Tous les articles par Alain Préat

Full-time professor at the Free University of Brussels, Belgium apreat@gmail.com apreat@ulb.ac.be • Department of Earth Sciences and Environment Res. Grp. - Biogeochemistry & Modeling of the Earth System Sedimentology & Basin Analysis • Alumnus, Collège des Alumni, Académie Royale de Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux Arts de Belgique (mars 2013). http://www.academieroyale.be/cgi?usr=2a8crwkksq&lg=fr&pag=858&rec=0&frm=0&par=aybabtu&id=4471&flux=8365323 • Prof. Invited, Université de Mons-Hainaut (2010-present-day) • Prof. Coordinator and invited to the Royal Academy of Sciences of Belgium (Belgian College) (2009- present day) • Prof. partim to the DEA (third cycle) led by the University of Lille (9 universities from 1999 to 2004) - Prof. partim at the University of Paris-Sud/Orsay, European-Socrates Agreement (1995-1998) • Prof. partim at the University of Louvain, Convention ULB-UCL (1993-2000) • Since 2015 : Member of Comité éditorial de la Revue Géologie de la France http://geolfrance.brgm.fr • Since 2014 : Regular author of texts for ‘la Revue Science et Pseudosciences’ http://www.pseudo-sciences.org/ • Many field works (several weeks to 2 months) (Meso- and Paleozoic carbonates, Paleo- to Neoproterozoic carbonates) in Europe, USA (Nevada), Papouasia (Holocene), North Africa (Algeria, Morrocco, Tunisia), West Africa (Gabon, DRC, Congo-Brazzaville, South Africa, Angola), Iraq... Recently : field works (3 to 5 weeks) Congo- Brazzaville 2012, 2015, 2016 (carbonate Neoproterozoic). Degree in geological sciences at the Free University of Brussels (ULB) in 1974, I went to Algeria for two years teaching mining geology at the University of Constantine. Back in Belgium I worked for two years as an expert for the EEC (European Commission), first on the prospecting of Pb and Zn in carbonate environments, then the uranium exploration in Belgium. Then Assistant at ULB, Department of Geology I got the degree of Doctor of Sciences (Geology) in 1985. My thesis, devoted to the study of the Devonian carbonate sedimentology of northern France and southern Belgium, comprised a significant portion of field work whose interpretation and synthesis conducted to the establishment of model of carbonate platforms and ramps with reefal constructions. I then worked for Petrofina SA and shared a little more than two years in Angola as Director of the Research Laboratory of this oil company. The lab included 22 people (micropaleontology, sedimentology, petrophysics). My main activity was to interpret facies reservoirs from drillings in the Cretaceous, sometimes in the Tertiary. I carried out many studies for oil companies operating in this country. I returned to the ULB in 1988 as First Assistant and was appointed Professor in 1990. I carried out various missions for mining companies in Belgium and oil companies abroad and continued research, particularly through projects of the Scientific Research National Funds (FNRS). My research still concerns sedimentology, geochemistry and diagenesis of carbonate rocks which leads me to travel many countries in Europe or outside Europe, North Africa, Papua New Guinea and the USA, to conduct field missions. Since the late 90's, I expanded my field of research in addressing the problem of mass extinctions of organisms from the Upper Devonian series across Euramerica (from North America to Poland) and I also specialized in microbiological and geochemical analyses of ancient carbonate series developing a sustained collaboration with biologists of my university. We are at the origin of a paleoecological model based on the presence of iron-bacterial microfossils, which led me to travel many countries in Europe and North Africa. This model accounts for the red pigmentation of many marble and ornamental stones used in the world. This research also has implications on the emergence of Life from the earliest stages of formation of Earth, as well as in the field of exobiology or extraterrestrial life ... More recently I invested in the study from the Precambrian series of Gabon and Congo. These works with colleagues from BRGM (Orléans) are as much about the academic side (consequences of the appearance of oxygen in the Paleoproterozoic and study of Neoproterozoic glaciations) that the potential applications in reservoir rocks and source rocks of oil (in collaboration with oil companies). Finally I recently established a close collaboration with the Royal Institute of Natural Sciences of Belgium to study the susceptibility magnetic signal from various European Paleozoic series. All these works allowed me to gain a thorough understanding of carbonate rocks (petrology, micropaleontology, geobiology, geochemistry, sequence stratigraphy, diagenesis) as well in Precambrian (2.2 Ga and 0.6 Ga), Paleozoic (from Silurian to Carboniferous) and Mesozoic (Jurassic and Cretaceous) rocks. Recently (2010) I have established a collaboration with Iraqi Kurdistan as part of a government program to boost scientific research in this country. My research led me to publish about 180 papers in international and national journals and presented more than 170 conference papers. I am a holder of eight courses at the ULB (5 mandatory and 3 optional), excursions and field stages, I taught at the third cycle in several French universities and led or co-managed a score of 20 Doctoral (PhD) and Post-doctoral theses and has been the promotor of more than 50 Masters theses.
better to know...?

The Hill’s Crazy Coral Claims Challenged By Reef Recovery, Record Growth

by L. Lueken, Oct 16, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch 

reef coral

A recent article in The Hill, “Climate change is not a ‘con job’,” claims that catastrophic, human-caused climate change is killing reefs via ocean heatwaves. This claim is false. [emphasis, links added]

In reality, corals have existed for millions of years, through warmer and colder periods, and in the recent past, coral reefs have recovered from bleaching events and even die-offs, proving the species is adaptive and resilient in the face of climate change.

