Archives de catégorie : better to know…?

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

Scientists Say A 6°C Warmer-Than-Today Arctic Is ‘Optimal’ For Thermophile Species

by K. Richard, Apr 6, 2023 in NoTricksZone

Back in the Early Holocene, when CO2 levels were said to be ~255 ppm, Arctic Svalbard was warm enough to accommodate abundant numbers of thermophiles, or warmth-demanding species. Only “remnants” of these species and their habitat exist in today’s much-colder Arctic.

With the exception of a few centuries in recent millennia, today’s Svalbard (Arctic) is the most glaciated it has been in the last 10,000 years (see the blue trend line in the below chart from Brožová et al., 2023).

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This region is today about 6°C colder than it was during the early Holocene (~10,000 to 8,000 years ago), a climatic period scientists characterize as an optimum, or “most favorable,” for a “rich species pool” of thermophiles.

The sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the western Barents Sea were as warm as 13°C and “sea ice-free during most of the mid-Holocene” (Łącka et al., 2019). In contrast, today’s SST in this region are as cold as they were during the last glacial (2-4°C), when CO2 hovered near 200 ppm. Rapid double-digit SST fluctuations, varying from 3 to 13°C, have been ongoing throughout the Holocene.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

NASA Data On Global Sea Ice Area Shows A Growth Equal To The Size Of Belgium Since 1982!

by P. Gosselin, Nov 30, 2021 in NoTricksZone

Global Sea Ice Area

Data analyst Zoe Phin just posted some interesting, surprising results on global sea ice area.

Data sources like the National Snow and Ice Data Center show global sea ice has been” drastically decreasing for a long time” and so we need to panic and overhaul the entire carbon economy. We hear this daily in the media.

Surprising global sea ice area findings

But Zoe has analyzed what she characterizes as a “very legitimate source” of data from NASA, (here, or here). And according to her findings, the data from these sources suggest global sea ice loss is not as dramatic as some institutes would like us to believe it is. In fact there ‘s been a gain!

Zoe plotted the data going back 40 years, from 1982 to 2021, the “Global Sea Ice Area Fraction”, which “is a proportion of the entire Earth’s surface that is ice over water.”

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“As you can see, about 3.6% (on average) of our planet’s area is covered in ice over water,” reports Zoe. “In the last 40 years, ice over water has INCREASED, and not decreased, as popularly claimed.”

According to Zoe, the observed increase is equivalent to ~30,600 km², or “roughly the size of Belgium”.

Northern hemisphere sea ice area has declined

The northern hemisphere has decreased, and this has gotten lots of attention from alarmists and the media:

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Real-World Observation: Increasing CO2 By 7,000 ppm Has A 0.3°C Temperature Differential

by K. Richard, Mar 30, 2023 in NoTricksZone

Surface air CO2 concentrations vary by 100s to 1,000s of ppm within a span of hours to days or weeks across the natural world. The observational evidence suggests these variations are neither driving or even causing temperature changes.

According to recent field research (Mungai, 2021) conducted in Kenya, the observed CO2 concentrations in the atmospheric air above mofette springs (8) averages 3,400-4,800 ppm. Interestingly, the temperatures associated with these high CO2 levels are “relatively low” or “cold” (~21.5 to 29.5°C) compared to ambient temperatures at other nearby sites with ~400 ppm CO2.
 
The study also shows that when CO2 increases from 5,253 ppm in wet season to 12,138 ppm in dry season over a mofette springs site, there is only a 0.3°C temperature differential (23.4°C vs. 23.1°C) associated with this >7,000 ppm CO2 change. The sensitivity of the surface air temperature to these extremely high CO2 variations would appear to be vanishingly small – or non-existent.
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better to know...?, climate-debate

UGLY: Climate Skeptic Group Gets EVICTED from National Science Teaching Association Convention

by A. Watt, Mar 27, 2023 in WUWT

From the You can’t handle the truth! department comes this sad but predictable tale of closed minded pettiness. NSTA, is your position so strong and unassailable that you have to trample free speech rights to protect teachers from hearing alternate views? Does cancel culture now extend to the minds of educators?

From Greg Wrightstone, president of the CO2 Coalition who reports they were evicted from their paid and agreed to exhibit just minutes after the show opened. This picture shows them on their way out the door while the show is in progress.

