Please note the caveat at the end of this essay – Anthony
Essay by Eric Worrall
Dr. Willie Soon covers possible abiotic sources for hydrocarbons, the role of the sun in climate change, the importance of independence, and his one time friend Dr. Michael Mann.
From Dr. Soon’s Ceres Science website;
00:01:49 Fossil Fuels in Space
00:14:27 Global Warming Throughout History
00:25:31 Outside Forces are Ruining Science
00:40:41 Evidence of God
I personally found the abiotic fuel discussion fascinating. Dr. Willie Soon makes a compelling case that at least some sources of fossil fuel are likely abiotic. Our solar system, the observable universe is full of abiotic hydrocarbons, and laboratory experiments suggest all you need is the right precursor chemicals and a lot of heat and pressure. There are regions in the Earth’s mantle with the right temperature and pressure, and there is surely enough variation in mantle chemistry to at least sometimes provide the right conditions for hydrocarbon synthesis.
…
Dr. Soon was pointing out that there is considerable evidence that this is not the only way that hydrocarbons can be produced:
- For example, in a 2009 paper in Nature Geoscience, Kolesnikov and colleagues showed that under very high pressures and temperatures, methane gas can be converted into short-chained hydrocarbons (https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo591).
- Another example they discussed was the fact that liquid methane and small-chained hydrocarbons are found in Saturn’s moon, Titan – see Mastrogiuseppe and colleagues (2019), Nature Astronomy; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-019-0714-2; Hayes (2016). Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-earth-060115-012247.
- Meanwhile, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons have also been found in Titan’s atmosphere – see Zhao and colleagues (2018), Nature Astronomy, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-018-0585-y.
- They also mentioned that multiple chlorinated hydrocarbons have been identified on Mars by the Curiosity rover – see Freissinet and colleagues (2015), Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, https://doi.org/10.1002/2014JE004737.
- Finally, several studies have suggested that PAHs (Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons) can also be formed in interstellar space (i.e., deep space in between stars). E.g., Dorian S. N. Parker and colleagues (2011), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.11138271.
But what does all of this mean?
From Dr. Soon’s perspective, it means we should be careful not to assume all of the hydrocarbons on Earth are “fossil fuels”. We do not yet know what percentage of the Earth’s hydrocarbons were formed from biological fossils and what percentage were formed from non-biological (“abiogenic”) processes.
…
Read more: https://www.ceres-science.com/post/dr-willie-soon-s-interview-by-tucker-carlson-december-2023
In 2017 I had the privilege of hanging out with my friend Dr. Willie Soon for a few evenings at the Heartland conference in Washington DC. My most striking impression from meeting Dr. Soon in person, besides how interesting he is to talk to, his kind nature, and the immense depth of his knowledge, is he is one of those rare people who positively radiates integrity. He doesn’t compromise with anyone or anything when it comes to speaking his heart and mind.
CAVEAT: While there is certainly the possibility that hydrocarbons originated elsewhere and methane and oil could have dual origins of their base components, there isn’t a clear and compelling case for the formation of abiotic oil.
Methane formation from base components seems far more plausible, because it is a simpler process.
This overview below provides a simplified comparison of the two theories (organic based vs abiotic), and the subject is much more complex and nuanced in scientific literature. Both Anthony and Charles contributed to this caveat.
The debate over the origin of petroleum centers around two primary theories: the biotic theory and the abiotic theory. Here’s a summary of the evidence for each:
Biotic Theory (Organic Deposition)
- Biological Markers: Petroleum often contains biomarkers which are molecular fossils of biological origin, like chlorophyll and hemoglobin derivatives. These markers indicate a biological origin.
- Carbon Isotope Ratios: The carbon in oil typically shows a ratio of carbon-12 to carbon-13 that is similar to the ratio found in plants and microorganisms, suggesting an organic source.
- Geological Context: Petroleum is often found in sedimentary rocks that are associated with ancient marine environments, consistent with the accumulation of organic material.
- Laboratory Simulation: Experiments simulating natural conditions have shown that petroleum-like substances can be formed from organic material under high pressure and temperature.
Abiotic Theory (Thomas Gold’s Hypothesis)
- Deep Earth Hydrocarbons: Thomas Gold suggested that hydrocarbons exist in the mantle and migrate upward. Some methane deposits, for example, have been proposed as having an abiotic origin.
- Carbon Isotope Anomalies: Some hydrocarbons show carbon isotope ratios that differ from typical biological material, which could suggest a non-biological origin.
- Methane on Other Planets: The presence of methane and other hydrocarbons on planets and moons where life is unlikely (like Titan, Saturn’s moon) suggests a possible abiotic pathway for hydrocarbon formation.
- Experimental Production: Laboratory experiments have demonstrated that hydrocarbons can be synthesized under high pressure and temperature from inorganic carbon sources, albeit not exactly the same as natural petroleum.
Critiques
- The majority scientific evidence favors the biotic theory due to overwhelming evidence from geological and chemical analyses.
- The abiotic theory, while intriguing, lacks substantial empirical evidence and doesn’t explain the presence of biological markers in petroleum.
- Some aspects of the abiotic theory have been incorporated into understanding the broader carbon cycle, especially in deep-earth processes, but they don’t negate the biotic origin of most petroleum deposits.
References
- For biotic theory: Tissot, B. P., & Welte, D. H. (1984). Petroleum Formation and Occurrence. Springer-Verlag.
- For abiotic theory: Gold, T. (1999). The Deep, Hot Biosphere. Springer-Verlag.
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Willie Soon is provocative, but tends to not quite have enough evidence. The solar model of climate change is reasonable, but the proxies are not quite there.
He admits this in the interview – claims 90% certainty but not absolute certainty. I’ve certainly spoken to solar physicists with different views, but I’d rather scientists make statements which might be wrong, than scientists stay silent.
I think everyone involved I’ve talked to agrees there are substantial problems with the TSI record.
Reminds me of a great quote- which I probably saw on WUWT.
“Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt” Richard Feynman”.
I’m surprised no one mentioned veins of the hydrocarbon kerogen that have been found in 3 billion year old (Archean) rocks. This is a waxy material that is insoluble in organic solvents, but yields a petroleum liquid on heating. I believe current thought is that it is reduced plant matter, which makes no sense to me.
Why does it make no sense? Life on this planet goes back around 4 billion years.
Plants
The proxies are there. There are only 4 Spörer-type grand solar minima in the Holocene. They are the longest (200 years) and deepest (2% increase in14C) grand solar minima. Each one of them coincides with one of the deepest abrupt cooling events of the Holocene. We can be 99% sure solar activity strongly affects climate.
Read the full evidence in my latest book. Solving the Climate Puzzle: The Sun’s Surprising Role
That is nonsense. Grand solar minima are simply longer duration centennial solar minima, and none of them last more than five sunspot cycles.
We all know what happens when plant and animal life dies. It becomes compost. It always has. Thomas Gold explained it in the Deep Hot Biosphere, which I read over 20 years ago. He calculated that all historical plant life on earth, if converted to oil, could not account for the amount of oil that we STILL HAVE, not to mention that which we have already used. He explains why oil fields refill, why drilling sites become economic again, etc.
It is impossible for ‘fossil’ fuels to even exist except possibly in the case of peat, which doesn’t easily compost. Methane, plus biological activity makes the fuel. It travels in veins, rising to the surface, trapped by surface material sometimes. If anyone believes the La Brea tar pits were created by dinosaurs just dying in the same spot, convince me. The tar was already there. It was not caused by decaying plants. It was 65 million years ago….just THINK about it and you will see that illogical fantasy of fossil fuel. Yes, there are leaf patterns in coal. Methane turned it into coal, the leaves didn’t create the coal. How can a single tree be petrified, except where methane passes through it? Pictures show it.
Why is there so much oil under desserts and in the polar regions? It’s not because fossils there suddenly decided to turn into oil, thousands of feet underground.
How can there be oil at 25,000 feet depth? What fossil ever experienced that depth? Yet, oil has been recovered at that depth.
Yes, I know that many will blow this off – that is because they ‘believe’, which is the same kind of ‘belief’ that others have in CO2-caused global warming. It is a BELIEF, not a FACT. Both can easily be disproved, and have been, but the disprovers are ignored, because he who shouts loudest will be heard best.
The idea that the amount of oil in the ground exceeds the total mass of all life that has ever lived on this planet is so absurd that I’m surprised anyone could seriously propose it. Life has been on this planet for billions of years.
Oil fields don’t refill, however oil inside those fields is able to move around. That’s why we don’t have to put down oil wells side by side.
For the most part, drilling sites become “economic” again because oil prices go up, or technology improves.
If it is impossible for biological material to become oil, then it would also be impossible for fossils to exist.