The Hill article, from Rebecca Vega Thurber, the director of the UC Santa Barbara Marine Science Institute, is framed by Thurber’s annoyance that President Donald Trump says climate change is a “con job.” She claims her personal research experience refutes his comment.

Thurber explains that pollution from fertilizer runoff can kill corals, which is true, but goes on to assert:

“[E]very result we have collected, in every one of these well-intentioned and carefully designed experiments, was waylaid by the increasingly frequent and severe heat waves that have arisen in the last decades.”

She says their efforts to mitigate pollution were “overwhelmed by high water temperaturesdriven by climate change, or worse, climate change killed our whole experiment.”

Thurber claims marine heat waves in the French South Pacific hampered her work by “transform[ing] these normally bountiful reefs from habitats where there was once 60 percent of the seafloor covered with healthy corals to barren plains with less than 1 percent live coral.”

In point of fact, one long-term study from 2019 showed that rather than a “barren plain,” French Polynesian reefs have an “outstanding rate of coral recovery, with a systematic return to pre-disturbance state within only 5 to 10 years.”

A second study from 2024, published in Nature, sought to understand why reefs bounced backso readily after major heat waves, concluding that:

“Over the past three decades, there have been five main warming events that have caused mass bleaching around Moorea and Tahiti, in 1994, 2002, 2007, 2016, and 2019. Despite bleaching levels up to 100% for some coral species, reefs experienced as high as ~76% recovery following each event. …

“It is currently unknown what controls the ability of coral coverage to recover quickly at these locations. It has been suggested that reefs may develop an increased tolerance to higher SSTs following each bleaching event, and that the increased resilience would allow for a shorter recovery period with less die-off under subsequent SST extremes.”

In short, the scientific literature does not support Thurber’s contention in The Hill that coral reefs are dying off in vast numbers.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

We Need to Talk About Climate (To Each Other)

by N. Komar, Oct 1, 2025 in WUWT

Among professionals who work on the climate issue (the “Climate Community”), there is a long-standing reluctance to engage in conversation with people who don’t consider that the climate is in crisis.

Due to this reluctance, there are exceedingly few recorded debates between members of the Community and those from the outside with an appropriate level of expertise to make for a lively and educational dialogue (but there are some, and below, I’ve listed all of the debates that I have been able to find).

I find the lack of debate to be frustrating.  In my case, I am skeptical of the idea that the earth’s climate is in crisis.  To me, the skeptical arguments seem to be more likely to be correct than the alarmist arguments.  Two important reasons for my skepticism: 1) The few actual debates I have had the pleasure to witness have been won by the skeptic(s). 2) The skeptics I speak to appear confident in their views and are eager to debate people from the Community; members of the Community, conversely, display what seems like a tribal attitude and either are hesitant, or in many cases, just unwilling to debate.

I am willing to be proven wrong regarding my skepticism.  But I can’t be bullied into changing my view.  It would take a reasoned argument, juxtaposed against arguments from the skeptic side of the debate.  And I’ve been following this issue for over 25 years.  For the average person curious about climate, but new to the issue, I would guess that it is quite hard to find arguments on both sides in order to make an informed decision for themselves.  While the question of how climate works is a question of Science, the culture that has developed around the issue is a culture of Politics.  Consequently, a search on the internet for articles on climate will return a politically curated batch.

I’ve been working on a project for the last 2-½ years to transform the situation described above.  It’s called Climate Verso.  Currently the project consists of a podcast, with only a few episodes published to date.  It can be found on any podcast platform: https://theclimateversopodcast.buzzsprout.com/

More episodes will be dropping over the next few months, and I’m totally open to help from anyone interested in getting involved.  The format of the podcast is a dialogue between two climate professionals with differing perspectives.  I am the moderator of the discussions.  Please listen to either or both of the episodes published so far. The first is Matthew Wielicki and Peter Fiekowsky debating the efficacy and risks of Ocean Fertilization.  The 2nd is a wide ranging conversation between Judith Curry and Andrew Revkin about how the climate issue became polarized over the last 40 years.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

New ‘Climate at a Glance’ Book Challenges ‘Climate Crisis’ Narrative with Hard Data

by A. Watts, Oct 08, 2025 in WUWT

Second edition of Climate at a Glance, published by The Heartland Institute, provides public with Facts on 40 Climate Topics
First edition in 2022 was a #1 Amazon Best-seller in the categories of ‘Science for Kids, ‘Climatology,’ and ‘Environmental Science’

 

…

“For too long, climate discourse has been dominated by slogans and fear, while real science and sound policy have taken a back seat, but the data tell a far more complicated story. This book is not about denying that the climate changes—it always has and always will—but about questioning whether today’s costly, disruptive policies are grounded in evidence or in politics. By examining the data, the models, and the history of our ever-changing climate, this book cuts through the noise to show that climate change is not a one-way catastrophe but part of Earth’s natural variability. Instead of rushing into policies that wreck economies and livelihoods, we need honest science, open debate, and the courage to question a narrative that too often puts politics before facts.”