He writes:

We had an exhibit booth and were attending the NSTA convention, but they were having none of it. We were thrown out of the NSTA annual convention yesterday for exposing their position on the teaching of climate change. Our science was not on the “Approved List” by them.

better to know...?

Theologian Thunberg and the pseudo-religion

by B. Muehlenberg, Mar 26, 2023 in Spectator

Imagine that: it seems that Greta Thunberg is now a top theologian…? Yes, I realise that honorary degrees are usually not worth the paper they are printed on, but in what has to be the joke of the decade, climate change activist (and some may say, alarmist) Greta Thunberg has been awarded an honorary doctorate in theology from the Theology Faculty at the University of Helsinki.

The 20-year-old Swede has already been honoured with a doctorate by the Belgian University of Mons, and was named Time’s ‘Person of the Year’ in 2019. She is held up by many as our ‘only hope’ to stop the apocalypse. About the only accolade left is to proclaim her to be the long-awaited Messiah.

Yet as far as I can tell, Thunberg does not have a theological bone in her body – certainly not any Christian ones. If that is the case, why do we have another Woke university declaring her a theologian worthy of praise? Wow, not bad for a day’s work…

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better to know...?, climate-debate

The 1.5 C Temperature Fiction, Already Exceeded

by J. Marohasy, Mar 21, 2023 in WUWT

From Jennifer Marohasy’s blog

March 21, 2023 By jennifer

It is all over the news, another climate change report from the IPCC – the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Of course, it tells us that the end is nigh unless we do something to prevent temperatures exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius. Meanwhile, not one of the contributors has any proven capacity to accurately forecast the weather more than a few days in advance, nor much of an idea of the quality of the temperature data inputted into the simulation models claiming the Earth is burning up. Yet they claim to be able to forecast temperatures years in advance and repeat over and over the value of 1.5 C as representing a tipping point.

The reality is that annual maximum temperatures across Australia were mostly falling, and by much more than 1.5 C, from at least 1910 to 1960 and then increasing, and by more than 1.5 C, since 1960.

There are few locations across Australia where temperatures have been recorded at the one place and using standard equipment (including in a Stevenson screen with a mercury thermometer) much before 1908. Darwin in the Northern Territory and Richmond in Queensland are special because they have long and relatively reliable temperature records. Making a single adjustment to the Darwin temperature record to correct for the move from the post office to the airport (after the post office was bombed in WW II), it is evident from the chart that both temperature series show cooling and then warming over the last century and by much more than 1.5 C over periods of less than a decade.

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better to know...?

Barry Brill: The Climate Emperor Is Now Naked

by B. Brill, Mar 18, 2023 in ClimateRealism

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The survey of 950 U.S. Likely Voters was conducted on March 6-8, 2023. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.

The result (reported here) was breathtaking!An outright majority of those polled agreed that climate change has become a religion which has nothing to do with the climate. Almost half (47%) said they “Strongly Agree” while a further 13% said they “Agree”.

It’s hard to digest the fact that no less than 60% of US voters have now formed the clear view that the endless propaganda we hear daily from our politicians and corporate media actually has nothing to do with science or genuine alarm – it isn’t even about the climate. Instead, it’s all about political power and control.

Nearly half of those polled have strong feelings about this. That seems to suggest that they are a million miles from swallowing the orthodox narrative and are no longer persuadable. Although they weren’t asked, one can assume that they are fed up with the propaganda and want to be treated as adults.

Surprisingly, nearly half of the Democrats polled agreed that climate change has become a religion. But there was still a significant difference between the parties, the breakdown being:

Democrats:             45%

Independents:         60%

Republicans:          79%

There is no reason to believe that adult New Zealanders would feel any different from their American counterparts. And the breakdown between political parties would probably be much the same here as well.

 

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See also: The Global Warming Doomsday Religion Is A Suicide Pact To Wreck Our Economy

better to know...?, climate-debate, energy and fields

Claim: A Majority of Voters believe Climate Change is a False Religion

by E. Worrall, Mar 15, 2023 in WUWT

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But just maybe the tide is turning.

