The Sediments Don’t Support the 1.5°C Panic

Charles Rotter A new paper has just appeared in Geology with a title that sounds almost understated: “Resilient tropical marine ecosystems during early Eocene global warming events” . Understated titles sometimes conceal disruptive implications. https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article/doi/10.1130/G54281.1/726832/Resilient-tropical-marine-ecosystems-during-early In policy discourse, 1.5 °C above preindustrial temperatures has been elevated to something approaching a planetary red lin...

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johnesm

March 2, 2026 2:38 pm

Nothing supports it. Graph out all of the typical temperatures experienced somewhere over the course of a year. Now shift it to the side by 1.5⁰. Think it’s going to matter? What about the stuff a hundred miles north or south of it. Think they would care if the seeds blew in the wind or went downstream a little?

This concept applies to a lot of things. Will a few centimeters of sea level change matter a hill of beans to places with frequent tides and storm surges that dwarf such a minor change? Another one that comes up this time of year- the claim that setting your clock forward by 60 minutes is a health risk. As a long-time shift worker, I’m throwing the BS flag. A once per year clock change on the weekend by an hour is a “health risk”? You’ve never changed time zones, stayed up all night because of a noisy neighbor, or had stress…ever?? Sixty minutes is a freaking rounding error, especially on a weekend. So is 1.5⁰ or a few centimeters.

John Hultquist

Reply to johnesm

March 2, 2026 4:27 pm

I heard that “health risk from clocks” bit on a radio today. So I went looking.
The claim is moving the fat hand 60 minutes in the spring for daylight saving time “can disrupt sleep and worsen conditions like depression, anxiety, and seasonal affective disorder“. My take, then, is that if a person already has problems they don’t cope well. Me? -nothingburger-

Joseph Zorzin

Reply to John Hultquist

March 3, 2026 4:12 am

It’s nice in the spring change- a bit depressing in the fall change, but I don’t know anyone jumping off bridges because of it. There are hundreds of things happening to us all the time that are far more depressing.

Joseph Zorzin

Reply to johnesm

March 3, 2026 4:10 am

Shift work sucks. I did it one summer in a paper factory. I had an uncle that did it for 40 years. No wonder he a drinking problem.

Too many people apparently don’t have enough to worry about that they freak out over a few millimeter rise in the ocean or a hypothetical trivial rise in global temperature. Meanwhile, the winter here in New England is the most severe in my long memory. It got down to about 2 deg F last night. The climate nut jobs aren’t saying much now- they’ll wait until the first hot weather in July. Idiots!

In March 7, 1973 I was writing in my Peterson Field Guide to Wildflowers all the flowers I saw that day. Today there is 3′ of snow in my yard here in north central Wokeachusetts. Usually by now I start hearing red winged blackbirds- which for me is the signal spring has started. I did see 2 hawks a few days ago but they didn’t look too happy. They may have overwintered.

Sparta Nova 4

Reply to johnesm

March 3, 2026 11:03 am

My personal health risk is that instead of one stretch of time per year driving into the sun to work and home into the sun again, I now have to do it twice. Bad on the eyes. Makes driving less safe.

Harold Pierce

March 2, 2026 4:44 pm

For a US temperature check, I went to:

https://www.extremeweatherwatch.com/countries/united-states/average-temperature-by-year.

The Tmax and Tmin temperature data from 1901 to 2024 are displayed in a long table. Here is the data for these two dates:

Year——-Tmax——-Tmin——-Tave Temperatures are ° C
2024——-16.8———4.3———10.5
1901——-14.9———1.6———-8.2
Change—+1.9——–+2.7——-+2.3

Although Tave has exceeded the Paris Agreement of 2015 temperature limit of 1.5° C by 0.8° C, I don’t recall recent reports of any climate catastrophes in the US. The US temperature data for 2025 has yet to be posted.

There is too much hype and discussion about temperature. The availability of fresh water is far more important. The Persian Gulf states are usually hot, and lack adequate fresh water, but are livable because they use massive desalination plants for fresh water. These plants use large amounts of energy but the states have an abundant supply of oil and nat. gas.

At the above URL there is a selector for obtaining weather and climate data for all the world countries. The data for the countries start in 1901 and goes to present.

