The Week That Was: 2023-10-07 (October 7, 2023)
Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org)
The Science and Environmental Policy Project
Quote of the Week: It is found that even ·an increase by a factor of 8 in the amount of CO2 , which is highly unlikely in the next several thousand years, will produce an increase in the surface temperature of less than 2 °K. However, the effect on surface temperature of an increase in the aerosol content of the atmosphere is found to be quite significant. An increase by a factor of 4 in the equilibrium dust concentration in the global atmosphere, which cannot be ruled out as a possibility within the next century, could decrease the mean surface temperature by as much as 3.5°K. If sustained over a period of several years, such a temperature decrease could be sufficient to trigger an ice age! — S. I. Rasool and S. H. Schneider, Science, Jul. 9, 1971 [Boldface added]
Number of the Week:less than 15% of the time in 2021, then dropped.
THIS WEEK:
By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
Scope: This TWTW will discuss the abrupt warming of the atmosphere as presented by the University of Alabama, Huntsville Global Temperature Report. Then it will speculate that part of the warming may be explained by the Svensmark Hypothesis, but no conclusions can be reached yet. A few key statements by Nobel Co-Laureate in physics John Clauser to students in South Korea are presented. Another example of fact-checkers using accusation and rumor in place of facts is presented.
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Unusual Warming: In their Global Temperature Report, September 2023, John Christy and Roy Spencer discuss the unusual, sudden warming occurring in the atmosphere, where the greenhouse gases obstruct outgoing radiation. Contrary to many reports, there is no sudden increase in carbon dioxide concentrations. NOAA’s Global Monitoring Laboratory for June 2023, the latest month available, reported the usual seasonal change with CO2 concentrations increasing in the Northern Hemisphere winter and declining in the spring. In June 2023 CO2 was at 419.51 ppm (parts per million volume) compared to June 2022 at 417.43 ppm. According to global warming alarmists, this slight change should have a significant impact on temperatures. It does not. Further, the observatory at Mauna Loa (now actually at Mauna Kea Observatories 21 miles away) reported August 2023 concentration of 419.68 ppm compared with August 2022 concentration of 417.15 ppm.
In their Global Temperature Report for September 2023, Christy and Spencer write:
“Global climate trend since Dec. 1, 1978: +0.14 C per decade [see note at end]
September Temperatures (preliminary)
Global composite temp: +0.90 C (+1.62°F) above the seasonal average
Northern Hemisphere: +0.94 C (+1.69°F) above seasonal average
Southern Hemisphere: +0.86 C (+1.55°F) above seasonal average
Tropics: +0.93 C (+1.67°F) above seasonal average
August Temperatures (final)
Global composite temp: +0.70 C (+1.26°F) above the seasonal average
Northern Hemisphere: +0.88 C (+1.58°F) above seasonal average
Southern Hemisphere: +0.51 C (+0.92°F) above seasonal average
Tropics: +0.86 C (+1.55°F) above seasonal average
The global atmospheric temperature anomaly jumped in September to +0.90°C (+1.62°F) above the 30-year average, setting a new anomaly record for the 45-year satellite era. This month’s departure easily outdistanced Feb 2016 when the temperature peaked then at +0.71 °C (+1.28 °F). This makes three months in a row that the previous temperature record was superseded as the current El Niño came on in force earlier than is typical, warming up the atmosphere in these mid-year (and already warm) months. Though the tropics this month were warmer than any other September, the early-year months of Jan-Apr still hold the records for the largest departures from average in this equatorial belt. Besides the global record for departure from average, this month produced record departures for all months for the global land and ocean separately, NH land, and SH land and ocean.
As discussed in the past two months, July still represents the warmest global “absolute” monthly temperature (since July is already on average the hottest month each year) with a [lower troposphere] temperature of 266.06 K [Zero C equals 273.15 K]. Because September is on average cooler than July, the absolute temperature this month was cooler too at 265.54 K even though the anomaly was larger (+0.90 K vs. +0.64 K). These very warm global atmospheric temperatures are expected to continue with the ongoing El Niño event through at least the boreal winter in 2024 since the tropical Pacific seawater temperatures are still warmer than average, especially for this time of year, though the tropical water temperatures appeared to have leveled off in the past two months. See NOAA’s updates here. https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolutionstatus-fcsts-web.pdf.
An interesting question at this point is, “When will the El Niño and its warming influence peak?” Since it began 4-5 months earlier than usual, will it peak earlier as well, or will it continue to maintain its strength until the typical peak in Feb-Apr? We will have to wait and see.
The planet’s warmest spot in September occurred over northern Poland at +4.1 °C (+7.5°F). Warmer than average conditions were pervasive in the tropical belt with exceptionally warm regions in Europe through western Russia, NW Canada, middle South America, southern Australia, and the North Pacific Ocean.
With a reading of -2.0°C (-3.7°F), the coolest departure from average could be found over southern Chile. Cooler than average regions were few and far between but included the far North Atlantic, southern Chile, and Kazakhstan.
Unlike the globe as a whole, the conterminous US was only slightly above average at +0.40°C (+0.72°F), with the West being relatively cool. Alaska was even cooler than the lower 48, so with Alaska, the 49-state average was +0.29 °C (+0.52°F). [We don’t include Hawaii in the US results because its land area is less than that of one satellite grid square, so it would have virtually no impact on the overall national results.]
A note about the global temperature trend. For several years now, the trend has been extremely close to +0.135 °C/decade. This past July, the threshold of 0.135 was crossed at +0.1352 °C/decade. The global trend is now +0.14 °C/decade by rounding up.