A lot of things have been going wrong for wind and solar fanatics lately. Biden, arguably the President with the greatest record of subsidizing unreliable wind and solar in America’s history, had his chance to bring down energy prices with his solar panels and wind turbines. Instead, he delivered the spectacle of the US Secretary of State crawling to the Saudis, begging for access to their oil, oil which could have been delivered by the Keystone Pipeline and other petroleum projects the Biden administration sabotaged.

In Britain and Germany – energy prices. Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany has implausibly promised an energy miracle, but Britain and Europe have already waited a long time for the promised reward for all the hardship they have endured and the trillion Pounds and Euros spent over the last few decades.

The measures Britain and Germany have taken to avert catastrophe in the face of Russian gas supply disruption, and the utter failure of  the climate alarmist’s energy programmes to deliver, are beyond embarrassing. Germany is bulldozing villages, old growth forests, even a wind farm to dig up coal to avoid further deindustrialization caused by their maniacal reliance on intermittent wind and solar. Britain deferred decommissioning her decrepit coal plants. Just as well, Britain needed those coal plants again just last week.

In Australia, Prime Minister Albanese, who won on the promise of a substantial drop in energy prices, well that promise is now looking pretty shaky. Household energy prices are set to rise 20%, 30% next year?Who knows. What we do know, is it will be a lot – and the dirt cheap coal power which bring down prices is scheduled to be shut down.

With the promises of the climate religion wearing thin, and climate concern faltering in the face of mortgage stress and soaring energy bills, perhaps this Rasmussen poll is what it appears to be – an early indication of a sea change in public opinion concerning climate change and climate action.

better to know...?

New WUWT Global Temperature Feature: Anomaly vs. Real-World Temperature

by A. Watts, Mar 13, 2023 in WUWT

One of the most frightening aspects of global warming, aka “climate change” is the graphs produced from temperature data for public consumption and trumpeted by an unquestioning and compliant media. When it comes to measuring climate, in order to actually see any temperature differences over the last century, they must be highly magnified using the temperature anomaly method.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Science Yields Surprises! Island Nations Growing… “Atoll, Island Stability Is Global Trend”!

by P. Gosselin, Mar 8, 2023 in WUWT

IPCC high-end sea level predictions for 2100 are “highly erroneous”. 

Global warming alarmists like to claim that Pacific island nations are on the verge of disappearing – due to rising sea levels caused by polar ice melting due to global warming, which in turn supposedly is caused by rising concentrations of “heat-trapping” trace gas CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels.

These coral reef island nations risk going under real soon, unless we wean ourselves from fossil fuels soon, they say.

Coral reef island nations are emerging, not disappearing

But yesterday Kenneth here presented a new paper appearing in Nature, (Kench et al., 2023), which looks at whether the coral reef islands are in fact seeing unprecedented and undergoing accelerating physical changes that risk outrunning human adaptation measures. The authors analyzed the dynamics of a Maldivian reef island at millennial to decadal timescales.

Recent changes not unprecedented

The researchers found that “island change over the past half-century (±40 m movement) is not unprecedented compared with paleo-dynamic evidence”.

Nothing unusual is happening. The global data suggest that almost all islands are in fact growing, and not  disappearing under water like climate alarmists mistakenly believe.

“Recent shoreline changes (±40 m/50 years) are ‘dwarfed’ by the shoreline changes (±200 m/100 years) that occurred throughout previous centuries,” the study’s authors write.

 89% of all the globe’s islands are stable, or growing!

Moreover, just 4 years ago, another peer-reviewed publication appearing in a renowned journal found similar results: 89% of the globe’s islands and 100% of large islands have stable or growing coasts! According to Duvat, 2019:

“88.6% of islands were either stable or increased in area, while only 11.4% contracted. It is noteworthy that no island larger than 10 ha decreased in size. These results show that atoll and island areal stability is a global trend, whatever the rate of sea-level rise.”

Moreover, Khan et al (2018) found: “Prediction of 4–6.6 ft sea level rise in the next 91 years between 2009 and 2100 is highly erroneous.”

better to know...?, climate-debate

From Record Snow To No Snow, Activist Media Use Climate Change To Stoke Fear

by J. Heller, Mar 7, 2023 in ClimateChangeDispatch

This article is in the tradition of articles that we have seen for decades saying we could look forward to snowless winters because of humans and our use of natural resources.

