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.
climate-debate

El Nino Fueled ‘Unprecedented’ West African Heatwave, Not Climate Change

by L. Lueken, Apr 19, 2024 in ClimateChangeDispatch

Multiple media outlets, including the BBC and Reuters, claim that a recent West African heatwave would be “impossible” without global warming. This claim is misleading and not supported by real-world data. [emphasis, links added]

The study cited in both articles is merely an attribution modeling study, which is not proof of the influence of climate change.

In their article on a recent heatwave in West Africa and the Sahel, Reuters reports“[t]emperatures soared so high in Mali and Burkina Faso they equated to a once in 200-year event, according to the report on the Sahel region by World Weather Attribution (WWA).”

Reuters continues: “The severity of the heatwave led WWA’s team of climate scientists to conduct a rapid analysis, which concluded the temperatures would not have been reached if industry had not warmed the planet by burning fossil fuels and other activities.”

One of World Weather Attribution’s statisticians even went so far as to say that heatwaves of that intensity wouldn’t happen at all in the region in a “preindustrial climate.”

This claim is utterly unfounded, as those parts of Africa are known for being at least semi-arid, subtropical, and prone to drought and heatwaves.

While temperature records are not very lengthy or complete for many parts of Africa, April is known to be the hottest month of the year for Burkina Faso in particular, and many parts of the Sahel region in general, where temperature maximums on average are above 40°C – which is what the recent heatwave brought, meaning there is no justification for claiming the recent heatwave is historically unprecedented.

Climate Realism has frequently noted that WWA’s “rapid attribution” studies are more in the realm of fantasy than fact, as they depend on virtual models of climate conditions that do not actually exist in real life.

The model of the climate that an event like the recent Sahel heatwave is compared to represents how scientists guess things would have been had it not been for the burning of fossil fuels.

During Burkina Faso’s dry season, fishermen abandon their canoes on site while waiting for the waters to arrive. Photo by YODA Adaman on Unsplash
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better to know...?

Nutritive Value of Plants Growing in Enhanced CO2 Concentrations (eCO2)

by CO2 Coalition, Apr 22, 2024

We are pleased to announce the publication of our latest research report Nutritive Value of Plants Growing in Enhanced CO2 Concentrations (eCO2).

Despite many years of claims that increasing concentrations of CO2 are an “existential threat” to life on Earth, one cannot identify any harm that has been done. In fact, the only clear result of increasing CO2 has been an overall greening of the Earth and increasing productivity of agricultural and forest crops.

The evidence for greening of the Earth from eCO2 is now too obvious to deny. In recent years, some researchers have claimed that that nutritional values are negatively affected by elevated CO2 concentrations. Media promoters of climate alarmism have seized on these results to further demonize CO2.

In this paper we explain why the nutritional value of our more abundant crops can and will remain high as atmospheric CO2 concentrations increase toward values more representative of those existing throughout most of Earth’s history.

While this is a somewhat technical report, it is a valuable tool for you to put in your quiver to use the next time you see increased CO2 being linked to declining nutrition.

Read the full report here.

better to know...?, climate-debate

Climate Change Is Normal and Natural, and Can’t Be Controlled

by F.B. Soepyan, Apr 22, 2024 in WUWT

NASA claimed that “Earth is warming at an unprecedented rate” and “human activity is the principal cause.” Others proposed spending trillions of dollars to control the climate. But are we humans responsible for climate change? And what can we do about it?

“The climate of planet Earth has never stopped changing since the Earth’s genesis, sometimes relatively rapidly, sometimes very slowly, but always surely,” says Patrick Moore in Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom. “Hoping for a ‘perfect stable climate’ is as futile as hoping the weather will be the same and pleasant, every day of the year, forever.”

In other words, climate change is normal and natural, and you can forget about controlling it.

For instance, a major influence of weather and climate are solar cycles driven by the Sun’s magnetic field over periods of eight to 14 years. They release varying amounts of energy and produce dark sunspots on the Sun’s surface. The effects of solar cycles on Earth vary, with some regions warming more than 1°C and others cooling.

