Archives par mot-clé : Fun?/Discussion

Does this explode the great global warming myth?

by P. Homewood, Sep 21, 20022 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat


THE ‘greenhouse effect’ has been with us for so long that it is taken as ‘settled’ science in most quarters. However, as a new paper shows, there is much still to debate.

The author, William Kininmonth, is no bedroom blogger. As a former head of Australia’s National Climate Centre, he deserves careful and respectful attention.

Kininmonth’s suggestion is that the approach of the UN’s  Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), based on a concept of radiation forcing at the top of the atmosphere, is logically unsound and ignores important details about what happens at the Earth’s surface. In particular, he notes that there are huge flows of energy – vastly bigger than the effect of greenhouse gases – from the warm tropical oceans to the atmosphere, whence it is transported poleward by the winds, warming the northern latitudes.

Read the full story here.

Press Release: Important new paper challenges IPCC’s claims about climate sensitivity

by P. Homewood, Sep 20, 2022 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat


London, 20 September – A new paper reduces the estimate of climate sensitivity – the amount of warming expected for a doubling of carbon dioxide concentrations – by one third. The results therefore suggest that future global warming will be much less than expected.
The paper, by independent scientist Nic Lewis, has just appeared in the journal Climate Dynamics. It is an important challenge to the official view of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Lewis has critiqued a 2020 assessment of climate sensitivity by Sherwood et al., which strongly influenced the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report, in 2021. Lewis commented:
“It is unfortunate that Sherwood et al.’s assessment of climate sensitivity, which underpinned the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, contained such serious errors, inconsistencies and deficiencies in its methods”.
After correcting the Sherwood et al. methods and revising key input data to reflect, primarily, more recent evidence, the central estimate for climate sensitivity comes down from 3.1°C per doubling of CO2 concentration in the original study to 2.16°C in the new paper.
This large reduction shows how sensitive climate sensitivity estimates still are to input assumptions, and that values between 1.5°C and 2°C remain quite plausible.

  • Climate sensitivity represents the long-term global temperature increase caused by a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration. There are different measures of climate sensitivity. Both the Sherwood and Lewis papers estimate the so-called ‘effective’ climate sensitivity, which reflects a new equilibrium state projected from centennial changes after a doubling of the CO2 concentration. This measure is considered the most relevant one for predicting climate change in the coming two centuries.
  • Climate sensitivity has always been a very important, but also highly uncertain, parameter in the climate change discourse. Earlier IPCC reports assessed its value as likely to be somewhere between 1.5°C and 4.5°C, with a best estimate of 3°C. However, prompted by the Sherwood paper, the 2021 Sixth Assessment Report moved that range upwards, to 2.5 to 4°C. Although for outsiders this might sound boring, for insiders it was a revolutionary change.
  • Lewis’s corrections and revisions lead to a likely range of 1.75 to 2.7°C, which is not only lower but is also much less uncertain than either the 2021 official IPCC assessment or the very similar Sherwood et al. estimate (2.6 to 3.9°C).
  • Nic Lewis is the lead or sole author of ten peer-reviewed papers on climate sensitivity. He was a participant in the 2015 workshop that kicked off the World Climate Research Programme project that led to the Sherwood et al. 2020 paper, but he was not a co-author of that paper.

Lewis commented:
“The substantial reduction in assessed climate sensitivity upon updating key input data suggests that the increase in the bottom of the climate sensitivity range in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report was unjustified”.
Lewis’s paper is entitled ‘Objectively combining climate sensitivity evidence’. It can be freely downloaded here. A detailed explanatory article about the paper is available here.