How did this methane get into the mantle? It’s much, much lighter than rock. What was the mechanism that held that gas beneath the rock, while the rock was still molten? For that matter, wouldn’t molten rock have been sufficiently hot to completely break down methane?
YOu need methane to petrify a tree? Really, methane causes the carbohydrates of a tree to become rock? I’d love to know the chemistry behind that transformation?
Why is there oil beneath deserts and in the arctic. There’s this little thing called plate tectonics. I’m guessing that you have never heard of it.
As to how fossils get thousands of feet under the earth. Why don’t you take a geology course and look up how sandstone forms? Or shale, or any of the other forms of sedimentary rock.
It’s not belief, it’s science, something which you quite apparently know nothing about.
The reason methane exists on other planets is the same reason why methane exists in great quantities out in space. It’s because carbon atoms bumped into hydrogen atoms while floating out in the great void, and formed methane. Nothing mysterious about it.
Actually, you obviously have not seen the calculations. I have. Remember, most biotic materiel simply composts. You are suggesting that the materiel that managed to not compost represents all the coal and oil on earth, past and present. That is so far-fetched as to not even trigger the questionability response. It simply cannot be. If you question it, it is because you have a belief system in place, instead of a logic system.
MarkW is basing his comments of the rock solid science of geology which is very, very logical. (no pun intended)
Composting requires bacteria (i.e. ‘biota’). huge volumes of methane evolve from bacterial action in bogs, swamps, garbage dumps, peat moss and coal deposits. Apriori reasoning (the kind a teenager uses to argue with his parents because he doesn’t have much empirical knowledge) is not your best friend.
Malthusian arguments and Global Warming arguments (“Gee,-what-else-could-it-be arguments) use this very lowest level of “logic” because they are teenagers or adults who never bothered to study empirical knowledge.
A wise person would reason, given the data so well presented in this article, that there appears to be both possibilities for the formation of hydrocarbons. Geological and geochemical data show a close connection between certain sedimentary formations and the oil and gas associated with them in the vast majority of petroleum resources. Certainly, we know that coal fields are biogenic fossil fuels. There are even tree and othe plant fossils and swamp creature fossils made of coal.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-worlds-largest-fossil-wilderness-30745943/
Many coal fields have been drilled for abundant methane (natural Gas)… and there are lakes of methane on Triton. You don’t take your pick!
Methane in coal seams came from coal that is breaking down.
The lakes of methane on Triton came from space, after the planet’s crust had cooled enough to not boil it off.
After the sun initiated fusion, it quickly drove most of the lighter stuff out of the inner solar system. This was long before the planets had finished forming. At the time the earth was forming, there was precious little water or methane in the inner solar system where the earth was forming.
How do you estimate what percentage composts and what percentage gets buried?
That is nothing more than a wild ass guess.
Also, youi forget that until fungus’s developed that had the ability to break down wood, nothing composted.
Consider river deltas, mud and organic material being deposited by the ton, millions of tons.
Beyond that, there is the physical impossibility of massive amounts of methane existing beneath the crust.
the amount of oil recovered from a field is something like 8% of the total so yes when technology improves more can be obtained
It would be helpful for you, jshotsky, to read the introduction of some geology and or geochemistry text books on this topic. Not only does coal contain macro fossils, e.g. of leave imprints as you point out, it also contains biomarkers, molecular fossils if you will, as does all crude oil.
Back in the day, I analyzed thousands of crude oil samples for a major, rhymes with “hell,” and never did I once observe a crude oil sample that did not contain biomarkers. I would like to see abiotic oil because I have a pretty good idea of what it would look like chemically.
Too many people have the Sinclair TV commercial understanding of how crude oil was formed. Even Wikipedia is better than that.
Now of course most of the hydrocarbons in the universe are of abiotic origin, and there are abiotic hydrocarbons on earth. That is not really in dispute. You won’t find coal (or leaves) on Saturn’s moons, however.
If you have fossils like that:
I ask, why these trace giving animals or plants aren’t fossilesed with the coal ?
The pasty material coming from below came into contact with these plants or animals and they where stamped in the pasty pre-coal
Plants colonized the land, long before animals started crawling out of the seas.
I’ve been rockhounding for 60+ years, A friend of mine with whom I hunt was a structural engineer in coal mines. He says the top of the coal layer always has fossils. I can verify this for two coal sites. I have a couple of 40lb tree stumps and dozens of shells and fish bones from said sites.
Concerned people know, if fossil fuel isn’t fossil but abiotic in uncountable quantities, there is no reason anymore for high prices selling it, as usual when offer is greater than demand. So a “consensus” had to be created, as in “climnate science”.
In my eyes, Thomas Gold is absolutely right. A lot of Russsian scientists wrote about abiotic oil and gas.
It still matters what the rate of production is, and whether it will accumulate at rates and locations that are economically and energy efficient to extract from.
Most of the fields we produce from become depleted and there are no obvious examples of them being refilled within the lifetime of the original production infrastructure.
Potentially a concentration on fossil origins has left us looking in the wrong places, but again, where would you start looking based on an abiotic theory?
Just as there is no data to support the AGW myth, there is no date to support the abiotic oil myth.
Every deposit of coal/oil/gas has been found exactly where the biotic theory says it should be found.
Despite many people looking for oil in other areas, none have been found. Not one.
There is no oil at 25,000 feet, it is all gas, it’s too hot. At 12,000 feet it can be over 400F with some condensate present. High pressure, high heat and very expensive, not economical for gas at that depth. You drill into an ancient surface that did not have life upon it, and you will drill a dry hole.
But it is not defendable about the root source of the hydrocarbons at depth, the reservoirs and traps are understood. Saturn’s moon Titan is an example of a world full of hydrocarbons and 80% Nitrogen atmosphere that probably did not have a biological source for its hydrocarbons.
Hi Anthony & Charles,
As a Geochemist, I should be able to contribute about abiogenic hydrocarbons, but I cannot.
In my working years, there were separate mineral geochemists and oily geochemists, the latter taking the topic over. I was a former. Since then, there has been study of isotopes in an around oils, whose interepretation is still maturing. The best I can add is that it is always unwise to close your mind.
I closely followed for some years the science from the Kola super-deep borehole, often awaiting printed translations from Russian (before the Internet translators appeared). Part of the justification for this rather expensive drilling project was to answer the abiotic questions. It is hard going, but almost a must-read for those interested in the topic.
Geoff S
A good response. An open mind is a questioning mind. Learning is an ability, that is available to everyone without a closed mind.
Read Thomas Gold’s books. You will see. He is long gone, but his books show he was correct.
Colonel Fletcher Prouty on the origins of oil, from around 15 mins in:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkJqraXqKLU&t=896s
“The second most prevalent liquid on Earth”..
Thank you for that.
Magma is likely the most prevalent. Water is below that and oil below that.
Geoff S
Can you at least help me out with this?
J. F. Kenney once had a Web page arguing, if not an abiotic origin of oil, a deep-Earth origin. There are broken links to his work on the Wikipedia article on Abiotic Oil.
His reasoning is that if oil is biotic, we don’t know how it is formed. At the temperatures and pressures in the crustal “oil windows”, he claimed that in an equilibrium thermodynamic process, straight-chain alkanes cannot be generated from the compounds in biological material, which are unsaturated an oxygenated carbon compounds. You can generate methane, but not the higher molecular weight saturated hydrocarbons.
OK, what about Fischer-Tropsch? You can pyrolyze all manner of carbon-containing substances into CO and H2, and then you use a catalyst to generate higher molecular weight alkanes. Fischer-Tropsch can be used to convert “stranded” natural gas into transportable, valuable diesel fuel, but you steam reform it into CO and H2 first. Furthermore, Fischer-Tropsch is a non-equilibrium chemical process. If you leave the paraffin (higher weight alkanes are paraffins) in the reactor too long, it reverts to methane as Kenney claims it would.
As to why the interest in converting methane into diesel fuel, methane is a chemically cleaner feedstock than coal, resulting in less degradation of the expensive nickle or cobalt catalyst materials. Unless you have chemically pure feedstock, the catalyst gets used up, so Fischer-Tropsch could be thought of as a way of converting cobalt into liquid fuel.
So, are there any thermodynamic reactions taking place in the ground that are like Fischer-Tropsch and don’t run to completion? J F Kenney claimed that there aren’t any. He further claimed that where oil can form is in the upper mantle and this is where oil is from, just like this is where diamonds are from.
Kenney pointed to a study published in Nature, where someone put water, iron oxide and calcium carbonate in a diamond anvil, applied the pressure and temperature of the upper mantle and with laser light, detected higher alkanes than methane. If one wants to be a stickler, this may not be abiotic oil because the calcium carbonate may be of fossil origin (sea shells) and then subducted into the mantle by plate tectonics. There is also the question as to how to bring this oil up to the crust in the absence of the explosive volcanoes supplying kimberlite diamond pipes, although Thomas Gold waved his hands about pore sizes in rocks.
