A place for discussion
Open Thread
53 Comments
May 17, 2026 2:16 am
I came across an interesting climate modeling factoid a while back. It turns out that a time-step-iterated simulation of the atmosphere does not necessarily apply the radiative transfer code at every time step of the computation of the dynamics (i.e. the motion.)
Here is an example from the NCAR documentation for its CAM5.0 atmospheric model, which was used for the CMIP5 submissions.
“4.10.5 Time Sampling
Both the shortwave and longwave radiation is computed at hourly intervals by default. The
heating rates and fluxes are assumed to be constant between time steps.”
Source “Description of the NCAR Community Atmosphere Model (CAM 5.0)” here https://opensky.ucar.edu/islandora/object/technotes%3A594
The time step for the dynamics is 30 minutes.
[Grok confirms that this is so, and that CAM6.0 for the CMIP6 submissions continued this default setup. My full inquiry is here. https://x.com/i/grok/share/de6ae337f07b429b91e2cf6ff6556ed8 ]
So what? If the computed “heating rates and fluxes” from solar absorption/reflection and from longwave absorption/emission are applied on different timing from the compression heating/expansion cooling processes within the dynamics of the simulated general circulation, then it is all a blur. There cannot be any diagnostic or prognostic value concerning the minor radiative influence of incremental CO2 on trends of climate variables.
In other words, this timing convention apparently DOESN’T MATTER for generating projections from the various GHG “forcing” scenarios. The long-term radiative “warming” influence from rising concentrations of trace gases CO2, CH4, N2O is already baked in.
This is another indication that the entire “climate” modeling exercise has been circular all along.
I could be wrong. But I don’t think so.
That is all for now.
I’m sure that is true – fluid velocities are updated more frequently than radiation. They need to be. CFD has a Courant time limit for flow, which is determined by the need to resolve stress waves – basically, sound. That is just a nuisance; you don’t actually want to know about those waves. But if you don’t resolve them, you’ll get spurious waves which will cause trouble.
This doesn’t apply to radiation, so you can resolve on a time scale that really matters.
Nice to hear from you, Nick.
Thanks for the reminder that fluid dynamics possesses overwhelming power – even via sound waves – to avoid the accumulation of energy as sensible heat gain down here from the minor increase in the computed static radiative influence of incremental CO2.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1knv0YdUyIgyR9Mwk3jGJwccIGHv38J33/view?usp=drive_link
Be well.
Both the shortwave and longwave radiation is computed at hourly intervals by default. The
heating rates and fluxes are assumed to be constant between time steps.”
This is so untrue. One only has to look at graphs of insolation, soil/ocean temperature, and atmospheric temperatures to understand the process of heating follows in that order with time delays and changing values of radiation.
Looking at soil, insolation results in two processes following absorption. Some heat is absorbed to depth and is not immediately radiated while some is radiated. The insolation at every point on earth follows a sine function from sunrise to sunset. It is not constant. Using a constant value derived from a bogus average is unrealistic. As a result, the long wave radiation increases as a sine function also, but at a lower value because of heat storage. Basically the same thing occurs in late afternoon. Long wave radiation is driven more by heat storage in the soil than by the decreasing insolation. This results in an exponential decay function at night.
Nothing in this process is ever constant. Assuming constant values will give nothing but wrong answers.
“Nothing in this process is ever constant.”
Even allowing for simulations that necessarily utilize discretized geometry and time steps, in which values are held constant temporarily to approximate the processes, one must consider whether any firm determination can be made from the resulting output. In the case of climate models, there is nothing in the blurred output from which a reliable answer can emerge for attribution of “warming” to incremental CO2.
Time is an essential component in the constantly varying process, whether trig functions or exponential functions are involved. Nothing is constant, and just like Tavg can not show whether Tmax or Tmin is changing, constant radiation across a time step cannot show what is actually occurring either. As an engineer, why did I learn calculus and differential equations if simple averages would have sufficed?
