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.
better to know...?, climate-debate

Azerbaijan’s COP29 Speech: A Masterclass in Irony So Thick, It’s Flammable

by C. Rotter, Nov 13, 2024 in WUWT

Picture this: COP29, the annual climate circus where the world’s leaders gather to wag fingers and wring hands over carbon emissions, is hosted in none other than Azerbaijan—a country whose economy runs on fossil fuels like a muscle car guzzling premium gas. Then comes the pièce de résistance: Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev steps up to the mic and declares oil and gas to be “God’s gift” to his nation.

…

You can’t make this up. It’s like hosting a vegan potluck and having the guest of honor arrive with a tray of prime rib.

The “Climate” Conference in an Oil Nation

Let’s start with the hilarious choice of venue. Azerbaijan is one of those countries where crude oil isn’t just a commodity—it’s practically a national sport. Hosting COP29 in Baku is akin to holding a Weight Watchers meeting in a donut shop. And yet, the global climate elites packed their bags and flew to the Land of Hydrocarbons to sit through speeches about how we’re all doomed unless we ban the very thing that keeps Azerbaijan afloat.

The irony was lost on precisely no one except, apparently, the COP29 organizers.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Green Grifters: Another elite-laden conference demonstrates the staggering hypocrisy of climate-change activism

by H. Mac Donald, Nov 12, 2024 in /CityJournal

The latest global climate conference opened Monday in Azerbaijan. The timing is excellent. Any doubt regarding the wisdom of the next Trump administration’s likely pullout from such meetings should be dispelled by the conference photos alone. Here are tens of thousands of well fed, well-dressed members of the global elite—activists, employees of lavishly funded NGOs, armies of government bureaucrats, hundreds of heads of state—who have all travelled via jet and private plane to this remote corner of the Earth and who expect that every minute of their day will be supported by abundant, magically available energy. None has sacrificed a single personal comfort to save the planet. They assume that their smartphones will draw on an invisible web of transmitters and that they will be able to search the Internet and run AI queries at will, notwithstanding that doing so requires voracious energy use from a growing archipelago of server farms. They expect their PowerPoints to be well lit and their conference and hotel rooms to be heated or air conditioned as needed. They’re never without their bottled water, which is carried thousands of miles by carbon-emitting trucks and planes and kept sterile by plastic containers whose manufacture requires petrochemicals and plenty of energy. They do not wait on the sun to shine or the wind to blow to light their rooms, run their elevators, or power up their devices; they want energy now and without interruption.

You don’t have to be a “climate denier” to see that climate-change politics have become the largest global grift in history, one that grows in proportion with each new conference. It was just a matter of time before Third World basket-case countries exploited the First World’s virtue signaling. This year’s UNFCC COP 29 conference in Azerbaijan (COP stands for Conference of the Parties) features the demand that developed countries fork over billions, if not trillions, more dollars to the Global South, ostensibly to help it adjust to climate change. Those billions will follow all previous foreign aid into the same sinkhole of corruption and incompetence.

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better to know...?

Hague court denies claim for reduction in Shell’s CO2 emissions

by The Hague, 12 November 2024, in deRechtspraak

The Hague Court of Appeal today handed down its judgment in the appeal proceedings between Milieudefensie and Shell. At issue in the appeal was whether Shell must have reduced its CO2 emissions by 45% in 2030 compared to 2019. The court of appeal ruled that Shell is obliged to reduce its CO₂ emissions, but that it was unable to determine which percentage should apply. The court of appeal therefore rejected the claims of Milieudefensie.

According to Milieudefensie, Shell is acting unlawfully. Milieudefensie is of the opinion that under the social standard of care, Shell is obliged to reduce its CO2 emissions. Milieudefensie and several other environmental organisations submitted a claim for Shell to reduce its CO2 emissions by 45% in 2030 compared to 2019. This includes Shell’s own CO2 emissions as well as those of its suppliers and customers, known as scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions.

The Hague District Court upheld the claim of Milieudefensie, after which Shell lodged an appeal. The Stichting Milieu en Mens joined as a party in the proceedings before the court of appeal on the side of Shell.

In today’s judgment, the court of appeal held that Shell has an obligation towards citizens to limit its CO2 emissions. This obligation is based on the human right to protection against dangerous climate change. It is first and foremost up to governments to ensure the protection of human rights, but indirectly those rights also have a bearing on the social standard of care which companies like Shell must observe. In its assessment of whether Shell is acting unlawfully, the court of appeal therefore took as a starting point that citizens also have a right vis-à-vis Shell to protection from dangerous climate change.

