The Week That Was: 2023-06-17 (June 17, 2023)
Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org)
The Science and Environmental Policy Project
Quote of the Week: “We have no right to assume that any physical laws exist, or if they have existed up until now, that they will continue to exist in a similar manner in the future.“— Max Planck
Number of the Week: Eight decimal places of precision?
THIS WEEK:
By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
Scope: The issues discussed include the following. Last week, TWTW discussed comments by Roy Spencer on a new paper by Santer, et al. claiming to have discovered the missing “distinct human fingerprint” in the stratosphere. Now, the “distinct human fingerprint” is not a warming centered over the tropics at about 15 km (50,000 feet) as before. Instead, it is a cooling of the stratosphere which over the tropics occurs at about 20 km to 50 km (12 to 31 miles). Also, Spencer used the analogy that adding greenhouse gases is like adding insulation to a house. AMO (Atomic, Molecular and Optical) physicist Howard Hayden questions both the findings and Spencer’s analogy.
Atmospheric physicist Richard Lindzen articulates the complexity of understanding natural climate change even before adding greenhouse gases is included.
Judith Curry announced her new book, Climate Uncertainty and Risk. Amazon.com posts the foreword and the first two chapters, which TWTW reviewed.
Ecologist Jim Steele focuses on periods of extinction over the past 575 million years and finds life flourishes with increasing CO2 and declines in periods of low CO2.
The broadcast over Zoom of a lecture by Patrick Moore, William Happer, and Bruce Everett on “Why Climate Change is Not an Emergency” was sabotaged. It is now available via YouTube.
Paul Homewood summarized the UK’s weather for 2022. It is not what the UK’s Met Office forecast. Also, Homewood explains why Greenland’s annual summer ice melt has been delayed.
Electrical engineer Capell Aris gives a solid summary of the failings of the great push into green energy in the UK.
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Planetary Heat Balance: AMO physicist Howard Hayden wrote ten essays on Basic Climate Physics posted on the SEPP website. These discuss Planetary Heat Balance which applies to all objects in the solar system, except the sun. Upon reviewing the comments by Roy Spencer on the new paper by Santer, Hayden asks:
I wonder how this all comports with Planetary Heat Balance. At equilibrium, the planet must radiate as much heat to space as it absorbs from the sun. If there is cooling of the upper atmosphere where 80% of the IR is emitted to space, would this not reduce the IR? Would this not develop an imbalance between incoming heat and radiated heat? Or is there something in the models that simultaneously increases albedo so that the planet absorbs less solar heat? The analogy of the house with more insulation does not apply, because there is no requirement that the house must emit the same heat regardless of the amount of insulation.
TWTW speculates that Saner et al., including proponents of the reports presented by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), do not think in terms of Planetary Heat Balance and how the greenhouse effect influences temperatures. Understanding radiative transfer and how the greenhouse effect works may involve an entirely different field of physics than understanding how weather changes or climate history. This difference will be discussed in an upcoming TWTW.
Further, the analogy used by Spencer is a very simplistic one that does not capture that Planetary Heat Balance is an ongoing process in a complex system. It is not satisfactory in explaining a continuing process. See links in http://www.sepp.org/science_papers.cfm?whichyear=2022
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A Complex System: Atmospheric Physicist Richard Lindzen begins his slide presentation of “The Absurdity of the Conventional Global Warming Narrative” with:
“I have intentionally chosen this title because most of us have gone along with the popular narrative without considering whether it is a significant factor in actual climate change. It turns out that it isn’t. As usual, capturing the narrative is the goal in propaganda. It certainly has succeeded when it comes to climate alarm.”
Lindzen presents the “Universal ‘Scientific’ Narrative as:
“The greenhouse effect based on a one-dimensional radiative-convective model.
i. Allows inclusion of CO2 and the introduction of feedbacks.
ii. Feedbacks are assumed – not derived or observed.
iii. Manabe assumed constant relative humidity which doubled the small impact of CO2. This won him a Nobel Prize in Physics [Boldface added]
iv. The result was still small, but it was argued that it was unusual.”
According to the Nobel website Syukuro Manabe was awarded one-quarter of the Nobel in Physics in 2021:
“for the physical modelling of Earth’s climate, quantifying variability and reliably predicting global warming.”
“Work
Our world is full of complex systems characterized by randomness and disorder. One complex system of vital importance to humankind is Earth’s climate. Syukuro Manabe demonstrated how increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere lead to increased temperatures at the surface of the Earth. In the 1960s, he led the development of physical models of the Earth’s climate and was the first person to explore the interaction between radiation balance and the vertical transport of air masses. His work laid the foundation for the development of current climate models.”
The problem is that the models do not properly capture the greenhouse effect and significantly, by three times or more, overestimate the warming of the atmosphere where the greenhouse effect occurs. The significant overestimate of warming of the atmosphere is most likely due primarily to the assumption of constant relative humidity.
After further discussing the approach and presenting graphs Lindzen writes:
Adding greenhouse substances to the atmosphere elevates the characteristic emission level and forces the surface temperature to increase so as to restore 255K at the new emission level. This is what is referred to as the Greenhouse Effect (in current climate parlance). Claims that this was already understood by Arrhenius or even Fourier are simply wrong. What they did recognize was that greenhouse gases would warm the earth, but they knew nothing about atmospheric convection.
This approach does provide some insights into the differences among the various planets in our solar system, but, as we will see, it is fundamentally inadequate for describing the earth’s complex 3-dimensional nature. Nevertheless, it should be noted that almost all current discussions of global warming are based on this planetary view, largely because of its simplicity. Briefly, one begins with an atmosphere that has a preindustrial value for CO2 and asks how much warming will be associated with a doubling of CO2. It turns out that the warming is logarithmic in CO2 (because the line centers are saturated and only the line wings are involved), so that each doubling is associated with the same warming. The contribution is about 3.5 Watts per square meter or in the order of 2% of the normal flux and leads to warming of about 1C. This result is not considered controversial. Normally, one might consider 2% to be small since common fluctuations in upper-level cirrus, low level clouds, ocean currents, etc. routinely produce this level of variability in the radiative budget, which is to say, consistent with Le Chatelier’s Principle, the climate system is amply capable of opposing such forcing. Although the gross inadequacy of our understanding of clouds and other factors is openly acknowledged by the IPCC, concerns over global warming are based on what is essentially the assumption that variations in water vapor, clouds, etc. act to amplify rather than oppose the impact of CO2, i.e., they are assumed to be positive rather than negative feedbacks. It is on the egregiousness of these assumptions rather than on the greenhouse effect itself, that most skeptics (including myself) have focused. [Emphasis in original
Lindzen explains why the approach is understandable and states that the now called General Climate Models
“…do include much of the complexity of the real atmosphere but they cannot provide the spatial resolution to handle processes like vertical convection (i.e., cumulonimbus towers), clouds in general, turbulence, etc. which, as a result, require the use of questionable parameterizations. They do, however, permit the inclusion of arbitrary feedbacks which enables models to produce a wide variety of results. However, even these models do not predict catastrophic changes due to increasing CO2. Moreover, these models do not adequately describe even the present climate. They do especially poorly at representing natural internal variability of the atmosphere and the oceans, and almost all of them fail to correctly anticipate changes in the commonly used measure of global temperature. Nor do they simulate past climates adequately.
