The current heat wave is being relentlessly blamed on increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but there is a much more plausible explanation, one that is virtually endorsed by two of the world’s leading scientific organizations. It turns out that levels of water vapor in the atmosphere have dramatically increased over the last year-and-a-half, and water vapor is well recognized as a greenhouse gas, whose heightened presence leads to higher temperatures, a mechanism that dwarfs any effect CO2 may have.
So, why has atmospheric water vapor increased so dramatically? Because of a historic, gigantic volcanic eruption last year that I – probably along with you — had never heard of. The mass media ignored it because it took place 490 feet underwater in the South Pacific. Don’t take it from me, take it from NASA (and please do follow the link to see time lapse satellite imagery of the underwater eruption and subsequent plume of gasses and water injected into the atmosphere):
still from the time lapse photos
When the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano erupted on Jan. 15, it sent a tsunami racing around the world and set off a sonic boom that circled the globe twice. The underwater eruption in the South Pacific Ocean also blasted an enormous plume of water vapor into Earth’s stratosphere – enough to fill more than 58,000 Olympic-size swimming pools. The sheer amount of water vapor could be enough to temporarily affect Earth’s global average temperature.
“We’ve never seen anything like it,” said Luis Millán, an atmospheric scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. He led a new study examining the amount of water vapor that the Tonga volcano injected into the stratosphere, the layer of the atmosphere between about 8 and 33 miles (12 and 53 kilometers) above Earth’s surface.
In the study, published in Geophysical Research Letters, Millán and his colleagues estimate that the Tonga eruption sent around 146 teragrams (1 teragram equals a trillion grams) of water vapor into Earth’s stratosphere – equal to 10% of the water already present in that atmospheric layer. That’s nearly four times the amount of water vapor that scientists estimate the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption in the Philippines lofted into the stratosphere. [emphases added]
NASA published the above in August 2022. Half a year later, a newer study increased the estimate of the water vapor addition to the atmosphere by 30%. From the European Space Agency:
In a recent paper published in Nature, a team of scientists showed the unprecedented increase in the global stratospheric water mass by 13% (relative to climatological levels) and a five-fold increase of stratospheric aerosol load – the highest in the last three decades.
Using a combination of satellite data, including data from ESA’s Aeolus satellite, and ground-based observations, the team found that due to the extreme altitude, the volcanic plume circumnavigated the Earth in just one week and dispersed nearly pole-to-pole in three months. [emphasis added]
Volcanic eruptions rarely inject much water into the stratosphere. In the 18 years that NASA has been taking measurements, only two other eruptions – the 2008 Kasatochi event in Alaska and the 2015 Calbuco eruption in Chile – sent appreciable amounts of water vapor to such high altitudes. But those were mere blips compared to the Tonga event, and the water vapor from both previous eruptions dissipated quickly. The excess water vapor injected by the Tonga volcano, on the other hand, could remain in the stratosphere for several years.
This extra water vapor could influence atmospheric chemistry, boosting certain chemical reactions that could temporarily worsen depletion of the ozone layer. It could also influence surface temperatures. Massive volcanic eruptions like Krakatoa and Mount Pinatubo typically cool Earth’s surface by ejecting gases, dust, and ash that reflect sunlight back into space. In contrast, the Tonga volcano didn’t inject large amounts of aerosols into the stratosphere, and the huge amounts of water vapor from the eruption may have a small, temporary warming effect, since water vapor traps heat. The effect would dissipate when the extra water vapor cycles out of the stratosphere [Emphases added]
So there you have it: we are in for extra atmospheric heat “for several years” until the extra water vapor injected by this largest-ever-recorded underwater volcano eruption dissipates.
Jeff Childers, who brought this scientific data to my notice, writes:
Here’s why corporate media is ignoring the most dramatic climate even[t] in modern history: because you can’t legislate underwater volcanoes. You can try, but they won’t listen. So what’s the fun in that? Corporate media only exists to further political ends. Since volcanoes aren’t subject to politics, why bother?
He brings up the work of Ethical Skeptic:
Ethical is suggesting that the water is heating the air — instead of the other way around. And the Earth’s core is heating the water. It’s a theory that explains everything.
Meanwhile, “science” is baffled. From just a month ago, in mid-June:
See? But though scientists are baffled, corporate media and its repulsive allies are busily blaming ocean warming on carbon dioxide — a ludicrous notion.
I am the first to admit that none of this – not the atmospheric CO2 theory of global warming, nor the effect of the largest ever known undersea volcanic eruption – is scientifically proven. But before we impoverish ourselves trying to reduce CO2 emissions (while watching China dramatically increase them), let’s practice real science and not jump to conclusions based on an imaginary “consensus.”
The effect may not be a whole lot. We’re only .38C above the baseline. We’ll see what it is for this month. Keep in mind this is with a 1C anomaly in the central Pacific. I don’t think we will but if we do break the record for both the warmest year and the warmest anomaly there is a possible explanation as to why that happened.
Nick Stokes continues to insist that accuracy to 3 decimal places is possible with poorly-sited thermometers which have a resolution of +-0.1C. Measure the temperature enough times and all the errors cancel out!
I think undersea heating by magma might be the better answer. The Earth’s magnetic field is undergoing a rapid change and the Sun has moved to an active phase, so a move to more active geologic regime is highly likely, imo. I think we are in for a very disruptive time going forward the next few decades. Looking back over the last few thousand years, things can get pretty bad in a hurry and we’ve had a pretty stable period since the little ice age. Too bad the MSM is so dysfunctional that the real truth when it becomes apparent won’t be made available.
Traditionally the tax is paid with virgins but that being non PC these days, a alternative, probably readily acceptable among the faithful, would be to calculate the number of non virgins that are equivalent to a true virgin (sort of like determining the formulae for calculating the “social cost of carbon”) and starving or freezing an appropriate number to death.