Anthony Watts
Senior Fellow for Environment and Climate
The Heartland Institute

climate-debate

COP30’s Carbon Circus: Elites Show Everything That’s Wrong With Climate Alarmism

by D. Blackmon, Oct 0, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch 

Sky-high costs, private jets, and rainforest destruction make a mockery of the very climate agenda activists claim to champion.

 

Massive Amazon deforestation for COP30 road
In case you’ve missed it amid the Trump White House’s decision to ban U.S. participation, this year’s U.N.-sponsored COP30 conference is being hosted by Belem, the capital city of the Brazilian state of Pará. [emphasis, links added]

Suffice it to say that, as is always the case with these annual gatherings of globalist elites, preparations for this year’s event have been filled with a series of pitfalls, emergencies, and the usual stories of rank hypocrisy.

A great example came on Tuesday, when Bloomberg ran a story with the alarming headline, “Nations Rethink Plans for Brazil Climate Summit as Costs Soar.” Sounds scary, doesn’t it? Yeah, that’s probably the point.

It turns out that prices for hotel rooms and other accommodations are soaring (unexpectedly!) in advance of the conference, which should actually surprise no one, given that these events are regularly attended by tens of thousands of conferees armed with virtually unlimited expense accounts.

The profit motive remains alive and well in the midst of the Amazon jungle despite the best efforts of Brazil’s socialist government to kill it off. Go figure.

Bloomberg’s writers first imply that the high costs of attendance are falling mainly on the shoulders of developing nations, saying, “representatives of developing and at-risk countries say they’re considering scaling back their presence at this year’s event, which would reduce their visibility and negotiating power.”

Countries must have a big delegation present to ensure they get their entitled slices of every one of the myriad climate alarm initiatives, schemes, and scams that will be rolled out at this year’s conference, you know.

The piece singles out Tanzania’s Richard Muyungi, who chairs the African Group of Negotiators, as claiming that “African national delegations typically range from about 60 to 100 people.”

After all, it’s a two-week event, so countries feel the need to sub in backups for exhausted participants like an NFL defensive coordinator rotates tackles and linebackers.

Later in the story, though, Bloomberg admits that some developed countries are also scaling back their planned delegations from previous years.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Sea Level Rise Hoax Exposed: The Disappearing Islands That Refuse To Disappear

by P. Gosselin, Oct 4, 2025 in NoTricksZone

Germany’s Klimanachrichten here publishes an article titled “The Disappearing Islands (That Don’t Want to Disappear)” summarizes findings suggesting that the widespread assumption about low-lying islands inevitably sinking due to rising sea levels is too simplistic and detached from reality.

Earlier, the media often tried to scoff at and discredit findings from inconvenient sea level experts, like Axel Mörner:

Undeniable science: Mörner et all, 2011

But today, climate alarmist media are forced to concede things are not as dire as they once believed.

74 of 101 islands are growing

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climate-debate

The Guardian Is Wrong: Cities Are Hotter Because of the UHI Effect, Not Increased CO₂

by A. Watts, Oct 6, 2025 in WUWT

In The Guardian’s op-ed, “World’s major cities hit by 25% leap in extremely hot days since the 1990s,”asserts that global warming has caused a sharp rise in the number of extremely hot days in cities worldwide, citing an International Institute for Environment and Development analysis that claims urban residents from London to Tokyo now experience 25 percent more hot days each year than they did in the 1990s. The claims are highly misleading if not outright false. While cities worldwide have in fact gotten warmer, carbon dioxide increases from the burning fossil fuels are not to blame, rather data strongly suggests that the significant rise in measured temperatures in and around major cities is Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect in response to population growth and development.

The article quotes scientists as saying, “Global heating caused by fossil fuel burning is making every heatwave more intense and more likely. Extreme heat is likely to have caused the early death of millions of people over the past three decades, with elderly and poor people in fast-growing cities most deeply affected.”

One telling moment comes in The Guardian article itself, where researchers concede that “failing to adapt will condemn millions of city dwellers to increasingly uncomfortable and even dangerous conditions because of the urban heat island effect.” Precisely. It is the UHI effect, not CO₂, that drives the city heat trends.

The Guardian’s narrative collapses under scrutiny, because it ignores the UHI effect. Cities are not thermometers for the planet. They are microclimates dominated by concrete, asphalt, and glass which trap heat and bias local temperature readings upward. Peer-reviewed research by John Christy, Ph.D. and Roy Spencer, Ph.D., published in the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology shows that urbanization is a major driver of observed warming at city weather stations. Their research found that UHI contributed to 22 percent of the raw observed warming trend on average, and up to 65 percent at suburban and urban stations. When examining rural stations, the effect nearly vanishes. This demonstrates that much of the increase in urban temperatures is the UHI, not global climate change. This is vividly illustrated in Figures 1 and 2 below.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Mid-Holocene South China Sea Level 2-3 Meters Higher Than Today Due To 1-2°C Warmer Temps

by K. Richard, Sep 30, 2025 in NoTricksZone 

The mechanisms driving the meters-higher sea levels a few thousand years ago do not support claims that CO2 is a driver.

A comprehensive analysis (Zhang et al., 2025) of the South China Sea region indicates warmer sea water was fundamentally responsible for sea levels that were, on average, 2-3 meters higher (and in some regions as much as 5-7 meters higher) than today from approximately 7000 to 4000 years ago.

