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

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

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

From Dr. Roy Spencer’s Global Warming Blog.

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

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

Global land: +1.35 deg. C

Southern Hemisphere land: +1.87 deg. C

Southern Hemisphere extratropical land: +2.23 deg. C

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

Australia: +1.80 deg. C.

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

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

…

better to know...?, climate-debate

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

by K. Richard, Sept 2, 2027 in NoTricksZone

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

…

climate-debate

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

by K. Richard, Aug 30, 2024 in WUWT

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

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

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

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

Per the IPCC:

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

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

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

…

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

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

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

…

climate-debate

The Solar Control of Climate: A Review

by D. Archibald,  Aug 28, 2024 in TheWentworthReport

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

…

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

 

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

…

climate-debate

Global Temperature updated for August 2024

by C. Best, Aug 27, 2024 in SciTravelOpinion

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

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

Temperature trends

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

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

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

energy and fields

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

by C. Rotter, Aug 24, 2024 in WUWT

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

Fossil Fuels: The Workhorse of Florida’s Energy Grid

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

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

The Reality of Renewable Energy

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

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

…

better to know...?, climate-debate

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

by P. Homewood, Aug 25, 2024 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

…

climate-debate

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

by K. Richard, Aug 26, 2024 in NoTricksZone

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

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

Image Source: Nunn et al., 2024

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

…

better to know...?, energy and fields

Yet More Reasons Why Green Hydrogen Is Going Nowhere

by F. Menton, Aug 28, 2024 in WUWT

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

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

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

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

…

better to know...?, climate-debate

Math Confirms Foolishness of Climate Alarmism

by G. Wrightstone, Aug 11, 2024 in WUWT

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

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

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

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

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

climate-debate

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

by P. Gosselin, Aug 8, 2024 in NoTricksZone

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

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

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

July trend down

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

Data source: JMA. 

…

better to know...?, energy and fields

Natural Gas Industry’s Smear of Coal Is False and Self-Defeating

by G. Wrightstone, July 22, 2024 in RealClearEnergy

Smearing coal has become a marketing strategy of a natural gas industry that embraces pseudoscientific views of coal combustion as being hazardous.

In so doing, gas supporters give credence to a fallacious regulatory regime of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which erroneously classifies carbon dioxide as a pollutant and assigns health effects to low-level pollution without scientific proof. To boot, a false representation of coal, oil and natural gas as environmental bogeymen is perpetuated.

Perhaps the most enthusiastic user of this foolish ploy is Toby Rice, CEO of Pittsburgh-based EQT Corp., who introduced two years ago a global plan to replace coal with liquefied natural gas. Promoting his product as a “decarbonizing force” in June at a RealClearEnergy conference, the head of the country’s largest gas producer (check the video link above to see his part), said:

“What we would like to do at EQT … is focus people on a really practical solution that will allow us to provide energy security for the world and address people’s concerns over global emissions. And that path is very simple: transition the world from coal to gas.”

Although natural gas emits less carbon dioxide than coal when burned, the underlying premise of Rice’s pitch rests on the popular myth that CO2 emissions will overheat the planet. The organization we lead, the CO2 Coalition, has overwhelming evidence from top scientists showing that increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide not only poses no danger but is beneficial to plant growth and crop production.

…

better to know...?, climate-debate

The ‘Climate Emergency’ is a Myth, Says Nobel Prize Winner John Clauser. Here’s Why He’s Right

by Dr R. Kalveks, June 8, 2024 in DailySceptic

In a recent lecture, Nobel Laureate physicist John Clauser exposed how the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) models and analyses, which are relied upon by politicians and activists to support claims of a ‘climate crisis’, do not meet basic standards of scientific enquiry. Clauser received his Nobel prize in 2022 for the observational measurement of quantum entanglement and understands well the problem of distinguishing a physical signal from background noise.

Clauser shows that, when corrected for the IPCC’s error prone arithmetic and statistics, the observational data do not support the power imbalance claimed to be responsible for global warming. Furthermore, the outputs of climate models are at variance with the observational record. Clauser discusses the roles of convection, clouds and their variability in providing a negative feedback mechanism, and proposes that this acts as a thermostat that stabilises surface temperatures. Clauser’s conclusion is that claims of a ‘climate crisis’ lack scientific substance and that Net Zero policies are an unnecessary hindrance.

