Full Posting of: A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate

From the DOE

Background

On July 29, 2025, the Department of Energy (DOE) published a report entitled A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate, evaluating existing peer-reviewed literature and government data on climate impacts of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions and providing a critical assessment of the conventional narrative on climate change.  

Among the key findings, the report concludes that carbon dioxide (CO2) -induced warming appears to be less damaging economically than commonly believed, and that aggressive mitigation strategies could be more harmful than beneficial. Additionally, the report finds that U.S. policy actions are expected to have undetectably small direct impacts on the global climate and any effects will emerge only with long delays. 

The report was developed by the 2025 Climate Working Group, a group of five independent scientists assembled by Energy Secretary Chris Wright with diverse expertise in physical science, economics, climate science and academic research.

Summary

This report: 

  • Reviews scientific certainties and uncertainties in how anthropogenic emissions of CO2 and other GHGs have affected, or will affect, the Nation’s climate, extreme weather events, and metrics of societal well-being.
  • Assesses the near-term impacts of elevated concentrations of CO2, including enhanced plant growth and reduced ocean alkalinity.
  • Evaluates data and projections regarding long-term impacts of elevated concentrations of CO2, including estimates of future warming.
  • Finds that claims of increased frequency or intensity of hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and droughts are not supported by U.S. historical data.
  • Asserts that CO2-induced warming appears to be less damaging economically than commonly believed, and that aggressive mitigation policies could prove more detrimental than beneficial.
  • Finds that U.S. policy actions are expected to have undetectably small direct impacts on the global climate and any effects will emerge only with long delays.
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Gregory Woods
July 31, 2025 2:12 pm

‘Among the key findings, the report concludes that carbon dioxide (CO2) -induced warming appears to be less damaging economically than commonly believed,’

and who is doing this common believing?

Rud Istvan
Reply to  Gregory Woods
July 31, 2025 2:21 pm

Jim Hansen, Michael Mann, Al Gore, John Kerry, Joe Biden…IPCC, UNFCCC and their now almost 30 COP attendees…Greta Thunberg and Ed Miliband…
anybody hoping for climate reparations like Tuvalu is demanding.

Reply to  Rud Istvan
July 31, 2025 3:21 pm

Add: Gov. Gavin N. of CA , Gov. Kathy H. of NY, Gavin and the GISS Guys.

Reply to  Rud Istvan
July 31, 2025 4:50 pm

The past and present Pope can be added to the list of believers. They are in the believing business so not surprising in their case.

Reply to  Gregory Woods
August 1, 2025 6:19 am

The “commonly believed” syndrome was induced by the loud foghorns of the government-subsidized/controlled Corporate Media for decades.

Trump and Co are finally ending it by eliminating tens of $billions of subsidies and useless jobs

Drill baby drill
MAGA

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  Gregory Woods
August 3, 2025 6:01 am

I play an online game. A member of my “guild” quit due to the climate “conspiracy theories” being discussed by other guild members.

I have read comments from multiple young people who will not have kids because the planet is doomed all due to CO2.

With MSM and BBC and their ilk constantly brainwashing the masses, yes, commonly believed.

July 31, 2025 2:51 pm

This report is a very comprehensive and credible work, even if not as emphatic as I would like to see on the unsoundness of the core claims.

The report omits any mention of this directive in the “Gold Standard Science” EO from the President a short while ago:

“Sec. 4.  Improving the Use, Interpretation, and Communication of Scientific Data.

(c) When using scientific information in agency decision-making, employees shall transparently acknowledge and document uncertainties, including how uncertainty propagates throughout any models used in the analysis.” (emphasis mine)

The time-step-iterated climate models, no matter that they are pre-stabilized in the pre-industrial control case, suffer an unresolvable buildup of uncertainty as the iteration proceeds. Pat Frank’s work in 2019 makes this case correctly, in my view. Dr. Spencer posted a critique of that paper, which is one point on which I would have to disagree with Dr. Spencer. This problem of propagation of uncertainty cannot be waved away in defense of the models and of the “forcing + feedback” framing of the physical and modeled response to incremental CO2. The hindcasting and the generation of modeled scenarios of future emissions follows that framing. Better that the circular nature of the entire exercise should be acknowledged as a fundamental error.

More here about all that.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/04/13/open-thread-139/#comment-4060865

Thank you for listening.

Reply to  David Dibbell
July 31, 2025 3:06 pm

I am speculating that dr Spencer might be critical simply because of his work as a modeler. It seems to me that, in order to do the work they must a priori assume a high level of certainty.
I could possibly be grossly off the mark here..

youcantfixstupid
Reply to  David Dibbell
July 31, 2025 5:03 pm

Thanks for posting the links as I wasn’t positive that I was remembering Dr. Spencer’s objections correctly but I was….and it’s ‘very sad’ in a way. I don’t know Dr. Spencer from a hole in the ground, but for someone of his significant reputation to totally and utterly not understand the implication of Pat Frank’s paper & the concept of ‘propagation of errors’ is beyond troubling.

I have an M.Sc in Physics (not to argue from authority, just sharing my experience). The idea of propagation of errors and the implication for ‘uncertainty’ was drilled in to us in 1st year Physics. Heck when I was a Lab tech (had to make some money while studying) I drilled it in to people just taking the introductory course as an elective even when they weren’t intending to go further in science.