So, how could oil be of biologic origin? What I read is that lay people are mistaken that it forms from ancient plants or even dead dinosaurs. Oil is formed from buried sediments of algea growing in anoxic lakes, anoxic so the sediments don’t compost and release methane and CO2. Furthermore, I have seen scholarly papers claiming that certain species of algea form vesicles that are chemically close to oil. In other words, oil isn’t nearly as abundant as the vast amount of buried organic matter, not only coal but also calcium carbonate. Oil is fussy as to the type of organic matter (specific species of algae) along with the conditions under which this matter is deposited.
So forget about oil being abiotic. Do we have a good explanation where biotic oil comes from? I asked a prominent Chemical Engineering professor conducting research on biofuels this question, and if I heard him correctly, he told me, no, we do not.
paulmilenkovic
Sorry, I cannot add much more.
Simply, too little is known about geology and geochemistry of rocks that are deeper than the 15 km or so that drilling can reach.
A dear colleage who rode on ahead 2 years ago wrote a book about possible importance of colloidal processes in petrogenesis and orogenesis.
https://www.connorcourtpublishing.com.au/THE-ORIGIN-OF-ROCKS-AND-MINERAL-DEPOSITS–John-Elliston_p_111.html
With a couple of exceptions, the world of academic geology preferred to ignore this study.
John met the wall that new scientific ideas face. But, it is reasonable to say that most new ideas will be crticized for lack of hard data. It is in the nature of research that ideas start small, then are put forward for exploration and expansion. Dr Soon is meeting the same wall, with (suprisingly) some commenters here criticising him for lacking data. That is so horribly anti-science.
Since about year 2000, more and more ideas are met with the cancel culture treatment of “do nothing, say nothing, hope it goes away. If not, throw in some hate.” Awful brains to do that.
Geoff S
FT synthesis makes mostly straight-chain hydrocarbons with few branches and basically no aromatics and naphthenes. There is some chemistry like FT that occurs around hydrothermal vents but not much hydrocarbon is made.
Crude oil retains a lot of the biological structure of cellular lipids from marine organisms.
Thank you for that.
As an original proposition I’m open to the proposition that Dr. Soon’s view on the subject is beyond the pale; certain of his views on matters I actually know something about are utterly indefensible. As to his argument that some hydrocarbons could be abiogenic, though, my background is less than rudimentary, and I’ve been unable to understand why so many people have found what he said risible.
So the fact that a geochemist shares my reaction gives me a measure of comfort.
“Petroleum” ? Ive always been led to believe that petroleum (petrol) is refined crude … am i wrong?
petra/petro/petri = to do with rock
e.g. Petrified = Turned to rock
Or Jesus’ ‘right hand man‘ ‘Saint Peter’ – originally of given-name Simon but Christ referred to him as his ‘rock’ = a thing/object person of great strength and stability
oleum = to do with oil, as originally vegetable oil especially extracted from (no surprise) Olives
Thus: Petroleum = Rock Oil
i.e. Oil that comes from rock(s)
Doesn’t clarify anything at but but explains where the name came from
i.e. Petroleum was oil that came out of the ground
Does that mean that petro-chemicals are chemicals that are derived from rocks?
Some people probably would agree with you, others equate petroleum and crude oil,
Yes. You are wrong.
From eia.gov: “Petroleum is a broad category that includes both crude oil and petroleum products. The terms oil and petroleum are sometimes used interchangeably.”
But in all sincerity, please don’t feel bad. We have all been ‘led to believe’ a lot of things in our lives, and that is how we survived infanthood and childhood, believing what we didn’t have the resources to find out for ourselves. We believed what we were told by those in authority (adults), and it was a very useful strategy that kept us alive into adulthood. So, understandably, as adults we continue to believe what we are told. Except it is no longer a useful strategy, because there are too many unethical people and institutions that easily control us by tapping into that deeply seated habit. So we are easily ‘gaslighted’. To refine our useful knowledge, we need to consciously work on developing the skill of examining our beliefs, and we must be willing to discard beliefs that are not supported by evidence. A great tool for doing that is science. That’s why it’s good to have people like Dr. Soon to help us along the path of growing up.
“So we are easily ‘gaslighted’”
Some are, some aren’t.
Unfortunately Willie Soon is as (self) blinkered as the Idso father & son.
Like an ever-eager dog with its favourite bone, utterly inseparable.
The Mind is closed – he is not a Scientist.
Affable, outwardly friendly and humorous BUT, even if he was The Last Man on Earth, I doubt any woman would marry him
i.e. Being able to crack jokes does NOT mean you have a GSOH, the exact opposite in fact
And as we know, Willie Soon only has one joke (about his ‘financial independence’ – he protests his innocence too strongly and too often)
Speaking of a closed mind – attack the author instead of the idea…
“he protests his innocence”
That is because he is perpetually attacked by leftist AGW scammers swilling deep from the “climate trough”, and by the anti-science media.
A lot of baseless LIES have been concocted… Don’t be like them !!!
He is allowed to correct their accusations.
They attack him that way, because they cannot attack the science.. as we all know.
You are hardly one to talk about a “closed mind”
He is married.. perhaps you are jealous ??
You could not prove that if your reputation depended on it. Guess what, friend? Now it does. Take as much virtual space as you need here, or better yet, submit it as a guest post essay to WUWT complete with every bit of evidence you can dredge up to 1) dispute their science-based assessments; and 2) whatever other wacko accusations you want to hurl at them. All eyes on you now. Stand and deliver.
Well said Russell !
Peta has basically ZERO credibility on most matters of real science.
And a manic zealot stand on many others.
Like his gross consumption of sugar.
When the alarmists don’t have an answer they resort to ad hominem attacks. Always — like clock-work!
Let’s be simple. For hundreds of millions of years, organic material accumulated. Humans have found some of that. Now, for a couple, or maybe a few hundred years, we are going to burn the stuff that is a tiny percentage of what actually accumulated (was left behind, from what was produced) and we are in a panic? Calm down.
Our mineral exploration company held seminars every few years, with roughly 30-50 in-house geoscientists and a dozen invited top people from outside, all arguing for 5 days or so. A lecture by one geologist nicknamed The Tube was criticised by another named Yups with “Your arguments are like your name. Long, hollow, a little rounded, often empty and not good for carrying anything of value.” Yet, we managed to find many new mines.
It might be a surprise for readers to learn that there was never any serious agreement in discussions about how rocks, minerals and ores formed. To the best of my knowledge, this is still the case. What is known of geology and its processes deeper than 10 km or so below the surface is back of the postage stamp quantity. It follows that mobile species (gases, liquids, colloidal rocks, molten rocks) have origins that require much more understanding. Yet, petroleum geoscientists find many new reservoirs.
As an aside, this lack of pure knowledge causes the geosciences to concentrate on applied matters, like how magnetic materials in rocks deformed the pattern of the Earth’s magnetic field and how some natural and human-made waves travel trough deeper parts of the Earth. I suggest that this is part of the reson why so many geoscientists are sceptical of modern climate change theory, because climate change is more guesswork than measurement, more theory than practical and so quite alien to thoughts.
Geoff S
The abiotic production of fuels (they wouldn’t be fossil) does not solve any of our energy needs. All the crude oil and coal, and most of the methane we use have a biotic origin.
Maybe we should favour renaming fossil fuels as, Photosynthesised fuel.
That would get the Climate Alarmists attention….
That would be good. All energy is solar energy, whether from our sun or another.
Rod,
“Hydrocarbons” should do the job. Geoff S
Should we take Soon seriously on this subject?
The right answer requires examining what Soon has done in science in previous decades.
What Soon has done is to take a lot of money from energy companies and he just happened to declare the sun is responsible for climate change, which is just what energy companies love to hear.
Soon did this with science fraud. By cherry picking incompetent data and ignoring all available better data that contradicted his solar theories. Then he applied circular reasoning. Claiming the data he cherry picked proved his theory was right, and also proved all other contradictory data must be wrong. That’s junk science 101,
As a result of his past junk science, it makes no sense to assume Soon knows what he is talking about on this new subject. Tucker Carlson is not qualified to judge whether or not Soon is likely to be reliable.
In fact, Soon is a BS artist.
There has been no correlation of surface temperatures and estimated solar energy (sunspot proxies) since the 1690s, the coldest decade of the Maunder Minimum period.
Soon has been writing and recycling an old paper for almost two decades.
Each time there is a cherry pick of a region, a series, a unique data blend, that somehow always manages to look similar (and increasingly different from any sensibly constructed time series) that correlates with the same solar activity estimate.
The paper is touted as proof that all other temperature series are suspect, but that the one “true” cherry picked series is driven by the sun.
Additional data that tell us this conclusion cannot be correct.
