support the linkage.”

Neither reported any of the data and science I share below. So, let’s take a look

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biology+acidification

World’s Coral Reefs Not Declining, New Paper Reveals

by Dr. B. Peiser, Feb 8, 2023 in ClimateChangeDispatch

A new paperpublished by the Global Warming Policy Foundation refutes alarmist claims about the state of the world’s coral reefs.

According to the author, eminent reef scientist Peter Ridd, the official data show no signs of any long-term trends in reef health. [emphasis, links added]

Indeed, the best records – for Australia’s Great Barrier Reef – suggest that coral cover is at record highs.

Dr. Ridd said:

“The public is constantly told that reefs are being irreparably damaged by global warming, but bleaching events, about which there is so much doom-mongering, are simply corals’ natural response to changes in the environment. They are an extraordinarily adaptable lifeform, and bleaching events are almost always followed by rapid recovery.”

Dr. Ridd suggests that rather than being seen as under threat from climate change, corals should actually be recognized as one of the organisms least likely to suffer harm in a warming world.

“Corals get energy from a symbiotic relationship with various species of algae. When environmental conditions change, they [coral] can rapidly switch to a different species that is better suited to the new conditions. This shapeshifting means that most setbacks they suffer will be short-lived.”

Dr. Ridd says that the real risks to reefs come from overfishingand pollution.

The GWPF invited responses to this paper from authors likely to dissent from its conclusions. None of the authors who were contacted accepted this invitation.

Peter Ridd: Coral in a Warming World: Causes for Optimism (pdf)

climate-debate

CMIP6 GCM Validation Based on ECS and TCR Ranking for 21st Century Temperature Projections and Risk Assessment

by N. Scafetta, Feb 3, 2023 in MDPI, Earth Science

Global climate models (GCMs) from the sixth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phases (CMIP6) have been employed to simulate the twenty-first-century temperatures for the risk assessment of future climate change. However, their transient climate response (TCR) ranges from 1.2 to 2.8 °C, whereas their equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) ranges from 1.8 to 5.7 °C, leading to large variations in the climatic impact of an anthropogenic increase in atmospheric CO2 levels. Moreover, there is growing evidence that many GCMs are running “too hot” and are hence unreliable for directing policies for future climate changes. Here, I rank 41 CMIP6 GCMs according to how successfully they hindcast the global surface warming between 1980 and 2021 using both their published equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) and transient climate response (TCR) estimates. The sub-ensemble of GCMs with the best performance appears to be composed of the models with ECS ranging between 1.8 and 3.0 °C (which confirms previous studies) and TCR ranging between 1.2 and 1.8 °C. This GCM sub-ensemble is made up of a total of 17 models. Depending on the emission scenarios, these GCMs predict a 2045–2055 warming of 1.5–2.5 °C compared to the pre-industrial era (1850–1900). As a result, the global aggregated impact and risk estimates seem to be moderate, which implies that any negative effects of future climate change may be adequately addressed by adaptation programs. However, there are also doubts regarding the actual magnitude of global warming, which might be exaggerated because of urban heat contamination and other local non-climatic biases. A final section is dedicated to highlighting the divergences observed between the global surface temperature records and a number of alternative temperature reconstructions from lower troposphere satellite measurements, three-ring-width chronologies, and surface temperature records based on rural stations alone. If the global warming reported by the climate records is overestimated, the real ECS and TCR may be significantly lower than what is produced by the CMIP6 GCMs, as some independent studies have already suggested, which would invalidate all of the CMIP6 GCMs.
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better to know...?, climate-debate

Forest-Limit (Betula pubescens ssp. czerepanovii) Performance in the Context of Gentle Modern Climate Warming

by Kullman, Feb 6, 2023 in NoTricksZone

Claims the Swedish Scandes are unprecedentedly warm and tree-covered today “appear as large and unfounded exaggerations,” as the “climate and arboreal responses” of the last few decades “are still inside the frames of natural historical variation.” – Kullman, 2022 and Kullman, 2022a

Extensive birch forest fossils can be dated to the early- to mid-Holocene in northern Scandinavian regions, indicating these warmth-sensitive trees could exist in climates that are too cold for them to grow in today. This documents a much warmer period, “at least 3°C higher than during the past few decades,” 3000 to 10,000 years ago, or when CO2 was about 265 ppm (Kullman, 2022).