…

Energy Flows in the Climate System

It is useful to start with a simplified depiction of the solar energy flow that reaches the Earth, its transformation by the Earth’s climate system and the resulting (mostly thermal) energy flow that leaves the Earth’s atmosphere. This is shown in Figure 1, taken from a recent IPCC report.

The IPCC diagram shows an energy imbalance, being the difference between the incoming visible and UV solar radiation 340 W/m2, less the amount reflected (100 W/m2), less the outgoing infra-red (IR) thermal radiation (239 W/m2). The claimed imbalance at the Top of the Atmosphere is 0.7 W/m2 (give or take 0.2) and the IPCC asserts that this is driving the continuing warming of the climate system.

Table. 1. Top of Atmosphere Energy Flows. Energy flows at the top of the Earth’s atmosphere, with their errors as per Figure 1. The balance is calculated from its components.

The radiation measurements necessary for this calculation are carried out at different wavelengths by instruments carried by satellites, and observational errors are inevitable. Combining the uncertainty ranges in the incoming, reflected and outgoing streams shown in Table 1, by using the standard statistical Root Mean Square rule, shows that the error margin in the calculated imbalance is actually 3 W/m2, some 15 times greater than the 0.2 W/m2 error margin claimed by the IPCC. In short, there is no observedenergy imbalance. The claimed imbalance of 0.7 W/m2 is swamped by observational error, and, from a scientific perspective, it is described by Clauser as a “fudge”.

…

climate-debate

New Study: Central Europe Was ‘2-5°C Warmer Than Present’ Throughout Most Of The Holocene

by K. Richard, July 22, 2024 in NoTricksZone

There were millennia during the past glacial (when CO2 levels were under 200 ppm) that were as warm or warmer than today.

Four central Europe reconstructions, using collected evidence from disparate biomarkers, indicate there were periods (for example, 54,000 to 51,000 years ago, the Bølling–Allerød interstadial, 14,700 years ago) during the last glacial when temperatures were as warmer than (or similar to) today (Zander et al., 2024).

Temperatures throughout the Holocene (8,000 to 4,000 years ago), when CO2 hovered around 265 ppm, were 3.5°C (and up to 5°C) warmer than today. Modern temperatures are among the coldest of the last 10,000 years.

…

better to know...?, climate-debate

Carbon Dioxide and a Warming Climate are not problems

by A. May & M. Crok, May 29, 2024 in AmJEconSociology

Dear signatories of the Clintel World Climate Declaration

 

We are very excited to announce the publication of our peer reviewed paper titled “Carbon dioxide and a warming climate are not problems“. It was published in the American Journal of Economics and Sociology. The paper was written by Andy May, retired petrophysicist and currently climate writer and blogger, and Clintel director Marcel Crok.

Crok and May coordinated the ambitious Clintel project to analyse the IPCC AR6 report, which last year led to the publication of the Clintel book The Frozen Climate Views of the IPCC. In the book we document serious errors and biases in the latest IPCC report.
The new paper is largely based on the many interesting findings of that book.

The new paper gets a lot of attention, mostly positive and some critical (of course). This has led to an impressive attention score (which gives an indication of how much the paper is being discussed on blogs and on X/twitter). The paper is already in the 99th percentile.

 

It was a little expensive (2330 euros) to make the paper open access so we decided not to do that this time. But our submitted version can be downloaded for free.

Signatories of the World Climate Declaration could help us boosting the paper even further by writing about it on blogs and/or discussing the paper on X (twitter).

Andy May has been responding very promptly to some of the criticism on the paper, see here, here and here.

 

The full abstract of the paper can be read below:

Continuer la lecture de Carbon Dioxide and a Warming Climate are not problems →

climate-debate

Cooling The Niño

by W. Eschenbach, July 14, 2024 in WUWT

This is a two-part post. The first part is to correct an oversight in my recent post entitled Rainergy.

The second part is to use that new information to analyze the effect of clouds on the El Nino region.

So, to the first part. In my post Rainergy, I noted that it takes ~ 80 watts per square meter (W/m2) over a year to evaporate a cubic meter of seawater. Thus, the evaporation that creates the ~1 meter of annual rain cools the surface by – 80 W/m2.

Then the other day I thought “Dang! I forgot virga!”

Virga is rain that falls from a cloud but evaporates completely before it hits the ground.