Virtually all critiques of the global warming issue have focused on the feedbacks and the inadequacies of the models and one other matter. That other matter is the claims of various things having changed. I will briefly return to this other matter later.
Lindzen then shows that average temperature is meaningless, such as averaging Mt. Everest with the Dead Sea and then there are seasonal variations outside the tropics and significantly different climate classifications in various regions of the globe. He goes into orbital issues and the transport of heat through convections in both the atmosphere and oceans, then writes:
“To be sure, it is possible that radiative forcing plays a role, but changes of about 1-2 watts per square meter due to changes in CO2 hardly compete with changes on the order of 100 watts per square meter associated with orbital variations. (p. 23)
“As already noted, the relative stability of tropical temperatures is suggestive of negative feedbacks. That there are numerous possibilities for such feedbacks has also been noted. The fact that many of these possibilities are designed to provide positive feedbacks within models has little actual basis in observation or theory.
“What should be clear is that it is absurd to assume that the complex three-dimensional climate is defined by the small difference of large numbers that is the average temperature anomaly, and that the controlling factor is the small contribution of CO2. The earth’s climate has, indeed, undergone major variations, but these variations offer no evidence of a causal role for CO2. For the glaciation cycles, CO2 clearly follows rather than precedes ‘temperature.’ For earlier variations, there is no suggestion of any correlation at all”. (p 24)
“However, neither record suggests any correlation with the estimate of the Earth’s temperature, and both point to much larger concentrations of CO2 than are currently contemplated.
“CO2 is a particularly ridiculous choice for a ‘pollutant.’ Its primary role is as a fertilizer for plant life. Currently, almost all plants are starved for CO2. Moreover, if we were to remove a bit more than 60% of current CO2, the consequences would be dire: namely death by starvation for all animal life. It would not likely lead to a particularly cold world since such a reduction would only amount to a couple of percent change in the radiative budget. Afterall, a 30% reduction of solar radiation about 2.5 billion years ago did not lead to an earth much colder than it is today in what we earlier referred to as the Early Faint Sun paradox. (pp 26 & 27)
In closing Lindzen discusses “the other matter” – the foolish claims in the popular press regarding the impacts of CO2-caused climate change. See link under Challenging the Orthodoxy and https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2021/manabe/facts/
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Changing Views: In the Foreword of her book Judith Curry recounts how she changed from supporting the positions of the IPCC to questioning them. She became concerned about the way these assessment reports were treating uncertainty and confidence levels in their conclusions.
Dr Curry was targeted by both sides after a press conference on hurricanes, just before Katrina, in which she described a substantial increase in global proportion of cat 4 and cat 5 hurricanes. In searching a paper, she found Climate Audit (Steve McIntyre) where the commentators had some good questions about statistical analyses and wanted to see raw data. But she was convinced of the rigors of the process during AR-4, “listen to the IPCC.”
All changed with Climategate, which confirmed suspicions about politics and personal agendas encroaching on the IPCC process. She feared she was duped into substituting the judgements of the IPCC for her own public statements on climate change.
She drifted from the thinking of academia and left hoping to regain her love of science. She loves her new job as President of Climate Forecast Applications Network (CFAN) and the lack of political and peer constraints in conducting her research.
She states she learned the complexity of different decisions that depend in part on weather and climate information and learned the importance of careful determination and conveyance of uncertainty associated with predictions. She has “skin in the game” in terms of predictions and assessments of risk.
The goal of Climate Uncertainty and Risk is to stimulate new ideas and broader thinking about the climate change challenge and its solution.
Under “The Climate Change Challenge” Curry explains that the conflicts surrounding climate change have been exacerbated by oversimplifying both the problem and its solutions. But acknowledging disagreement is not the same as rejecting climate change as an important problem.
The polarization has deepened in a fog of confusion about what we know versus what we do not know and what we cannot know. We need to broaden our thinking about climate change.
In the section “What Is ‘Climate Change’?”, Curry states changes in Earth’s temperature and weather pattern over timescales ranging from decades to millions of years. The two sources of natural variations: 1) internal climate fluctuations; and 2) variations in energy received from the sun and the effects of volcanic eruptions. Human causes include change in land use and land cover and changing atmospheric composition.
In the past few decades, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has narrowed the interpretation of climate change, so the UNFCCC now defines climate change as human-caused changes in atmospheric composition. [Boldface added]
The new definition brings in a far broader social values.
“Climate change has thus become a grand narrative in which human-caused climate change has become a dominant cause of societal problems.” Thus, the way to prevent societal problems is to stop burning fossil fuels. If we can solve the problem of burning fossil fuels, we can solve societal problems.”
In the section “What We Know with Confidence” Curry cites classical physicssuch as Newton’s laws of motion, laws of thermodynamic, ideal gas laws, etc. She states: [Boldface added]
These include the theories of rotating fluids, boundary layers, and radiative transfer. [Boldface added] She states:
“These theories are widely accepted. The Theory of greenhouse warming of the climate system is a metatheory that incorporates many hypotheses and theories about how components of the Earth system work and interact.
“Science is a process for understanding how nature works, whereby we explore new ideas to find new representations of the world that explain what is observed. Part of science is to conduct experiments, make observations, do calculations, and make predictions. But another part of science asks deep questions about how nature works.”
Her view is that scientific evidence consists of observation and experimental results. She discusses the complexity of the climate system arising from the chaotic behavior and nonlinearity of the equations for motions in the atmosphere and ocean, and the feedbacks between subsystems for the atmosphere, oceans, land surface, and glacier ice. She states:
“Climate change associated with increasing concentrations of atmospheric CO2 is a theory in which the basic mechanism is well understood, but whose magnitude is highly uncertain.”
“Questions:
- Whether and to what extend CO2 and other human-caused emissions have dominated over natural climate variability as the cause of recent warming
- How much the climate can be expected to change over the twenty-first century.
- Whether warming is dangerous
- Whether radically reducing CO2 emissions will improve human well-being in the twenty first century.
“The first two are in the realm of science, the second two are societal.”
Curry continues with issues about the question is global warming dangerous? The issue is beyond the scope of TWTW and not reviewed.
Curry brings up two points that will be discussed in an upcoming TWTW. One, is the narrow definition of climate change the UNFCCC now uses proper? Two, is radiative transfer part of classic physics with well-defined laws or is it part quantum physics that is radically different from classic physics? See links under Seeking a Common Ground
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CO2 Starvation: Based on geological evidence the Carboniferous (about 360 to 300 million years before present (BP)) and the Permian Periods (300 to 250 million years BP) were periods of low carbon dioxide, similar to today. Ecologist Jim Steele explores the wealth of evidence suggesting that:
“the combination of CO2 starvation and plate tectonics caused the greatest extinctions on earth collectively known as the end Permian extinction or the Great Dying.
The end-Permian marked the transition from 300 million years of Paleozoic plant and animal dominance and the resetting of earth’s evolutionary trajectory, towards our modern fauna.