Climatic changes occur as a result of variations in the interaction of solar energy with Earth’s ozone layer, which influences ozone levels and stratospheric temperatures. These, in turn, affect the speed of west-to-east wind flows and the stability of the polar vortex. Whether the polar vortex remains stable and close to the Arctic or dips southward determines whether winters in the mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere are severe or mild.

In addition to solar cycles, there are three Milankovitch cycles that range in length from 26,000 to 100,000 years. They include the eccentricity, or shape, of Earth’s elliptical orbit around the Sun. Small fluctuations in the orbit’s shape influence the length of seasons. For example, when the orbit is more like an oval than a circle, Northern Hemisphere summers are longer than winters and springs are longer than autumns.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Official Temperature Data Isn’t ‘Data’ At All

by H.S. Burnett, Apr 21, 2024 in WUWT

IN THIS ISSUE:

  • Official Temperature Data Isn’t ‘Data’ At All
  • Video of the Week: This is hilarious! Is there nothing that climate change can’t do?
  • Human Impact on the Carbon Cycle Is Minimal
  • Islands Still Growing in the Midst of Climate Change
  • Podcast of the Week: Save the Whales, Kill the Turbines – The Climate Realism Show #104
  • Climate Comedy
  • Recommended Sites
climate-debate

Climate Change Is Normal and Natural, and Can’t Be Controlled

by F.B. Soepyan, Apr 19, 2024 in CO2Coalition

NASA claimed that “Earth is warming at an unprecedented rate” and “human activity is the principal cause.” Others proposed spending trillions of dollars to control the climate. But are we humans responsible for climate change? And what can we do about it?

“The climate of planet Earth has never stopped changing since the Earth’s genesis, sometimes relatively rapidly, sometimes very slowly, but always surely,” says Patrick Moore in Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom. “Hoping for a ‘perfect stable climate’ is as futile as hoping the weather will be the same and pleasant, every day of the year, forever.”

In other words, climate change is normal and natural, and you can forget about controlling it.

For instance, a major influence of weather and climate are solar cycles driven by the Sun’s magnetic field over periods of eight to 14 years. They release varying amounts of energy and produce dark sunspots on the Sun’s surface. The effects of solar cycles on Earth vary, with some regions warming more than 1°C and others cooling.

Climatic changes occur as a result of variations in the interaction of solar energy with Earth’s ozone layer, which influences ozone levels and stratospheric temperatures. These, in turn, affect the speed of west-to-east wind flows and the stability of the polar vortex. Whether the polar vortex remains stable and close to the Arctic or dips southward determines whether winters in the mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere are severe or mild.

In addition to solar cycles, there are three Milankovitch cycles that range in length from 26,000 to 100,000 years. They include the eccentricity, or shape, of Earth’s elliptical orbit around the Sun. Small fluctuations in the orbit’s shape influence the length of seasons. For example, when the orbit is more like an oval than a circle, Northern Hemisphere summers are longer than winters and springs are longer than autumns.

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climate-debate

Now You Sea Ice, Now You Don’t

by W. Eschenbach, Apr 20, 2024 in WUWT

I got to thinking about sea ice and the climate models. Here’s what we know about polar sea ice extent, showing data that starts with the satellite era when we began to have accurate observations of the poles.

Figure 1. Arctic, Antarctic, and global sea ice extent. Colored lines are CEEMD smooths of the underlying datasets.

Now, there are some rather large curiosities regarding the sea ice extent records.

  • The North Pole is a liquid ocean covered with sea ice, with most of the ice polewards of 70°N. The South Pole is a giant chunk of frozen rock surrounded by sea ice, with almost no ice polewards of 70°S. So why do both poles have about the same extent of sea ice?
  • From the start of the satellite era up until ~2015, Arctic sea ice extent was decreasing and Antarctic sea ice extent was increasing … and as a result, total global sea ice extent was relatively constant, with 2014 having about the same global sea ice extent as 1978. Why?
  • Around 2015, Antarctic sea ice extent started dropping rapidly … but Arctic sea ice stopped dropping and leveled off up to the present. Why?
  • After dropping precipitously for a couple of years, Antarctic sea ice extent leveled off again … and as a result, global ice extent also leveled off. Why?

