Archives par mot-clé : Hunga Tonga

climate and geology, climate-debate

The 2023 climate event revealed the greatest failure of climate science

by J. Vinos, Dec 31, 2025 in Clintel

We have been fortunate to witness the largest climate event to occur on the planet since the advent of global satellite records, and possibly the largest event since the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815. It is clearly a naturally occurring, externally forced climate event. However, mainstream climate scientists are not treating it appropriately. This is because climate science does not function like other sciences and is subject to strong confirmation bias. The first step to learning from the 2023 event is accepting its exceptional nature, which many fail to do.

  1. An externally forced extraordinary event

If you are still not convinced of the extremely anomalous nature of the climatic event of 2023, let’s review some of the events of 2023-24. Taken together, they make it clear. The following list is incomplete and comes from my notes:

  • Extraordinary ocean warming that models can’t explain. [1]
  • Record-low Antarctic sea ice. [2]
  • A record-breaking Amazon drought in 2023. [3]
  • 31 atmospheric river events in the western US from November 2022 to March 2023. Nine made landfall in California marking the record in the 70-year database. [4]
  • The snowiest season in 71 years occurred in California after a 1-in-54-year event. [5]
  • NYC had the least snowy season on record, breaking a 50-year record on latest first snow. [6]
  • Cyclone Freddy in the Indian Ocean was the longest-lasting tropical cyclone ever. [7]
  • ITCZ displacement and unusual rains in the Sahara in 2024. [8]
  • The first half of the 2024 hurricane season was surprisingly quiet, and models can’t explain it. [9]
  • In 2023, 42% of the globe experienced heat exceeding two standard deviations. Louisiana, for example, had its hottest summer in 129 years of records. [10]
  • 2023 was the warmest year on record, and 2024 was even warmer.
  • In October 2024, the North Polar Vortex was the weakest in 40 years. The three sudden stratospheric warming events that occurred in the same season are a one-in-250-year event according to models. [11]
  • The biggest global low cloud cover anomaly ever recorded occurred in 2023. [12]

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climate and geology

Hunga Tonga volcano: impact on record warming

by J. Vinos, July 5, 2024 in Climate Etc.

The climate event of 2023 was truly exceptional, but the prevailing catastrophism about climate change hinders its proper scientific analysis. I present arguments that support the view that we are facing an extraordinary and extremely rare natural event in climate history.

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.

Screen Shot 2024-07-05 at 9.48.43 AM

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.

 

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climate-debate

Temperature rising

by Nature Geoscience, Mar 12, 2025

A record-breaking start to 2025 extends the recent period of exceptional warmth and raises questions over the rate of ongoing climate change.

This January saw global mean surface temperature reach 1.75 °C above the preindustrial climate1. The unprecedented heat continues a period of warmth beginning in 2023 that has seen records repeatedly broken. The surge in temperature back in 2023 was in part expected due to the combination of human driven climate change and the onset of El Niño — which is characterized by higher global temperatures. However, the magnitude of the jump was surprising2 and many climate scientists expected temperatures to fall somewhat as El Niño came to an end in the second half of 2024. The continued record temperatures are puzzling and raise questions as to whether it is natural variability or an acceleration in anthropogenic warming. Quantifying the causes and impacts of the recent warmth could reveal important insights into our future.

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A third, potentially more concerning explanation for the drop in cloud cover is an emerging low-cloud feedback, whereby low cloud cover decreases with rising temperature, which further intensifies warming5. How clouds respond to warming remains one of the biggest uncertainties in understanding the climate response to carbon dioxide emissions. A strong low-cloud feedback could lead to more future warming than currently anticipated.

Pinning down the contributing factors to the recent exceptional warmth could prove invaluable for constraining our future trajectory. In particular, we need to clarify what has driven the observed changes in cloud cover. As records continue to fall, now more than ever, it is essential we understand the complex interplay between greenhouse gas driven warming and short-term climate variability.

climate and geology

The MSM Has Memory-Holed Tonga’s Warming Effects On World Temps

by E. Erickson, Aug 14, 2023 in ClimateChangeDispatch

On Jan. 15, 2022, the underwater Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai volcano in the Pacific exploded. The volcano triggered tsunamis in the South Pacific and sent a massive plume of water vapor into the stratosphere.

Over the past year, scientists have increased the estimates of how much water vapor went into the stratosphere. That water vapor, every scientist agrees, warms the planet. [emphasis, links added]

Originally, scientists estimated 50 million metric tons of water went into the atmosphere.

Now, revised estimates are at 150 million metric tons, which equates to 40 trillion gallons of water injected into the stratosphere.

Over the past year, dozens of scientists have produced papers warning that the summer of 2023 and possibly into the next decade would be abnormally hot.

Scientists suggest the global temperature could increase more than 1.5 degrees Celsius.

In fact, that is exactly what is happening. Up until the summer heat wave, news reports noted the expected increase in temperatures due to the volcano.

But as the heat wave began, as predicted, the volcano and its water vapor disappeared from coverage.

Now, in the progressive spirit of never letting a crisis go to waste, the American and European press corpshave begun a full-court press on climate change.

Instead of the volcano, people, capitalism, and oil companies are to blame for the heat wave.

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