If the sun was driving the warming, we’d see it in the stratospheric temperatures (which are cooling in line with expectations from the impact of CO2, not warming due to the supposed increase in solar activity).
If land had extra warming caused by a rising urban heating effects, then we wouldn’t see similar warming in the oceans. But we do.
If the surface temperature data were corrupted, why do they line up with the satellite data from the independent AIRS and MSU instruments?
What we have with Soon is what happens when people are desperate to hold on to their solar narrative.
A correlation that was bogus when it was proposed three decades ago keeps being recycled by ever more desperate math gymnastics and sold as something else entirely.
Not only is the actual construction of the Soon et al narrative literally incredible, it contradicts dozens of independent lines of evidence.
Soon is a science fraud who should never be taken seriously on any science related subject.
Some conservatives are so biased against AGW, which almost 100% of scientists believe, that they are gullible to alternate junk science theories like Soon’s claptrap.
Note:
AGW is real and harmless
Climate change does not mean AGW
Climate change means CAGW
CAGW is a leftist fantasy.
NO-ONE takes a lukewarmer NON-SCIENTIST like you seriously, little dickie.
We all know who the BS artist here is.. And it is not Soon.
Soon has magnitudes of scientific knowledge more than you will ever have.
And magnitudes more honesty and integrity.
The ever-angry bNasty2000 retorts with his usual huge burst of science free verbal flatulence, with no attempt to refute anything I wrote.
Although Soon’s Ph.D. may impress you, because you are gullible, I want to remind you that the coming global warming crisis hoax is led by scientists with Ph.D.’s, and they sure Pile the CO2 scaremongering High and Deep.
Climate science you know not
You know less than I forgot.
Perhaps I understand science.. You certainly DO NOT.
You are basically ignorant on many facets.
Your arrogance mixed with your ignorance of is a hilariously petulant mix.
The usual no science comment
No attempt to refute anything
I wrote
You are always an accuser
Pretending to be a big bruiser
But your insults are snoozers
You’re a junk science chooser
Real climate science refuser
You must be a boozer
A substance abuser
And definitely a loser.
Dumb as Herbert Hoover
Your brain needs a Heimlich maneuver,
You poor petty and petulant non-science greenie.
Have you got nothing better to offer. !!
Nothing you wrote needs countering because it is all just self-opinionated garbage, based on arguments from your own ignorance.
I see no evidence in your rambling Billy-Madison style diatribe above.
Everything you say is based on “argumentum ad ignorantiam“
.. basically whinging, “oh, I don’t understand.. so it must be wrong“
It is laughably pathetic.
The science says that CO2 traps heat, not much, but a little.
The data shows that CO2 traps a small amount of heat.
What do you call someone who follows the science and the data?
“What Soon has done is to take a lot of money from energy companies”
Another LIE that you believe, because you WANT to believe it.
You have no honesty.. .. your pretence is exposed. !
Over one million dollars as of 2015.
This is not a secret.
Except he tries to keep it secret.
I am reporting facts
You simply do not like the facts.
As of 2015, based on data through 2013
Since 2001, Willie Soon has received direct funding for his research of $1.033 million from Big Coal and Big Oil interests. In contrast, he received $842,079 from conventional government or university funders in the same period.
For some reason the link you provided to your proof didn’t work.
Was it to the “ExxonSectets” website? Greenpeace deep-sixed its site a couple years ago, and contrary to anything “Richard Greene might say, there was not a shred of evidence in it proving Dr Soon operated under any sort of pay-for-performance arrangements with industry executives. Dr Soon explained that false Greenpeace accusation in the video I included at the top of my “Scientist Falsely Accused” blog post, and I further elaborated on who one of the operatives was at ExxonSectets.
And little-dickie is so enamoured of the AGW cult , he believes all the lies that produce.
Found “Richard Greene”‘s link: https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/fighting-climate-chaos/climate-deniers/koch-industries/dr-willie-soon-a-career-fueled-by-big-oil-and-coal/ Notice the disinformation within it, however. Harvard Smithsonian is the place that actually accepted the Exxon donations, over a period of 10 years, and they skimmed 60% off the top for overhead expenses and didn’t disclose to Dr Soon where his research grants came from.
Dickie.. IGNORANT and MIS-INFORMED as always.
Soon blames sun for global warming
Research money pours in from energy companies
And YOU claim Soon had no idea where his take home pay came from I did not believe it.
When revealed in 2015, Soon certainly knew it then. He never denied the claims. Nor did he ever talk about who was funding his work, after he knew. Dishonest and a science fraud too.
Yes, he did. He’s been denying those claims ever since I first met him and corresponded with him over who the specific hatchetman was against him, and he’s done so uncounted numbers of times in public. When you operate on preconceived emotion-driven notions sourced from dubious accusers who likely happen to bolster your confirmation bias, you do not look for info which undercuts that. I detailed how the accusations blew up in the face of his accuser when that first popped up in 2015, you probably missed that because you don’t want to find such things. Ask yourself one more question, regarding the Harvard-Smithsonian press release link in the “ExxonKnew” lawsuits which claim to support the notion that Dr Soon did not disclose his funding. Why has that Feb 2015 press release page disappeared off the internet, forcing the law firm to now use an archive version of that link? Because at Dr Soon detailed in the above video, after a 5-year investigation into the matter, Harvard-Smithsonian found no wrongdoing by him about funding disclosures. Apply logic to this: a person cannot fail to disclose a funding source if they do not know what the original source for their institution’s grants is. Your accusation is totally without merit. You’ll be fine, though, you’ll just have egg on your face over your abject ignorance about the matter. The law firm, and their source for the accusation, may very well be in a massive world of hurt.
“Harvard-Smithsonian found no wrongdoing by him about funding disclosures. “
Don’t confuse the dick**** with FACTS. !!
Thank you for this fine counterpoint.
dickie’s ignorance is getting more and more profound every day.
He knew his funding came from the Smithinian.. get over it. !!
Anything else in just in your putrid little AGW-scammer mind.
You always “believe” the lies promulgated by the AGW cult.. why is that.
Money was paid to the Smithonian,
Smithonian took 40% and hired Soon to do some work..
There was no link or requirement for Soon to anything related to the money source.
You are totally mis-informed as you are on man , many things.
Or are a deliberately dishonest liar. Which is it.
Astrophysics organization gets money from energy companies
Hires someone who blames global warming on the sun
Oh, what a coincidence that was..
They get money from MANY sources.
Who pays you to be an AGW cultist ???
You couldn’t possibly know.
Your personal attacks on Willie Soon are pure ad hominem BS. Willie Soon has not done anything illegal, unethical, or against the rules of his institution, the Harvard-Smithsonian, which was the recipient of the money, as is usual in science.
It is an assumption of yours that there should be such a correlation for the Sun to have an effect on climate. The correlation is, in any case, better than for CO2.
As I explain in my book, the Sun affects climate by modulating the energy loss at the poles, so the effect on surface temperature is indirect, and we should not expect a match between solar activity and surface temperature. Long periods of above-average solar activity, like the 1935-2000 modern solar maximum, result in global warming, regardless of whether solar activity increases or decreases.
Another of your assumptions. Clearly, the climate does not work as you believe it should work. Perhaps you can explain why, if CO2 has been increasing so much, the stratosphere stopped cooling in 1997.
According to you, this should not be possible. However, I have an explanation for this unexplained change in trend that is supported by lots of evidence and involves the decrease in solar activity since solar cycle 23. It is also explained in my book.
Don’t confuse a lukewarmer like dickie with facts and SCIENCE.
What would you know about facts and science? No science evident in your comments
I know you, bnasty2000, are the Forrest Gump of climate science and the Don Rickles of this website.
And you are Billy Madison.
EVERYONE becomes more ignorant when they read your anti-science crap.
Coming from someone who posts only insults and no science. Laugh of the day.
Not EVERYONE. A lot of us check his links and quickly determine he misunderstood some of them, and others are from dubious sources.
Actually, I don’t bother checking anymore. He’s lost all credibility, which are magnified by his frequent employment of logical fallacies.
It is very obvious you are a lukewarmer who makes up his idiotology based on ignorance of science.
If preferringmore global warming and much more CO2 in the atmosphere makes me a lukewarmer, by your deficnition, then I am a lukewarmer
By my definition a lukewarmer is a person like Judith Curry who believes global a warming s a problem that must be fixed but there is not rush to fix the problem. That traditional lukewarmer position is a loser. It only leads to one argument with leftists: Why not fix the problem now if you agree there is a CO2 problem? The let’s wait lukewarmer position never wins that debate.
My position, which you repeatedly lie about, is there is no climate problem. The current climate is the best climate in 5000 years. It would get even better with more warming and more CO2 in the atmosphere. And fewer bnasty2000’s around,
You promulgate all the anti-science of the AGW cult.
Everyone can see that.