Contrary to modeler opinions, “there is little factual nourishment” to support modern projections that the Swedish Scandes will soon be returning to the subalpine birch forest climates of past millennia. The observed forest advancement in recent decades “is so small” that these modeling claims appear to be “unfounded exaggerations.”

Kullman, 2022

“In the southernmost Swedish Scandes, pine has already “leap-frogged” over receding the birch forest-limit (Kullman 2014, 2019). That scenario would mimic the arboreal landscape during the early Holocene and shift to a landscape unseen for thousands of years (cf. Blűthgen 1942; MacDonald et al. 2008, Macias-Fauria et al. 2012). During that epoch, summer temperatures are inferred to have been at least 3°C higher than during the past few decades.”
“At the landscape level, the obtained changes contribute to a greater and lusher landscape, in contrast to the dire conditions during the Little Ice Age, more than 100 years ago (Kullman 2010, 2015). Currently, there is little factual nourishment to flourishing projections stating that a major part of Swedish alpine areas is on verge of transformation to subalpine birch forest (e.g. Moen et al. 2004). Apparently, climate and arboreal responses are still inside the frames of natural historical variation, as inferred by several authors (e,g. Hammarlund et al. 2004; Bergman et al. 2005; Kullman 2013, 2017a, b; Kullman & Öberg 2018, 2020).”
“Given that the current relatively warm climate phase continues, the subalpine birch forest belt may eventually recede and give way to a subalpine pine belt. The obtained modest forest-limit advancement is so small that flourishing model simulations of extensive birch forest expansion over most of the current alpine tundra appear as large and unfounded exaggerations.”

Tree remnants (trunks, cones, roots, etc.) found at northern Sweden mountain sites 500 to 700 meters atop where the 21st century tree line ends imply the early-Holocene (~13,000 to 7000 years ago) climate was significantly warmer than today in this region (Kullman, 2022a).

The temperature lapse rate for the Swedish Lapland region is 0.6°C/100 m. Accounting for glacio-isostatic uplift, this tree line elevation implies surface air temperatures were 3.6°C higher than today during the Early Holocene.

Kullman, 2022a

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energy and fields

India to use emergency law to maximise coal power output -sources

by S. Singh, Jan 30, 2023 in Reuters

Chimneys of a coal-fired power plant are pictured in New Delhi
Chimneys of a coal-fired power plant are pictured in New Delhi, India, July 20, 2017. Picture taken July 20, 2017. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi

NEW DELHI, Jan 30 (Reuters) – India plans to use an emergency law next month to force power plants that run on imported coal to maximise output, two government sources told Reuters on Monday, in preparation for expected record consumption this summer.

Many Indian coal-fired plants, including those those owned by Adani Power (ADAN.NS) and Tata Power (TTPW.NS) in India’s western Gujarat state, have not operated at full capacity in the recent years because they have found it difficult to compete with power generated from cheap domestic coal.

climate-debate

UAH Global Temperature Update for January, 2023: -0.04 deg. C

by Dr R. Spencer, Feb 2, 2023 in WUWT

The Version 6 global average lower tropospheric temperature (LT) anomaly for January 2023 was -0.04 deg. C departure from the 1991-2020 mean. This is down from the December 2022 anomaly of +0.05 deg. C.

The linear warming trend since January, 1979 now stands at +0.13 C/decade (+0.11 C/decade over the global-averaged oceans, and +0.18 C/decade over global-averaged land).

Various regional LT departures from the 30-year (1991-2020) average for the last 13 months are:

YEAR MO GLOBE NHEM. SHEM. TROPIC USA48 ARCTIC AUST
2022 Jan +0.03 +0.06 -0.00 -0.23 -0.13 +0.68 +0.10
2022 Feb -0.00 +0.01 -0.01 -0.24 -0.04 -0.30 -0.50
2022 Mar +0.15 +0.27 +0.03 -0.07 +0.22 +0.74 +0.02
2022 Apr +0.26 +0.35 +0.18 -0.04 -0.26 +0.45 +0.61
2022 May +0.17 +0.25 +0.10 +0.01 +0.59 +0.23 +0.20
2022 Jun +0.06 +0.08 +0.05 -0.36 +0.46 +0.33 +0.11
2022 Jul +0.36 +0.37 +0.35 +0.13 +0.84 +0.55 +0.65
2022 Aug +0.28 +0.31 +0.24 -0.03 +0.60 +0.50 -0.00
2022 Sep +0.24 +0.43 +0.06 +0.03 +0.88 +0.69 -0.28
2022 Oct +0.32 +0.43 +0.21 +0.04 +0.16 +0.93 +0.04
2022 Nov +0.17 +0.21 +0.13 -0.16 -0.51 +0.51 -0.56
2022 Dec +0.05 +0.13 -0.03 -0.35 -0.21 +0.80 -0.38
2023 Jan -0.04 +0.05 -0.14 -0.38 +0.12 -0.12 -0.50