“Understanding Holocene high sea levels in the South China Sea (SCS) is critical for understanding climate change and assessing future sea-level rise risks. We provide a comprehensive review of the Holocene highstand in the SCS, focusing on its age, height, and mechanisms. Records reveal a wide range for this highstand: ages span 3480–7500 cal yr BP, while elevations range from −7.40 to 7.53 m relative to the present. Positive elevations dominate (80.5% of records), with the most frequent range being 2–3 m.”

“…the Holocene high sea level in this region occurred between 7200 and 5000 yr BP…at least 2.9-3.8 m higher than today.”

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climate-debate

New Study Attributes Arctic Sea Ice Decline – And ‘Slowdown’ Since 2012 -To Internal Variability

by K. Richard, Oct 2, 2025 in NoTricksZone 

“Observations show no significant decline in Arctic sea ice concentration (SIC) since 2012…revealing a negligible trend of -0.4% per decade…” – Wang et al., 2025

Scientists are now acknowledging the sharply declining trend in Arctic sea ice from the mid-1990s to 2010s (-11.3% per decade), as well as the “negligible” or flat trend since 2012 (-0.4% per decade) are both “closely coupled” with natural decadal-scale variations in the North Atlantic Oscillation, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscilliation, and “enhanced summertime radiation balance associated with an anticyclonic atmospheric circulation pattern.”

In other words, instead of a linear decline in Arctic sea ice coupled with rising greenhouse gas emissions, it is claimed that “approximately half” of the observed Arctic sea ice decline in the modern era can be attributed to internal variability.

The authors of this new study published in Nature Communications further suggest the flattened trend or “slowdown” in sea ice decline will likely persist for the next 10 to 15 years. Consequently, alarmist predictions of an “ice-free” Arctic in the coming decades will have to be put on hold until after the 2030s.

energy and fields

Place Your Bet on the Future of Energy: U.S. Or China

by F. Menton, Oct 1, 2025 in WUWT

The first eight months of the second Trump administration have seen a sea change in energy policy. Previously, under Biden, the federal government had undertaken a blowout of hundreds of billions of dollars of subsidies and incentives for so-called “renewable” energy sources, while simultaneously implementing dozens of regulations and restrictions to suppress the production and use of fossil fuels. President Trump has now reversed all of that.

However, please take note of an important distinction: although Trump and Congress have zeroed out nearly all subsidies and tax credits for wind and solar generation and for grid-scale batteries, they have not enacted comparable subsidies and incentives for fossil fuels. Instead, all sources of energy production now must stand or fall without subsidies, based on their ability to fulfill customer demand and to generate profit. All sources of energy are now on equal footing, and without subsidies.

Meanwhile, over in China, billions of dollars in subsidies have flowed for many years into developing the ability to produce the infrastructure for a wind/solar/storage energy system — things like polysilicon, solar panels, solar cells, wind turbine blades, wind turbine nacelles, and battery cells. As a result, China has become completely dominant in the world in manufacturing these and many related items.

So who is making the better energy bet?

For one possible answer to that question, here is a Wall Street Journal piece from September 21(probably behind pay wall). You get a clear idea where they are going from the headline, “The U.S. Is Forfeiting the Clean-Energy Race to China.”

In the vision of the authors of the piece (David Uberti, Ed Ballard, and Brian Spengele), there is an international race under way for dominance in “clean energy,” and the United States is in the process of losing it. The problem is that the U.S. is failing to put up the necessary government subsidies for “clean energy” to vie for the lead. Excerpt:

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better to know...?, climate-debate

The Amazon’s “CO₂ Problem”? Turns Out the Trees Love It – So Does the Media

by A. Watts, Oct 1, 2025 in WUWT

For decades, we’ve been warned that the Amazon rainforest—the so-called “lungs of the planet”—was on the verge of collapse. Headlines screamed about tipping points, mass die-offs of giant trees, and irreversible climate catastrophe. Yet, buried in the data, something rather inconvenient has been happening: the Amazon is getting bigger, fatter, and taller.

A new Nature Plants study, covering 30 years of field data from 188 permanent forest plots across Amazonia, shows that the average size of Amazon trees has increased by more than 3% per decade . In plain English: the forest isn’t shrinking in stature, it’s bulking up.

The researchers found:

  • Mean tree size up 3.3% per decade
  • Largest trees (>40 cm diameter) increased 6.6% per decade
  • Biomass increasingly concentrated in the biggest trees
  • No evidence of large-scale die-off from climate stress

In their words:

“We find that tree size has been increasing across all size classes… The observed patterns match the expectations from increased resource availability, particularly from rising atmospheric CO₂.”

So much for the “large trees are doomed” hypothesis.

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My Final Thoughts

The real takeaway is this:

  • Rising CO₂ is not just a “pollutant”—it is also a powerful plant fertilizer.
  • Amazonian forests are currently benefitting, not suffering, from this change.
  • Predictions of imminent collapse have once again run headlong into inconvenient data.

When climate modelers assure us that “the science is settled,” it’s worth recalling just how often field data overturns the narrative. The Amazon was supposed to be collapsing. Instead, its trees are thriving.

That doesn’t sell headlines or funding proposals, but it’s what the evidence shows.