…

climate-debate

Causality Analysis Finds Temperature Changes Have Determined CO2 Changes Since The Phanerozoic

by K. Richard, July 15, 2024 in NoTricksZone

Popular claims that CO2 changes drive temperature changes currently or throughout the distant past “are based on imagination and climate models full of assumptions.”

A comprehensive new study details a stochastic assessment determination of the sequencing of CO2 variations versus temperature variations since the 1950s, over the last 2,000 years (the Common Era), and throughout the last 541 million years.

The robust conclusion is that the causality direction – with the understanding that causes lead and effects lag – clearly shows the temperature changes lead and CO2 changes lag on yearly, decadal, and centennial/millennial scales. In other words, “the reverse causality direction [CO2]→T should be excluded.”

The claim that CO2 increases drive temperature changes is thus a “narrative” only, as the claim that “humans, through their emissions by fossil fuel burning, are responsible for the changes we see in climate” can be regarded as a “non-scientific issue.”

 

The author has had a series of peer-reviewed scientific papers published supporting this same T→CO2 conclusion (Koutsoyiannis et al., 2022, Koutsoyiannis et al., 2020, Koutsoyiannis et al., 2023, Koutsoyiannis, 2024, Koutsoyiannis, 2024) in just the last few years.

Since these papers challenge the prevailing anthropogenic global warming (AGW) narrative so acutely, Dr. Koutsoyiannis has understandably been the recipient of antagonism bordering on vitriol from AGW proponents. This includes comments from peer-reviewers. So, in an apparent effort to foster transparency, he has made the peer reviewers’ comments on this latest paper public. Here is the link to these commentaries:

Peer reviewers’ exchanges with Koutsoyiannis in “Stochastic assessment of temperature–CO2 causal relationship in climate from the Phanerozoic through modern times.”

…

 

 

climate-debate

Hunga Tonga volcano: impact on record warming

by J. Vinos, July 9, 2024 in WUWT

1. Off-scale warming

Since the planet has been warming for 200 years, and our global records are even more recent, every few years a new warmest year in history is recorded. Despite all the publicity given each time it happens, it would really be news if it didn’t happen, as it did between 1998 and 2014, a period popularly known as the pause.

Figure 1. Berkeley Earth temperature anomaly

Since 1980, 13 years have broken the temperature record. So, what is so special about the 2023 record and the expected 2024 record? For starters, 2023 broke the record by the largest margin in records, 0.17°C. This may not sound like much, but if all records were by this margin, we would go from +1.5°C to +2°C in just 10 years, and reach +3°C 20 years later.

….

better to know...?, climate-debate

Peer reviewed skepticism

by D. Wojick, July 9, 2024 in WUWT

A fine skeptical journal article waded through green pal review. Wonder of wonders!

The journal is the American Journal of Economics and Sociology. The article title is perfectly clear: “Carbon dioxide and a warming climate are not problems”.

See https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajes.12579

But it is an “Early View Online Version of Record before inclusion in an issue” so get it before it gets too hot for the Journal. I understand it is very popular so the green screams are deafening.

Alas it is paywalled but the lengthy free Abstract is as clear as the title. Here is the conclusion:

“Observations show no increase in damage or any danger to humanity today due to extreme weather or global warming (Crok & May,  2023, pp. 140–161; Scafetta,  2024). Climate change mitigation, according to AR6, means curtailing the use of fossil fuels, even though fossil fuels are still abundant and inexpensive. Since the current climate is arguably better than the pre-industrial climate and we have observed no increase in extreme weather or climate mortality, we conclude that we can plan to adapt to any future changes. Until a danger is identified, there is no need to eliminate fossil fuel use.”

The authors are Andy May and Marcel Crok and as the first parenthetical reference above indicates they are building on prior work. Their 53 References are not paywalled and quite interesting. Continuer la lecture de Peer reviewed skepticism →

better to know...?, climate-debate

Media Reports Earth’s ‘1.5C Temperature limit’ was ‘breached for 12 months in a row’ – Nothing Bad Happened

by A. Watts, July 10, 2024 in WUWT

Originally posted at ClimateREALISM

Recently, several media outlets claimed that June 2024 was the hottest June on record globally and that it topped off a string of 12 or 13 warmer than normal months, which they blamed on human-induced climate change. Each of the news stories made false claims of reaching climate tipping points, extreme weather events, and that the extended streak of hot temperatures proved a “climate crisis” was at hand.

