A place for discussion
0
0
votes
Article Rating
Open Thread
A place for discussion
136 Comments
March 1, 2026 2:24 am
Vertical velocity is modeled within the ERA5 reanalysis at each layer using the pressure units Pa/sec (Pascals per second). The hourly value is positive for descending air motion, negative for rising air motion. An air parcel experiences compression heating as it descends and expansion cooling as it rises.
To better connect this motion to the concept of energy conversion that I have often posted about, I downloaded the “vertical velocity” values for all hours and all longitudes at 45N latitude for 2024 at the 500 mb model level. I had already obtained the “vertical integral of energy conversion” values.
Please see the two plots in this Google Drive folder. One plot shows all hourly values of “vertical velocity” at 500 mb on the y-axis for all longitude points on the x-axis. The other plot shows “vertical velocity” at 500 mb vs the corresponding “vertical integral of energy conversion” for each longitude + hour index pair (i.e. it is a scatter plot of these two hourly parameters.)
Take a look. Rising motion at 500 mb is strongly associated with negative values of energy conversion ([internal energy + potential energy] –> [kinetic energy]). And conversely, descending motion is strongly associated with positive values of energy conversion ([kinetic energy] –> [internal energy + potential energy]).
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1HWPXOHG140LssizYy3LIiugrqrOVAjpB?usp=sharing
Discussion
Why pick the 500 mb model level? Because that is the nominal pressure altitude for the idealized “effective radiating level” at a temperature of about 255K.
The value of vertical velocity at any longitude at 45N at any hour in the past or future can easily be +/- 1 Pa/sec, more or less. This would be about +/- 3600 Pa or +/- 36 hPa over one hour. (1 hPa = 100 Pa = 1 mb.) In the 1976 U.S. Standard Atmosphere at around the 500 mb level, a parcel descending in one hour to a 36 hPa higher pressure warms by about 3.4K. Conversely, a parcel rising over one hour to a 36 hPa lower pressure cools by about 3.4K. I used an online atmosphere calculator to estimate these values.
So what? The reported ~0.016K PER YEAR “warming” on land, in the oceans, and in the lower atmosphere has been attributed to incremental CO2, CH4, N2O through the minor increase in computed IR absorbing power. But this claim of cause-and-effect is absurd when one considers the motion, because the theorized “warming” is vanishingly weak within the circulation. And it does not persist so as to drive a trend of ANY variable of interest in the climate system.
That attribution has been physically unsound all along. The modelers of the general circulation know this. It cannot be otherwise and make any sense at all about the fundamentals of compressible flow applied mathematically to simulate the bulk motion.
Thank you for your attention.
Wait. One more thing. This is the same concept that Simpson and Brunt explained in 1938 in their comments on Callendar’s attribution of reported warming to rising concentrations of CO2. They were not wrong about vertical motion. More here about that, with quotes and a link to the original paper.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/04/06/open-thread-138/#comment-4058322
In the ERA5 model, I couldn’t find a direct answer within the documentation. This is from Grok:
“In summary, wind shear between cells is resolved implicitly through the model’s vertical discretization, momentum physics, and interpolation to output levels—no unique “shear handling” scheme exists beyond standard turbulent mixing and drag parameterizations.”
This is a link to the full conversation with Grok.
https://x.com/i/grok/share/3312199982de4861b48abd5a6f5f9bbd
In the real atmosphere, wind shear produces drag, turbulence, and dissipative conversion of bulk kinetic energy to internal energy (i.e. heat) wherever there is an interface between higher and lower wind speeds. Its effect is experienced throughout the depth of the atmosphere.
So the ERA5 model approximates the effects of the physical concept of wind shear within its discretized computations, including the vertical motion.
I’m not quite sure this answers your question.
David,
I get it that pressure/circulation heat is large compared to calculated CO2 heat so it gets swamped, but that is not the same as proof that CO2 heat does not happen. Have I read this correctly? I have never been worried that CO2 heat is significant or a threat, but I am keen to learn of good physics and chemistry as hard proof to be used in arguments. Geoff S
Thanks for your reply, Geoff.
“Hard proof” of a negative is elusive in the dynamically active climate system. So the point of these demonstrations is to quantify the potential for incremental CO2 to influence the climate system through its minor enhancement of IR absorption within the atmosphere. Can one “prove” that the resulting gain of sensible heat down here is precisely zero? No.