Nevertheless, the court of appeal denied the claims of Milieudefensie because the court was unable to establish that the social standard of care entails an obligation for Shell to reduce its CO2 emissions by 45%, or some other percentage. There is currently insufficient consensus in climate science on a specific reduction percentage to which an individual company like Shell should adhere. Moreover, Shell is already working to reduce its own scope 1 and 2 emissions. Lastly, the court of appeal is of the opinion that an obligation for Shell to reduce CO2 emissions caused by buyers of Shell products, scope 3 emissions, by a particular percentage would be ineffective in this case. Shell could meet that obligation by ceasing to trade in the fuels it purchases from third parties. Other companies would then take over that trade. This would consequently not result in a reduction in CO2 emissions.

In conclusion, The Hague Court of Appeal overturned the district court’s judgment and denied the claims of Milieudefensie. An appeal in cassation against this ruling may be brought before the Dutch Supreme Court.

Also here

Climate Litigation: The Dutch Case and a Pattern of Vexatious Lawsuits

better to know...?, climate-debate

Media Hypes Report That 2024 Will Break 1.5°C Limit, But Data Doesn’t Back It Up

by L. Lueken, Nov 11, 2024 in ClimateChangeDispatch

valencia flood aftermath

Multiple outlets have posted articles covering a report from the European Copernicus Climate Change Service (“Copernicus”) which says that 2024 will be the first to surpass 1.5°C warming since preindustrial times, which the media claims will cause untold weather disasters. [emphasis, links added]

This is mostly false.

Although 2024 will likely have higher average temperatures than in recent decades, it is not the end of the year yet, and there is limited evidence to support the claim that it will represent the highest temperatures humans have ever experienced and no evidence whatsoever that weather disasters have gotten or will get worse.

The BBC and CNN are among the numerous mainstream media outlets reporting on Copernicus’ report.

CNN describes the report as “devastating news for the planet that comes as America chooses a president that has promised to undo its climate progress both at home and abroad.”

The Copernicus group estimates that 2024 will end up 1.55°C hotter than the 1850-1900 average, which is 0.05°C above the warming limit set by the Paris Agreement. This may be true, but there is no evidence that the 1.5℃ threshold is some kind of deadly tipping point for weather disasters.

The same organization sounded the alarm last year that the “limit” was breached for several months in a row while ignoring natural factors like an underwater volcano eruption.

As for the 1.5-degree limit itself, it was not established by professional climate scientists. Only one of the people who were on the panel who came up with the value was even a meteorologist.

Two other points worth noting. The claim is a bit of sleight of hand, cherry-picking the data for comparison. Earth was only just coming out of the Little Ice Age at the onset of the 1850 period, one of the coldest periods during the past millennia.

When you pick an unusually cold period for comparison, modest warming seems more dramatic than it is.

Second, the 1.5℃ is an arbitrary temperature choice. As Climate Realism has discussed repeatedly here, here, and here, it was chosen by politicians for political reasons.

There is no scientific evidence it represents some tipping point for catastrophic climate change. The world has likely warmed more than 2°C since the 1700s, with no apocalypse.

One would think that if warming causes more extreme weather there would be solid data and identifiable consistent trends showing an increase in extreme weather, but there is none.

Three of the weather events CNN cites at the end of their article as proof of a supposed climate emergency, Hurricane Milton, the flooding in Spain, and low snow amounts at Mt. Fuji are not proof of a climate emergency.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

New Study: Human Contribution To Enhancement Of Earth’s Greenhouse Effect A Negligible 0.2 Percent

by K. Richard, Nov 12, 2024 in NoTricksZone

“[T]he contribution of CO2 to the greenhouse effect is 4% – 5%. Human CO2 emissions represent 4% of the total, which means that the total human contribution to the enhancement of the greenhouse effect is 0.16% to 0.20% – a negligible effect.” – Dr. Demetris Koutsoyiannis (2024)

New research exposes the vacuousness of the “imaginary world” models proclaiming CO2 the dominant regulator of the Earth’s climate.

A CO2-less or CO2-only atmosphere…an imaginary-world thought experiment

An oft-heard claim is that, due to the prominence of CO2 as the Earth’s climate “control knob” (see Lacis et al., 2010), the greenhouse effect could not exist – indeed, it would collapse – if there was no CO2 in the atmosphere.

However, it should go without saying that this CO2-less atmospheric condition itself is an imaginary-world conceptualization. Thus, fantasizing about what would happen if the atmosphere was comprised 0 ppm CO2, 1,000,000 ppm CO2, 0 ppm water vapor…are all just untestable, never-observable thought experiments. They cannot be subjected to the scientific method. Thus, they are unfalsifiable.

CO2’s climate effects are undetectable

Of course, this very unfalsifiable thought experiment is what believers in the CO2-is-the-climate-control-knob narrative rest their case on. But even if we do use this imaginary-world premise, the existing models (MODTRAN, HITRAN) that allegedly support the CO2-controls-climate orthodoxy actually undermine it.