Here’s the interesting part. Nobody knows the answers to any of those questions. And I suppose predictably, since they’re based on our (mis)understandings of the climate, none of the climate models either forecasts or hindcasts sea ice extent doing anything even remotely similar to the actual observations.

So I’ll leave this here as a testament to just how little we understand the magnificent global heat engine that we call the climate …

climate-debate

Net Zero CO2 Emissions: A Damaging and Totally Unnecessary Goal

by R. Spencer, Apr 18, 2024 in GlobalWarming

The goal of reaching “Net Zero” global anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide sounds overwhelmingly difficult. While humanity continues producing CO2 at increasing rates (with a temporary pause during COVID), how can we ever reach the point where these emissions start to fall, let alone reach zero by 2050 or 2060?

What isn’t being discussed (as far as I can tell) is the fact that atmospheric CO2 levels (which we will assume for the sake of discussion causes global warming) will start to fall even while humanity is producing lots of CO2.

Let me repeat that, in case you missed the point:

Atmospheric CO2 levels will start to fall even with modest reductions in anthropogenic CO2 emissions.

Why is that? The reason is due to something called the CO2 “sink rate”. It has been observed that the more CO2 there is in the atmosphere, the more quickly nature removes the excess. The NASA studies showing “global greening” in satellite imagery since the 1980s is evidence of that.

Last year I published a paper showing that the record of atmospheric CO2 at Mauna Loa, HI suggests that each year nature removes an average of 2% of the atmospheric excess above 295 ppm (parts per million). The purpose of the paper was to not only show how well a simple CO2 budget model fits the Mauna Loa CO2 measurements, but also to demonstrate that the common assumption that nature is becoming less able to remove “excess” CO2 from the atmosphere appears to be an artifact of El Nino and La Nina activity since monitoring began in 1959. As a result, that 2% sink rate has remained remarkably constant over the last 60+ years. (By the way, the previously popular CO2 “airborne fraction” has huge problems as a meaningful statistic, and I wish it had never been invented. If you doubt this, just assume CO2 emissions are cut in half and see what the computed airborne fraction does. It’s meaningless.)

Here’s my latest model fit to the Mauna Loa record through 2023, where I have added a stratospheric aerosol term to account for the fact that major volcanic eruptions actually *reduce* atmospheric CO2 due to increased photosynthesis from diffuse sunlight penetrating deeper into vegetation canopies:

What Would a “Modest” 1% per Year Reduction in Global CO2 Emissions Do?

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climate-debate

They Never Used To Have Heatwaves in Mali!

by P. Homewood, Apr 18, 2024 in NotALotOfPeopleKnowThat

A deadly heatwave in West Africa and the Sahel was “impossible” without human-induced climate change, scientists say.

Temperatures soared above 48C in Mali last month with one hospital linking hundreds of deaths to the extreme heat.

Researchers say human activities like burning fossil fuels made temperatures up to 1.4C hotter than normal.

A number of countries in the Sahel region and across West Africa were hit by a strong heatwave that struck at the end of March and lasted into early April.

The heat was most strongly felt in the southern regions of Mali and Burkina Faso.

In Bamako, the capital of Mali, the Gabriel Toure Hospital said it recorded 102 deaths in the first days of April.

Around half the people who died were over 60 years of age, and the hospital said that heat played a role in many of these casualties.

Researchers believe that global climate change had a key role in this five-day heatwave.

A new analysis from scientists involved with the World Weather Attribution group suggests the high day time and night time temperatures would not have been possible without the world’s long term use of coal, oil and gas as well as other activities such as deforestation.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

L A Times Cherry Picks & Misrepresents NOAA Climate Data to Exaggerate March 2024 U.S. and Global Temperature Outcomes

by L. Hamlin, Apr 19, 2024 in WUWT

The L A Times article and headline shown below exaggerate the March 2024 U.S. and global temperature outcomes by cherry picking and misrepresenting data that mischaracterizes what the data actually shows.

 

The Times article makes the following claims regarding the U.S. for the period January through March 2024:

“In the United States, March was the 17th warmest in the 130-year data record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The average temperature in the contiguous U.S. was 45.1 degrees — 3.6 degrees above average.”

The Times article does not present readily available NOAA measured  Maximum Contiguous U.S Temperature for the month of March from 1895 through 2024 as shown below.