Report: The Earth Has A Changing Climate, Not A Climate Crisis

by W. Manheimer, Sep 19, 2022 in ClimateChangeDispatch


The following excerpt is taken from:

Journal of Sustainable Development; Vol. 15, No. 5; 2022
ISSN 1913-9063 E-ISSN 1913-9071
Published by the Canadian Center of Science and Education

Abstract
The emphasis on a false climate crisis is becoming a tragedy for modern civilization, which depends on reliable, economic, and environmentally viable energy. [bold, links added]

The windmills, solar panels, and backup batteries have none of these qualities. This falsehood is pushed by a powerful lobby which Bjorn Lomborg has called a climate industrial complex, comprising some scientists, most media, industrialists, and legislators.

It has somehow managed to convince many that CO2 in the atmosphere, a gas necessary for life on earth, one which we exhale with every breath, is an environmental poison. Multiple scientific theories and measurements show that there is no climate crisis.

Radiation forcing calculations by both skeptics and believers show that the carbon dioxide radiation forcing is about 0.3% of the incident radiation, far less than other effects on climate.

Over the period of human civilization, the temperature has oscillated between quite a few warm and cold periods, with many of the warm periods being warmer than today.

During geological times, it and the carbon dioxide levels have been all over the place with no correlation between them.

CMIP6 GCM ensemble members versus global surface temperatures

by N. Scafetta, Sep 18, 2022 in Springer


Abstract

The Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (phase 6) (CMIP6) global circulation models (GCMs) predict equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) values ranging between 1.8 and 5.7 C. To narrow this range, we group 38 GCMs into low, medium and high ECS subgroups and test their accuracy and precision in hindcasting the mean global surface warming observed from 1980–1990 to 2011–2021 in the ERA5-T2m, HadCRUT5, GISTEMP v4, and NOAAGlobTemp v5 global surface temperature records. We also compare the GCM hindcasts to the satellite-based UAH-MSU v6 lower troposphere global temperature record. We use 143 GCM ensemble averaged simulations under four slightly different forcing conditions, 688 GCM member simulations, and Monte Carlo modeling of the internal variability of the GCMs under three different model accuracy requirements. We found that the medium and high-ECS GCMs run too hot up to over 95% and 97% of cases, respectively. The low ECS GCM group agrees best with the warming values obtained from the surface temperature records, ranging between 0.52 and 0.58 C. However, when comparing the observed and GCM hindcasted warming on land and ocean regions, the surface-based temperature records appear to exhibit a significant warming bias. Furthermore, if the satellite-based UAH-MSU-lt record is accurate, actual surface warming from 1980 to 2021 may have been around 0.40 C (or less), that is up to about 30% less than what is reported by the surface-based temperature records. The latter situation implies that even the low-ECS models would have produced excessive warming from 1980 to 2021. These results suggest that the actual ECS may be relatively low, i.e. lower than 3 C or even less than 2 C if the 1980–2021 global surface temperature records contain spurious warming, as some alternative studies have already suggested. Therefore, the projected global climate warming over the next few decades could be moderate and probably not particularly alarming.

Rethinking The Greenhouse Effect

by P. Homewood, Sep 16, 2022 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat


London, 16 September – A former head of Australia’s National Climate Centre is arguing that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has adopted an overly simplistic approach to global warming and has ended up exaggerating the human contribution to recent climate change.
William Kininmonth argues that the warming of the planet is fastest in winter and in high latitudes near the poles. He argues that this is mostly due to increased heat transport from the tropical oceans.
However, the recent warming of the tropical oceans can’t be explained by the greenhouse effect due to carbon dioxide, because that effect is small in the humid tropical atmosphere. The most probable explanation is natural changes in ocean currents.
William Kininmonth says:
“The IPCC’s radiation balance approach is very simplistic, ignoring the fact that nowhere on the Earth’s surface is in radiation balance. Mainstream climate science may have led us all up a blind alley”.
GWPF invited the Royal Society and the Met Office to review this paper, and to submit a response to be published as an appendix to it. No reply was received.


William Kininmonth: Rethinking the Greenhouse Effect (pdf)

Climate Scaremongers Take Note: It Was Hotter In 1976!

by P. Homewood, Sep 13, 022 in ClimateChange Dispatch


For weeks we have been told that this year’s warm summer is due to climate change.