For example, as Dr. Koutsoyiannis points out in his extensively-referenced paper, the MODTRAN data show that the Earth’s temperature remains at the default greenhouse-effect value if the water vapor scale is adjusted upwards slightly, by just 30%. The greenhouse effect does not “collapse” as claimed by Lacis et al. disciples – the control-knob believers.

The HITRAN database also indicates the imaginary-world condition of doubling CO2 from 400 to 800 ppm would only alter the radiation flux at the top of the atmosphere by -1.1%, a hypothetical realization that could not even be detected in future macroscopic measurements (if the atmosphere ever were to reach a CO2 concentration of 800 ppm).

MODTRAN models further affirm that (1) there is only a 1% temperature difference between either doubling (800 ppm) or halving (200 ppm) the atmospheric CO2 concentration, and (2) the change in the downwelling radiation resulting from an increase from 300 ppm (1900) to 420 ppm (2023) is only 0.5%. These tiny changes “could not be discerned by observations.”

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climate-debate

Despite Media Panic, There Is No Reason to Think 2024’s Warming Is Disastrous

by L. Lueken, Nov 10, 2024 in WUWT

Multiple outlets have posted articles covering a report from the European Copernicus Climate Change Service (“Copernicus”) which says that 2024 will be the first to surpass 1.5°C warming since pre-industrial times, which the media claims will cause untold weather disasters. This is mostly false. Although it is likely that 2024 will have higher average temperatures than in recent decades, it is not the end of the year yet, and there limited evidence to support the claim that it will represent the highest temperatures humans have ever experienced and no evidence whatsoever that weather disasters have gotten or will get worse.

The BBC and CNN are among the numerous mainstream media outlets reporting on Copernicus’ report.

CNN describes the report as “devastating news for the planet that comes as America chooses a president that has promised to undo its climate progress both at home and abroad.”

The Copernicus group estimates that 2024 will end up 1.55°C hotter than the 1850-1900 average, which is 0.05°C above the warming limit set by the Paris Agreement. This may be true, but there is no evidence that the 1.5℃ threshold is actually some kind of deadly tipping point for weather disasters. The same organization sounded the alarm last year that the “limit” was breached for several months in a row, while ignoring natural factors like an underwater volcano eruption. As for the 1.5 degree limit itself, it was not established by professional climate scientists. Only one of the people who were on the panel that came up with the value was even a meteorologist.

Two other points worth noting. The claim is bit of sleight of hand, cherry picking the data for comparison. Earth was only just coming out of a little ice age at the onset of the 1850 period, one of the coldest periods during the past millennia. When you pick an usually cold period for comparison, a modest warming seems more dramatic than it is.

Second, the 1.5℃ is an arbitrary temperature choice. As Climate Realism has discussed repeatedly, here, here, and here, for example, it was chosen by politicians for political reasons. There is no scientific evidence it represents some tipping point for catastrophic climate change. It is likely that the world has warmed more than 2°C since the 1700s, with no apocalypse.

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climate-debate

The 2023 global warming spike was driven by the El Niño–Southern Oscillation

by S.P. Raghuraman et al., Oct 2024 in EGU-APCPapers

Abstract

Global-mean surface temperature rapidly increased 0.29 ± 0.04 K from 2022 to 2023. Such a large interannual global warming spike is not unprecedented in the observational record, with a previous instance occurring in 1976–1977. However, why such large global warming spikes occur is unknown, and the rapid global warming of 2023 has led to concerns that it could have been externally driven. Here we show that climate models that are subject only to internal variability can generate such spikes, but they are an uncommon occurrence (p = 1.6 % ± 0.1 %). However, when a prolonged La Niña immediately precedes an El Niño in the simulations, as occurred in nature in 1976–1977 and 2022–2023, such spikes become much more common (p = 10.3 % ± 0.4 %). Furthermore, we find that nearly all simulated spikes (p = 88.5 % ± 0.3 %) are associated with El Niño occurring that year. Thus, our results underscore the importance of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation in driving the occurrence of global warming spikes such as the one in 2023, without needing to invoke anthropogenic forcing, such as changes in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases or aerosols, as an explanation.

Received: 24 Jun 2024 – Discussion started: 08 Jul 2024 – Revised: 04 Sep 2024 – Accepted: 23 Sep 2024 – Published: 10 Oct 2024
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climate-debate

Brown Bears Lived In The 73°N Siberian Arctic 3500 Years Ago…Today Their Northern Boundary Is 65°N

by K. Richard, Oct 14, 2024 in NoTricksZone

A new study provides still more evidence the Arctic was warmer than it is today as recently as a few thousand years ago.

In 2020 the well-preserved carcass of a Yakutian brown bear (Ursus arctos) was discovered buried in permafrost on the terrain of the treeless tundra Bolshoy Lyakhovsky Island in the Arctic Ocean, 73°N.

The Yakutian brown bear currently occupies only the forested regions of Eurasia, with a northern limit of northern Yakutia (Republic of Sakha), 65°N.