So, next time someone calls CO₂ “pollution,” remind them: without it, plants—and by extension, we—wouldn’t exist. And with a bit more of it, the world’s largest rainforest seems to be doing just fine.

only geology

Two of Greece’s most dangerous volcanoes share an underground link

by C. Graling, Sept 24, 2025 in ScienceNews

A January earthquake swarm exposed shared plumbing between Santorini and Kolumbo.

 

An intense swarm of earthquakes around Greece’s Santorini Island in January has revealed a fiery underground link between two neighboring and historically explosive volcanoes.

Analyses of seismic activity from June 2024 through February 2025, along with changes in the island’s surface elevation, suggest that the same well of magma feeding the Santorini volcano may also supply the submerged Kolumbo volcano, just seven kilometers away, researchers report September 24 in Nature.

Complex, shared magma plumbing systems can complicate the interpretation of earthquakes and signs of imminent eruptions, say Marius Isken, a geophysicist at the GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam, Germany, and colleagues. This study, they say, highlights the need for real-time, high-resolution monitoring to improve volcano warnings.

Santorini is known for a catastrophic volcanic eruption around 1560 B.C. that contributed to the end of the Minoan civilization and caused widespread devastation, including earthquakes, tsunamis and possibly a volcanic winter. Kolumbo is no slouch either, erupting most recently in A.D. 1650.

When a swarm of over 1,200 earthquakes rattled the region early this year, Greece declared a state of emergency, fearing an imminent eruption. Although no eruption ensued, the abundant quakes allowed Isken and colleagues to examine the subsurface and better understand how and where magma moved.

climate-debate

New Study: Modern Warmth Is Merely Part Of A Natural Cycle

by K. Richard, Sep 22, 2025 in NoTricksZone 

Throughout the last 10,000 years there have globally been much warmer and more extensive iceless periods than observed in the modern era.

“There is reliable geological evidence that the temperature of most warming phases in the Holocene were globally higher or similar to that of the current warming period, Arctic sea ice was less extensive, and most mountain glaciers in the northern hemisphere either disappeared or were smaller.”

Cold periods – like warm periods – are driven by natural solar forcing mechanisms. The last of which was manifested in the 19th century.

“A solar forcing mechanism has steered Holocene climate change, expressed by 9 cooling phases known as Bond events.”

The recent warming is part of a natural cycle, not a consequence of human activity.

“The modern warming is part of a climatic cycle with a progressive warming after the Little Ice Age, the last cold episode of which occurred at the beginning of the 19th century.”

There is thus nothing unprecedented or even unusual about the modern climate state. Any claims to the contrary are “not supported by the geological data.”

 

Ses Marks, 2025

climate-debate

“But you said the ice was going to disappear in 10 years!”

by Gavin, Sep é&, 2025 in RealClimate

Almost two decades ago, some scientists predicted that Arctic summer sea ice would ‘soon’ disappear. These predictions were mentioned by Al Gore and got a lot of press. However, they did not gain wide acceptance in the scientific community, and were swiftly disproven. Unsurprisingly, this still comes up a lot. Time for a deeper dive into what happened and why…

It is unsurprising that climate contrarians bring up past ‘failed predictions’ to bolster their case that nothing need be done about climate change. [It is equally unsurprising that they don’t bother to mention the predictions that were skillful, but let’s not dwell on that!]. For a long time, their favorite supposed ‘failed prediction’ was that there was a consensus about the imminence of a new ice age in the 1970s (a topic we have covered many times), but more recently it has turned to the supposed prediction of Al Gore that “Arctic summer sea ice would disappear” in a short number of years. This has everything – the ‘But Al Gore!’ knee-jerk, a conflation of Al Gore with the scientific community, it’s sounds suitably apocalyptic and, of course, Arctic summer sea ice has not disappeared (it’s only down 40% or so):

Arctic summer sea ice extent anomalies from NSIDC, with the exceptional years of 2007 and 2012 highlighted (data through July 2025).

What did Al Gore actually say?

If we go back to Dec 2007, in the immediate aftermath of the shocking decrease in sea ice that summer, Gore gave his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize he’d received jointly with the IPCC. In it he said:

Last September 21, as the Northern Hemisphere tilted away from the sun, scientists reported with unprecedented distress that the North Polar ice cap is “falling off a cliff.” One study estimated that it could be completely gone during summer in less than 22 years. Another new study, to be presented by U.S. Navy researchers later this week, warns it could happen in as little as 7 years.

What was he reporting on?

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only geology

Earthquakes release blistering heat that can melt rock in an instant

by Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sep 19 in ScienceDaily

Based on mini “lab-quakes” in a controlled setting, MIT findings could help researchers assess the vulnerability of quake-prone regions.
MIT scientists have unraveled the hidden energy balance of earthquakes by recreating them in the lab. Their findings show that while only a sliver of energy goes into the shaking we feel on the surface, the overwhelming majority is released as heat—sometimes hot enough to melt surrounding rock in an instant

The ground-shaking that an earthquake generates is only a fraction of the total energy that a quake releases. A quake can also generate a flash of heat, along with a domino-like fracturing of underground rocks. But exactly how much energy goes into each of these three processes is exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to measure in the field.

Now MIT geologists have traced the energy that is released by “lab quakes” — miniature analogs of natural earthquakes that are carefully triggered in a controlled laboratory setting. For the first time, they have quantified the complete energy budget of such quakes, in terms of the fraction of energy that goes into heat, shaking, and fracturing.