The Permian extinctions represented a loss of 57% of all biological families, 83% of all genera, 81%of marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species in existence in the end Permian’s last million years.
Coinciding with these Permian extinctions was the decline of abundant CO2 concentrations since the Ordovician period to the stressful low concentrations in the Permian.
For the first time in earth’s history, CO2 concentrations fell below 1000 ppm, the concentration that supports maximum photosynthesis productivity.
While plants suffered from low CO2, land vertebrate extinctions were largely a result of oxygen’s dramatic roller coaster ride that crashed in the Permian.
It is essential to first understand how changes in CO2 concentrations affect photosynthesis and plant productivity.
The key productivity enzyme, Rubisco, grabs a CO2 molecule and then shuttles it down a metabolic pathway to produce the sugars and carbohydrates essential for all life.
Today various versions of Rubisco are saturated when CO2 reaches 1000 ppm thus maximizing photosynthetic production.
Our current atmospheric concentrations are only 40% of the optimum. For that reason, modern commercial greenhouses raise CO2 to 1000 ppm for maximum crop yields.
During pre-industrial times of the Little Ice Age, CO2 concentrations fell to 280 ppm and evidence shows during that time ocean productivity was much lower than today.
If CO2 concentrations fall below 150 ppm, then photosynthesis can stop completely. So, policies to sequester and lower CO2 must be very careful not to approach this deadly level.”
If Steele is correct, then claims that increasing CO2 will lead to mass extinction are bogus. The marine primary production areas, rich in CO2, support Steele’s view. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
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No Climate Emergency: The Conservative Princeton Association presented a solid panel discussion that was finally broadcast on YouTube after it was sabotaged on Zoom. Patrick Moore gives a good summary of the importance of CO2 to the planet flourishing.
William Happer draws the difference between greenhouses and the greenhouse effect. He summarizes some of the findings of the work he and van Weingarten have done on the effect of greenhouse gases, which have been discussed in previous TWTWs. This includes the difference between the Planck curve and the Schwarzschild jagged line. The latter has been established by observations, not calculations from theory. Happer points out that doubling of CO2 concentrations will decrease radiation to space by only 1%. This is similar to the result of the IPCC. His final message of physics is:
- CO2 is a very ineffective greenhouse gas. [Boldface added]
- For clear skies doubling CO2 only reduces thermal radiation to space by about 1% (IPCC agrees.
- For no feedback, doubling would only increase the absolute temperature by about ¼% or 0.75 C.
- Most feedbacks in nature are negative, not positive.
- So, clouds and other feedback mechanisms are likely to decrease the feedback-free warming.
- Giving our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to achieve ‘net zero’ is not justified by physics.
Economist Bruce Everett discusses Four Myths about Climate Economics which will be taken up in a later TWTW. See link under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
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Not Modeled: Paul Homewood summarized the UK’s weather for 2022. It is not what the UK’s Met Office forecast. Homewood writes in the Executive Summary:
“According to the Met Office, the UK climate ‘is continuing to change’ whilst weather is becoming more extreme. But what does the actual evidence tell us? Using official data up to 2022, from the Met Office and other sources, this paper examines UK climate trends, and assesses the truth of these claims.”
After giving actual results of 2022 UK weather Homewood concludes:
“In short, although it is slightly warmer than it used to be, the UK climate has changed very little. Long-term trends are dwarfed by the natural variability of weather. Nor is there any evidence that weather has become more extreme or will become so in future.”
In a separate post, Homewood explains why Greenland’s annual summer ice melt has been delayed. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy and Changing Weather.
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A Lesson? Writing in The Telegraph, electrical engineer Capell Aris, a Fellow of the Institute of Engineering and Technology, gives a solid summary of failings of the great push into green energy in the UK. This should be a warning to the US, but politicians favoring green ideals rather than critical thinking will ignore it. Aris states: “’The UK already has 15 GW of offshore wind, more than 300 times as much as the USA: and our experience should be a terrible warning to Americans.’” [Boldface added]
See link under Questioning the Orthodoxy
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SEPP’S APRIL FOOLS AWARD – THE JACKSON
SEPP is conducting its annual vote for the recipient of the coveted trophy, The Jackson, a lump of coal. Readers are asked to nominate and vote for who they think is most deserving. Senators Schumer and Manchin won in 2022.
The voting will close on June 30. Please send your nominee and a brief reason why the person is qualified for the honor to Ken@SEPP.org. The awardee will be announced at the annual meeting of the Doctors for Disaster Preparedness on July 7 to 9.
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Number of the Week: Eight decimal places of precision? David Whitehouse of Net Zero Watch draws attention to what is called “A Path-breaking Innovation in Climate Journalism.” Whitehouse writes:
“’This is what leadership in climate journalism looks like,’ says Covering Climate Now which salutes France Télévisions and urges our colleagues everywhere to ponder their inspiring example.’
“Just look at that global temperature ticker. What a scientific absurdity. That global temperature is ‘calculated’ in real time to eight decimal places, so viewers of the inaugural March 13 broadcast could see the dashboard first register 1.18749861°C above the pre-industrial level and then – after 37 seconds – click one digit more to 1.18749862 °C and then – after 2 minutes and 28 seconds – eventually reaching 1.18749873 °C.” [Boldface added]
We do not know within one digit what the average surface temperature of the earth is today, much less what it was in the pre-industrial era. Yet these journalists claim they know it to eight decimal places? See links under Communicating Better to the Public – Use Yellow (Green) Journalism?
NEWS YOU CAN USE:
Challenging the Orthodoxy — NIPCC
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science
Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), 2013
Summary: https://www.heartland.org/_template-assets/documents/CCR/CCR-II/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts
Idso, Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), 2014
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/climate-change-reconsidered-ii-biological-impacts/
Summary: https://www.heartland.org/media-library/pdfs/CCR-IIb/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Fossil Fuels
By Multiple Authors, Bezdek, Idso, Legates, and Singer eds., Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, April 2019
http://store.heartland.org/shop/ccr-ii-fossil-fuels/
Download with no charge:
Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming
The NIPCC Report on the Scientific Consensus
By Craig D. Idso, Robert M. Carter, and S. Fred Singer, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), Nov 23, 2015
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/
Download with no charge:
Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate
S. Fred Singer, Editor, NIPCC, 2008
http://www.sepp.org/publications/nipcc_final.pdf
Global Sea-Level Rise: An Evaluation of the Data
By Craig D. Idso, David Legates, and S. Fred Singer, Heartland Policy Brief, May 20, 2019
The Absurdity of the Conventional Global Warming Narrative.
By Richard Lindzen, Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, April 26, 2022
Why Climate Change is Not an Emergency
Video: Patrick Moore, William Happer, and Bruce Everett, Conservative Princeton Association Digest, June 11, 2023 (May 27) [H/t Stephen Whelan]
youtu.be/L_Kc_r3cdH0
“John Clauser, 2022 Nobel Laureate in Physics “The popular narrative about climate change reflects a dangerous corruption of science that threatens the world’s economy and the well-being of billions of people.’”
