This is a Modtran 2XCO2 exercise with comments and explanations. I don’t take Modtran or any radiative transfer model as the final say about radiative emission/transmission from the surface up through the atmosphere to space – I’m just reporting these particular results and discussing the implications.
U.S.1976 Standard Atmosphere. Clear sky, no clouds or rain. 288.2K surface temperature. I note that for all the values stated in this exercise, the temperature and humidity at every level in the model stays the same. It just gives the modeled IR flux without any further physical response. I selected 5.1 km (which is at the 533 mb level) because that is the altitude where the temperature is 255K, the widely noted effective emission temperature of the earth. The University of Chicago web page here is used for this exercise. https://climatemodels.uchicago.edu/modtran/
(Please note – the “looking down” and “looking up” flux values computed by the model are for a hemispherical field of view oriented down or up.)
70 km looking down at 280 ppmv CO2 gives 269.349 W/m^2; 560 ppmv CO2 gives 266.398 W/m^2
70 km looking up at 280 ppmv CO2 gives 0.046 W/m^2; 560 ppmv CO2 gives 0.058 W/m^2
5.1 km looking up at 280 ppmv CO2 gives 113.888 W/m^2; 560 ppmv CO2 gives 117.467 W/m^2
5.1 km looking down at 280 ppmv CO2 gives 312.995 W/m^2; 560 ppmv CO2 gives 311.143 W/m^2
0 km looking up at 280 ppmv CO2 gives 267.13 W/m^2; 560 ppmv CO2 gives 270.731 W/m^2
0 km looking down gives 382.138 W/m^2 in both cases.
Flux balances (in W/m^2) for a step change from 280 ppmv to 560 ppmv:
For the atmosphere above 5.1 km: 311.143 – 312.995 (reduced flux from below) = -1.852
269.349 – 266.398 (reduced flux out the top) = 2.951
113.888 – 117.467 (increased flux out the bottom) = -3.579
0.058 – 0.046 (increased flux from above) = 0.012
Net = -2.468 W/m^2, i.e., a cooling tendency.
For the atmosphere below 5.1 km: 382.138 – 382.138 (no change from below) = 0.000
312.995 – 311.143 (reduced flux out the top) = 1.852
267.183 – 270.731 (increased flux out the bottom) = -3.548
117.467 – 113.888 (increased flux from above) = 3.579
Net = 1.883 W/m^2, i.e., a warming tendency
For the surface: Net = 3.548 W/m^2, i.e., a warming tendency
So what? The climate consensus version of what must happen as a response to these initial (theoretical) tendencies is that the surface temperature must rise to restore the original flux out the top. No, that is not a necessary response. Why not? Because circulation, precipitation heating, and energy conversion are overwhelmingly powerful in the entire depth of the troposphere, which extends far above the 5.1 km / 533 mb (theoretical) effective radiating level. There are no barriers anywhere near the 5.1 km level. If the top half is a bit short on radiated energy from below, it is easily made up in the non-radiative processes. No one knows that ANY increase in the average surface temperature must be expected as an end result of rising concentrations of CO2, CH4, N2O, and similar IR-active substances.
Further Comments:
The modeled flux changes and resulting warming or cooling tendencies given here arise mainly from within the spectral bands where partial absorption by CO2 is enhanced by the doubling. There is no modeling of what happens, for example, when the increased flux from the top half is intercepted in the bottom half by clouds, mist, aerosols, water vapor, etc. and shifted to other wavelengths. And there is no modeling of what happens, for example, at the interface with the surface to promote evaporation rather than sensible heat gain.
I note that, In 2009, NASA was most certainly aware of what such an exercise in Modtran or similar radiative transfer model would show. Even so, the January 14, 2009 web article linked here included this quote: “At an altitude of roughly 5-6 kilometers, the concentration of greenhouse gases in the overlying atmosphere is so small that heat can radiate freely to space.” This is a fundamental concept. It doesn’t mean there is no absorption or emission higher up. It’s that the top half is not going to be driving sensible heat gain below it as an end result.
This means that NASA knew very well that overturning circulation and other factors matter to the disposition of the energy involved in the computed static radiative effect of incremental CO2. Therefore the modeled effect does NOT “force” a sensible heat gain result as the only possible outcome. But also in that article, the concluding emphasis returns to the static-only aspect: “However, as long as greenhouse gas concentrations continue to rise, the amount of absorbed solar energy will continue to exceed the amount of thermal infrared energy that can escape to space. The energy imbalance will continue to grow, and surface temperatures will continue to rise.” This is not consistent with the earlier quote. So we must think it through for ourselves.
One more thing. In this static 2XCO2 case, the so-called “forcing” at the surface (3.548 W/m^2) is no more than the “forcing” at the 5.1 km effective radiating level (3.579 W/m^2). This helps us understand how the powerful, highly variable, and highly self-regulating non-radiative short-circuiting of energy from the bottom half of the atmosphere to the top half can easily transport the energy involved in the “forcing” to higher altitude where NASA already knows it “can radiate freely to space.” So I prefer not to call these modeled flux increments a “forcing” at all, because the energy is not being made to accumulate down here to begin with.
Thank you for bearing with me through this exercise.
Well done, David. MODTRAN fittingly demonstrates a number of the logical fallacies assumed in climate alarmism, There’s the usual appeal to authority, e.g. USAF, of course, but the biggest fallacy is the assumption that radiative transfer is applicable to the lower troposphere.
Thanks for your reply. Even if there is minor applicability, e.g. at the edge of the “atmospheric window” where incremental CO2 makes a slight difference in the static radiative coupling to the surface, it ends up being completely inconsequential.
What ‘NASA knew’ in 2009 … think, think …
What else was going on back then?
A November freeze-out in the Copenhagen Climate Summit …
& at East Anglia (Climate-Gate)?
Year of Peak Hysteria?
NASA knew, #NASA-Knew, #nasaKnew …
Perhaps something along these lines should work?
Re “However, as long as greenhouse gas concentrations continue to rise, … [t]he energy imbalance will continue to grow, and surface temperatures will continue to rise.” This is not consistent with the earlier quote.
Yes, the disclaimer-as-misdirection, probably added late by the appointed administrators / PR department.
Our elected officials — rather their appointed investigators — will need to get around to this, sooner or later.
Great, a Prize-Winner!
That’s probably where I learned it, then promptly forgot, ’til your reminder 😉
P.S. A search for ‘Copenhagen Climate Summit’ brought up this gem:
Conference on Climate Change and Global Warming
Copenhagen, Denmark 21 – 23 November 2025
“The Climate Change and Global Warming of the Year [sic?]
the surface temperature must rise to restore the original flux out the top.
Errr, no. The “flux out the top” is the “flux into the bottom”. If the surface temperature drops (for example, at night), the amount of surface “flux” decreases. The “flux out the top” is just the “flux into the bottom” spread out in accordance with the inverse square law.
Sad but true. Religious conviction cannot abolish fact.
Thanks for taking the time to reply. In my view, it is important to first understand the origins of the AGW-through-GHG-emissions claim to be able to respond effectively.
You are right about understanding the processes, even though people differ regarding the way these processes play out.
Enthalpy requires only the constituents and temperature and pressure.
At 20 km, the Enthalpy is only about 1% of the zero elevation value.
I made a spreadsheet calc in one of my articles.
Should you examine the raw data in the UCHI Modtran calculator, you’ll find that changing the temperature offset changes all tropospheric temperatures equally. Should you double CO2, the temperature profile remains unchanged. This is a remarkable characteristic of climate muddling. In models for given fluxes of electric or fluid flow, gradients increase with resistivity or viscosity.
Your Modtran result is a net warming tendency of 3.548 W/m^2. Let’s say we go wild and multiply this by 390/240 which is IR at 288 / IR at TOA, a ratio of 1.625 to allow for greenhouse effect….the result is 5.765 W/m^2. Put this back into SB and the result is 1.06 C of warming at surface per doubling of CO2….
A other way of doing this in UChicago Modtran is to use the “offset” feature in conjunction with fixed relative humidity, which will allow for the increase in water vapor in the air as the temperature increases. This negates the argument that you have not allowed for “water vapor amplification”. IIRC the result will be the same or lower than the above 1.06. Not to mention “clear sky” is the worst case warming scenario…the real world is 65% cloud covered…and you can run various cloud cover and rainfall scenarios in Modtran….net result…no crisis for a couple of hundred years of fossil fuel use at least….say much longer than the projected Horse manure crisis of New York that new tech circumvented. https://www.newyorkalmanack.com/2021/02/the-unpleasant-side-of-life-with-horses-in-cities/
Thanks for your reply. Yes, over the years I’ve used Modtran to explore the what-ifs similarly. About the horse manure story, I live on a back road, and there’s a lake 2 miles beyond. About 10 miles in the other direction there are Amish who come by horse and buggy to fish in the lake. Guess what? Now there are “road apples” that I have to carefully avoid whether by car or on foot as I do my morning walk. 🙂
plus your GOES 13 imagery, to my way of thinking, shows CO2 warming is negated…leaving the question “what causes the cloud cover reduction that has caused increase in planetary surface temp as recorded over the last century and a half ?”