You sin and blaspheme against the True Climate Church. You will burn at the stake in the days of Net Zero. Say twenty “Hail Mikey Mann’s” to save your worthless soul and no meat until Armageddon
The current heatwave is no different from past heatwaves. It’s actually been cooler than normal, so ascribing overheating to extra water vapor is not valid because it’s not overheating. It’s business as usual.
The usual reaction to a major volcano is cooling due to SO2 injected into the stratosphere which lasts for a year or so before it’s washed out. In this case there was less SO2 than normal whereas the stratospheric water was exceptionally high. Consequently the two effects would initially tend to cancel each other out, subsequently as the SO2 washes out the water effect will tend to dominate.
So is widely acclaimed but one should take cognizance of the fact that the resolution of amount of cooling is far below the ability of any actual measurements.
Why is it late?
I’m no expert but I would imagine it takes time for water vapour to spread evenly through the Stratosphere. Months, or a year doesn’t strike me as a layman as unreasonable
You forget that last June they were screaming “heat wave”!! Well, in the UK at least, where we had 3 hot days in a row! And at least one of those they recorded the hottest day ever! Well, maybe the largest UHI effect ever, but there are many reasons to doubt even that claim, including my own lived experience.
I think the hottest day evah in June is just as fake as the hottest day evah evah evah last July as the 3 Typhoon jet fighters roared past the runway-side temperature recorder.
Your ignorance about the climatic consequences of volcanic eruptions shows. Why don’t you study instead of making assumptions about things you have no clue?
The 1815 Mt. Tambora eruption took place in April 1815. The first climatic consequences were felt in June 1816, and the Year Without a Summer was 1816.
There is a great body of literature already out on the Hunga Tonga eruption. Certainly water vapor seems to have increased big time. Would be great to see how/if this fits with Javier’s winter gatekeeper hypothesis .
The HTHH eruption doesn’t really affect the winter gatekeeper hypothesis. Nobody really knows what should be its effect. When models are asked they say the increase in water vapor should increase the energy imbalance at the top of the atmosphere as it is a GHG. This should translate into a lower troposphere and surface warming, but nobody appears to know how, or at least I have not been able to find that part in the papers. AFAIK more water vapor in the stratosphere should cause more stratospheric cooling than warming, particularly in the extratropics, but I do not see how that will cause the expected surface warming. Maybe by affecting the height of the tropopause.
Regarding ozone, the increase in water vapor should increase polar stratospheric clouds, particularly type II made of water ice, leading to increased ozone destruction. It should be happening now in the Southern Hemisphere and we should know by October when the ozone hole reaches its maximum.
There was an important paper in 2010 by Susan Solomon that claimed that the decrease in water vapor in the stratosphere over the last decades was responsible for reducing by 25% the expected warming from our emissions. I guess this is a great opportunity to find out.
If I had to bet I would say that the effects of the HTHH eruption would be noticeable but not that big, and it constitutes a great opportunity to learn more about the stratosphere. A true gift from nature to us truth seekers.
Off topic question about MT: what is your hypothesis on how MT has affected the climate since the last big El Niño? The ‘97 shift created the 17 year pause. Ever since the big El Niño, we’ve been somewhat elevated. It’s mostly been following ENSO but it’s above the old pause.
Better mask up then. Tinfoil hat biz is also booming i hear.
John Hultquist
July 31, 2023 8:39 pm
” Because of a historic, gigantic volcanic eruption last year that I – probably along with you — had never heard of. “
There was a WUWT post on Aug. 2nd, as indicated by the small rectangle with photo just above the “tag” line. As for heat waves, it was much hotter 2 years ago in WA State than now. Global Warming isn’t global if it isn’t global — or something like that. At my house: 216°F two years ago, 99°F in 2023.
I never use Fahrenheit – all my education and training was with Centigrade or Celsius. What is that in terms the rest of the world can understand, please?
I’d rather say, a beautiful high of 82F rather than 28C…it’s psychological!! I live in the nrn tier and 28 sounds like winter. But as a meteorologist, metric system is much easier to work with scientifically certainly.
What you learned as a child is the only thing you think makes sense I guess. Even when it doesn’t. The same people who prefer Fahrenheit think English spelling makes sense probably.
Having lived outside the US, I’m “bi-thermal”. I prefer Celsius, though. Water freezes at zero. 10 is cool, 20 room temperature, 30 warm, 40 hot. And water boils at 100.
Freezing at 32, boiling at 212, 5,280 feet in a mile? I’d love to forget it all.
Didn’t say it made more sense. Said there’s no advantage to using Celsius vs. Fahrenheit in everyday life..
What’s with the comment about English spelling? Did someone bring that up? Does that have some relevance to the discussion?
You know what’s amusing about the metric-US discussion? The metric folk always defend themselves for using it, as though there’s something slightly shameful about it.
The National Weather Service reports in Fahrenheit.
Oddly, for the current temperature they use a font size of 40 and underneath that is the C° in 20 point type. Maybe someday they will change. It makes little difference to me.
As an aside, use Google Earth or similar to look at Pocahontas, Iowa. Zoom out to an eye elevation of about 20 miles. When you understand all the white-line squares you will realize the USA will never go 100% metric. Wine is sold in only metric sizes. Works for me.]
Wasn’t the HTHH eruption also expected to enlarge the ozone hole, and hasn’t that already been observed?
Mr Ed
July 31, 2023 9:34 pm
From the AT article “The underwater eruption in the South Pacific Ocean also blasted an enormous plume of water vapor into Earth’s stratosphere — enough to fill more than 58,000 Olympic-size swimming pools” One Olympic size-pool is 660,000 gallons, times 58K = nearly 40 trillion gallons of salt water. Another piece on this claims it rose all the way into the mesosphere. Very curious aspect is how the MS media has ignored this entire event for the most part, which says lots.
I get really sick and tired of everybody acting as if they are the Lone Ranger fighting against a hostile world. Apparently, just making their point isn’t enough. They also have to make themselves the hero of their own private melodrama.
kazinski
July 31, 2023 10:51 pm
I’m skeptical, you are playing the medias game of highlighting a few hotspots into the planet is burning.