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climate-debate

Reliable Physics Demand Revision of the IPCC Global Warming Potentials

by D. Lightfoot and G. Ratzer, Apr 15, 2024 in J.BasicAppliedSciences

Abstract

The Global Warming Potentials (GWP) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in Table 2.14 of the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) show the increase in warming by methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) is 21 and 310 times respectively that of CO2. There has been wide acceptance of these values since publishing in 2007. Nevertheless, they are inaccurate. This study uses accurate methods to calculate the impacts of CO2, CH4, and N2O on the warming of the atmosphere. For example, this quantitative analysis from reliable physics shows the contribution of CO2 to warming at Amsterdam is 0.0083oC out of a difference of 26oC. The warming effect of CH4 on the Earth’s atmosphere is 0.408% of that of CO2, and the warming by N2O is 0.085% of that of CO2. Thus, the warming effects of CO2, CH4, and N2O are too small to measure. The invalidity of the methane and nitrous oxide values indicates the GWPs of the remaining approximately sixty chemicals in the Table 2.14 list are also invalid. A recommendation is that the IPCC consider revising or retracting the GWP values in Table 2.14.

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climate-debate

Meteorologist: Climate Change Not Increasing Hurricanes, Wildfires, Or Migration

by A. Watts, Apr 18, 2024 in WUWT

An article by the website ProPublica titled The Flooding Will Come “No Matter What” linked to Hurricane Katrina, storm refugees, and climate change, claiming that the storm was evidence of the beginning of a “climate migration” in America. [emphasis, links added]

The connection is false. Data refutes a climate connection to any particular hurricane or trend in migration.

The article does a lot of rambling coverage of a family that was displaced by Hurricane Katrina back in 2005, saying:

Another great American migration is now underway, this time forced by the warming that is altering how and where people can live. For now, it’s just a trickle. But in the corners of the country’s most vulnerable landscapes — on the shores of its sinking bayous and on the eroding bluffs of its coastal defenses — populations are already in disarray.

The article goes on to follow the trials and tribulations of a single family who had their home destroyed during Hurricane Katrina.

ProPublica believes this case is evidence of climate change causing a “migration,” because the family has not moved back to the same location.

The article itself cites no data or study to support its claim about Hurricane Katrina. Rather, it simply states the author’s opinions as if they were established facts.

Later the article similarly describes families displaced by the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, Calif., as climate refugees, writing:

As the number of displaced people continues to grow, an ever-larger portion of those affected will make their moves permanent, migrating to safer ground or supportive communities. They will do so either because a singular disaster like the 2018 wildfire in Paradise, California — or Hurricane Harvey, which struck the Texas and Louisiana coasts — is so destructive it forces them to, or because the subtler “slow onset” change in their surroundings gradually grows so intolerable, uncomfortable or inconvenient that they make the decision to leave, proactively, by choice.

First, it should be noted that weather events such as hurricanes are not proof of climate change, and ProPublica is falsely conflating short-term weather events with long-term climate change.

Further, as discussed in Climate at a Glance: Hurricanes, even the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) admits to finding no increase in the long-term frequency or severity of hurricanes.

Also, after Katrina, the United States went through its longest period in recorded history without a major hurricane strike and recently experienced its fewest total hurricanes in any eight-year period.

There has been no increase in the number or intensity of tropical cyclones since 1972 as the planet has modestly warmed. Indeed, for some basins, the data suggests tropical cyclone frequency has declined over the past century.

Data presented in more than 100 previous Climate Realism posts here, here, here, and here, for example, clearly show that hurricane trends have been relatively flat over the past 50 years of modest warming, and the trend in powerful Atlantic hurricanes is downward (see the figures below).

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better to know...?

New Report: Globally, Hurricanes Not Getting Worse Or More Frequent

by Dr. P. Peiser, Apr 17, 2024 in ClimateChangeDispatch

The Global Warming Policy Foundation has today published its periodic review of global hurricane activity. [emphasis, links added]

The author, climate researcher Paul Homewood, says that official data is absolutely clear: hurricanes are neither increasing in number nor intensity.