On a quick look…he seems to be using ground level temperature offset numbers with no description of why he is using those particular numbers….that would call into question how he arrives at his own “right conclusion”. User entered “Offset” is typically adjusted manually to achieve a radiative balance at TOA in Modtran. Over smaller areas, say the size of a state, the surface temperature can be different than that determined by radiative balance…say due to moving weather fronts, or ground that was cooled by yesterday’s rainfall…used in this way, Modtran results show the imbalance due to ground temp at TOA from your chosen base case to your new case, thus whether cooling or warming will occur.
User entered “Offset” is manually forcing the ground level upward IR emissions to be increased by the amount of the SB equation, call it approximately 5.4 watts per degree, plus also moving the lapse rate temperature at whatever atmospheric elevation by the same amount…and recalculating IR at whatever altitude you have set for “looking up” and “looking down”. Since 5.4 watts per degree is a lot higher than CO2 forcing, you can easily delude yourself with improper application of manually entered “offset”.
One should not really run Modtran UChicago version without having spent some time studying Skew-T charts or Tephigrams as issued by various weather ballon releases at various airports….for quite a while….so that you have an appreciation for both reality and what Modtran is calculating in its broad-brush radiative balance version of reality. (Not to take away from Modtran, it is very good radiatively, but you won’t be using it to calculate cloud formation altitudes, thus local albedo changes due to cloud cover)
sherro01
July 6, 2025 2:31 am
Here is a twist for readers to play with. It is derived from the usual UAH monthly satellite temperature data.
The headers for the columns that Dr Spencer publishes on his blog start with “Globe Land Ocean NH …” and end with ” … Ocean USA48 USA49 AUST”. I selected to last 24 of these columns of monthly anomaly data, leaving out “Globe, Land, Ocean” to concentrate on smaller regions selected by UAH. Yes, I know that there is overlap and duplication, like USA48 and USA 49, but this is an early days start.
I calculated a simple Standard Deviation for each shortened row of 24 values and plotted it as shown below.
This is broad brush start to a look at what else happens when there is a high global temperature peak like the 1998 prominent one. The crude reasoning is that, whether it coincided with an El Nino year or not, the atmosphere might be more agitated than usual, hence the S.D. between regions should be higher. At first blush this seems to be supportable by the raw data.
Readers might like to comment on whether the atmosphere is indeed more turbulent when these high peaks happen, whether this graph is a start to showing it and whether it matters anyhow.
Just giving that temperature graph a brief look, it appears that every long “pause” is interrupted by El Niño. Each time there’s a significant warming from it, another “pause” resumes at a higher baseline. I know that this has been discussed before, but I don’t recall if anyone has suggested a reason for it. That stair-step rise doesn’t bear resemblance to AGW, but rather something in the land-ocean system.
The pause-up-pause pattern is consistent with the expectations of AGW. You can see how just considering 5 of the most influential factors can superimpose on one another to produce a temperature trajectory that is consistent with what is observed in the graph below.
Those model “projections” are a just a bit too good. Looks like a lot of back-casting and tweaking of models to magically match measured temperatures. If this were real, and had decades of history perfectly predicting future UAH trends, then scientists would be in a full uproar.
Those model “projections” are a just a bit too good.
I appreciate the kind words, but remember the RMSE for a monthly anomaly is 0.13 C and that grows quite a bit if the model is used to forecast temperatures.
Looks like a lot of back-casting and tweaking of models to magically match measured temperatures.
Machine Learning. It is trained on past data.
If this were real, and had decades of history perfectly predicting future UAH trends, then scientists would be in a full uproar.
This specific model can only forecast UAH temperatures with useful skill at no more than 9 months of lead time.
What the model does is falsify the hypothesis that 1) agents, which modern climate science theory say have an influence, have no correlation with observations and 2) that the pause-up-pause-up pattern is inconsistent with the ebb and flow of these agents.
You have the start of typical control chart. The normal control limits are ±3σ but what I have found is that simple 1σ values are a better choice for temperature variations. Using 1σ for your data shows that there are periods where both upper and lower limits are approached. The period that really stands out to me is 2023 to present. That time period far exceeds the UCL which leads one to believe something other than natural variation has occurred. Maybe the Honga Tonga eruption? I haven’t bothered to look at ENSO dates but I bet it is likely those are the points where the control limits are approached.
In any case, there is nothing shown that would lead someone to believe that warming or cooling are anything but normal variations in a process that is under control.
Jim,
I am hoping for comments on whether peaks in the time series of the S.D. reflect a more turbulent atmosphere, with more difference than usual between geographic regions. Geoff S
Understanding the cause is helpful. The 1998 Enso is puzzling because it was very strong, and it was followed by a rare Triple dip La-Nina. Both of these events cannot be explained by normal Enso cycles. But since HT, we know much more. And Pinatubo injected way more water vapor into the Stratosphere than is commonly known. And when the SO2 / SU particulates dissipated the Stratospheric Water Vapor component took over along with recording setting civil aviation exhaust into the Stratosphere up until the Mid 90’s. Only to have the aviation exhaust rates lowered for the next several years, because of the Asian crash, injunction with the .Com crash and inevitably the Gulf War which all lead to a sustained decreases in aviation exhaust (H2O in the Stratosphere). And the climate responded exactly as it should (triple dip La-Nina).
A decade plus into the Millenium we see Obamas recession cause a decreasing trend in airline activity leading to the pause in global warming. And after that, this world started flying the likes in which no-one ever imagined and climaxed right before the Pandemic, in which aviation was slashed in half, and caused another unexplained Triple Dip La Nina right before HT overwhelmed the Stratospheric radiative properties and lead to huge increases in Global Temperatures. And now we are cooling down from that, right on schedule.
The other triple dip La-Nina, 1973-1975, Nixons bombing campaigns, Line Backer1 – 2 line up perfectly with this, not H2O, but particulates along the Pathway from Guam to South Vietnam from huge Armadas of the Smokiest engines in deployment of that era.
Of course, that is just based on data. I am just a simple scientist, I do not have any pre-conceptions about what is or what isn’t, like the rest of the fan club here.
strativarius
July 6, 2025 3:00 am
Today’s World at One, BBC R4 will be about climate change. A special guest will be one of the people who drafted the Paris agreement.
We get so many of these mostly because it’s very cheap for media networks to come up with “experts” and “concerned citizens” for a Climageddon story. New crazed soup throwers and pavement gluers, heat waves, polar vortexes, floods and droughts sprout up a couple of times a week…These people have a desire to tell their story and aren’t in demand for interviews nearly as much as celebrities whose agents insist that a $10K appearance fee be paid to the celebrity from the network or company pushing for their appearance.
Carbon Dioxide is a good gas essential to animals and plant life. Provided dirty emissions are cleaned up, we should be using our substantial store of fossil fuels while we develop a mix of alternatives including hydro-electric, nuclear power and fracking to generate energy. There is no climate crisis, it has always changed and we have always adapted to it. We have at least 50 years to do this before fossil fuel supplies run out. The left wing mainstream and power elites dangerously mislead everybody by constantly stating that man made carbon dioxide is a danger. It is not and never will be
If atmospheric carbon dioxide is the cause of global warming, why was it not warm in the Ordovician ice age when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were 4000 ppm and have been 15 times higher than the lowly 420 ppm it is now? 420 ppm is also the level around which it is becoming “saturated”. Any increase leads to little heat control. Thus increases in carbon dioxide will have negligible effect. The present quantity of man-made carbon dioxide is insignificant compared with water vapour or clouds which comprise a vast majority of green-house gases, over 90% compared with CO2’s less than 1%. Man has no control over the climate. Statistically we are overdue a period of cooling.The sun and our distance from it have by far the most effect. This always varies a little in cycles as the earth’s axis of rotation varies.
Most importantly, the Net-Zero (“De-carbonising” or removing carbon dioxide) Policy will not do anything to change the climate. It is a total sham. Every policy maker should be asked one question. How exactly will Net Zero help the planet? They cannot answer because it doesn’t. Expensive Policy is being made for totally useless and unjustifiable reasons. The completely avoidable present crippling energy costs are being imposed on us by people who are totally ignorant of the facts. The massive renewable subsidies are doing more harm than good. They should be cancelled and the vast sums used to put our economy on a much sounder footing
Countries like China, Russia and India are sensibly ignoring this policy and using their fossil fuels. They will be delighted at how the west is letting the power elites, mainstream media and government implement this Policy and the World Order Agenda 21/2030, to needlessly impoverish us as well as causing great hardship and suffering.
The Energy Institute has just published its latest ‘Statistical Review of World Energy.
Coal reached a global record level of demand in 2024 at 165EJ. 83% of demand was centred on the Asia-Pacific region with China accounting for 67% of that demand.
Coal still dominates China’s electricity sector providing 58% of electricity in 2024.
India’s coal use now equals that of the CIS (9 ex members of the Soviet Union, including Russia), South and Central America, North America and Europe combined.
Coal provides 75% of India’s generation fleet and 58% of China’s.