The full UAH Global Temperature Report, along with the LT global gridpoint anomaly image for January, 2023 should be available within the next several days here.

The global and regional monthly anomalies for the various atmospheric layers we monitor should be available in the next few days at the following locations:

Lower Troposphere:

http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.0/tlt/uahncdc_lt_6.0.txt

Mid-Troposphere:

http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.0/tmt/uahncdc_mt_6.0.txt

Tropopause:

http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.0/ttp/uahncdc_tp_6.0.txt

Lower Stratosphere:

http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.0/tls/uahncdc_ls_6.0.txt

better to know...?, climate-debate

Latest Mean Annual Temperature Data Show Tokyo Has Been Cooling For Decades!

by P. Gosselin, Jan 25, 2023 in NoTricksZone

TOKYO HAS COOLED OVER THE PAST 30 YEARS.
Hachijō-jima island hasn’t seen any climate change in decades!

Charts by Kirye

The mean temperature data for December, 2022, for the city of Tokyo, Japan and its Hachijō-jima island in the Pacific are now available from the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA).

These data now allow us to look at the newest annual mean temperature trends for the two locations.

First we look at latest annual mean temperature plots for Tokyo since 1994:

Data: JMA.

According to the alarmists, the increase in CO2 is supposed to be heating up the entire planet. Strangely, using data from the JMA, Tokyo has in fact cooled modestly since 1994 – despite the urban heat sink effect from all the concrete, asphalt, steel and waste heat.

 

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climate-debate

Why Is Antarctica’s Climate Considered ‘Global’ But Arctic Siberia’s Is Not?

by K. Richard, Jan 26, 2023 in NoTricksZone

Independent analyses from multiple independent sources indicate Arctic Siberia was 3 to 5°C warmer than today during the peak of the last glacial, or when CO2 levels were below 200 ppm.

Measurements from Antarctica’s ice sheet are almost invariably used to characterize both the global-scale atmospheric CO2 levels and climate for the last 10s to 100s of thousands of years.

But it is rather odd that Antarctica’s climate is considered globally representative (i.e., “global warming”) since there has been no warming here for the last seven decades.

Further, ice samples from Antarctica have CO2 values that range between 900 and 2900 ppm (Matsuo and Miyake, 1966) for the modern period (i.e., the 1960s). These values are far outside the range of the accepted modern global atmospheric values (~300 to 400 ppm).

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unclassified

Abrupt episode of mid-Cretaceous ocean acidification triggered by massive volcanism

by Jones et al., Jan 2023 in NatureGeoscience

Abtsract

Large-igneous-province volcanic activity during the mid-Cretaceous triggered a global-scale episode of reduced marine oxygen levels known as Oceanic Anoxic Event 2 approximately 94.5 million years ago. It has been hypothesized that this geologically rapid degassing of volcanic carbon dioxide altered seawater carbonate chemistry, affecting marine ecosystems, geochemical cycles and sedimentation. Here we report on two sites drilled by the International Ocean Discovery Program offshore of southwest Australia that exhibit clear evidence for suppressed pelagic carbonate sedimentation in the form of a stratigraphic interval barren of carbonate minerals, recording ocean acidification during the event. We then use the osmium isotopic composition of bulk sediments to directly link this protracted ~600 kyr shoaling of the marine calcite compensation depth to the onset of volcanic activity. This decrease in marine pH was prolonged by biogeochemical feedbacks in highly productive regions where elevated heterotrophic respiration added carbon dioxide to the water column. A compilation of mid-Cretaceous marine stratigraphic records reveals a contemporaneous decrease of sedimentary carbonate content at continental slope sites globally. Thus, we contend that changes in marine carbonate chemistry are a primary ecological stress and important consequence of rapid emission of carbon dioxide during many large-igneous-province eruptions in the geologic past.

climate-debate

In Search Of A (Near) Perfect CO2 Global Warming Analogy

by R. Barmby, Jan 23; 2023 in ClimateChangeDispatch

Most people have a firm opinion on whether human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are causing unnatural global warming, and hold that opinion without understanding how the molecule physically absorbs and then releases heat energy.