But is it reasonable to expect to ever isolate that static IR effect for reliable attribution of a reported warming trend? No, because the theoretical static effect is vanishingly weak within the overwhelming dynamics of the circulation – both in terms of energy conversion and in terms of the dominant influence of vertical motion on air temperature. And because there is no new constraint on mass flow or altitude, is there any good physical reason remaining to expect the overall IR emission to space from the circulating atmosphere itself, including from clouds, to be degraded/derated so as to require a higher temperature at the surface to remain in balance? Also no.
So the burden of proof is on those who claim potential harm. They have no case. The dynamics I post about show how unreasonable it is to have ever assumed that sensible heat gain MUST be expected as an end result.
Best regards.
DD
‘So the burden of proof is on those who claim potential harm. They have no case.’
Most certainly correct with respect to the vast geological record of carbonate rock and ice cores we have at hand. While we can respectively see the effects of plate tectonics and orbital mechanics in these records, there is absolutely no evidence that CO2 has driven climate over the past 65 million years.
Unfortunately, rather than following your example and doing the hard work to understand convective energy transport in the troposphere, far too many of today’s so-called climate ‘scientists’ are mired in the phenomenological physics of radiative transfer theory.
Geoff and David.
I really like David’s approach in showing the insignificance of say 3 watts of CO2 forcing in total column kinetic energy. Let’s oversimplify the 3 watts CO2 forcing/240 watts solar input, call it 1%…..I became concerned that the 1% must eventually turn back into 1% worth of temperature increase despite becoming insignificant in convection and advection along the way….
But then I realized….that the atmosphere is in a huge state of flux…all that happens is the warm areas are just as likely to get 1% bigger (possibly taking in 1% more weather stations)…or stay just as warm 1% longer during the day (that’s 15 minutes)….as they are to get 1% warmer, ultimately of course, radiating that 1% to outer space…. So anyone focused on “warmer only” is likely going to be wrong by about a factor of 3….
Also courtesy of DD this “spreading around” of the energy is obvious here:
https://youtu.be/I0OCzxUyMqQ?si=5qaUzlzQy81SggwK
And it does not persist so as to drive a trend of ANY variable of interest in the climate system.
Why not? If you’ve added energy to the system, it will not disappear on its own. I think this is where your explanation falls apart. You’ve shown the energy moves around. but you’ve not shown why it wouldn’t lead to warming over time.
Bill Gray and Barry Schwartz described a way the energy gets out.
https://tropical.atmos.colostate.edu/Includes/Documents/Publications/gray2010_ams.pdf
With more energy collected near the surface by CO2, you also get more evaporation which leads to enhanced convection. Enhanced convection drives water vapor higher in the atmosphere where more of it condenses out. Residual water vapor, the primary greenhouse gas, is reduced. This reduction in high altitude water vapor allows more energy to radiate to space. That’s where the additional energy disappears.
“If you’ve added energy to the system, it will not disappear on its own.”
Incremental CO2 does not add energy to the system to begin with. The valid null hypothesis is that rising concentrations do not de-rate the performance of the overall longwave emitter to space so as to require a warmer substrate (i.e. the land and oceans) to maintain a radiative balance. That null hypothesis has not been falsified by any reliable means. The examples I post demonstrate that the “forcing” claim, in the proper context of the dynamics of the circulation, is itself unsound. I don’t have any reason to dispute the static radiative effect of rising CO2, but must it be assumed to operate as a climate “forcing?” No.
I don’t disagree about the importance of evaporation and condensation/precipitation.
You are quibbling with words. That won’t win you any debates. You have energy from sun, absorbed by the surface and emitted towards space. More CO2 will absorb more of that energy and keep the system warmer for a longer time. You know, just like insulation. I just debunked your null hypothesis.
If you have nothing specific to counter the insulation argument, you will get nowhere. Even with the details I provided you likely wouldn’t change many minds, but at least you have something.
“If you have nothing specific to counter the insulation argument, you will get nowhere.”