Here are some of the headlines: Temperatures 1.5C above pre-industrial era average for 12 months, data shows (The Guardian,) June sizzled to a 13th straight monthly heat record, but July might break string (National Public Radio,) and World in line for hottest year as 1.5C limit breached for 12 months in a row (Financial Times.)

That ongoing 1.5C temperature limit scare-story has people around the world rattled. For example, this infographic from The Asia-Pacific branch of the International Union of Food workers (IUF) says (bold author’s):

Global warming caused by human activities reached approximately 1°C over the past 170 years, increasing at 0.2°C per decade. Scientists warn that an average rise of more than 1.5°C in the surface temperature of the earth compared to pre-industrial levels will be catastrophic for the environment and human health.

But despite 12 months of the globe being above the so-called temperature limit, nothing bad happened on a global scale. Claims of climate catastrophe once we passed the so-called 1.5C temperature limit, never happened. The limit was nothing more than a political talking point from the 2015 Paris Climate Conference, as described in this Associated Press article: The magic 1.5: What’s behind climate talks’ key elusive goal. The AP wrote, “in a way both the ‘1.5 and 2 degree C thresholds are somewhat arbitrary,’ Stanford University climate scientist Rob Jackson said in an email. ‘Every tenth of a degree matters!’”

Now, despite surpassing that arbitrary limit, the “crisis” progressive politicians and alarmists in the mainstream media have been warning about failed to materialize.

First let’s check the global temperature. The source of all these news stories comes from a recent press release by Copernicus, part of the European Commission. A graph by Copernicus, seen in Figure 1 below, illustrates the “limit” and the 12-month temperature peak:

…

climate-debate

High-frequency climate forcing causes prolonged cold periods in the Holocene.

by E. van Dijk et al., May 08 2024, in Nature (OPEN ACCESS)

Abstract

Understanding climate variability across interannual to centennial timescales is critical, as it encompasses the natural range of climate fluctuations that early human agricultural societies had to adapt to. Deviations from the long-term mean climate are often associated with both societal collapse and periods of prosperity and expansion. Here, we show that contrary to what global paleoproxy reconstructions suggest, the mid to late-Holocene was not a period of climate stability. We use mid- to late-Holocene Earth System Model simulations, forced by state-of-the-art reconstructions of external climate forcing to show that eleven long-lasting cold periods occurred in the Northern Hemisphere during the past 8000 years. These periods correlate with enhanced volcanic activity, where the clustering of volcanic eruptions induced a prolonged cooling effect through gradual ocean-sea ice feedback. These findings challenge the prevailing notion of the Holocene as a period characterized by climate stability, as portrayed in multi-proxy climate reconstructions. Instead, our simulations provide an improved representation of amplitude and timing of temperature variations on sub-centennial timescales.

…

better to know...?

Climate Activists Are Wrong About Which Energy Source Reduces Air Pollution

by S. Graham, June 20, 2024 in WUWT

oday’s media are filled with concerns about air pollution. But few people know which energy source has produced the greatest modern reduction in air pollution. The answer isn’t wind or solar energy.

During the 1950s, my grandfather had a coal furnace in his basement, like many homes in Chicago. Five days after a winter snowfall, the snow was covered with a visible black film of dust from coal furnaces. Our younger generation does not know the original reason for “spring cleaning.” Every spring, homeowners would wash their inside walls to remove coal dust.

It was the rising use of gas fuel, primarily natural gas along with propane, that produced the greatest reduction in air pollution in the United States and across the world. Gas furnaces and stoves have replaced wood in businesses and homes in developed nations. And natural gas power plants have replaced coal-fired plants to generate electricity, with gas becoming the leading fuel for industry.

Natural gas and propane are clean-burning fuels that emit no harmful pollutants when burned. When gas heating is substituted for coal or wood heating, indoor particulate pollution is reduced by 1,000 times.

Today, 70% of US homes use natural gas or propane, a percentage that has been rising for decades. Gas fuels have also become the leading heating and cooking source in Europe, providing 83% of heat energy in the Netherlands and 78% in the United Kingdom. But there are still 70 million wood stoves in Europe.

The World Health Organization estimates that 2 billion people in developing nations still cook using open fires or inefficient stoves fueled by kerosene, biomass (wood, charcoal, animal dung, or crop waste), and coal. These fuels generate harmful indoor air pollution. Indoor air pollution is estimated to cause more than 3 million deaths annually in poor nations. Emerging nations need gas fuels to boost health and well-being.