*In the July 2023 GTR we reported the February 2016 anomaly as +0.70 °C. As the intercalibrations between satellites are recalculated with each month’s new data, there is the possibility of tiny changes in the base annual cycle (< 0.01 °C), and thus the anomalies calculated therefrom. This is the reason for the February 2016 value being +0.71 °C this [that] month.”
If not CO2, which is increasing gradually, what caused the sudden warming.? We do not know. Possibilities need to be sorted out. As Christy and Spencer write, the El Niño contributed, but the data are not sufficiently clear. The uncertainty allows for a good deal of speculation, and below TWTW will engage in some. See links under Measurement Issues – Atmosphere.
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Speculating on Abrupt Atmospheric Warming: There is little question that strong El Niños in 1998 and 2016 put a large amount of water vapor into the atmosphere and were the dominant cause of atmospheric warming in those years, usually with a lag of 4 to 6 months. But the current El Niño has not peaked. Is there something else that can be contributing to the unusual warming?
In “Empirical assessment of the role of the Sun in climate change using balanced multi-proxy solar records” published by Geoscience Frontiers, Nicola Scafetta takes exception to the publications of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which give the sun an extremely minor role in causing climate and temperature changes. The abstract begins:
“The role of the Sun in climate change is hotly debated. Some studies suggest its impact is significant, while others suggest it is minimal. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) supports the latter view and suggests that nearly 100% of the observed surface warming from 1850–1900 to 2020 is due to anthropogenic emissions. However, the IPCC’s conclusions are based solely on computer simulations made with global climate models (GCMs) forced with a total solar irradiance (TSI) record showing a low multi-decadal and secular variability. The same models also assume that the Sun affects the climate system only through radiative forcing – such as TSI – even though the climate could also be affected by other solar processes. In this paper I propose three “balanced” multi-proxy models of total solar activity (TSA) that consider all main solar proxies proposed in scientific literature.”
The merits and the results of the Scafetta’s models are not discussed here. However, Scafetta concludes his abstract with:
“The result also suggests that at least about 80% of the solar influence on the climate may not be induced by TSI forcing alone, but rather by other Sun-climate processes (e.g., by a solar magnetic modulation of cosmic ray and other particle fluxes, and/or others), which must be thoroughly investigated and physically understood before trustworthy GCMs can be created. This result explains why empirical studies often found that the solar contribution to climate changes throughout the Holocene has been significant, whereas GCM-based studies, which only adopt radiative forcings, suggest that the Sun plays a relatively modest role. Appendix A (Supplementary Data Text) includes the proposed TSA records.” [Boldface added]
The solar magnetic modulation of cosmic rays and other particle fluxes has been well tested by CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, in its CLOUD experiments and was not rejected. Yet, the highly politicized IPCC has completely ignored this research. Thus, the Svensmark Hypothesis advanced by Henrik Svensmark and Eigil Friis-Christensen linking high energy cosmic waves with changing intensity of solar wind may be a possible explanation for the current abrupt warming. Atmospheric ionization and cloud formation, key to the Svensmark Hypothesis was further discussed in an article in Nature, Scientific Reports. The abstract states:
“Atmospheric ionization produced by cosmic rays has been suspected to influence aerosols and clouds, but its actual importance has been questioned. If changes in atmospheric ionization have a substantial impact on clouds, one would expect to observe significant responses in Earth’s energy budget. Here it is shown that the average of the five strongest week-long decreases in atmospheric ionization coincides with changes in the average net radiative balance of 1.7 W/m2 (median value: 1.2 W/m2) using CERES satellite observations. Simultaneous satellite observations of clouds show that these variations are mainly caused by changes in the short-wave radiation of low liquid clouds along with small changes in the long-wave radiation and are almost exclusively located over the pristine areas of the oceans. These observed radiation and cloud changes are consistent with a link in which atmospheric ionization modulates aerosol’s formation and growth, which survive to cloud condensation nuclei and ultimately affect cloud formation and thereby temporarily the radiative balance of Earth.”
To explore the possibility of solar activity reducing cloudiness, resulting in warming further, one needs to check on changing solar activity. It appears that the sun is in an active phase possibly about to “flip” its magnetic poles. In “The Sun’s Polar Magnetic Field will Soon Flip – And GONG is Watching,” researchers at the US National Solar Observatory write:
The Sun is about to turn upside down – magnetically speaking, of course.
In recent months, we’ve seen an uptick in explosive solar events from dramatic X-class flares to Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs), to powerful geomagnetic storms and a record-shattering sunspot count in June. The Sun may appear to be a raging inferno to the general public, but to solar scientists, it’s business as usual.
An active Sun was expected, and these events are indications that the current Solar Cycle 25 is reaching its peak in activity, known as Solar Maximum. The Sun typically follows 11-year cycles bookended by periods of Maximum (high activity) and Minimum (low activity). When this cycle reaches Maximum, the Sun will begin to “quiet down” and decrease in activity as it transitions to Solar Minimum over the next decade. Once reached, Solar Cycle 26 will begin.
The Sun is busy, but one of the exciting developments is the reversal of its magnetic poles. Like Earth, the Sun has two magnetic poles, one positive and one negative. These poles change polarity, or magnetically flip, but unlike Earth’s poles that reverse roughly every 300,000 years, the solar poles flip about every 11 years!
The Sun’s polar field reversal is the major hallmark event that signals the end of a solar cycle’s Maximum period and ushers in the transition to Minimum. After the reversal, the newly established polar field will determine the strength of the next solar cycle. While the polar field reversal doesn’t happen in a dramatic display of firepower, it is an enormous global change with many consequences. For example, this is the only instance where activity like filament eruptions and CMEs – known to negatively impact Earth’s power and communication networks – can happen at any latitude on the Sun, including its poles.