The BBC’s Justin Rowlatt was quite clear: ‘We know what is behind this – greenhouse gas emissions caused by our burning of fossil fuels like coal and gas,’ a message amplified across the media and stoked by the Met Office, who delighted in their red warnings and public health alerts. [bold, links added]

It was not only the heat. The Met Office claimed that this summer’s drought is a harbinger of the future we could expect, ably assisted by fraudulently misleading images of ‘dried up reservoirs’ on BBC News.

As many of us suspected all along, the summer of 2022 was not a record breaker at all, as it was much hotter in 1976, as the Central England Temperature Series makes clear:

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/data/meantemp_seasonal_totals.txt

 

Indeed it was hotter in 1826 and 2018, and this summer was no hotter than in 1995 and 2006.

Global models underestimate large decadal declining and rising water storage trends relative to GRACE satellite data

by B.R. Scanlon et al., Jan 22, 2018 in PNAS


Significance

We increasingly rely on global models to project impacts of humans and climate on water resources. How reliable are these models? While past model intercomparison projects focused on water fluxes, we provide here the first comprehensive comparison of land total water storage trends from seven global models to trends from Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites, which have been likened to giant weighing scales in the sky. The models underestimate the large decadal (2002–2014) trends in water storage relative to GRACE satellites, both decreasing trends related to human intervention and climate and increasing trends related primarily to climate variations. The poor agreement between models and GRACE underscores the challenges remaining for global models to capture human or climate impacts on global water storage trends.

Abstract

Assessing reliability of global models is critical because of increasing reliance on these models to address past and projected future climate and human stresses on global water resources. Here, we evaluate model reliability based on a comprehensive comparison of decadal trends (2002–2014) in land water storage from seven global models (WGHM, PCR-GLOBWB, GLDAS NOAH, MOSAIC, VIC, CLM, and CLSM) to trends from three Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite solutions in 186 river basins (∼60% of global land area). Medians of modeled basin water storage trends greatly underestimate GRACE-derived large decreasing (≤−0.5 km3/y) and increasing (≥0.5 km3/y) trends. Decreasing trends from GRACE are mostly related to human use (irrigation) and climate variations, whereas increasing trends reflect climate variations. For example, in the Amazon, GRACE estimates a large increasing trend of ∼43 km3/y, whereas most models estimate decreasing trends (−71 to 11 km3/y). Land water storage trends, summed over all basins, are positive for GRACE (∼71–82 km3/y) but negative for models (−450 to −12 km3/y), contributing opposing trends to global mean sea level change. Impacts of climate forcing on decadal land water storage trends exceed those of modeled human intervention by about a factor of 2. The model-GRACE comparison highlights potential areas of future model development, particularly simulated water storage. The inability of models to capture large decadal water storage trends based on GRACE indicates that model projections of climate and human-induced water storage changes may be underestimated.

Reasons to avoid false balance and fake debates

by W. Baerbel and J. Cook, Sep 9, 2022 in SkepticalScience


False balance media reporting

One of the most insidious, albeit often inadvertent forms of climate misinformation is false-balance media  coverage, where contrarian voices are given equal coverage with climatescientists. This stems from the journalistic norm assuming there are always two sides to an issue, thus giving mainstream and contrarian voices equal representation. As a result, a few dissenting scientists are given similar attention to the 97% of scientists who are convinced that humans are causing global warming.

debate

Analysis of media coverage from 1988 to 2002 showed that newspapers often presented false balance media coverage of climate change [18]. While the situation has improved in prestige-press coverage [19], the tabloid press has shown no signs of improvement [20]. Similarly, 70% of U.S. TV coverage of climate change presents a false balance [21]. In short, much of what people learn about climate change from the media involves well-established scientific truth presented alongside groundless assertions.