Dr. Spencer’s arguments come down to “all the model’s say the same thing so they HAVE to be correct”, and misses the entire point that they are ALL fundamentally incapable of expressing any type of ‘correctness’. The lab course I taught demonstrated this time & time again, just because we ‘know’ the physics for a block sliding down an inclined plane, or how to measure ‘spring constants’ in NO way provided any sense of ‘accuracy’ if/when the experiments were done shoddily.

In the case of the climate we don’t even KNOW the equations and calculations are ‘correct’ to any level of accuracy at all. So running the models and ignoring the propagation of error and what that means for identifying any level of ‘certainty’ is a fools game.

Ultimately all climate papers using models to draw any type of conclusion should be summarily removed from publication or at a minimum updated to include the ‘uncertainty ranges’ due to the propagation of errors with conclusions updated to express that ‘this study is no more accurate than a flip of a coin’.

Reply to  youcantfixstupid
July 31, 2025 8:26 pm

You and David Dibbell are both correct to be concerned that Dr Spencer, notwithstanding his contributions to climate science, does not appear to appreciate the significance of Dr Frank’s work re. error propagation in climate models, that clearly shows that such models are incapable of providing meaningful results.

To this I would add a second concern that none of the authors of the subject report have ever expressed any doubt that radiative transfer models, all of which are based on Schwarzschild’s equation for radiative transfer, accurately portray the actual physics of energy transfer in the troposphere.

The latter concern means that our ‘red team’ must accept as given that any increase in radiative forcing, e.g., an increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration, must result in an increase in the Earth’s surface temperature. Furthermore, it means that the complete absence of evidence from the geological record of the past 65my+ that CO2 controls the Earth’s temperature can be effectively ignored.

Reply to  Frank from NoVA
August 6, 2025 6:46 am

Indeed, in addition to a lack of appreciation for error propagation, one of Dr. Spencer’s blind spots is that he can’t tell a Joule from a Watt to save his life. I have personally confirmed this. Of course his paycheque (and that of all the other “climate scientists”) depends critically on his not understanding this fundamental physics principle…

Reply to  youcantfixstupid
August 1, 2025 6:25 am

The federal government should ban the publication of the 100 or so infamous climate models, because none of them are anywhere near valid.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  youcantfixstupid
August 3, 2025 6:03 am

The definition of insanity is performing the same action repeatedly and expecting different / better results.

Bruce Cobb
July 31, 2025 2:56 pm

“Climate change is real, and it deserves attention.” This statement is meaningless.You might as well say “gravity is real”, unless there is a hidden meaning, which would be that “manmade climate change is real”. So what does that mean? It means on paper it’s “real”, as in “it should be there”, because “science”. But the fact remains that no actual human fingerprint on modern day climate has ever been found. It is only supposed. But that isn’t science. The fact is that any warming man has caused is likely too small to either measure or for it to have any noticeable effect. There are too many other factors, far more powerful ones at play, such as the sun, oceans, and even clouds.

Reply to  Bruce Cobb
July 31, 2025 3:07 pm

That sounds like Lomborg talk to me..

Bruce Cobb
Reply to  ballynally
July 31, 2025 3:32 pm

No, not really. He believes that manmade climate change is real (I don’t), but that there are more important things to worry about.

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  Bruce Cobb
July 31, 2025 4:24 pm

Ultimately, IF humans are causing some warming, that’s an amazingly good thing. Especially when the time comes for the glaciers to advance upon civilization.

Anyone who thinks it would have been better for temperatures to have dropped since the LIA is… well, I don’t know what to call them.

Reply to  Bruce Cobb
July 31, 2025 5:07 pm

Gravity is real and I give it a lot of attention. I still climb ladders and am very aware of what gravity can do.

I agree completely with the statement “climate change is real and deserves attention”. Understanding climate change is a crucial aspect of understanding human development and the future of humanity.

The present cycle of glaciation started 300 years ago. Over the coming millennia it will force massive adaption; far beyond what civilisation has faced in recorded history. Very few of the existing ports will be functional. Most land north of 40N will be uninhabitable.

The CO2 bogey man has set climate science back by 100 years. Milankovitch’s work should be re-ebvaluated with modern knowledge of Earth’s relationship with the Sun and more powerful tools for analysis of the impact of solar power on Earth. Current climate models are based on solar energy. It is solar power that matters.

Reply to  RickWill
July 31, 2025 10:36 pm

The present cycle of glaciation started 300 years ago. Over the coming millennia it will force massive adaption…

And that is Climate-Change one can believe in!
As was written long ago: There is nothing new, under the Sun.

willhaas
Reply to  Bruce Cobb
August 1, 2025 7:12 pm

For the truth about climate change one should try to read and to understand “The Rational Climate e-Book” by Patrice Poyet which one can download for free. One will learn that the AGW hypothesis has been falsified by science.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  Bruce Cobb
August 3, 2025 6:09 am

Decades ago, micro climates were established, being 30 year weather averages for regions and/or locales. The purpose was to give people an idea of what the weather would be like if they decided to live here versus there. In this specific context, climate change is real and it deserves attention due to the fact that it influences people’s choices.

Global climate change is a mishmosh of extrapoloations, interpolations, and averages (puls more nefarious actions), that is bogus and totally meaningless.