The reversal happens when the Sun’s polar magnetic fields are weakened and replaced with a new field of the opposite polarity (e.g., going from positive to negative). The reversal is driven by sunspots, the magnetically-complex structures that create active regions where flares and other solar events originate. As sunspots emerge from the Sun’s interior in polar-opposite pairs, plasma flows rearrange their magnetic fields, stretching, weakening, and emphasizing the biases of their polarities. These weakened sunspot fields are carried by plasma flows towards the poles. The newly-arrived field tends to be of opposite magnetic polarity to the existing polar field, and when opposite polarities come into contact, they destroy each other. This process comes to a head at the peak of the solar cycle, when enough opposite-polarity fields arrive at the poles, destroying the polar field, and replacing it with a new polar field of the opposite magnetic polarity.
While polar field reversals vary in speed in timing, it generally takes a year or two to complete, but it varies. Solar Cycle 24’s north polar field took nearly five years to reverse!
On Earth, the effects of the polar field reversal are rarely felt, but the solar community is paying close attention. Orientation of magnetic fields in CMEs may be affected by large-scale magnetic fields. Thus, having negative (southern) polarity fields at the Sun’s North pole and positive (northern) polarity at the South pole would create magnetic topology opposite to Earth’s magnetic field. During that period, on average, the CMEs will have a slightly larger impact on Earth as compared with the period when the polar fields have opposite polarities. Thus, one should expect that after the polar magnetic field reversal and rebuilding, on average, the geomagnetic storms would be stronger than in the declining phase of Cycle 24 and the rising phase of Cycle 25.
The NSO operates the NSF’s six ground-based solar telescopes that make up the GONG suite of ground-based solar telescopes. GONG stations are strategically located around the world to maintain a near round-the-clock surveillance of the visible Sun and have documented over 20 years of solar data. Observing the progress of the Sun’s polar migration is one of its many responsibilities.
The article discusses the characteristics and importance of GONG, then concludes:
“While the solar poles will ‘flip’, rest assured, there’s no need for us to flip out. This is a naturally occurring process on a massive scale that’s happened throughout the Sun’s lifetime. A polar field reversal would indicate a healthy solar cycle and that things will continue as it was in the past, whereas a lack of a reversal would indicate potential major changes to the solar cycle. As we anticipate the polar field reversal, we can expect to see a larger number of X-class flares, larger CMEs, and stronger geomagnetic storms – stay tuned for the next update!”
Other than brief, 3 day and 21-day forecasts, TWTW was unable to find any updates on high energy cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere or any systematic database on such activity. The brief forecasts showed that cosmic ray activity was quiet. Christy and Spencer note that the conterminous US was only slightly above average. This may have been due to smoke from Canadian forest fires covering much of the US on otherwise clear days. It appears we need to wait to see what nature reveals before we can know what she reveals.
See links under Science: Is the Sun Rising? and Commentary: Is the Sun Rising?
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Advice to Students: WUWT posted comments by engineer Ron Barmby on the talk experimental physicist John Clauser, Nobel Laurate in physics, 2022, gave to students in South Korea. The comments include:
“Dr. Clauser told the young South Koreans that when he conducted his prize-winning experiments to settle the debate between Albert Einstein (who rejected quantum entanglement) and Niels Bohr (who supported it), he did not know the answer beforehand. He sought and discovered reality by careful observation of natural phenomena.
Clauser warned the students against being used to manufacture an interpretation of truth at variance with reality, which would then be propagandized opportunistically by non-scientific business and political leaders (he called them ‘techno-cons’). If the techno-cons can sell this distortion of reality to the public as truth, they win because then they can propose responses or solutions in line with their own agendas. If they can’t sell it, they will switch to another contortion of truth and resume selling. [Boldface added]
See link under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
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Biased Fact-Checking: The current fad of “fact-checking” is demonstrating the bias of fact checkers. In this example, Facebook “fact-checked” Australian scientist and diver Jennifer Marohasy who addressed claims made in March 2022 that corals at John Brewer Reef were badly bleached. She wrote about the situation again on Oct 2, 2023. Her post starts (photos excluded):
I was back at John Brewer Reef yesterday looking for the same coral that was reported as badly bleached in March 2022. Do you think I could find it?
Some journalists have a tendency to extrapolate from the specific to the general. For example, Graham Readfearn, writing in The Guardian on March 22, 2022, extrapolated from the condition of one coral at one reef to the entire Great Barrier Reef. Quoting marine biologist Adam Smith, he wrote 18 months ago:
‘We’ve definitely just seen corals that are stressed and white… This is one of the healthiest reefs off Townsville and one of the best reefs on the whole Great Barrier Reef. So, for these corals to be stressed and damaged… well, it’s likely it’s the same at other reefs…’
The online clickbait was a photograph of Smith looking at a branching Acropora with some bleaching, growing from the center of a plate Acropora that showed no bleaching at all.
Just a few days later the situation was reported as even more dire with Readfearn this time quoting government scientists:
‘The Great Barrier Reef has been hit with a sixth mass coral bleaching event, the marine park’s authority has confirmed, with aerial surveys showing almost no reefs across a 1,200km stretch escaping the heat.
The Guardian understands a United Nations mission currently under way to check the health and management of the reef will be briefed on the initial findings of the surveys as early as Friday in Townsville …
Government scientists said the confirmation showed the urgency of cutting greenhouse gas emissions that were driving the repeated mass bleachings. [end quote]
The story went around the world, accompanied mostly by stock images of bleached coral or aerial footage from so high in the sky it was impossible to see individual corals. There was a map to make it even more official.