Lets wait a couple of days until UAH comes out, and we will see, but why would it suddenly switch into overdrive after 18 months?
I’m also skeptical that Stratospheric moisture is going to have much of a role, the lower stratosphere is well below the freezing point and the upper stratosphere is 10^-3 the density of the surface. Plus the absorption band of ice crystals is not nearly the same as water vapor.
The freezing point of water in the stratosphere is below -78ºC.
GoHome
July 31, 2023 11:17 pm
The hottest month on record. Waters off the coast of Florida boiling. Should be seeing the Cat 4 and 5 hurricanes rolling in like the AGW scientists have been warning us about. Should be a banner year for ACE.
SST isn’t the only thing modulating tropical cyclongenesis, longevity, and intensity. Wind shear is a very large contributor which that offsets the higher SSTs. With an El Nino I wouldn’t bank on a hyperactive Atlantic hurricane season.
Now just repeat that comment every time they start bleating about what high sea surface temperatures are going to do to hurricanes.
zzebowa
July 31, 2023 11:46 pm
“water vapor is well recognized as a greenhouse gas, whose heightened presence leads to higher temperatures” Only average and minima, maximum temps drop. Remember the deserts….
If there’s cloud cover during the day it’s cooler. If there’s cloud cover at night it’s warmer. My head hurts.
TonyG
July 31, 2023 11:55 pm
Perhaps it’s so obvious that no one is remarking on it, but will that extra water vapour in the atmosphere not be released as unusually heavy precipitation? Can we expect the gradual shedding of excess vapour as the normal cycle resumes or will it be more precipitous?
Not in the stratosphere where it will remain in the gas phase.
David Solan
July 31, 2023 11:57 pm
I don’t think Mr. Lipson could be more off the mark if he tried.
Number one, we are not experiencing a significant “heat wave”. For example,
temperatures here in the Northeast (and I suspect many other places) have been about
5° F below normal for almost all of the last 16 weeks (since April 2023). Looks like
unseasonably cool weather is ahead for a good deal of the Northern Hemisphere for the
next few weeks as well. What we are experiencing here, at least in the Northeast, is
summer, and it’s a particularly steady, cool one, at least with regard to daytime
temperatures. Phoenix is not the whole world, to put it mildly. And there is no support,
as others have stated, for the existence of this “heat wave” from the satellite data.
Number two, volcanic activity most assuredly injects aerosols high into the
atmosphere … which invariably produce cooler temperatures by blocking the energy of
sunlight from reaching and warming the surface of the Earth, the ONLY way the surface
of the Earth can be warmed for our comfort. This is overwhelmingly true when that
injection makes it to the stratosphere, which loses its suspended particulates (and
water vapor) to gravity and winds particularly slowly. Such a haze might produce
warmer temperatures at high altitudes, but this is ENTIRELY IRRELEVANT with regards to
weather/climate which, in the context we are discussing here, only refers to surface
conditions at much lower altitudes. That heat up there eventually makes it to outer
space. It NEVER comes down, appreciably, but always goes up. How then can it affect
our climate by raising temperatures down here? Hello, it can’t. Furthermore, if the
water vapor (NOT the particulates) only entered the stratosphere, it wouldn’t even
condense out there because that is a part of our atmosphere having warm temperatures
and, usually, particularly dry conditions. If it got there, the water vapor would
just innocuously stay there as vapor, affecting nothing that we had to worry about.
In a way, the experts Lipson relies on admit this, but then they throw in a kicker.
And that kicker is to make up a fairy tale about water vapor chemistry somehow
affecting ozone production. Really? Where is their evidence for this novel claim?
And how does ozone depletion affect temperatures at the surface of the Earth? And why
couldn’t that extra water vapor (13%?) have the opposite effect of enhancing ozone
production? If it did, that extra stratospheric ozone, called by scientists the “good
ozone”, would have a protective effect shielding us from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet
rays. In either case, no effect on our weather. I guess I must have missed the latest
revision put out by the “The Ministry of Truth”.
Number three, the fact that water vapor is a greenhouse gas is as important as the
astrological constellations Mr. Lipton was born under. The effect of enhanced
infrared absorption by some gases in the lower troposphere (allegedly the “Greenhouse
Effect”) is almost immediately (in terms of time and distance) turned into higher
temperatures of the rest of the non-greenhouse gases in that troposphere, and from
there on, convection effects determine to what extent the surface of the Earth will be
thereby warmed by those non-greenhouse gases, an effect occurring over hours, not the
microseconds it took for those greenhouse gases to absorb that radiation. And whether
those greenhouse gases were there or not, most of the energy of that radiation would
have been absorbed anyway by the non-greenhouse gases liberally mixed in with them —
through non-ideal blackbody processes (which occur in all gases at ambient
temperatures and at pressures of about one atmosphere and above). Furthermore,
infrared frequencies of water vapor absorption only cool the Earth because that
absorption is done mostly by the water vapor in our upper troposphere, warming it, not
us, having no effect on surface temperatures and, at the same time, reducing the
infrared reaching the surface, thereby cooling that surface where we are. Again, all
volcanically spewed water vapor and particulates (at least for the energies we
witnessed at the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption) has a cooling effect — on net —
all the time.
Number four, if “dramatically increased” levels of water vapor occur in our
atmosphere over the next few years, as Lipton quotes from “two of the world’s leading
scientific organizations” (I suppose), then why do those same organizations tell us of
all the “drought” the world is experiencing as well? Doesn’t precipitation, the
absence of drought, come from high levels of water in the atmosphere? Wouldn’t those
high levels then counteract the drought? Could those organizations have ulterior
motives that sometimes throw off their “scientific” pronunciamentos, but good?
David Solan
Rod Evans
August 1, 2023 12:04 am
Well if 2023 is the hottest ever, I do not want to experience the coldest ever.