To debate or not to debate

Debate is crucially important to climate science and in the case of human-caused climate change has already occurred over decades. The process of scientific debate is open to anyone—although it does require that participants subject their ideas to the scrutiny of the peer-review process, which is fundamental for the advancement of scientific knowledge [31]. However, contrarians refuse to participate in scientific debates: they do not present their views at scientific conferences, and have a negligible presence in the peer-reviewed literature. Instead, they demand special treatment by bypassing the usual scientific process and presenting unvetted ideas to the public.

How should one respond if invited to publicly debate mainstream climate science? Requests to “debate” climate science or the timing of climate impacts are for propaganda purposes and should be avoided.  Agreeing to participate in such debates run the risk of misinforming the public by conveying the false impression that the scientific community is undecided on basic facts like human-caused global warming.

In contrast, debates over solutions to climate change are worthwhile. One response to an invitation to debate is to inform the organisers of the danger of misinforming the public by debating established science, and that a more appropriate and constructive debate topic is climate solutions. If the organisers persist in hosting a problematic debate, a further option is to issue a public statement explaining that you had advised the organisers not to go ahead due to the problematic nature of the event, but they went ahead regardless.

Pre-1970s ‘Global’ Sea Surface Temp Measurements Are No More Reliable Or Accurate Than Guessing

by K. Richard, Sept 8, 2022 in NoTricksZone


The accuracy of the long-term global instrumental temperature record – especially the data obtained before the 1970s – wholly rests on the assumption that sailors obtained precisely reliable temperature measurements as they pulled wooden or canvas buckets out of the water from ships at random depths, locations, and times of day. They didn’t.

It has long been known that pulling a bucket out of the water from a ship is rooted in serious error, rendering the sea surface temperature (SST) data obtained nearly useless. Ashford (1948) summarized some of the more salient reliability problems with this method of measurement.

• The initial temperature of the bucket is generally different from that of the sea.

• The water in the bucket may change its temperature before the reading is taken owing to the processes of heat exchange and evaporation.

• The initial temperature of the thermometer is generally different from that of the sample.

• The thermometer is liable to scale errors.

• Owing to thermal lag, the thermometer may take an appreciable time to indicate the true temperature of the sample.

• If the thermometer is removed from the bucket when taking the reading, it may no longer indicate the true water temperature.

• The temperature may be read incorrectly.

Northern Europe Mid Summer Hasn’t Warmed In 25 Years….Late Summer Arctic Ice Near 15-Year High!

by P. Gosselin, Aug 26, 2022 in NoTricksZone


This summer it’s been warm and awfully dry across mush of Europe. But in terms of global warming and the so-called Arctic tipping point, i.e. a point where the Arctic sea ice melts and theoretically sets off an unstoppable chain of catastrophic events – we look at the midsummer trends of Scandinavia and Finland, and then the Arctic.

As you’ll see, there’s been signs of an Arctic tipping point over the past 15 years.

The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) has the latest mean temperature data for July and today we plot the July data from Sweden and Finland for the stations for which the JMA has sufficient data.

We begin with Finland:

Numbers — Tricky Tricky Numbers: Part 3

by Kip Hansen, Aug 25, 2022 in WUWT


Bottom Lines:

1.  To support a claim that the Earth’s Climate System is “getting hotter” one has to have a long-term time series of measurements of heat in the climate system.

2.  Current Global Mean Temperature data sets do not measure heat and thus can not supply evidence for #1.

3.  The lack of such a time-series doesn’t mean that the Earth’s climate isn’t gaining energy (heat) – it simply means we don’t have any reliable measure of it.

4.  Climate Science may have some evidence of long-term energy gain or what is commonly labelled “Earth’s Energy Budget” — energy in/energy out — but it doesn’t seem to be dominate in the ongoing climate controversy.  The latest paper shows that we can still cannot directly measure instantaneous radiative forcing.  “This fundamental metric has not been directly observed globally and previous estimates have come from models.  In part, this is because current space-based instruments cannot distinguish the instantaneous radiative forcing from the climate’s radiative response.”  It is possible that future satellite missions will be able to measure directly and accurately Earth’s incoming and outgoing energy.