Click to enlarge

Homewood says:

“The observational data published by meteorological agencies in 2023 has confirmed once again that there are no upward trends in global hurricane activity since reliable records began in the 1970s.”

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climate-debate

Net Isotopic Signature of Atmospheric CO2 Sources and Sinks: No Change since the Little Ice Age

by D. Koutsoyiannis, March 14, 2024 in MDPI – (Open Access)

Abstract

Recent studies have provided evidence, based on analyses of instrumental measurements of the last seven decades, for a unidirectional, potentially causal link between temperature as the cause and carbon dioxide concentration ([CO2]) as the effect. In the most recent study, this finding was supported by analysing the carbon cycle and showing that the natural [CO2] changes due to temperature rise are far larger (by a factor > 3) than human emissions, while the latter are no larger than 4% of the total. Here, we provide additional support for these findings by examining the signatures of the stable carbon isotopes, 12 and 13. Examining isotopic data in four important observation sites, we show that the standard metric δ13C is consistent with an input isotopic signature that is stable over the entire period of observations (>40 years), i.e., not affected by increases in human CO2 emissions. In addition, proxy data covering the period after 1500 AD also show stable behaviour. These findings confirm the major role of the biosphere in the carbon cycle and a non-discernible signature of humans.
Australia, better to know...?

BBC’s Coral Propaganda

by P. Homewood, Apr 16, 2024 in NotALotOfPeopleKnowThat

The BBC is corrupt, and this report is fraudulent:

It has triggered the fourth global mass coral bleaching event, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Bleaching happens when coral gets stressed and turns white because the water it lives in is too hot.

Coral sustains ocean life, fishing, and creates trillions of dollars of revenue annually.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-68814016

For a start, there has been no “devastating toll”, as the BBC pretends, from the possibility that the world is slightly warmer than a few years ago. (Given margins of error, there is no certainty about this.)

But more importantly, Rannard grossly misrepresents the science. Coral does not “turn white” because the water is too hot. Nor is this is a rare occurrence, as the “fourth global mass coral bleaching event” implies.

On the contrary, bleaching is a common event, which can take place for all sorts of reasons, including when the water gets too cold.

As the leading coral reef expert Dr Peter Ridd has explained, “bleaching” is merely part of a natural process, when coral expels algae in order to switch to a different type which is more suitable adapted to new conditions.

According to Ridd, coral cover on the Great Barrier Reef last year reached record levels, despite four supposedly catastrophic bleaching events in the six years prior to 2022. Neither has there been any significant change in corals worldwide.

Rannard’s article has nothing to do with science; it is just more scaremongering propaganda.

This interview with Peter Ridd which followed his annual review on corals last year is worth watching:

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climate-debate

Antarctica Is Colder, Icier Now Than Any Time In 5000 Years. The Last Warm Period Was 1000 Years Ago.

by K. Richard, Apr 15, 2024 in NoTricksZone

More evidence emerges that Antarctica has undergone rapid glacier and sea ice expansion in recent centuries, in line with the long-term and recent Antarctic cooling trend.

West Antarctica’s mean annual surface temperatures cooled by more than -1.8°C (-0.93°C per decade) from 1999-2018 (Zhang et al., 2023).

Not just West Antarctica, but most of the continent also has cooled by more than 1°C in the 21st century. See, for example, the ~1°C per decade cooling trend for East Antarctica (2000 to 2018) shown in Fig. ES

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According to a new study, about 6000 years ago Antarctica’s Collins Glacier’s frontline was a full 1 km southwest of its current extent. The frontline advanced to today’s extent ~5000 years ago.

“Previous studies proposed that 6000 yr BP, the frontline position of the Collins Glacier was located 1 km further south west than the present, and that the current frontline was first attained at approximately 5000 yr BP.”

The glacier then continuously retreated south of the modern extent for another 4000 years, with peak ice loss 1000 years ago (as shown in the 1000-year “Proglacial lake environment” image). In the last 1000 years this glacier has rapidly re-advanced back to the glaciated extent from 5000 years ago, which is in line with the sustained cooling trend ongoing since the Medieval Warm Period.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

What Heatwave?

by P. Homewood, Apr 14, 2024 in NotaLotOfPeopleKnowThat

I hope you did not blink, otherwise you may have missed it!