In 2024 the Asia Pacific Region accounted for 52% of global electricity demand, North America and Europe 30%.
The absorption of out-going IR radiation by CO2 becomes saturated when the concentration of CO2 is 300 ppmv. Check out this paper:
https://arixv.org./pdf/2004.007008.v1 The title is “The Saturation of the Infrared Absorption by Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere”. The author is Dieter Schildknecht of Cornell University.
What this means is that increasing the concentration of CO2 greater than 300 ppmv from the use fossil fuels will not result in an increase in surface air temperature. The concentration of CO2 in dry are air is currently 430 ppmv at the MLO in Hawaii.
strativarius
July 6, 2025 5:37 am
News from the New Jerusalem – careless talk edition.
“[Deputy Prime Minister] Angela Rayner is accused of plotting to censor workplace banter by forcing firms to hire ‘diversity officers’ tasked with policing overheard conversations. The Mail has more.
Last night, the Tories warned that the so-called ‘banter police’ would have a “chilling effect” on businesses already struggling under the weight of high taxes and excess regulation under Labour.
Under Ms Rayner’s Employment Rights Bill, employers must try to protect their staff from harassment by third parties.
It means, for example, that a worker could take an employer to tribunal if they feel jokes or banter they overhear was offensive on grounds such as race, sex or religion if their bosses didn’t do “all they could” to prevent it.
That is likely to lead to firms taking on more diversity officers to monitor what people are saying to help them prove they had taken sufficient steps to protect their workers.
The Bill fails to stipulate any ring fence allowing the expression of opinions on political, moral, religious or social matters …
The Bill requires bosses to give trade union representatives time off for matters “relating to equality in the workplace” – further adding to costs, and to the number of potential busybodies monitoring speech. …
The number of employment tribunal claims relating to “banter” in the workplace rose by 45% in 2021 alone, and bosses fear the new legislations will cause this to spiral even faster.
The changes would be a boon for outfits such as Inclusive Employers, which offers “banter workplace training”. …
The new laws will also roll back moves by the last Conservative government to stop Whitehall spending taxpayers’ money on “diversity, equality and inclusion” initiatives.
It is being reported that the area affected by the devastating flash flooding in and around Kerrville, Texas experienced 20 inches of rain, and it appears this rain fell in just a few hours.
I experienced a Typhoon while serving in Vietnam which dropped about 22 inches of rain in 24 hours. And I was sitting right next to a lazy creek at the time that turned into a raging river.
But I think 20 inches in a couple of hours beats 22 inches in 24 hours. Just a tremendous amount of rainfall at one time.
The Democrats must be having a hard time pinning any failures on the Trump administration. I haven’t heard much in that direction although a reporter on Fox News this morning brought up the subject of Trump DOGE cuts/reorganizations of weather services but didn’t criticize anyone for anything.
I would say, just listening to some of the weather reporters, that it is probably impossible to forecast when a storm cell is going to stop over a particular area and just dump all its rain for hours and hours.
Pray for a Miracle.
I just heard them report that it was raining at 12 inches per hour around Kerrville.
It’s far from unprecedented, it’s not even the first time multiple fatalities of young people in the Christian camps have occurred from flash flooding. Questions should be asked. You can find various old reports on flooding potential in the area stating that warning systems are inadequate. Clearly no one listened/learned.
NOAA gauge Guadalupe at Comfort.
1. 42.30 ft on 07-01-1869
2. 40.90 ft on 08-02-1978
3. 36.90 ft on 06-14-1935
4. 34.90 ft on 09-16-1915
5. 34.76 ft July 2025
6. 33.15 ft on 10-04-1959
7. 31.50 ft on 07-17-1987
8. 31.33 ft on 07-04-2002
9. 27.90 ft on 05-29-2016
10. 27.50 ft on 10-19-1985
This is very heart-wrenching as I have been familiar with that area for decades . Even stayed in trailer parks which are often next to rivers and have a friend who lost their trailer in Utopia on the small drainage system Sabinal River. In graduate school collected fish across much of which is called the Hill County but some of it is mountainous, uplifted Cretaceous with poorly permeable limestone and sandstone. It has also become much more populated. Water doesn’t appear solid but when it moves rapidly wipes out bridges which happened not long ago on the Blanco River. Long history of Texas floods, early Spanish explorers had the problem and in 1899 east Texas had 30 inches over an estimated 2000 square miles plus. Hazen, H. A. 1899. Extraordinary rainfall in Texas. Monthly Weather Review. 27(6):249.
Here is what she says: ““This isn’t just ‘climate change.’ It’s cloud seeding, geoengineering, & manipulation,“ she added. ”If fake weather causes real tragedy, that’s murder.” I don’t get the privilege of not voting for her, but I do see that you got 4 minus votes for an incomplete and misleading comment. So, I would never vote for you either. 🤠
She said“Fake weather. Fake hurricanes. Fake flooding. Fake. Fake. Fake.”” and given the timing, she is at the very least, guilty of being an absolute gold medal tackless fool. I certainly wouldn’t want her leading the people would you? I mean come on how can you defend that?
The media and liberal pols are blaming Trump cuts in NOAA/NWS budget and staff for lack of advanced forecast and warnings. No mention of the fact that in NOAAs 2023 budget $2B+ (33%) was devoted to climate change and NWS short term forecasting improvement has not been a priority. The cuts in Trump’s budget are targeted at reducing the bloated and useless CC scam support AFAIK.
“… it is probably impossible to forecast when a storm cell is going to stop over a particular area and just dump all its rain for hours and hours”
This [below] seems to be the best forewarning they had —
It’s from NWS Meteorologist ‘Otto’ (based in Maryland),
time-stamp 1:26 A.M. EDT (12:26 A.M. Central), or ~ 3+ hours prior to the deluge:
[ the image is amazing; the narrative is heavy meteor- & topographical jargon]
Of course, the question is whether this was received & understood & transmitted by the local NWS Centers (San Angelo & San Antonio) …
… but his interpretation is peculiar: Not only the remnants of the Tropical Cyclone ‘Barry’ (originating from the SSE direction / Atlantic Basin / Gulf), but also the remnant effects of major Hurricanes ‘Flossie’ (cat 3 at peak) and before that ‘Erick’ (cat 4) from the SW direction / NW Mexico / Gulf of California:
” an extremely moist environment containing 2.0 to 2.5 inches of PW with contributions from [both] the Gulf of America and tropical east Pacific clearly evident on layered PW imagery.
Re “a reporter … brought up the subject of Trump DOGE cuts/reorganizations of weather services but didn’t criticize anyone for anything.” What we’ve seen live in the press conference (in Kerr County) was a question (~ inaudible) to K. Noem, which she repeated as ‘failure of NWS to issue a timely warning.’ Her answer was to the effect that, YES, this is what we’re trying to address, this antiquated system. [ Sounded very much like the response to the Air-Traffic-Control failures in the Helicopter-Jet disaster over the Potomac / Reagan National, a few months ago. ]
She also said something like “… as in the case of Harvey …” referring to the Hurricane remnants that wandered unpredictably around far-East-Texas, ultimately flooding a large region around Houston … but being on the low Coastal Plain was NOT flash-flooding as in a narrow river-valley of the Hill Country … was a case of property damage rather than loss of life.
Notably, she did not say anything political-sounding like ‘all the funding was diverted to the Climate Scare’ or DEI hiring etc. And the reason for that was obvious: the panic & grief all around was just too raw.
Have to add this, having been awakened by an especially intense thunderstorm at that hour, in NW-San Antonio (a good 40+ miles away from the devastating flash-flood soon to come), we had been under flash-flood watches & warnings for many hours prior. Whether to evacuate abruptly to safer terrain, under those circumstances, would be a tough call in the middle of the night.
A barely-educated guess is that the authorities require an advance closing of those areas, whenever a tropical system is in the areas. That won’t be a popular one.
Musk and his team did a great job at finding wasted tax dollars.
Thanks for that, Elon and team.
I honestly don’t know if he highlighted subsidizes to green crap and EVs as wasted dollars.
If he didn’t, he should have.
And this is another example of total ignorance about firearms. Why AR-15’s specifically?Because “big scary black gun”. No real understanding – just buying into the propaganda.
It’s those “extra” tubes around the barrel.
I have a legally purchased SKS during Clinton’s “assault weapons” ban that will fire rounds at the same rate as an AR-15.
(For those who don’t know, that “extra” tube whether above or below the barrel, as in the WW2 era M1 Garand, was just to use the pressure to drive a piston to operate the mechanism to eject the spent cartridge and load a new round.)
Can’t bear to hear Gore. I notice lots of climate nut jobs posting comments there about the Satanic fossil fuel companies. The irony is that they think they have the truth- that the other side is brainwashed when it’s they who are brainwashed. I have friends like that- I never discuss the topic with them. They are all hypocrites of course with big homes, big cars, big TVs, expensive clothes.
Yeah, I also just noticed his Convenient Lies Revisited. Same old crap, we are all gonna die, that’s for sure. The hysteric comments are also hilarious, much work to do for climate psychologists.