Is Global Warming The Greatest Scientific Fraud In History?

by G.K. Mitchell, Aug 19, 202 in ClimateChangeDispatch


In its seminal report in 1990, the U.N. IPCC stated that “at the then current rate of world emissions of CO2, the global mean temperature would likely increase by 1°C by 2025.

This statement formed the basis for the hypothesis that anthropogenic (man-made) global warmingresulted from the increased concentration of CO2 in the Earth’s lower atmosphere resulting from man-made activities.

Central to the hypothesis was that the temperature of the lower troposphere would increase as the concentration of CO2 in the troposphere increased.

Therefore, in its 1990 report, the U.N. IPCC established a direct linkage between the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere and the temperature of the lower troposphere.

The scientific method of inquiry has guided scientific research and investigation for over 400 years. In summary, the scientific method requires that a researcher observe a phenomenon, postulate a hypothesis for the cause of the phenomenon, and then conduct experiments or scientific investigations to falsify the hypothesis.

In adherence to the scientific method, a climate scientist who thinks that man has caused global warming should develop a complex hypothesis as follows:

  1. Global warming has occurred; that is, the temperature of the world’s oceans, landmass, and relevant atmosphere has risen during the period under investigation by a statistically significant amount.

  2. Man’s activities are responsible for the global warming that has occurred.

  3. The extent to which global warming has occurred, or is reasonably projected to occur in the future, will adversely affect life on Earth.

If any of the conjectures in the complex hypothesis above are found to be invalid, the complex hypothesis is determined to be falsified and either discarded or modified.

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

by R. Pileke Jr, Aug 16, 2022 in ClimateChangeDispatch


Europe is in the midst of what has been called the worst drought in 500 years. According to a drought expert with the European Commission in comments last week [bold, links added]:

“We haven’t analysed fully the event (this year’s drought), because it is still ongoing, but based on my experience I think that this is perhaps even more extreme than 2018. Just to give you an idea the 2018 drought was so extreme that, looking back at least the last 500 years, there were no other events similar to the drought of 2018, but this year I think it is really worse than 2018.”

While a full analysis of the ongoing 2022 European drought remains to be completed, so too the drought itself, which is clearly exceptional if not unprecedented. In this post, I take a close look at the state of understanding of the possible role of climate change in this year’s drought.

Specifically, I report on what the most recent assessment report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and underlying literature and data say about the detection of trends in Western and Central European drought and the attribution of those trends to greenhouse gas emissions.

The figure below shows the specific region that is the focus of this post, which includes all of Germany, most of France, Hungary, Poland, Ukraine, and western Russia among other nations. …

The Science Was Just as “Settled” 110 Years Ago as It Is Today… Except for the Bits in the Middle

by D. Middleton, Aug 18, 2022 in WUWT


Nothing funnier than smarmy academics…

For 110 years, climate change has been in the news. Are we finally ready to listen?
Published: August 15, 2022 2.47am EDT

On August 14 1912, a small New Zealand newspaper published a short article announcing global coal usage was affecting our planet’s temperature.

This piece from 110 years ago is now famous, shared across the internet this time every year as one of the first pieces of climate science in the media (even though it was actually a reprint of a piece published in a New South Wales mining journal a month earlier).

So how did it come about? And why has it taken so long for the warnings in the article to be heard – and acted on?

[…]

 

….

Tim Ball: The Evidence Proves That CO2 is Not a Greenhouse Gas

by T. Ball, Sept 13, 2018 in Technocracy


 

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) claim of human-caused global warming (AGW) is built on the assumption that an increase in atmospheric CO2 causes an increase in global temperature. The IPCC claim is what science calls a theory, a hypothesis, or in simple English, a speculation.  Every theory is based on a set of assumptions. The standard scientific method is to challenge the theory by trying to disprove it. Karl Popper wrote about this approach in a 1963 article, Science as Falsification. Douglas Yates said,

“No scientific theory achieves public acceptance until it has been thoroughly discredited.”