What is missing from every one of these articles is a direct link connecting oil consumption, CO2 content, or any other such thing with temperatures and snow. [emphasis, links added]

But the truth has never mattered to the media and other leftists when they have set out to destroy the oil industry.

They cannot explain why we had a cooling period from 1940 to 1975, where essentially the same people who are warning of an existential threat of warming were warning of an existential threat that billions would die from an existential threat of a coming ice age.

Here is a hint for sycophant journalists who just repeat what they are told.

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better to know...?

Half The World At Risk Of Starvation Under Net Zero, Warn Top Climate Experts

by C. Morrisson, Mar 3, 2023 in ClimateChangeDispatch

Billions of people around the world face starvation if Net Zero policies ban the production of nitrogen fertilizer derived from fossil fuels.

This is the stark warning from two top American scientists who say that eliminating fossil fuel-derived nitrogen fertilizers and pesticides “will result in about half the world’s population not having enough food to eat.” [emphasis, links added]

They add that eliminating Net Zero fertilizer will create “worldwide starvation.”

In a wide-ranging paper titled ‘Challenging ‘Net Zero’ with Science‘, Emeritus Professors William Happer and Richard Lindzen of Princeton and MIT respectively, along with geologist Gregory Wrightstone, state that Net Zero – the global movement to eliminate fossil fuels and carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases emissions – to be “scientifically invalid and a threat to the lives of billions of people”.

The battle over nitrogen fertilizer is being hard fought by green activists who argue for massive reductions in its use and more organic methods to be mandated.

This can extend to fanaticism, as marked by the Guardian’s George Monbiot, who argues for an end to dependence on farming. The ground for less choice and food is also being prepared in academia.

Recently, three barking academics operating through the University of Leeds suggested World War II rationing could be an effective way to reduce carbon emissions.

Also harking back to the days of spam and when spivs controlled parts of the supply chain was the actress Joanna Lumley, who suggested a return to a points distribution system and a form of wartime rationing.

Back on Planet Reality, the authors publish the graph below showing a “remarkable” increase in crop yieldsafter the widespread use of nitrogen fertilizer began around 1950.

The authors [point out that any present or future government actions that omit analysis of the disastrous consequences for low-income people, people worldwide, future generations, and the United States by reducing fossil fuels and CO2 for Net Zero are based on “fatally flawed science and appalling government policy.”]

Happer and Lindzen state that they are career physicists who have specialized in radiation physics and dynamic heat transfer for decades. These are said to be integral to atmospheric climate science. In their opinion, all Net Zero regulations are scientifically invalid.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

The Observatory Antarctic Sea Ice: ‘The beginning of the end!’ – again

by Dr D. Whitehouse, March 2, 2023 in NetZeroWatch

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CNN are not the only media outlets to report on this years’ record low sea ice around Antarctica in apocalyptic terms, other media extremists are available. For Sky News it’s the accelerating melt of polar regions. For the BBC “There is now less sea-ice surrounding the Antarctic continent than at any time since we began using satellites to measure it in the late 1970s.” All this is technically true, but misleading. When it’s put into context one sees a different picture.

So let’s have a look at the actual satellite data of Antarctic sea ice collected monthly since 1979. The NSIDCgives two data sets for what it calls i) sea ice extent, and ii) sea ice area. So let’s examine both of them.

The first graphs is sea ice area, the second sea ice extent.

From the empirical data it is evident that there is hardly any change of sea ice over the 44-year time span. Since 2016 there is a dip with possibly more variability (of which more later), and the lowest month (February) does show a record low, but by hardly anything (and also look at the data for 1992). Does this actual data look like the beginning of the end to you? Where is CNN’s 90% loss or Sky News acceleration?

Millions of sq km; Source: National Snow & Ice Data Center

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

2022, Seventh Warmest Year: Warming Slows Down

by Andy May,  Jan 7, 2023 in Petrophysicist

No minimally informed person denies that climate changes. The climate has always changed. Since 1860 the predominant climate change has been warming, which is fortunate because if we had a winter like those of 1800-1850, we would be in for a shock. No one has been able to prove that global warming is primarily a consequence of our emissions. It is reasonable to assume that increased CO2 has contributed to warming since the mid-20thcentury when our CO2 emissions increased significantly, but no one knows how much they have contributed, no matter how much the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) insists that “humans are the dominant cause of observed global warming over recent decades.” (IPCC AR6, page 515).