The female bear’s age has been dated to approximately 3500 years ago, during the Middle to Late Holocene. At that time the Arctic was warm enough at that latitude to support vegetation (grasses, shrubs) that only persist in the northern Yakutia region today.

The authors suggest brown bears may have been permanent residents of the Siberian Arctic’s islands from about 5000 years ago until a few thousand years ago, when, as today, the Arctic became too cold for the vegetation production requisite for their sustenance.

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climate-debate

El Niño fingered as likely culprit in record 2023 temperatures

by P. Voosen, Oct 10, 2024 in Science

For the past year, alarm bells have been going off in climate science: Last year’s average global temperature was so high, shooting up nearly 0.3°C above the previous year to set a new record, that human-driven global warming and natural short-term climate swings seemingly couldn’t explain it. Some, like famed climate scientist James Hansen, suggestedEarth is entering an ominous new phase of accelerated warming, driven by a rapid decline in sunlight-dimming air pollution. Others, like Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said the rise might represent a “knowledge gap,” some new climate feedback that might tip the planet toward a future even warmer than models predict.

Now, a new series of studies suggests most of the 2023 jump can be explained instead by a familiar climate driver: the shifting waters of the tropical Pacific Ocean. The combination of a 3-year-long La Niña, which suppressed global temperatures from 2020 to 2022, followed by a strong El Niño could account for the unexpected temperature jump, the work suggests. “Earth can do this,” says Shiv Priyam Raghuraman, a climate scientist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, who led one study.

During La Niña, strong trade winds push warm surface water west along the equator toward Indonesia and pull up a fountain of deep, cold water in the eastern Pacific that helps cool the planet. During El Niño, the winds collapse, allowing warm water to slosh east and shut off the ocean air conditioner. Continuer la lecture de El Niño fingered as likely culprit in record 2023 temperatures →

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«The Monster That Challenged the World»

by D. Middleton, Oct 10, 2024 in WUWT

Guest “When Sci-Fi predicted paleontology” by David Middleton

Anyone else out there remember this classically awful 1957 science fiction movie?

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By James Ashworth

First published 9 October 2024

Well-preserved fossils uncovered in France have revealed new insights into one of the biggest invertebrates to ever walk on Earth.

Arthropleura was a millipede-like animal which lived more than 300 million years ago during the Carboniferous Period, with some individuals reaching more than two metres long.

The head of one of history’s biggest arthropods has been revealed in detail for the first time.

Arthropleura is an arthropod, the group containing insects, crustaceans, arachnids and their relatives. For many years, only fossils of its body survived, which saw it placed among the earliest millipedes. Now, the discovery of the first complete head has revealed a surprising twist.

While the new fossils are not from fully grown Arthropleura, some of which reached 2.6 metres long, they reveal important characteristics. Most notably, the head has some features of early centipedes, suggesting millipedes and centipedes might be more closely related than previously accepted.

[…]

Natural History Museum

While Arthropleura wasn’t a mollusk, the first thing I thought of when I read the article was The Monster That Challenged the World.

 

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climate-debate

NOAA’s Data Shows Rising Average Temps Driven By Growth And Measurement Flaws—Not Climate Change

by L. Hamlin, Oct 7, 2024 in ClimateChangeDispatch

NOAA’s U.S. contiguous U.S. summer measured minimum and maximum temperature trends (June through August) over the period 1895 through 2024 (shown below from NOAA’s Climate at a Glance Times series data website) show clear and distinct differing temperature trend increasing growth compared to the calculated average temperature trend outcome. [emphasis, links added]

The minimum temperature trend outcomes after 1985 climb significantly faster than the maximum measured temperature trend outcomes. U.S. population data shows an increase of about 100 million during the 1980 to 2023 period.

Since the average temperature is not a measured value but instead the calculated mathematical average of the minimum and maximum measured temperatures {(Tmax + Tmin)/2}, the average temperature-calculated trend outcome is controlled and dominated by the much larger increase occurring in the minimum-measured temperature trend versus the maximum measured temperature trend.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Prophets Of Doom: Why A New 2024 Climate Report Is Fueled By Fear, Not Facts

by Dr M. Wielicki, Oct , 2024 in ClimateChange Dispatch 

The recent article published in BioScience, “The 2024 state of the climate report: Perilous times on planet Earth,” is a parade of exaggerated claims and half-truths, a propaganda piece designed to scare the public into adopting misguided policies while turning a blind eye to the real drivers of human progress. [emphasis, links added]

While it projects an image of scientific rigor, a closer look reveals that most of these dire warnings don’t even align with the IPCC‘s latest report, particularly when scrutinizing the IPCC AR6’s scientific foundations.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Climate Activists Frustrated by IPCC’s Refusal to Link Extreme Weather with Carbon Emissions

by C. Morrison, Oct 10, 2024 in WUWT

Last June, the state-reliant BBC reported that human-caused climate change had made U.S. and Mexico heatwaves “35 times more likely”. Nothing out of the ordinary here in mainstream media with everyone from climate comedy turn ‘Jim’ Dale to UN chief Antonio ‘Boiling’ Guterres making these types of bizarre attributions. But for those who closely follow climate science and the assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), “such headlines can be difficult to make sense of”, observes the distinguished science writer Roger Pielke. In a hard-hitting attack on the pseudo-scientific industry of weather attribution, he states: “neither the IPCC nor the underlying scientific literature comes anywhere close to making such strong and certain claims of attribution”.

