The Week That Was: 2025-10-11 (October 11, 2025)
Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org)
The Science and Environmental Policy Project
Quote of the Week: “We can judge our progress by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers, our willingness to embrace what is true rather than what feels good.”— Carl Sagan [H/t William Readdy]
Number of the Week: 3 Watts per square meter v. 50 watts per square meter
THIS WEEK:
By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
Scope: This TWTW begins with comments on what is meant when a greenhouse gas is said to be saturated. TWTW discusses a new edition of Climate at a Glance and discusess marine heat waves. TWTW presents an essay by Steven Koonin on political conformity in the reports by National Academies on climate and concludes with a report on the biases demonstrated by internet search engines.
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What Is Meant by Saturation?: For most purposes, the concept of saturation means that no more can be absorbed. For example, when a sponge of a given size cannot absorb any more water, it is said to be saturated with water. If the size of the sponge is doubled, it can absorb twice the amount of water. The limiting factor is the size, quantity, of the sponge. But the same concept does not apply to saturation when dealing with greenhouse gases absorbing and emitting infrared radiation (IR) from Earth.
For example, TWTW has frequently stated that the capability of carbon dioxide (CO2) to absorb infrared radiation (IR) emitted by Earth is saturated. But here the meaning is different. It is that all the infrared radiation (IR) that carbon dioxide can readily absorb is already being absorbed. Additional carbon dioxide can absorb only a little more infrared energy from Earth. The limiting factor is not the quantity of carbon dioxide, but the quantity of infrared radiation (IR) emitted by Earth. Adding more carbon dioxide (CO2) has little effect on Earth’s surface temperatures, but what has significant effect on Earth’s surface temperatures is the solar radiation hitting Earth’s surface, either by increasing solar intensity or decreasing Earth’s albedo (decreasing cloudiness or other reflectivity).
The greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide (and water vapor) delays rapid cooling of the Earth at night by reducing the emission of infrared radiation (IR) emitted by Earth to space. The extent of infrared radiation (IR) emitted by Earth is calculated by the Stefan-Boltzmann law which states that the infrared radiation is proportion to the fourth power of the absolute temperature. Here we see a stunning inconsistency that must be included when making calculations of the greenhouse effect. A large increase in the greenhouse effect (a reduction of infrared radiation from Earth to space) from carbon dioxide is necessary to cause a small increase in Earth’s temperatures because the increase in radiation from Earth is a function of the absolute temperature raised to the fourth power. In today’s atmosphere a slight increase in carbon dioxide (and water vapor) has little effect in increasing Earth’s temperatures because the infrared radiation (IR) in the frequencies (or wave lengths) in which these gases readily absorb infrared radiation (IR) is already being absorbed.
Professor William van Wijngaarden and Professor Emeritus William Happer produced a paper that describes what they mean by saturation. Unfortunately, the paper is a bit mathematical. But the results of their calculations can be described verbally and displayed graphically.
Their graphics and calculation are below, assuming the surface temperature of Earth is 60ºF (16ºC), it would be 16ºF (-9 ºC) without greenhouse gases. Max Planck refined the Stefan-Boltzmann law to develop the top (smooth) curve showing the radiation emitted by Earth’s surface. Karl Schwarzschild developed the method for calculating the lower (jagged) curve showing the Earth’s actual radiation to space, now calculated from satellite measurements. The difference between the two curves is Earth’s greenhouse effect due to atmospheric gases. The calculations of the greenhouse effect assume no clouds because there is no adequate theory of the formation and dissipation of clouds.
The understanding of saturation is so important to understanding the real greenhouse effect that TWTW is presenting it the way that van Wijngaarden and Happer did, rather than trying to give a short, condensed summary.
START QUOTE:
Figure 1: Radiation flux to space, ˜ Z(ν,C), from the top of the atmosphere as a function of spatial frequency ν (waves per cm) of the thermal radiation. The calculated values are for a summertime, temperate latitude, and a surface temperature of 288.7 K. We have noted the spatial frequencies where the atmospheric opacity is dominated by the five major greenhouse gases, water vapor, H2O, carbon dioxide, CO2, ozone O3, methane, CH4, and nitrous oxide, N2O. The black curve is the solution to the Schwarzschild equation for radiative transfer for C = 400 parts per million (ppm) of CO2, close to the present concentration. The red curve is for double that amount, C = 800 ppm, but for the same profiles of atmospheric temperature and other greenhouse gases concentrations. The green curve is for no CO2 at all. The smooth blue curve is the Planck flux for the same temperature, that is, the radiation that would reach space if there were no greenhouse gases at all and the surface had maximum thermal emissivity, ϵ = 1.
We can define the total radiative forcing, F(C), due to a concentration C of CO2 as
From (2)–(5) we see that three explicit values of the forcing are:
A simple empirical formula for the forcing, F = F(C), that fits detailed calculation of the forcing well for 1 ppm < C < 10,000 ppm is
Figure 2: The blue curve is the radiative flux to space, Z(C), given by (12), versus the concentration C of carbon dioxide. The flux decreases rapidly with C for the first 100 ppm of CO2, but the rate of decrease slows down for higher concentrations. The vertical red lines show the flux decreases caused by 50 ppm increases of C for the sequence of values, [C0,C1,C2,C3, . . .] = [0, 50, 100, 150, . . .] ppm. Each additional 50 ppm increase has less effect than the previous one. For example, we see from the figure that the height of the first red bar, characterized by i = 2, is approximately 300 W m−2. So, increasing the CO2 concentration from C1 = 50 ppm to C2 = 100 ppm decreases the flux to space by 300 W m−2/100 = 3 W m−2, in agreement with (5), since CO2 concentrations have doubled.
Using (8) to set F = 30 W m−2, C = 400 ppm and (5) to ΔF = 3 W m−2, we solve (10) for Co to find
We use (6) and (10) to approximate the flux to outer space as
In Fig. 2 we have plotted (12) as the blue line, and we have plotted increments Z(C−ΔC)− Z(C) = F(C) − Z(C − ΔC) for equal increments ΔC = 50 ppm of CO2 concentration as the vertical red lines. The literature is replete with plots similar to the red vertical lines, but the blue line, the flux to space with no suppressed zero, is little known, and may clarify how small the forcing change is when the CO2 concentration increases from 400 ppm to 800 ppm. [Boldface added]
Note that we are plotting fluxes and flux changes in Fig. 2, not temperature changes. This has the advantage that our results are almost the same as the most carefully calculated results of the climate-alarm establishment [1]. So, it would be awkward for the establishment to deny that “instantaneous,” very large changes of CO2 concentration cause very small changes of flux to space.
But people are interested in temperature changes, not flux changes. This is where all the mischief from positive feedback arises. Without huge positive feedbacks, ΔF = 3 W m−2 of clear-sky forcing only gives about 1 ºC of surface warming. Changes in water vapor and clouds are likely to significantly diminish the temperature changes due to changes in greenhouse gases, since most feedbacks in nature are negative.
As shown in Fig. 2, adding CO2 to the atmosphere causes a very rapid decrease of flux to space, Z(C), for an atmosphere that starts with no CO2, C = 0. The decrease with increasing C then slows down dramatically so the blue curve of Fig. 2 is almost horizontal up to 1000 ppm. This is a familiar phenomenon to astronomers who work with radiation transfer from stars. It is called “saturation.” A good definition of saturation for the field of radiation transfer was given by Gussman [2] [Paragraph breaks added to above 2 paragraphs.]
“Saturation in a Fraunhofer line means that with increasing absorption the depression in the line (line depth) is no longer proportional to the optical thickness of the absorbing layer, as in the case of weak absorption.”
A perceptive astronomer looking at Fig. 1 would say that Earth’s thermal emission spectrum has a prominent Fraunhofer line from CO2, analogous to the yellow “D Fraunhofer line” of the Sun.
The word “saturation” means different things in different scientific fields. For example, if you add 360 grams of table salt crystals to a kilogram of water at room temperature (about 1 liter), the salt will dissolve completely to give a “saturated” solution. If you add 1000 grams of salt to a kilogram of water, only 360 grams will dissolve and 640 grams will remain as solid crystals on the bottom of the container. Adding more salt to a saturated solution has no effect on the amount of salt in solution. Adding more CO2 to the atmosphere, when its effects on radiation transfer are saturated, continues to decrease flux to space. But the decrease gets smaller and smaller as more CO2 is added. [Boldface added]
END QUOTE
Physicist Tom Sheahen, Chairman of SEPP and an editor of TWTW, has frequently complained that most researchers use the “standard atmosphere” — an artificial gas that contains no H2O – leaving them without any explanation for the great majority of the greenhouse effect (i.e., H2O). They tried to add the effect of H2O as a “feedback” mechanism later on. That was a major error in Manabe’s initial work (in the 1960s, for which he received the Nobel Prize), and it’s been wrong ever since, driving billions of dollars’ worth of faulty models that give erroneous results.
For the entire paper including the noted references see links under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
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Climate Change for Kids: In 2022 the Heartland Institute published an excellent book for young people: Climate at a Glance for Teachers and Students: Facts on 30 Prominent Climate Topics by Anthony Watts, James Taylor, et al. Heartland has updated the book with 14 new topics: Global tropical cyclones; temperature-related deaths; deaths from extreme weather; the Great Barrier Reef; bees and climate change; Antarctic ice melt; Arctic sea ice; global greening; global wildfires; ocean temperatures; atmospheric rivers; climate models vs. measured temperature data; carbon dioxide saturation in the atmosphere; and the sun’s impact on climate change.
The update is Climate at a Glance (Second Edition): Facts on 40 Prominent Climate Topics and is available through Amazon books for $14.73 (plus tax, shipping). For the press release see link under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
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Marine Heat Waves: A little over 10 years ago under the Obama administration the fear-of-the-day was Ocean Acidification from atmospheric carbon dioxide, heavily promoted by NOAA and NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco. Apparently, she was unaware that the deep ocean contains a great deal of carbon dioxide, which counterbalances the otherwise high alkalinity of the oceans. The primary production areas of the ocean are caused by ocean upwellings that bring up the carbon dioxide and other nutrients to feed phytoplankton, which form the base of the marine food web. Such regions are found on the California coast, the coast of Peru, and the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, Canada.