July 31, 2025 4:48 pm

Figure 5.5 on page 37 is the most damning of climate models. It shows that only models without CO2 forcing get the atmospheric profile close to observation in the tropics.

This is something I have poineted out for a long time that oceans surface cannot exceed 30C. I now know the reason is convective overshoot that slows down the convective engine. It splutters for lack of sunlight making it through the persistent, high altitude ice once overshoot occurs. Overshoot typically occurs at the onset of instability at any location when there is no limit on the sunlight reaching the surface while heat is being advected to nearby unstable columns. .

As the report points out, this was buried in AR6 rather than being highlighted and admitting the models are utter nonsense.

Screen-Shot-2025-08-01-at-9.40.02-am
Reply to  RickWill
July 31, 2025 6:09 pm

Good catch! It’s so revealing to see the model outputs separated into these (2) groups, blue & red coded.
p.s. Figs. 5.5 & 5.6 are on pp. 37-38, which on the scroll-bar are numbered 47-48. Tropical stability (~ time-invariance), as you have pointed out, is such a striking observational fact, over all known timescales, that it hurts to read the statement as excerpted below: “… where the models say the warming should be strongest…

Figure 5.5 compares model and observational temperature trends by altitude between 20S and 20N (the tropics). In this region where the models say the warming should be strongest, the observations (shown here in white) lie within the blue “No CO2” band and entirely outside the “with CO2” red envelope. This means that in the entire tropical atmospheric column from the surface to the base of the stratosphere, observed warming trends are so small as to be consistent with the output of models that have no anthropogenic CO2, and inconsistent with the entire envelope of warming trends generated by models forced with increased CO2. …

Michael Flynn
July 31, 2025 4:58 pm

carbon dioxide (CO2) -induced warming

Not physically possible. A widespread delusion – like phlogiston, caloric, and the luminiferous ether.

Ah, the madness of crowds. Such fun.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  Michael Flynn
August 3, 2025 6:18 am

Kirchhoff’s Law states energy can not be created out of nothing.
CO2 is an energy transfer molecule. It does not create energy.

Electromagnetic (including IR) energy and thermal energy are not the same.
The climate clowns want people to think they are the same.
It is physically impossible to trap heat. Over simplification to explain a blanket to a 2 year old.

Thermalize does not mean converting EMR into thermal energy. It means approaching or achieving thermal equilibrium.

All of this over simplification to feed to the masses and the 1984 Orwellian Newspeak is what has transpired since the mid-70s, on a global front.

cgh
July 31, 2025 5:22 pm

This will have global knock-on effects. If the US eliminates its burdens on its domestic industry and commerce by wiping out sections of the Clean Air Act, this will, to some degree, reduce the cost of operating in the United States. All competitors will either have to follow suit or endure whatever follows in loss of business and commercial activity to the US.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  cgh
August 3, 2025 6:19 am

Or set up shop in the US.
I am pretty sure that is the intent of the tarriffs.
Sanity is the intent of the recission of the Endangerment Finding.

AlanJ
July 31, 2025 6:39 pm

These are summary notes from my initial read of the report. I’m happy to delve into the specifics of any point.

Chapter 1: Carbon Dioxide as a Pollutant

  • Treats the definition of “pollutant” as primarily legal and downplays the scientific rationale behind CO2 regulation under the Clean Air Act.
  • Misrepresents the climate risk of CO2 by emphasizing its non-toxic nature at ambient levels, conflating toxicological and radiative effects.
  • Overstates the analogy between CO2 and water vapor to suggest benignity, ignoring their different radiative forcing dynamics.

Chapter 2: Direct Impacts of CO2 on the Environment

  • Selectively emphasizes global greening and crop yield improvements while omitting counter-evidence on nutrient decline and ecosystem disruption.
  • Mischaracterizes ocean acidification as “neutralization,” downplaying known chemical impacts on carbonate chemistry and marine calcifiers.
  • Cites recent Great Barrier Reef recovery as refutation of acidification/climate harm but ignores cumulative and longer-term ecological stressors.

Chapter 3: Human Influences on the Climate

  • Frames natural variability (solar, volcanoes, ENSO) as potentially dominant without providing quantified attribution to support the claim.
  • Misuses uncertainty in solar irradiance reconstructions to cast doubt on anthropogenic attribution, relying on fringe or outdated studies.
  • Overstates the role of urban heat island (UHI) effects, misrepresenting the robustness of homogenization techniques used in temperature datasets.

Chapter 4: Climate Sensitivity to CO₂ Forcing

  • Over-relies on outlier studies (e.g., Lewis) to argue for a low ECS, ignoring the broader convergence around 2.5–4°C from multiple lines of evidence.
  • Discredits climate models wholesale based on tuning practices, but does not acknowledge improvements in physical process representation.
  • Misrepresents the “pattern effect” and misinterprets observational discrepancies as evidence for low ECS, rather than complex feedback uncertainty.

Chapter 5: Model-Observation Discrepancies

  • Selectively compares models and observations without accounting for internal variability, ensemble means, or observational uncertainty.
  • Exaggerates the significance of tropospheric discrepancies, many of which fall within model spread or are under active investigation.
  • Misuses tropical “hot spot” metrics as evidence against CO2 forcing, despite this feature being a result of moist adiabatic lapse rate dynamics, not a fingerprint of greenhouse gases specifically.
  • Ignores progress in resolving biases in stratospheric temperature, snow cover, and albedo through observational reanalysis and improved modeling.