Pielke argues that the extreme position of attributing individual bad weather events is “roughly aligned” with the far Left. “Climate science is not, or at least should not serve as a proxy for political tribes,” he cautions. But of course it is. The Net Zero fantasy is a collectivist national and supra-national agenda that increasingly relies on demonising bad weather. With global temperatures rising at most only 0.1°C a decade, laughter can only be general and side-splitting when IPCC boss Jim Skea claims that British summers will be 6°C hotter in less than 50 years. Two extended temperature pauses since 2000 have not helped the cause of global boiling. In addition there are increasing doubts about the reliability of temperature recordings by many meteorological organisations that seem unable to properly account for massive urban heat corruptions.

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climate-debate

Of The Top 10 Deadliest Hurricanes in U.S. History, Most Occurred Over A Century Ago

by G. Martinez, Oct 7, 2024 in ClimateChangeDispatch

The 2024 Atlantic hurricane season is well underway, with forecasters predicting active and potentially dangerous conditions. … [emphasis, links added]

In late September, Hurricane Helene slammed into Florida’s Gulf Coast and drenched the Southeast, with devastating flooding taking a deadly toll in the mountains of North Carolina.

Here are the top 10 deadliest recorded hurricanes in U.S. history, according to the National Weather Service.

10. Last Island hurricane (1856)

The Last Island hurricane killed 400 people after slamming into the Louisiana coast in August 1856.

The highest points of the island were left under five feet of water in the wake of the storm, with the resort hotel and surrounding gambling establishments destroyed, according to NOAA.

The island itself was devastated, left void of vegetation, and split in half, NOAA said.

9. Labor Day hurricane (1935)

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climate-debate

UAH Global Temperature Update for August, 2024: +0.88 deg. C

by P. Homewood,  Sep 2, 2024 in NotaLotofPeople KnowThat

From Dr. Roy Spencer’s Global Warming Blog.

The Version 6 global average lower tropospheric temperature (LT) anomaly for August, 2024 was +0.88 deg. C departure from the 1991-2020 mean, up slightly from the July, 2024 anomaly of +0.85 deg. C.

Persistent global-averaged warmth was (unusually) contributed to this month by the Southern Hemisphere. Of the 27 regions we routinely monitor, 5 of them set record-warm (or near-record) high monthly temperature anomalies in August, all due to contributions from the Southern Hemisphere:

Global land: +1.35 deg. C

Southern Hemisphere land: +1.87 deg. C

Southern Hemisphere extratropical land: +2.23 deg. C

Antarctica: +3.31 deg. C (2nd place, previous record was +3.37 deg. C, Aug. 1996)

Australia: +1.80 deg. C.

The linear warming trend since January, 1979 now stands at +0.16 C/decade (+0.14 C/decade over the global-averaged oceans, and +0.21 C/decade over global-averaged land).

The following table lists various regional LT departures from the 30-year (1991-2020) average for the last 20 months (record highs are in red):

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better to know...?, climate-debate

New Study: Human Emissions ‘Irrelevant’ In Determining Changes In Atmospheric CO2 Since 1959

by K. Richard, Sept 2, 2027 in NoTricksZone

“The main factor governing the annual increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration is the SST [sea surface temperature] rather than human emissions.” – Ato, 2024

Another day, another new scientific paper has been published reporting efforts to curb anthropogenic CO2 emissions are “meaningless.”

In this study multiple linear regression analysis was performed comparing SST versus anthropogenic CO2 emissions as explanatory factors and the annual changes in atmospheric CO2 as the objective variable over the period 1959-2022.

The model using the SSTs (NASA, NOAA, UAH) best explained the annual CO2 change (regression coefficient B = 2.406, P = <0.0002), whereas human emissions were not shown to be an explanatory factor at all in annual CO2 changes (regression coefficient B = 0.0027, P = 0.863).

Most impressively, the predicted atmospheric CO2 concentration using the regression equation derived from 1960-2022 SSTs had an extremely high correlation coefficient of r = 0.9995.

Thus, not only is the paradigm that says humans drive atmospheric CO2 changes wrong, but “the theory that global warming and climate change are caused by human-emitted CO2 is also wrong.”

“SST has been the determinant of the annual changes in atmospheric CO2 concentrations and […] anthropogenic emissions have been irrelevant in this process, by head-to-head comparison.”