Now the current fear for the oceans has shifted to Marine Heat waves. Ron Clutz gives an account of this new fear including a study published by the US Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The title of one paper is “Global warming drives a threefold increase in persistence and 1 °C rise in intensity of marine heatwaves” by Marta Marcos, et al. Abstract begins with:
“Marine heatwaves are extreme climatic events consisting of persistent periods of warm ocean waters that have profound impacts on marine life. These episodes are becoming more intense, longer, and more frequent in response to anthropogenic global warming. Here, we provide a comprehensive and quantitative assessment on the role of global warming on marine heatwaves. To do so, we construct a counterfactual version of observed global sea surface temperatures since 1940, corresponding to a stationary climate without the effect of long-term increasing global temperatures, and use it to calculate the contribution of global air temperature rise on the intensity and persistence of marine heatwaves.” [Boldface added]
A counterfactual version is a fabricated version and is not a factual version of global sea surface temperatures. The global climate was not stable since the 1940s. Given that global climate models greatly overestimate the warming of the atmosphere, there is no reason to assume that such fabrications are of value. Further, Clutz brings up Ross McKitrick’s (a SEPP Seitz Award recipient) excellent critique of the procedures used in these studies. Such studies are speculation and are not statistically valid. Unfortunately, we will continue to see them. See links under Changing Seas.
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National Academies’ Climate Studies: In his participation in the special report prepared by five independent scientists for the Department of Energy in July, “A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate,” Steven Koonin demonstrated he is more concerned with the integrity of science and scientific reports than personal acclaim. Koonin demonstrated his concern for the integrity of science and scientific reports with an essay in the Wall Street Journal, “Another Tale of Climate Change Bias: The government should stop funding the National Academies’ climate studies until they shed the political conformity.” After discussing Climate Week in New York City, the senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and a member of the National Academy of Sciences discusses the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine report. He states:
“The academies’ study—which was put together in less than two months—was obviously meant to bolster the scientific basis for the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2009 finding that greenhouse-gas emissions threaten the nation’s well-being. The study therefore plays down or ignores evidence undermining that conclusion. This agenda is evident from the first sentence of the preface, which invokes the terrible flood of the Guadalupe River in Texas in July. The report doesn’t mention that similar events have been recorded since the late 19th century and show no detectable trend to the present, even as emissions have soared.
Assessments of climate science often minimize, or even ignore, natural variability to make recent climate trends or weather events seem unusual and hence a consequence of greenhouse-gas emissions. The National Academies’ report is no exception. It describes a recent acceleration of global sea-level rise observed by satellites without mentioning a comparable acceleration during the 1930s. There are similar failures in the report’s coverage of U.S. heat waves (which aren’t more common in recent decades than they were in the decades around 1900) and of North Atlantic hurricanes (which show no long-term trends in frequency or intensity).
The report deceptively shapes its discussion of the models used to project climate changes. The writers gush about how the models are improving. But they give no quantitative sense of how deficient even the improved models are. They also omit some important but inconvenient topics. A reader won’t learn of humans’ demonstrated ability to adapt and reduce vulnerability to a changing climate, or of the projected minimal net effect of warming on the U.S. economy.
The academies’ study stands in stark contrast to the recent Department of Energy report, of which I am a co-author. The DOE report properly places extreme weather events and recent climate trends in the context of natural variability. It also doesn’t shy away from subjects that contradict a Grimm [alluding to folk tales by the Brothers Grimm] perspective. Our report was intended to bring attention to important topics in climate science that have been overlooked or played down in past assessments and so are absent from popular and political climate narratives.
The National Academies’ study didn’t attempt to refute the DOE findings. It simply ignored them and the data on which they were based. It’s not surprising that the two reports have no authors in common and cite entirely different sets of peer-reviewed papers.
The incomplete and biased picture of climate science in the National Academies’ study demonstrates the need for the DOE report. It does a disservice to the public by not explaining how and why its findings differ from the DOE’s. Flawed pronouncements that support advocacy by minimizing or ignoring scientific disagreements feed public distrust of science.
Whatever the fate of the EPA’s 2009 finding on greenhouse-gas emissions, which the agency is reviewing, the Academies’ view of greenhouse-gas impacts must be reconciled with the DOE’s more sanguine perspective. Complete and transparent analyses of the risks of climate change are overdue. Sadly, the National Academies’ report isn’t that.
I helped oversee National Academies studies in engineering and physical sciences for six years. Those reports lived up to the claim to provide “independent, objective analysis and advice.” But the academies have long had problems of bias and advocacy on climate matters. The government would do well to stop funding their climate studies until they get their house in order.”
See Article # 1.
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Censorship by “Consensus”? In WUWT Tilak Doshi has an essay describing how big tech censors the news using their search engines by not including dissenting views, no matter how strongly based on physical evidence these views are. For example, Doshi writes:
The Google AI response uses an old trick in the book of shyster arguments: it argues from authority. This is a form of argument in which the opinion of an authority figure or institution is used as evidence to support the thesis proposed. The argument from authority is a logical fallacy, and obtaining knowledge in this way is unsound. Richard Lindzen, Emeritus Professor of Meteorology at MIT, has written about the long march through the institutions by progressive neo-Marxian ideology, subverting key agencies in the climate industrial complex to sing from the same climate alarmist hymn sheet.
Google’s algorithms, as [Robert] Epstein’s data suggest, are designed to prioritize a singular perspective – the globalist climate agenda — while burying dissenting voices. Renowned scientists like William Happer, John Clauser, Judith Curry, and Richard Lindzen — whose credentials include professorships at Princeton, MIT, and Nobel Prize laureates — are effectively erased from search results. Their arguments – which show that climate change is within the bounds of natural variability, that increasing CO2 levels will not significantly increase global temperatures and that CO2 promotes global greening – are nowhere to be found in the Google search results.
This is censorship is not the major issue; the major issue is that those who desire to obtain differing views on a controversial subject cannot hope to do so using most internet search engines. Doshi writes:
“The pattern is clear: dissent from the approved narrative — whether on climate, Covid or politics — results in erasure, not engagement.
A Glimmer of Hope?
Grok is an AI-powered assistant developed by xAI, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, designed to be “maximally truthful, useful and curious.” Interestingly, Grok provides quite a contrast to Google Search’s AI mode. When I asked Grok the same question (“Are we facing a climate crisis”?), its response in contrast to Google’s (reported above) concluded as follows:
‘No, we’re not facing a ‘climate crisis.’ Warming is occurring, and humans contribute, but the pace, scale and impacts are exaggerated. Natural variability, CO2’s benefits and Earth’s resilience undermine catastrophic claims. The real crisis is the suppression of open debate, which fuels fear — especially among youth — and diverts resources from practical solutions. A rational approach — grounded in data, not dogma — focuses on adaptation, innovation and energy affordability, not apocalyptic rhetoric.’
The idea of a ‘climate crisis’ is a polarizing claim, often framed as an urgent, existential threat driven by human activity, particularly fossil fuel emissions. Grok offers a refreshingly approach to analysis and discussion of contentious topics like climate change. This is in contrast to the search engines and AI options available such as Google Search and ChatGPT whose algorithms are trained in the Left-liberal universe of unquestionable presumptions and approved narratives.”
See link under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
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Number of the Week: 3 Watts per square meter v. 50 watts per square meter. In their calculations, van Wijngaarden and Happer show that a doubling of CO2 from 400 parts per million in volume (ppmv) to 800 ppmv will result in increase in the greenhouse effect of about 3 watts per square meter (3 W/m2). It is doubtful that humans will feel this difference. At rest, the average human body emits over 50 watts per square meter of body surface, 17 times more heat.
NEWS YOU CAN USE:
Suppressing Scientific Inquiry
A Submission to the Australian Senate Investigation into Climate Misinformation
By Michael Jonas, WUWT, Oct 7, 2025
Climate models: As I said above, these are a mathematical construct, so are within my area of expertise. I have examined aspects of the climate models and have documented in a published paper how they are mathematically invalid – their structure is the structure used in the short-term calculations of weather models, but mathematically this structure cannot work for the climate. A totally different structure is needed for the longer-term nature of climate.
The paper is titled “General circulation models cannot predict climate” and is accessible at https://wjarr.com/content/general-circulation-models-cannot-predict-climate
Challenging the Orthodoxy — NIPCC
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science
Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), 2013
Summary: https://www.heartland.org/_template-assets/documents/CCR/CCR-II/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts
Idso, Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), 2014
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/climate-change-reconsidered-ii-biological-impacts/
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Fossil Fuels
By Multiple Authors, Bezdek, Idso, Legates, and Singer eds., Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, April 2019
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/climate-change-reconsidered-ii-fossil-fuels/
Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming
The NIPCC Report on the Scientific Consensus
By Craig D. Idso, Robert M. Carter, and S. Fred Singer, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), Nov 23, 2015
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/why-scientists-disagree-about-global-warming/
Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate
S. Fred Singer, Editor, NIPCC, 2008
http://www.sepp.org/publications/nipcc_final.pdf
Challenging the Orthodoxy – Radiation Transfer
The Role of Greenhouse Gases in Energy Transfer in the Earth’s Atmosphere
By W.A. van Wijngaarden and W. Happer, Preprint, Mar 3, 2023
Dependence of Earth’s Thermal Radiation on Five Most Abundant Greenhouse Gases
By W.A. van Wijngaarden and W. Happer, Preprint, December 22, 2020
Net Zero Averted Temperature Increase
By Richard Lindzen, William Happer, and William A. van Wijngaarden, CO2 Coalition, June 2024
Radiation Transport in Clouds
By W.A. van Wijngaarden and W. Happer, Klimarealistene, Science of Climate Change, January 2025
Challenging the Orthodoxy
Saturation Graphics
By W.A. van Wijngaarden and W. Happer, CO2 Coalition, Oct 8, 2025
Pdf format: https://co2coalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Saturation-1.pdf
New ‘Climate at a Glance’ Book Challenges ‘Climate Crisis’ Narrative with Hard Data
By James Taylor, Anthony Watts, H. Sterling Burnett, The Heartland Institute, Oct 7, 2025
From the Surface to Space
By Kevin Kilty, WUWT, Oct 7, 2025
Javier Vinos Finds Missing Climate Puzzle Pieces
Transcript and illustrations by Ron Clutz, His Blog, Oct 5, 2025
Tom Nelson interviews independent researcher Javier Vinos reporting his discoveries of facts and evidence ignored or forgotten in the rush to judgement against humanity for burning hydrocarbon fuels.