Thomas Huxley made a similar observation.

“The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, skepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin.”

In other words, all scientists must be skeptics, which makes a mockery out of the charge that those who questioned AGW, were global warming skeptics. Michael Shermer provides a likely explanation for the effectiveness of the charge.

“Scientists are skeptics. It’s unfortunate that the word ‘skeptic’ has taken on other connotations in the culture involving nihilism and cynicism. Really, in its pure and original meaning, it’s just thoughtful inquiry.”

The scientific method was not used with the AGW theory. In fact, the exact opposite occurred, they tried to prove the theory. It is a treadmill guaranteed to make you misread, misrepresent, misuse and selectively choose data and evidence. This is precisely what the IPCC did and continued to do.

A theory is used to produce results. The results are not wrong, they are only as right as the assumptions on which they are based. For example, Einstein used his theory of relativity to produce the most famous formula in the world; e = mc2. You cannot prove it wrong mathematically because it is the end product of the assumptions he made. To test it and disprove it, you challenge one or all of the assumptions. One of these is represented by the letter “c” in the formula, which assumes nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. Scientists challenging the theory are looking for something moving faster than the speed of light.

Apocalyptic Versus Post-Apocalyptic Climate Politics

by J. Curry, Aug 11, 2022 in WUWT


From Climate Etc.

The Inflation Reduction Act that has passed in the US Senate contains a healthy dose of funding for energy and climate initiatives.  There is much discussion as to why this bill looks like it will pass, when previous climate bills (carbon tax, carbon cap and trade) failed.

The Senate bill includes billions of dollars in tax credits and subsidies for clean energy and electric vehicles. In addition to renewable-energy funding, there is also commitment to federal oil and gas expansion, albeit with fines for excessive methane leakage. The bill includes climate resiliency funding for tribal governments and Native Hawaiians and other disadvantaged areas disproportionately impacted by pollution and climate warming. Funds are also allocated to tackle drought remediation in the West.

I’ve received requests to write on this topic, here are some bits and pieces that I’ve pulled together.  My main points:

  • Post-apocalyptic climate politics have a much better chance of succeeding than fear-driven apocalyptic climate politics
  • Energy policy should be detached from climate policy to make a robust transition to a 21st century energy system that emphasizes abundant, cheap, reliable and secure power with minimal impact on the environment (including land use).

Apocalyptic climate politics

The Sahara Is Green When Warm, Desert When Cold…And It’s Drier Now Than The Last Glacial Maximum

by K. Richard, Aug 1, 2022 in NoTricksZone


If wetter is warmer and drier is colder, the modern Saharan climate suggests we are not in a warm period.

It is common knowledge that warmer temperatures are associated with wetter, greener climates, and cooler temperatures are linked to droughts, browning, crop failures, etc.

For example, in the continental US there is a “robust association between pan-CONUS drought events and cold tropical Pacific conditions” (Baek et al., 2019). Again, cooling sea surface temperatures are the “principal driver” of drought across the US.

Why the Sun, Not CO2, Heats the Oceans Revisiting the Debate: Does Greenhouse Back-radiation Warm the Oceans?

by J. Steele, Aug 1, 2022 in WUWT


About a decade ago there was a heated and unresolved debate on whether infrared back radiation from greenhouse gases is heating the oceans. Because infrared penetrates less than a millimeter into the ocean’s surface, many skeptics argued it is impossible to blame rising CO2 for ocean warming. However, several prominent skeptic scientists, people who I have great respect for, also weighed in arguing it was silly and useless to argue infrared heat can’t warm the ocean.