There is no evidence for this statement. I know this because I have read thousands of scientific papers looking for it. And no, computer models are not evidence of anything but the programming skills of their authors. Models and their predictions are constantly changing and when our knowledge of climate changes, they must be redone.

The absolute lack of evidence contrasts sharply with the decision to cut our CO2 emissions to zero by completely changing our fossil fuel-based energy system and calling CO2 a pollutant—when it is as essential to life as oxygen. All this while most of the world doesn’t give a damn about emissions and many are only on board for the promised money.

To get to the good news about global warming we need to look at variations in the rate of global warming, i.e., the speed of warming. Today we are going to use satellite-calculated global temperature data from the University of Alabama in Huntsville, UAH 6.0. They are plotted in Figure 1.

Figure 1. UAH satellite global temperature anomaly data in °C relative to the mean from 1991 to 2020. In green is the linear trend of the series (+0.13 ºC/decade) and in blue is the linear trend since 2016. Data: UAH 6.0Graph: Woodfortrees.

As we can see, the temperature trend decreases since 2016, so 2022 is the seventh warmest year. For 7 years the planet has been cooling. Does that mean that warming is over? No, periods of 7 years of cooling are frequent in the record, there being 8 of them since 1979, and the warming continues. But there is only one period of more than 15 years of cooling, from 1998 to 2014, that appears in the record for the last 45 years. It is known as the “Pause.”

To analyze the evolution of the warming rate, we subtract from each monthly data the previous one to calculate the monthly increase. We then deseasonalize the monthly increase by finding the 12-month moving average to remove a lot of the noise. Finally, we calculate the 15-year average warming rate in °C/decade by calculating the 180-month moving average and multiplying the resulting data by 120.

Figure 2. Evolution of the warming rate for 15-year periods between 1979 and 2022 in °C/decade and its linear trend, from monthly UAH 6.0 satellite temperature data.

 

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better to know...?, climate-debate

What If Real-World Physics Do Not Support The Claim Top-Of-Atmosphere CO2 Forcing Exists?

by K. Richard, Dec 22, 2022 in NoTricksZone

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 Schneider et al., 2020, NASA, UCAR, CGA

TOA greenhouse gas forcing is a fundamental tenet of the CO2-drives-climate-change belief system. And yet the “global-mean longwave radiative forcing of CO2 at TOA” (Schneider et al., 2020) may not even exist.

It is easily recognized that water vapor (greenhouse gas) forcing cannot occur above a certain temperature threshold because water freezes out the farther away from the surface’s warmth H2O goes.

According to NASA, the TOA is recognized as approximately 100 km above the surface. The temperature near that atmospheric height is about -90°C.

CO2 is in its solid (dry ice) form at -78°C and below.

Therefore, TOA CO2 radiative forcing cannot exist if CO2 cannot be a greenhouse gas at the TOA.

better to know...?, climate-debate

New Study: Greenhouse Gases May Not Be Causing 21st-Century Warming

by D. Whitehouse, Dec 16, 2022 in ClimateChangeDispatch

A new study by a team of leading climate scientists suggests that the effect of carbon dioxide this century might be small if not undetectable when compared to natural climate variability.

Global surface temperature is and always has been the key climate parameter. Whatever is happening to the Earth’s climate balance, it must, sooner or later, be reflected in the global annual average temperature, and not just in regional variations. [emphasis, links added]

But therein lies what is to some an inconvenience as the changes in the global temperature this century are open to differing interpretations including the suggestion that increases in anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are not needed to explain the changes we have seen in the last 20 years or so.

It’s a conclusion that many would dismiss as coming from climate “skeptics,” or downright deniers.

But what if it’s the view of scientists from two of the world’s leading institutes researching climate change; the University of Oxford and the US National Center for Atmospheric Research? Then it must be taken seriously and not dismissed offhand.

It is important research because it is the trend in the increase of global temperature caused by anthropogenic [human-caused] greenhouse gas emissions that is the most important variable for policymakers considering the scale and timescale of action in the coming decades.