The Devil’s Algorithm: Unplugging from the Climate Matrix
By Tilak Doshi, WUWT, Oct 4, 2025
Sea Level Rise Hoax Exposed: The Disappearing Islands That Refuse To Disappear
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Oct 4, 2025
Defending the Orthodoxy
Virtue on ice
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 8, 2025
Defending the Orthodoxy – Bandwagon Science
Green Attacks on Energy Guzzling Artificial Intelligence Ramp Up
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Oct 6, 2025
Questioning the Orthodoxy
The Doughnut Delusion: A Case Study in How to Turn Data into Ideology
By Charles Rotter, WUWT, Oct 9, 2025
Link to paper: Doughnut of social and planetary boundaries monitors a world out of balance
By Andrew L. Fanning & Kate Raworth, Nature, Oct 1, 2025
From Rotter: After nearly two decades of “Doughnut” development, the grand insight remains: we must stop growing, stop consuming, and start obeying the moral geometry of academics who draw circles in PowerPoint.
It’s an impressive feat of self-importance — to turn the miracle of modern civilization into a planetary emergency because it doesn’t fit your spreadsheet’s calorie count.
What this paper really measures isn’t ecological overshoot; it’s intellectual overreach. It’s the arrogance of technocrats who believe they can define “enough” for eight billion people from an office in Oxford.
Scientists Warn The European Union Is Headed Down A Pathway To ‘Green Colonialism’
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Oct 10, 2025
Link to one paper: Green façades, enduring dependencies: European Union’s battery and hydrogen strategies as modern neocolonialism
By Alberto Boretti, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, May 19, 2025
Link to second paper: Why Africa must assert sovereignty over its hydrogen future
By Alberto Boretti, et al., International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, Aug 22, 2025
Nothing to Xi here folks
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 8, 2025
‘Green’ Antoinettes Preaching Austerity From Private Jets
By Vijay Jayaraj, CO2 Coalition, Oct 10, 2025
Social Benefits of Carbon Dioxide
The effect of extra CO2 on Darwin Woollybutt
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 8, 2025
From the CO2Science archive:
However, this week’s named-after-three-fingers-of-hooch plant is remarkable for another reason: it is the first case we have ever seen where extra CO2 actually made it grow less quickly. In 1994 in a set of nine experiments the additional CO2 caused the butt to grow more woolly in six cases but less quickly in three. In one the growth slowed by 38%, resulting in an overall average of -2% across the nine experiments.
Problems in the Orthodoxy
ABC: $50 Million Aussie Clean Energy Scholarship Untouched 1.5 Years
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Oct 5, 2025
Net Zero Hobbits Encounter Realities Outside Middle-earth
By Vijay Jayara, Cornwall Alliance, Oct 1, 2025
Once trumpeted by corporate giants and governments alike, the vision of a world without greenhouse gas emissions is crumbling, its pseudoscience and false assurances incapable of sustaining the weight of one reality after another. Major airlines, energy companies and financial institutions are abandoning net zero commitments that always were destined to clash with the demands of business imperatives and people’s needs.
Seeking a Common Ground
Paper Chase: A Global Industry Fuels Scientific Fraud in the U.S.
By Vince Bielski, WUWT, Oct 8, 2025
In southern India, a new enterprise called Peer Publicon Consultancy offers a full suite of services to scientific researchers. It will not only write a scholarly paper for a fee but also guarantee publishing the fraudulent work in a respected journal.
It is one of many “paper mills” that have emerged across Asia and Eastern Europe over the last two decades. Paper mills are having remarkable success peddling tens of thousands of bogus academic journal papers and authorships to university and medical researchers seeking to pad their resumes in highly competitive fields.
Science, Policy, and Evidence
EXCLUSIVE: Biden Admin Streamlined Path For Offshore Wind Boondoggles Despite Internal Red Flags
By Audrey Streb, Daily Caller, Oct 6, 2025
Thatcher & UK Politics: Up from Alarmism
By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, Oct 3,2025
One of her greatest tests was the British coal strike of 1984–85, which was broken after a year. Electricity generation and distribution were privatized in 1990, and the coal industry, which had been nationalized back in 1946, soon followed in the new light of the free market.
But in the process, Margaret Thatcher jumped too quickly on the climate issue for short-run gain. The good news is that she quickly and completely corrected herself. She got “mugged by reality,” as they say.
Changing Weather
Is Washington State Really Getting Drier?
By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, Oct 3, 2025
No real trend over the last century and a quarter.
As the planet warms, more of our mountain precipitation will fall as rain rather than snow, but reservoir systems, such as the Yakima’s, can store the water no matter how it gets into the river.
It might be wise to expand regional reservoirs to save more winter rain.
Floods Data For 2024/25 in England
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 10, 2025
Link to report: Flood and coastal erosion risk management report: 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025
By Staff, Environment Agency, Sep 19, 2025
From Homewood: The Environment Agency have now confirmed that an estimated 3200 properties were flooded in England in the 12 months to March 2025. (This figure only applies to major events, as they do not collate data for all incidents)
Their previous annual reports clearly no show no worsening trend, despite their annual extreme weather propaganda.
One interesting piece of information is that only 3500 properties are at risk of coastal erosion by 2055.
I realize this is not a nice problem to face for those who live there, but the number really is tiny on the overall view of things, given some of the hysterical reporting in the media.
North Dakota tornado was the first at EF5 strength in a dozen years
By Staff, AP Oct 6, 2025
Changing Climate – Cultures & Civilizations
A Wooden Stake To Alarmist Claims Europe’s Pre-Industrial Climate Was Stable
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Oct 8, 2025
The Romanian authors reveal from an analysis of historical documents that reconstructed the 16th-century climate of Transylvania that there was a pattern of intense extreme weather events. There were frequent and intense heat waves and droughts in the first half of the century, contrasting with the climate in Western Europe.
Changing Seas
Scare du jour Marine Heat Waves
By Ron Clutz, His Blog, Oct 8, 2025
Link to one paper: Global warming drives a threefold increase in persistence and 1 °C rise in intensity of marine heatwaves
By Marta Marcos, et al., PNAS, Apr 14, 2025
Marine heatwaves modulate food webs and carbon transport processes
By Mariana B. Bif, et al., Nature Communications, Oct 6, 2025 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
Changing Cryosphere – Land / Sea Ice
Greenland 1, models 0
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 8, 2025
Some 9-15% of the annual run-off from the Greenland ice sheet predicted by climate models runs not off. It is retained on the ice surface and refreezes. Which again also means a large amount of solar energy is taken up melting water that doesn’t leave but instead refreezes in place.
Agriculture Issues & Fear of Famine
Together, power plants and greenhouses can feed humanity
By Ronald Stein P.E. and Sid Abma, America Outloud News, Oct 6, 2025
Lowering Standards
Karen–The Storm That Was Not!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 10, 2025
As the technical blurb indicates, nobody would have know Karen was there had it not been for multiple satellite images.
Moreover, NOAA only officially began naming subtropical storms in 2002, thus artificially increasing the number of named storms. They can also potentially get included in ACE statistics.
Met Office Deletes Huge Chunks of Historic Temperature Data After Fabrication Claims
By Chris Morrison, The Daily Sceptic, Oct 5, 2025
Met Office Reputation Sinks To New Low, As Outright Lie Is Exposed
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 5, 2025
Is it dishonesty or just plain incompetence?
I think we deserve to be told!
World Bank Reduces Emissions, Not Poverty
By Brenda Shaffer, Real Clear Energy, Oct 9, 2025
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Yellow (Green) Journalism?
#HaveItBothWays: Plants and methane emissions
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 8, 2025
It’s an important lesson to remember when the journalists are banging the alarmist drum. Will the same ones report on it when the next study comes out and says something different? Sometimes we actually wish journalists would learn to #HaveItBothWays.
Time [Mag]: When will Companies Notice the Cost of Climate Change?
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Oct 5, 2025
America Needs More Gas Power, Not Wind, AEP!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 3, 2025
Link to: Electricity explained
Electricity generation, capacity, and sales in the United States
By Staff, EIA, Accessed Oct 10, 2025
From Homewood: Currently the grid can just about cope, but extra demand from datacentres can only be met by a rapid and massive rollout of new gas power stations around the country.
[SEPP Comment: AEP is columnist Ambrose Evans-Prichard for the UK Telegraph.]
Don’t Rely On Solar Power In Winter, AEP!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 3, 2025
Just as in the UK though, solar farm productivity plummets in winter months.
Whereas it produces at around 20% of its capacity all year round, In January this year, the figure fell to 10%.
[AEP is columnist Ambrose Evans-Prichard, Homewood provides graph of US electricity generation in January with solar generating far less than coal.]
Communicating Better to the Public – Exaggerate, or be Vague?
Experts sound alarm after Antarctica air temperature record broken by 60 degrees: ‘Unexpected’
“It’s not sudden in the sense we would commonly use.”
By Timothy McGill, The Cool Down (TCD) Oct 1, 2025 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
[SEPP Comment: No link to a paper. Another air-head report from TCD. The “sudden” warming occurred in the stratosphere, which warms with higher altitude from about 20 to 50 km (from increasing Ozone created by solar ultraviolet radiation). This is unlike the Troposphere (the lower atmosphere from about 0 to 10 km), which generally cools with higher altitude. But thermal inversions are not uncommon.]
The Earth Is Getting Darker. That’s Not Good News.
By Darren Orf, Popular Mechanics, Oct 9, 2025 [H/t John Kwapisz]
Link to paper: Emerging hemispheric asymmetry of Earth’s radiation
By Norman G. Loeb, et al., PNAS, Sep 29, 2025
From article: While the distance between these radiation budgets slowly grows (by about 0.34 watts per square meter per decade), the differences will be enough to significantly impact climate models and skew our view of the planet’s future. Hopefully, with time and ample innovation, we’ll find a way to get these radiation budgets back on track.
[SEPP Comment: The climate models are incapable of forecasting climate, so what is skewing – continued errors? We simply don’t know clouds at all!]
Communicating Better to the Public – Go Personal.