In July 2022 Marohasy reported on her findings about the reef with photographs in a post on her website which included the statement: “Most of the corals at the reef crest at John Brewer are now various shades of beige to chocolate brown, and so the reef is looking exceptionally healthy.”
She explains her subsequent treatment:
“There was more information in the captions accompanying the ten photographs, but again this information was limited to John Brewer Reef. The blog post [Marohasy’s] was republished by the Institute of Public Affairs.
Facebook subsequently attached a ‘warning’, indicating that my article had been ‘Fact Checked’ and found to be ‘misleading’.
This is a serious accusation.
Only because Scott Hargreaves, Executive Director at the IPA, was prepared to check the details of the RMIT Univrsity FactLab allegation, my article was not simply removed from the IPA website. Scott saw through the hypocrisy. He encouraged me to submit an appeal, which I did on August 2, 2022. That appeal was dismissed on August 5 with reference to an unrelated blog post as evidence I inappropriately extrapolate from the specific to the general this time with reference to the speed of recovery from the bleaching.” [Boldface added]
Apparently, some “fact checkers” have no difficulty with journalists and government officials and scientists extrapolating from the specific to the general – such as the “the oceans are boiling.” However, these “fact checkers” sound the alarm when contrary scientists are accused of making such extrapolations?
See link under Changing Seas.
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Number of the Week: less than 15% of the time in 2021, then dropped.
For years TWTW has used the Gorona del Viento project (wind turbines and a pumped storage reservoirs) on El Hierro Island (population less than 12,000) in the Canary Islands as a standard showing that wind power and storage are insufficient to supply a modern community with reliable electrical power. According to earlier reports from the utility, the system failed only 40% of the time over a year. Diesel is the needed back-up. Francis Menton has examined more current data. He writes:
“There are 8760 hours in a year (8784 in a leap year like 2020). So, in 2019 they got all of their electricity from the wind/hydro system about 26% of the time. Then that dropped to under 22% of the time in 2020, and less than 15% of the time in 2021. Sometime in 2022 they stopped reporting the data. Now they blare out baloney about “tons of carbon emissions saved” while running the backup diesel generator fully 85% of the time.”
Yet many politicians insist they can design a system to provide affordable, reliable wind and solar power to a modern industrialized nation. As Menton states, show me the demonstration project.
NEWS YOU CAN USE:
Science: Is the Sun Rising?
The Next Great Total Solar Eclipse On US Soil Is Now Just About Six Months Away…Monday, April 8th, 2024
By Paul Doran, WUWT, Oct 6, 2023
The Sun’s Polar Magnetic Field will Soon Flip – And GONG is Watching
By Alexei Pevtsov, et al. National Solar Observatory (NSO), Aug 3, 2023 [H/t Anthony Watts]
Atmospheric ionization and cloud radiative forcing
By Henrik Svensmark, et al, Nature Scientific Reports, Oct 11, 2021
Commentary: Is the Sun Rising?
Has the Sun’s true role in global warming been miscalculated?
Press Release, CERES Team, Oct 3, 2023
New Studies: Selection Bias In Datasets Advances A False Narrative The Sun Has No Climate Impact
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Oct 5, 2023
Link to one study: Challenges in the Detection and Attribution of Northern Hemisphere Surface Temperature trends Since 1850
By Connolly, et al, Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics, October 2023
Link to second paper: Empirical assessment of the role of the Sun in climate change using balanced multi-proxy solar records
By Nicola Scafetta, Geoscience Frontiers, November 2023
Censorship
The BBC Seminar That Banned Discussion Of Climate Change
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 1, 2023
“The very real suspicion is that the event was deliberately designed from the very outset to come up with the result that it did– ie that ‘the weight of evidence no longer justifies equal space being given to the opponents of the consensus’”
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
Challenging the Orthodoxy
Truth and Science: A Nobel Laureate’s Advice to Students
By Ron Barnby, WUWT, Oct 4, 2023
Atmosphere and Greenhouse Gas Primer
W. A. van Wijngaarden and W. Happer, Preprint, Mar 3, 2023
Climate Alarmist Claim Fact Checks
By Joseph D’Aleo, ICECAP, Oct 4, 2023
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/political-climate/alarmist_claim_rebuttals_updated/
Critical Examination of Hurricane Intensification Predictions
Why climate models not yet worth their salt!
By Jim Steele, WUWT, Sep 30, 2023
“You can always recognize biased alarmist scientists and media. They will report the intensification of a hurricane in a very small region for a very short time where barrier layers form, and only blame it on CO2global warming.”
Julian Simon Memorial Award 2023: Comments of David Simon
By David Simon, Master Resource, Oct 2, 2023
“This year’s award recipients, Marian Tupy and Gale Pooley, began working together a few years ago on a very ambitious project that last year reached an apex with the publication of their book, Superabundance. My father would have loved this book.”
Recycling 500-Year-Old Scams
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Oct 5, 2023
“Five hundred years ago experts predicted London was about to drown. The same scam continues today.”
[SEPP Comment: The earlier prophesy came from Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions by Charles Makay, 1841]
Defending the Orthodoxy
Pope singles out US for ‘irresponsible’ excess in call for action on climate change
By Lauren Irwin, The Hill, Oct 4, 2023
“Pope Francis singled out the United States for its ‘irresponsible’ Western lifestyle and excess carbon emissions in a Wednesday address at the United Nations.”
[SEPP Comment: Catholic World News had the following: “New papal document puts climate change before faith [news analysis]” The article stated: “In the Galileo controversy, some Church leaders unwisely sought to settle a scientific debate by invoking ecclesiastical authority. In this new document Pope Francis takes the same approach to the issue of climate change, insisting that only radical economic and political reforms can stave off environmental disaster.”]