May 17, 2026 2:39 am
Hello everyone, I hope you’re all doing well.
I’m glad that the RCP8.5 scenario has officially been set aside. Alarmists obviously argued that it was thanks to renewables, while rushing to point out the supposed dishonesty of climate realists, who pretended to be surprised by the “proper functioning of science.” Years of media escalation around a scenario long considered unrealistic, with the complicity of TV-panel scientists, is not really what I would call a science that “works well.” Anyway.
The hantavirus caused quite a panic among a lot of people in France. It has to be said that when the media latch onto a topic that allows them to churn out effortless articles, they do not hold back. Things have calmed down over the past day or two. Since this pathogen is still quite dangerous, I hope there won’t be any resurgence of cases in the coming weeks. That would be funny for no one (though rather deliciously ironic for the hacks.)
This is what I’m listening to right now, under the roof of my house, in a soft light, with the silhouette of a spruce tree standing out against the sky.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4edxBbUMMjk
I wish you a good weekend.
Never forget the famous quote of H. L. Mencken. While he spoke of politics, the same applies to the various media, who can only sell “news” stories if they have shock and awe and are capable of induing panic (“If it bleeds, it leads.”).
Mencken: “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence, clamoring to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
Yes, I remember seeing that sentence in Steven Koonin’s book. Its irony and accuracy had struck me.
Now, I think there are degrees in the size, dangerousness, and malevolence of the goblins we are warned about. One must manage to distinguish between them calmly, while taking into account the fact that panic tends to flatten everything into the same thing. Nothing is truly harmless, which does not mean that everything is systematically dangerous.
Let’s say that I look both ways before crossing the street so as not to get run over by the reckless-driver goblin, and that I look with dismay and circumspection at the prophet-goblin who constantly cries that the world is ending.
Two forms of vigilance, then, but of different intensity.
“Mencken: “The whole aim of practical [Radical Democrat] politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence, clamoring to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins [Trump and Republicans], all of them imaginary.”
Fixed it. And it IS all imaginary: Trump is not a dictator, and Republicans are not racists.
May 17, 2026 4:58 am
Sunday renewables:
Soaring costs drive Pakistan to EVs
https://tribune.com.pk/story/2601792/soaring-costs-drive-pakistan-to-evs
(Just-stop-oil donny did it again ;))
The world is installing grid batteries at a blistering pace
https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/batteries/world-installing-grid-batteries
Spain just became one of Europe’s cheapest power markets. Here is how.
https://janrosenow.substack.com/p/spain-just-became-one-of-europes
How wind and solar quietly pushed gas off the margin, and the wholesale price followed.
“Blows your mind:” Regulator says boom in home batteries and PV puts 82 pct renewables within reach
So much happening
Soaring costs drive Pakistan to EVs
High petrol prices are pushing some people in Pakistan to buy cheap electric bikes, especially in cities. This may help a little by saving some oil and reducing pollution.
However, this is not the start of a big EV revolution.
Pakistan still has major problems
- not enough reliable electricity,
- terrible roads,
- very little charging infrastructure, and
- serious money troubles.
Because of this, a large-scale shift to electric vehicles is very unlikely anytime soon.
It’s mostly hype. Some progress for certain users? Yes. But calling it a “revolution” is greatly exaggerated.
“Blows your mind:” Regulator says boom in home batteries and PV puts 82 pct renewables within reach
This is short-term storage only, and the jump to 82% in just four years is still ambitious to say the least.
Grid costs are rising, reliability risks remain, and household electricity bills may not fall.
The “blows your mind” claims are overhyped.
BTW, you often bang on about how China has had huge growth in EV sales.
Recently I was in China for about a month and had many conversations with Chinese people.
Chinese people can’t just walk into a dealership and buy whatever car they want. New license plates are strictly limited:
- For ICE cars: You enter a lottery with terrible odds (often less than 1% chance). Many people wait years, many never win the lottery.