Understanding that mechanism reveals why today’s significant global CO2 emissions are insignificant to future global warming.

Analogies are a great way to explain science, and I’m going to share the worst and best analogies for how carbon dioxide acts as a greenhouse gas. I will also share why the warming effect of CO2 is limited.

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Why Today’s Carbon Dioxide Emissions Are Insignificant To Global Warming

As more CO2 molecules are added as potential absorbers for the fixed amount of the specific band of infrared radiation, there is less chance that any CO2 molecule will be hit. If the additional CO2 molecules do not absorb infrared radiation, they cannot contribute to global warming.

The ever-reducing CO2 contribution to global warming looks like this graph, which, ironically, is based on the IPCC’s formula (from Inconvenient Facts by Gregory Wrightstone):

On the graph above, consider that the pre-industrial (circa 1875) atmospheric CO2 level was about 280 parts per million (ppm), and today it is about 420 ppm—an increase of 140 ppm.

As a rough approximation, the three bars labeled 350, 400, and 450 ppm represent this past increase in CO2, and the sum of the global warming temperature increases associated with those three bars is about 0.7°C.

The next four bars (500, 550, 600, and 650 ppm) represent a future CO2 increase of 200 ppm, which at today’s rate of 2.5 ppm increase each year would take from now to about 2100.

The global warming associated with those four bars is only 0.65°C. The graph shows it keeps taking more CO2 to achieve a smaller amount of global warming.

I chose bars 350 through 650 ppm to highlight that the IPCC’s formula predicts that global warming from current CO2 emissions held flat (1.35°C) would still beat the IPCC’s target of 1.5°C of human-caused global warming from preindustrial times to the year 2100.

The above graph suggests global warming from increasing CO2 never stops, but we know from ancient climates that even 12 times today’s CO2 concentrations did not cause runaway global warming.

Drs. Happer, Koonin, and Lindzen submitted to the U.S. (Northern California) District Court in 2021 that minor changes in cloud cover and convection currents can have a bigger effect on the Earth’s surface temperature than major increases in CO2.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Warmth Limits For Tree Growth Affirm Austria Was 4-7°C Warmer Than Today 2000 Years Ago

by K. Richard, Jan 23, 2023 in NoTricksZone

Robust evidence from bison remains recovered from the Austrian Alps in 2020 and 2021 invalidate claims modern Alpine temperatures are unusually warm.

A new study suggests that from about 6000 to 1200 years ago European bison fed on deciduous tree/vegetation that grew at Alpine altitudes reaching around 800 m higher than they do today.

Known beech and oak tree growth warmth thresholds – the required number of days per year above a minimum temperature limit – thus affirm Austria needed to be 4-7°C warmer than now during this period (~2000 years ago).

“[T]he beech limit but also the forest line during the »wisent time« (6,000 to 1,200 years before today) was much higher and the average summer temperature had to be at least 3 to 6 °C higher than today. Remarkable is a palynological record (Ressl, 1980) from the shaft cave Stainzerkogelschaft near Lunz am See. Remains of wisent were found in the shaft (1,463 m, see Tab. 3). The clay with a skull fragment with horncores inside was examined palynologically. The dominating pollen were from alder (Alnus), oak (Quercus) and linden tree (Tilia). The oak boundary (boundary between colline and montane vegetation stages) today lies between 400 and 800 metres in the Northern Alpine Alps (Grabherr et al., 2004). Oaks (Quercus) at an altitude of 1,450 metres around 2,000 years ago also indicate a climate approximately 4 to 7 °C warmer than today.”

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climate-debate

Mauna Loa Observatory

by Climate Auditor, January 2023

Mauna Loa CO2_vs_temp_2022 June.pdf

Atmospheric CO2 concentration

Here in Figure 1 is the monthly atmospheric CO2 concentration measured at the Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii, Latitude19.5̊ N, Longitude 155̊ W, elevation 3397m, for the 64 year period from March 1958 to May 2022.