After analyzing the physics detailed in this video, I’m convinced it is solar energy that drives the observed ocean heating, and any infrared ocean heating is insignificant at best. If this analysis holds, it is another significant strike against the prevailing CO2 driven global warming theory

To ensure lay people are brought up to speed, here’s a quick summary of where consensus climate science stands today.

Get Ready For The 100 Year Long Climate “Emergency”

by F. Menton, July 22, 2022 in MahattanContrarian


Here’s the problem. There is no sense in which the climate is an “emergency” within the ordinary meaning of that word in the English language. Predictions by climate models of a few degrees of temperature rise over the next century are the opposite of an “emergency.” Indeed, the statutes granting various “emergency” powers to the Executive all deal with the question of time periods too short to give the Congress time to enact legislation appropriate to the situation at hand. That circumstance is the opposite of what we have with the climate.

But if you are on the left, or a climate activist, this situation is just too important to wait for Congressional action that may never come. An “emergency” must be declared, to last for — how long? A hundred years? During which time, the bureaucrats can issue whatever orders they want, and spend whatever funds they want, all in the name of saving the planet. None of which will or can have any effect on the 85% (and growing) of world carbon emissions that come from outside the U.S. and which the U.S. government cannot affect in any way.

It’s all a huge insult to the intelligence of the American people. I doubt that the courts will be fooled, most particularly the Supreme Court.

The European Heat Wave and Global Warming

by Guest Blogger, July 21, 2022 in WUWT


From the Cliff Mass Weather Blog

There is a lot of talk about the short-term European heatwave with some suggesting that the record-breaking warmth is the result of climate change/global warming.

Some of the media and climate advocates have been over the top in their claims (see below), stating that this event was the result of human-caused global warming.

“97% Consensus” — What Consensus?

by G. Wrightstone, Oct 28, 2021 in CO2Coalition


You have likely heard that 97% of scientists agree on human-driven climate change. You may also have heard that those who don’t buy into the climate-apocalypse mantra are science-deniers. The truth is that a whole lot more than 3% of scientists are skeptical of the party line on climate. A whole lot more.

The many scientists, engineers and energy experts that comprise the CO2 Coalition are often asked something along the lines of: “So you believe in climate change, then?” Our answer? “Yes, of course we do: it has been happening for hundreds of millions of years.” It is important to ask the right questions. The question is not, “Is climate change happening?” The real question of serious importance is, “Is climate change now driven primarily by human actions? That question should be followed up by “is our changing climate beneficial or harmful to ecosystems and humanity?”

There are some scientific truths that are quantifiable and easily proven, and with which, I am confident, at least 97% of scientists agree. Here are two:

  1. Carbon dioxide concentration has been increasing in recent years.

  2. Temperatures, as measured by thermometers and satellites, have been generally increasing in fits and starts for more than 150 years.

What is impossible to quantify is the actual percentage of warming that is attributable to increased anthropogenic (human-caused) CO2. There is no scientific evidence or method that can determine how much of the warming we’ve had since 1900 that was directly caused by us.

We know that temperature has varied greatly over the millennia. We also know that for virtually all of that time, global warming and cooling were driven entirely by natural forces, which did not cease to operate at the beginning of the 20th century.

The claim that most modern warming is attributable to human activities is scientifically insupportable. The truth is that we do not know. We need to be able to separate what we do know from that which is only conjecture.

What is the basis for the “97% consensus” notion? Is it true? 

Hint: You can’t spell consensus without “con.”

If, indeed, 97% of all scientists truly believed that human activities were causing the moderate warming that we have seen in the last 150 years, it would be reasonable for one to consider this when determining what to believe. One would be wrong, however.

Science, unlike religion, is not a belief system. Scientists, just like anyone else, will say that they believe things (whether they believe them or not) for social convenience, political expediency or financial profit. For this and other good reasons, science is not founded upon the beliefs of scientists. It is a disciplined method of inquiry, by which scientists apply pre-existing theory to observation and measurement, so as to develop or to reject a theory, so that they can unravel as clearly and as certainly as possible the distinction between what the Greek philosopher Anaximander called “that which is and that which is not.”