One of the very direct ways to counter the “insulation” argument is to show the computed performance of the atmosphere as a dynamic energy converter. It’s obviously not properly understood as just a passive radiative insulator. Perhaps you have just not yet picked up on the significance of this dynamic operation throughout the depth of the troposphere. More here.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1PDJP3F3rteoP99lR53YKp2fzuaza7Niz?usp=drive_link
Another direct demonstration from observation is to use the GOES Band 16 images in a time-lapse video. The emitter output is obviously not that of a passive insulator. It is highly active, and depends critically on cloud formation and dissipation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yarzo13_TSE
One more thing. Your handling of the issue overlooks the important point that only a small fraction of the longwave radiation that makes it to space originates from the surface without first being absorbed within the atmosphere. The atmosphere itself, including clouds, is the source of about 5/6 of that output. The direct-to-space emission from the surface is not what matters most. More here.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/05/16/wuwt-contest-runner-up-professional-nasa-knew-better-nasa_knew/
I see nothing that specifically counters the insulation argument. It goes something like this ….
If your “dynamic energy converter” is so powerful why has Earth warmed by over 1 C in the last century?
As long as you have no specific answers your response is similar to saying “and then magic happens”.
“If your “dynamic energy converter” is so powerful why has Earth warmed by over 1 C in the last century?”
It warmed for the same reason that it warmed at the same magnitude in the previous century.
We don’t know the cause but we do know it was not CO2 because CO2 amounts varied over this time period since the end of the Little Ice Age and did not correlate with temperatures during this time.
So your attempt to correlate CO2 with temperatures fails.
And the spread between the warmest and coolest temperatures is about 2.0C, not 1C. See the U.S. regional chart. I would post it but I have to fix my Windows installation first. Or, you could do a search for “Hansen 1999” since I have posted it here numerous times, so it should be easy to find.
“If your “dynamic energy converter” is so powerful why has Earth warmed by over 1 C in the last century?”
First, it’s not “if”. The powerful dynamic energy conversion performance within the general circulation arises from the fundamentals of the compressible atmosphere’s response to pulses of absorbed sunlight as experienced at each location on the surface. The ERA5 computations apply those fundamentals. It’s not magic.
Second, sure, I could nominate a few factors of natural origin to explain a nominal reported “warming” – trends of reduced cloud cover, orbital effects, ocean tide effects (Keeling and Whorf 2000) etc. But the physics of energy conversion are sufficient to rule out incremental CO2 as a suspected cause of sensible heat gain to any perceptible extent.
You are probably right when you say, “I see nothing.” Even when it is right in front of you.
“The powerful dynamic energy conversion performance within the general circulation arises from the fundamentals of the compressible atmosphere’s response to pulses of absorbed sunlight as experienced at each location on the surface. The ERA5 computations apply those fundamentals. It’s not magic.”
100%
The “insulation/house” argument ignores too many factors in the heat engine that is earth. It’s a consistent failure of climate science – like assuming that the diurnal mid-point temperature is a metric for “climate”.
the physics of energy conversion are sufficient to rule out incremental CO2 as a suspected cause
You’re still claiming it’s magic. You will need to go into far more detail to convince climate alarmists that CO2 is not the cause. The Gray/Schwartz 2010 paper provides you the detail and it is physics based.
“You’re still claiming it’s magic.”
No, Richard M, you are still not paying attention to the plain implications of the ERA5 plots I have posted and described. There is plenty of detail in the Google Drive folder I linked for you earlier. No magic at all.
By the way, I have no objection to the Gray/Schwartz paper, but that is not the topic here.
You are correct on one point – that climate alarmists are not easily dislodged from their misconceptions about the atmosphere.
Have a good day. We’re done for now.
You keep saying things like …
the plain implications
plenty of detail
But I don’t see it. What I see are a lot of generalizations without any grounding. The paper I referenced gives specifics and backs it up with data.
I’m not about to debate an alarmist articulating specifics about the greenhouse effect, radiation physics, a century of measured warming of the atmosphere and oceans, etc. with a nice satellite picture of the dynamic atmosphere which would have looked exactly the same a century ago.
“I see nothing that specifically counters the insulation argument. It goes something like this ….”
Counters:
- As temperature (warmth) goes up you have to offset that by running the furnace less – which you can’t do with the sun. Otherwise over time the house will get far too warm – but that hasn’t happened to the earth over all the millennia the earth has existed.