Brain storm (or fart) on how to deal with excess CO2. Convert a bunch of it into dry ice (solid CO2) and then dump it into the oceans–Thus cooling the water allowing it to absorb even more atmospheric CO2. Should work??
Freezing a substance releases heat. Converting CO2 to dry ice thus adds to the global heating phenomenon. As a result, the oceans will heat up also, thereby releasing more and more CO2, which ultimately will lead to a deadly spiral of flames, burning all life on earth. That in its turn will further accelerate the heat-up, until Earth has vaporized, and it’s atoms will disperse into the almighty universe.
dh-mtl
July 6, 2025 8:32 am
I would like to pick up on the discussion of the earth’s climate system as a chaotic system that took place on the comment thread under Andy May’s article of July 3.
Whether or not the earth’s climate system is chaotic or not might be one of the most important questions in climate science, and it is rarely addressed. There are several aspects of this question that deserve to be discussed.
Firstly, I believe that there is an underlying assumption in the theory that CO2 is the climate control knob that the climate system is essentially a stable system, and not only stable but fragile. It is only in a stable system that a relatively minor factor like a small change in the concentration of CO2 could cause the climate system to reach a ‘tipping point’ and to run away. As I understand it, according to this theory, all other factors have been shown to be so minor that they can be dismissed as a cause of climate change.
On the other hand, if the climate system is chaotic, and thus inherently unstable, that means that there are many factors that can significantly affect our climate system, and CO2 then becomes just one of many factors, and a relatively insignificant factor at that.
Secondly, it is important to discuss what lies behind the chaotic nature of earth’s climate. There are two major categories of events that drive the chaos. Firstly, the earth’s climate system is an ‘open system’. It is constantly subject to changing external forces: variations in solar energy, gravitational fields, magnetic fields, solar winds, space debris, etc., as well as internal forces, such as geological, events, weathering, etc. The second category is that some of the processes of the earth’s climate system itself are highly non-linear. The most important of these is evaporative cooling. It is my understanding that the CO2 control knob theory and the climate models based on this theory consider all of these external forces as insignificant, and also ignore any non-linearity in climate processes.
Thirdly, while the earth’s climate system is chaotic, it appears to be stable. It is in fact meta-stable, or constrained instability. And judging by the tremendous forces that have affected the climate over the earth’s history, the constraints are robust, i.e. if the earth’s climate system is chaotic and meta-stable, implying robust constraints, then its nature is exactly the opposite of that implied by the CO2 control knob theory, i.e. stable and fragile.
So what are the constraints ensuring meta-stability? First and foremost, the properties of water and the process of water evaporation. Water evaporation is by far the most important cooling mechanism in the earth’s climate system. According to the NASA’s ‘Earth Energy Budget’, 53% of the solar radiation absorbed by the earth’s surface is removed by the process of water evaporation (163.3 W/m2 absorbed by the earth’s surface, 86.4 W/m2 removed by radiation). And this evaporative cooling is concentrated in the tropical oceans.
The evaporative cooling process is also highly non-linear. The most important factor controlling the rate of evaporation, at water temperatures above 25 C, is not water temperature, but rather the rate of evaporation itself. In other words, at water temperatures above 25 C, the process of water evaporation becomes a self-feeding process. Water vapor, which is 35% lighter than dry air, drives winds, which increases the rates of evaporation which drives even higher winds and waves with broken surface, which further increases the rate of evaporation.
This highly non-linear nature of the evaporation process at water temperatures above 25C is best shown in the graph presented as Figure 5 from Willis Eschenbach’s post ‘Rainergy’ (WUWT – May 22, 2024). In that graph of ‘total cloud cooling – radiative plus rainfall’ over the tropical oceans vs temperature, the cooling rate at 25 C averages about 85 W/m2, while at 30C it is about 500 W/M2, an increase of more than 40% per degree C, many times higher than can be expected from the increase in temperature alone.
In fact, what we see is that the process of evaporative cooling in the tropical oceans oscillates between two unstable states. At temperatures below 25 C there is not enough evaporative cooling to balance incoming solar radiation, the ocean’s will warm up. At water temperatures above approximately 28C, under conditions of wind and waves, evaporative cooling is excessive and the oceans will cool down.
I’m no scientist but makes sense to me! You should send that to all the major papers. Of course they won’t publish it but their not publishing it will go to prove their idiocy and corruption.
The instability of the tropical ocean evaporative process is clearly illustrated with hurricanes. Water temperatures often reach 28 C or higher and are clearly unstable as it only takes a little bit of wind associated with a weather disturbance off the coast of Africa to trigger a hurricane, with extraordinary rates of evaporative cooling. Once the hurricane has passed having cooled water temperatures by several degrees, there will again be insufficient evaporative cooling and the oceans will again warm. The ENSO process is another manifestation of this oscillation between these two unstable states, only in this case, the size of the tropical Pacific is such that the winds necessary to generate enhanced evaporation are self generated and don’t require a trigger.
The effectiveness of water evaporation as the constraint on climate variability, ensuring earth’s meta-stable climate is shown by David Shelley in the graph ‘Pole to Equator Temperature Gradients’, from his post ‘The Geological Record of Climate Change’, WUWT Nov 2, 2024.
To conclude, the ‘chaotic’ nature of the earth’s climate system directly contradicts the notion of CO2 as a climate control knob. Rather than being a stable and fragile system as implied by the CO2 theory, the earth’s climate system is in fact a robust meta-stable system that is in constrained equilibrium. The most important constraint is the highly non-linear evaporative cooling process, the most important process in the earth’s energy balance, which operates between two states of instability, insufficient cooling at tropical ocean temperatures below 25C, and excessive cooling at tropical ocean temperatures above about 28 C.
The NHC frequently states that sea surface temperatures of 26C or higher are needed to sustain tropical cyclones. Lower temperatures lead to weakening of the cyclones.
Ocean Surface Warming by sunlight below 25C, cooling by evaporation above 28C (taking decades) depending on mixing depth…that’s a logical hypothesis.
The relative strengths according to an IPPC AR Sankey diagram below of the important factors are:
Sunlight 160
Evaporation 82
Conduction 21
Net radiation 56
So your evaporation scenario being a long term control knob and its high dependency on local wind velocity, does seem to explain the variability we see and it’s time frame.
That’s about the temperature of mostly cloud bottoms, at H2O freezing 273C, with other sky temperature things averaged in as well…colder than the surface temp. So heat flows upward from the surface proportional to [Tsurf^4 – Tcloudbottom^4] at around 56 W/m^2….global average and different from equator to pole… and day to night…
If the cloud bottom stays at freezing but weather fronts force the cloud over a colder surface temp of say 20 degrees below freezing, IR from the cloud will warm the surface somewhat by radiating to that cold surface, but it is technically no longer back-radiation to a physicist, but is still called that in tech-talk commonly used by meteorologists.
My guess would be that it’s operating perfectly but has discovered that natural methane sources far outweigh man’s emissions and is still less than 2ppm, therefore does not support the narrative that producing food will k1ll us all.
Hmm, given some of the other actions the green blob does/has done, turning off a single source of disagreeing data actually seems more plausible than a failed QC check or poor design.
This video is a complete and thorough review of the hockey stick sophistry. If people actually study this graph, the fraud is so blatant. Please watch and critique any possible mistakes. If you have an account on Real Climate, please post it there. https://app.screencast.com/nXfZcUyGR4QlR
This is a Modtran 2XCO2 exercise with comments and explanations. I don’t take Modtran or any radiative transfer model as the final say about radiative emission/transmission from the surface up through the atmosphere to space – I’m just reporting these particular results and discussing the implications.
U.S.1976 Standard Atmosphere. Clear sky, no clouds or rain. 288.2K surface temperature. I note that for all the values stated in this exercise, the temperature and humidity at every level in the model stays the same. It just gives the modeled IR flux without any further physical response. I selected 5.1 km (which is at the 533 mb level) because that is the altitude where the temperature is 255K, the widely noted effective emission temperature of the earth. The University of Chicago web page here is used for this exercise. https://climatemodels.uchicago.edu/modtran/
(Please note – the “looking down” and “looking up” flux values computed by the model are for a hemispherical field of view oriented down or up.)
70 km looking down at 280 ppmv CO2 gives 269.349 W/m^2; 560 ppmv CO2 gives 266.398 W/m^2
70 km looking up at 280 ppmv CO2 gives 0.046 W/m^2; 560 ppmv CO2 gives 0.058 W/m^2
5.1 km looking up at 280 ppmv CO2 gives 113.888 W/m^2; 560 ppmv CO2 gives 117.467 W/m^2
5.1 km looking down at 280 ppmv CO2 gives 312.995 W/m^2; 560 ppmv CO2 gives 311.143 W/m^2
0 km looking up at 280 ppmv CO2 gives 267.13 W/m^2; 560 ppmv CO2 gives 270.731 W/m^2
0 km looking down gives 382.138 W/m^2 in both cases.