- For EVs: Much easier – you often get a plate immediately, or through a far less competitive process, sometimes for free. People take this route even though they can’t afford a new car and buy the license plate for when/if they can afford a new car.
How it distorts things:
- It artificially boosts EV sales by making them the only practical option for many buyers and potential buyers who want a car now.
- People who would naturally prefer a petrol car (for range, refuelling speed, or lower upfront cost in some cases) are forced into EVs instead.
- This creates inflated demand for EVs that isn’t purely based on consumer preference, price, or performance.
It’s a very effective government tool for hitting EV targets and reducing local emissions, but it’s classic central planning distortion – not a free market outcome. Many “EV adopters” in these cities are simply lottery refugees.
So the next time you bank on about how great China’s EV sales are, bear this in mind, because frankly it’s clear you know nothing about EV sales in China.
It was reported on President Trump’s trip to China, that Chinese cars had two different colors for license plates, a blue color for cars with internal combustion engines, and a green color for electric vehicles.
Is this color difference used to notify fire personnel that the auto fire they are dealing with is a battery fire in an electric vehicle?
‘Makers of execution vans claim that, while expensive to purchase, they are cheaper for poor localities than building execution facilities in jails and courthouses. In 2006, former Chinese judge and current lawyer Qiu Xingsheng argues that “some places can’t afford the cost of sending a person to Beijing—perhaps $250—plus $125 more for the drug.”‘
Well there it is. Not only are renewables cheaper than fossil fuels, but mobil execution vans afford significant savings over brick and mortar facilities. I can hardly wait for these people to take their rightful place atop the world.
Spain just became one of Europe’s cheapest power markets. Here is how.
It is often … NB : Not “always”, just “often” … the case that checking your “supporting evidence” links reveals data that undermines the conclusions that you seem to want readers to infer from your summary lines.
The blog post chosen by you has a “Four things this story is not” section, including the following :
It is only the wholesale price. The €44/MWh figure is what generators are paid in the day-ahead market. It is not what households pay. Network charges, system costs, suppliers’ margins, taxes and policy levies sit on top, and they can easily double or treble the underlying figure by the time it reaches a domestic bill. Wholesale moving cheaper is necessary for retail bills to fall, but it is not sufficient.
Despite having Europe’s cheapest wholesale electricity, Spanish households pay above the EU average €0.265/kWh in 2025, ranking 16th out of 25 countries. That puts Spain more expensive than France, the Netherlands, Denmark, and most of Central and Eastern Europe. Some of this is to do with the amount of taxes and levies put on electricity.
It’s amazing the distortion that can arise in readers minds when they semi-automatically substitute the phrase “cheapest household power (bills)” for your carefully chosen “cheapest power markets“.
“Blows your mind:” Regulator says boom in home batteries and PV puts 82 pct renewables within reach
From that link : “That, at least, is the view of the Clean Energy Regulator executive general manager Carl Binning, who says …”
So it’s an opinion, nothing more.
Later in the same article there is a link to an alternative opinion, that of “David Leitch, ITK principal and the co-host of Renew Economy’s weekly Energy Insiders podcast”, The spot mirage: Low wholesale prices show the future, but are a poor signal for new wind and solar.
Someone with a, to me, still overly “optimistic” outlook for Australia’s NEM electricity market, but worth reading as a counterpoint to your chosen political (?) appointee’s “82% renewables by 2030 … is now very much within reach” pontification.
May 17, 2026 6:45 am
ABSTRACT:
Earth is cooler with atmosphere/water vapor/30% albedo not warmer.
Ubiquitous RGHE heat balance graphics don’t plus violate GAAP and LoT.
Kinetic heat transfer processes of contiguous atmospheric molecules render a surface BB impossible.
RGHE is bogus & CAGW is a scam!