Chapter 6: Extreme Weather

  • Mischaracterizes the statistical detection literature, demanding unrealistic long-term consistency for attribution.
  • Dismisses short-term extremes (e.g. heatwaves, precipitation) as “not part of a trend” without assessing physical drivers or event attribution frameworks.
  • Conflates absence of strong trends in tornadoes and hurricanes with absence of climate relevance, ignoring intensity metrics and regional shifts.
  • Fails to engage with attribution science of extremes in a good-faith or methodologically accurate way.

Chapter 7: Sea Level Rise

  • Overstates role of local subsidence in US tide gauge trends to undercut global sea level rise estimates.
  • Ignores evidence of accelerating global sea level rise from satellite altimetry and recent glacier/ice sheet loss.
  • Suggests that high-end sea level projections are based on “implausible” scenarios without engaging with structured expert judgment and risk management rationale.

Chapter 8: Attribution Science

  • Attacks detection and attribution methods using outdated or fringe critiques, ignoring the maturity and methodological evolution of optimal fingerprinting.
  • Dismisses event attribution as speculative despite rigorous use of ensemble counterfactual experiments in the literature.
  • Mischaracterizes internal variability as a confounding factor without quantifying its relative contribution.

1/3

Reply to  AlanJ
July 31, 2025 8:05 pm

A specific you need to delve into is Figure 5.5 to have any credibility.

Explain how CO2 forced models deserve any credibility when the measured data is outside their range. Any climate model that shows ocean surface exceeding 30C with the present atmospheric mass is inconsistent with the physical processes of Earth’s atmosphere. I know why but I doubt you do. Once you know why you will know that climate models based on cloud pasramaterisation are on a fools errand.

AlanJ
Reply to  RickWill
August 1, 2025 6:53 am

The argument being advanced is fundamentally wrong. The tropospheric hotspot is not a unique fingerprint of anthropogenic GHGs but a general thermodynamic response to any surface warming, driven by moist adiabatic lapse rate adjustment. The report fails to make this distinction, thereby misrepresenting the physical basis of vertical amplification. Moreover, observational datasets used to construct the “observed” trend line in Figure 5.5 suffer from well-documented uncertainties like instrumental biases, sparse tropical coverage, and inter-algorithm discrepancies that render precise trend detection in this region highly uncertain.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  AlanJ
August 3, 2025 6:21 am

Not worth the power.

Reply to  AlanJ
August 2, 2025 11:43 am

Mischaracterizes ocean acidification as “neutralization,” downplaying known chemical impacts on carbonate chemistry and marine calcifiers.

It is you who mischaracterizes what is supposedly happening in the oceans. The well-respected Stanford geochemist, Konrad Krauskopf, states in his text book that the oceans have been alkaline at least since the Great Oxygenation Event, and probably always will be. It will only be found to even reach a neutral condition in stagnant bottom pools rich in hydrogen sulfide. It is an oxymoron to assert that the ocean is on a course to become acidic. It reflects an ignorance of the (bi)carbonate and borate buffering that takes place in the oceans. If the oceans will never become acidic, it is illogical and grammatically incorrect to refer to the changes as acidification.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/09/15/are-the-oceans-becoming-more-acidic/

Reply to  AlanJ
August 2, 2025 11:53 am

Discredits climate models wholesale based on tuning practices, but does not acknowledge improvements in physical process representation.

As long as supercomputers are unable to calculate the energy exchanges in clouds at the same spatial resolution as the rest of the atmospheric variables, and have to rely on parameterization, it is disingenuous to claim that the models are simply physics calculations. The models are no better than their weakest link, which is the cloud calculations, because they depend on subjective opinions on what is happening and how it is happening.

Reply to  AlanJ
August 2, 2025 12:01 pm

Ignores progress in resolving biases in stratospheric temperature, snow cover, and albedo through observational reanalysis and improved modeling.

The models still rely solely on albedo, which is a lower-bound on the amount of light reflected from the surface of the Earth:

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/09/12/why-albedo-is-the-wrong-measure-of-reflectivity-for-modeling-climate/

Reply to  AlanJ
August 2, 2025 12:06 pm

Mischaracterizes the statistical detection literature, demanding unrealistic long-term consistency for attribution.

How does one avoid short-term variations being cherry picked without an insistence on “long-term consistency?

Reply to  AlanJ
August 2, 2025 12:11 pm

Dismisses short-term extremes (e.g. heatwaves, precipitation) as “not part of a trend” without assessing physical drivers or event attribution frameworks.

If one is going to claim that 1,000-year floods or heatwaves are evidence of a long-term trend, one has to look at the long-term record. It isn’t sufficient to look at the last couple of decades.

Even so, there is little evidence to support the claim that things like heat-waves are becoming more common or more severe:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/09/06/the-gestalt-of-heat-waves/

Reply to  AlanJ
August 2, 2025 12:16 pm

Overstates role of local subsidence in US tide gauge trends to undercut global sea level rise estimates.

Where is the evidence that local subsidence is overstated. As it stands, it is just your opinion that it is overstated.

Reply to  AlanJ
August 2, 2025 12:25 pm

Suggests that high-end sea level projections are based on “implausible” scenarios without engaging with structured expert judgment and risk management rationale.