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climate-debate

New Study: CO2’s Atmospheric Residence Time 4 Years…Natural Sources Drive CO2 Concentration Changes

by K. Richard, Aug 30, 2024 in WUWT

“Clearly, the atmospheric CO2 observation data are not consistent with the climate narrative. Rather, they contradict it.”  – Koutsoyiannis, 2024

Per a new study, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) utilizes “inappropriate assumption and speculation,” as well as non-real-world models of “imaginary data,” to claim CO2 emissions derived from fossil fuel burning function “weirdly,” far differently in the atmosphere than CO2 molecules derived from natural emissions (e.g., plant respiration, ocean outgassing) do.

“The ambiguity is accompanied by inappropriate assumptions and speculations, the weirdest of which is that the behavior of the CO2 in the atmosphere depends on its origin and that CO2 emitted by anthropogenic fossil fuel combustion has higher residence time than when naturally emitted.”

While the IPCC acknowledges emissions from natural sources have an atmospheric residence time of only 4 years, they have simultaneously constructed model outputs that assert CO2 molecules derived from fossil fuel emissions remain in the atmosphere for hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, even several one hundred thousands of years.

Per the IPCC:

“15 to 40% of an emitted CO2 pulse [from anthropogenic emissions] will remain in the atmosphere longer than 1000 years, 10 to 25% will remain about ten thousand years, and the rest will be removed over several hundred thousand years.”

“Carbon dioxide (CO2) is an extreme example, its turnover time is only about 4 years because of the rapid exchange between the atmosphere and the ocean.”

Again, a four-year residence time for natural CO2, but hundreds of thousands of years residence time for CO2 molecules elicited from fossil fuel burning. It would seem just about any result can be derived from imaginary data.

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Instead of relying on models built on assumption and speculation, Dr. Koutsoyiannis utilizes a well-established, hydrology-based theoretical framework (refined reservoir routing, or RRR) combined with real-world CO2 observations to robustly conclude the residence time for all CO2 molecules, regardless of origin, is between 3.5 and 4 years.

The applied theoretical results match the empirical results so closely (e.g., an empirical mean of 3.91 years vs. a theoretical mean of 3.94 years at Barrow, and an identical 3.68 years for both empirical and theoretical means at Mauna Loa from 1958-2023) that the theoretical framework can be said to be “close to perfect.” In other words, the consistency of the applied calculation with real-world observations provides robust evidence that CO2 residence time is likely close to this range.

In contrast, the calculated probability for the modeled, imaginary-data-based claim that the residence time for a CO2 molecule persists for over 1000 years is 10⁻⁶⁸, which means the probability value is “no different from an impossibility.”

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climate-debate

The Solar Control of Climate: A Review

by D. Archibald,  Aug 28, 2024 in TheWentworthReport

This review was prepared for a Zoom interview on the Sun’s role in climate. Some say carbon dioxide is the controlling variable in climate. That notion is discredited, most recently by a study on variation in the Earth’s albedo. As the following figure from that study shows, all of the atmosphere’s temperature rise this century mirrors the reduction in albedo with no room for a contribution from carbon dioxide:

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This is consistent with the logarithmic heating effect of carbon dioxide. Half of the warming from atmospheric carbon dioxide comes from the first 20 ppm and then rapidly drops away from there. Carbon dioxide is tuckered out as a greenhouse gas:

 

From the current 423 ppm, each 100 ppm increase results in a temperature rise of only 0.1°C. The atmosphere will only get to about 600 ppm before we run out of rocks we can dig up and burn. So the warming effect from carbon dioxide is only good for another 0.2°C. There is no human on our planet sensitive enough to feel a 0.2°C difference in temperature. And this story doesn’t have a happy ending. There is 50 times as much carbon dioxide in the oceans than in the atmosphere, so the 800-year turnover of the oceans will take 98% of the carbon dioxide humans have added to the atmosphere down to the Davy Deep and we won’t see it again. A couple of hundred years from now our descendants will be lamenting the annual decline in crop yields due to falling carbon dioxide levels.

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climate-debate

Global Temperature updated for August 2024

by C. Best, Aug 27, 2024 in SciTravelOpinion

The global temperature anomaly for August was 1.27 deg.C relative to a 1961-1990 baseline. These results use GCHN monthly land temperatures combined with HadSST4 ocean temperatures. I use a novel method to calculate this using a 3D spherical triangulation of the earth’s surface. This is shown below.

The monthly trends relative to the 1961-1990 baseline are shown below.

Temperature trends

One of the problems with Global Warming is that the underlying temperature trends are superimposed on far larger but shorter natural variability cycles (El Nino). Therefore it makes little sense to push for action based on just one month’s temperature. It may even take another decade to be certain that average temperatures really have exceeded  1.5 C.