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better to know...?, energy and fields

Europe: AI Development or Net Zero?

by  S. Goreham, Sep 18, 2025 in CornwallAlliance

This year, European nations announced plans to pursue artificial intelligence. National leaders announced AI spending goals totaling hundreds of billions of euros in efforts to catch up to the United States. But AI requires huge amounts of electrical power, conflicting with Europe’s commitment to achieve a Net Zero power grid.

Since ChatGPT released their AI chatbot in November of 2022, artificial intelligence has exploded. In only two years, the AI revolution became the driving force in the US high-tech industry. Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and other firms will spend over $100 billion this year building and upgrading data centers to run AI. Nvidia, the dominant supplier of AI graphics processor units (GPUs), became the most valuable company in the world, its market capitalization soaring from $300 billion to $4.3 trillion in less than three years.

Artificial intelligence requires vast amounts of electricity. AI processors run 24 hours a day, enabling computers to think like humans. When servers are upgraded to support AI, they consume 6 to 10 times more power than when used for cloud storage and the internet. Data centers consumed 4% of US power at the start of 2024 but are projected to consume 20% within the next decade.

The need for new generating capacity for AI now drives US electricity markets. Coal-fired power plant closures have been postponed in Georgia, Indiana, Illinois, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia, and other states. Nuclear plants are restarting in Iowa, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Dozens of small modular reactors are on the drawing board. More than 200 gas-fired plants are in planning or under construction, including more than 100 in Texas. Companies building AI data centers are constructing their own on-site power plants, unwilling to wait for grid power. The pursuit of artificial intelligence is rapidly replacing obsolete US Net Zero policies.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Lomborg: Environmental Doomsday Predictions Collapse As World Becomes Richer And Greener

by B. Lomborg, Sep 16, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch 

Fearmongering climate change forecasts keep falling apart.

Climate protest
Over the past half-century, environmentalists have predicted countless calamities. Their extreme predictions were typically wrong, their draconian countermeasures turned out to be mostly misguided, and we should be grateful we didn’t follow their harmful advice. [emphasis, links added]

We need to keep this history in mind as we are inundated with stories of climate Armageddon.

This summer, headlines about the Great Barrier Reef painted a dire picture of climate-driven devastation, with environmental journalists claiming the reef was on the brink of collapse.

In reality, data shows the reef has its fourth-highest coral cover since records began in 1986, revealing these alarmist narratives to be vastly misleading.

Truth and Scares

Sensible, life-improving environmental policies over recent decades were rarely sold with fearmongering. Rich countries have dramatically reduced air and water pollution through technological advances and then through regulation.

Poorer countries are starting to do the same thing, as they emerge from poverty and can afford to be more environmentally concerned. Forests have expanded globally, with this growth clear in rich countries and increasingly across the world.

This isn’t the scary future environmentalists promised us.

A recent peer-reviewed study counts almost a hundred environmental doomsday predictions that environmentalists have made over the past half-century.

Two-thirds of them predicted doom before August 2025, and all of these have turned out to be false.

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climate-debate

Koonin: DOE Climate Report Finally Brings Clarity, Challenges Alarmist Narrative

by S.E. Koonin, Sept 09, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch 

Empirical data shows CO2 boosts growth, extreme weather events are overblown, and policy costs outweigh any benefits.

Protest on a dead planet
A recent Energy Department report challenged the widespread belief that greenhouse-gas emissions pose a serious threat to the nation. It likely soothed Americans irked by forced energy transitions, but you would be wrong to assume it reassured many alarmed by hypothetical climate catastrophes. [emphasis, links added]

There is a disconnect between public perceptions of climate change and climate science—and between past government reports and the science itself.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright understands this. It’s why he commissioned an independent assessment by a team of five senior scientists, including me, to provide clearer insights into what’s known and not about the changing climate.

Collectively, our team brought to the task more than 200 years of research experience, almost all directly relevant to climate studies.

The resulting peer-reviewed report is entirely our work, free from political influence—a departure from previous assessments.

It draws from United Nations and U.S. climate reports, peer-reviewed research, and primary observations to focus on important aspects of climate science that have been misrepresented to nonexperts.

Among the report’s key findings:

■ Elevated carbon dioxide levels enhance plant growth, contributing to global greening and increased agricultural productivity.

■ Complex climate models provide limited guidance on the climate’s response to rising carbon dioxide levels. Overly sensitive models, often using extreme scenarios, have exaggerated future warming projections and consequences.

■ Data aggregated over the continental U.S. show no significant long-term trends in most extreme weather events. Claims of more frequent or intense hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and dryness in America aren’t supported by historical records.

■ While global sea levels have risen about eight inches since 1900, aggregate U.S. tide-gauge data don’t show the long-term acceleration expected from a warming globe.

■ Natural climate variability, data limitations, and model deficiencies complicate efforts to attribute specific climate changes or extreme events to human CO2 emissions.

■ The use of the words “existential,” “crisis,” and “emergency” to describe the projected effects of human-caused warming on the U.S. economy finds scant support in the data.

■ Overly aggressive policies aimed at reducing emissions could do more harm than good by hiking the cost of energy and degrading its reliability. Even the most ambitious reductions in U.S. emissions would have little direct effect on global emissions and an even smaller effect on climate trends.

Our report is the first from Washington in years that deviates from the narrative of a climate headed for catastrophe. That these findings surprised many speaks to a governmental failure to communicate climate science accurately to the public.