Stop hiding behind your facade of lies. !
“There has been no correlation of surface temperatures and estimated solar energy (sunspot proxies) since the 1690s”
I was being VERY generous making that statement. It is based on sunspot counts, which are only a rough estimate of solar energy, and three central England (CET) weather stations, because they are the only weather stations I could find in the 1600s.
If you want to criticize the science of sunspot counts and using just three weather stations, I will revise my statement to say we have no good evidence of any solar effect on the global average temperature for thousands of years
In addition to the previous statement on stratosphere cooling, which contradicts increased incoming solar energy, I forgot to include the following”
We finally have accurate satellite measurements of top of the atmosphere solar energy … and reasonably accurate satellite measurements used to estimate the global average temperature since 1979
With these improvements in science we have the FIRST opportunity to see how good measurements of solar energy correlate with the global warming since 1975. They do not correlate at all. NASA claims TOA energy is slightly DOWN since the 1970s — let’s call it about the same. Therefore solar energy as measured at the top of the atmosphere DID NOT cause any of the global warming since 1975
Solar energy reaching the ground and oceans may have caused warming, due to less SO2 pollution and possibly fewer daytime clouds, but that is another debate
Thanks to modern science we do not need to rely on sunspot voodoo, and very rough local proxy estimates of historical temperatures.
We know the sun’s energy did not cange enough to cause any of the global warming since 1975 and we know sunspot cycles are not seen in the global average temperature trend
Human-driven climate change has caused large and concerning temperature decreases in the stratosphere since at least 1986, according to a UCLA-led study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Stratospheric cooling: The concerning flip side of global warming | UCLA
Why is the stratosphere getting colder?
Cooling of the stratosphere isn’t just the result of ozone destruction but is also caused by the release of carbon dioxide in the troposphere. Therefore, global warming in the troposphere and stratospheric cooling due to ozone loss are parallel effects.
research shows that from 1986 to 2022, the human-produced greenhouse gases that caused warming of the Earth’s surface and the troposphere also led to a mean cooling of about 1.8 to 2.2 degrees Celsius in the middle and upper stratosphere globally.
Charts that contradict your stratosphere charts will be presented later when I find one that is easy to read online.
Since 1700 solar activity has been on the increase and there has been warming, so your interpretation does not hold water.
The stratospheric temperature trends in Figure b above show a clear trend change in the mid-1990s, but also they show that the trend was variable with latitude and the change in trend was variable with latitude. This does not fit your explanation that the trend is due to CO2, as CO2 distribution in the atmosphere is not that variable.
“Since 1700 solar activity has been on the increase and there has been warming, so your interpretation does not hold water”.
You cherry picked a very low sunspot period as your starting point, and then pilled on nonsense not supported by accurate TOA solar energy measurements by satellite, and then completely ignored those accurate TOA measurements when they became available in the satellite age. I would call that science fraud too.
The solar energy cause of climate change, other than very long term changes in planetary geometry, is a fig newton of your overactive imagination.
The chart you presented is a fabrication based on inaccurate proxies. Contradicted by TOA satellite data since 1978. Only a fool would believe the chart was accurate until 1978, and then suddenly became inaccurate just when satellite measurements began,
Since 1978, satellites have been documenting the solar cycle directly by measuring the total incoming sunlight received at the top of Earth’s atmosphere and by collecting images of the Sun in a range of wavelengths of light.
NASA’s Total and Spectral solar Irradiance Sensor, or TSIS-1, is a mission to measure the sun’s energy input to Earth. Various satellites have captured a continuous record of this solar energy input since 1978.
Averaged over the complete solar cycle, there’s been minimal long-term change in the Sun’s overall brightness since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Records of sunspots show increased solar activity during the first 7 decades of the 20th century, likely tied to the peak of the last 100-year Gleissberg Cycle.
The warming we’ve seen since 1975 is too rapid to be linked to changes in Earth’s orbit, and too large to be caused by tiny changes in solar activity
There is no data on sunspots prior to 1700. There’s no cherry-picking.
I am sorry the solar effect on climate does not fit your preconceived wrongful ideas on how the sun should act.
Here is an easy to read chart od stratospheric temperatures. They contradict the charts you presented, I therefore assume these official charts are correct and your charts are bogus.
They ca not both be right
Additional information
Exceptional stratospheric contribution to human fingerprints on atmospheric temperature | PNAS
Obviously, yours is just model fiction leaving out the lower stratosphere (SSU-4), which shows the biggest change.
This is what the UK MetOffice has to say:
Your explanation is contradicted by evidence.
My chart was chosen because it was easy to read and clearly shows model estimates and observations / measurements. You deliberately ignored that fact to slam my data chart as models only You are clearly biased and devious, deliberately misinterpreting the chart I presented..
Differences between tropospheric and lower stratospheric temperature trends have long been recognized as a “fingerprint” of human effects on climate. This fingerprint, however, neglected information from the mid to upper stratosphere, 25 to 50 km above the Earth’s surface. Including this information improves the detectability of a human fingerprint by a factor of five. Enhanced detectability occurs because the mid to upper stratosphere has a large cooling signal from human-caused CO2 increases, small noise levels of natural internal variability, and differing signal and noise patterns. Extending fingerprinting to the upper stratosphere with long temperature records and improved climate models means that it is now virtually impossible for natural causes to explain satellite-measured trends in the thermal structure of the Earth’s atmosphere. … Extending “vertical fingerprinting” to the mid to upper stratosphere yields incontrovertible evidence of human effects on the thermal structure of Earth’s atmosphere.
Exceptional stratospheric contribution to human fingerprints on atmospheric temperature | PNAS
Well, they clearly aren’t a fingerprint, or it would be impossible that CO2 would increase enormously for 25 years, and yet the lower stratosphere shows no cooling.
But we all knew those fingerprints were bogus. Now we have the proof.
Poor dickie.. always the continued argumentum ad ignorantiam.
If you measure the Stratosphere at a set height, then as the Sun warms the planet, the tropopause altitude increases, and the temperature at a set height in the Stratosphere will drop.
roflmao.
Citing Santer.. ..
…. you really are a AGW cultist trying to disguise yourself as a rational climate realist.
And FAILING completely !!
Javier: Do you have data to update the Stratospheric Water Vapor with the effects of the Hunga Tonga eruption?
No, I haven’t looked for it. It should show a big jump.
The stratosphere DID NOT stop cooling in 1997. You have presented bogus charts contradicting NASA and provide no explanation of why they are wrong and you are right.
My charts are official. Recognized by the Met Office and published in multiple peer-reviewed scientific publications. You just have no clue about the things you discuss, nor about how the climate actually works. Yet you afford the luxury of insulting and criticizing my friend Willie Soon who is a fantastic scientist. Willie and I disagree on some aspects of the solar effect on climate but I respect him enormously and wish we could clone him and have more scientists with his integrity and courage working on climate science.
Soon has been spouting junk science for decades with cherry picked incompetent data while ignoring all contradictory data. That’s why he is a science fraud.
He also attempts to hide his financial connection to energy companies even after that fact was made public in 2015, That is not breaking a law but is unethical.
But the “It’s Not CO2” crowd here is so biased they will fall for any alternative theories, including your own,
Soon has been correct all that time.. great news, hey.
And YOU have been WRONG…
… mostly because of your very limited understanding of science.
You are SO BIASED in believing the CO2 fallacy, that you cannot allow REALITY or DATA or FACTS to get in the way. !
He did not hide his financial connection, because it was not direct or even known to him.
You are STILL trying to push that that COMPLETE LIE….. why is that ??
What do you get out of deliberately pushing LIES and MISINFORMATION ??
That is untrue and defamatory. As an opinion, we could say that most climate science is junk science with cherry-picked data while ignoring all contradictory data, and therefore a science fraud. In contrast, Soon’s science is rigorous yet unpopular.
He didn’t hide anything and just followed the rules of his institution that allowed the donor to remain undisclosed at their request. You guys have a huge bias that you should have professionally examined. Apparently being funded by a fossil fuel energy company is unacceptable yet there is no problem in being funded by any other industry. Yet we all are alive thanks to the fossil fuels they produce.
Since it is not CO2, then one of those alternative theories has a good chance of being correct. “E pur si muove” as Galileo or Wegener said. That is how science works, by examining all alternatives, not just choosing one without sufficient evidence. But how would you know?
One more zinger when it comes to the phenomenon of the enviro-far left projecting what they do as accusations about the folks they criticize. Dr Soon’s ex-Greenpeace longtime main accuser refuses to disclose where his own funding for his current Climate Investigations Center comes from:
“Climate Change Reporting Website Obscures Its Funding With Dark Money Network”
But the “don’t-listen-to-industry-corrupted-skeptic-scientists” crowd is so biased, they’ill fall for any enviro-activist conspiracy theory.