- Don’t equate insulating your house with CO2. It’s more like adding insulation to the house while opening windows at the same time. The open windows represent the “convection” piece of the heat engine known as earth.
I’ve never like the “insulation” argument for AGW. As with so much of climate science, it is far too simple to actually represent the totality of the heat engine that is Earth. Convection, advection, etc are a part of the earth biosphere – it isn’t a simple house.
I have a mental analogue with money. You can affect a balance by trading with existing money, or by finding new money to trade. I see the circulatory heat dissipation as the former and the effect calculated for CO2 as the latter. In theory, the latter should have the ability to cause a permanent change. Geoff S
In practice, CO2 amounts do not correlate with temperature, if one looks into the past before 1979.
Temperatures cooled dramatically for 40 years from the 1940’s to the 1970’s, while at the same time CO2 was increasing dramatically. No CO2 correlation with temperatures.
I know I’m not teaching you anything new, as you are well aware of the historical temperature records, but others might be confused.
March 1, 2026 3:26 am
Neat idea – on paper…
Calls to move England’s home insulation scheme into council workers’ hands – Guardian
In other words the councils will foot the bill via the [council and general] tax payer. Or will they?
Financial cliff-edge for hundreds of councils looms in 2026
“Our inquiry heard that the government is concerned about local authority finances. But the lack of urgent action to come forward with a plan to address the fast-approaching cliff edge for under-pressure authorities would seem to suggest it is comfortable with the current state of affairs as normalised background noise. – Public Accounts Committee
And just to underline the through the looking glass mentality of the whole idea the Guardian article informs us:
Street-by-street programmes could work on an opt-out basis – families would have to explicitly reject upgrades.
Conform or be cast out.
Calls to move England’s home insulation scheme into council workers’ hands
Insulating older homes can be problematic.
Often older homes (pre-WWI) are built with lime mortar which allows the structure to breathe. Insulating internally or externally prevents breathing and can lead to mould growth.
Insulating older cavity walls means there are cold bridges around any openings, leading to mould growth.
Both of which are exacerbated by the dipstick installers.
Quite right. Old houses are problematic. My house – 100 years old- is constructed of a stone outer leaf and brick inner leaf with some of the outer stones extending into the inner leaf as wall ties. This creates a problem for wall insulation because the tie stones result in cold patches on the inside which then become damp and moudy. One size fits all just doesn’t work. Another problem is that old houses tend to be very draughty so that the warm air in the house gets blown away.
March 1, 2026 3:39 am
Story tip – Greenpeace’s criminal behavior has caught up with them.
https://www.google.com/search?q=Greenpeace+Energy+Transfer&tbs=qdr:w
Dave,
Thank you for the heads up.
At last, society is starting to see a public realisation that some environmental activists have caused actual harm and damage real enough to be tested by routine legal process.
We are seeing the end play of the green dream using absurdly expensive advertising for 20 years or more to convince the public that “protection of the environment” has to be the highest of concerns. That dreamy theory was wrong then and remains wrong now. Other social priorities like freedom from hunger, freedom from oppression, freedom of speech for example have always ranked higher – but nobody sees a need to advertise this because it is obvious.
Goodbye, green dreams, especially those who made so many green grifters filthy rich.
Geoff S
Dave,
Thank you for the heads up.
At last, society is starting to see a public realisation that some environmental activists have caused actual harm and damage real enough to be tested by routine legal process.
We are seeing the end play of the green dream using absurdly expensive advertising for 20 years or more to convince the public that “protection of the environment” has to be the highest of concerns. That dreamy theory was wrong then and remains wrong now. Other social priorities like freedom from hunger, freedom from oppression, freedom of speech for example have always ranked higher – but nobody sees a need to advertise this because it is obvious.
Goodbye, green dreams, especially those who made so many green grifters filthy rich.
Geoff S
March 1, 2026 3:44 am
We need a “Call for Evidence”.
Please post any evidence you have showing that CO2 changes the Earth’s climate or weather.
I’m not really expecting much of a response since there is no such evidence, but if you are one who thinks you have evidence, then post it and I’ll let you know whether it is evidence or not.
We need a “Call for Evidence”.
Evidence based policy, sound’s great until the evidence says the opposite of what you would like it to say….