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energy and fields

The UK is going back to coal

by A. Montford, Sept 12,2025 in NetZeroWatch

When the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining, we rely on so-called ‘firm capacity’ to step in and keep the lights on. In the UK, that means gas-fired and nuclear power stations and pretty much nothing else – the giant wood-burner at Drax is the only significant exception.

Unfortunately, both the gas-fired and nuclear fleets are now very old, and much of the capacity is nearing the end of its life. Regulators have granted extensions to some of the nuclear units, but after 2028 permanent closures are likely. Meanwhile, as much as a third of our gas-fired capacity is expected to retire over the next five years.

Unless these units can be replaced, or their lives extended, we face a capacity crunch by 2030 at the latest. At best that means sky-high prices, and at worst, brownouts – electricity rationing in other words. That is a horrific prospect. As the Spanish found out to their cost during the recent Iberian blackout, when the power supply goes down, people die.

However, replacement is currently looking unlikely. With so much wind and solar on the grid, nobody wants to put money into new power stations, either gas-fired or nuclear. The financial numbers simply don’t add up any longer, either for new units or for overhauls of existing ones.

In theory, we could subsidise our way out of this. Although little or no new capacity has emerged from the government’s capacity market auctions, if caps on prices were removed, in theory someone might take the risk.

However, in practice this won’t happen. That’s because a surge in power demand from new datacentres means that the lead time for a new gas turbine is now eight years. Lead times for nuclear are mostly even longer – the Koreans have delivered in as little as eight years, but everyone else takes much longer. And this is the United Kingdom, where building anything takes an eternity.

Either way, new gas turbines or nuclear will arrive too late to help the UK avoid a capacity crunch.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

UK Poll Shows Rising Climate Skepticism, Opposition to Net-Zero Policies

by O. Wright et al., Sept 12, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch 

New research finds a sharp rise in climate change skepticism as Brits reject net-zero policies

Ed Miliband's wind farm fantasy
The number of Britons who think the dangers of global warming have been exaggerated has jumped by more than 50 percent in the past four years, new research for The Times reveals today. [emphasis, links added]

One in four voters now believes that concerns over climate change are not as real as scientists have said, amid growing public concern about the cost of the government’s net-zero policies.

Less than a third of the public (30 percent) are in favor of banning new petrol and diesel cars — down from 51 percent in 2021.


Only 16 percent of voters said they would be prepared to pay higher gas bills to encourage the switch to electricity.

Experts said the findings showed that growing climate skepticism within mainstream politics in both Britain and the US was cutting through with voters, as the broad consensus on climate action breaks down.

“Climate change is being politicised [in the UK] in the same way that has been done in the United States,” said Professor Wouter Poortinga, an environmental psychologist at the University of Cardiff.

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climate-debate

New Study: ‘CO2 Does Not Precede Temperature, Nor Does It Control Temperature’

by K. Richard, Sept 5, 2025 in NoTricksZone 

More evidence is unleashed undermining the CO2-drives-climate narrative.

A comprehensive correlation analysis (Grabyan, 2025) utilizing the last 2000 years of temperature and CO2 data affirms CO2 changes lag temperature changes by ~150 years throughout the 1 to 1850 C.E. era.

This Common Era (C.E.) lead-lag sequencing – with temperature changes leading and CO2 changes lagging by centuries to millennia – is wholly consistent with the paleo CO2 and temperature proxy (ice core, stomata, borehole, etc.) record spanning the last 20,000 years (Demezhko and Gornostaeva, 2014), 400,000 years (Fischer et al., 1999, Mudelsee et al., 2001, Monnin et al., 2001, Uemura et al., 2018), 66 million years (Frank, 2024), and 420 million years (Koutsoyiannis, 2024).

It is notable that the CO2 changes can be shown to be driven by temperature changes over not only the long-term (centuries), but over short-term periods (months, years) as well (Koutsoyiannis et al., 2023, Humlum et al., 2013).

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energy and fields

New Scientist: “We could get most metals for clean energy without opening new mines”

by  E. Worrall, Aug 25, 2025 in WUWT

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Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2493449-we-could-get-most-metals-for-clean-energy-without-opening-new-mines/

This seems a strange claim, or at least an odd take on the issue. Most mining engineers I’ve met could recite from memory exactly what is in the waste product of the last mine they worked on. And reprocessing waste from past mining operations is big business, in cases where the waste is valuable.

Those minerals will be extracted when the time is right. But until the value of extraction makes it profitable, a significant strategic need arises, or technological advances bring down the cost, why would anyone bother?

As for the claim such extraction could cover the entire needs of battery, solar panel, wind turbine manufacture, most of the estimates for the required minerals I’ve seen are so gigantic, lets just say expert or not, I’d like to see Elizabeth Holley’s calculations.

climate-debate

Graph of the Week – Temperature of ocean air-sheltered stations

by A. Watts, Aug 26, 2025 in WUWT

I somehow missed this, but I find it very interesting. From the 2018 paper: “Temperature trends with reduced impact of ocean air temperature” by Frank Lansner*, Jens Olaf Pepke Pedersen

Abstract

Temperature data 1900–2010 from meteorological stations across the world have been analyzed and it has been found that all land areas generally have two different valid temperature trends. Coastal stations and hill stations facing ocean winds are normally more warm-trended than the valley stations that are sheltered from dominant oceans winds.