DENIAL of Solar energy
DENIAL of Urban Warming
How much deeper can you go down the lukewarmer / alarmist burrow !!
…..
“There has been no correlation of surface temperatures and estimated solar energy”
Utter claptrap as usual from a NON-SCIENTIST.. or basic ignorance.. I can never decide which.
Next you will be DENYING that El Ninos cause warming…
… and really out yourself as a simpleton/fungal wannabe. !
The Don Rickles of WUWT
Insulter in Chief
No science in the comment as usual.
Try again, your Billy Madison emulation is going great.
“ Tucker Carlson is not qualified to judge…blah.. blah…”
You certainly aren’t qualified to judge, yet you presume to.
Do you realise just how much you sound like someone from DeSmog !!
Richard,
In the 1960-90 era of my familiarity through involvement, probably more than 50% of $$$ spent on earth sciences research came from industry, who also did much research in house. In Australia, the mining industry enjoyed excellent relations with government bodies like CSIRO and universities. Industry led the effort.
For example, when a new, very expensive item like a mass spectrometer was needed in the country for isotope studies, typically the companies would produce the money for a shared resource, that being more economic use of dollars than the main companies each buying one of their own. There was even a body, Australian Mineral Industry Research Association, AMIRA.
Mature, senior scientists typically did not and do not have any problems of consequence with industry funding of research. We are alarmed by smears claiming a lack of ethics. It really is childish pratter that has reduced the quality, quantity and value of recent industry research, under influence of people like reporters and pressure groups who know bugger all about it.
If you research the serious side of the corruption of science since about the 1950s, you will discover the horrible perversions by unelected, on the margin bodies like Rockefeller Foundation.
Geoff S
Soon tries to hide his funding
That is all that matters to me
He does not work directly for an energy company
He does not teach students
Soon doesn’t work for any university — he works for the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
As of 2015 it appeared that a majority of Soon’s funding came from coal and oil companies. That is worth knowing
But the only thing important to me is his science, and I believe he is a science fraud. I don’t care if he has a Ph.D. or is a full time garbageman. I explained why his cherry picked, incompetent data led to a solar theory that has been wrong for decades.
I would actually prefer if Soon was a full time employee of an energy company and he did not keep that fact secret. Could not be worse than a n bureaucrat scientist. But his science is still BS, so I speak up.
No, he does not, and you could not prove he does if your reputation depended on it. Stand and deliver on your accusation, don’t just regurgitate talking points out of Greenpeace, point directly to the actual physical evidence (full context document scans, undercover video/audio transcripts, leaked emails, money-transfer receipts, etc.) proving Dr Soon was knowingly paid to fabricate demonstratively false science papers, reports, assessments. But if you cannot rise to this challenge, don’t blame yourself, blame the collective Al Gore / Greenpeace / Naomi Oreskes mob for failing to provide you with material which could stand up in a courtroom evidentiary hearing proving Dr Soon – or any other skeptic climate scientist, for that matter – was ever involved in any kind of pay-for-performance arrangements with industry executives.
All eyes on you now, friend. But maybe one day you’ll thank me for enlightening you on where the real disinformation is within the climate issue. You claim Dr Soon was paid a tic over a million which, it turns out he could NOT hide because he was not told about it by his bosses at Harvard-Smithsonian. But tell us, friend, why is it that your beloved ex-head of Greenpeace, John Passacantando is hiding what he does behind his “Our Next Economy LLC” company which has zero internet presence, and which has minimally raked in nearly $16 million from 2009 to 2020. I prove that with IRS 990 forms here. See the appearance problem your own beloved leader faces? Is it an additional problem that what he apparently does in that LLC company had to be extracted out into the open via FOIA documents requests? Who’s not being transparent here, and who is actually spreading genuine disinformation about illicit funding?
Ignorance of the facts..
Seems to be your over-riding meme, doesn’t it !
“I explained why his cherry picked, incompetent data led to a solar theory that has been wrong for decades.”
No, you showed you were clueless about the science behind it.
Presented no evidence, just an AGW fundeMENTAList argument based on ignorance.
“I believe he is a science fraud”… [because DeSmog told me so….]
You wouldn’t have a clue, because you are ignorant of basic science.
All you provided as evidence was baseless waffle based your own ignorance.
“But his science is still BS”
ie little-dickie does not understand….
Sorry dickie but your comments are still BS, based on your lukewarmer/ climate-zealot lack of science and reasoning.
Why can’t you stop LYING about Dr. Soons funding history as his employer made clear they are the ones handling the funds and giving him part of it to fund his research based on his PROPOSAL he sends to his employer.
One more irony to add when it comes to both “Richard Greene” here and the principle accuser against Dr Soon who’s the source of the totally false “$1.2 million Exxon bribe” accusation — both offer so-called ‘evidence’ of which they are blissfully ignorant of how it hugely undercuts their claims that industry funding taints the credibility of skeptic climate scientists. I’ll use the latter example to show how it wipes out the central premise of our pal “Richard Greene” here. In my June 2018 GelbspanFiles blog post, I first noted right at the top that Dr Soon’s main ex-Greenpeace accuser had inexplicably posted a full 1994 ABC News Nightline video which he bizarrely thought would bolster his case that skeptic scientists are industry funded. Perhaps like how “Richard Greene” may only do superficial searches for material reinforcing preconceived faulty notions, the ex-Greenpeace guy may have only viewed the first few minutes of the Nightline video instead of watching it all the way through. That was the famous video where Nightline host Ted Koppel read Al Gore the riot act for attempting to use the illicit funding accusation tactic to smear the credibility of Dr S Fred Singer. It’s at the end of the video, and repeat it here, since it applies not only to our hapless friend “Richard Greene” but also to anybody else who pulls this stunt:
I have found Paul Graham’s “Debate Pyramid”, a version of which is attached below, useful when attempting to determine whether someone’s “arguments” are worth considering (or not).
I would ask you to go through your post and determine for yourself :
1) Just how many sentences come under “Level 7 : Name-calling (and/or Abuse)” ?
2) How many come under “Level 6 : Ad Hominem” ?
At best I can only see a few of your bald assertions rising to “Level 4 : Contradiction : States the opposing case with little or no supporting evidence“.
Every instance of your “reasoning” in the above post is faulty, with precisely zero “supporting evidence”, and can be replaced with “In my opinion …”.
Please try again, but this time only “debating” at Level 3 or higher, i.e. either “backing it up with supporting evidence” and/or “explaining why it is mistaken using quotes“.
You present no science or any attempt to refute points I made. You appear to be demanding that I write a full article with references and charts, otherwise everything I write is not good enough for you. You demand a rewrite. I demand that YOU learn some climate science and include it in future comments.
You remind me of a “prove it, prove it, you can’t prove it, crybaby.
The print is too small for me to read the graham chart, so I will eat a graham cracker instead,
Click on the chart and it gets bigger.
When I clicked in the chart it got smaller. Must be a trick chart. Not that I care about rules for arguments. The internet has no rules. This is the new Wild West.
Your INCOMPETENCE is duly noted… again !!
No, it doesn’t like YOU, I clicked on it and viola! it was much bigger.
First, click on the picture an it will open to view.
Second, yep, you live on the bottom 3 levels of the pyramid. Well done.
Two primary hallmarks of far-leftists is the intellectual dishonesty they have not only with the public but also with themselves, and how they project what their side says / does / thinks as accusations of what our side says/does/thinks. A third hallmark is how they have no curiosity to explore situations at any level beyond superficial glances. Rather than try to view that pyramid chart for himself to be better informed about it, the guy just gives up. Same applies to his religious-like belief in Greenpeace’s accusations about illicit fossil fuel industry funding – sounds like it might be true, thus in his likely entirely emotionally-driven mind, it must be true. But he has zero intellectual curiosity to look into whether evidence backs it up, or whether his own beloved leaders aren’t afflicted by an exponentially worse ‘illicit money funding’ appearance.
A cleverly worded no science insult
How sophisticated
I am not a leftist
I voted for one Democrat
in my entire life in 1972
I voted for Trump in 2020.
I publish a blog that has had
693,000 page views
for the sole purpose of recommending
articles by conservative authors.
If I were Soon i would announce that some of my funding comes from energy comanies before speaking, because that is a fact. And I would not follow that announcement with claptrap solar theories that just happen to be exactly what energy companies like to hear… but I suppose that fact is just a coincidence?
Riiiight. Very convincing.That, coming from from a guy who regurgitates baseless Greenpeace-sourced material against a climate scientist. If you endorse Greenpeace for that, then by default you endorse their longtime screeds against all skeptic climate scientists, including Trump NSC appointee Dr Will Happer, who was ambushed in a Senate hearing room by a Greenpeace operative over that exact same kind of illicit funding accusation. By default, you would accept beliefs by others without question hurled at … well, … Anthony Watts, wouldn’t you? Or do you stick strictly with Greenpeace over such screeds? And in case you missed it in your above beloved Greenpeace screed against Dr Soon, another skeptic climate scientist named in that accusation piece is …. wait for it ….. Trump appointee to NOAA, Dr David Legates.