How CO2 Starvation and Plate Tectonics Caused the Greatest extinctions on Earth, the Permian
By Jim Steele, A Walk On The Natural Side, June 11, 2023
Text: https://perhapsallnatural.blogspot.com/2023/06/co2-starvation-and-plate-tectonics.html
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89imeYT_shs
Climate Alarmist Claim Fact Checks
By Joseph D’Aleo, ICECAP, June 10, 2023
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/political-climate/alarmist_claim_rebuttals_updated/
One link: A critical assessment of extreme events trends in times of global warming
By Gianluca Alimonti, et al, The European Physical Journal Plus, Jan 13, 2022
From the abstract: “None of these response indicators show a clear positive trend of extreme events. In conclusion on the basis of observational data, the climate crisis that, according to many sources, we are experiencing today, is not evident yet.”
Science is broken
Press Release, Net Zero Watch, June 5, 2023
Link to report: On Broken Science
By William M. Briggs, Net Zero Watch, 2023
Anthony on Fox News – AOC is wrong for ‘spieling’ Canadian wildfire hysteria
By Anthony Watts, WUWT, June 4, 2023
Video and Text
[Surface] “Temperatures in the United States are virtually unchanged from 2005, when a new state-of-the-art climate monitoring system called the U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN) was put in place by NOAA. However, this data is never reported to the news media on NOAA’s climate reports for the United States.”
Britain’s green energy disaster should be an awful warning to Americans
By Capell Aris, The Telegraph, Via Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 11, 2023
Homewood: “This is an excellent summary:”
State Of The UK Climate 2022
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 15, 2023
Link to report: The UK’s Weather in 2022
By Paul Homewood, The Global Warming Policy Foundation, Briefing 65, 2023
Defending the Orthodoxy
Earth is getting hotter at a faster rate despite pledges of government action
By Tereza Pultarova, Space.com, June 12, 2023 [H/t William Readdy]
Link to paper: Indicators of Global Climate Change 2022: annual update of large-scale indicators of the state of the climate system and human influence
By Piers M. Forster, et al. Earth System Science Data, June 8, 2023
“Over the 2013–2022 period, human-induced warming has been increasing at an unprecedented rate of over 0.2 degrees C per decade.”
[SEPP Comment: Over forty years of measurements from satellites show that from the surface to the mid troposphere, where most of the greenhouse effect occurs, the atmospheric temperature trend is increasing at a rate of 0.14 degrees C per decade. Space.com is cherry-picking data by ignoring the first three decades of satellite data in order to start at a temperature low in 2013 to produce the trend it wants.]
Defending the Orthodoxy – Bandwagon Science
The nation’s first state climate czar dreams of a day when her job is unnecessary
By Zack Budryk, The Hill, June 13, 2023
“Before Healey appointed her to her current role, Hoffer had served as acting general counsel and principal deputy general counsel of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for the Biden administration.”
Questioning the Orthodoxy
Against the climate theory of everything
We’ve loaded the erstwhile “natural disaster” with moral and political content galore
By Lionel Shriver, The Spectator, June 15, 2023 [H/t Jim Buell]
“Scientists Say”
By Tony Horton, His Blog, June 12, 2023
Video “The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness”– Richard Horton
Wildfires of the United States: human or climate caused?
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 14, 2023
“The six scientists report that ‘humans have vastly expanded the spatial and seasonal ‘fire niche’ in the coterminous United States, accounting for [1] 84% of all wildfires and [2] 44% of total area burned,” that (3) “during the 21-year time period, the human-caused fire season was three times longer than the lightning-caused fire season,” and that (4) humans “added an average of 20,000 wildfires per year across the United States.’”
Our Human Boundaries – Part III
By Chuck Dinerstein, MD, ACSH, June 6, 2023
Climate change not for the birds
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 14, 2023
“Note that in this formulation the conclusion, that CO2 did it, comes before any theory about how. You’re supposed to develop a hypothesis then test it, not develop a conclusion then look around for some plausible theory.”
After Paris!
Climate farcing
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 14, 2023
“Like the old Soviet central planning, climate central planning makes very crude guesses about key indicators and then forces everyone to act in accordance with those guesses rather than in response to what real people actually want.”
Social Benefits of Carbon Dioxide
Rethinking The Uplands: Trees Reach Record Heights in Scotland
By Charles Rotter, WUWT, June 16, 2023
From BBC: “This news is hints at the potential restoration of hilltop woodlands lost over thousands of years.”
Algae blooms increase snowmelt in the Pacific Northwest by 20%
Press Release, NSF, June 15, 2023
Link to paper: Albedo change from snow algae blooms can contribute substantially to snow melt in the North Cascades, USA
By Shannon M. Healy & Alia L. Khan, Nature, Communications Earth & Environment, May 8, 2023
[SEPP Comment: Is the flourishing of life harmful?]
Seeking a Common Ground
Publication day!
By Judith Curry, Climate Etc. June 6, 2023
Unraveling the Enigma: Canadian Wildfires, a Stroke of Misfortune
Canadian Wildfires Came From Rotten Luck, Not Climate Change
Extreme weather results from a combination of random factors in a complicated system.
By Clifford Mass, WSJ, Via WUWT, June 13, 2023
Science, Policy, and Evidence
All fired up
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 14, 2023
“President Biden peered through the smoke and commented on the wildfires in Canada saying: ‘We’ve deployed more than 600 U.S. firefighters, support personnel, and equipment to support Canada as they respond to record wildfires – events that are intensifying because of the climate crisis.’ Climate scientist Justin Trudeau tweeted ‘We’re seeing more and more of these fires because of climate change.’”
“In a CDN post nearly 3 years ago we quoted from a 1994 interview in Evergreen Magazine with forester Bob Zybach warning of the increased risk of catastrophic wildfires in the west due to then-President Bill Clinton’s plans to scale back forest thinning, controlled burns and other fire suppression methods in order to (the theory went) protect owl habitat. Zybach pointed out the inevitable downside:”
[SEPP Comment: Administrations with unprecedented ignorance of history and responsibility!]
Canada Wildfires: Manage Forests or Lose Them
By Ron Clutz, Science Matters, June 16, 2023
“Even wildfire specialists have been noting that while hotter, drier summers can supercharge a bad fire season, the immense scale of the 2023 fires is due in part to Canada and the United States dropping the ball on proper forestry management.”
“’We have flood plain maps, but we don’t have maps that assess future fire risk to help set insurance costs and direct developers away from vulnerable areas,’ she [Colorado wildfire scientist Jennifer K. Balch] wrote.
Good Climate News: Wildfire Trends Have Fallen Off Significantly Over The Recent Decades
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, June 10, 2023
“German science editor Axel Bojanowski posted a chart at Twitter depicting the annual global total wildfire carbon emissions in metric tonnes since 2003:”
Models v. Observations
New Research: Only 2 Of Every 100,000 CO2 Molecules Radiate Photons. And This Controls Climate?