Curry et al. have demonstrated that the fossil fuel reserves are insufficient to support the RCP8.5 scenario long-term. It has been my experience that claims for sea level rise rarely point out how long the polar melting will take to accomplish the projections. It is generally thousands to ten’s of thousands of years. By that time, Milankovitch Cycles may well reverse the current trends. If not, assuming that humans are still around, we may have the ability to alter the climate purposely. It is a lot of arm-waving about speculations.

Reply to  AlanJ
August 2, 2025 12:37 pm

Attacks detection and attribution methods using outdated or fringe critiques, ignoring the maturity and methodological evolution of optimal fingerprinting.

You have more than once used the qualitative terms “outlier” and “fringe” without even defining what you intend the words to mean, let alone defending the claim with evidence.

I don’t put much stock in the “ensemble” concept. In any set of experiments or models there can only be one ‘best’ model. Averaging that with all the inferior models dilutes the best result. In the best case scenario, it will increase the variance. In the worst case scenario of unsymmetrical distribution of the results, it will shift the mean.

Basically, I see you offering your ‘expert’ opinion to denigrate the conclusions of those 5 people who some consider to actually be experts. I’d put that into the category of whining by a well-read layman.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  AlanJ
August 3, 2025 6:21 am

Not worth the power.

AlanJ
July 31, 2025 6:42 pm

2/2

Chapter 9: Agriculture

  • Overstates CO2 fertilization benefits without accounting for nutrient dilution, pest impacts, heat stress, and precipitation variability.
  • Cherry-picks meta-analyses that favor yield gains, dismissing those that find substantial regional and crop-specific vulnerabilities.
  • Treats FACE studies as definitive, ignoring their known limitations in simulating real-world field conditions under climate change.

Chapter 10: Managing Risks of Extreme Weather

  • Uses cold-weather mortality data to argue against concern for heat risk, ignoring evidence that heat-related mortality increases more with warming.
  • Overemphasizes the protective effect of air conditioning and energy access while downplaying risks of infrastructure failure and grid stress.
  • Fails to quantify vulnerability or adaptive capacity trends, relying on broad generalizations.

Chapter 11: Economy and Social Cost of Carbon (SCC)

  • Misrepresents the SCC literature as arbitrary, ignoring the structured treatment of uncertainty and discounting in US federal methodology.
  • Relies on a few contrarian SCC estimates to argue for near-zero or negative values, disregarding economic consensus and peer-reviewed central estimates.
  • Downplays tipping points as speculative, despite growing empirical and modeling evidence (e.g. West Antarctic Ice Sheet, permafrost carbon feedbacks).

Chapter 12: Global Impact of US Emissions

  • Frames US emissions reductions as ineffective due to small marginal impact on global temperature, ignoring spillover effects (technological, diplomatic, economic).
  • Ignores the role of US leadership in shaping global norms, supply chains, and innovation pathways.
  • Mischaracterizes climate policy as purely symbolic, rather than catalytic in changing longer-term trajectories.

Overarching Problems Across the Report

  • Systematic bias: The report consistently selects evidence that minimizes climate risk and maximizes uncertainty around impacts.
  • False equivalence: Places contrarian studies on equal footing with broad scientific consensus without acknowledging their methodological limitations or outlier status.
  • Policy distortion: Critiques mitigation costs and policies without performing a coherent integrated assessment; substitutes ideology for cost-benefit analysis.
  • Failure to engage the full literature: Relies heavily on self-citation and a narrow subset of skeptical sources, excluding key peer-reviewed studies.
Reply to  AlanJ
July 31, 2025 8:46 pm

You’re projecting – with minimal changes, all of the listed criticisms could accurately describe the non-stop flow of junk science that has emanated from the alarmist camp for decades.

Reply to  Frank from NoVA
August 2, 2025 5:00 am

Exactly my reaction to his lists — pure projection.

Reply to  AlanJ
August 1, 2025 12:29 am

Two points.

One, the real core of the climate debate has moved on, its not so much about science and predictions of climate now, its about energy policy.

And here the problem for the activists are twofold, One is their main proposed remedy for this imaginary problem is impossible. Its to move power generation to wind and solar and heating and transport to heat pumps and EVs.

You can’t meet existing demand from wind and solar, you can’t make the populations move to EVs and heat pumps, if you did you could not power them from the wind and solar.

The result of seriously trying to implement this agenda will be recession, fuel poverty and blackouts. And it won’t even lower emissions much because electricity generation is only about one third of emissions. Any government which takes this to the limit will get kicked out of office – as is going to happen in the UK, and has already happened in the US.

Two is that the only countries that have made any effort to do this crazy policy are the English speaking ones. And they do not add up to a large enough proportion of global emissions to make any dent. So you have countries which make up less than a quarter of global emissions trying to reduce what is anyway a small share of their own emissions. While the rest of the world goes to COP with the sole aim of preventing it from agreeing anything significant, and carries on growing their economies as fast as they can, and let emissions go where they will.

Now here’s the point where you leave reality totally, You say:

Chapter 12: Global Impact of US Emissions

  • Frames US emissions reductions as ineffective due to small marginal impact on global temperature, ignoring spillover effects (technological, diplomatic, economic).
  • Ignores the role of US leadership in shaping global norms, supply chains, and innovation pathways.
  • Mischaracterizes climate policy as purely symbolic, rather than catalytic in changing longer-term trajectories.