Questioning the Orthodoxy
Chump summit
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 4, 2023
“P.S. The Secretary-General’s closing remarks to this futile gathering ended with ‘Take no prisoners.’ Sure, just execute your opposition. Why are we a member of this thing?”
No Way, Norway
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 4, 2023
Link to paper: To what extent are temperature levels changing due to greenhouse gas emissions?
By John K. Dagsvik and Sigmund H. Moen, Statistics Norway, September 2023
“’the results imply that the effect of man-made CO2 emissions does not appear to be sufficiently strong to cause systematic changes in the pattern of the temperature fluctuations. In other words, our analysis indicates that with the current level of knowledge, it seems impossible to determine how much of the temperature increase is due to emissions of CO2.’”
Doomsday Climate Talk, Déjà vu
By Ron Clutz, Science Matters, Oct 2, 2023
[SEPP Comment: Contains the graph: “The measured (symbols on left) and modeled (lines) temperature trends vs. altitude. The Russian model comes closest to the data, and the worst fit is GFDL-CM3, Manabe’s model for which he was awarded a Nobel prize. (Fig. 3 from John R. Christy and Richard T. McNider, DOI:10.1007/s13143-017-0070-z, annotated.)”]
CO2 Fluxes Are Not Like Cash Flows
By Ron Clutz, Science Matters, Oct 1, 2023
Link to paper and discussion: On Hens, Eggs, Temperatures and CO2: Causal Links in Earth’s Atmosphere
By Demetris Koutsoyiannis, et al. Sci, Sep 13, 2023
link to discussion: Causality and climate
By Antonis Christofides, Demetris Koutsoyiannis, et al (Same authors as the On Hen… paper, Climate Etc., Sep 26, 2023
Do The Met Office Know What Extreme Weather Really Looks Like?
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 4, 2023
“I have a prediction!
At the end of the year, the Met Office’s State of the Climate report will declare 2023 as a ‘Year of Extremes’.”
Tidbits
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 4, 2023
Includes Jochem Marotzke, head of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology.
Wrong Influences Give Us Corrupted ‘Science’
scientific method illustrated as an ongoing process
By Larry Bell, Newsmax, Oct 5, 2023
More Real-World Evidence Indicates ‘Trace Gases Such As CO2 Don’t Have Any Influence…On Climate’
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Oct 3, 2023
Link to paper: The Real Origin of Climate Change and the Feasibilities of Its Mitigation
By Thomas Allmendinger, Atmospheric and Climate Sciences, 2023
[SEPP Comment: It would be more correct to say that greenhouse gases (such as H2O and CO2) are important in keeping land masses of Earth warm enough at night to support complex life but lose effectiveness with diminishing returns. At current concentrations, increasing CO2 has a minimal effect on temperatures. The author erroneously uses the 1896 paper by Arrhenius, which corrected ten years later, but these errors were continued by others. More recent studies in spectroscopy and the HITRAN database give a better understanding of what is occurring in the atmosphere with increasing CO2.]
Change in US Administrations
Biden’s energy rhetoric doesn’t reflect reality
By Brigham A. McCown, Washington Times, Oct 2, 2023 [H/t William Readdy]
Social Benefits of Carbon Dioxide
CO2 Greening: Getting Back to the Basics
By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, Oct 5, 2023
From National Academy of Sciences, et al., (1992): “Enriching the atmosphere to 600 ppm CO2 should increase all yields, especially plants with a photosynthesis like wheat that responds sharply to more CO2. It should close the gap between wheat and corn. It should especially favor the many plants in the natural landscape that have a responsive photosynthesis like wheat.”
Seeking a Common Ground
The Baloney Detection Kit
Carl Sagan’s rules for critical thinking offer cognitive fortification against propaganda, pseudoscience, and general falsehood.
By Maria Popova, The Marginalian (formerly Brain Pickings), Accessed Oct 2, 2023
How trees influence cloud formation
By Jan Berndorff, Paul Scherrer Institute, Phys.org, Sep 8, 2023 [H/t WUWT]
Link to paper: Role of sesquiterpenes in biogenic new particle formation
By Lubna Dada, AAAS Science Advances, Sep 8, 2023
From the abstract: “We find that a class of vapors termed ultralow-volatility organic compounds (ULVOCs) are highly efficient nucleators and quantitatively determine NPF [new particle formation] efficiency. When compared with a mixture of isoprene and monoterpene alone, adding only 2% sesquiterpene increases the ULVOC yield and doubles the formation rate. Thus, sesquiterpene emissions need to be included in assessments of global aerosol concentrations in pristine climates where biogenic NPF is expected to be a major source of cloud condensation nuclei.”
[SEPP Comment: The Great Smoky Mountains were so named after the VOCs emitted by trees, particularly late summer. In recent years, green groups claimed it was for clouds.]
Models v. Observations
Climate Models Wrong On East Pacific… “We Don’t Know Why This Cooling Is Happening”
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Oct 3, 2023
Measurement Issues — Surface
Applying Scale and Context to 2023’s “Record” High Temperatures
By David Middleton, WUWT, Oct 3, 2023
Measurement Issues — Atmosphere
UAH Global Temperature Update for September 2023: +0.90 deg. C
By Roy Spencer, Global Warming, Oct 2, 2023
“The linear warming trend since January 1979 still stands at +0.14 C/decade (+0.12 C/decade over the global-averaged oceans, and +0.19 C/decade over global-averaged land).”