By Kenneth Richard, No tricks Zone, June 12, 2023
Link to paper: Arrhenius to CO2 Storage with Physics-based Educational Models for Radiation in the Atmosphere
By Lasse Amundsen and Martin Landro, March 2023
[SEPP Comment: The authors use a paper that Arrhenius pulled back. Richard quotes “around 5% of the CO2 molecules which absorb IR radiation from Earth’s surface tend to radiate IR photons (at altitude 3.5 km). The rest are busily colliding with N2 and O2 molecules.” It is the collisions N2 and O2 that warm the atmosphere and planet sufficiently to make the planet habitable.]
Model Issues
New Study Shows We Are Now 𝑊𝑜𝑟𝑠𝑒 At Modeling Cloud Climate Effects Than We Were In 1984
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, June 15, 2023
Link to inactive website: International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project
By Staff, NASA-GISS, accessed June 16, 2023
link to latest paper: Reducing Southern Ocean Shortwave Radiation Errors in the ERA5 Reanalysis with Machine Learning and 25 Years of Surface Observations
By Marc D. Mallet et al, Artificial Intelligence for the Earth Systems, May 10, 2023
Measurement Issues — Surface
Clintel Report: Surface temperature data
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 14, 2023
“Climate models say that the troposphere above the surface should be warming faster than the air at the surface. But the IPCC surface data is warming faster than the satellite record.”
Measurement Issues — Atmosphere
Global Temperature Report, May 2023
By Staff Earth System Science Center, UAH, June 14, 2023
Map: https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/climate/2023/May/202305_Map.png
Graph: https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/climate/2023/May/202305_Bar.png
Text: https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/climate/2023/May/GTR_202305MAY_1.pdf
“While month-to-month shifts have a large natural variability component, this rise is consistent with the clear onset of El Niño or warm tropical Pacific conditions that began a couple of months ago.”
“The atmosphere takes about 2 to 5 months to reflect major changes in the tropical sea water temperatures, so we can expect generally rising air temperature anomalies from now through the boreal winter in 2024 since the tropical Pacific sea water temperatures are warming rapidly.”
Greenland’s Summer Ice Melt Delayed
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 16, 2023
New Podcast: The Origin of the New York Smoke and a Wet Period Ahead
By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, June 13, 2023
US-German satellites show California water gains after record winter
Press Release, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, June 7, 2023
“Early data shows the greatest net gain of water over the winter in nearly 22 years, but the state’s groundwater levels still suffer from the effects of years of drought.”
Loch Ness Water Levels
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 10, 2023
“Loch Ness is Scotland’s largest freshwater loch by volume.
“It can hold more water – 7,452 million cubic metres – than all English and Welsh lakes together.”
Record Cold and Mountain Snow Ahead for the Pacific Northwest
By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, June 15, 2023
Changing Climate
The Little Ice Age In Europe
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 14, 2023
Link to paper: The “Little Ice Age” (LIA) in Europe – particularly Portugal (an attempt at a synthesis)
By Olegário Nelson Azevedo Pereira, et al. Academia Letters, 2021
Homewood: “The synthesis was published a couple of years ago. It contains nothing new, but it offers very good summary of how the LIA affected Europe:”
Changing Seas
Failing Sea Level Forecasts
By Tony Heller, His Blog, June 16, 2023
Anomalous Oceanic Anomalies
By Willis Eschenbach, WUWT, June 14, 2023
Thousands of dead fish wash ashore on Texas beach; visitors warned away
By Lauren Sforza, The Hill, June 13, 2023
“The high temperatures combined with calm seas and cloudy skies created the deathly conditions for the fish, according to officials, who noted that overcast days can hinder the photosynthesis processes for algae and plankton, which also provides oxygen to the water.”
Changing Cryosphere – Land / Sea Ice
How grizzlies evolved into polar bears: The first book to tell the whole story is now available
By Susan Crockford, Polar Bear Science, June 11, 2023
“Modern polar bears are essentially pre-adapted to survive extended periods with ice-free summers because they lived through at least two of these events since they became a unique species. One of these, the Eemian, lasted at least 10 thousand years.” [Susan Crockford]
From review on Amazon: “Perhaps the most important aspect of this book is its synthesis of information from the fields of wildlife biology, molecular evolution, paleontology, and climate. Her original ideas and hypotheses on thyroid hormone’s role in evolution are very important and add a credible mechanism of phenotypic change which complements the literature on molecular genetic evolution.”
Surplus Arctic Ice Mid June 2023
By Ron Clutz, Science Matters, June 16, 2023
Is the Arctic September sea ice doomed to disappear in the 2030’s?
By Frank Bosse, Climate Etc. June 15, 2023
Addressing: Observationally constrained projections of an ice-free Arctic even under a low emission scenario
By Yeon-Hee Kim, et al. Nature Communications, June 6, 2023
[SEPP Comment: Additional criticism of this foolish study.]
Changing Earth
Geologists challenge conventional view of Earth’s continental history and stability
By Staff Writers, Champaign IL (SPX), Jun 12, 2023
Link to paper: Secular craton evolution due to cyclic deformation of underlying dense mantle lithosphere
By Yaoyi Wang, et al, Natue Geoscience, June 12, 2023
Lowering Standards
Bank of England’s credibility and UK economy at risk from Net Zero radicalism
Press Release by Net Zero Watch, June 13, 2022
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Yellow (Green) Journalism?
How eco-journalists promote the ‘weather is climate’ scam
By David Whitehouse, Net Zero Watch, June 13, 2023
Link to: A Path-breaking Innovation in Climate Journalism
French public television replaces traditional weathercasts with weather-and-climate reports
By Staff, Covering Climate Now, June 1, 2023
“The uncomfortable reality of life on Earth after we breach 0.1°C”
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 9, 2023
Communicating Better to the Public – Exaggerate, or be Vague?
Forget 1.5C, Now It’s 1.0C!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 15, 2023
“Maybe [‘top climate scientist’] Rockstrom would prefer them all to live as their ancestors did centuries ago?
Communicating Better to the Public – Make things up.
Ocean temperatures are off the charts, and El Niño is only partly to blame
By Hayley Smith, Phys.org, June 13, 2023 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Propaganda
Down Is Up
By Tony Heller, His Blog, June 13, 2023
“‘Monster’ Hurricanes Keep Getting Even Stronger, Analysis Shows
Meanwhile back in the real world major hurricane frequency has sharply declined over the last thirty years.”
Climate Refugees Imagined Statistics
By Ron Clutz, Science Matters, June 15, 2023
Shouting fire in a crowded continent
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 14, 2023
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Propaganda on Children
Aussie Academics: Scaring School Children Improves their Climate Behaviour
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, June 12, 2023
Climate-change controllers deliberately traumatize children
Exclusive: Patrice Lewis notes if conservative parents did this, they’d be turned over to CPS
By Patrice Lewis, WND, June 9, 2023 [H/t Bernie Kepshie]
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Children for Propaganda
Climate Primer for Misguided Kids Suing Montana
By Ron Clutz, Science Matters, June 14, 2023
Update on Zombie Kids Climate Lawsuits: (Juliana vs. US) (Held vs Montana)
By Ron Clutz, Science Matters, June 13, 2023
Expanding the Orthodoxy
The Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is announcing an opportunity for public comment on a proposed plan to attain and maintain the national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS)
Date Posted: 6/16/2023
Expiration Date: 7/20/2023
“Public comment period: June 19 to July 19, 2023.”