Thus, we found that in any area with variation in the topography, we can divide the stations into the more warm trended ocean air-affected stations, and the more cold-trended ocean air-sheltered stations. We find that the distinction between ocean air-affected and ocean air-sheltered stations can be used to identify the influence of the oceans on land surface. We can then use this knowledge as a tool to better study climate variability on the land surface without the moderating effects of the ocean.

We find a lack of warming in the ocean air sheltered temperature data – with less impact of ocean temperature trends – after 1950. The lack of warming in the ocean air sheltered temperature trends after 1950 should be considered when evaluating the climatic effects of changes in the Earth’s atmospheric trace amounts of greenhouse gasses as well as variations in solar conditions.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Another New Study Suggests Most – 80% – Of The Modern CO2 Increase Has Been Natural

by K. Richard, Aug 29, 2025 in NoTricksZone 

An independent researcher (Robbins, 2025) has reviewed recent research that suggests at least “80% or more of the [modern CO2] increase is of natural origin.”

This is because “changes in atmospheric temperature are an ‘effect’ of changes in SSTs and not a ’cause’ as some might advocate.”

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Similar conclusions are found in a paper published in the same peer-reviewed journal last year (Ato, 2024).

“SST [sea surface temperature] has been the determinant of the annual changes in atmospheric CO2 concentrations and […] anthropogenic emissions have been irrelevant in this process…”

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Media Falsely Claim Antarctica On Brink Of Climate Doom, Ignore Contrary Data

by A. Watts, Aug 29, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch 

Why abrupt Antarctic ‘climate shifts’ aren’t new or necessarily catastrophic.

 

Emperor Penguins
A recent CBS News article, “Abrupt Antarctic climate shifts could lead to ‘catastrophic consequences for generations,’ experts warn,” claims that Antarctica is on the brink of irreversible collapse due to climate change, warning that sea levels could rise by meters and that “catastrophic consequences for generations” are looming. [emphasis, links added]

This is false or, at best, deeply misleading.

The actual data and history of Antarctic ice show that “abrupt changes” are neither unprecedented nor a reason to panic. Natural variability and cyclical shifts are being ignored in favor of sensational headlines pushing the increasingly untenable climate crisis narrative.

CBS was not alone in pushing the Antarctic climate crisis narrative.

On August 21, 2025, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) joined the chorus of media outlets with alarming headlines warning of a pending ice collapse, publishing a report claiming Antarctica is undergoing “rapid, self-perpetuating changes” that are “potentially irreversible.”

Each of the reports cited a new Nature review led by Professor Nerilie Abram as the source of the information for their alarming articles.

ABC’s article presents Antarctica as being in a state of runaway decline, with imminent threats to emperor penguins and global sea levels, parroting language from the Abram paper as if it were an observed fact, rather than the speculative synthesis of research papers that the Nature study cites.

CBS, ABC, and other media outlets are covering this story as if a tipping point is upon us—but a closer look at the evidence reveals otherwise.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

NYT Falsely Blames Climate Change For Hurricane Erin Despite No Evidence

by L. Lueken, Aug 28, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch

Rapid intensification of Hurricane Erin isn’t unusual, and attribution studies don’t prove climate change caused it.

The New York Times (NYT) published an article titled “How Climate Change Affects Hurricanes Like Erin,” in which they rely on rapid attribution analysis to claim that climate change is making rapidly intensifying hurricanes more likely, implying that the storm was worsened by global warming. This is false. [emphasis, links added]

Attribution studies are generally not based on solid scientific evidence and, therefore, not provable. Plus, there is a lack of evidence to support the notion that rapid intensification is becoming more common.

At the outset, the NYT claimed that hurricane Erin’s effects, such as they are, “are made worse by global warming,” even though the storm stayed offshore. The storm intensified quickly from a Category 1 to a Category 5 hurricane, and NYT claims that “[a]s the planet warms, scientists say that rapidly intensifying hurricanes are becoming ever more likely.”

First, it is important to note that just because a storm is among the most rapidly intensifying on record, it does not mean that there were not similar storms that went unrecorded.

As mentioned in a previous Climate Realism post about hurricane Erin, hurricane measurement technology is far advanced today than it was even a few decades ago.

Before the widespread use of Hurricane Hunter flights starting in the 70s where offshore storms were first closely monitored and directly measured throughout their lifespan, other rapidly intensifying storms would not have made the record.

So there is uncertainty about the record there.

Beyond that, attribution researchers and the NYT would like to blame hurricane intensification all on warm sea surface temperatures, but rapid intensification occurs in response to a variety of factors lining up just right.

Similar claims were made two years ago concerning Hurricane Otis. That storm also intensified rapidly over a single day, turning into a Category 5 before hitting the west coast of Mexico.

Otis did not intensify under expected conditions; thunderstorm bursts that forecasters were unable to predict are now believed to have been responsible for its rapid intensification.

Just as some scientists say more intense storms are more likely with warming, other scientists say that they will become less likely to form or less likely to strike land.

The NYT neglected to mention these perspectives, focusing its story on the scarier opinions that support the narrative that climate change is responsible for worsening extreme weather events.

In fact, as Climate at A Glance: Hurricanes details, there is no data suggesting hurricanes are becoming more frequent or more intense.

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