Global Temperature Report
By Staff, Earth System Science Center, UAH, September 2023, Oct 5, 2023
Map: https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/climate/2023/SEPTEMBER_2023.png
Graph: https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/climate/2023/tlt_update_bar.png
Text by John Christy and Roy Spencer: https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/climate/2023/september2023/GTR_202309SEP_v1.pdf
Global Monthly Mean CO2
By Staff, Global Monitoring Laboratory, NOAA, Accessed Oct 6, 2023
Changing Weather
Stuff you’re not allowed to know #7: trends in natural disasters
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 4, 2023
Link to: RETRACTED ARTICLE: 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
PDO-ENSO interactions over the past four centuries
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 4, 2023
From the CO2 Science Archive:
Germany’s By Far Worst Ever Flood Happened Nearly 700 Years Ago… The Magdalen Flood
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Oct 4, 2023
Video in German
Germany 17.2°C Mean September Temperature Sets All-Time High…DWD Blames “Climate Change”
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Oct 1, 2023
New York City Floods
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 1, 2023
“wettest day on record”
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Sep 30, 2023
“Horses Drowned in Brooklyn and Human Beings in Peril.” — 1903
The Jet Stream is Strengthening As Autumn Weather Settles In to the Northwest
By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, Oct 5, 2023
Changing Seas
Nothing To Sea Here Folks
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 2, 2023
Video – The sea level scare
AMOC: A Non-Tipping point
By Gabriel Oxenstierna, WUWT, Oct 5, 2023
Finding that Same Coral!
By Jennifer Marohasy, Her Blog, Oct 2, 2023
Changing Cryosphere – Land / Sea Ice
“Yes, Antarctic sea ice is melting faster than ever before”
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Oct 3, 2023
[SEPP Comment: Particularly when Vostok Station, on high ground, hits minus 107 F, when dry ice (frozen CO2) sublimates (evaporates) at minus 109 F.]
Climate scientists admit they have a 90% chance of being wrong about Arctic sea ice
By Javier Vinós, WUWT, Oct 4, 2023
[SEPP Comment: To climate scientists, great disparities between data and claims are not an admission, just an oversight.]
If at first you don’t recede
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 4, 2023
Changing Earth
Rock Weathering as a CO₂ Sink Or?: A New Perspective
By Charles Rotter, WUWT, Oct 6, 2023
Link to paper: Rock organic carbon oxidation CO2 release offsets silicate weathering sink
By Jesse R. Zondervan, et al., Nature, Oct 4, 2023
[SEPP Comment: Authors find the release of CO2 from exposed rocks rival or exceed the CO2 drawdown from silicate weathering. “Hotspots of CO2 release are found in mountain ranges with high uplift rates exposing fine-grained sedimentary rock, such as the eastern Himalayas, the Rocky Mountains and the Andes.”]
An Unexplored Source of Climate Change: Land Evapotranspiration Changes Over Time.
By Charles Blaisdell, WUWT, Oct 5, 2023
Lowering Standards
BBC Italy Floods Complaint Goes To ECU
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 6, 2023
“Another BBC complaint is wending its way through their Executive Complaints Unit!
You will probably remember their claim after the Bologna floods in May of ‘half annual rainfall in 36 hours’. The claim was made by weatherman Chris Fawkes, as a lead in to the weather forecast.
“He mentioned ‘over 200mm of rain’, but average annual rainfall in the region is about 1000mm, so the claim was clearly fake.”
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Yellow (Green) Journalism?
Hottest Evah September!!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 6, 2023
“’Greenhouse gases have been warming not just the atmosphere but also the deep ocean, especially in the Atlantic, added Prof Forster, and now a change in ocean circulation is ‘causing some of that heat from the deeper ocean to resurface and bite us’.
“Forster is quite wrong, knowingly I suspect, because it is physically impossible for GHGs to warm the deep ocean. This is because infrared radiation can only penetrate the top few millimeters of the sea.”
No climate signal in heatwave deaths
By David Whitehouse, Net Zeo Watch, Oct 2, 2023
The BBC Seminar & Andrew Simms
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 6, 2023
September sizzled to records and was so much warmer than average scientists call it ‘mind-blowing’
By Seth Borenstein, Yahoo News, Oct 4, 2023 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
[SEPP Comment: Poor science is accompanied by poor writing in the headline.]
Communicating Better to the Public – Exaggerate, or be Vague?
Storm Agnes In Pembrokeshire
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 5, 2023
Communicating Better to the Public – Make things up.
International Energy Agency Oil Demand Claims: Their Headlines May Please The Masters, But The Data Usually Says Something Else
By Terry Etam, BOE Report, Oct 3, 2023
New Zealand grid
By Chris Morris, Climate Etc. Sep 30, 2023
From comments: “Mark Jacobson of 100% renewable infamous fame – brags about the 45 countries with 50% plus penetration of renewables. Of those 45 countries, the only industrialized countries on the list have very high hydro electric energy generation (NZ, Norway, Iceland, parts of Canada) Without Hydro, none of industrialized countries come anywhere close to have high renewable penetration.”
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Propaganda
100% Fake Climate Journalism
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Oct 6, 2023
“In my studies of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better.”– Theodore Dalrymple
Video – Antarctic Sea ice
Is Much of Washington State Experiencing Severe and Extreme Drought?
It is very unfortunate when government entities provide information that is incorrect and exaggerated.
By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, Oct 3, 2023
Communicating Better to the Public – Protest
Climate Activists Defend Spreading Computer Malware to Educate Skeptics
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Sep 30, 2023
The climate racket
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 4, 2023
“So listen up, soup-throwing extremity-gluing nonsense-spouting brats of all ages: You live in a free society with a working, if messy, self-governing democracy. You can vote for climate action; you can schedule your own events; you can write letters to or items in the newspaper. You can blog, network and change your own lifestyle. But get the heck off the [tennis] court unless you’ve got a massive serve, a wicked backhand, and the endurance and heart of a champion.”