Flux balances (in W/m^2) for a step change from 280 ppmv to 560 ppmv:
For the atmosphere above 5.1 km: 311.143 – 312.995 (reduced flux from below) = -1.852
269.349 – 266.398 (reduced flux out the top) = 2.951
113.888 – 117.467 (increased flux out the bottom) = -3.579
0.058 – 0.046 (increased flux from above) = 0.012
Net = -2.468 W/m^2, i.e., a cooling tendency.
For the atmosphere below 5.1 km: 382.138 – 382.138 (no change from below) = 0.000
312.995 – 311.143 (reduced flux out the top) = 1.852
267.183 – 270.731 (increased flux out the bottom) = -3.548
117.467 – 113.888 (increased flux from above) = 3.579
Net = 1.883 W/m^2, i.e., a warming tendency
For the surface: Net = 3.548 W/m^2, i.e., a warming tendency
So what? The climate consensus version of what must happen as a response to these initial (theoretical) tendencies is that the surface temperature must rise to restore the original flux out the top. No, that is not a necessary response. Why not? Because circulation, precipitation heating, and energy conversion are overwhelmingly powerful in the entire depth of the troposphere, which extends far above the 5.1 km / 533 mb (theoretical) effective radiating level. There are no barriers anywhere near the 5.1 km level. If the top half is a bit short on radiated energy from below, it is easily made up in the non-radiative processes. No one knows that ANY increase in the average surface temperature must be expected as an end result of rising concentrations of CO2, CH4, N2O, and similar IR-active substances.
Further Comments:
The modeled flux changes and resulting warming or cooling tendencies given here arise mainly from within the spectral bands where partial absorption by CO2 is enhanced by the doubling. There is no modeling of what happens, for example, when the increased flux from the top half is intercepted in the bottom half by clouds, mist, aerosols, water vapor, etc. and shifted to other wavelengths. And there is no modeling of what happens, for example, at the interface with the surface to promote evaporation rather than sensible heat gain.
More in the first reply.
I note that, In 2009, NASA was most certainly aware of what such an exercise in Modtran or similar radiative transfer model would show. Even so, the January 14, 2009 web article linked here included this quote: “At an altitude of roughly 5-6 kilometers, the concentration of greenhouse gases in the overlying atmosphere is so small that heat can radiate freely to space.” This is a fundamental concept. It doesn’t mean there is no absorption or emission higher up. It’s that the top half is not going to be driving sensible heat gain below it as an end result.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/EnergyBalance
This means that NASA knew very well that overturning circulation and other factors matter to the disposition of the energy involved in the computed static radiative effect of incremental CO2. Therefore the modeled effect does NOT “force” a sensible heat gain result as the only possible outcome. But also in that article, the concluding emphasis returns to the static-only aspect: “However, as long as greenhouse gas concentrations continue to rise, the amount of absorbed solar energy will continue to exceed the amount of thermal infrared energy that can escape to space. The energy imbalance will continue to grow, and surface temperatures will continue to rise.” This is not consistent with the earlier quote. So we must think it through for ourselves.
One more thing. In this static 2XCO2 case, the so-called “forcing” at the surface (3.548 W/m^2) is no more than the “forcing” at the 5.1 km effective radiating level (3.579 W/m^2). This helps us understand how the powerful, highly variable, and highly self-regulating non-radiative short-circuiting of energy from the bottom half of the atmosphere to the top half can easily transport the energy involved in the “forcing” to higher altitude where NASA already knows it “can radiate freely to space.” So I prefer not to call these modeled flux increments a “forcing” at all, because the energy is not being made to accumulate down here to begin with.
Thank you for bearing with me through this exercise.
Well done, David. MODTRAN fittingly demonstrates a number of the logical fallacies assumed in climate alarmism, There’s the usual appeal to authority, e.g. USAF, of course, but the biggest fallacy is the assumption that radiative transfer is applicable to the lower troposphere.
Thanks for your reply. Even if there is minor applicability, e.g. at the edge of the “atmospheric window” where incremental CO2 makes a slight difference in the static radiative coupling to the surface, it ends up being completely inconsequential.
What ‘NASA knew’ in 2009 … think, think …
What else was going on back then?
A November freeze-out in the Copenhagen Climate Summit …
& at East Anglia (Climate-Gate)?
Year of Peak Hysteria?
NASA knew, #NASA-Knew, #nasaKnew …
Perhaps something along these lines should work?
Yes, the disclaimer-as-misdirection, probably added late by the appointed administrators / PR department.
Our elected officials — rather their appointed investigators — will need to get around to this, sooner or later.
Perhaps after this stage has passed:
I used #NASA_Knew
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/05/16/wuwt-contest-runner-up-professional-nasa-knew-better-nasa_knew/
Great, a Prize-Winner!
That’s probably where I learned it, then promptly forgot, ’til your reminder 😉
P.S. A search for ‘Copenhagen Climate Summit’ brought up this gem:
Couldn’t make this up!
Errr, no. The “flux out the top” is the “flux into the bottom”. If the surface temperature drops (for example, at night), the amount of surface “flux” decreases. The “flux out the top” is just the “flux into the bottom” spread out in accordance with the inverse square law.
Sad but true. Religious conviction cannot abolish fact.
It is better to calculate enthalpy values from zero elevation to 20 km.
It is much more important to know where the energy is than how it got there.
Thanks for taking the time to reply. In my view, it is important to first understand the origins of the AGW-through-GHG-emissions claim to be able to respond effectively.
David,
You are right about understanding the processes, even though people differ regarding the way these processes play out.
Enthalpy requires only the constituents and temperature and pressure.
At 20 km, the Enthalpy is only about 1% of the zero elevation value.
I made a spreadsheet calc in one of my articles.
Here is the article with Enthalpy calcs.
Enthalpy at 20 km, more than 2 times Everest, is 5.5% of the zero elevation value
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/hunga-tonga-volcanic-eruption
Should you examine the raw data in the UCHI Modtran calculator, you’ll find that changing the temperature offset changes all tropospheric temperatures equally. Should you double CO2, the temperature profile remains unchanged. This is a remarkable characteristic of climate muddling. In models for given fluxes of electric or fluid flow, gradients increase with resistivity or viscosity.
Good points. And yes, one learns a lot by examining the lines of model output text, and even plotting the results for better understanding.
(deleted duplicate)
Your Modtran result is a net warming tendency of 3.548 W/m^2. Let’s say we go wild and multiply this by 390/240 which is IR at 288 / IR at TOA, a ratio of 1.625 to allow for greenhouse effect….the result is 5.765 W/m^2. Put this back into SB and the result is 1.06 C of warming at surface per doubling of CO2….
A other way of doing this in UChicago Modtran is to use the “offset” feature in conjunction with fixed relative humidity, which will allow for the increase in water vapor in the air as the temperature increases. This negates the argument that you have not allowed for “water vapor amplification”. IIRC the result will be the same or lower than the above 1.06. Not to mention “clear sky” is the worst case warming scenario…the real world is 65% cloud covered…and you can run various cloud cover and rainfall scenarios in Modtran….net result…no crisis for a couple of hundred years of fossil fuel use at least….say much longer than the projected Horse manure crisis of New York that new tech circumvented.
https://www.newyorkalmanack.com/2021/02/the-unpleasant-side-of-life-with-horses-in-cities/
Thanks for your reply. Yes, over the years I’ve used Modtran to explore the what-ifs similarly. About the horse manure story, I live on a back road, and there’s a lake 2 miles beyond. About 10 miles in the other direction there are Amish who come by horse and buggy to fish in the lake. Guess what? Now there are “road apples” that I have to carefully avoid whether by car or on foot as I do my morning walk. 🙂
plus your GOES 13 imagery, to my way of thinking, shows CO2 warming is negated…leaving the question “what causes the cloud cover reduction that has caused increase in planetary surface temp as recorded over the last century and a half ?”
Here is a Modtran Video doing similar studies.
https://app.screencast.com/38ReOxINe7Fsv
On a quick look…he seems to be using ground level temperature offset numbers with no description of why he is using those particular numbers….that would call into question how he arrives at his own “right conclusion”. User entered “Offset” is typically adjusted manually to achieve a radiative balance at TOA in Modtran. Over smaller areas, say the size of a state, the surface temperature can be different than that determined by radiative balance…say due to moving weather fronts, or ground that was cooled by yesterday’s rainfall…used in this way, Modtran results show the imbalance due to ground temp at TOA from your chosen base case to your new case, thus whether cooling or warming will occur.
User entered “Offset” is manually forcing the ground level upward IR emissions to be increased by the amount of the SB equation, call it approximately 5.4 watts per degree, plus also moving the lapse rate temperature at whatever atmospheric elevation by the same amount…and recalculating IR at whatever altitude you have set for “looking up” and “looking down”. Since 5.4 watts per degree is a lot higher than CO2 forcing, you can easily delude yourself with improper application of manually entered “offset”.
One should not really run Modtran UChicago version without having spent some time studying Skew-T charts or Tephigrams as issued by various weather ballon releases at various airports….for quite a while….so that you have an appreciation for both reality and what Modtran is calculating in its broad-brush radiative balance version of reality. (Not to take away from Modtran, it is very good radiatively, but you won’t be using it to calculate cloud formation altitudes, thus local albedo changes due to cloud cover)
Here is a twist for readers to play with. It is derived from the usual UAH monthly satellite temperature data.