You are not living in the real world. There are no spillover effects. There is no US leadership in shaping global norms. What you call ‘US climate policy’ is actually just US energy policy, and no-one is looking to emulate it, outside of the English speaking countries. There is no evidence that China, India, Russia, Indonesia etc believe in the climate crisis and energy transition narratives and anyone who thinks the US has world leadership in shaping global norms needs to travel and talk to people.

The world has changed. You are living in the past, and it was a different USA then.

Your problem in advocating the agenda for the US is not just that its impossible, not just that even were it possible it would only hit a small proportion of US emissions, not just that the direct effects are tiny. Its also that there are no indirect effects. No-one else believes it, no-one else is trying to do it.

Well, except for Ed Miliband in the UK, and even he is now coming up bang against reality, remaining suspiciously silent, and wondering how on earth he is going to get through this and the next winter without blackouts.

AlanJ
Reply to  michel
August 1, 2025 8:15 am

One, the real core of the climate debate has moved on, its not so much about science and predictions of climate now, its about energy policy.

This report is fundamentally trying to suggest that the science underpinning climate change projections is wrong and that there isn’t a serious problem to address, and this is being used to underpin policy justifications, cost-benefit analyses, and regulatory frameworks. Misrepresenting science remains a core tactic for obstructing action. Chapter 12’s framing still matters.

You can’t meet existing demand from wind and solar, you can’t make the populations move to EVs and heat pumps, if you did you could not power them from the wind and solar.

This is false. Numerous grid modeling studies (e.g., NREL’s Net-Zero America, Princeton’s REPEAT Project) show that over 90% decarbonization of electricity is technically feasible using wind, solar, storage, and firm low-carbon resources. Wind and solar are now the cheapest new generation sources in most regions. EV adoption is accelerating globally, and not just in “English Speaking” countries, but in China, which is vastly outpacing the US in adoption of EVs and production of batteries and solar panels.

And it won’t even lower emissions much because electricity generation is only about one third of emissions.

Electricity and direct fuel combustion together account for over 60% of US CO2 emissions. Electrifying transport and heating shifts these sectors onto a decarbonizing grid. 

Two is that the only countries that have made any effort to do this crazy policy are the English speaking ones. And they do not add up to a large enough proportion of global emissions to make any dent. So you have countries which make up less than a quarter of global emissions trying to reduce what is anyway a small share of their own emissions. While the rest of the world goes to COP with the sole aim of preventing it from agreeing anything significant, and carries on growing their economies as fast as they can, and let emissions go where they will.

Nonsense. The EU has led global climate diplomacy for decades. China is the largest producer and deployer of solar, wind, EVs, and heat pumps. India is investing heavily in renewables. Over 70 countries have net-zero targets. Some of these goals are motivated purely by the economics of renewables – they’re just better or cheaper than FF.

There is no US leadership in shaping global norms.

There used to be, certainly. Perhaps not in the current moment. Right now our leadership is focused on isolationism and regressive policies that stifle technological advancement. The Trump admin seems to have a “build backward” mentality. Coal plants and factory jobs are the order of the day, while China is whooping our asses in pretty much every technological innovation category you can think of (ironic that one of Trump’s true genuine insights was to recognize the threat China poses to US dominance while simultaneously doing everything in his power to ensure that we do nothing to challenge it and even give them a helping hand in crushing us).

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  AlanJ
August 3, 2025 6:28 am

Not worth the powder.

Reply to  AlanJ
August 1, 2025 8:59 am

… excluding key peer-reviewed studies

A point worthy of its own sub-thread.

Different people will read both media articles and “the scientific literature” in different orders, and will therefore split those “peer-reviewed studies” between “background reading / filling in the gaps” and “key to pulling it all together into a coherent whole” categories differently.

Please provide citations to (at least) three of the peer-reviewed studies that you consider to be “key”.

AlanJ
Reply to  Mark BLR
August 1, 2025 10:35 am

Just analyzing the report, there are about 250 unique papers cited, with about 10% of those being published by the report’s five authors. Another ~25-30% of the papers cited are from a very, very small group of contrarian scientists who have published highly criticized works that are deeply unreflective of mainstream scientific opinion. In contrast, the IPCC AR6 (which is in fairness a much larger, more comprehensive assessment report), cites more than 10,000 research papers. If you believe this DOE report adequately cross-examines the breadth of mainstream scientific research on climate in just 150 papers, I have ab ridge to sell you.

Reply to  AlanJ
August 2, 2025 4:04 am

Just analyzing the report, there are about 250 unique papers cited, …

In contrast, the IPCC AR6 (which is in fairness a much larger, more comprehensive assessment report), cites more than 10,000 research papers.

Who is the one “cherry-picking” and/or “selectively quoting” now ?

When looking for “the original source” to a particular claim in a scientific paper it is often necessary to “chase through” several levels of “References” sections before reaching the requested goal (and sometimes even that isn’t enough).

One convention is that if a paper includes a “Summary” or “Overview” paper or report in its “References” section then the list of references in the “Summary / Overview” document should be added to the “unique papers” listed at the end of the original paper and considered as “References” at that level as well.

The DoE report includes

AR6: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment Report (2021) Working Group I Contribution.

in the “References” section of five of its chapters (2, 3, 6, 8 and 11).