Questioning European Green
Foisting green levies onto gas bills will cause public health crisis, Sunak warned
Press Release, Net Zero Watch, Oct 4, 2023
“Campaign group Net Zero Watch has condemned Government plans to move renewables levies onto gas users.”
Questioning Green Elsewhere
The Jupiter Effect: The Hubris of Green Central Planners
By Tilak Doshi, Forbes, Via WUWT, Oct 6, 2023
“In conclusion, the ‘Jupiter Effect ‘ in modern climate change policy is a stark reminder of the dangers of hubris. Leaders who believe they can command the forces of nature and the global economy with edicts and decrees are bound to face the harsh realities of the world. As Friedrich von Hayek wisely noted:
‘The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design ‘.
It’s high time our leaders took a page out of King Canute’s book and recognized the limits of their power. Only then can we hope for pragmatic and effective solutions real and not made-up challenges we face.”
Expensive Cheap Energy
By Willis Eschenbach, WUWT, Oct 3, 2023
The Energy Transition is Social Vandalism
By Dr. Euan Mearns, CO2 Coalition, Oct 13, 2023
AFR: More Aussies Need to Volunteer for Energy Rationing
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Oct 3, 2023
Litigation Issues
Superfund Cleanups Descend Into Uncertainty
By Paul Driessen, WUWT, Oct 5, 2023
Cap-and-Trade and Carbon Taxes
Europe Launches a Carbon Tax Attack Against the US Economy
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Oct 1, 2023
Energy Issues — US
ERCOT Readies ‘Retired’ Gas Generation for the 2023/24 Winter Peak
By Ed Ireland, Master Resource, Oct 4, 2023
Washington’s Control of Energy
Government over U.S. Oil and Gas: A Summary
By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, Oct 6, 2023
Nuclear Energy and Fears
Renewable Energy? Microsoft Advertises for a Nuclear Data Center Project Leader
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Sep 30, 2023
[SEPP Comment: Don’t read too much into this. Growing corporations explore all feasible ways to reduce expected costs. Small, Modular Reactors (SMRs) may be ideal to provide reliable, affordable electricity to a cluster of data centers that need it 24/7/365. Further, unlike solar and wind, they will not burden the consumer with increasing costs by eating the cash flow needed to maintain reliable generation.]
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Solar and Wind
Update On Offshore Wind Projects Off The Mid-Atlantic And New England
By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Oct 5, 2023
“Will any of these wildly uneconomic offshore wind projects actually ever get built? Let’s hope not.”
Wind Blows
Excellent news for ratepayers, birds, bats, landscapes, and whales as offshore and onshore wind projects get scuttled
By Robert Bryce, His Blog, Oct 4, 2023
“Who knew that inflation and high interest rates were good for whales, birds, bats, seascapes, and rural landscapes?”
Failing underwater cables “pose global threat to offshore wind”
“Who knew high voltage cables running for kilometers in a deep electrolytic moving body of water would be expensive?”
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Oct 6, 2023
Rooftop Solar Power Has a Dark Side
By Alama Semels, Time, Sep 26, 2023
“This year, during the heat of summer, when temperatures in New York surpassed 90°F, the 22 solar panels on the roof of my house were doing absolutely nothing.”
[SEPP Comment: Not only the panels did not work, but if they did work, they would produce little electricity – upstate New York is a hot area for solar energy promotion, not production.]
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Energy — Storage
It’s Time To Build The Intermittent Renewable Plus Hydrogen Storage Demonstration Project!
By Franics Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Sep 30, 2023
How Much Energy Storage is Enough?
By Kevin Kilty, WIWT. Oct 5, 2023
Extending on “A Semi-Competent Report On Energy Storage From Britain’s Royal Society” by Francis Menton
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Vehicles
EV Owners Facing Soaring Insurance Costs
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 2, 2023
“My heart bleeds for this planet saving hero!!”
John Lewis stops insuring electric cars over repair cost fears
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 6, 2023
[SEPP Comment: The John Lewis department store is not one of the top ten car insurance companies in UK.]
Other News that May Be of Interest
The New York City PreK-12 Education Budget: New York Times Versus Reality
By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Oct 3, 2023
“If you wonder why people in New York City seem to have a terribly warped view of reality, look no farther than the New York Times. The Times is where all the seemingly well-educated and sophisticated upper income New Yorkers get their ‘news.’
“So a ‘huge fiscal cliff ‘ is coming, involving ‘hundreds of millions of dollars.’ Well, is that a lot or a little in the overall picture? You won’t find the answer here. Indeed, beyond one vague line that ‘New York invests more in its students than other large cities’, you won’t find here any of the important information that you would want to know for an informed consideration of the subject matter. For example, in the entire long piece, they never mention the overall size of the City’s education budget, the number of students, the per student spending level, or how the spending compares quantitatively with other cities. Instead, what we get is one after another dire warning about the terrible effects of cutting the level of education spending by even a penny.”
BELOW THE BOTTOM LINE
A Conversation with Google Bard on the Consensus
By Andy May, WUWT, Oct 5, 2023
Amusing
Climate Scientists Conversing
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Oct 4, 2023
EV kidnaps the driver at 30 mph, runs amok
And you thought your last software crash was bad
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Oct 5, 2023
Motorway service stations hiring staff to police surging levels of EV ‘charge rage’
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 7, 2023
[SEPP Comment: Does the US Secretary of Energy understand?]