CLIMATE CRITICS POUNCE! How the Media Turned “Questioning a UN Bureaucrat” Into a Hate Crime Against Science
By Charles Rotter, WUWT, Oct 9, 2025
Apparently, Roger Pielke Jr. — a political scientist with the unfortunate habit of reading data instead of chanting slogans — wrote an op-ed questioning whether Dr. Friederike Otto, an activist who co-founded World Weather Attribution, might not be the most neutral person to help lead the next United Nations climate report. Otto’s research, you see, keeps showing up in lawsuits against the oil and gas industry. Big ones. The kind of lawsuits where the legal fees could buy an entire Tesla fleet and still leave room for a virtue-signaling dinner at Davos.
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Propaganda
Worst drought since…
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 8, 2025
And how exactly will building windmills make it rain? It is prudent to beware the experts who say, and the journalists who say they say, and the “studies” that show what the journalists say that the experts say, and above all it is vital to beware the passive voice, in journalism as in life generally.
Expanding the Orthodoxy
The Lancet’s New Push To Ban Meat
By William M. Briggs, His Blog, Oct 8, 2025 [H/t John Dunn]
Link to: The EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy, sustainable, and just food systems [Boldface added]
By Prof Johan Rockström, et al., The Lancet, Oct 2, 205
From abstract: Actions on food systems strongly impact the lives and wellbeing of all and are necessary to progress towards goals highlighted in the Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Agreement, and the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Although current food systems have largely kept pace with population growth, ensuring sufficient caloric intake for many, they are the single most influential driver of planetary boundary transgression. [Boldface added]
From Briggs: Science is not the answer. It cannot be “because Science” that you ought to give up meat. Which Harvard scientists want you to do in the name of “justice”. And, of course, to save the planet. Which is in no danger and does not need saving.
Justice is not a concept in Science. Science is forever mute on justice. Or fairness. Or equity or Equality.
Questioning European Green
In The UK The Net Zero Consensus Has Crumbled
By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Oct 3, 2025
[SEPP Comment: Menton may be too optimistic.]
Net Zero ‘Lies’ Exposed | Keir Starmer’s Promises Undermined
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 8, 2025
Eight-minute video interview of Kathryn Porter:
Green Energy’s High Price: Wind Farms Are Ravaging Nature, Biodiversity
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Oct 5, 2025
Questioning Green Elsewhere
Japan’s Green Energy Failures Serve as a Warning to the US: Don’t Fall for the Climate Agenda
By Yoshihiro Muronaka, CO2 Coalition, Oct 6, 2025
Offshore wind’s LCOE is around 12–16 ¢/kWh, but when the full cost of electricity (FCOE) is considered, it rises to 20–30 ¢/kWh. Nuclear and gas remain much lower, at roughly 12–14 ¢/kWh and 10–12 ¢/kWh, respectively.
Globally, however, floating wind remains at the developmental stage. Norway’s Hywind Scotland and France’s Provence Grand Large provide valuable data, but their costs remain far higher than fixed-bottom projects. Commercial viability has not yet been proven. Betting on floating wind as a “game-changer” risks repeating the same error: political enthusiasm without economic grounding.
For policymakers worldwide, Japan’s case should not be seen as an embarrassment, but as a warning and an opportunity: Energy transitions must be guided by facts, not hopes, if they are to be sustainable.
Aussie Green Wall Cracks: Queensland Commits to Reliable Coal until 2046
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Oct 10, 2025
From article:
“Queenslanders should not be penalized over unscientific decisions down south that favor ideology over economics and engineering,” he said.
“We don’t have the pipeline capacity to keep bailing out Victoria’s bad decisions. The solution to the southern state gas crisis is for the southern states to develop their gas reserves. We’re not asking them to do anything we haven’t done ourselves.”
From Worrall: There is no guarantee the new 2046 target will stick – the 2035 target could be restored by a future Queensland administration. And anyone seeking to invest in coal would also have to contend with our radical green federal government.
Whee we’re climate competitive
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 8, 2025
As for Carney’s end of the supposed bargain, Parliament just voted to retain the “oil and gas emissions cap” while subsidies pour into failed alternatives. Oh, and BTW the bureaucracy continues to insist that that oil and gas cap will have “very minimal impact” on the energy industry but a massive impact on emissions. But they would, wouldn’t they?”
Green Jobs
Utility-scale Solar: The Grim News Begins (Blue Ridge “wind-down’)
By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, Oct 9, 2025
Solar as grid electricity is a government-created industry. It would not exist without the large tax credits that began with the 10 percent ITC in 1978, which was extended six times (1980, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991). Then came the 30 percent credit in the Energy Policy Act of 1992, itself extended seven times (2006, 2008, 2009, 2016, 2018, 2019, and 2022).
That’s a total of thirteen extensions if you are counting. So much for an ‘infant’ industry, which was not infant to begin with.
Non-Green Jobs
All change at the Unite union
By Anonymous, Net Zero Watch, Oct 3, 2025
However, just as I was about to despair of any change in their apparently dogmatic position, along came a Unite official, Cliff Bowen, who represents 35,000 oil and gas workers. In a speech to the Labour Conference, he announced that ‘Unite will no longer accept decarbonisation by deindustrialisation’.
Funding Issues
Net Zero Banking Alliance Terminated
By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, Oct 6, 2025
“NZBA votes to cease all operations, abandon membership model,” reported ESG Dive. Lamar Johnson summarized:
- Members of the United Nations-backed Net-Zero Banking Alliance voted Friday to immediately cease operations and shift to a guidance-based model, an NZBA spokesperson told ESG Dive.
- The spokesperson said that the vote also “provided a mandate to explore how best to carry this work forward.” Banks will be involved in that process over the next six to 12 months where further plans will be developed.
- NZBA’s decision to shutter makes it the second UN-aligned net-zero industry group to cease operations in 2025. The Net Zero Asset Managers initiative suspended all activities earlier this year shortly after BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, exited the group in January.
Zeroing Out Taxpayer Funded Climate Propaganda
By David Middleton, WUWT, Oct 7, 2025
Link to: Climate research organization cuts dozens of jobs
Coalition that runs premier climate modeling center faces rising costs and budget uncertainty
By Staff, AAAS Science, Oct 2, 2025
From AAAS Science: The university consortium that runs the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), one of the world’s leading climate research centers, last week laid off 29 employees and decided not to fill 21 vacant positions.
NCAR develops and runs advanced climate and weather models, including the well-regarded Community Earth System Model. These simulations often require supercomputers, like the one NCAR jointly operates with the University of Wyoming in Cheyenne.
[SEPP Comment: NCAR does not bother testing its climate model against physical evidence of atmospheric warming. Further, its databases do not consider past cold periods.]
The Political Games Continue
Will The Green Tory Blob Allow Kemi To Cancel Net Zero?
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 4, 2025
[Leader of the Conservative Party] Kemi Badenoch has now confirmed that she will scrap the Climate Change Act, along with its Net Zero targets.
But will her MPs allow her to do it?
Will Kemi’s Promise Make Any Difference?
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 10, 2025
Is Kemi Badenoch’s pledge to abolish Net Zero all it seems?
These costs have been deliberately kept hidden from voters for years. But they are essential if we are to have a rational debate about climate policy.
These revelations will be hugely embarrassing for the Tories, as most of them are the direct consequence Conservative Government policy since the Cameron era.
Tories Won’t Commit To Lift Petrol Car Ban
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 10, 2025
The suspicion, which I raised before, is that we will still get Net Zero under Kemi Badenoch, but just by another name.
Boris Johnson admits Net Zero is unworkable, and he “got carried away”
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Oct 7, 2025
So what do we make of his avid fanatical support for Net Zero in late 2022?
Coutinho Promises To Abolish Carbon Tax and ROC Subsidies
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 9, 2025
Claire Coutinho is a UK politician and former investment banker who has been Shadow Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero since 2024.
Litigation Issues
Judge rules Biden administration went too far by indefinitely blocking new drilling off large portion of US coast
By Rackel Frazin, The Hill, Oct 3, 2025
Climate Lawfare Threatens National Energy Policy
By Kristen Walker, Real Clear Energy, Oct 9,2025
Greenies Wage War With Trump Admin Over Biden Solar Program
By Audrey Streb, Daily Caller, Oct 6, 2025
In Debate Over Solar Energy, Don’t Cancel Property Rights for Farmers
By Greg Brophy, Real Clear Energy, Oct 9, 2025
Corporations, Too, Can Be Slandered: The Roundup Story
By Barbara Pfeffer Billauer JD, ACSH, Sep 30, 2025
Link to: IARC Monographs Volume 112: evaluation of five organophosphate insecticides and herbicides.
By Staff, International Agency for Research on Cancer, World Health Organization, Mar 20, 2015
From the article: Stare decisis is the legal principle assuring that courts follow established precedents (prior decisions) when ruling on similar cases. Its purpose is to promote consistency, predictability, and integrity in the legal system. The principle works when cases are brought within the same jurisdiction. Still, courts are not bound by rulings from other states, and state courts are not bound by many federal court rulings, contributing to a hodgepodge of conflicting verdicts.
Cap-and-Trade and Carbon Taxes
RGGI Investment Proceeds Report Implications
By Roger Caiazza, WUWT, Oct 10, 2025
These results have important implications because I believe that they represent systemic issues with the cap-and-dividend emission reduction approach. Unfortunately, I don’t think that RGGI will fail before others, including New York State, try to implement similar schemes based on the “successful” RGGI model.
[SEPP Comment: A carbon tax and spend scheme with little benefit.]
Subsidies and Mandates Forever
Federal EV Credit Out, Leaving Blue State Subsidies
By Kennedy Maize, Master Resource, Oct 8, 2025
Energy Issues – Non-US
Britain Now Fully Dependent On Imports To Avoid Winter Blackouts
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 9, 2025
Even with their assumptions, we will still be fully reliant on 6.9 GW of interconnector capacity.
Of course, what Sky [news] forgot to tell you is that the grid is dependent on 36 GW of gas power capacity, without which we would have no electricity supply at all.
Have Renewables Overtaken Coal? [UK]
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 8, 2025
Kathryn Porter mentioned claims that renewables were now supplying more electricity than coal on a worldwide basis.
As she pointed out, the claim originated with Ember, the renewable lobby outfit who claimed that Labour’s energy plans would reduce bills by £300! Hardly trustworthy then!