Brits are set to bask in a ’72 hour’ heatwave, according to some forecasters, but not everyone will be feeling the heat as two parts of England are expected to miss out on the sizzling temperatures.

Weather maps reveal that while many will enjoy a mini April heatwave, some will still face April showers. According to WX Charts, which uses Met Desk data for its predictions, temperatures could soar to a balmy 21C at times this month.

The charts indicate that Londoners can expect to enjoy highs of 20C from today until Saturday, with East Anglia and the East Midlands not far behind at 19C. Cities like Birmingham, Nottingham, Manchester, and Sheffield are also set to experience a warm 18C.

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/uk-news/72-hour-heatwave-hit-parts-28989573

Sure enough temperatures reached 21C in Essex, but I don’t know anyone who would actually describe this as a heatwave:

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unclassified

Man Made Global Warming

by P. Homewood, Apr 14, 2024 in NotaLotOfPeopleKnowThat

image

http://web.archive.org/web/20130927101652/https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/q/0/Paper2_recent_pause_in_global_warming.PDF

Once upon a time there was The Pause.

For a decade and a half, global temperatures stopped rising, an embarrassment for climate scientists. Even the Met Office published a long study in 2013 into the possible reasons.

But while one team at the Met Office were scratching their heads, another was busy at work eliminating the problem.

After all, if the data does not support the theory, you simply change the data.

The Met Office’s Hadley Centre, in conjunction with the disgraced Climate Research Unit at the UEA, had for years published their global temperature series known as HADCRUT3. They regarded it as the gold standard of datasets.

But just a year after the Met Office’s paper on the pause, a new version was rushed out, HADCRUT4, which conveniently removed that pause.

By 2014, when HADCRUT3 was formally replaced, the new version had added about a tenth of a degree to warming since 2000.

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unclassified

Professor Valentina Zharkova and the Little Ice Age Which Has Already Started

by V. Zharkova, Apr 11, 2024 in FreedomResearch

Astrophysicist Professor Valentina Zharkova explains that instead of CO2, it is the Sun that drives the climate change and because of its decreasing activity we should be ready for a colder period.

“CO2 is not a bad gas,” says Valentina Zharkova, a professor at the Northumbria University in Newcastle, UK. On the contrary, she points out, every garden centre uses it in its greenhouses to make plants lush and green. “We actually have a CO2 deficit in the world, and it’s three to four times less than the plants would like,” she notes, adding that the proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere has been at much higher levels throughout our planet’s history than it is now.

In fact, over the last 140 million years, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has been steadily decreasing and only now slightly starting to rise. It is currently around 420 parts per million (ppm), or 0.042%. 140 million years ago, it was estimated at 2,500 ppm (0.25%), or about six times higher. And it also meant a greener and more biodiverse world. If CO2 were to fall below 150 ppm (0.015%), it would already mean the extinction of vegetation and all other life. We came close to that during the last glacial maximum when it was at 182 ppm (0.018%).

Zharkova says that the fact that CO2 levels in the atmosphere are now increasing is a good thing. “We don’t need to remove CO2 because we would actually need more of it. It’s food for plants to produce oxygen for us. The people who say CO2 is bad are obviously not very well educated at university or wherever they studied. Only uneducated people can come up with such absurd talk that CO2 should be removed from the air,” says Zharkova.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Don’t Be Alarmed About Unusually Warm Temperatures

by A. Epstein, Appt 13, 2024 in ClimateChangeDispatch

Myth: Recent, unusually warm temperatures show that fossil fuels are making our climate more and more dangerous.

Truth: Even with recent temperatures, which are a temporary anomaly, not the new normal, cold is a bigger problem than heat and fossil fuels keep us safer from both. [emphasis, links added]

Leading outlets are portraying the recent streak of warmer-than-expected months as ominous and deadly, and offering anti-fossil-fuel policies as a solution.

In reality, cold is a far bigger problem than heat—and anti-fossil-fuel policies will make us more endangered by both.