Weather is a chaotic system.
At any moment, there will be a weather event a flood, head dome, snow fall, extreme wind etc, somewhere, that always makes good copy. The BBC and Guardian are tasked with using these ‘local’ weather events, to endorse/support their anxiety (contrived false anxiety) about climate change.
How they get away with conflating weather with climate, is for another day, but that is what they do.
The local nature of climate experience, or weather to be more precise, is well evidenced here in the UK. Thunder storms that destroy a local fete in one village, are mere rumbles on a lovely summer day in the next village just a couple of miles distance.
This summer in the UK has been mixed. With a good period of lovely warm summer days in June, mid 20s C up to 30 deg. C briefly in some places. That was followed by a cold July, very wet, barely a day went without rain. The temps were so low central heating systems fired up and jumpers were the go to garment of choice for most us, (central England area).
August is being projected to stay wet and cold. This is how weather is in Britain…variable.
Just checking the global average temp, continuously monitored and yup, it is still 14.14deg. C . Incredibly stable. Now that is not something you will ever here from the BBC.
The BBC forecast for a town in the English East Midlands. With flood warnings in place for North Yorkshire.
A quick tour of Northern Europe shows a similar pattern.
Mediterranean area mid to upper 30’s Celsius
Ah, yes. the Med having a normal hot summer. One of the reasons so many people from Northern Europe seek holidays in those hellish hot places. Is because they are not cold and wet.
let’s practice real science and not jump to conclusions based on an imaginary “consensus.”
Hooray! Where’s the falsifiable hypothesis?
alastairgray29yahoocom
August 1, 2023 1:29 am
My understanding of the Greenhouse effect is this
Upwards travelling IR from the surface is absorbed by a GHG -CO2 or Water vapour. However a billionth of a second or thereabouts , and within centimetres of the surface, it is reemitted in a totally random direction and that secondary IR is again absorbed, and reemitted and so on ad infinitem. Net effect is that the IR is travelling upward until at a level (call it the escape emission level) where there are no more GHG it is emitted to space. The energy emitted to space obeys Plank’s law, and the lower the temperature at the Escape Emission Level the lower the energy emitted to space and vice versa.
Classical GH theory deals with the troposphere which has a negative lapse rate – temperature decreases with height, and so More GHG implies higher Escape Emission Level, implies less IR energy emitted and consequently warming of the Atmosphere/Earth system.
In the Stratosphere on the other hand the lapse rate is positive. Temperature increases with height and so by the above argument increasing stratospheric GHG should mean that more energy is emitted to space .
So injecting a cubic kilometre of water vapour into the atmosphere should cool the atmosphere.
Now of course Krakatoa in 1883 blew with I am told an estimated 6 Cubic mile of solid particulates , but also I am told a cubic mile of water as well. Maybe the water vapour contributed to stratospheric cooling as well as did the particulates in the troposphere.
Anyway someone please enlighten me if my argument is flawed
Within a tenth of a nanosecond an excited CO2 molecule will collide with a neighboring N2 or O2 molecule which will collisionally deactivate the excited molecule and heat up the N2/O2 molecule. The mean emission time of an excited CO2 molecule is of the order of milliseconds, a million times slower.
HotScot
August 1, 2023 2:05 am
a newer study increased the estimate of the water vapor addition to the atmosphere by 30%.
But an increase from 0.03% – 0.04% atmospheric CO2 over a century is causing a “Boiling” world.
The Hunga-Tonga eruption significantly altered the water vapor content of the stratosphere. The injection of 150 billion kilograms amounts to an increase of ~15% in that layer. But to put this into perspective it is only 0.0013% of what is in the whole atmosphere.
My take on this is that we’re looking at a natural geo-engineering project with the salt and sulphur and other materials being blasted so far up in the
atmosphere along with the water. Some have observed that the record number
of atmospheric river storms (31) in CA last winter had some link to this event.
There could be a link there for sure. The change in the stratosphere was pretty significant.
Ireneusz Palmowski
August 1, 2023 7:37 am
Sorry, but water vapor in the stratosphere means only cooling the surface , because the temperature is always lowest in the tropopause. This is how hurricanes reaching the stratosphere work. Water vapor in the troposphere raises the global temperature of the troposphere, as it did during El Niño. During El Niño the area of stronger evaporation in the oceans and the global sea surface temperature rises.
Water vapor and other greenhouse gases that find their way into the tropopause lose energy to space, due to the large decrease in atmospheric density.
Follow the drop in ocean temperatures after the typhoon passed. The previous typhoon brought massive rainfall to eastern China.
Ireneusz Palmowski
August 1, 2023 7:44 am
Some mistakenly believe that ozone is the source of infrared radiation in the upper stratosphere, but this radiation is released during the Chapman reaction, which involves the photolysis of an O2 molecule by photons of UVC radiation. “Ozone is naturally formed and destroyed by the following set of reactions. http://www.cchem.berkeley.edu/molsim/teaching/fall2008/ozone/Ozone%20website_files/Page603.htm These reactions, proposed by Sydney Chapman in 1930, explain the presence of ozone in the stratosphere. Oxygen molecules can be photolyzed by UV radiation, forming oxygen radicals in reaction 1. In reaction 2, these reactive oxygen radicals can combine with an oxygen molecule to form ozone. M in this reaction is any third molecule: M absorbs heat from this reaction. The increasing temperature profile of the stratosphere results from this reaction. In reaction 3, ozone is destroyed by UV radiation, forming an oxygen radical and an oxygen molecule. Ozone can also be destroyed by combining with the radical, as seen in reaction 4.” Therefore, temperature changes in the upper stratosphere are a good indicator of solar activity because ozone production depends on UV photons at the highest energies. These photons depend on flares on the Sun.
Bohdan Burban
August 1, 2023 7:59 am
It wasn’t just water that was blasted into the stratosphere and beyond. It was seawater, i.e., with lots and lots of sodium chloride, magnesium chloride, etc..
slowroll
August 1, 2023 8:53 am
Some global heat wave, alright. Here in North East PA, we’ve had only a few days where the temp got to about 87F, and the last few days the nighttime temp got down to 52 F. Not bad for end of July.