Nevertheless, if you include hydro and burning trees in “renewables”, renewable and coal generation have been neck and neck for a while:
Buy Electrons Before Bytes: A Practical Plan to Power the AI Boom
By Theodor Engøy, Real Clear Energy, Oct 6, 2025
Start with a simple rule: buy electrons before bytes. Match each gigawatt of new data‑center load to contracted, firm low‑carbon generation (nuclear, hydro, geothermal, gas with CCS where credible) plus storage and specific transmission upgrades.
[SEPP Comment: The writer is from Norway which is one of the few places that have excess hydro. Iceland has excess geothermal, CCS has not been demonstrated as practical anywhere except for extracting more oil.]
Energy Issues – Spanish Blackout
Spanish Blackout–Interim Report Published
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 5, 2025
Link to report: 28 April 2025 Blackout
By Staff, European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E), Oct 3, 2025
From Homewood: Nevertheless, there are some relevant takeaways from the report.
First of all, the system operator RE decided during the morning of the blackout that a gas power plant, Thermal 5-Centre/South West, which had been operating overnight was not needed that day:
Again, this gives the lie to the claim about gas plants. RE left it far too late to order the CCGT up, as it takes 90 minutes to fire up.
I cannot find anything in the report about what actually caused the oscillations. But it seems abundantly clear that RE deliberately ran gas power to dangerously low levels, presumably because the system was overloaded with solar power.
RE then compounded matters by reacting far too late.
Energy Issues – Australia
Chickens coming home: Energy prices are now the biggest single concern of business in Australia
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Oct 4, 2025
It was always going to happen, as long as the Minister for Weather was determined to control Pacific Decadal Oscillations with windmills. Everyone would be happy-happy until the bill arrived.
Volunteers make map of Australian renewables projects that CSIRO, AEMO, AER, CEFC, CCA or Dept of Env. forgot to…
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Oct 9, 2025
From the press release: The Truth Map totals include:
31,000 wind turbine towers — six times the current national number to be replaced every 15-20 years, operating 30% – 40% of the time.
28,000 km of high-voltage transmission lines — longer than [half] a lap around the equator*.
7,800 km of undersea cabling — cutting through fragile marine habitats.
44,000 km of new haulage roads — longer than Australia’s coastline.
350–550 million solar grid panels covering 443,755 hectares — an area larger than metropolitan Sydney to be replaced every 25 years, operating 18% – 25% of the time.
$1.38 trillion in total costs — overwhelmingly subsidized by taxpayers.
Energy Issues — US
Thank You for Choosing Reliability: An ACC Op-Ed on DOE’s Investment and DOI’s Action
By Emily Arthun, President & CEO American Coal Council, Oct 3, 2025
The American Coal Council believes in an “all-that-works” strategy that earns its keep. Coal has carried the baseload for generations because it is engineered to do so—because it is stockpiled on site, resistant to weather shocks, and dispatchable when it counts. That truth does not erase other sources; it anchors them.
New England’s final coal plant shuts down years ahead of schedule
Poor economics drove the aging New Hampshire plant offline three years early, even as the Trump administration pushes to revitalize coal.
By Sarah Shemkus, Canary Media, Oct 7, 2025
The closure of the New Hampshire facility paves the way for its owner to press ahead with an initiative to transform the site into a clean energy complex including solar panels and battery storage systems.
[SEPP Comment: Solar plus batteries will power New Hampshire in December and January when daylight is only 8 to 9 hours long and nights are cold?]
Trump reloads an ‘America First’ energy agenda while reasserting sound science
By Kevin Mooney, CFACT, Oct 9, 2025
EPA Extends Steam-Electric Wastewater Deadlines to 2034, Citing Grid Reliability and Rising Power Demand
By Sonal Patel, Power Mag, Oct 8, 2025
The EPA’s concerns about reliability, while outside its statutory mission to safeguard public health and maintain environmental quality, appears to be rooted in its coordination under the December 2024 EPA–DOE Memorandum of Understanding on Electric Reliability
[SEPP Comment: In a modern society electrical reliability is critical for public health and environmental quality. Try to run water and sewer treatment plants without reliable electricity! Want to ride an elevator powered by wind?]
Entergy Will Power $4-Billion Google Data Center in Arkansas
By Darrell Proctor, Power Mag, Oct 3, 2025
The contract between Google and Entergy Arkansas for the data center project, which [CEO] Landreaux said would run “for decades,” includes investment in Cypress Solar, a 600-MW solar power and 350-MW battery energy storage facility near Pine Bluff in Jefferson County that will be built by Entergy Arkansas. Officials said that while Google has invested in other U.S. solar farms through power purchase agreements, this would be the first time the company’s investment would be used to support construction.
Google in late September applied for an air quality and emissions permit from the Arkansas Division of Environmental Quality for the West Memphis project. The company has said that permit would be to allow for the use of backup power generation, which would only be used in “the rare and unlikely event that the grid goes down. [Boldface added]
[SEPP Comment: How frequently will these rare and unlikely solar failures occur? Every night?]
Investor-Owned Utilities to Spend $1.1T in Grid Boost as Power Demand Spirals
By Sonal Patel, Power Mag, Oct 9, 2025
Link to: 2024 Financial Review: Annual Report of the U.S. Investor-Owned Electric Utility Industry
By Staff, Edison Electric Institute, 2025
From Key Findings: EEI member companies invested a record $178.2 billion last year to make the energy grid smarter, stronger, cleaner, more dynamic, and more secure. [Boldface added]
From Power Mag: U.S. Electric Utility and Non-Utility Capacity Additions and Retirements, 2020–2029. Nearly 91 GW of new capacity was under construction as of early 2025, with another 488 GW proposed through 2029, dominated by solar (216 GW), energy storage (152 GW), and wind (63 GW) projects, according to EEI’s Financial Review 2024. Over the same period, 112.6 GW of generation is slated for retirement, including 55.9 GW of coal, 37.4 GW of natural gas, and 1.8 GW of nuclear, highlighting the dual challenge of system expansion and turnover now reshaping the grid. Courtesy: Edison Electric Institute, Financial Review 2024 (April 2025).
[SEPP Comment: What is smart, strong, and secure about part-time power?]
Finding the Energy to Win the Global AI Race
By James Roth, Real Clear Energy, Oct 7, 2025
John Roth is head of government affairs and policy at Bloom Energy, a provider of Carbon Capture and other politically popular schemes including Fuel Cell manufacturing in Delaware.
Return of King Coal?
India Invests in More Coal-Fired Power to Support Increased Need for Electricity
By Darrell Proctor, Power Mag, Oct 8, 2025
Regional areas of India are withdrawing incentives for renewable energy projects and instead signing long-term contracts to buy more coal-fired power generation.
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Solar and Wind
Solar, Wind ESG/ETC Closures Accelerate
By Robert Bradley Jr. Master Resource, Oct 7, 2025
Wind and solar and other politically correct, economically incorrect energies and technologies are not per se good. They are really a per se bad if the market rejects and government enables. And wind and solar have environmental issues that are opposed at the grassroots by the on-the-spot landowners and ecologists.
Solar energy is now the world’s cheapest source of power, study finds
Press Release by University of Surrey, Oct 6, 2025 [H/t Bernie Kepshrie]
Link to paper: Solar Energy in 2025: Global Deployment, Cost Trends, and the Role of Energy Storage in Enabling a Resilient Smart Energy Infrastructure
By Ehsan Rezaee and S. Ravi P. Silva, Authorea, Aug 29, 2025
Solar energy is now so cost-effective that, in the sunniest countries, it costs as little as £0.02 to produce one unit of power, making it cheaper than electricity generated from coal, gas or wind, according to a new study from the University of Surrey.
[SEPP Comment: How much does solar energy cost at night? The data sources are highly questionable and lowering costs of storage systems does not mean low-cost storage systems.]
Solar and wind power has grown faster than electricity demand this year, report says
By Alexa St. John, AP, Oct 6, 2025
No link given, probable report: Global Electricity Mid-Year Insights 2025
Solar and wind outpaced demand growth in the first half of 2025, as renewables overtook coal’s share in the global electricity mix.
By Malgorzata Wiatros-Motyka, et al., Ember, Oct 7, 2025
[SEPP Comment: The executive summary and the conclusion do not discuss the role of government subsidies and mandates or the costs of making solar and wind reliable.]
Wind, Solar Projects Can Stick Taxpayers With the Tab Coming and Going
By Gary Abernathy, Real Clear Energy, Oct 9, 2025
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Energy — Storage
Buildings are turning to ‘ice batteries’ for sustainable air conditioning
By Isabella O’Malley, AP, Oct 8, 2025
Expert says only 5% of people on the “cheaper battery scheme” are sharing it in a Virtual Power Plant
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Oct 8, 2025
It looks like consumers won’t save the Australian grid by spending thousands to buy the batteries the government can’t afford.
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Vehicles
ANOTHER Mercedes EV fire in an UNDERGROUND carpark
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Oct 6, 2025
Video reading reports: 19 Fire trucks, 57 firefighters dispatched to the fire in South Korea
Carbon Schemes
Scientists seek to turbocharge a natural process that cools the Earth
Terradot, a carbon removal company, is using “enhanced rock weathering” to sequester carbon by spreading crushed volcanic rock over farmland.
By Kate Selig, The Washington Post, Oct 8, 2025 {H/t Bernie Kepshire]
The company, Terradot, is spreading tons of volcanic rock crushed into a fine dust over land where soybeans, sugar cane and other crops are grown. As rain percolates through the soil, chemical reactions pull carbon from the air and convert it into bicarbonate ions that eventually wash into the ocean, where the carbon remains stored.
The claims made by enhanced rock weathering start-ups have drawn some skepticism from researchers who say they want to see data and peer-reviewed research supporting them. Terradot said it will publish its data as part of the carbon-crediting process after the credits are delivered.
Fendorf, the Stanford professor, said the instinct for scientific caution is understandable, but the urgency of climate change requires a different mindset, one that he has needed to adopt after several decades in academia. [Boldface added]
Oh Mann!
Mann bites institution
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 8, 2025
As usual, the profile in courage who run universities leave us uncertain as to whether they found even a single vertebra:
“Provost John Jackson Jr. told The Daily Pennsylvanian that Mann was neither fired nor ‘driven out’ of the position. ‘I think his position has been that it’s more and more difficult for him to do the kind of public intellectual work he wants to do while also being a University administrator at an institution that says we pride ourselves on institutional neutrality,’ Jackson added.”