A far better method to determine when this will happen is based on using Icosahedral grids with decadal averaging 

The observed stable decadal trend shows that the Paris Agreement to limit warming to 1.5C since the preindustrial level will very likely be exceeded in 2032

energy and fields

Florida’s Fossil Fuel Renaissance: Why the Sunshine State is Laughing Off Climate Hysteria

by C. Rotter, Aug 24, 2024 in WUWT

Maguire’s article, which is as much a lament as it is a piece of journalism, paints Florida as the villain in a story where the rest of the country is the hero, gallantly marching toward a green utopia. But here’s the kicker: Florida’s doing just fine, and the people who live there know it. Let’s break down the absurdity of the climate scolds and see why Florida’s energy strategy is not only sensible but downright smart.

Fossil Fuels: The Workhorse of Florida’s Energy Grid

According to Maguire, Florida’s reliance on fossil fuels—gasp—has actually increased in 2024, a move that he seems to think is tantamount to environmental heresy. “Florida reverses energy transition by cranking fossil fuel use,” his headline wails, as if the state had suddenly decided to reverse gravity. But let’s get real: fossil fuels, particularly natural gas, are the backbone of Florida’s energy grid for a very simple reason—they work. When the summer sun is beating down, and everyone’s cranking up the AC, no one wants to hear that their power has been cut because the wind isn’t blowing or a cloud passed over a solar farm.

Maguire points out that over 80% of Florida’s electricity has come from fossil fuels since the beginning of June, the highest share in over three years. He compares this to the national average of 62.4% and Texas’s 62%, as if this somehow proves Florida is an outlier in the worst way. But let’s be honest: these are numbers that should make Floridians proud. While the rest of the country toys with unreliable renewables, Florida is ensuring that its citizens have a reliable, affordable energy supply.

The Reality of Renewable Energy

Renewables sound great on paper, don’t they? Free energy from the sun and wind—what’s not to love? But here’s where the rubber meets the road: renewables aren’t ready for prime time, especially not in a state like Florida, where reliability isn’t just a luxury, it’s a necessity. Imagine the chaos if millions of Floridians were left in the sweltering heat because the sun decided to take a day off. Florida’s summer is no joke, and neither is the demand for electricity. The state’s grid needs to be as robust as a linebacker, not as fragile as a flower.

And it’s not like Florida has completely ignored renewable energy. Florida Power & Light (FPL), the largest utility in the state, is leading a solar charge, aiming to install 30 million solar panels by 2030. But here’s the kicker—Florida’s leaders know that solar is a supplement, not a substitute. That’s why they haven’t thrown the baby out with the bathwater and abandoned fossil fuels.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

The Atlantic Is Cooling at a Mysteriously Fast Rate After Record Warmth

by P. Homewood, Aug 25, 2024 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat

For over a year, surface temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean hit new highs, but that trend has reversed at record speed over the past few months, and nobody knows why.

In June, temperatures in the Atlantic were 2 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit (1 to 3 degrees Celsius) hotter than normal in much of the ocean, with some areas getting as much as 9 degrees F (5 degrees C) warmer than average. Those temperatures weren’t a one-off, as the Atlantic had regularly seen record-breaking levels since March 2023. That year marked the fourth in a row that the world’s oceans set new heat records.

The hot water was partially a result of human-caused climate change, but it was also due to a particularly strong El Niño in 2023 and 2024. But that system appears to have passed, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

NOAA data shows Atlantic sea surface temperatures have cooled at a surprising rate since May. Since June began, temperatures have been a degree or two Fahrenheit colder than normal for this time of year. That means El Niño will likely be replaced by its counterpart, La Niña, a weather system that allows cold water to rise to the surface of the Atlantic, some time between September and November. Both El Niño and La Niña are complex systems driven by trade winds, solar heating, and rainfall in the tropic regions, and can be difficult to predict. Still, the sudden shift in Atlantic temperatures has been puzzling, and nobody seems to know why it’s happened so quickly.

“We’ve gone through the list of possible mechanisms, and nothing checks the box so far,” Frans Philip Tuchen, a postdoctoral student at the University of Miami, told New Scientist.

https://gizmodo.com/the-atlantic-is-cooling-at-a-mysteriously-fast-rate-after-record-warmth-2000488967

.So they do not have a clue why the Atlantic has suddenly got colder, but they think they know that global warming made it hotter in the first place, even though there is no physical for the claim that a slightly warmer atmosphere can make any measurable difference to ocean temperatures!

They also get their knickers in a complete twist stating that El Ninos in the Pacific raise SSTs in the Atlantic!

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climate-debate

Study: Sea Levels Rose 4.7 Centimeters Per Year 8200 Years Ago – 30 Times Faster Than Modern Rates

by K. Richard, Aug 26, 2024 in NoTricksZone

The modern rate of sea level rise is not even close veering outside the range of natural variability.