Hoyt Clagwell
August 1, 2023 8:56 am
But Peter Kalmus at JPL just told me that the rise in temperatures was entirely due to capitalism, the most powerful heat-trapping economic model of all.
cosmicwxdude
August 1, 2023 9:03 am
Interesting and certainly plausible. Strange though that here in the upper midwest while its been a bit above avg this summer the Dewpoint temps have been remarkably low most of the summer. Here at MSP we did not even see our first 70F dewp til last week. Im a meteorologist and live in this area and we usually see our first 70F dewp by early June if not a day or two last half of May on avg. We are scoring above avg 90+ days though..but nothing close to our all time recorded history number of 44 days set in 1988.
Ireneusz Palmowski
August 1, 2023 9:08 am
It is ridiculous to worry about a big increase in global temperature when the troposphere is so thin. Areosols in the troposphere protect the surface from excessive solar radiation. During weak solar cycles, the amount of ozone decreases, causing an increase in UVB radiation at the surface. Therefore, direct solar radiation can now be dangerous.
rah
August 1, 2023 9:18 am
Well the greatest temperature anomaly on the planet that has been skewing the so called “global temperature” upwards has been down by Antarctica. So my question is why? The “Ozone hole” over Antarctica is larger than last winter. Why?
The effect may not be a whole lot. We’re only .38C above the baseline. We’ll see what it is for this month. Keep in mind this is with a 1C anomaly in the central Pacific. I don’t think we will but if we do break the record for both the warmest year and the warmest anomaly there is a possible explanation as to why that happened.
The year began under La Niña conditions, so 2023 is unlikely to be the warmest. July however, we’ll soon see what UAH has observed.
We’re at 0.195C and 2016 is 0.389C. The more interesting question is what happens in 2024.
Accuracy to 0.001 C. Amazing.
Nick Stokes continues to insist that accuracy to 3 decimal places is possible with poorly-sited thermometers which have a resolution of +-0.1C. Measure the temperature enough times and all the errors cancel out!
Well nickboy lives in far out lala land, so there is that. Occasionally has something interesting to say, but usually way off.
Sure impresses ‘our’ politicians!
Records are just that…records. meant to be broken. The first day of measurement at any given location a record is set in ever metric measured.
As commented previously, the submarine Tonga eruption also could explain the lack of sea ice on the Pacific side of the Antarctic Peninsula.
Certainly better than CO2.
From atmospheric effects or a tsunami?
A plume of warm water piling up there.
I think undersea heating by magma might be the better answer. The Earth’s magnetic field is undergoing a rapid change and the Sun has moved to an active phase, so a move to more active geologic regime is highly likely, imo. I think we are in for a very disruptive time going forward the next few decades. Looking back over the last few thousand years, things can get pretty bad in a hurry and we’ve had a pretty stable period since the little ice age. Too bad the MSM is so dysfunctional that the real truth when it becomes apparent won’t be made available.
But it will be maga republicans fault, I mean Hillbillary said so, so….
Not just from Tonga.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F2cnViAXIAA6nFv?format=jpg&name=large
How does one tax volcanoes, anyway?
Traditionally the tax is paid with virgins but that being non PC these days, a alternative, probably readily acceptable among the faithful, would be to calculate the number of non virgins that are equivalent to a true virgin (sort of like determining the formulae for calculating the “social cost of carbon”) and starving or freezing an appropriate number to death.
You sin and blaspheme against the True Climate Church. You will burn at the stake in the days of Net Zero. Say twenty “Hail Mikey Mann’s” to save your worthless soul and no meat until Armageddon
How are non binary virgins calculated?
If they’re not binary, perhaps they’re octal or hex.
Is there a conversion rate for InCel’s?
A heat wave coming 18 months after the eruption is a bit late. It should be an instant reaction and statistically there was none.
The current heatwave is no different from past heatwaves. It’s actually been cooler than normal, so ascribing overheating to extra water vapor is not valid because it’s not overheating. It’s business as usual.
The usual reaction to a major volcano is cooling due to SO2 injected into the stratosphere which lasts for a year or so before it’s washed out. In this case there was less SO2 than normal whereas the stratospheric water was exceptionally high. Consequently the two effects would initially tend to cancel each other out, subsequently as the SO2 washes out the water effect will tend to dominate.
So is widely acclaimed but one should take cognizance of the fact that the resolution of amount of cooling is far below the ability of any actual measurements.
I think it is a legitimate concern that is being expressed. What has been happening for the last several months?
Why is it late?
I’m no expert but I would imagine it takes time for water vapour to spread evenly through the Stratosphere. Months, or a year doesn’t strike me as a layman as unreasonable
This graph shows the spread in this case:
4VHE1ol.png
You forget that last June they were screaming “heat wave”!! Well, in the UK at least, where we had 3 hot days in a row! And at least one of those they recorded the hottest day ever! Well, maybe the largest UHI effect ever, but there are many reasons to doubt even that claim, including my own lived experience.
I think the hottest day evah in June is just as fake as the hottest day evah evah evah last July as the 3 Typhoon jet fighters roared past the runway-side temperature recorder.
Your ignorance about the climatic consequences of volcanic eruptions shows. Why don’t you study instead of making assumptions about things you have no clue?
The 1815 Mt. Tambora eruption took place in April 1815. The first climatic consequences were felt in June 1816, and the Year Without a Summer was 1816.
There is a great body of literature already out on the Hunga Tonga eruption. Certainly water vapor seems to have increased big time. Would be great to see how/if this fits with Javier’s winter gatekeeper hypothesis .