If you are for Greenpeace, you are against all that WUWT supports and every skeptic climate scientist who’s ever posted here or been prominently mentioned here, and by default, against all CAGW skeptics associated in any manner with WUWT. And by default, you would be against President Trump. Q.E.D.
Pro-Trump and pro-Greenpeace are mutually exclusive situations. Didn’t think that all the way through, did you?
yawn,
another arrogant-but-ignorant, self-aggrandising, self-promoting w***
Hilarious.. especially as nobody cares. !!
You live in a no science zone
A lot of typing
No science.
“A lot of typing… No science.”
That is all we ever see from you dickie..
Hadn’t you realised that all you ever type is self-promoting garbage ??
Dickie.. guided by ignorance and arrogance at the same time…, yet again.
Getting funnier by the comment !
bnasty2000 does his science free Don Rickles act again
Billy madison is getting jealous, dickie. !!
Richard, while your style is combative and generally ungenerous — avoidably off-putting, in other words — you do provide good counter points from time to time.
in this case, though, I’m not convinced. You seem to think that Willie’s funding sources irredeemably undermines the quality of his work — “anyone funded by oil cannot objectively assess the AGW hypothesis.” I wonder, am compelled to wonder, why the same CoI disqualification does not apply to anyone receiving funding from USG or Bloomberg or Gates or Open Society — each of which is openly biased, the combinations of which are multiplicatively biased. Can you help to explain why conflict of interest is asymmetrical?
I start with te scince
Soon fails
The government gts the AGW scince right to the extent that 99.9% of skeptic scientists have the same beliefs
(1) There is a greenhouse effect
(2) CO2 emissions increase the greenhouse effect
That is the 99.9% science consensus
The junk science starts with tacking on worst case assumption to the basic science
(1) An unreasonably fast RCP 8.5 CO2 growth rate
(2) Claiming that CO2 remains in the atmosphere for hundreds to 1000 years
(3) An imagined strong water vapor feedback with no limits that could triple the effect of CO2 alone over hundreds of years
And then the basic science of CO2 estimated in labs using spectroscopy, with data in the HITRAN and MODTRAN databases, is magically transformed into a CO2 boogeyman
That’s junk science
But even worse the jubk science us use d to make scary long term climate prediction of CAGW doom that have been wrong since the 1979 Charney report.
And the actual global warming since 1975 was very pleasant for most people, and would have been more pleasant with hysterical leftists doing all their global whining.
I can not refute the science behind modest harmless AGW. I can refute the false claim that it was all the sun, and CO2 did little or nothing to cause the post 1975 warming which I loved and hope will continue.
The target has to be false predictions of CAGW. They are not based on data. CAGW has never happened and is just a prediction that has been wrong for 44 years in a row.
Claiming that more CO2 can’t cause global warming, as expected from the +27% rise of CO2 since 1975, is how conservatives get treated as science deniers. And then our good arguments against CAGW scaremongering collapse … simply because we can’t admit that AGW is backed by enough data so it should not be dismissed as a global conspiracy.
Conservatives who dismiss AGW also dismiss the works of Richard Lindzen, William Happer, Roy Spencer, John Christy and almost all other Ph.D. skeptic climate scientists ON OUR SIDE.
Enough data?? What the hell does that mean? If there was ”enough data” there would be no argument MORON!
“AGW is backed by enough data”
Enough faked data to fool a NON-SCIENTIST like dickie.
Doesn’t take much, does it !!
There is only ONE true definition of data.===> Facts determined by observation.
And a pathetic all to “consensus”…. hilarious… that’s his science….
This “dickie” guy really is a died-in-the-wool AGW apostle !
Several things wrong there. The government doesn’t do science, so it doesn’t get anything right or wrong.
Scientific consensus has zero value. 99% of geologists believed continents didn’t move for decades after being shown the evidence.
Willie Soon also believes those two points. It has been demonstrated. The greenhouse effect is the difference between the emission temperature and the surface temperature in a rocky planet with a gaseous atmosphere, and it is mostly due to the presence of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
What Willie Soon, many other scientists, and I believe is that solar activity has an important effect on the climate of the planet based on the available evidence. This doesn’t dismiss a role for CO2.
What you don’t know or seem to forget is that nobody knows the effect on the climate of increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. It is all speculation. So there’s plenty of room for a solar effect, and this is only a problem for those with a political interest in blaming the full extent of recent climate change on our emissions.
You cannot refute anything, because you don’t have enough knowledge of how the climate works for that. Nobody has it. We are being surprised by the climate all the time due to insufficient knowledge. Like the change in the temperature trend of the lower stratosphere that you deny. You are just suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect, a cognitive bias in which people with limited competence in a particular domain overestimate their abilities.
It’s the sun, stupid.
Can you actually list this great amounts of oil company money that Dr. Soon is alleged to have taken.
Better men than you have tried and failed to find that money.
He had plenty of opportunities to do that while he ignored several well sourced posts by Russell Cook thus this is a classic closeminded man.
The carbon cycle turns hydrocarbons into limestone. Limestone and water are subducted into the mantle and chemically reduced by iron to produce methane and rock. The methane percolates upwards to begin the carbon cycle again.
Biotic or abiotic depends on your view of limestone. It is fossilized carbon dioxide produced by living organisms. It is available in vast quantities in comparison the the small amount of oil you can squeeze out of plants and animals.
So, not being a geologist, I wikied limestone.
One quote: “Limestone formations contain about 30% of the world’s petroleum reservoirs.[3]“
Also: “Limestone often contains fossils“
Where did the hydrocarbons come from to create the fossils to create fossil fuels.
Photosynthesis
I love watching Soon’s presentations. Yes, very knowledgeable, not the least bit hostile, incredibly enthusiastic in his subject, and humorous with it.
Alas, for me, just one negative trait, his delivery is very fast, and with his accent (not a criticism), I find it hard to follow him. And I suspect may impact his standing in the global community.
I wish, someone, would give him training on his delivery style. A slower delivery, coupled with emphasising at the end of appropriate sentence, would enable him to nail his topic, to even the least technical person.
Valid point and a frequent complaint of American university students with foreign lecturers for whom English is a second language. Paying considerable money to listen to someone that you can’t understand is irritating. I’m getting Soon’s ideas for free so I’ll happily make the effort.
Hydrocarbons contain carbon. There is almost zero carbon in our atmosphere. The early atmosphere contained billions and billions of tons of carbon.
Obviously this carbon went somewhere. It is buried and leaks out as a gas. Either as oxidized CO2 or reduced CH4.
Or as posted above by ferdberple, it was transformed into limestone by both abiotic and biotic means then subducted then to eventually become petroleum.
About 20% to 25% of sedimentary rock is carbonate rock,[3] and most of this is limestone.[17][3] Limestone is found in sedimentary sequences as old as 2.7 billion years.[59]
CaCO3 + H2O + CO2 → Ca2+ + 2HCO3
https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/media/math/render/svg/78da394411d87e6c828f1e22eb3374e07f53f205
A little research, a lot of confusion.
When I tell leftists burning hydrocarbon fuels is recycling CO2 back into the atmosphere, where it was originally, they go berserk. Of course many things make leftists go berserk. They live on the edge of reality.
“Of course many things make leftists go berserk”
Yes, we have noted that in your posts. !
A few years back I spent some time looking at abiotic oil ideas. My conclusions were:
A) At least some oil is is biotic.
B) It is theoretically possible that some oil is abiotic.
C) If it can exist, it will exist, somewhere.
D) Biotic oil will exist near the surface.
E) Biotic oil will exist in places with distinctive geology that makes it easier to locate.
F) Biotic oil can be developed economically.
G) Abiotic oil can exist anywhere, including in the mantle.
H) The mantle is big so most abiotic oil will be too deep to be of use.
I) Abiotic oil has no tells as to its location.
J) Regardless of whether physical abiotic oil exists, it is extremely unlikely that economical abiotic oil exists.
K) When people are discussing abiotic oil, they usually do not distinguish between economically usable oil and physical oil, so the discussions go nowhere.
Good summary 🙂
Robert F. Kennedy Jr
@RobertKennedyJr
More made-up science. If you doubted it back then, you were ridiculed as anti-science, censored, silenced. Now it becomes clear: “trust the science” really means “obey authority.”
https://twitter.com/RobertKennedyJr/status/1745276075221962961
Of course. Science is a progress report. It can and does change. If I were to “trust the science” then I would be beholden to trust the pre-Copernican De revolutionibus orbium coelestium as well, wouldn’t I? Ptolemy’s Epicycles were damn good for a thousand years before that.