Mr Johnson sacked his chief drugs adviser over claims made in a paper that alcohol and tobacco were more harmful than many illegal drugs, including LSD, ecstasy and cannabis.
Previously Prof Nutt had clashed with former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith after suggesting that horseriding was more dangerous than ecstasy. – The Standard
With politicians such calls often fall on barren ground.
“The UK needs a Trump.”
No thanks, we have enough problems.
We already have a Poundland Trump, Nigel Farage; nasty little man, but a good orator, whips up the rabble & blames all our ills on foreigners & immigrants (conveniently forgetting that in the UK we are all descended from immigrants)
In the USA, 97% of the population is descended from immigrants.
No evidence that CO2 affects the Earth’s climate or weather was presented.
This means that there is no valid evidence. If there were, you can bet money that the Climate Alarmists would be eagerly jumping all over my claim that there is no correlation between CO2 and the Earth’s climate or weather. They didn’t jump. They remain silent. What does that tell you?
It should tell you all you need to know about Human-caused Climate Change: There is no evidence that it exists.
March 1, 2026 3:49 am
Europe’s ICE Market Shrinks by a Third in Two Years
The reverse on the ICE ban in the EU won’t matter. My estimate is that by 2030 most cars sold will be EVs anyways.
Once again, you post rubbish with deceptive headlines.
Few are choosing battery only EVs. Heavily policy-driven via CO₂ fleet targets forcing manufacturers to de-prioritize pure ICE and promote hybrids as a low-risk compliance path. Consumer pull toward hybrids helps, but the regulatory “push” is the dominant force in the data.
Without the mandated push away from ICEs, EVs would be nowhere.
A lie by omission is still a lie.
When will you learn.
Did a well educated person such as yourself not notice the ‘illiterate’ url in your link? Well, I did.
Manufacturers, unlike alarmists, do not lie or use hyperbole.
Vauxhall owner Stellantis resurrects diesel cars after taking a £19bn hit from EV sales slump
The parent company of major car brands Vauxhall, Citroen, Fiat and Peugeot says it will resurrect the availability of diesel engines in Europe, after suffering financial pain from its electric vehicle push.
Stellantis will make a dramatic U-turn on its green car strategy, hitting the brakes on the transition to EVs and keeping combustion engines in production – This is money
Big money.
Not seeing the evidence for your estimate in your link.
The data, published Tuesday by the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA), showed 154,230 new battery electric cars registered in the EU in January, capturing a 19.3% market share — up from 14.9% one year ago.
Plug-in hybrids rose to 78,741 units and a 9.8% share, from 7.4% while hybrids remained the single largest powertrain category at 308,364 units and 38.6% of the market.
Hybrids. Which is very understandable, a mild hybrid is just an improved ICE. If it didn’t say on the label I doubt most people would even know that they were driving a hybrid. The plug-ins are also a version of ICE, usually range of 50 miles max before switching to gasoline.
I can easily imagine pure ICE cars being very small in 2030. What I cannot see any evidence of is that fall being taken up by pure EVs.
My estimate is that in any country where the sale of new ICE cars (including hybrids) is banned, the result will be a fall in the new car sales, and a rise in the age of the installed base of cars as people hold on to their ICE (including hybrids) for longer.
My second estimate is of the effect all this will have on global CO2 emissions and global temperatures. Minimal, and none.
March 1, 2026 4:11 am
Make Iran Great Again!
As is to be expected, Democrats and a few Republican “my way, or the highway” guys are wringing their hands over Trump’s actions in Iran.
They are “threatening” to bring up the “War Powers Act” as a means to presumably reign Trump in.
First of all, the War Powers Act is an unconstitutional infringement on presidential power, which has never gone to the U.S. Supreme Court for scrutiny.
Even under the War Powers Act, the President can act on his own for 60 days before going to Congress.
If the Congress were to restrict the president by invoking the War Powers Act, the president could veto the bill.
So when you hear the Democrat appeasers and Republican isolationists complaining that Trump is violating the U.S. Constitution, know that every one of them are distorting the truth.
I am!
Especially after watching him deny the U.S. use of UK bases for our aircraft, and then announce his cooperation after the Mad Mullah’s underlings attack UK assets in the region.
He reminds me of an American Democrat. I’m not impressed with American Democrats. They don’t have a clue about the real world.