And the workers shall not own cars: WEF plan to get rid of 75%
By JO Nova, Her Blog, June 14, 2023
Biden’s Next Climate Coup: Taxpayer-Funded “Green Banks”
By Larry Behrens, Real Clear Energy, June 12, 2023
CEO’s are not boasting about their Woke “achievements” like they used to
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, June 16, 2023
Questioning European Green
Germany’s Costly Energy Conundrum: Poor Planning and Bad Choices, 1 Trillion Dollars Needed [by 2030]
By Charles Rotter, WUWT, June 14, 2023
[SEPP Comment: An utter failure of government critical thinking.]
German industry may shut down in 18 months. They hope Russia and Ukraine will play nice on gas
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, June 13, 2023
Net Zero Watch welcomes Government U-turn on heating levy
Press Release, Net Zero Watch, June 14, 2023
Link to: The Cost of Green Levies
By John Constable, Net Zero Watch, February 2022, Accessed June 15, 2023
Government’s new net zero plan might be its most idiotic yet
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 14, 2023
[SEPP Comment: The UK is noted for its high noon sun?]
The Potential Pitfalls of an Overly Ambitious Energy Transition: Lessons from Britain’s Green Energy Endeavors
Britain’s green energy disaster should be an awful warning to Americans
Citizens of the USA, give thanks that you hardly have any offshore wind power
By Capell Aris, Telegraph, Via WUWT, June 13, 2023
Ben Marlow’s Green Energy Dream
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 15, 2023
Homewood: “If wind and solar really were so attractive, companies like BP and Shell would need no urging to invest. The reality is that they are only viable because of the obscene subsidies thrown at them.”
Net zero isn’t working – but Conservatives refuse to grasp the nettle-Charles Moore
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 11, 2023
Questioning Green Elsewhere
Federal Energy Regulatory Commissioner Mark Christie: Power Grid is Facing ‘Dire Consequences’ Due to Coal & Gas Retirements
By Marc Morano, Climate Depot, June 13, 2023
Green industrialization greatly increases CO2 emissions
By David Wojick, CFACT, June 12, 2023
Tidbits
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 14, 2023
Funding Issues
Myth of Big Oil’s Funding of Climate Scepticism vs Reality of Big Green’s Billions Driving Climate Alarmism
By Chris Morrison, The Daily Sceptic, June 15, 2023
Link to: InfluenceMap
“An independent think tank producing data-driven analysis on how business and finance are impacting the climate crisis”
By Staff, InfluenceMap, Accessed June 16, 2023
“In total, InfluenceMap’s funders alone are making grants of about $1.2 billion every year to fund climate change lobbying. And these are only the funds with which InfluenceMap has a direct relationship. There are many others, including the Rockefeller family, Bezos, Bloomberg, Gates along with the Hewletts, Packards and Gettys.”
Subsidies and Mandates Forever
Limits to Wind and Solar on the Grid: A Discussion
By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, June 14, 2023
“While solar and wind receive huge subsidies, the end user pays for the party.”
[SEPP Comment: For the subsidies the end user gets unreliable, expensive electricity with costly overgeneration when not needed.]
Homes stuck with millions of faulty smart meters
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 14, 2023
[SEPP Comment: Government mandated benefits?]
Energy bills to rise £200 a year ‘to pay for wasted wind power’
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 15, 2023
[SEPP Comment: Government subsidized “savings?”]
EPA and other Regulators on the March
EPA Air Quality Proposal Could Drive California Industry Out of State
By Lance Christensen, Real Clear Energy, June 12, 2023
“EPA’s air trends data show that annual PM2.5 levels have declined by nearly 40 percent since 2000.”
The EPA’s Proposed Carbon Capture and Storage Regulations: A Trial Lawyer’s Dream
By Jonathan Lesser, Real Clear Energy, June 13, 2023
Energy Issues – Non-US
National Grid Warm Up Coal Plant
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 12, 2023
“Quite astonishing!”
“A glance at yesterday’s generation shows that at the early evening peak nuclear and CCGT were supplying about 60% of our electricity, with I/Cs [Interconnectors] another 20%:
Wind was running at 8% at the time, but has dropped since then:
Wholesale Power Prices Tumble
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 10, 2023
“The drop in power prices is of course the direct result of lower gas prices.”
Washington’s Control of Energy
Gas Stove Ban and The Nitrogen Dioxide−Childhood Asthma Causal Claim, Part II
By Warren Kindzierski, Stan Young and John Dunn, WUWT, June 13, 2023
“In essence, too many academics do what they want during research and then report what they want in a paper submitted for publication.”
House votes to restrict feds from banning or regulating gas stoves
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, June 13, 2023
Biden administration rule would cut fees [by 80%] for renewable development on public lands
By Zack Budryk, The Hill, June 15, 2023
Oil and Natural Gas – the Future or the Past?
The Fossil Fuel Era: Still Young
By Robert Bradley Jr. Master Resource. June 13, 2023
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Solar and Wind
CPRE Want Rooftop Solar
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 15, 2023
“…CPRE, formerly known as the Campaign to Protect Rural England,…”
“And as we know, solar power is so intermittent that it has to be 100% backed up by dispatchable power, which greatly adds to the system costs. With a 70GW target by 2035, solar farms will also need battery storage if the grid is not to be overwhelmed at midday.”
Private Property Rights vs. Industrial Wind/Solar: Reply to Giberson
By Robert Bradley Jr, Master Resource, June 15, 2023
“The systemic opposition of the locals to massive solar arrays and wind farms has created a new class of environmentalists. They live in and support greenery over government machining their living space. In contrast, the Washington, D.C. ‘environmentalists’ lobby and push from their concrete jungle. Going green and private property rights are aligned against Big Brother.”
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Energy — Other
Dear Colleague Letter: DOE Water Power Technologies Office and NSF Engineering Research Initiation Special Emphasis Areas
By Staff, NSF, June 15, 2023
“Priority topics for this special funding focus include: 1. Marine Energy and Powering the Blue Economy: Marine energy has significant potential to power various markets and applications in the blue economy…”
[SEPP Comment: The UK has tried harnessing the tides without much success. Deep vertical turbines relying on the difference in pressure between the surface and say 1,000 feet failed from algae growth.]
Pioneering electric plane shelved as batteries only last a few hundred flights
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 16, 2023
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Energy — Storage
UK Battery Maker Sees Shares Crash As It Needs To Raise Funds Within Weeks
By City A.M. Oil Price.com, June 16, 2023 [H/t Paul Homewood]
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Vehicles
Biden vetoes congressional effort to ax truck pollution rule
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, June 14, 2023
Carbon Schemes
A Titanic policy
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 14, 2023
“’Two Israeli companies are betting that by trapping biomass deep underwater, they can keep gigatons of CO2 out of the atmosphere.’”
Nuclear Diesel: A Game Changer
Synfuels, energized by fission, can transform US competition with China.