Lennart Bengtsson: Global climate change and its relevance for a global energy policy.

by H. von Storch, March 12, 2013 in DieKlimazwiebel


The relation between temperature and greenhouse gases in its very simplistic form has been known since the second half of the 19thcentury. The effect of the greenhouse gases can be seen as a warm overcoat preventing the surface in radiating away the heat to space. However, the warming is a complex process incorporating the dynamics of atmospheric and ocean flows and interactions of the many components of what is now called the Earth’s system. This includes in addition to the atmosphere, the oceans, the land surfaces and the land ices. Its study requires advanced computer models and other tools for its analysis and understanding.  It also requires accurate observations for validation and monitoring as well as special measurements for the development of many crucial aspects of the models. It is in fact an immensely complex undertaking that is virtually impossible to explain to the public in a readily understandable way. This has lead to a tendency towards oversimplification that has contributed more to confusion than to a thorough understanding. However, because of the strong public interest we are now facing a dilemma as the public and the political community have become too much involved in the climate change debate influencing the actual science and this not necessarily in a positive way as it implies an arbitrary selection of priorities and preferential issues.

 

Natural processes drive climate and practically all kinds of extreme weather have always been part of the climate and are practically unrelated to the modest warming we so far have had. The effect of increasing greenhouse gases is a slow but relentless process that will have to be dealt with but will require more time and better insight in key processes.Some events are seen as very dramatic as the reduced Arctic summer ice, others, even more puzzling, such as the surprising lack of warming in the tropical troposphere is hardly discussed.

The problem is that the global warming is mainly caused by the emission of carbon dioxide and thus directly related to energy production by fossil fuels that has dominated and still dominates the energy production by more than 80%. To significantly reduce or eliminate fossil fuel is not feasible on a time-scale shorter than several decades, as it requires fundamental technical breakthrough in energy generation or alternatively a major change in our life stile. As the second alternative is hardly possible to achieve in a world with mostly open societies, it is obvious that the world community is facing a gigantic challenge. Additionally many parts of the world are suffering because of a lack of suitable energy and the need is further underpinned by the fact that the world’s population will increase by another two billion humans in the next three decades.

Some comments on the present situation

Mining Industry Warns Energy Transition Isn’t Sustainable

by I. Slav, Jul 03, 2022 in OilPrice


  • There is a glaring problem in the energy transition that not many people are acknowledging.

  • It is being built on the back of finite resources, and the mining industry is already warning that there aren’t enough metals for all the batteries the transition will require.

  • Because of the short supply, prices are on the rise, as are prices across commodity sectors.

    The energy transition has been set by politicians as the only way forward for human civilization. Not every country on the planet is on board with it, but those that are have the loudest voices. And even amid the fossil fuel crunch that is beginning to cripple economies, the transition remains a goal. It is no secret that the transition—at the scale its architects and most fervent proponents envisage it—would require massive amounts of metals and minerals. What does not get talked about so much is that most of these metals and minerals are already in short supply. And this is only the start of the transition problems.

    Mining industry executives have been warning that there is not enough copper, lithium, cobalt, or nickel for all the EV batteries that the transition would require. And they have not been the only ones, either. Even so, the European Union just this month went ahead and effectively banned the sales of cars with internal combustion engines from 2035.

    “Rare earth materials are fundamental building blocks and their applications are very wide across modern life,” a senior VP at MP Minerals, a rare-earth miner, told Fortune this month. He added that “one third of the demand in 2035 is not projected to be satisfied based on investments that are happening now.”

    Because of the short supply, prices are on the rise, as are prices across commodity sectors. According to a calculation by Barron’s, the price of a basket of EV battery metals that the service tracks has jumped by 50 percent over the past year as a result of various factors, including Western sanctions against Russia, which is a major supplier of such metals to Europe.