…

better to know...?, climate-debate

Major problems identified in data adjustments applied to a widely used global temperature dataset

by Ceres Team, Feb 22, 2022 in CeresScience

new climate science study, involving a panel of 17 experts from 13 countries, has just been published in the scientific journal, Atmosphere. The study looked at the various data adjustments that are routinely applied to the European temperature records in the widely used Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) dataset over the last 10 years.

 
 
…
unclassified

Has the Sun’s true role in global warming been miscalculated?

by CeresTeam, Oct 2023 in CeresScience

A new international study published in the scientific peer-reviewed journal, Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics, by 20 climate researchers from 12 countries suggests that the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) might have substantially underestimated the role of the Sun in global warming.

The article began as a response to a 2022 commentary on an extensive review of the causes of climate change published in 2021. The original review (Connolly and colleagues, 2021) had suggested that the IPCC reports had inadequately accounted for two major scientific concerns when they were evaluating the causes of global warming since the 1850s:

  1. The global temperature estimates used in the IPCC reports are contaminated by urban warming biases.

  2. The estimates of solar activity changes since the 1850s considered by the IPCC substantially downplayed a possible large role for the Sun.

On this basis, the 2021 review had concluded that it was not scientifically valid for the IPCC to rule out the possibility that global warming might be mostly natural.

The findings of that 2021 review were disputed in a 2022 article by two climate researchers (Dr. Mark Richardson and Dr. Rasmus Benestad) for two main reasons:

  1. Richardson and Benestad (2022) argued that the mathematical techniques used by Connolly and colleagues (2021) were inappropriate and that a different set of mathematical techniques should have been used instead.

  2. They also argued that many of the solar activity records considered by Connolly and colleagues (2021) were not up-to-date.

They suggested that these were the reasons why Connolly and colleagues (2021) had come to a different conclusion from the IPCC.

This new 2023 article by the authors of the 2021 review, has addressed both of these concerns and shown even more compelling evidence that the IPCC’s statements on the causes of global warming since 1850 are scientifically premature and may need to be revisited.

The authors showed that the urban component of the IPCC’s global temperature data shows a strong warming bias relative to the 98% of the planet that is unaffected by urbanization. However, they also showed that urbanized data represented most of the weather station records used.

 

While the IPCC only considered one estimate of solar activity for their most recent (2021) evaluation of the causes of global warming, Connolly and colleagues compiled and updated 27 different estimates that were used by the scientific community.

Several of these different solar activity estimates suggest that most of the warming observed outside urban areas (in rural areas, oceans, and glaciers) could be explained in terms of the Sun. Some estimates suggest that global warming is a mixture of human and natural factors. Other estimates agreed with the IPCC’s findings.

For this reason, the authors concluded that the scientific community is not yet in a position to establish whether the global warming since the 1850s is mostly human-caused, mostly natural or some combination of both.

…

better to know...?

Olympics 2024: how extreme weather could impact Paris games

by S. King, , June 18 2024, BBC

The summer Olympics and Paralympic games in Paris are just over a month away and there is concern about the potential effects of extreme heat.

Some parts of Europe have already registered temperatures over 40C and it is not unreasonable to suggest that elsewhere in Europe will experience heatwaves in the coming months.

In a report published on Tuesday, Lord Coe, President of World Athletics, says “climate change should increasingly be viewed as an existential threat to sport”.

Intense heat could affect the events, competitors, spectators and officials.

Changing climate of Paris

We don’t know what the forecast will be for Paris during the Olympic period, but Meteo France – the national weather service – has said that summer is likely to be warmer than average.

France has experienced deadly summer heatwaves in the past.

The highest recorded temperature in Paris is 42.6C set at the end of July 2019.

And more recently in 2022, during the Olympic period, a lengthy heatwave saw maximum temperatures reach 36C.

That year the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies in France estimated heat-related deaths of 11,000 throughout the summer.

At the last Olympics in Tokyo in 2021, extreme heat made it “torturous” for athletes and volunteers, according to local meteorologists.

It was the hottest Olympic Games on record with sweltering temperatures of 34C and humidity of 70%, which would have made it feel like 47C.

Tennis player Daniel Medvedev spoke of “dying on court” during the heat of a match.

Other competitors vomited and fainted on the finish line because of the high temperatures.

…