ARTICLES
NO ARTICLES THIS WEEK
Homo sapiens greatest achievement has to be the industrial revolution. It’s also the one achievement that is hated more than anything else by globalist world leaders, Davos Man, NGOs and the legions of hangers on.
On a strange note, did Hamas know that they crashed Labour’s conference party? What should have been a fairly straightforward [economic and green] slam dunk now looks somewhat iffy. The old anti-semitism has raised its head again.
“Keir Starmer refused to suspend an MP who backed a campaign group that responded to the Hamas attack by launching a protest against the Israeli embassy….”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/10/08/starmer-refuses-suspend-apsana-begum-palestine-campaign/
Clearly, there’s a lot more flip-flopping for Keir to do.
But my money for entertainment this week is on Ed[stone] Miliband and his grand delusions.
“Ed Miliband to announce Labour plan to boost energy independence and cut bills”
Ed Miliband is to announce Labour’s plan for an energy independence act that would boost Britain’s energy independence and cut bills for families. The party says the bill will enable a Labour government to establish a UK electricity system fully based on clean power by 2030, with the largest expansion of renewable power in Britain’s history, and establish “GB Energy”, a publicly owned energy company announced by Keir Starmer last year.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/oct/08/labour-to-unveil-plan-for-largest-expansion-of-renewable-power-in-british-history?ref=biztoc.com
Yes, he thinks wind, solar and batteries can cut it.
If they win this election we are really fnucked.
Ed Miliband is totally delusional, as I’m sure you know. He is going to say
“In the 21st century with Labour, Britain will be an energy superpower once again, exporting clean power to the world and controlling our destiny”. (WTF)
He hasn’t even caught up with the fact National Grid has been saying for almost a year that unreliable projects already in the pipeline will have to wait up to 15 years for connection to the grid.
Liebour would be a plague on all our homes and businesses – they must be kept out – I hope millions vote Reform UK, if only in protest about the state of the LibLabCon cabal
I don’t see any reason to fuss about the reversal of the sun’s magnetic field. Here on Earth it has been a non-event every 11 years. Why wouldn’t it be a non-event again?
Is it not an amusing observation that ordinary things will suddenly capture the public’s attention, and all sorts of people who have never paid five minutes rational thoght to the topic suddenly know all about it. At some point their attention drifts to some other fancy.
I really thought, way back in 1988 or thereabouts, that the topic of global warming in those days would follow this general pattern. What I failed to see then is how useful the topic would be for carrying other agendas forward.
‘What I failed to see then is how useful the topic would be for carrying other agendas forward.’
As did we all. Assuming ‘other agendas’ refer to those of the Left, I fear we’re rapidly approaching a crucial period when we either reclaim the benefits or liberty or lose them for a very long time.
Indeed, Frank. It’s easy to be gloomy today.
Fascism is also rearing its ugly head around the world. The US doesn’t have perfect systems that can’t fail at some point.
No country has ‘perfect systems’, which is the preeminent reason for limiting government’s ability to introduce systematic errors into the economy. In other words, just let people figure out and implement what works. For what it’s worth, I consider ‘fascism’ to be just another form of ‘socialism’. Less virulent than communism, but just as certain to destroy society in the long run.
Just another thing to keep populace in a state of fear.
Correct Mike – project fear knows no bounds – a fearful mass is easily controlled
Or, they get tired of all the grim predictions and stop watching the nightly news.
Regarding the above article’s first topic subheading Speculating on Abrupt Atmospheric Warming, there was no mention that “abrupt” warming might be attributed to relatively long-term effects from the Hunga-Tonga volcano eruption that injected massive amounts of water into the stratosphere back in January 2022.
Given the ambient low pressure and sub-freezing temperatures throughout the stratosphere, most of the injected water (in saturated vapor and liquid phases) must have transformed quickly into water-ice microcrystals. In turn, these microcrystals would slowly sublimate over time at an unknown rate as a function of crystal size, energy input and local pressure.
The vapor pressures of water ice in temperature equilibrium with the stratosphere’s normal gradient over it’s lower altitudes will be significantly lower (an order of magnitude or more) than the ambient pressures, implying that the rate of sublimation of those ice crystals should be “very slow”.
Would such ice microcrystals still be up there? Would such ice microcrystals cause overall warming or overall cooling of the underlaying troposphere? Would any degree of warming be dependent on the time needed for the majority of such ice microcrystals to gravitationally settle down to the tropopause or lower elevations where they would change phase into water vapor, Earth’s predominant greenhouse gas?
. . . so many questions, so few answers.
I believe the physical consequences of Hunga-Tonga’s eruption cannot be ruled out as a major contributor, if not outright cause, of the “abrupt warming” discussed above.
Ref: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/07/23/ryan-maue-on-hunga-tonga-hunga-haapai-submarine-volcano/
Ref: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/08/05/record-global-temperatures-driven-by-hunga-tonga-volcanic-water-vapor-visualized/
Ref: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/08/02/tonga-eruption-blasted-unprecedented-amount-of-water-into-stratosphere/
https://climatechangedispatch.com/voters-give-germanys-ruling-green-coalition-a-beating-in-state-elections/
Sanity is returning to the German nation
https://climatechangedispatch.com/the-green-energy-subsidy-lie/
Without large, increasing, continuous subsidies & levies, there is zero business case for ruinables
“If sustained over a period of several years, such a temperature decrease could be sufficient to trigger an ice age! — S. I. Rasool and S. H. Schneider, Science, Jul. 9, 1971 [Boldface added]”
Did Rasool and Schneider really not know the difference between ice age, glacial, and interglacial??