The headers for the columns that Dr Spencer publishes on his blog start with “Globe Land Ocean NH …” and end with ” … Ocean USA48 USA49 AUST”. I selected to last 24 of these columns of monthly anomaly data, leaving out “Globe, Land, Ocean” to concentrate on smaller regions selected by UAH. Yes, I know that there is overlap and duplication, like USA48 and USA 49, but this is an early days start.
I calculated a simple Standard Deviation for each shortened row of 24 values and plotted it as shown below.
This is broad brush start to a look at what else happens when there is a high global temperature peak like the 1998 prominent one. The crude reasoning is that, whether it coincided with an El Nino year or not, the atmosphere might be more agitated than usual, hence the S.D. between regions should be higher. At first blush this seems to be supportable by the raw data.
Readers might like to comment on whether the atmosphere is indeed more turbulent when these high peaks happen, whether this graph is a start to showing it and whether it matters anyhow.
Thank you for looking at data. Geoff S
Just giving that temperature graph a brief look, it appears that every long “pause” is interrupted by El Niño. Each time there’s a significant warming from it, another “pause” resumes at a higher baseline. I know that this has been discussed before, but I don’t recall if anyone has suggested a reason for it. That stair-step rise doesn’t bear resemblance to AGW, but rather something in the land-ocean system.
It follows the rise in atmospheric CO2…also the increase in use of anesthetic gases.
/s…just testing to see if downvoters are awake this am….
You scared me!
The pause-up-pause pattern is consistent with the expectations of AGW. You can see how just considering 5 of the most influential factors can superimpose on one another to produce a temperature trajectory that is consistent with what is observed in the graph below.
Those model “projections” are a just a bit too good. Looks like a lot of back-casting and tweaking of models to magically match measured temperatures. If this were real, and had decades of history perfectly predicting future UAH trends, then scientists would be in a full uproar.
And pretending that you know “the 5 of the most influential factors” is jargon science at best.
I appreciate the kind words, but remember the RMSE for a monthly anomaly is 0.13 C and that grows quite a bit if the model is used to forecast temperatures.
Machine Learning. It is trained on past data.
This specific model can only forecast UAH temperatures with useful skill at no more than 9 months of lead time.
What the model does is falsify the hypothesis that 1) agents, which modern climate science theory say have an influence, have no correlation with observations and 2) that the pause-up-pause-up pattern is inconsistent with the ebb and flow of these agents.
Rubbish, It shows nothing of the sort.
What it does show that if you use enough “fudge factors” you can wiggle to elephants tail.
As soon as you make any “assumption” that CO2 causes warming.. it is no longer based on science.
No, long pauses of zero warming followed by El Nino spike/steps are NOT consistent with warming from a steady increase in atmospheric CO2.
Geoff,
You have the start of typical control chart. The normal control limits are ±3σ but what I have found is that simple 1σ values are a better choice for temperature variations. Using 1σ for your data shows that there are periods where both upper and lower limits are approached. The period that really stands out to me is 2023 to present. That time period far exceeds the UCL which leads one to believe something other than natural variation has occurred. Maybe the Honga Tonga eruption? I haven’t bothered to look at ENSO dates but I bet it is likely those are the points where the control limits are approached.
In any case, there is nothing shown that would lead someone to believe that warming or cooling are anything but normal variations in a process that is under control.
Jim,
I am hoping for comments on whether peaks in the time series of the S.D. reflect a more turbulent atmosphere, with more difference than usual between geographic regions. Geoff S
Understanding the cause is helpful. The 1998 Enso is puzzling because it was very strong, and it was followed by a rare Triple dip La-Nina. Both of these events cannot be explained by normal Enso cycles. But since HT, we know much more. And Pinatubo injected way more water vapor into the Stratosphere than is commonly known. And when the SO2 / SU particulates dissipated the Stratospheric Water Vapor component took over along with recording setting civil aviation exhaust into the Stratosphere up until the Mid 90’s. Only to have the aviation exhaust rates lowered for the next several years, because of the Asian crash, injunction with the .Com crash and inevitably the Gulf War which all lead to a sustained decreases in aviation exhaust (H2O in the Stratosphere). And the climate responded exactly as it should (triple dip La-Nina).
A decade plus into the Millenium we see Obamas recession cause a decreasing trend in airline activity leading to the pause in global warming. And after that, this world started flying the likes in which no-one ever imagined and climaxed right before the Pandemic, in which aviation was slashed in half, and caused another unexplained Triple Dip La Nina right before HT overwhelmed the Stratospheric radiative properties and lead to huge increases in Global Temperatures. And now we are cooling down from that, right on schedule.
The other triple dip La-Nina, 1973-1975, Nixons bombing campaigns, Line Backer1 – 2 line up perfectly with this, not H2O, but particulates along the Pathway from Guam to South Vietnam from huge Armadas of the Smokiest engines in deployment of that era.
Of course, that is just based on data. I am just a simple scientist, I do not have any pre-conceptions about what is or what isn’t, like the rest of the fan club here.
Today’s World at One, BBC R4 will be about climate change. A special guest will be one of the people who drafted the Paris agreement.
Something to avoid on a cloudy Sunday.
Make that a rainy Sunday
Isn’t that just called a Sunday in the UK?
We get so many of these mostly because it’s very cheap for media networks to come up with “experts” and “concerned citizens” for a Climageddon story. New crazed soup throwers and pavement gluers, heat waves, polar vortexes, floods and droughts sprout up a couple of times a week…These people have a desire to tell their story and aren’t in demand for interviews nearly as much as celebrities whose agents insist that a $10K appearance fee be paid to the celebrity from the network or company pushing for their appearance.
story tip #1 (from just recently): https://www.intellinews.com/southern-ocean-current-reverses-for-first-time-signalling-risk-of-climate-system-collapse-389540/
story tip #2 (from late this past May): https://www.coastreporter.net/environment-news/2024-sees-record-warm-temperatures-less-sea-ice-cover-in-gulf-of-st-lawrence-10704383
story tip #3 (from late this past April, updated just recently): https://www.coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/satellite/research/coral_bleaching_report.php
NET ZERO FOLLY
Carbon Dioxide is a good gas essential to animals and plant life. Provided dirty emissions are cleaned up, we should be using our substantial store of fossil fuels while we develop a mix of alternatives including hydro-electric, nuclear power and fracking to generate energy. There is no climate crisis, it has always changed and we have always adapted to it. We have at least 50 years to do this before fossil fuel supplies run out. The left wing mainstream and power elites dangerously mislead everybody by constantly stating that man made carbon dioxide is a danger. It is not and never will be
If atmospheric carbon dioxide is the cause of global warming, why was it not warm in the Ordovician ice age when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were 4000 ppm and have been 15 times higher than the lowly 420 ppm it is now? 420 ppm is also the level around which it is becoming “saturated”. Any increase leads to little heat control. Thus increases in carbon dioxide will have negligible effect. The present quantity of man-made carbon dioxide is insignificant compared with water vapour or clouds which comprise a vast majority of green-house gases, over 90% compared with CO2’s less than 1%. Man has no control over the climate. Statistically we are overdue a period of cooling.The sun and our distance from it have by far the most effect. This always varies a little in cycles as the earth’s axis of rotation varies.
Most importantly, the Net-Zero (“De-carbonising” or removing carbon dioxide) Policy will not do anything to change the climate. It is a total sham. Every policy maker should be asked one question. How exactly will Net Zero help the planet? They cannot answer because it doesn’t. Expensive Policy is being made for totally useless and unjustifiable reasons. The completely avoidable present crippling energy costs are being imposed on us by people who are totally ignorant of the facts. The massive renewable subsidies are doing more harm than good. They should be cancelled and the vast sums used to put our economy on a much sounder footing
Countries like China, Russia and India are sensibly ignoring this policy and using their fossil fuels. They will be delighted at how the west is letting the power elites, mainstream media and government implement this Policy and the World Order Agenda 21/2030, to needlessly impoverish us as well as causing great hardship and suffering.
Story Tip“Expensive Policy is being made for totally useless and unjustifiable reasons.“
Not true, It redistributes wealth from the plebs, back to the elites.
The Energy Institute has just published its latest ‘Statistical Review of World Energy.
Coal reached a global record level of demand in 2024 at 165EJ. 83% of demand was centred on the Asia-Pacific region with China accounting for 67% of that demand.
Coal still dominates China’s electricity sector providing 58% of electricity in 2024.
India’s coal use now equals that of the CIS (9 ex members of the Soviet Union, including Russia), South and Central America, North America and Europe combined.
Coal provides 75% of India’s generation fleet and 58% of China’s.
In 2024 the Asia Pacific Region accounted for 52% of global electricity demand, North America and Europe 30%.
The absorption of out-going IR radiation by CO2 becomes saturated when the concentration of CO2 is 300 ppmv. Check out this paper:
https://arixv.org./pdf/2004.007008.v1 The title is “The Saturation of the Infrared Absorption by Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere”. The author is Dieter Schildknecht of Cornell University.