See e.g.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-022-00618-z
https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/15/14/3602
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2023GL103855
https://chemrxiv.org/engage/chemrxiv/article-details/64c0ee2c658ec5f7e531f1d3
The HTHH eruption doesn’t really affect the winter gatekeeper hypothesis. Nobody really knows what should be its effect. When models are asked they say the increase in water vapor should increase the energy imbalance at the top of the atmosphere as it is a GHG. This should translate into a lower troposphere and surface warming, but nobody appears to know how, or at least I have not been able to find that part in the papers. AFAIK more water vapor in the stratosphere should cause more stratospheric cooling than warming, particularly in the extratropics, but I do not see how that will cause the expected surface warming. Maybe by affecting the height of the tropopause.
Regarding ozone, the increase in water vapor should increase polar stratospheric clouds, particularly type II made of water ice, leading to increased ozone destruction. It should be happening now in the Southern Hemisphere and we should know by October when the ozone hole reaches its maximum.
There was an important paper in 2010 by Susan Solomon that claimed that the decrease in water vapor in the stratosphere over the last decades was responsible for reducing by 25% the expected warming from our emissions. I guess this is a great opportunity to find out.
If I had to bet I would say that the effects of the HTHH eruption would be noticeable but not that big, and it constitutes a great opportunity to learn more about the stratosphere. A true gift from nature to us truth seekers.
Off topic question about MT: what is your hypothesis on how MT has affected the climate since the last big El Niño? The ‘97 shift created the 17 year pause. Ever since the big El Niño, we’ve been somewhat elevated. It’s mostly been following ENSO but it’s above the old pause.
Better mask up then. Tinfoil hat biz is also booming i hear.
” Because of a historic, gigantic volcanic eruption last year that I – probably along with you — had never heard of. “
There was a WUWT post on Aug. 2nd, as indicated by the small rectangle with photo just above the “tag” line.
As for heat waves, it was much hotter 2 years ago in WA State than now. Global Warming isn’t global if it isn’t global — or something like that. At my house: 216°F two years ago, 99°F in 2023.
216°F? Is that a typo, John?
216°F! That would make me boiling mad!
Just trying to see who on WUWT is smart and paying attention.
Only 2! We need to up our game.
I never use Fahrenheit – all my education and training was with Centigrade or Celsius. What is that in terms the rest of the world can understand, please?
I’d rather say, a beautiful high of 82F rather than 28C…it’s psychological!! I live in the nrn tier and 28 sounds like winter. But as a meteorologist, metric system is much easier to work with scientifically certainly.
Nothing simpler about Celsius vs. Fahrenheit. Fahrenheit is more precise, anyway — 180 degrees between freezing and boiling point of water vs. 100.
It’s not like measuring distance, where there are millimeters, centimeters, meters, and kilometers. There’s just “degrees”.
What you learned as a child is the only thing you think makes sense I guess. Even when it doesn’t. The same people who prefer Fahrenheit think English spelling makes sense probably.
Having lived outside the US, I’m “bi-thermal”. I prefer Celsius, though. Water freezes at zero. 10 is cool, 20 room temperature, 30 warm, 40 hot. And water boils at 100.
Freezing at 32, boiling at 212, 5,280 feet in a mile? I’d love to forget it all.
Didn’t say it made more sense. Said there’s no advantage to using Celsius vs. Fahrenheit in everyday life..
What’s with the comment about English spelling? Did someone bring that up? Does that have some relevance to the discussion?
You know what’s amusing about the metric-US discussion? The metric folk always defend themselves for using it, as though there’s something slightly shameful about it.
The National Weather Service reports in Fahrenheit.
Oddly, for the current temperature they use a font size of 40 and underneath that is the C° in 20 point type. Maybe someday they will change. It makes little difference to me.
As an aside, use Google Earth or similar to look at Pocahontas, Iowa. Zoom out to an eye elevation of about 20 miles. When you understand all the white-line squares you will realize the USA will never go 100% metric. Wine is sold in only metric sizes. Works for me.]
Steaming hot
Wasn’t the HTHH eruption also expected to enlarge the ozone hole, and hasn’t that already been observed?
From the AT article “The underwater eruption in the South Pacific Ocean also blasted an enormous plume of water vapor into Earth’s stratosphere — enough to fill more than 58,000 Olympic-size swimming pools” One Olympic size-pool is 660,000 gallons, times
58K = nearly 40 trillion gallons of salt water. Another piece on this claims it rose all the way into the mesosphere. Very curious aspect is how the MS media has ignored
this entire event for the most part, which says lots.
The eruption was covered fairly well in Australia
Yeah.
I get really sick and tired of everybody acting as if they are the Lone Ranger fighting against a hostile world. Apparently, just making their point isn’t enough. They also have to make themselves the hero of their own private melodrama.
I’m skeptical, you are playing the medias game of highlighting a few hotspots into the planet is burning.
Lets wait a couple of days until UAH comes out, and we will see, but why would it suddenly switch into overdrive after 18 months?
I’m also skeptical that Stratospheric moisture is going to have much of a role, the lower stratosphere is well below the freezing point and the upper stratosphere is 10^-3 the density of the surface. Plus the absorption band of ice crystals is not nearly the same as water vapor.
Vapor-green, liquid-red, ice-blue
The freezing point of water in the stratosphere is below -78ºC.
The hottest month on record. Waters off the coast of Florida boiling. Should be seeing the Cat 4 and 5 hurricanes rolling in like the AGW scientists have been warning us about. Should be a banner year for ACE.
Go Home
SST isn’t the only thing modulating tropical cyclongenesis, longevity, and intensity. Wind shear is a very large contributor which that offsets the higher SSTs. With an El Nino I wouldn’t bank on a hyperactive Atlantic hurricane season.
Now just repeat that comment every time they start bleating about what high sea surface temperatures are going to do to hurricanes.
“water vapor is well recognized as a greenhouse gas, whose heightened presence leads to higher temperatures” Only average and minima, maximum temps drop. Remember the deserts….
If there’s cloud cover during the day it’s cooler. If there’s cloud cover at night it’s warmer. My head hurts.