FACTS & EVIDENCE:
FACT 1: Remove the Earth’s atmosphere or even just the GHGs and the Earth becomes much like the Moon, no water vapor or clouds, no ice or snow, no oceans, no vegetation, no 30% albedo becoming a barren rock ball, hot^3 (400 K) on the lit side, cold^3 (100 K) on the dark. At Earth’s distance from the Sun space is hot (394 K) not cold (5 K).
That’s NOT what the RGHE theory says.
EVIDENCE:
RGHE theory says “288 K (15 C) w – 255 K (-18 C) w/o = a 33 C colder ice ball Earth.” 255 K assumes w/o case keeps 30% albedo, an assumption akin to criminal fraud. Nobody agrees 288 K is GMST plus it was 15 C in 1896. 288 K is a physical surface measurement. 255 K is a S-B equilibrium calculation at ToA. Apples and potatoes.
Nikolov “Airless Celestial Bodies”
Kramm “Moon as test bed for Earth”
UCLA Diviner lunar mission data
JWST solar shield (391.7 K)
Sky Lab golden awning
ISS HVAC design for lit side of 250 F. (ISS web site)
Astronaut backpack life support w/ AC and cool water tubing underwear. (Space Discovery Center)
FACT 2: The GHGs require “extra” energy upwelling from a surface radiating as a BB.
EVIDENCE:
According to TFK_bams09 atmospheric power flux balance, numerous clones and SURFRAD the GHGs must absorb an “extra” 396 BB/333 “back”/63 2nd net W/m^2 LWIR energy upwelling from the surface allegedly radiating as a BB. These graphics & data tables contain egregious arithmetic and thermodynamic errors.
FACT 3: Because of the significant (60% per TFK_bams09) non-radiative, i.e. kinetic, heat transfer processes of the contiguous participating atmospheric molecules the surface cannot upwell “extra” energy as a near Black Body.
EVIDENCE:
As demonstrated by experiment, the gold standard of classical science.
For the experimental write up see:
https://principia-scientific.org/debunking-the-greenhouse-gas-theory-with-a-boiling-water-pot/
or
Search: Bruges group “boiling water pot” Schroeder
CONCLUSION:
No RGHE, no GHG warming, no CAGW or mankind/CO2 driven climate change.
ACRONYMS & DEFINITIONS
RGHE: Radiative GreenHouse Effect
GAAP: Generally Accepted Accounting Principles
LoT: Laws of Thermodynamics
BB: Black Body: A thermodynamic system that absorbs ALL incoming energy and emits ALL that energy by radiation alone. Only possible in a vacuum.
CAGW: Catastrophic Anthropomorphic Global Warming
GHGs: GreenHouse Gases, all of them including water vapor
K: Celsius degree units on the Kelvin scale used for serious science (No such thang as a Kelvin unit)
hot^3: hot cubed, i.e. hot*hot*hot
cold^3: cold cubed, i.e. cold*cold*cold
albedo: Ice, snow, clouds, etc. that reflect incoming solar radiation thereby cooling the Earth
C: Celsius degree units on the Celsius scale
UCLA: Univ of CA LA
JWST: James Webb Space Telescope
HVAC: Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning
F: degrees Fahrenheit on the F scale. Not useful for formal science.
ISS: International Space Station
Space Discovery Center: Colorado Springs
TFK Trenberth-Fasullo-Kiehl, UCAR climate scientists responsible for GHE budget concept
UCAR: Univ of CO Atmos Research
SURFRAD: NOAA network of stations that measure the surface radiation budget and aerosols over the Earth’s land surface.
LWIR: Long Wave Infra-Red radiation.
CO2: Carbon Dioxide
From post:”…claims that earth would be warmer without an atmosphere than with an atmosphere,…”.
The picture shows 161 absorbed by surface. With no atmosphere we need to add back in 79 reflected by atmosphere and 78 absorbed by atmosphere. 161+78+79=318. How is the surface not warmer without an atmosphere?
May 17, 2026 6:55 am
Fun graphic showing how much power is generated world wide.