What this means is that increasing the concentration of CO2 greater than 300 ppmv from the use fossil fuels will not result in an increase in surface air temperature. The concentration of CO2 in dry are air is currently 430 ppmv at the MLO in Hawaii.
News from the New Jerusalem – careless talk edition.
“[Deputy Prime Minister] Angela Rayner is accused of plotting to censor workplace banter by forcing firms to hire ‘diversity officers’ tasked with policing overheard conversations. The Mail has more.
https://dailysceptic.org/2025/07/06/angela-rayner-to-put-banter-police-in-your-office/
H/T The UK Thought Police.
Political officers in the military:
Nazi Germany, USSR & China:
Wikipedia
“jokes or banter” is something humans do- always have and always will- it’s usually harmless and just something one has to learn to tolerate
of course extreme examples, real abuse, should be minimized
It is being reported that the area affected by the devastating flash flooding in and around Kerrville, Texas experienced 20 inches of rain, and it appears this rain fell in just a few hours.
I experienced a Typhoon while serving in Vietnam which dropped about 22 inches of rain in 24 hours. And I was sitting right next to a lazy creek at the time that turned into a raging river.
But I think 20 inches in a couple of hours beats 22 inches in 24 hours. Just a tremendous amount of rainfall at one time.
The Democrats must be having a hard time pinning any failures on the Trump administration. I haven’t heard much in that direction although a reporter on Fox News this morning brought up the subject of Trump DOGE cuts/reorganizations of weather services but didn’t criticize anyone for anything.
I would say, just listening to some of the weather reporters, that it is probably impossible to forecast when a storm cell is going to stop over a particular area and just dump all its rain for hours and hours.
Pray for a Miracle.
I just heard them report that it was raining at 12 inches per hour around Kerrville.
It’s far from unprecedented, it’s not even the first time multiple fatalities of young people in the Christian camps have occurred from flash flooding. Questions should be asked. You can find various old reports on flooding potential in the area stating that warning systems are inadequate. Clearly no one listened/learned.
NOAA gauge Guadalupe at Comfort.
1. 42.30 ft on 07-01-1869
2. 40.90 ft on 08-02-1978
3. 36.90 ft on 06-14-1935
4. 34.90 ft on 09-16-1915
5. 34.76 ft July 2025
6. 33.15 ft on 10-04-1959
7. 31.50 ft on 07-17-1987
8. 31.33 ft on 07-04-2002
9. 27.90 ft on 05-29-2016
10. 27.50 ft on 10-19-1985
This is very heart-wrenching as I have been familiar with that area for decades . Even stayed in trailer parks which are often next to rivers and have a friend who lost their trailer in Utopia on the small drainage system Sabinal River. In graduate school collected fish across much of which is called the Hill County but some of it is mountainous, uplifted Cretaceous with poorly permeable limestone and sandstone. It has also become much more populated. Water doesn’t appear solid but when it moves rapidly wipes out bridges which happened not long ago on the Blanco River. Long history of Texas floods, early Spanish explorers had the problem and in 1899 east Texas had 30 inches over an estimated 2000 square miles plus. Hazen, H. A. 1899. Extraordinary rainfall in Texas. Monthly Weather Review. 27(6):249.
Floods happen in flood planes. People shouldn’t build in flood planes without superb engineering to minimize damage from extreme weather.
The Democrats must be having a hard time pinning any failures on the Trump administration.
Haven’t heard anything from anyone prominent yet, but already seen lots of people making such claims.
Some think it is all fake.
https://www.pennlive.com/nation-world/2025/07/ga-congressional-candidate-goes-full-conspiracy-on-texas-flooding-fake-fake-fake.html
Here is what she says: ““This isn’t just ‘climate change.’ It’s cloud seeding, geoengineering, & manipulation,“ she added. ”If fake weather causes real tragedy, that’s murder.”
I don’t get the privilege of not voting for her, but I do see that you got 4 minus votes for an incomplete and misleading comment. So, I would never vote for you either. 🤠
She said “Fake weather. Fake hurricanes. Fake flooding. Fake. Fake. Fake.”” and given the timing, she is at the very least, guilty of being an absolute gold medal tackless fool. I certainly wouldn’t want her leading the people would you? I mean come on how can you defend that?
The media and liberal pols are blaming Trump cuts in NOAA/NWS budget and staff for lack of advanced forecast and warnings. No mention of the fact that in NOAAs 2023 budget $2B+ (33%) was devoted to climate change and NWS short term forecasting improvement has not been a priority. The cuts in Trump’s budget are targeted at reducing the bloated and useless CC scam support AFAIK.
Tom, not going to post a link to the video, but here’s an article with a response by the Houston Mayor’s office to one of the most disgusting things i’ve heard: https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2025/07/06/former-city-official-criticized-for-referring-to-camp-where-girls-went-missing-after-flood-as-white-only-girls-camp/
This [below] seems to be the best forewarning they had —
It’s from NWS Meteorologist ‘Otto’ (based in Maryland),
time-stamp 1:26 A.M. EDT (12:26 A.M. Central), or ~ 3+ hours prior to the deluge:
[ the image is amazing; the narrative is heavy meteor- & topographical jargon]
Of course, the question is whether this was received & understood & transmitted by the local NWS Centers (San Angelo & San Antonio) …
… but his interpretation is peculiar: Not only the remnants of the Tropical Cyclone ‘Barry’ (originating from the SSE direction / Atlantic Basin / Gulf), but also the remnant effects of major Hurricanes ‘Flossie’ (cat 3 at peak) and before that ‘Erick’ (cat 4) from the SW direction / NW Mexico / Gulf of California:
Re “a reporter … brought up the subject of Trump DOGE cuts/reorganizations of weather services but didn’t criticize anyone for anything.” What we’ve seen live in the press conference (in Kerr County) was a question (~ inaudible) to K. Noem, which she repeated as ‘failure of NWS to issue a timely warning.’ Her answer was to the effect that, YES, this is what we’re trying to address, this antiquated system. [ Sounded very much like the response to the Air-Traffic-Control failures in the Helicopter-Jet disaster over the Potomac / Reagan National, a few months ago. ]
She also said something like “… as in the case of Harvey …” referring to the Hurricane remnants that wandered unpredictably around far-East-Texas, ultimately flooding a large region around Houston … but being on the low Coastal Plain was NOT flash-flooding as in a narrow river-valley of the Hill Country … was a case of property damage rather than loss of life.
Notably, she did not say anything political-sounding like ‘all the funding was diverted to the Climate Scare’ or DEI hiring etc. And the reason for that was obvious: the panic & grief all around was just too raw.
Have to add this, having been awakened by an especially intense thunderstorm at that hour, in NW-San Antonio (a good 40+ miles away from the devastating flash-flood soon to come), we had been under flash-flood watches & warnings for many hours prior. Whether to evacuate abruptly to safer terrain, under those circumstances, would be a tough call in the middle of the night.
A barely-educated guess is that the authorities require an advance closing of those areas, whenever a tropical system is in the areas. That won’t be a popular one.
Elon Musk is throwing a new tantrum and wants to start a new ‘American Party.’ So far the platform is
He should focus on running his companies and stay out of politics. I’m surprised he doesn’t call it The Musk Party. It won’t last long.
With a platform like that he’s certainly not going to pull from Trump supporters. Maybe moderate Dems? (however many are left)
I’m gonna take a stab here and say you don’t like Elon anymore.
Musk and his team did a great job at finding wasted tax dollars.
Thanks for that, Elon and team.
I honestly don’t know if he highlighted subsidizes to green crap and EVs as wasted dollars.
If he didn’t, he should have.
Licenses to own AR-15s
I hear that NRA membership is growing again. Alienating that voting block – not very sensible.
.
Licenses to own AR-15s
And this is another example of total ignorance about firearms. Why AR-15’s specifically?Because “big scary black gun”. No real understanding – just buying into the propaganda.
It’s those “extra” tubes around the barrel.
I have a legally purchased SKS during Clinton’s “assault weapons” ban that will fire rounds at the same rate as an AR-15.
(For those who don’t know, that “extra” tube whether above or below the barrel, as in the WW2 era M1 Garand, was just to use the pressure to drive a piston to operate the mechanism to eject the spent cartridge and load a new round.)
Another battery recycling plant fire.
I really like MGUY- watch all his videos.
New Gore blather. https://youtu.be/Ztx0Bch3h9s?si=7o0ka9VB8dB4H-kA
Can’t bear to hear Gore. I notice lots of climate nut jobs posting comments there about the Satanic fossil fuel companies. The irony is that they think they have the truth- that the other side is brainwashed when it’s they who are brainwashed. I have friends like that- I never discuss the topic with them. They are all hypocrites of course with big homes, big cars, big TVs, expensive clothes.
Yeah, I also just noticed his Convenient Lies Revisited. Same old crap, we are all gonna die, that’s for sure. The hysteric comments are also hilarious, much work to do for climate psychologists.