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climate-debate

Climate of the Past, Present and Future. A scientific debate, 2nd ed.

by J. Vinos, Sep 2022 in ResearchGate

Abstract
This book is an unorthodox ground-breaking scientific study on natural climate change and its contribution to ongoing multi-centennial global warming. The book critically reviews the effect of the following on climate: – Milankovitch cycles – abrupt glacial (Dansgaard-Oeschger) events – Holocene climate variability – the 1500-year cycle – solar activity – volcanic eruptions – greenhouse gases – energy transport Applying the scientific method to available evidence reveals that some of these phenomena are profoundly misunderstood by most researchers. Milankovitch cycles are tied to orbital obliquity, not to orbital precessional summer insolation; glacial megatides might have triggered abrupt Dansgaard-Oeschger events; and tides are likely responsible for the related 1500-year climate cycle. Climate change affects volcanic eruptions more than the opposite; and secular variations in solar activity are more important to climate change during the Holocene than greenhouse gases. In this book, we see how important natural climate change has been on human societies of the past. It also produces new climate projections for the 21st century and when the next glaciation could happen. What emerges from this study of natural climate change is a central theme: Variations in the transport of energy from the tropics to the poles have been neglected as a cause of climate change, and solar activity variations affect climate by modulating this transport. The author tells us: –Transporting more energy from a greenhouse gas-rich region, the tropics, to a greenhouse gas-poor region, the poles, increases the amount of energy lost at the top of the atmosphere. The effect resembles a reduction in the greenhouse gas content.– The book presents the Winter-Gatekeeper Hypothesis on how variations in solar activity regulate Earth’s energy transport and in so doing affect atmospheric circulation, the rotation of the planet, and the El Niño/Southern Oscillation. This book is oriented toward students and academics in the climate sciences and climate anthropology and should also appeal to readers interested in the science of natural climate change. The repercussions of Climate of the Past, Present and Future are far reaching. By uncovering a strong natural climate change component, it provides a novel view of anthropogenic climate change, fossil energy use, and our future climate; a view quite different from the IPCC’s gloomy projections.
better to know...?, climate-debate

Three More New Temperature Reconstructions Document A Warmer Medieval Period

by K. Richard, Apr 11, 2024 in NoTricksZone

he North Atlantic, the Pacific Northwest (USA), and northern Finland were all warmer than today between 1000 and 2000 years ago.

Today’s (2000 CE) July air temperatures in the Azores – archipelago islands in the middle North Atlantic, ~1400 km west of Portugal – are visually shown to average about 10 to 11°C in a newly published reconstruction (Raposeiro et al., 2024).

This average air temperature is about 1 to 2°C warmer than this location’s Little Ice Age climate, or the coldest period (~9.1°C from 1750-1800) of the last 2000 years. However, the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) had temperatures reaching into the 13-15°C range, which is 3-4°C warmer than modern.

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A temperature reconstruction from a lake in the USA’s Pacific Northwest (Baig, 2024) indicates glacial temperatures were only 1.0 to 1.6°C colder than the modern temperature, 12.2°C. Temperatures reached 13.7°C, or 1.5°C warmer than today, ~2500 years ago, and then fluctuated between 12.6 and 12.2°C from 1900 years ago until today, a period encompassing both the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age.

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Another lake sediment temperature reconstruction using branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (brGDGTs) from northern Finland (Otiniano et al., 2024) suggests the modern temperature (represented as the blue diamond) is among the coldest of the last ~8000 years. Temperatures were much warmer than modern about 1200 to 1500 years ago, and throughout the period from 7000 to 3000 years ago.

better to know...?

The Anthropocene is not an official stratigraphic unit

by A. Préat and B. Van Vliet-Lanoë, Apr 12,2024 in SCE

Main theme: Ever since the idea of a new geological unit, the Anthropocene, waslaunched in 2000 by Paul Crutzen, an atmospheric chemist and Nobel Prize winner, the scientific community has been inflamed by the current global warming situation, and passionate debates have raged between those in favor of this new anthropogenic unit and those opposed to it. The discussion has spread well beyond the geological community, yet it is geologists, and geologists alone, who are able to formally define geological units, in this case stratigraphic units. Our article will reviewthe rules of stratigraphy and show that the introduction of the Anthropocene as a stratigraphic unit does not comply with these rules. After 15 years of debate, the ICS (International Commission on Stratigraphy) has just officially rejected the Anthropocene as a stratigraphic unit. In conclusion, the Anthropocene must be
considered as a ‘Geo-ethical’ unit and not as a ‘Geological’ unit.