Environmental Industry
Ex Greenpeace Head: Climate Catastrophe will Drive Clean Energy Despite Trump
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Oct 5, 2025
Other Scientific News
Nobel Prize in chemistry goes to discovery that could trap C02 and bring water to deserts
By Malenkov, Dazio, and Larson, AP, Oct 8, 2025
Link to press release: Their molecular architecture contains rooms for chemistry
By Staff, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Oct 8, 2025
From article: The scientists were able to devise stable atomic structures that preserved holes of specific sizes that allowed gas or liquid to flow in and out. The holes can be customized to match the size of specific molecules that scientists or engineers want to hold in place, such as water, carbon dioxide or methane.
[SEPP Comment: Will the Prize trigger demands for huge subsidies to capture CO2?]
Other News that May Be of Interest
Sparks between microscopic bubbles could explain the ghostly, glowing will-o’-the-wisps, study finds
By Mindy Weisberger, CNN, Oct 8,2025
Link to paper: Unveiling ignis fatuus: Microlightning between microbubbles
By Yu Xia, et al., PNAS, Sep 29, 2025
BELOW THE BOTTOM LINE
STOP BREATHING, ASTHMATICS: CNN Rails Against ‘Climate Pollution from Inhalers’ – ‘Substantial contributors to planet-warming pollution’
By Admin, Climate Depot, Oct 8, 2025
Link to paper: Inhaler-Related Greenhouse Gas Emissions in the US A Serial Cross-Sectional Analysis
By William B. Feldman, MD, et al., JAMA, Oct 6, 2025
From paper: Findings: Inhalers approved for asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease generated an estimated 24.9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions in the US from 2014 to 2024, 98% of which were from metered-dose inhalers. The estimated social costs of emissions were $5.7 billion (lower bound, $3.5 billion; upper bound, $10.0 billion).
[SEPP Comment: Climate Depot lists other headline reports of the climate dangers caused by human health care.]
It’s an emergency, the [UK] Defence Industry wants to get some climate-money too. Send Fear and Brimstone!
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Oct 10, 2025
This same nation which once repelled the Luftwaffe, cracked the Enigma code, and supplied half the world with coal and steel, now stands imperiled by a mild change in the weather.
Imagine having too much sunshine — It’s just not British!
Tidbits
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Oct 8, 2025
Inside Climate News is excited that “The Philippines has designated more than 200 square miles of its coastal waters as a national protected area to safeguard some of the world’s most climate resilient coral reefs.” Um Philippine dudes, if you’re worried about climate and coral, wouldn’t it make sense to safeguard the least resilient? Not the ones that actually like warmth, that flourish in the tropics not temperate or polar zones and evolved in a warmer world, because they don’t need help in the face of warmth. Oh wait. That’s pretty much all corals, isn’t it? After all, Newfoundland isn’t a coral paradise.
Climate Barbie’s New Book on Why Her Big Idea was Cancelled,
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Oct 9, 2025
ARTICLES
1. Another Tale of Climate Change Bias
The government should stop funding the National Academies’ climate studies until they shed the political conformity.
By Steven E. Koonin, WSJ, Oct. 6, 2025
TWTW Summary: The main part is presented in the This Week section above.
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I’ve mentioned it quite a while ago, that Happer & Wijngaarden’s paper was the nail in the coffin for
the effect of CO2 on climate. Even a doubling of CO2 will have practically no effect on global warming. For the other GHG’s (not including water) their concentrations and absorbtion frequencies
mean that their effects are negligible. Even for water, one would have to stably add a huge quantity of it to the atmosphere to see an effect. This was the case after the Hunga Tonga eruption, and it’s effects were visible, but very moderate. Since 2022, this added water is mostly gone, and its effects as well.
I would also like to thank the author for this very clear article explaining what “saturation” really means when talking about GHG’s. Physically, it’s to say: a molecule cannot absorb any light if it
has a lot of other similar molecules around it that absorb the incoming light first. At saturation, a lot of molecules absorb very little or no light at all, so even more of them won’t change much.
This same nation which once repelled the Luftwaffe, cracked the Enigma code, and supplied half the world with coal and steel, now stands imperiled by a mild change in the weather.
On the face of it that is indeed the way it appears. However, you simply cannot compare the political elites of today with those of the 1930s and 1940s. For example, today’s bright young progressives believe…
Churchill was a ‘racist’ and comparable to Hitler, says academic (Professor Kehinde Andrews). – ITVX
But then, he (and others like Lenny Henry) thinks we should give every black person – that’s the only qualifier – in the UK an equal share of £18 trillion in reparations. So, there you go. That’s one source of progressive British self-loathing and guilt. Critical theories are the order of the day, especially with the current Labour government, and I don’t have to spell out what they are about.
At a Labour Party conference Starmer gave a speech and regarding the war in Gaza he called for…. The release of the sausages. Express
After the disaster at Dunkirk, Churchill gave a speech…
Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail.
We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be.
We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills.
We shall never surrender
And Starmer’s latest gaffe?
The US ambassador to Israel has called Cabinet minister Bridget Phillipson “delusional” for claiming the UK played a “key role” in securing the ceasefire in Gaza. Standard
It’s no wonder we have a ideologically driven madman in charge of deindustrialising the nation…
‘I’m sorry, but that’s my policy. I’m not prepared to talk about it’. – Ed Miliband
No comparison at all
I see that particularly in Switzerland where the 7 executive branch leaders are elected by parliament and not by the people. If it was by the people, there would be information on the competence of the candidates, and hopefully, the best one would get elected. In the case of parliamentary election, the others parties vote for the weakest candidate of the proposing party, or the one who is the most in line with their own party line, or who goes along to get along. Competence in this case isn’t an issue, it’s even contrary to their interests to have a well qualified representative of a competing party in power. And it goes even further: It’s better for them not to have a well qualified person in charge of a certain department.
He might change things for the better, which isn’t good for their own party’s image. This is unfortunately present in a host of governments in Europe right now, where a lot of emerging politicians don’t even have a diploma, or have interrupted their studies to go into politics.
In the UK it’s hard to knock a country that is way more democratic and holds referenda – asking the people. After Brexit we’ll never get another.
But even Switzerland is no utopia. It is heavily influenced by the neighbouring, nay surrounding EU, and has recently signed another agreement to strengthen and modernise bilateral relations.
It may have escaped the author’s notice that the surface cools at night, regardless of how much or how little “greenhouse gas” is present. As a matter of fact, the surface cools to around -90 C, in places.
It is a matter of observation that using CO2 as an insulator (based on its supposed ability to prevent infrared leaving a body) is something that only the ignorant and gullible would pursue in any practical application.
At least the “greenhouse effect” is now defined as something that “delays rapid cooling of the Earth at night”. No mention of “heating” or “warming”! Reality intruding into the GHE fantasy? One can but hope.
In some deserts the temperature falls rapidly after sunset due to low RH.
In summer with high RH in many areas, the night temperature falls very slowly and the air is muggy and uncomfortable.
Professors van Wijngaarden and Happer also calculate, using radiant transfer models (RTM), that CO2 doesn’t emit to space below 80+ km. What they don’t address is the impact, if any, that non-radiative deactivation / activation of GHGs by collisions with much more abundant non-GHG species might have on the applicability of said RTMs to tropospheric heat transfer.
It is apparent from carbonate and ice core data that large variations in atmospheric CO2 concentration have had no impact on the Earth’s temperature. One explanation for this is that RTMs are applicable within the troposphere and that the effect of CO2 is effectively saturated. Another is that RTMs are not applicable within the troposphere and that the so-called GHE simply reflects the lower speed at which heat is transferred aloft via mainly convective processes.
As both mechanisms can ‘explain’ the Earth’s outgoing LWIR spectrum, it would be useful if SEPP would address the concerns of some CAGW skeptics that the application of RTMs within the troposphere is incorrect and leaves the door open to climate alarmism.
____________________________________________________________
I’m trying to come up with a good analogy for that. So far:
A startup company presents a business plan to the bank in order secure a loan.
All the engineering and marketing studies are top notch. However there is no
adequate method to determine the cost of the materials so that cost is omitted.
Hmmm, really doesn’t need an analogy, the stupidity is obvious as it stands.
Under the first topic of the above article, this statement:
“The limiting factor is not the quantity of carbon dioxide, but the quantity of infrared radiation (IR) emitted by Earth.”
As regards looking at the effect of CO2, that is technically NOT true. There are two factors that allow a greater quantity of IR being emitted by Earth than just that than can be absorbed by CO2 in the atmosphere:
1) CO2 has very limited spectral bands for absorbing LWIR emitted by Earth, see attached graph, and
2) Some of CO2’s absorption bands are also included in water vapor’s absorption bands, with water vapor overwhelming absorption in those overlapping spectral frequencies due to its greater molecular concentration . . . water vapor at typical global average levels of about 2,500 ppmv (but ranging up to 50,000 ppmv) versus CO2 now at about 430 ppmv . . . PLUS the fact that the CO2 molecule do not have a permanent dipole moment whereas H2O does have a permanent dipole moment, making is a much stronger absorber of LWIR at any wavelength.
Bottom line: it is not that “It is that all the infrared radiation (IR) that carbon dioxide can readily absorb is already being absorbed” as it is that a large amount of the infrared radiation (LWIR) that carbon dioxide might readily absorb is already being absorbed by water vapor (particularly in the radiation band centered around 15 microns . . .again, see attached chart). Nonetheless, most of Earth’s emitted LWIR is absorbed by GHGs in the atmosphere, then converted to energy of the predominant N2 and O2 constituents via molecular collisions before being radiated to deep space as broad spectrum thermal radiation.
Ooops . . . here is the chart that I referenced above showing the spectral bands of absorption of Earth’s LWIR by various constituents in its atmosphere.
I agree with what you’ve said here, only seeing the need to add what I’ve gleaned from Shula & Ott (S&O) that convection plays a major role in transporting energy from near the surface, where excited GHGs are predominantly deactivated by collisions, to the upper layers of the troposphere, where non-excited GHGs are predominantly activated by collisions and can then effectively radiate IR to space.