Climate Scientist Michael Mann is also in the air, promoting the deadly Heat Dome:
https://youtu.be/_V04MJdqHUI?si=NvIEg_OfEgrKyZwv
Brain storm (or fart) on how to deal with excess CO2. Convert a bunch of it into dry ice (solid CO2) and then dump it into the oceans–Thus cooling the water allowing it to absorb even more atmospheric CO2. Should work??
Should work??
More sensible than a lot of ideas I’ve seen proposed.
Where do you get the energy to capture the CO2 and then convert it to dry ice???
Dilithium crystals?
Freezing a substance releases heat. Converting CO2 to dry ice thus adds to the global heating phenomenon. As a result, the oceans will heat up also, thereby releasing more and more CO2, which ultimately will lead to a deadly spiral of flames, burning all life on earth. That in its turn will further accelerate the heat-up, until Earth has vaporized, and it’s atoms will disperse into the almighty universe.
I would like to pick up on the discussion of the earth’s climate system as a chaotic system that took place on the comment thread under Andy May’s article of July 3.
Whether or not the earth’s climate system is chaotic or not might be one of the most important questions in climate science, and it is rarely addressed. There are several aspects of this question that deserve to be discussed.
Firstly, I believe that there is an underlying assumption in the theory that CO2 is the climate control knob that the climate system is essentially a stable system, and not only stable but fragile. It is only in a stable system that a relatively minor factor like a small change in the concentration of CO2 could cause the climate system to reach a ‘tipping point’ and to run away. As I understand it, according to this theory, all other factors have been shown to be so minor that they can be dismissed as a cause of climate change.
On the other hand, if the climate system is chaotic, and thus inherently unstable, that means that there are many factors that can significantly affect our climate system, and CO2 then becomes just one of many factors, and a relatively insignificant factor at that.
Secondly, it is important to discuss what lies behind the chaotic nature of earth’s climate. There are two major categories of events that drive the chaos. Firstly, the earth’s climate system is an ‘open system’. It is constantly subject to changing external forces: variations in solar energy, gravitational fields, magnetic fields, solar winds, space debris, etc., as well as internal forces, such as geological, events, weathering, etc. The second category is that some of the processes of the earth’s climate system itself are highly non-linear. The most important of these is evaporative cooling. It is my understanding that the CO2 control knob theory and the climate models based on this theory consider all of these external forces as insignificant, and also ignore any non-linearity in climate processes.
Thirdly, while the earth’s climate system is chaotic, it appears to be stable. It is in fact meta-stable, or constrained instability. And judging by the tremendous forces that have affected the climate over the earth’s history, the constraints are robust, i.e. if the earth’s climate system is chaotic and meta-stable, implying robust constraints, then its nature is exactly the opposite of that implied by the CO2 control knob theory, i.e. stable and fragile.
So what are the constraints ensuring meta-stability? First and foremost, the properties of water and the process of water evaporation. Water evaporation is by far the most important cooling mechanism in the earth’s climate system. According to the NASA’s ‘Earth Energy Budget’, 53% of the solar radiation absorbed by the earth’s surface is removed by the process of water evaporation (163.3 W/m2 absorbed by the earth’s surface, 86.4 W/m2 removed by radiation). And this evaporative cooling is concentrated in the tropical oceans.
The evaporative cooling process is also highly non-linear. The most important factor controlling the rate of evaporation, at water temperatures above 25 C, is not water temperature, but rather the rate of evaporation itself. In other words, at water temperatures above 25 C, the process of water evaporation becomes a self-feeding process. Water vapor, which is 35% lighter than dry air, drives winds, which increases the rates of evaporation which drives even higher winds and waves with broken surface, which further increases the rate of evaporation.
This highly non-linear nature of the evaporation process at water temperatures above 25C is best shown in the graph presented as Figure 5 from Willis Eschenbach’s post ‘Rainergy’ (WUWT – May 22, 2024). In that graph of ‘total cloud cooling – radiative plus rainfall’ over the tropical oceans vs temperature, the cooling rate at 25 C averages about 85 W/m2, while at 30C it is about 500 W/M2, an increase of more than 40% per degree C, many times higher than can be expected from the increase in temperature alone.
In fact, what we see is that the process of evaporative cooling in the tropical oceans oscillates between two unstable states. At temperatures below 25 C there is not enough evaporative cooling to balance incoming solar radiation, the ocean’s will warm up. At water temperatures above approximately 28C, under conditions of wind and waves, evaporative cooling is excessive and the oceans will cool down.
(continued)
I’m no scientist but makes sense to me! You should send that to all the major papers. Of course they won’t publish it but their not publishing it will go to prove their idiocy and corruption.
(continued)
The instability of the tropical ocean evaporative process is clearly illustrated with hurricanes. Water temperatures often reach 28 C or higher and are clearly unstable as it only takes a little bit of wind associated with a weather disturbance off the coast of Africa to trigger a hurricane, with extraordinary rates of evaporative cooling. Once the hurricane has passed having cooled water temperatures by several degrees, there will again be insufficient evaporative cooling and the oceans will again warm. The ENSO process is another manifestation of this oscillation between these two unstable states, only in this case, the size of the tropical Pacific is such that the winds necessary to generate enhanced evaporation are self generated and don’t require a trigger.
The effectiveness of water evaporation as the constraint on climate variability, ensuring earth’s meta-stable climate is shown by David Shelley in the graph ‘Pole to Equator Temperature Gradients’, from his post ‘The Geological Record of Climate Change’, WUWT Nov 2, 2024.
To conclude, the ‘chaotic’ nature of the earth’s climate system directly contradicts the notion of CO2 as a climate control knob. Rather than being a stable and fragile system as implied by the CO2 theory, the earth’s climate system is in fact a robust meta-stable system that is in constrained equilibrium. The most important constraint is the highly non-linear evaporative cooling process, the most important process in the earth’s energy balance, which operates between two states of instability, insufficient cooling at tropical ocean temperatures below 25C, and excessive cooling at tropical ocean temperatures above about 28 C.
The NHC frequently states that sea surface temperatures of 26C or higher are needed to sustain tropical cyclones. Lower temperatures lead to weakening of the cyclones.
Exactly! And that’s why tropical ocean temperatures don’t drop below 25C.
Ocean Surface Warming by sunlight below 25C, cooling by evaporation above 28C (taking decades) depending on mixing depth…that’s a logical hypothesis.
The relative strengths according to an IPPC AR Sankey diagram below of the important factors are:
Sunlight 160
Evaporation 82
Conduction 21
Net radiation 56
So your evaporation scenario being a long term control knob and its high dependency on local wind velocity, does seem to explain the variability we see and it’s time frame.
According to your graphic the clear sky DWIR from GHG’s is 314 w/m^2. What is the temperature of those gases producing that?
That’s about the temperature of mostly cloud bottoms, at H2O freezing 273C, with other sky temperature things averaged in as well…colder than the surface temp. So heat flows upward from the surface proportional to [Tsurf^4 – Tcloudbottom^4] at around 56 W/m^2….global average and different from equator to pole… and day to night…
If the cloud bottom stays at freezing but weather fronts force the cloud over a colder surface temp of say 20 degrees below freezing, IR from the cloud will warm the surface somewhat by radiating to that cold surface, but it is technically no longer back-radiation to a physicist, but is still called that in tech-talk commonly used by meteorologists.
Story tips:
https://www.space.com/space-exploration/satellites/climate-satellite-methanesat-backed-by-bezos-and-google-fails-in-space-after-just-1-year
Want to visualize where land subsiding meets “rising” sea levels:
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/fastest-rising-and-falling-sea-levels-in-america/
How do they get 0.7 meters at Rockport by 2050 from 7 mm per year, lower RH ?
Even EV charging stations have high levels of particulate matter:
https://phys.org/news/2025-07-high-particulate-electric-vehicle-stations.amp
Tuvalu, the island that just has to sink one day, otherwise, everyone would just home:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna215787
Those CC emigration papers are being applied for….to get better job opportunities in OZ…has to do with sinking family finances, not sinking islands…
Who would have thunk it, changing monitoring stations just a little might actually change the collected data:
https://phys.org/news/2025-06-boulder.amp
On, now where will NDSIC get data for free:
https://www.space.com/astronomy/earth/us-military-cuts-climate-scientists-off-from-vital-satellite-sea-ice-data
Vermont is benefiting from Climate Change, nah, all change is bad:
https://vtdigger.org/2025/06/29/the-surprising-shifts-climate-change-is-bringing-to-vermont-farms-rice-paddies-peaches-and-saffron/
My guess would be that it’s operating perfectly but has discovered that natural methane sources far outweigh man’s emissions and is still less than 2ppm, therefore does not support the narrative that producing food will k1ll us all.
Hmm, given some of the other actions the green blob does/has done, turning off a single source of disagreeing data actually seems more plausible than a failed QC check or poor design.
This video is a complete and thorough review of the hockey stick sophistry. If people actually study this graph, the fraud is so blatant. Please watch and critique any possible mistakes. If you have an account on Real Climate, please post it there.
https://app.screencast.com/nXfZcUyGR4QlR
image (828×278)
Alex Hallatt, Comics Kingdom.