Or is it OK to be anti-science once everyone agrees that better theories exist? In other words, Obey Authority as you point out.
Translation of “Islam” to English is “submission”, which is the same as the translation of “democracy”, which also means “submission”. The “scientific consensus” means “submission” as well.
Soon, the “It’s The Sun Nutter”, has been wrong for decades but hangs on to his solar theories like a hungry dog with a bone
“Is the Sun causing global warming?
temperature vs solar activity updated July 2021
The above graph compares global surface temperature changes (red line) and the Sun’s energy received by Earth (yellow line) in watts (units of energy) per square meter since 1880.
The lighter/thinner lines show the yearly levels while the heavier/thicker lines show the 11-year average trends. Eleven-year averages are used to reduce the year-to-year natural noise in the data, making the underlying trends more obvious.
The amount of solar energy Earth receives has followed the Sun’s natural 11-year cycle of small ups and downs with no net increase since the 1950s. Over the same period, global temperature has risen markedly. It is therefore extremely unlikely that the Sun has caused the observed global temperature warming trend over the past half-century.
No. The Sun can influence Earth’s climate, but it isn’t responsible for the warming trend we’ve seen over recent decades. The Sun is a giver of life; it helps keep the planet warm enough for us to survive. We know subtle changes in Earth’s orbit around the Sun are responsible for the comings and goings of the ice ages. But the warming we’ve seen in recent decades is too rapid to be linked to changes in Earth’s orbit and too large to be caused by solar activity.
One of the “smoking guns” that tells us the Sun is not causing global warming comes from looking at the amount of solar energy that hits the top of the atmosphere. Since 1978, scientists have been tracking this using sensors on satellites, which tell us that there has been no upward trend in the amount of solar energy reaching our planet.
A second smoking gun is that if the Sun were responsible for global warming, we would expect to see warming throughout all layers of the atmosphere, from the surface to the upper atmosphere (stratosphere). But what we actually see is warming at the surface and cooling in the stratosphere. This is consistent with the warming being caused by a buildup of heat-trapping gases near Earth’s surface, and not by the Sun getting “hotter.”
SOURCE:
Is the Sun causing global warming? – Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet (nasa.gov)
Watch the video Mr Twonk.
“I personally found the abiotic fuel discussion fascinating.”
Me too, Eric!
If I’m going to listen to anyone discuss this contentious issue, I want it to be someone with Professor Soon’s impressive qualifications – an astrophysicist and aerospace engineer formerly with the Harvard-Smithsonian Solar and Stellar Physics Division.
I got whacked for sharing this video on Twitter by those who missed this point entirely.
Anyway, there was so much more to the discussion than that.
“I rather have questions that cannot be answered, than answers that cannot be questioned.”
— Dr. Willie Soon
I am not impressed, Soon noisily boasts about how long he has been studying the solar forcing of climate, yet he has the solar forcing of the AMO completely backwards.
The suggestion that the oil, gas, and coal that we are digging out of the
Earth, mainly to be used for our energy needs to maintain our civilization,
contains significant amounts of abiotic origin, is unmitigated, crackpot,
pseudo-scientific nonsense (I’m sorry Dr. Soon — but nothing here is meant
to disparage you or anything else you have to say). If these hydrocarbons or
carbon had true “abiotic” (meaning NEVER passing through a living organism
and NEVER gaining the energy that living organisms, over a lifetime, store
inside themselves, or emit into our environment) origins inside or under the
waters of the Earth, then they came either from the primeval Earth 4.55
billion years ago or they came about through some magical processes that
occurred since then under the ground or oceans to produce them … from what,
no one can say.
4.55 billion years ago, at the beginning of the Earth, as it was
accreting in a planetary-forming disk around the proto-sun in its T Tauri
phase — when the Earth had reached a sufficiently large mass — it would
have been receiving an enormous amount of energy from the collisional forces
impacting on it coming from all the material gravitationally falling into it
at the time. This energy would have created an extremely hot, magma-like
environment for almost all of the Earth, under high pressure, and the
combination plus the chemical reactivity of everything that was falling into
it, plus the fluid, turbulent nature of everything in it causing highly
significant mixing to occur so that isolated pockets could not form, would
have caused many reactions to occur between virtually all the material
present at that time inside the Earth. Thermodynamically and chemically this
meant that any high-energy carbon-hydrogen bonds or high-energy carbon-carbon
bonds (as exist in hydrocarbons), or high-energy carbon existing by itself,
at that time, would have reacted into lower energy states, especially when
you consider the large oxygen levels present in that magma, again at that
time (oxygen, and indeed other oxidizing elements, react with hydrogen and
carbon to produce resulting bonds that are in much lower chemical energy
states). No significant “organic” carbon-hydrogen bonds or carbon-carbon
bonds and no form of elemental carbon would have survived those conditions.
Period. Therefore, no such materials could have formed or been present then,
and, of course, no biology was occurring then either. The belief that such
materials could have been created then, under those circumstances, and then
remained, near the surface of the Earth, to be extracted now for our energy
needs, is thus seen to be an example of pure cartoon science. Another nail
in the coffin of such arguments is that probably there was no significant
hydrogen in the primordial Earth in any event. Neither could primordial
Titan have had any hydrogen or hydrocarbons at that equivalent stage of its
existence.
Okay, so what about the suggestion that such high-energy oil, gas and
coal that we are digging up as fossil fuels today could have slowly formed,
abiotically, after the Earth had cooled down to some degree, through
unidentified geological processes that occurred over the intervening 4.55
billion years, eventually giving us these carbon-hydrogen and carbon-carbon
bonds that we now can combust with oxygen (which, by the way, is 100% biotic
in origin!), to answer all our dreams of spectacular “free” energy given to
us by a most generous Mother Nature, without the intervention of any living
organisms along the way (except for that pesky oxygen)?
Keep in mind that the main reason we’re now digging up all these
hydrocarbons and carbon from the Earth is that we need them to burn to
produce energy for our modern civilization. Thus the reason they are useful
to us is because they are in this higher energy state now that we can lower
through oxidation (by oxygen gas) to a lower energy state and therefore get
that extra energy out for our purposes. Where did that extra energy come
from in the first place to raise them to that state in the Earth over a
period of 4.55 billion years that could have caused this miracle to happen?
It could only have been the residual heat of the Earth caused by
its initial conditions of formation or coming from its radioactivity. This
would require that the elemental carbon and the hydrocarbons came from a
prior source of carbon and hydrogen in the Earth that was not organic, but
was nevertheless somehow raised to this high energy state by chemical
reactions powered presumably by the heat of the Earth. What conceivable
chemistry could have caused this to occur in substantial amounts?
And how did that heat under those incredible oxidative conditions
underneath the Earth somehow manage to give us this high-energy carbon and
these high-energy hydrocarbons close to the surface of the Earth? What was
the pathway; what was the mechanism? It seems to me that the only answer to
this question is the same answer the Carpenter got, in the poem “The Walrus
and the Carpenter”, written by Lewis Carroll, after he and the Walrus took
some young, fat oysters for a pleasant stroll one evening/day:
‘O Oysters,’ said the Carpenter,
‘You’ve had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?’
But answer came there none —
And this was scarcely odd, because
They’d eaten every one
There is no thermodynamically conceivable avenue by which the Earth,
during those 4.55 billion years, could have taken some low-energy or high
energy substances inside of it and manipulated them under those conditions to
produce hydrocarbons or carbon with their high chemical energy.
The only exception that the proponents of abiotic oil can come up with is
this one moon of Titan, almost a billion miles away from us, in an extremely
cold environment, next to a gigantic, energetic planet. Perhaps some
concentrating process occurred taking advantage of those cold temperatures to
extract methane and ethane from what was otherwise a very small presence and
to concentrate them on this one moon. Titan has a mass that is 4225 times
less than its neighboring planet. The lakes of methane and ethane
hydrocarbons on its surface have a mass that is about one-millionth of its
mass. So we have to explain about ¼ of a billionth of the mass of
hydrogen-rich Saturn (because of its gravitational pull) becoming those lakes
over a 4.55 billion-year interval. Perhaps some weird process occurred on
Saturn, in that cold environment, that managed to concentrate this absurdly
insignificant amount on its moon over all those years. I don’t know but
neither does anyone else.
What these proponents are doing is taking something that is highly
unlikely to happen in any significant amount — and we don’t know how, when,
where, or why it does happen on Titan even to that incredibly insignificant
amount — and blowing it up to make it a major abiotic process that happened
inside the Earth during its existence in our Solar System. To put it mildly,
they’re catching at straws — there’s no way that this insignificant amount
that we are observing in our solar system (not on Earth) could have somehow
concentrated itself inside the Earth to a much greater comparative degree for
the last 4.55 billion years of its history.
David Solan