By Robert Hargraves, Real Clear Energy, June 13, 2023
California Dreaming
California Democrats call on EPA to ensure air pollution rule does not prevent controlled burns
By Zack Budryk, The Hill, June 13, 2023
Other News that May Be of Interest
NASA Invites Media to Tours, Opening of Earth Information Center
Press Release, NASA, July 12, 2023 [H/t William Readdy]
[SEPP Comment: Great photo of oxbow lakes that have been around for thousands of years. The center opens to the public on June 26. It is at 300 E St SW, Washington.]
The Sunday Times says “bioweapon” very quietly
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, June 15, 2023
BELOW THE BOTTOM LINE
Having your Alberta and eating it too
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 14, 2023
“’There is no question that the world needs to do something about climate change; news came out just this week about Georgia’s decimated peach harvest and carp boiling to death in overheated Chinese rice fields. Inaction will cost us dearly, but the wrong kind of action will do the same.’” Alberta Premier Danielle Smith [Boldface added]
[SEPP Comment: From Phys.org article: “On a clear sunny morning in eastern China, the surface of Qiandao Lake boils with tens of thousands of thrashing carp as they are swept into the nets of fisherman like Ye Zhiqing.” https://phys.org/news/2018-04-fishing-nomads-corralling-carp-china.html] [Boldface added]
Green Party Headquarters’ Heat Pump Debacle: 5 Million Euros Cost, Still No Heat!
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, June 13, 2023
Princeton Academic: We Should Become Vegans for the Sake of the Planet
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, June 16, 2023
ARTICLES
NO Articles this week.
Today the Waffen BBC launched a new series on Radio 4 – Marianna in Conspiracyland. The BBC’s disinformation peddler in chief gave us the low down on German conspiracies, which few, if any, would know about, anyway.
No matter how she tried to dress it up, there was no coup attempt in Germany, there was a weird mindset in the authorities at the time….
“Could people in the UK conspiracy theory movement ever become violent”?
What movement? There aren’t any
https://www.bbc.co.uk/search?q=radio+4+schedule+marianna+spring&d=SEARCH_P
How awful.
I’m pretty sure that the FNCCC always had the mission to study human effects on climate change, from the beginning with Maurice Strong.
That is the Big Lie of the IPCC, that it could ever find any natural causes for climate change when its basic premise and mission was to find only human causes. Didn’t Donna Laframboise write a book about that, “Delinquent Teenager” or some such?
And it doesn’t take a teenage activist, delinquent or otherwise, to become a hypocrite as evidenced by newbie Sophia Kianni’s behavior:
https://twitchy.com/samj/2023/06/18/sophia-kianni-n2384613
“The broadcast over Zoom of a lecture by Patrick Moore, William Happer, and Bruce Everett on “Why Climate Change is Not an Emergency” was sabotaged.”
Say what? What happened? How was it sabotaged and by whom?
I think some Princeton students working in the AV department substituted some naughty graphics with those Happer had intended for the talk…you know, sophomore frat boy behavior.
Maybe they should try topping that by pulling a stunt like that against climate nut jobs.
I don’t get it. Why would he say that?
Yes, it seems a strange thing to say. One might surmise that he meant to caution against making assumptions and that even so, they needed to be tested, perhaps continually.
Planck was in the thick of the conundrum physicists were facing in the recognition that classical physics was just wrong if one tried to predict experimental outcomes in many fundamental phenomena. A classic conundrum most physics students are presented with is the prediction of classical electromagnetism that atoms should radiate energy by virtue of a changing dipole moment, and decay in short order. There should be no atoms left in the universe if classical physics is “right,” but the observation is that atoms are quite stable. The same sentiment has been expressed by many of the giants of the development of modern physics. Feynman in particular was very loquacious on the subject. The basic idea might be in a quote from Feynman “If you thought science was certain, well that is just an error on your part.” The basic idea is that what some call “physical laws” are more properly viewed as just approximations that in some experimental regimes are “not wrong” within some level of uncertainty, but they are just “not wrong” for now, no experiment can ever prove that a physical law is “right,” just that it is not wrong for now. Another way of viewing the basic idea is that physics may find some ways to predict some experimental results within acceptable uncertainties, but it does not determine “truth,” just predictive schemes that seem not to be wrong. Feynman often said about quantum mechanics that the method of computing experimental outcomes is simply crazy and does not make sense in many, many ways, and that anyone who says they understand it, doesn’t understand it. The only thing that can be said is that the crazy ways of calculating things seem not to be wrong for now in a lot of instances.
got it!
Check out the “ultraviolet catastrophe” problem of classical physics, which Planck solved.
Of course we have a right to assume that physical laws exist and will continue to exist in the future. We have to be smart about it, but there would be no progress without such assumptions. No one would fly in a plane, dive in a submarine, or take a rocket ship to the moon if they had no confidence in physical laws or their continued existence. We may not know how to calculate the effects of a physical law to perfect exactness, but we have learned how to compensate for rounding and other small errors. (Well, unless you designed the Boeing 737 and decided that pilots should not be allowed to override programming even if there was an error in one of the instruments the programming relied on. What programmer or engineer with any experience or common sense would assume that an instrument, such as a radio altimeter, could never fail?)
Lindzen makes so much sense. I can’t understand why the climatistas won’t listen to him. Mickey Mann, as a climate scientist, isn’t in the same league as Lindzen.
Mann is fundamentally dishonest and more interested in promotion of a narrative and himself.
If someone, who knows better, tells the high priests that their religion is wrong, it is liable to get them crucified — literally.
“We do not know within one digit what the average surface temperature of the earth is today, much less what it was in the pre-industrial era. Yet these journalists claim they know it to eight decimal places?
The only real scientists, physicists, say the mass of a proton is 1.67262192 × 10-27 kilograms. And when they give it to 8 decimal places, THEY ARE RIGHT. You can bet on it. All other sciences are built on physics in a hierarchy- and the higher up you go, the less valid it is- with climate science at the top with the least validity.
That’s a pretty broad insult that you’ve hurled there.
The scientific method does not say, or even imply, that one must start with physics.
Furthermore,
“noun: physics
the branch of science concerned with the nature and properties of matter and energy. The subject matter of physics, distinguished from that of chemistry and biology, includes mechanics, heat, light and other radiation, sound, electricity, magnetism, and the structure of atoms.”
— Oxford Languages on-line dictionary
Yuh, I guess. But I heard a chemist once say that chemistry is the physics of the orbitals or something like that. Then biology is built on chemistry. The social sciences are built on biology. I’m not a philosopher of science- just offering my perspective that it’s all physics if you get deep enough. And as you go “up” in this hierarchy- it all gets more complicated- which is why the social sciences (economics, sociology, psychology, anthropology, archeology) are less definitive in their conclusions. Climate science is inheritantly extremely complex based on all the other sciences including social sciences because it’s often about emotional reactions to trivial changes. I hereby declare myself not qualified to pontificate on this- but I do anyway. 🙂
You are undoubtedly correct that everything has physics as a conceptual basis, but each subject has other particular knowledge that physicists know little or nothing about. Someof it even wrong. Chemistry and mechanical engineering both depend greatly on concepts from physics, but chemists undoubtedly know more about spectroscopy than the typical physicist and mechanical engineers know a lot more about transport processes. The web of knowledge has many terminal nodes that one can only get to through a discipline that is not physics.