Living in Wokeachusetts- I know one reason they hate Trump. Here, it’s expected that politicians should sound like intellectuals and of course that’s not Trump. So, they assume anyone who doesn’t sound like an intellectual is a moron. And sometimes he does sound a bit clumsy- repeats himself often and seldom uses BIG words that the intellectual class likes so much. But, here, all state politicians and our Congressmen and Senators are all of that lawyer/intellectual class with pretty much zero real world experience getting their hands dirty or building a business.
Bush had the balls to invade nations but not the brains to do it right.
Trump ain’t no intellectual, but he’s got big balls and he’s doing it right- in V and in Iran. Apparently you think it would be OK to allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons. If they did, then you’d see real lunacy- the lunacy of Armageddon.
The liberals don’t seem to have the brains to understand the consequences of religious fanatics having nuclear weapons. Maybe what happens in Vegas will stay in Vegas. However, the nuclear fallout from ballistic missiles will NOT stay where it was generated. It seems that the justification for calling liberals “Leftists” is that most of them come from the left-hand side of the Bell Curve.
Fanatic
noun
A person marked or motivated by an extreme, unreasoning, uncritical enthusiasm, particularly on religious or political subjects.
A person who is zealously enthusiastic for some cause, especially in religion & politics.
One who indulges wild and extravagant notions of their cause.
**
Fanaticism is a belief or behaviour marked by uncritical zeal or obsessive enthusiasm.
We see it in the ( my side is right, therefore everyone else must be wrong ) tribalism of Sports, Religions & Politics.
Yep there are some crazies in Iran alright.
Then we have the US ambassador (Huckabee)to Israel this week saying he is fine with Israel having the whole of the Middle East.. why? Because the bible says it theirs. And we have the Israeli settlers stealing Palestinian land using the justification…. the bible says it theirs. Don’t lecture me about fanatics. They are on both sides. Religion causes more problems on this planet than anything else.
“The liberals don’t seem to have the brains to understand the consequences of religious fanatics having nuclear weapons.”
Yes, I have to shake my head when I hear some of these clowns asking why we are attacking the Mad Mullahs.
Democrats have always been deficient when it comes to dealing with murderous dictators. Their first instinct is to appease. Dictators can smell an appeaser from miles away.
“Yes, I have to shake my head when I hear some of these clowns asking why we are attacking the Mad Mullahs.”
I think you will find most of the objections coming from round the world are that this invasion is against international law, not that Irans leader was a good guy. He wasn’t. And as the republicans used to be the party of law and order, I thought they would be keen to do things by the book?
And Tom, Trump seems more than happy to appease dictators. He is fine praising the murderous leader Putin, or Xi and even has a good word to say about killer Kim. Surely a dictator is a dictator and we shouldn’t back any of them?
Bush did accomplish the mission.
It was the Mad Mullahs lover, Barack Obama, who screwed Iraq up by inviting the Mad Mullahs to take over Iraq.
Republicans prosecute wars to an honorable conclusion and the Democrats get political control and screw everything up. This has happened for the Vietnam war, and the Iraq war and the Afghanistan war.
Republicans fix the situation and then Democrats come in and screw everything up.
If you want things fixed, don’t elect Democrats. They are not up to the job. They have proven it over and over and over again.
You have been warned!
“It was the Mad Mullahs lover, Barack Obama, who screwed Iraq up by inviting the Mad Mullahs to take over Iraq.”
Scratching my head on this one Tom? The Ayatollah came in after the Shah was deposed in Feb 1979. I think you will find Obama was 17 years old then, and while many say he was a clever teenager, I’m going to go out on a limb and say he probably didn’t have much influence on world politics then.
“As is to be expected, Democrats and a few Republican “my way, or the highway” guys are wringing their hands over Trump’s actions in Iran.”
true, and in private they are cheering this action but in public the must appear to be the resistance to satisfy their handlers.
and tuesdays state of the union speech was a master class event. it exposed the difference between the two parties like no other event in history… for the rational thinker that is.
Hmmm, what I see is my US customers paying a 35% tariff on the stuff they buy from me in Canada, about 200 miles away from them, plus their U.S. alternative suppliers who are 1000 miles away, increasing their prices 30 % for “improved economics”, plus quite a few people laid off. So it wasn’t easy for me to get to like Trump either…and I still don’t.