However, this vital parameter is uncertain because recent decades have shown that we are living through a period of considerable natural climate variability.

Thus, a new study published in the Journal of Climate suggests the effect of carbon dioxide this century might be small if not undetectable when compared to natural climate variability.

The researchers contend that recent temperature trends might indicate that there is no detectable increase in global temperature due to greenhouse gas emissions.

While this suggestion is interesting it must be said that the researchers get themselves in a muddle when estimating temperature trends this century.

On the one hand, they acknowledge the existence of the global temperature hiatus between 2000 – 2014, but on the other hand, they do not properly distinguish the effects of the natural El Nino eventsthat have taken place in the past seven years.

This is why they conclude there might have been an acceleration in global temperature increase over this period.

They say that most of the increase is not due to greenhouse gases but to aerosol emission reductions.

The combustion of fossil fuels releases greenhouse gases but it also causes pollution that cools the Earth,offsetting any warming.

This is good news for public health as airborne particles kill several million people a year, but it also accelerates global warming.

They assess that aerosol emissions have contributed to an increase in the rate of anthropogenic warming since 2000 although they have large uncertainty.

When considering estimates of the amount of warming due to aerosol reduction along with natural climate variability, they find a solution with all the post-2000 temperature trends being due to natural variability alone.

They say (p 4283) it’s a credible hypothesis that global temperature changes since 2000 could be “arising largely from internal variability.”

Read more at NZW

Also here

better to know...?, climate-debate

Despite Alarmist Reports, Drought In The Horn Of Africa Not From Climate Change

by L. Lueken, Dec 13, 2022 in ClimateChangeDispatch

A recent article in Inside Climate News by writer Georgina Gustin leverages a tragic period of severe drought in the Horn of Africa in order to push an alarmist narrative on climate change.

Gustin claims that food security is threatened by climate change and that millions will starve as a result of it. This is false.

Data show that food security has improved over the past decades of warming. [emphasis, links added]

If there is to be a global food crisis, it won’t be climate change that causes it, but rather the heavy-handed and ultimately futile efforts at controlling the weather by regulating how people grow crops and livestock.

The piece, titled “Climate Change is Driving Millions to the Precipice of a ‘Raging Food Catastrophe’,” focuses primarily on the specific example of the severe ongoing drought in Kenya and neighboring Somalia and Ethiopia.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Ipsos: Climate Skepticism Rising Three Years in a Row

by E. Worrall, Dec 10, 2022 in WUWT

“… Unexpectedly, climate skepticism has consistently grown over the past 3 years (37%, +6 pts in 3 years), and is particularly striking in France this year (37%, +8 pts in one year) …”

Climate change: a growing skepticism 

ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT

Purchasing power is now the key priority on a global level. Despite the importance they attribute to the climate and extreme weather events, people are less inclined to become involved and are more dubious as to the human origins of the phenomenon.

8 December 2022

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Despite topping the list of environmental priorities, climate change is not generating greater concern and climate skepticism is growing

Climate change (46%, +2 points vs. 2021) and extreme climate events (43%, +2 points vs. 2021) have become the key reasons for environmental concern this year on a world level, although this is also due to the drop in concern about waste and plastic (41%, -5 points vs 2021) and air pollution (37%, -3 points vs 2021). Nevertheless, if the two items are combined, 66% of the world’s population still view the climate as a priority issue (60% in 2019).

…

In France 16-24-year-olds are less worried than the population as a whole (45%), but they are either more indifferent (16% vs 7% overall), or on the contrary express greater demoralization (38% vs 27% overall).

Unexpectedly, climate skepticism has consistently grown over the past 3 years (37%, +6 pts in 3 years), and is particularly striking in France this year (37%, +8 pts in one year)2 whereas concern about the environment is particularly strong in that country. More specifically, the idea that has progressed the most is not a denial of change, but the notion that it is “mainly due to the kinds of natural phenomena that the Earth has experienced throughout its history”. …

Age does not appear to be a divisive criterion on this subject: …

…

Read more: https://www.ipsos.com/en/obscop-2022

On one hand I’m encouraged that young people seem to be starting to break free from all the intense green brainwashing many of them experienced at school.