Figure 1. Monthly atmospheric CO2 concentration, Mauna Loa Observatory, Source:[ Ref. 2]

The source file, Ref. 2, lists the data in 10 columns. The columns used here were columns 3 and 4, the date in Excel and decimal format, column 9 being the measured CO2 concentration with missing values in-filled from a smoothed fit to the data and column 10 being the seasonally adjusted measurements again with missing values in-filled.

The monthly CO2 concentration had an average rate of increase over the 64 year period from March 1958 to May 2022 of 1.60 ppm pa. For the 5 year period March 1958 to March 1963 the rate was 0.68 ppm pa and for the 5 year period May 2017 to May 2022 the rate was 2.50 ppm pa, that is, the rate of increase has steadily accelerated over time to be 3.7 times greater than it was 59 years earlier. The range was from a minimum of 312.43 ppm to a maximum of 420.78 ppm.

The amplitude of the seasonal variation was estimated to range from 5.25 ppm to 8.03 ppm, increasing in amplitude over time, in an irregular fashion. The maxima occurred, on average, in early May, which is the beginning of Summer, and the minima in late September, at the end of Summer. The greatest seasonal variation took place between September 2015 and April 2016. This means that the CO2 concentration rose during the cool of Winter and fell during the heat of Summer, which is out of phase with the UN IPCC claim that increased CO2 concentration causes an increase in temperature. Nor does the UN IPCC hypothesis provide an explanation for the steady increase in the rate of increase of the CO2 concentration.

Temperature and CO2 concentration

Here is 522 months of empirical data, showing a distinct lack of a relationship between the Tropics satellite lower troposphere temperature [ Ref.1] and the seasonally adjusted atmospheric CO2 concentration at the Mauna Loa Observatory.

 

Figure 2. Mauna Loa Observatory, Source: [ Ref. 1] and [ Ref. 2]

Figure 2 shows the monthly satellite lower troposphere temperature for the Tropics zone, 20̊ South to 20̊ North, in blue, and the relevant monthly CO2 concentration in red after removal of the seasonal variation so as to match the residual temperature series. The range for the monthly CO2 concentration is from 335.77 ppm to 418.2 ppm. The range for the Tropics temperature is from -0.99̊ Celsius to +1.15̊ Celsius with respect to a 30 year average base value. The clear and obvious difference between the two raises the possibility that there may be no common causal factor whereby the CO2 concentration drives the temperature as claimed by the UN IPCC.

Calculation of the Ordinary Linear Regression between the two time series gave a Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.462 from the 522 monthly data pairs. This is a measure of the relationship between the background linear trend of each of the time series as shown by an almost identical correlation of 0.463 between the temperature and the time. The correlation between the CO2 concentration and the time was 0.995, that is, the seasonal adjusted CO2 concentration time series was practically a linear trend with respect to time. Any pair of linear trends, no matter what their source, will have a high correlation coefficient of about 1.0 which is necessarily of no causal significance as a background linear trend with respect to time can be calculated for any time series.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Antarctica’s Missing Warming: Japanese Syowa Station Shows Cooling Since 1977 By P Gosselin on 20. January 202

by Heller, Jan 20, 2023 in NoTricksZone

Despite all the claims of a “rapidly warming planet”, we know Antarctic sea ice extent has seen a rather impressive upward trend over the past 40 years, which tells us cooling is more likely at play.

Here’s southern hemisphere sea ice extent chart (up to 2017):

Antarctic sea ice has gained steadily over the past 40 years. Chart: Comiso et al, 2017

It’s not what you’d expect from a CO2-induced warming planet.

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unclassified

On the Annual and Semi-Annual Components of Variations in Extent of Arctic and Antarctic Sea-Ice