It also includes the “Working Group I Contribution” from AR4 (2007) and AR5 (2013) in the “References” section of two chapters (3 and 6).

The single instance of a “Working Group Two” reference even has the advantage of narrowing down the page number range (slightly …), as can be seen in chapter 10’s “References” section (on page 115) :

O’Neill, B., et al. (2022). Key risks across sectors and regions. In AR6 Working Group II Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability (pp. 2411–2538). Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

.

If you believe this DOE report adequately cross-examines the breadth of mainstream scientific research on climate in just 150 papers

I don’t believe that at all.

The DoE report “cross-examines the breadth of mainstream scientific research on climate” not just by including the “more than 10,000 research papers” contained in the WG-I contribution from AR6, but from all of the papers referenced in the AR4 and AR5 WG-I assessment reports as well.

You are the one who “believes” that the DoE report is trying to “prove” something by looking at “just 150 papers”.

It is actually comparing the contents of the “Discussion / Conclusions” sections of those 150 papers not just against the “mainstream scientific research on climate”, i.e. the contents of the IPCC WG-I assessment reports, but also against the media reporting of what “scientists say …”.

AlanJ
Reply to  Mark BLR
August 2, 2025 10:22 am

This is not a convention I have ever heard of or encountered in scientific publishing. It certainly would have made my life a lot easier if it were true. Tell me, how deep does the recursive rabbit hole go? Are the citations of the citations of the cited paper also first order citations?

Reply to  AlanJ
August 3, 2025 4:04 am

Tell me, how deep does the recursive rabbit hole go?

You appear to have mixed up two separate points in my post when you “skimmed / speed-read” it.

The “recursive rabbit hole” was about trying to find “the original source” (to a particular claim in a scientific paper).

NB : This issue is complicated if you are trying to “chase through” the claims made in a sensationalist media headline about the contents of a scientific paper along the lines of “Scientists say the world will end next Thursday ! ! !”.

There is no limit to “how deep” in this case, but (too ?) often you have to use alternative methods to get the DOI number for the actual “everyone in the field already knows about the conclusions of this paper, so there’s no need to cite it” original paper.

.

Are the citations of the citations of the cited paper also first order citations?

A copy of the second point in my post, with the original “highlighting” :

” One convention is that if a paper includes a “Summary” or “Overview” paper or report in its “References” section then the list of references in the “Summary / Overview” document should be added to the “unique papers” listed at the end of the original paper and considered as “References” at that level as well. ”

NB : I never said it was a “widely used” or “well known” convention.

Let me copy that again, but modify the highlighting :

One convention is that if a paper includes a “Summary” or “Overview” paper or report in its “References” section then the list of references in the “Summary / Overview” document should be added to the “unique papers” listed at the end of the original paper and considered as “References” at that level as well. ”

Imagine a Level 1 paper, “the cited paper”, that includes in its “References” section …

a Level 2 paper, one of the “citations of the cited paper”, that includes in its “References” section …

“The AR6 WG-I assessment report (2021)”, which is one of the “citations of the citations of the cited paper”, but no other “Summary / Overview” papers.

In this case my (niche) “convention” would be that the AR6 references — and only the AR6 “citation of the (Level 2 paper) citation of the cited paper” references — would rise to “Level 2“, not to “Level 1‘.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  AlanJ
August 3, 2025 6:31 am

Not worth the powder.

Reply to  AlanJ
August 2, 2025 4:07 am

In your rush to conclusions about what I “believe” you completely forgot to answer my original question.

I am still curious to see what your answers are.

Please provide citations to (at least) three of the peer-reviewed studies that you consider to be “key”.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  Mark BLR
August 3, 2025 6:32 am

It was not a rush. It was deliberate.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  AlanJ
August 3, 2025 6:29 am

Deflection.

Reply to  AlanJ
August 1, 2025 9:22 am

From the beginning of your dual-post comment :

These are summary notes from my initial read of the report.

Literally only 3 or 4 hours after first reading the comments under this WUWT article my meanderings around the Internet led me to an article including the word “eisegetically”.

Being self-aware enough to know that I am not omniscient, and still being curious enough to wish to expand my personal knowledge, I “Duck-Duck-Go-ed” the word and ended up at the WIkipedia page for “Eisegesis”, which starts with :

Eisegesis is the process of interpreting text in such a way as to introduce one’s own presuppositions, agendas or biases. It is commonly referred to as reading into the text. It is often done to justify or confirm a position already held.

Eisegesis is best understood when contrasted with exegesis. Exegesis is drawing out a text’s meaning in accordance with the author’s context and discoverable meaning. Eisegesis is when a reader imposes their interpretation of the text. Thus exegesis tends to be objective; and eisegesis [is] highly subjective.

Although the terms eisegesis and exegesis are commonly heard in association with biblical interpretation, both (especially exegesis) are used across literary disciplines.

I have often been guilty of eisegesis myself in the past, and human nature means I will often be guilty of it in the future as well, but you are taking it to a whole new level here.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  Mark BLR
August 3, 2025 6:33 am

Good find.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  AlanJ
August 3, 2025 6:25 am

Not worth the powder.

D Sandberg
July 31, 2025 10:42 pm

The authors point out a serious example of the IPCC lying by omission. In my estimation the most substantive point in the posting.

5.4 Vertical temperature profile mismatch

Another important model-observational discrepancy is the excess amplification with altitude found in climate models.