I still think Nuclear and Hydro deserve their own category:
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/worlds-biggest-electricity-sources/
Eating crickets isn’t going to replace any meat, evidently, they feel pain too.
And the tree huggers just can’t cause any critter pain now can they:
https://theconversation.com/370-billion-crickets-are-farmed-for-food-every-year-scientists-have-discovered-they-may-feel-pain-279855
I’m trying to remember what doesn’t cause climate change. Hard to keep track as everything seems to cause it…
https://www.ndtv.com/feature/great-pacific-garbage-patch-fuels-microplastics-contributing-to-climate-change-11460018
May 17, 2026 7:20 am
I was looking at the record set in the USA48 for the UAH Lower Troposphere. and it turns out that there was a record low set in Lower Stratosphere (LS) for USA48. In fact, the LS has had an inverse relationship with LT for 10 months. This has never happened in this time series before, and it implies that a multi-month change in aerosols between the two layers has / is occurring.
May 17, 2026 7:31 am
I have developed this pretty cool regression technique to analyze the dOLR/dTs relation. I applied it to the original chart A. May posted here.
While OLS results in a totally wrong 1.64 due to regression dilution, a proper TLS regression gives 5.03. However, given people might not understand and reject TLS, there is this alternative I developed. Since we have a benchmark in the shape of the Planck Feedback, like 3.3 in this example, we can normalize the whole plot relative to it. That is, we just rotate the whole plot so that the Planck Feedback has a slope of zero. We can then use a simple OLS regression with minimal regression dilution to test whether the plot is flatter or steeper.
May 17, 2026 7:31 am
With the current spate of “Fertilizer! Crisis!” surrounding the strait of Hormuz, NO-ONE is addressing the real crisis. Or, is CO2 emission a crisis or a blessing?
Most of the Mid-East Ammonia (for nitrate fertilizers) is produced by the reforming of earlier flared “stranded” natural gas.
Nearly 2% of world-wide CO2 emissions are caused by the reforming of natural gas to produce ammonia. The infrastructure cost of producing ammonia this way is so extreme that it will take years for the much cheaper, and “greener” production of Ammonia by SMR nuclear reactor high temperature production of Hydrogen by the proven sulfur-iodine process or thermochemical water splitting, which will be a long way off without concentrated investment.
The SOLO SMR (small modular reactor) should start coming onstream in 2028 built by Terra Innovatum. It is gas-cooled but unfortunately is expected to use use the inefficient Rankine cycle (28% MWe/MWt) instead of the much more efficient Brayton cycle (up to 54%). The reason for this is the limited availability of single crystal turbine blades able to withstand these temperatures. The SOLO reactor is Helium cooled, but even the super-critical CO2 cooled SMR’s are not as efficient as the Helium cooled Molten Salt reactors (MSRs) like China has running (now).
(China politely started with the freely available data from our abandoned Oak Ridge Molten Salt Reactor).
India, deficient in Uranium, has missive quantities of Thorium, which can be used as fuel for the MSR. China has already proven the Oak Ridge design can use Thorium fuel. This is extremely important because the main reason the United States got (almost) out of Rare Earth production was that most deposits of monazite are high in Thorium. (I worked in the (closed) Monazite plant at Davison Chemical (W. R. Grace) at Curtis Bay, Md, where Thorium was not longer used to produce Thorium nitrate for gas lantern mantels.)
Panic over the tiny radio activity of Thorium shut down U.S. monazite (and bastnäsite) mines and thus our really large sources of critical Rare Earths.
It will take concerted effort by Congress to start stock-piling Thorium (which is much cheaper than Uranium when recovered during Rare Earth mining and processing. Get Fluor (FLR) on it immediately! Also, green hydrogen (NOT ELECTROLYTIC) for Ammonia.
story tip
May 17, 2026 7:31 am
Mr Wonderful says he has proof China is funding opposition campaign to his proposed Utah data center:
He better have receipts because nothing pisses people off more than being accusedc of being astroturf protesters.