by Lopes F, Courtillot, V. et al., 2023  in MDPIGeosciences

Abstract

In this paper, the 1978–2022 series of northern (NHSI) and southern (SHSI) hemisphere sea ice extent are submitted to singular spectral analysis (SSA). The trends are quasi-linear, decreasing for NHSI (by 58,300 km2/yr) and increasing for SHSI (by 15,400 km2/yr). The amplitude of annual variation in the Antarctic is double that in the Arctic. The semi-annual components are in quadrature. The first three oscillatory components of both NHSI and SHSI, at 1, 1/2, and 1/3 yr, account for more than 95% of the signal variance. The trends are respectively 21 (Antarctic) and 4 times (Arctic) less than the amplitudes of the annual components. We next analyze variations in pole position (PM for polar motion, coordinates m1, m2) and length of day (lod). Whereas the SSA of the lod is dominated by the same first three components as sea ice, the SSA of the PM contains only the 1-yr forced annual oscillation and the Chandler 1.2-yr component. The 1-yr component of NHSI is in phase with that of the lod and in phase opposition with m1, while the reverse holds for the 1-yr component of SHSI. The semi-annual component appears in the lod and not in m1. The annual and semi-annual components of NHSI and SHSI are much larger than the trends, leading us to hypothesize that a geophysical or astronomical forcing might be preferable to the generally accepted forcing factors. The lack of modulation of the largest (SHSI) forced component does suggest an alternate mechanism. In Laplace’s theory of gravitation, the torques exerted by the Moon, Sun, and planets play the leading role as the source of forcing (modulation), leading to changes in the inclination of the Earth’s rotation axis and transferring stresses to the Earth’s envelopes. Laplace assumes that all masses on and in the Earth are set in motion by astronomical forces; more than variations in eccentricity, it is variations in the inclination of the rotation axis that lead to the large annual components of melting and re-freezing of sea-ice.
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climate-debate

2022 updates to the temperature records

by Gavin, Jan 13, 2023 in RealClimate

Another January, another annual data point.

As in years past, the annual rollout of the GISTEMP, NOAA, HadCRUT and Berkeley Earth analyses of the surface temperature record have brought forth many stories about the long term trends and specific events of 2022 – mostly focused on the impacts of the (ongoing) La Niña event and the litany of weather extremes (UK and elsewhere having record years, intense rainfall and flooding, Hurricane Ian, etc. etc.).

But there are a few things that don’t get covered much in the mainstream stories, and so we can dig into them a bit here.

What influence does ENSO really have?

It’s well known (among readers here, I assume), that ENSO influences the interannual variability of the climate system and the annual mean temperatures. El Niño events enhance global warming (as in 1998, 2010, 2016 etc.) and La Niña events (2011, 2018, 2021, 2022 etc.) impart a slight cooling.

GISTEMP anomalies (w.r.t. late 19th C) coded for ENSO state in the early spring.

Consequently, a line drawn from an El Niño year to a subsequent La Niña year will almost always show a cooling – a fact well known to the climate disinformers (though they are not so quick to show the uncertainties in such cherry picks!). For instance, the trends from 2016 to 2022 are -0.12±0.37ºC/dec but with such large uncertainties, the calculation is meaningless. Far more predictive are the long term trends which are consistently (now) above 0.2ºC/dec (and with much smaller uncertainties ±0.02ºC/dec for the last 40 years).

It’s worth exploring quantitatively what the impact is, and this is something I’ve been looking at for a while. It’s easy enough correlate the detrended annual anomalies with the ENSO index (maximum correlation is for the early spring values), and then use that regression to estimate the specific impact for any year, and to estimate an ENSO-corrected time series.

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climate-debate

Paul Ehrlich And The Madness Of Climate Alarmists

by J.  Woudhuysen, Jan 12, 2023 in ClimateChangeDispatch

All forecasters make mistakes. But few forecasters have been as consistently wrong as biologist Paul Ehrlich.

So it was quite surprising to see, on January 1, the once venerable CBS series, 60 Minutes, inviting Ehrlich on the show to give his take on the state of the planet.

Focussing on ‘the vanishing wild’, the interview was essentially a forecast of doom, with Ehrlich warning that Earth is in the midst of a ‘sixth mass extinction’ and that its wildlife is ‘running out of places to live’. [emphasis, links added]

Ehrlich, a Stanford University entomologist, is most infamous for his 1968 doom-mongering tome, The Population Bomb.

In the tradition of Thomas Malthus, the prologue begins with the following warning:

‘The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s, hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date, nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate.’

In reality, since The Population Bomb was published, rates of starvation have fallen off a cliff, while the world’s population has doubled.

Ronald Bailey, the science correspondent at Reason magazine, notes that the global crude death rate (deaths per 1,000 people) fell ‘from 12.5 in 1968 to seven in 2019, before ticking up to eight in the pandemic year of 2020’.

Ehrlich has been prolific in promoting mistaken forecasts. With Richard L Harriman, he also wrote How To Be a Survivor: A Plan to Save Spaceship Earth (1971).

Then, with his wife Anne, he issued more lurid warnings in books including Extinction: The Causes and Consequences of the Disappearance of Species (1981) and The Population Explosion (1991).

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