My sense is that there are other ‘skeptics’ here who also think that the effects of collisions, conversion of thermal energy to / from sensible heat and convection have been minimized or ignored by mainstream climate science because it effectively means that radiative transfer theory (RTT), while descriptive, doesn’t physically portray how thermal energy is actually transported through the troposphere.
Given what’s at stake, I’d certainly like to see some open discussion here at TWTW / WUWT between S&O and the folks at SEPP re. the merits, if any, of the formers’ ideas on the applicability of RTT to tropospheric heat transfer.
Frank, we have had innumerable open discussions where this topic might have become clear, but people are absolutely stuck in their own personal “normal science” where radiation is paradoxical.
Not to pick on ToldYouSo especially, but look at this …
No doubt that most of LWIR radiated from Earth is absorbed by GHG’s in the lower atmosphere. MODTRAN shows that with current concentrations of GHGs, and under clear skies, anywhere from 90% to 60%, thus the major amount, is absorbed. And there is little doubt that collisions with N2 and O2 de-excite those GHGs. But then how in the world are O2 and N2 to produce a thermal (blackbody like) emission when neither N2 nor O2 have any molecular lines in the spectrum from 4um to 40um? How? This is an idiosycratic view.
But if your description of S&O is correct, then what they seem to being saying is that GHGs are deactivated by collisions near surface, that convection then carries heat higher in the atmosphere where it is so transparent that the GHGs, somehow gaining the energy back again can now radiate to space. There is no evidence that anything like this takes place, it sounds idiosyncratic again.
Instead, there is a near equilibrium between collision deactivation and reactivation because of detailed balance (local thermodynamic equilibrium) in those molecular lines that do exist, heat is transported by combined radiation and convection, with convection probably doing most of the work (60% or so) near surface slowly giving way to near 100% above 10km or so by radiation.
However, even near surface at night, especially where the ground surface is higher and air Abit drier, there is enough direct transfer to space from the ground surface through openings in the atmospheric window to develop an inversion over night. See so in the data that I have shown at Santa Teresa in the recent “Surface to Space” essay.
To argue this topic, as you know, brings out a large number of advocates for each idiosyncratic theory and the argument turns sometimes nasty, but never is there any enlightenment.
Oh, this has actually be scientifically explained many times in rebuttal to the “science folklore” that N2 and O2 cannot absorb or emit LWIR because they don’t have a permanent dipole moment and don’t have absorption/emission lines in the LWIR part of the EM spectrum.
A basic error arises from considering N2 and O2 as isolated single molecules or as non-continuum gases, but not at the dense concentrations occurring in Earth’s atmosphere at STP, where they are experiencing about 10 billion collisions per second with other surrounding gas molecules.
Considering just nitrogen gas as a continuum in the lower atmosphere, even “non-polar” N2 will develop momentary dipole moments during collisions with other gas molecules, including other N2 molecules. IOW, while nitrogen is indeed considered in isolation to be a non-polar molecule with no permanent dipole moment due to its symmetrical structure and equal sharing of electrons, the rapid movement of electrons within the molecule due to acceleration forces during molecule-molecule collisions will cause a temporary, uneven distribution of charge. This temporary shift in electron density creates a short-lived dipole, which is then able to interact with (e.g., absorb or emit) EM radiation across a wide range of frequencies at low intensity levels, including the LWIR region.
Same goes for O2.
Moreover, when two gas molecules collide, the dipole resulting in either molecule can induce a temporary dipole in a neighboring molecule (one not involved directly in the collision).
Therefore, even though N2 molecules are nonpolar under normal circumstances, collisions and the close proximity of other molecules can lead to temporary and induced dipoles that enable absorption of IR/LWIR radiation.
Notwithstanding the above, it is true that the rapid molecule-molecule collisions that occur in the lower atmosphere mean that the re-distribution of energy from LWIR-excited molecules (predominately the “greenhouse gasses”) to the preponderance of weakly IR-active gases (mainly N2 and O2) occurs via al exchange of mechanical modes of energy (translational motions, and vibration and rotation of molecular bonds), with this energy transfer overwhelming the direct absorption of LWIR via temporary, collision-induced dipole moment radiation absorption.
It is also true that the photon-relaxation time for an LWIR-directly-excited molecule (one having a permanent or temporarily-induced dipole moment) is on the order of 10^-6 to 10^-9 times that of the average molecule-molecule collision time, meaning that re-emission of LWIR-originated energy in the lower atmosphere is basically an insignificant consideration for energy transport, but becomes important in the upper stratosphere where the mean free path between gas molecules is many orders of magnitude higher.
There is a fairly good write-up of these physical phenomena, commonly known as collision-induced absorption and emission on Wikipedia (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collision-induced_absorption_and_emission ), where the following is stated (my bold emphasis added):
“Collision-induced absorption and emission is particularly important in dense gases . . . complexes of interacting molecules may (and usually do) acquire new optical properties, which often are absent in the non-interacting, well separated individual molecules . . . Collision-induced absorption (CIA) and emission (CIE) spectra are well known in the microwave and infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum, but they occur in special cases also in the visible and near ultraviolet regions . . . Collision-induced spectra have been observed in nearly all dense gases . . . CIA and CIE are due to the intermolecular interactions, which generate electric dipole moments . . .
As to how “O2 and N2 produce a thermal (blackbody-like) emission when neither N2 nor O2 have any molecular lines in the spectrum from 4um to 40um“, the explanation is that those gases, by virtue of their absolute temperature being absolute zero, do indeed CIE emissions, but such are much less obvious than the sharp lines typically associated with single (or few molecules) as they are de-excited. As explained in the above-cited Wiki article (again my bold emphasis added):
“Optical transition of collisional complexes of molecules generate spectral “lines” that are very broad – roughly five orders of magnitude broader than the most familiar “ordinary” spectral lines (Heisenberg’s uncertainty relation). The resulting spectral “lines” usually strongly overlap so that collision-induced spectral bands typically appear as continua (as opposed to the bands of often discernible lines of ordinary molecules).
Ooops . . . discovered two typos upon a re-read after the period allowed for editing a comment. In my final paragraph above, the first sentence should be corrected as noted here in capital letters:
“. . . by virtue of their absolute temperature being ABOVE absolute zero, do indeed HAVE CIE emissions . . .”
Mea culpa.
And . . . ooops, again! . . . these typos, as corrected here, in my third-to-last paragraph:
“It is also true that the photon-relaxation time for an LWIR-directly-excited molecule (one having a permanent or temporarily-induced dipole moment) is on the order of
10^-610^+6 to10^-910^+9 times that of the average molecule-molecule collision time, meaning that . . .”Kevin, thank you for your thoughtful response to my comment. I have a couple of quick thoughts, followed by what I hope is more importantly a call for more public debate on this topic.
First, you say:
‘But if your description of S&O is correct, then what they seem to being saying is that GHGs are deactivated by collisions near surface, that convection then carries heat higher in the atmosphere where it is so transparent that the GHGs, somehow gaining the energy back again can now radiate to space. There is no evidence that anything like this takes place, it sounds idiosyncratic again.’
From what I understand from S&O (below), there is sufficient sensible heat at altitude to excite IR-active gases via collision where spontaneous emission of photons to space, rather than thermalization, becomes the prevalent mechanism of energy transfer. Also, notwithstanding my crude description, I don’t believe that the transition from convection to radiation follows some sort of step function. In fact, S&O state that spontaneous emission to space occurs throughout the troposphere for selective wavelengths.
Secondly:
‘Instead, there is a near equilibrium between collision deactivation and reactivation because of detailed balance (local thermodynamic equilibrium) in those molecular lines that do exist, heat is transported by combined radiation and convection, with convection probably doing most of the work (60% or so) near surface slowly giving way to near 100% above 10km or so by radiation.’
On the positive side, your ‘60% or so’ seems much more reasonable to me than the paltry amount of energy transfer from the surface usually attributed to convection by ‘alarmist’ energy balance diagrams. What I’m much less comfortable with is the assumption of LTE in the troposphere. I see this less as a physical reality than as a way to get the radiative tranfer theory (RTT) camel’s nose under the tent, particularly in order to be able to treat the atmosphere (i.e., uncondensed matter) as a black body. While I don’t normally have a problem with invoking more tractable analysis tools, for example using regression models in many applications or assuming ‘risk neutral valuation’ in finance, to model complex phenomena, in this case we need to be aware that RTT uniquely allows CO2 to become a ‘problem’ in the eyes of a political Left that seeks to radically change our world. Therefore, if it turns out that RTT does not really convey the actual physics of tropospheric energy transfer, we need to publicize this asap in order to remove this weapon from the Left’s arsenal.
In closing, S&O seems plausible to me and is also consistent with a geological record that shows absolutely no evidence that fluctuations in CO2 concentration have ever had any influence on the Earth’s temperature. However, I don’t have the physics background to definitively accept or reject their ideas, which is why we need to have an open exchange between S&O and one or more ‘name’ skeptics who, if not in agreement with S&O, can definitively spell out exactly where their ideas are incorrect. What’s puzzling to me is why this has not already occurred.
I meant to add this link to my previous comment:
https://andymaypetrophysicist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Shula_Ott_Collaboration_Rev_5_Multipart_For_Wuwt_16jul2024.pdf
Since convection alone cannot transport heat to space vacuum, the final step in Earth emitting heat energy MUST involve radiation, part of which involves the direct radiation of Earth surface-emitted LWIR to space via the “atmospheric window” in the LWIR spectrum, and the remainder of which involves broad-spectrum thermal radiation to deep space from all gases in and above the stratosphere.
The thermal energy of atmospheric constituents (in terms of eV equivalent) obtained via molecule-molecule collisions above about 10 km altitude is far too low to elevate electron levels in ANY molecules to the energy levels required for direct photon emission (as opposed to absorbed photon re-emission) in a molecule’s peak emission bands. See attached chart.
We’ll just have to agree to disagree re. your premise that ‘…broad-spectrum thermal radiation [emanates] …from all gases…’, i.e., non-condensed matter.
‘In a solid or liquid the electrons in the valence and conduction bands are roughly uniformly distributed so we have a continuous distribution of electrons throughout the whole material. By contrast atoms or molecules in a gas are widely separated by vacuum (where there are no electrons).
The reason this matters is that the radiation mentioned in the quote, black body radiation, is mainly produced by oscillations in the electron density. Thermal motion makes the atoms oscillate and this produces changes in the electron density. This in turn produces oscillating electric dipoles, and those dipoles emit the black body radiation.