The comparison was in AR5 Chapter 10, although only in the online supplement (Figure 10.SM.1) and only in a figure whose formatting obscured the point. Figure 10.SM.1 is not referenced in the main IPCC report nor in any summary so readers would not have been aware of it.

Although not apparent at first glance, it shows that the 1979-2010 warming in the lower troposphere is so small as to be consistent with no GHG forcing at all and is inconsistent with the model runs that do have GHG forcing. In Figure 5.6 we adapt IPCC AR5 Figure 10.SM.1 to draw out this critical point.

Reply to  D Sandberg
August 1, 2025 5:02 am

The comparison was in AR5 Chapter 10, although only in the online supplement (Figure 10.SM.1) and only in a figure whose formatting obscured the point. Figure 10.SM.1 is not referenced in the main IPCC report nor in any summary so readers would not have been aware of it.

I am a “visual” kind of person, and my curiosity was sufficiently piqued by this that I checked it out.

AR5 is available from the IPCC website, as downloadable PDF files, at the following link :

https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/

NB : The “Supplementary Material” section is about 40% down that webpage.
Comparing Figure 10.8, which appears on page 892 of the main WG-I report, with the “hidden where nobody is going to see it” Figure 10.SM.1 does indeed reveal some subtle differences, in particular with the “(HadAT2), thin black line” positions relative to the (red-green-blue) model ranges.

AR5_Fig10-8-vs-Fig10-SM-1
August 1, 2025 3:40 am

Harold The Organic Chemist Says:
“When will they ever learn.”

At the MLO in Hawaii, the concentration of CO2 in dry air 439 ppmv. One cubic meter of this air has a mass of 1.29 kg contains 0.86 g of CO2. This small amount of CO2 in air can have no effect on weather and climate and can not cause any heating of air. in 1988, the concentration of CO2 was 340 ppmv. One cubic meter of this air would have ca. 0.67 g of CO2.

As far as I can figure out, these scientists never got around to asking about the basic chemistry of the atmosphere.

How is possible that the IPCC and the unscrupulous collaborating scientist (aka welfare queens in white coats) have got away with perpetrating since 1988 the greatest fraud and scam since the Piltdown Man?

When the recission of the 2009 CO2 is finalized, its “Game Over” for all this greenhouse gas, global warming and climate change nonsense.

Bruce Cobb
August 1, 2025 4:01 am

Bottom line: Manmade warming aka “climate change”, if it exists at all, is too small to measure, and certainly too small to make any noticeable difference. It is of no consequence, despite all the sound and fury about it. It is total foolishness to even worry about it.

Reply to  Bruce Cobb
August 1, 2025 10:41 am

Show in the chart (See below) are plots of temperature at the Furnace Creek weather station in Death Valley from 1922 to 2001. In 1922 the concentration of CO2 was ca.
303 ppmv (0.59 g CO2/cu. m.), and by 2001, the concentration had increased to 371 ppmv (0.73 g CO2/cu. m.), but there was no corresponding increase in surface air temperature in this remote desert. The reason there was no increase in surface air temperature is due to saturation of CO2 absorption band at 667 wavenumbers for out-going long wavelenght IR light. This saturation begins when the concentration of CO2 reaches 300 ppmv. This occurred in 1920 in Death Valley.

The chart was obtained from the late John Daly’s website: “Still Waiting For Greenhouse” available at: http://www.john-daly.com. From the home page, page done to the end and click on “Station Temperature Data”. On the “World Map”, click on “NA”, then page down to
U.S.A.-Pacific. Finally click on “Death Valley”. John Daly found over 200 weather stations located around the world that had no warming up to 2002. Spend a little time checking out the charts in the various region and countries.

PS: If you click on the chart, it will expand and become clear. Click on the “X” in the circle to return to comment text.

death-vy
Reply to  Bruce Cobb
August 1, 2025 10:44 am

Here is screen shot of home page of “Still Waiting For Greenhouse”

jd-tasmania
Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  Bruce Cobb
August 3, 2025 6:36 am

Even the 1.5C alarmist claims has not significant or substantial affects. Across a century? I get 15C swings daily.

August 1, 2025 6:05 am

…we are the “Red Team”; the “Blue Team” has had their say since the late 1980s.

That was yesterday (31st of July) posted at

https://www.drroyspencer.com/2025/07/some-thoughts-on-our-doe-report-regarding-co2-impacts-on-the-u-s-climate/

In brief [he explains how] this event is ~ 35 years late, but right on time.
Public comments period expected to open today.

August 1, 2025 6:49 pm

Scientists quoted in the “review” say they have been misrepresented. Deniers must lie

willhaas
August 1, 2025 7:07 pm

Despite the hype, there is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on our global climate system. There is plenty of scientific rationale to support the conclusion that the climate sensivity of CO2 is effectively zero. The AGW hypothesis has been falsified by science. World wide trillions of dollars have been spent trying to fight climate change yet no one is saying that there has been any improvement to our climate. Mankind does not even know what the optimal global climate actually is let alone how to achieve it. Spending money trying to fight climate change is a complete waste of funds.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  willhaas
August 3, 2025 7:44 am

Humankind does not even know if controlling the weather is feasible, practical, or even possible.
To “fight climate change” one has to control the weather. We cannot control the temperature of homses and offices to the degree aspired by the Climate Clowns.