1988 and 1994 free trade agreements reduced most tariffs to zero, but if you were using a brokerage firm, they often sent a bill for “duty” that included provincial sales tax, Federal General sales tax, and about 8% fee for handling the paperwork, so it seemed like 15 or 20%
On-line shopping mostly did their own sales tax submissions so dealt out the brokerage middle-men.
Trump made a big deal about dairy duties…but in reality US producers are mostly duty free up to their trade agreement quota, past which point they are subjected to penalties sometimes in excess of 200%…because at 100% duty, they were still delivering milk that US gov’t subsidies paid them 100% to produce…a point of anger amongst Canadian dairy farmers, not to mention Canadian grocery store shoppers who like the concept of free milk provided by US taxpayers, but you gotta be fair somehow.
Instead of order the US always creates chaos. It is the top terrorist state and lashes out on the downward path to empire destruction.
They had their moment. Some thought Trump would reverse course. It is clearly the opposite. All the good he has done in terms of climate policy has been drowned by his idiot geopolitics in which there is NO policy outside the standard one which is built on chaos and destruction, money and power. But not for the people. They will lose, as always. You’ve been had. Open your eyes. It’s the populist delusion..
Yes, President Bush probably had the best circumstances for ousting the Mad Mullahs of Iran.
Bush had over 400,000 American troops surrounding Iran at the end of the Iraq war in 2008. He could have exerted enormous pressure on the Mad Mullahs, and this was when the Mad Mullahs did not have their private army and thousands of ballistic missiles.
And the regular Iranian military was often at odds with the Mad Mullahs (the reason the Mad Mullahs created their own private army), and they were susceptible to some American jawboning.
And then Obama came into office with the same opportunity to side with the Iranian people, but instead, he sided with the Mad Mullahs. Why did Obama love the Mad Mullahs so much? Odd behavior. Which ended up being deadly for a lot of innocent people.
Gosh I missed the memorial service because I spotted the toilet hadn’t been cleaned properly and needed addressing urgently-
Australian mosques hold memorial services for murderous, oppressive Iranian leader: ‘An inspiration’
Then I had to catch up with Rita and the news-
‘Burn in hell’: Sky New host Rita Panahi’s brutal message for Iran’s slain theocratical dictator Ayatollah Ali Khamenei | Sky News Australia
What about yourself? Still worrying about the weather?
March 1, 2026 5:16 am
How reliable are historical reconstructed temperature data?
I found a study that addresses the reliability of reconstructed historical temperature data.
Early-twentieth-century cold bias in ocean surface temperature observations
Here we show that existing estimates of ocean temperatures in the early twentieth century (1900–1930) are too cold, based on independent statistical reconstructions of the global mean surface temperature from either ocean or land data. The ocean-based reconstruction is on average about 0.26 °C colder than the land-based one, despite very high agreement in all other periods.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08230-1
March 1, 2026 5:33 am
Any theories on why Antarctic Sea Ice has rapidly lost all the gains it made since the late 70’s.
I think it is the reduction of 80% of the sulfur emissions in the global oceanic shipping fleet over the last the 15 years. The rapid warming in the Southern Ocean observed in the last 10 years is the lack of cooling from reduced aerosols.
Here is my evidence.
Yes of course, Clyde, perhaps too much caffeine that morning. Rephrased: It would be highly unlikely that HT could be implicated in the radiative change that caused Antarctic Sea Ice to stop growing and pullback to levels never seen since monitoring began in 1978. Because most of this pullback happened in 24 months starting in 2015, years before the HT event. I am afraid the Antarctic Sea Ice flag can no longer be waved with pride as part of the Skeptics arsenal of evidence. But as a scientist, I find it fascinating, and there is a reason for it, and I must find it.
It is questionable that El-Nino is the culprit, the image below shows the ENSO Cycle compared against daily de-seasonalized Arctic Sea Ice for North and South. You would think you would see Sea-Ice perturbations following the big 98 El-Nino. However, the El-Nino in 2015 was unusual in that it lasted for more than 12 months. It appears to be a radiative step change.