Having said that, the proportion of people who hold hardline alarmist views also seems to have edged up slightly – so a component of that increase in skepticism may represent an increase in polarisation.

I wish there was a way to somehow increase the rate of progress. It is sad watching people in Britain, Europe and parts of the USA suffering unnecessary hardship because political climate activism has driven up the price of energy, even if many of those people voted for the politicians who created this mess. I guess sometimes people have to learn the hard way.

g

better to know...?, energy and fields

Electric Cars Are Futile As A Solution To The So-Called ‘Climate Crisis’

by A. Watts, Dec 9, 2022 in ClimateChangeDispatch

The Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory recently released a study titled, “Assessment of Light-Duty Plug-in Electric Vehicles in the United States, 2010 – 2021,” which shows that in 2021, privately-owned plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) and electric vehicles (EVs) “saved about 690 million gallons of gasoline.”

However, that is a huge exaggeration because fossil fuels provide 61 percent of the electricity in the United States. [emphasis, links added]

This means we have to include the inefficiency of burning coal or natural gas to make electricity(around 45 percent), transmission losses (about 5 percent), and losses in the inverter to charge the battery(another 5 percent).

Considering those losses, less than 33 percent of that apparent savings is a real reduction in fossil fuel use, the equivalent of roughly 230 million gallons of gasoline.

The Argonne study also says that from 2010 to 2021, EVs saved 2.1 billion gallons of gas. So, using the guideline of 61 percent from above, let’s be generous and say that over 11 years, EVs have saved about a third of that, the equivalent of about 750 million gallons of gasoline.

Although 750 million gallons of gasoline sounds like a huge amount, when you put into perspective the larger picture of gasoline use, that savings is actually a drop in the bucket.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), “In 2021, about 134.83 billion gallons (or about 3.21 billion barrels) of finished motor gasoline were consumed in the United States, an average of about 369 million gallons per day (or about 8.80 million barrels per day).”

Using simple arithmetic, dividing those 750 million gallons of gasoline saved from 2010 to 2021 according to the Argonne Lab study, by the daily U.S. consumption of gasoline, we get 750/369 = 2.03 days.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

MIT Climate Scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen Rejects ‘Climate Change’ As ‘A Quasi-Religious Movement Predicated on An Absurd ‘Scientific’ Narrative’

by R. Lindzen, Dec 5, 2022 in WUWT

Dr. Richard Lindzen’s new paper: An Assessment of the Conventional Global Warming Narrative – Published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation – September 22, 2022: Climate change is “a quasi-religious movement predicated on an absurd ‘scientific’ narrative. The policies invoked on behalf of this movement have led to the US hobbling its energy system.” – “The Earth’s climate has, indeed, undergone major variations, but these offer no evidence of a causal role for CO₂.”

“Unless we wake up to the absurdity of the motivating narrative, this is likely only to be the beginning of the disasters that will follow from the current irrational demonization of CO₂.”

By: Admin – Climate Depot

Click to access 2022-09-22-Lindzen-global-warming-narrative.pdf

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CO₂ is a particularly ridiculous choice for a ‘pollutant.’ Its primary role is as a fertiliser for plant life. Currently, almost all plants are starved of CO₂. Moreover, if we were to remove a bit more than 60% of current CO₂, the consequences would be dire: namely death by starvation for all animal life. It would not likely lead to a particularly cold world since such a reduction would only amount to a couple of percent change in the radiative budget. After all, a 30% reduction of solar radiation about 2.5 billion years ago did not lead to an Earth much colder than it is today, as we earlier noted in connection with the Early Faint Sun Paradox.

…

The Earth’s climate has, indeed, undergone major variations, but these offer no evidence of a causal role for CO₂. For the glaciation cycles of the past 700 thousand years, the proxy data from the Vostok ice cores shows that cooling precedes decreases in CO₂ despite the very coarse temporal resolution (Jouzel et al.,1987, Gore, 2006). Higher temporal resolution is needed to show that warming preceded the increase in CO₂ as well (Caillon et al, 2003). For earlier variations, there is no suggestion of any correlation with carbon dioxide at all, as shown in Figure 9a, a commonly presented reconstruction of CO₂ levels and ‘temperature’ for the past 600 million years or so.

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