Perhaps it’s so obvious that no one is remarking on it, but will that extra water vapour in the atmosphere not be released as unusually heavy precipitation? Can we expect the gradual shedding of excess vapour as the normal cycle resumes or will it be more precipitous?
Not in the stratosphere where it will remain in the gas phase.
I don’t think Mr. Lipson could be more off the mark if he tried.
Number one, we are not experiencing a significant “heat wave”. For example,
temperatures here in the Northeast (and I suspect many other places) have been about
5° F below normal for almost all of the last 16 weeks (since April 2023). Looks like
unseasonably cool weather is ahead for a good deal of the Northern Hemisphere for the
next few weeks as well. What we are experiencing here, at least in the Northeast, is
summer, and it’s a particularly steady, cool one, at least with regard to daytime
temperatures. Phoenix is not the whole world, to put it mildly. And there is no support,
as others have stated, for the existence of this “heat wave” from the satellite data.
Number two, volcanic activity most assuredly injects aerosols high into the
atmosphere … which invariably produce cooler temperatures by blocking the energy of
sunlight from reaching and warming the surface of the Earth, the ONLY way the surface
of the Earth can be warmed for our comfort. This is overwhelmingly true when that
injection makes it to the stratosphere, which loses its suspended particulates (and
water vapor) to gravity and winds particularly slowly. Such a haze might produce
warmer temperatures at high altitudes, but this is ENTIRELY IRRELEVANT with regards to
weather/climate which, in the context we are discussing here, only refers to surface
conditions at much lower altitudes. That heat up there eventually makes it to outer
space. It NEVER comes down, appreciably, but always goes up. How then can it affect
our climate by raising temperatures down here? Hello, it can’t. Furthermore, if the
water vapor (NOT the particulates) only entered the stratosphere, it wouldn’t even
condense out there because that is a part of our atmosphere having warm temperatures
and, usually, particularly dry conditions. If it got there, the water vapor would
just innocuously stay there as vapor, affecting nothing that we had to worry about.
In a way, the experts Lipson relies on admit this, but then they throw in a kicker.
And that kicker is to make up a fairy tale about water vapor chemistry somehow
affecting ozone production. Really? Where is their evidence for this novel claim?
And how does ozone depletion affect temperatures at the surface of the Earth? And why
couldn’t that extra water vapor (13%?) have the opposite effect of enhancing ozone
production? If it did, that extra stratospheric ozone, called by scientists the “good
ozone”, would have a protective effect shielding us from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet
rays. In either case, no effect on our weather. I guess I must have missed the latest
revision put out by the “The Ministry of Truth”.
Number three, the fact that water vapor is a greenhouse gas is as important as the
astrological constellations Mr. Lipton was born under. The effect of enhanced
infrared absorption by some gases in the lower troposphere (allegedly the “Greenhouse
Effect”) is almost immediately (in terms of time and distance) turned into higher
temperatures of the rest of the non-greenhouse gases in that troposphere, and from
there on, convection effects determine to what extent the surface of the Earth will be
thereby warmed by those non-greenhouse gases, an effect occurring over hours, not the
microseconds it took for those greenhouse gases to absorb that radiation. And whether
those greenhouse gases were there or not, most of the energy of that radiation would
have been absorbed anyway by the non-greenhouse gases liberally mixed in with them —
through non-ideal blackbody processes (which occur in all gases at ambient
temperatures and at pressures of about one atmosphere and above). Furthermore,
infrared frequencies of water vapor absorption only cool the Earth because that
absorption is done mostly by the water vapor in our upper troposphere, warming it, not
us, having no effect on surface temperatures and, at the same time, reducing the
infrared reaching the surface, thereby cooling that surface where we are. Again, all
volcanically spewed water vapor and particulates (at least for the energies we
witnessed at the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption) has a cooling effect — on net —
all the time.
Number four, if “dramatically increased” levels of water vapor occur in our
atmosphere over the next few years, as Lipton quotes from “two of the world’s leading
scientific organizations” (I suppose), then why do those same organizations tell us of
all the “drought” the world is experiencing as well? Doesn’t precipitation, the
absence of drought, come from high levels of water in the atmosphere? Wouldn’t those
high levels then counteract the drought? Could those organizations have ulterior
motives that sometimes throw off their “scientific” pronunciamentos, but good?
David Solan
Well if 2023 is the hottest ever, I do not want to experience the coldest ever.
Weather is a chaotic system.
At any moment, there will be a weather event a flood, head dome, snow fall, extreme wind etc, somewhere, that always makes good copy. The BBC and Guardian are tasked with using these ‘local’ weather events, to endorse/support their anxiety (contrived false anxiety) about climate change.
How they get away with conflating weather with climate, is for another day, but that is what they do.
The local nature of climate experience, or weather to be more precise, is well evidenced here in the UK. Thunder storms that destroy a local fete in one village, are mere rumbles on a lovely summer day in the next village just a couple of miles distance.
This summer in the UK has been mixed. With a good period of lovely warm summer days in June, mid 20s C up to 30 deg. C briefly in some places. That was followed by a cold July, very wet, barely a day went without rain. The temps were so low central heating systems fired up and jumpers were the go to garment of choice for most us, (central England area).
August is being projected to stay wet and cold. This is how weather is in Britain…variable.
Just checking the global average temp, continuously monitored and yup, it is still 14.14deg. C . Incredibly stable. Now that is not something you will ever here from the BBC.
The BBC forecast for a town in the English East Midlands. With flood warnings in place for North Yorkshire.
A quick tour of Northern Europe shows a similar pattern.
Mediterranean area mid to upper 30’s Celsius
Ah, yes. the Med having a normal hot summer. One of the reasons so many people from Northern Europe seek holidays in those hellish hot places. Is because they are not cold and wet.
Sensible people who don’t like it too hot go in May 🙂
I much prefer warmth to cold..much much much!!
Hooray! Where’s the falsifiable hypothesis?