For obtaining and displaying data for cities and using Adelaide as sample city, the URL format is:
https://www.extremeweatherwatch.com/cities/adelaide.
There is displayed temperature, weather and climate data from 1887 to 2025. At the end of the page there is list of options for obtaining and display of data. A useful option is: “average-temperature-by-year”. The data shows no warming at this port city since 1887. This data falsifies the claim that CO2 causes warming of air. I was also to obtain data for
Death Valley and Yosemite Natural Park.

Be sure to check the home page at: https://www.extremeweaterwatch.com. There links in light blue to all the weather stations located around the world.

ballynally

Reply to Harold Pierce

March 3, 2026 12:18 am

That is why they need ‘average global temperatures’ to make their case. It means averaging out Earth’s oceans with the land. Already a flawed concept because temperatures are widely dispersed. Stack that w a temperature difference of say minus 50 and plus 50 this +1.5 or whatever number becomes meaningless.
From all proxies we can more or less state that there were warmer periods and cooler periods. It is ONLY when you believe that AND mainly CO2 drives temperature AND that warming is dangerous you sound the alarmbell.
I sometimes visit (semi) scientific sites and they frequently make fun of scientist who speak of all the usual system influencers spoken on this platform ( oceans, sun, magnetic fields, cycles etc). They completely disgard any of them and call them ‘unscientific’ which is funny as their Dogma of CO2 drives temperature is the opposite of science, yet they believe it to be true and ‘settled’. It is dripping w irony..

Joseph Zorzin

Reply to ballynally

March 3, 2026 4:15 am

It’s really a stretch to believe that current science can tell us the “global temperature” within a few degrees- never mind within a tenth of a degree- then blame any changes in a trace gas.

Sparta Nova 4

Reply to Joseph Zorzin

March 3, 2026 11:06 am

Isn’t it more of a hundredth of a degree?

Clyde Spencer

Reply to Sparta Nova 4

March 3, 2026 9:03 pm

Typically, a precision or resolution of +/-0.01 degree is claimed for the global average, while the standard deviation for the annual global average temperature is several tens of degrees. That means that the probability of the average annual temperature (1-sigma) is 68% that it lies between about ~+/-30 deg F of the arithmetic mean.

OR For

March 2, 2026 5:04 pm

Looking forward to your new fund raising plan. This VIP-only stuff is not the solution IMHO.

Joseph Zorzin

Reply to OR For

March 3, 2026 4:18 am

I agree. I set up some web sites in the late ’90s. It didn’t really cost that much. I wonder if the goal is to have the site pay for itself or make a significant profit. Of course the owner(s) of the site have a right to decide – but I should think the goal ought to be to have as many people as possible reading this site and to have a real impact on policies.

B Zipperer

March 2, 2026 7:08 pm

Charles:
Interesting post.
It reminded me of Anthony’s WUWT post of a few weeks ago on rapid warming spells in
Greenland of 10-16 degrees C over just 50-200years that occurred 30-50,000 years ago:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2026/02/11/study-massive-abrupt-warming-during-past-low-co%e2%82%82-era/
And note that these pollen results were also found at other global sites, ie it was not just a
regional event.

Laws of Nature

March 2, 2026 8:19 pm

I only skimmed the paper, but it seems to indicate a plankton temperature resilience towards SST changes.
On this planet the SST trend over the last 150 years is significantly lower than the temperature trend in the lower troposphere to which alarmists typically refer with their 1.5 grad C limits.
I am not sure if there is enough fossil fuel on this planet to increase the SST by 1.5 deg C even using alarmist’s numbers.

abolition man

March 3, 2026 6:06 am

“A disciplined reading of the geological record does not support…” CAGW!!!
There is no correlation between CO2 and temperature in the geologic record, nor massive die-offs in times with far higher temps than today’s! Only someone with limited education or intelligence would blindly swallow and regurgitate the CAGW narrative! A truly scientific society would be FAR more concerned with still being locked in an ice age, and planning for the next glacial advance!

muskox2

March 3, 2026 3:18 pm

In the author’s conclusions to their paper they state, “Given that present global mean SST
is expected to rise more than 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels in the near future, based on our work, we speculate that tropical pelagic ecosystems are approaching thresholds that could trigger widespread community disruption.”

Unsure how the WUWT title, “The Sediments Don’t Support the 1.5°C Panic” fits the conclusion but I won’t be subscribing to find out.

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