“The nation’s first state climate czar dreams of a day when her job is unnecessary”
The links above for that item aren’t working but it’s at https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/4045511-the-nations-first-state-climate-czar-dreams-of-a-day-when-her-job-is-unnecessary/
oh, don’t get me going, here in Woke-achusetts!
other than what DeSantis said in his book, “… the Democratic Party has transformed into what can only be described as a woke dumpster fire”- and given the fact that no state is so dominated by that party, this state dumpster fire is a nuclear holocaust
most of the state’s agencies are now led by far left women- the first state climate czar is a lawyer!
It’s always worse than we thought
“”Unheard of’ marine heatwave off UK and Irish coasts poses serious threat
Sustained high temperatures over summer could trigger mass mortality of fish and oysters, say scientists”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/19/marine-heatwave-uk-irish-coasts-threat-oysters-fish-high-temperatures
The north east coasts and the North Sea?
How would these purveyors of truth and precision survive without the ambiguity and imprecision of words like “could?”
Happy Woketeenth everyone; a day where we celebrate how incredibly slow communications were 150 years ago.
My first impulse is to say it beats working.
Here’s the nit comment of the week. The above article offers this as its lead in:
“Quote of the Week: ‘We have no right to assume that any physical laws exist, or if they have existed up until now, that they will continue to exist in a similar manner in the future.’ — Max Planck”
Plank was one smart scientist, of course, but, IMHO in expressing this solipsism philosophy of his I will assert that he was dead wrong. An incredible number of physical laws exist and will continue to exist in a similar manner into the future regardless of human assumptions.
What??? . . . the universe had no quantum mechanical laws governing nuclear fusion and nuclear fission until humans came along? And is any scientist really of the belief that they will change in the next, oh, 13.7 billion years?
There is an objective reality.
‘There is an objective reality.‘
Unfortunately, there are a number of academics that assert the opposite, even though to do so is self-contradictory.
Nice . . . your careful distinction between scientists and “academics”.
+42 intergalactic points!
Thanks! I considered referring to ‘intellectuals’, but that classification is far too broad. Ultimately, ‘academics’ seemed more correct, as it is the purveyors of post-modernism at the academy who are truly damaging society.
Yes, but Planck was working at a time when knowledge that had for long been considered “laws” were being found to be only approximations that worked well in restricted domains. He would have had to wonder if this was a process that might never end.
Since, IMHO, human knowledge about things (including physical laws) can never be PERFECT—nor should it ever be expected to be so—it is inevitable that human perception of reality will always be approximate.
But I wax too philosophical on this point to continue . . .
All laws of whatever description and type, in whatever field of science, are constructs of the human mind.
There is a tendancy for people to project what they experience and think, onto the objects they are observing, and assume that what they are observing exists precisely as they oberve it in the absence of their observation.
A very basic analogy is the concept that a leaf is green. We experience a sensation of the colour green when we view trees and foliage, or a sensation of yellow in autumn. We project that sensation, or interpretation, onto the leaves, and describe the leaves as having the colour green, or yellow, or some shade of green and yellow.
The truth is, external objects, whether leaves or anything else, have no colour. Colour exists only in the human mind.
As Pontius Pilate is famously reported to have asked: “What is truth?”
— Bible, John 18:38, KJV
“Different animals see the world in many different ways. Some can see every color that we see, and others only see a few. There are also animals that see colors that we can’t see . . .
“Monkeys, ground squirrels, birds, insects, and many fish can see a fairly good range of color. In some cases it’s not as good as what we humans see – but it’s much better than cats and dogs.
“Scientists say that good color vision helps animals find food on the land or in the water. For land animals, good color vision helps to tell the difference between ripe red fruit and unripe green fruit. Colors can also make animals more attractive to each other when they mate. Finally, the ability to see colors helps animals identify predators (other animals who may attack them).
“Bees and butterflies can see colors that we can’t see. Their range of color vision extends into the ultraviolet. The leaves of the flowers they pollinate have special ultraviolet patterns which guide the insects deep into the flower.”
— source: https://littlecritterz.com/blogs/news/how-animals-see-color (my bold emphasis added)
Be careful out there.
I’ll clarify the following statement for you.
“Different animals see the world in many different ways.’
That’s true. But the statement,’Some can see every color that we see’, cannot be verified, because colour is a subjective experience.
What can be verified, scientifically, is that some animals can detect the same parts of the Electromagnetic Spectrum that we can detect, which is approximately 750 – 400 nanometers, or billionths of a meter, for light, ranging from our subjective experience of red to violet.
One man’s color is another person’s (or animal’s) EM frequency detection.
It’s a matter of semantics, not science.
Science requires precision of terminology. If a person believes that human activity is not contributing to climate change in any significant way, it is not scientific to name such a person a ‘Climate Change Denier’, because such a person would probably accept that climate is always changing due to natural causes which are far more significant than human activity.
Likewise, it is incorrect to assume that all animals that can detect the same frequencies of light that humans can, experience the same sensation of colour.
So, that being the case, please give me a precise definition of the phrase “climate change”.
Since you used the term quite freely in your above comment, you should be able to do that in, oh, 100 words or less.
Also, please reread my previous comments whereby you will see that I never stated, or even implied, that all animals “can detect the same frequencies of light that humans can”.
OK. We’ll see how TWTW does but radiative transfer is exceptionally complex and calculating it may begin with the SB law at surfaces in the domain of the problem, but it surely does not end there. A person probably has to include not only emitted power from surfaces, but reflections, transparency of materials, and the equation of transfer through a material that is not even describable as “grey”. By virtue of education and my long experience as an industrial physicist and consultant, and as a mechanical engineering faculty member; which involved my efforts trying to use graduate students in physics as TAs for an ME thermal/fluids course; I can say that physicists generally had an understanding that was too elementary to be useful.
I am not trying to brag, but to convey the truth of the difficulty involved. After 40+ years of dealing with transport phenomena I still find that I need to better understand some topics.
I made it through a lot of graduate-level physics and mineralogy courses without ever being exposed to Fresnel’s equation on specular reflection from surfaces of materials with complex refractive indices. [complex, as in the sq. rt of -1]
‘We’ll see how TWTW does…’
Looking forward to this, as well. I don’t recall Wijngaarden & Happer flagging anything untoward happening in the stratosphere with increasing CO2.
Three tropical storms in the tropical Atlantic are headed for the Caribbean.
As others observed regarding the quote of the week, we must assume an objective reality which we can all study, without that axiom there is no science. It has been argued that the Judeo-Christian mindset (God made the world for man to discover and use) was part of the reason for the rise of science in the West. If you do not have an expectation that doing the same thing should get the same result, the the whole scientific paradigm fails. Other societies and faiths did have similar attitudes (witness Mayan calendars, Confucianism), but most of the world still acts as though superstition and special pleading to the spirits of nature are as valid as observation and experiment. Of course in Climate Science TM the spirits of nature are recast as Gaea and CO2.