In a gas at everyday temperatures and pressures this can’t happen because the gas atoms or molecules are too widely spaced. There is no continuous distribution of electrons to oscillate, and as a result gases do not emit black body radiation. The radiation emitted by gases generally consists of sharp lines related to rotational or vibrational transitions.
If you compress a gas to very high density then it can emit black body radiation much as a liquid does. However this normally requires extreme pressures not found outside physics labs or astronomical bodies.’
https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/290528/difference-in-thermal-radiation-between-condensed-matter-and-gases
From your fourth paragraph:
Excuse me, but did you miss my previous comment that atmospheric gases at STP (essentially “everyday temperatures and pressures”) collide with each other at about 10 billion times per second.
Check it out with any good Web search engine.
“Too widely spaced”? . . . I think not.
‘Excuse me, but did you miss my previous comment that atmospheric gases at STP (essentially “everyday temperatures and pressures”) collide with each other at about 10 billion times per second.’
No, I didn’t miss it. That’s the essence of Shula&Ott – collisions happen on a much shorter time scale than does the spontaneous emission of photons by GHGs. That has nothing to do with whether gases, GHGs or not, i.e., non-condensed matter, can emit broad band thermal radiation.
Please read the ‘Andy May’ link I provided, above.
Actually, the extremely fast collision frequency has EVERYTHING to do with how gases, which exist without being surrounded by free electrons, are able to emit broad band THERMAL RADIATION from IR down to RF portions of the EM spectrum.
Wiki’s summary explanation bears repeating:
” . . . collisional complexes of molecules generate spectral “lines” that are very broad – roughly five orders of magnitude broader than the most familiar “ordinary” spectral lines (Heisenberg’s uncertainty relation). The resulting spectral “lines” usually strongly overlap so that collision-induced spectral bands typically appear as continua (as opposed to the bands of often discernible lines of ordinary molecules).”
BTW, I did look at the “Andy May” link that you provided and found no mention whatsoever of Collision Induced Absorption or Collision Induced Emission in gases. However, I did find this comment that basically confirms my understanding of the importance of these physical phenomena (thank you):
“From Basics of Radio Astronomy, published by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in April 1998, Chapter 3 – The Mechanisms of Electromagnetic Emissions (emphasis added):
” ‘In solids, the molecules and atoms are vibrating continuously. In a gas, the molecules are really zooming around, continuously bumping into each other. Whatever the amount of molecular motion occurring in matter, the speed is related to the temperature. The hotter the material, the faster its molecules are vibrating or moving.
“Electromagnetic radiation is produced whenever electric charges accelerate—that is, when they change either the speed or direction of their movement. In a hot object, the molecules are continuously vibrating (if a solid) or bumping into each other (if a liquid or gas), sending each other off in different directions and at different speeds. Each of these collisions produces electromagnetic radiation at frequencies all across the electromagnetic spectrum. However, the amount of radiation emitted at each frequency (or frequency band) depends on the temperature of the material producing the radiation.’ “
Glad you brought up the JPL article, which was the only response of the three given that ‘supported’ the idea that gases emit thermal radiation. Notice that with respect to ‘continuum emissions’ they are referring to ionized gases. Also notice the sleight of hand as they conflate plasmas, which do emit thermal radiation, with gases, which don’t emit thermal radiation because they are not plasmas.
‘Continuum Emissions from Ionized Gas
Thermal blackbody radiation is also emitted by gases. Plasmas are ionized gases and are considered to be a fourth state of matter, after the solid, liquid, and gaseous states. As a matter of fact, plasmas are the most common form of matter in the known universe (constituting up to 99% of it!) since they occur inside stars and in the interstellar gas.
However, naturally occurring plasmas are relatively rare on Earth primarily because temperatures are seldom high enough to produce
the necessary degree of ionization. The flash of a lightning bolt and the glow of the aurora borealis are examples of plasmas. But immediately beyond Earth’s atmosphere is the plasma comprising the Van Allen radiation belts and the solar wind.’
I’m sorry, Frank, but what you state is simply not true. There’s just no way around it.
Both the Wikipedia article on CIA/CIE that I referenced in an earlier post and the NASA JPL book Basics of Radio Astronomy that I referenced in my post immediately above don’t make any statement that the term “gas” as they use it must necessarily be an ionized gas or plasma.
Yes, plasmas can be considered as gases, but not all gases are plasmas. In terms of astronomy, and in particular radio astronomy, there are “clouds” of interstellar neutral hydrogen (H I regions) and molecular gases that are not plasmas, collectively referred to as dark nebulae.
Moreover, you have a long row to hoe if you want to disprove the Stefan-Boltzmann law for thermal radiation power (P= 𝜀𝜎AT^4), which basically states that all matter above absolute zero emits radiation. Stefan empirically derived the law in 1879, and Boltzmann provided a theoretical derivation of it in 1884. This law has been thoroughly tested and confirmed.
And please don’t argue that the S-B law only applies to blackbody radiation, for it long ago included the term emissivity (𝜀) to account for the ratio of the power radiated by real matter, whether solid, liquid, gas, to the power radiated by a theoretical blackbody at the same temperature.
Follow-up:
From Google’s AI (my bold emphasis added):
“Yes, interstellar nebulae that are not ionized plasma do emit thermal radiation. In these cool, non-ionized nebulae—often called molecular clouds—the thermal emission comes primarily from two components: the gas itself and the dust grains mixed within it.”
Also this from ESA (https://cesar.esa.int/upload/201809/ism_booklet.pdf , again with my bold emphasis added):
“The Interstellar Medium (ISM) is the material filling the space between the stars. It consists mainly of gas (99%) and dust (1%), mostly found in the form of clouds, or nebulae (plural of nebula). About 75% of the interstellar gas is in the form of hydrogen, and nearly all the remaining 25% as helium. This gas is extremely cold (around 10 K) and diluted.
“Interstellar hydrogen gas is so cold that its thermal emission (the emission from a body because of its temperature) is very low even at radio wavelengths.
“The birthplaces of stars are called molecular clouds. They are clouds whose size and density permits the formation of molecular hydrogen and other molecules (in contrast with other clouds containing mostly ionized gas). Molecular clouds are very cold (10 K); they have typical sizes of about 10,000 Solar Systems (10^14 to 10^15 km in diameter) and densities of about 1 billion particles per cubic meter.”
Harold The Organic Chemist Says:
RE: The Greenhouse Effect
RE: Greenhouse Gases: H2O vs CO2
At the Mauna Loa Obs. in Hawaii, the concentration of CO2 in dry air is 425 ppmv. One cubic meter of this air has a mass of 1.29 kg and contains 0.83 g of CO2 at STP.
In air at 70° and 70% RH, the concentration of H2O is 17,780 ppmv. one cubic meter of this air has a mass of 1.20 kg and contains 14.3g of H20 and 0.77 g of CO2. To the first approximation and all things being equal, the fraction of the greenhouse effect(GHE) due H2O is given by:
GHE=moles H2O/(moles H2O+moles CO2)=0.79/(0.79+0.018)=0.98
This calculation assumes that a molecule of H2O and molecule CO2 each absorb about the same amount of out-going long wavelength IR light. Actually, H2O absorbs much more IR light than CO2. H2O is by far the only greenhouse gas of importance and CO2 minor greenhouse gas that can only cause a small amount of heating of the air if at all.
This empirical data and calculations show that the claims by the IPCC and the unscrupulous collaborating scientists that CO2 causes global warming and is the control knob for climate change are fabrications and lies. The purpose of these lies is further the UN’s plan of distribution, via the UNFCCC and the UN COP, of the wealth of the rich countries to the poor countries to help the cope with alleged harmful effects of global warming and climate change. The poor countries came COP29 clamoring not billions but trillions of funds. They left the conference empty handed with no pledges of funds from the rich countries.
After EPA Administer Lee Zeldin rescinds the 2009 Co2 Endangerment Finding, the greatest scientific fraud since the Piltdown Man will finally come to an end.
Harold The Organic Chemist Says:
ATTN: Ken
RE: The Saturation of the Absorption of IR Light by CO2 in the Atmosphere.
Shown in Fig. 7 (See below) is the infrared absorption of a sample of Philadelphia inner city air from 400 to 4000 wavenumbers (wns). There are additional peaks for H2O down to 200 wns but these are below the FT spectrometer cutoff of 400 wns In 1999 the concentration of CO2 at the MLO was 300 ppmv. The concentration of CO2 in the city air was not measured.
The gas cell was a 7 cm Al cylinder with KBr windows. The active range of the greenhouse effect is from 400 to ca. 700 wns. The absorbance of the CO2 peak at 667 wns is 0.025. If the gas cell was 700 cm (23 ft), the absorbance would be 2.5 and 99+% of the IR light would be absorbed.
This saturation distance for these conditions.
Click on Fig. 7 and it will expanded and become clear. Then print it and the turn it upside down. The 400 to 700 wn region does no like that of your Fig. 1. Click on the “X” in the circle to return to comment. text.
Note how small and narrow the CO2 peak is. It absorbing little IR light and
can cause only a small of heating the air if at all. We don’t have to worry about CO2.
Fig. 7 was taken from the essay: “Climate Change Reexamined” by
Joel M. Kauffman (He was a chemist). The essay is 26 pages and can be down loaded for free.
You should do some of your calculations for H2O for air 70° F and 70% RH. For this air the concentration of H2O is 17,780 ppmv. One cubic meter of this air has 14.3 g of H2O.
In recent months, Blackstone reportedly sought regulatory approval to buy utilities in New Mexico and Texas all while a BlackRock-led group won approval Friday to purchase a major utility in Minnesota. While BlackRock and other huge asset managers have distanced themselves from environmental, social and governance (ESG) investment practices in recent years, some energy experts and consumer advocates that spoke to the Daily Caller News Foundation are concerned that buying up utilities may represent a new frontier of financial giants orchestrating “climate mandates.”
The Photovoltaic Heat Island Effect: Larger solar power plants increase local temperatures
We found temperatures over a PV plant were regularly 3–4 °C warmer than wildlands at night
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep35070
Who could possibly have known that replacing acres and acres of vegetation with acres and acres of photovoltaic panels that from above are darker than the bowels of hades would result in a lowering of albedo? Who knew?