My understanding of the Greenhouse effect is this
Upwards travelling IR from the surface is absorbed by a GHG -CO2 or Water vapour. However a billionth of a second or thereabouts , and within centimetres of the surface, it is reemitted in a totally random direction and that secondary IR is again absorbed, and reemitted and so on ad infinitem. Net effect is that the IR is travelling upward until at a level (call it the escape emission level) where there are no more GHG it is emitted to space. The energy emitted to space obeys Plank’s law, and the lower the temperature at the Escape Emission Level the lower the energy emitted to space and vice versa.
Classical GH theory deals with the troposphere which has a negative lapse rate – temperature decreases with height, and so More GHG implies higher Escape Emission Level, implies less IR energy emitted and consequently warming of the Atmosphere/Earth system.
In the Stratosphere on the other hand the lapse rate is positive. Temperature increases with height and so by the above argument increasing stratospheric GHG should mean that more energy is emitted to space .
So injecting a cubic kilometre of water vapour into the atmosphere should cool the atmosphere.
Now of course Krakatoa in 1883 blew with I am told an estimated 6 Cubic mile of solid particulates , but also I am told a cubic mile of water as well. Maybe the water vapour contributed to stratospheric cooling as well as did the particulates in the troposphere.
Anyway someone please enlighten me if my argument is flawed
What about the radiative processes associated with what was injected into the mesosphere?
Within a tenth of a nanosecond an excited CO2 molecule will collide with a neighboring N2 or O2 molecule which will collisionally deactivate the excited molecule and heat up the N2/O2 molecule. The mean emission time of an excited CO2 molecule is of the order of milliseconds, a million times slower.
But an increase from 0.03% – 0.04% atmospheric CO2 over a century is causing a “Boiling” world.
Got it……
It’s an increase in water vapor of 13%. CO2 has risen by over 30%.
But I would expect it depends on where the vapour is as to what sort of an effect it has.
Antarctic sea ice is feeling it.
S_stddev_timeseries.png (1050×840) (wp.com)
The Hunga-Tonga eruption significantly altered the water vapor content of the stratosphere. The injection of 150 billion kilograms amounts to an increase of ~15% in that layer. But to put this into perspective it is only 0.0013% of what is in the whole atmosphere.
Let’s see the temperature drop in the Philippine Sea after the passage of a strong typhoon that is heading to eastern China below Okinawa.
I don’t see how this has anything to do with Hunga-Tonga eruption and the water vapor it injected into the stratosphere.
Because hurricane clouds reach the stratosphere, as can be seen from the temperature at the typhoon’s peaks.
Right. But that doesn’t have anything to do with Hunga-Tonga.
My take on this is that we’re looking at a natural geo-engineering project with the salt and sulphur and other materials being blasted so far up in the
atmosphere along with the water. Some have observed that the record number
of atmospheric river storms (31) in CA last winter had some link to this event.
There could be a link there for sure. The change in the stratosphere was pretty significant.
Sorry, but water vapor in the stratosphere means only cooling the surface , because the temperature is always lowest in the tropopause. This is how hurricanes reaching the stratosphere work. Water vapor in the troposphere raises the global temperature of the troposphere, as it did during El Niño. During El Niño the area of stronger evaporation in the oceans and the global sea surface temperature rises.
Water vapor and other greenhouse gases that find their way into the tropopause lose energy to space, due to the large decrease in atmospheric density.
Follow the drop in ocean temperatures after the typhoon passed. The previous typhoon brought massive rainfall to eastern China.
Some mistakenly believe that ozone is the source of infrared radiation in the upper stratosphere, but this radiation is released during the Chapman reaction, which involves the photolysis of an O2 molecule by photons of UVC radiation.
“Ozone is naturally formed and destroyed by the following set of reactions.
http://www.cchem.berkeley.edu/molsim/teaching/fall2008/ozone/Ozone%20website_files/Page603.htm
These reactions, proposed by Sydney Chapman in 1930, explain the presence of ozone in the stratosphere. Oxygen molecules can be photolyzed by UV radiation, forming oxygen radicals in reaction 1. In reaction 2, these reactive oxygen radicals can combine with an oxygen molecule to form ozone. M in this reaction is any third molecule: M absorbs heat from this reaction. The increasing temperature profile of the stratosphere results from this reaction. In reaction 3, ozone is destroyed by UV radiation, forming an oxygen radical and an oxygen molecule. Ozone can also be destroyed by combining with the radical, as seen in reaction 4.”
Therefore, temperature changes in the upper stratosphere are a good indicator of solar activity because ozone production depends on UV photons at the highest energies. These photons depend on flares on the Sun.
It wasn’t just water that was blasted into the stratosphere and beyond. It was seawater, i.e., with lots and lots of sodium chloride, magnesium chloride, etc..
Some global heat wave, alright. Here in North East PA, we’ve had only a few days where the temp got to about 87F, and the last few days the nighttime temp got down to 52 F. Not bad for end of July.
But Peter Kalmus at JPL just told me that the rise in temperatures was entirely due to capitalism, the most powerful heat-trapping economic model of all.
Interesting and certainly plausible. Strange though that here in the upper midwest while its been a bit above avg this summer the Dewpoint temps have been remarkably low most of the summer. Here at MSP we did not even see our first 70F dewp til last week. Im a meteorologist and live in this area and we usually see our first 70F dewp by early June if not a day or two last half of May on avg. We are scoring above avg 90+ days though..but nothing close to our all time recorded history number of 44 days set in 1988.
It is ridiculous to worry about a big increase in global temperature when the troposphere is so thin. Areosols in the troposphere protect the surface from excessive solar radiation. During weak solar cycles, the amount of ozone decreases, causing an increase in UVB radiation at the surface. Therefore, direct solar radiation can now be dangerous.
Well the greatest temperature anomaly on the planet that has been skewing the so called “global temperature” upwards has been down by Antarctica. So my question is why? The “Ozone hole” over Antarctica is larger than last winter. Why?