A new study reminds us that, 8200 years ago, near-global sea levels rose 6.5 meters in a span of just 140 years. This is 470 centimeters per century, 4.7 centimeters per year, during a period when CO2 levels were alleged to be a “safe” and stagnant 260 ppm.

Image Source: Nunn et al., 2024

To put this change rate in perspective, global sea levels rose at a rate of 1.56 millimeters per year from 1900 to 2018, including 1.5 mm per year rate during the more recent period from 1958-2014 (Frederikse et al., 2020, Frederikse et al., 2018). This is just under 16 centimeters per century or sixteen hundredths of a centimeter (0.16 cm) per year

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better to know...?, energy and fields

Yet More Reasons Why Green Hydrogen Is Going Nowhere

by F. Menton, Aug 28, 2024 in WUWT

In the fantasy of the zero-emissions electricity future, there will either be regular devastating blackouts, or something must back up the intermittent wind and solar generation. In New York we call that imaginary something the “DEFR” (Dispatchable Emissions Free Resource). But what is it? Nuclear has been blocked for decades, especially in the blue jurisdictions that are most aggressively pursuing the wind/solar future. Batteries are technologically not up to the job, and also wildly too expensive. That leaves hydrogen. Anybody with another idea, kindly speak up.

I’ve had several posts discussing the question of whether hydrogen could do this job, for example this one on February 14, 2024, and this one on July 20. Those posts focused on the initial cost of making hydrogen by electrolysis from water. That cost turns out to be a multiple of the cost of producing natural gas by drilling into rock (for comparable energy content). From time to time I have alluded to other potential problems with having hydrogen replace natural gas in the electricity system — things like leaks, explosions, and the need for an entire new infrastructure of pipelines and trucks to carry the stuff and power plants to burn it. But until now I haven’t found a detailed study on just how bad these additional problems might be.

Now comes along an August 18 article in a peer-reviewed journal called Energy Science & Engineering, with the title “A review of challenges with using the natural gas system for hydrogen.” The article was linked on August 23 by Paul Homewood at the Not a Lot of People Know That site, and then further linked by Watts Up With That on August 24.

The lead author is a guy named Paul Martin. Unusually for an article in such a journal, no academic affiliation is given for Mr. Martin. Looking him up on LinkedIn, I find that he is not an academic, but rather identifies himself as a “chemical process development expert” who has spent “years in industry,” and is currently with Spitfire Research, Inc., which in turn states that it specializes in “consulting for a decarbonized future.” Mr. Martin then identifies several of his co-authors on the paper as a “team of people at the Environmental Defense Fund.” That information may well color your perception of what Martin, et al., have to say in their paper.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Math Confirms Foolishness of Climate Alarmism

by G. Wrightstone, Aug 11, 2024 in WUWT

The science of climate change often is presented in complicated language that speaks of computer models and the theoretical inputs and outputs thereof and concludes that the globe is on the verge of “boiling.” Well, leave it to three physicists — steeped in calculus and such arcane matters as the behavior of molecules and the nuclear charge of atoms — to simplify the analysis and arrive at a much less alarming determination.

“Straightforward calculations … show that eliminating U.S. CO2 emissions by the year 2050 would avoid a temperature increase of 0.0084 degrees Celsius,” states a brief paper authored by Drs. Richard Lindzen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; William Happer, Princeton University; and William A. van Wijngaarden, York University, Toronto. On the Fahrenheit scale, the value of averted warming is 0.015 degrees.

In short, the amount of warming averted by eliminating CO2 emissions in the United States would be too small to measure. The paper bolsters the position of those who argue that a changing climate is the product of natural forces, that human-induced carbon dioxide emissions can have only a minuscule effect on global temperature, and that CO2 is a valuable plant food and not a pollutant.

Rather than using theoretical assumptions about various factors that are fed into computers, the paper’s calculation relies almost exclusively on “observable data” that are widely accepted and publicly available, says Dr. Happer.

“This is something anybody with a calculator can figure out,” said the scientist, who may be best known for his contribution to a laser-based technology for destroying incoming ballistic missiles as part of the so-called Star Wars program of the 1980s. Continuer la lecture de Math Confirms Foolishness of Climate Alarmism →

climate-debate

Less Extreme Pacific Weather … Number Of Typhoons Trending Downward Over 70 Years!

by P. Gosselin, Aug 8, 2024 in NoTricksZone

Pacific typhoons forming in the month of July have been trending downward for 70 years 

The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) presents the latest data for Pacific typhoons — going back to 1951.

Although bad weather happens all the time, climate alarmists are desperate for weather extremes, searching across the internet in order to produce some headlines – thus hoping to keep the hoax going. Unfortunately they won’t find much in terms of typhoons forming in the Pacific.

July trend down

Today we look at the data from the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) for the number of typhoons formed in the Pacific in the month of July, now that the July data are available:

Data source: JMA. 

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