March 1, 2026 7:19 am
Unpopular Opinion: If You Don’t Like Data Centers, Get Off the Internet
Data centers host virtually every server on the internet. Data centers aren’t just for AI. Streaming, email, websites, and social media are hosted on servers in data centers. If you use a credit card or a debit card, the processing takes place on servers housed in data centers. If you’re shopping online, there are one or more data centers involved. Data centers are infrastructure, the same as pipelines, highways or power plants.
It’s true that AI is growing and needs more data centers. Cloud computing is also growing and needs more data centers. Stop conflating “data center” with “AI.” They aren’t the same thing.
Complaints about data centers consuming water are red herrings. The water is largely recycled and reused. If your electricity rates are too high, look at green energy and renewables first. Regulators should not pass on costs to other electricity consumers.
The new movement against data centers is retaliation against Big Tech. Big Tech abandoned Net Zero and green energy. Climate warriors and environmentalists are retaliating by escalating the fight against data centers.
March 1, 2026 8:13 am
Speaking of things people hate, but the politicians won’t do anything about, it is almost that dreaded time of year again – Daylight Saving Time. At one time it may have made sense, but it no longer does, and only about 1/3 of the countries do it. As dumb as it sounds though, some are pushing for DST to be year-round, which solves the PIA of having to change the clocks twice a year, but makes zero sense logically. If something no longer makes sense, you stop doing it, simple as that.
Once and for all, we need to Stop Global Clock Change! Yes, it is global if you average it out among all countries.
We spend more time on Daylight Saving Time than Standard time. I personally enjoy more light in the evenings.
Without DST, the sun comes up very, very early in the summer. OTH, We tried full-time DST for awhile in the 1970s. It was dark waiting for the school bus in the winter.
If not permanent DST, how about we split the difference? Move the clocks 1/2 hour ahead and leave them there.
Me? I’d be happy if we stopped changing the clocks twice a year.
There are emotional reasons for choosing one or the other, but the logical choice is doing away with DST. There are health reasons, plus as you say, there’s the issue of children going to school in the dark, so safety reasons. I admit though, that since it seems impossible to choose, since people are so badly split on the issue that splitting the difference would be a good compromise.
The logical choice would probably be for the states closer to equator where DST is more nuisance than benefit to opt out of DST as Hawaii and (most of) Arizona already do. Those of us closer to the Northern border would probably prefer to keep it.
The laws wrt DST don’t say states have to adopt it, they just say that if DST is being practiced, everyone should switch over on the same date.
March 1, 2026 8:49 am
Paul Burgess has developed a model that shows climate is governed by ocean and solar cycles plus clouds, CO2 does virtually nothing and invites criticism. He says it has passed every test he can think of, but he would rather be shown where it is wrong than pursue a wrong theory if anyone can fault it. Contact details in video description.
March 1, 2026 9:24 am
News tip: “Educators ‘climatize’ their classes to prepare students for work and life on a warming planet”
The word “climatize” appears seven more times in the body of the article. “Propagandize” is of course the more accurate word here. And it would be a sure bet that if any student in any one of these propagandized classes dared to question the insertion of political content in what should be non-political lessons, the student would receive a failing grade and be ostracized by fellow students. Worse, if any professor attempted a mirror-opposite approach of merely mentioning that there is a skeptic side to the climate issue, demands would pour in for the prof to be fired.
March 1, 2026 11:16 am
Hello everyone, I hope you’re all doing well!
We had a very mild February here in France, and March is also expected to be fairly warm, from what I’ve heard. Some agronomists (or agroclimatologists) are apparently very worried that early flowering might be hit by a sudden and devastating frost. Fair enough. I looked into it: it seems that early blooming is nothing new. And since minimum temperatures tend to rise more than maximum temperatures, I suppose we should expect winters to become less and less cold, and therefore, in particular, to save on heating costs (which would not be insignificant, given what the disastrous Multiannual Energy Program No. 3 (PPE3) would represent for us in budgetary terms—if it is implemented, of course, which is far from certain).
As for sudden frosts that could kill early blossoms, that would be weather, not climate—an unpredictable and potentially very troublesome event (though one can adapt to it, for example by using heaters in the fields)—but I can already see the headlines blaring: “Get ready for a future of frost-burned harvests because of global warming!”
… Oh dear…
March 1, 2026 1:03 pm
Story Tip: Illegal Green Dumping