Example of the GSSP stratotype from the Thanetian geological stage (Paleocene, see Figure 1). Note the golden spike (see text below). Photography : Pierre Thomas.

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unclassified

UAH Global Temperature Update for March, 2024: +0.95 deg. C

by R. Spencer, Apr 2, 2024 in WUWT

The Version 6 global average lower tropospheric temperature (LT) anomaly for March, 2024 was +0.95 deg. C departure from the 1991-2020 mean, up slightly from the February, 2024 anomaly of +0.93 deg. C, and setting a new high monthly anomaly record for the 1979-2024 satellite period.

New high temperature records were also set for the Southern Hemisphere (+0.88 deg. C, exceeding +0.86 deg. C in September, 2023) and the tropics (+1.34 deg. C, exceeding +1.27 deg. C in January, 2024). We are likely seeing the last of the El Nino excess warmth of the upper tropical ocean being transferred to the troposphere.

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unclassified

The extraordinary climate events of 2022-24

by J. Vinos, March 24, 2024 in ClimateEtc

The unlikely volcano, the warmest year, and the collapse of the polar vortex.

The climate events of 2022-24 have been were truly extraordinary. From an unlikely undersea volcanic eruption to the warmest year on record to the collapse of the polar vortex after three sudden stratospheric warming events. This rare convergence presents a unique learning opportunity for climatologists and climate aficionados alike, offering insights into a climate event that may not be repeated for hundreds or even thousands of years.

  1. January 2022, the unlikely volcano

Never before have we witnessed an undersea volcanic eruption with a plume capable of reaching the stratosphere and depositing a large amount of vaporized water. This extraordinary event occurred in January 2022 when the Hunga Tonga volcano erupted. The conditions for such an event are rare: the volcano must be deep enough to propel enough water with the plume, but not too deep to prevent it from reaching the stratosphere. Most undersea volcanoes do not produce plumes at all, which makes Hunga Tonga’s eruption all the more remarkable.

The Hunga Tonga volcano occupied a unique “sweet spot” at a depth of 150 meters the day before the eruption. In addition, the eruption itself must be exceptionally powerful for water vapor to rise into the stratosphere. The January 2022 eruption of Hunga Tonga was the most powerful in 30 years, since the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo.

Figure 1. The Hunga Tonga eruption from space.

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  1. 2023, the hottest year on record

Beginning in June 2023, the last seven months of the year marked the warmest period on record, significantly exceeding previous records. Such an event is quite remarkable, given the considerable temperature variability observed from month to month. But how unlikely is it?

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  1. January-March 2024, the collapse of the polar vortex

The polar vortex is a circular wind pattern that develops on rotating planets with an atmosphere. It results from the conservation of potential vorticity, a property depending on the Coriolis force and the potential temperature gradient. The potential temperature refers to the portion of the temperature of an air parcel that is not affected by its potential energy, and is often defined as the temperature the parcel would have if it were brought to the surface (1,000 hPa).

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  1. What can we expect in the near future?

The unlikely volcanic eruption is the likely cause of the extraordinary warming, which in turn led to the occurrence of the unprecedented three SSW events. Our understanding of the effects of these events supports this interpretation.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

3 New Studies Confirm Sea Levels Were 5 to 9 Meters Higher 7,000-5,000 Years Ago Than Today

by K. Richard,  Apr 1, 2024 in ClimateChangeDispatch

Modern relative sea levels are near the lowest in the last 7,000 years.

Two studies, independently published, identified Mid-Holocene sea levels in northern Norway (north of the Arctic Circle) as being 7 to 9 meters higher than today before declining to the present (Balascio et al., 2024, Nielsen et al., 2024). [emphasis, links added]

This region of the Arctic was warm enough to support human settlements and boat harbors during the Medieval Warm Period.

As the climate deteriorated into the Little Ice Age cooling centuries after the Medieval warmth, the accompanying sea level fall led to abandoned residences, ships, and harbors.

The seas had become too shallow to sail in.

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