That is the word the EPA used properly in the 2009 “Endangerment Finding” to describe the potential influence of human emissions of water vapor to cause or contribute to harmful warming.
“Direct anthropogenic emissions of water vapor, in general, have a negligible effect and are thus not considered a primary driver of human-induced climate change.”
“Water produced as a byproduct of combustion at low altitudes has a negligible contribution to climate change. The residence time of water vapor is very short (days) and the water content of the air in the long term is a function of temperature and partial pressure, with emissions playing no role.”
What physical processes are involved in making the “residence time” of water vapor so short? Within the general circulation, rising air within low pressure weather systems promotes precipitation, as expansion cooling drives condensation. And localized convective weather, with its high rates of rainfall, demonstrates the power intensity with which water vapor is rejected back to the surface so readily.
In other words, it was recognized that the energy conversion performance of the atmosphere (i.e., as latent energy is converted to internal energy during precipitation events) makes it characteristically insensitive to human emissions of water vapor. Negligible risk of harm.
With the same energy conversion performance within the general circulation, the atmosphere must also be characteristically insensitive to the computed “warming” tendency from emissions of CO2 and the other “well mixed greenhouse gases.” But EPA nevertheless held emissions of these trace gases to cause or contribute to harmful trends. This is a fundamental contradiction, which I encourage skeptics of climate alarm to more fully appreciate.
This is why I keep posting about the “vertical integral of energy conversion” values from ERA5. The plots demonstrate the inconsistency of claiming that emissions of CO2 are capable of exerting a harmful influence on climate trends while emissions of H2O are considered harmless. Logically, both have negligible influence on the climate system, for the same primary physical reason – the energy conversion performance of the atmosphere as the compressible working fluid of its own circulation.
Thank you for your patient attention to this matter.
P.S. The claim that the “forcing” from emissions of CO2 must be expected to produce an amplifying water vapor “feedback” is also inconsistent for the same reason.
“as latent energy is converted to internal energy during precipitation events” Sorry, but of all the forms of energy involved in condensation and cloud formation (pressure, potential, kinetic, latent, internal, even electric or electrochemical) “internal” (heat-temperature) is the one least involved, because condensation itself is an isothermal process, and a transfer of latent energy to increasing temperature would stop the condensation process. It’s obvious that the collapse of a cubic meter of water vapor into a few raindrops or a hailstone affects local pressure, kinetic, latent, and internal energies in a way that supports continued condensation, but the thermometer-readers are at a loss to explain how this happens.
Thank you for your reply. “Sorry, but of all the forms of energy…” Please consider that my use of these terms follows Lorenz as quoted in the readme document here. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1PDJP3F3rteoP99lR53YKp2fzuaza7Niz?usp=drive_link
You have repeatedly deflected from this framing of the forms of energy (which is in the bulk sense, not the microphysical sense) as described within the meteorological discipline.
It would be better for you to get un-stuck about all this.
All the best to you.
If the “meteorological discipline” continues to parameterize clouds and ignore “bulk” kinetic energy while pretending to examine energy into and out of the atmosphere using only thermometers, I will continue to raise real-world factors that expose the limitations of their “models”.
I continue to appreciate the way you accept their inadequate assumptions and still refute their conclusions.
Thank you for your further reply.
“…while pretending to examine energy into and out of the atmosphere using only thermometers…”
Well it’s not done that way, so the condition of your intent to raise objections is not satisfied. You may discontinue at any time with no adverse consequence to these matters.
I should point out that I use the ERA5 reanalysis model to demonstrate my points about the dynamics. There is no need to “refute their conclusions” because the model continuously ingests observed values (of pressures, temperatures, wind speeds, humidity, etc.) to keep it useful as a computed representation of the real thing. ERA5 makes no claim about attribution of historical trends or about the future.
Don’t get me wrong – no doubt we agree that the “climate” movement which uses their tuned GCM’s to project future temperatures is doing so on unsound assumptions.
“the model continuously ingests observed values (of pressures, temperatures, wind speeds, humidity, etc.) to keep it useful as a computed representation of the real thing.”
Really? Where are these “observed” values coming from on a continuous basis? Radiosondes have huge time steps with low spatial granularity.
While the computation may be accurate it, it will have at least the same uncertainty that the inputs do.
“Really? Where are these “observed” values coming from on a continuous basis?” See tables 14 and 15 here. Satellites, METARs, aircraft, radiosondes, etc. In saying “continuous” I mean it in the same sense as weather modeling. So ERA5 is essentially a record from the same forecasting system (IFS) used by ECMWF. https://confluence.ecmwf.int/spaces/CKB/pages/76414402/ERA5+data+documentation
“While the computation may be accurate it, it will have at least the same uncertainty that the inputs do.” Correct. In respect to the dynamics, which I care about most, the result would be of the same fidelity, say, as a most-recent-model-run forecast.
“That’s not a ringing endorsement of the accuracy of the result.”
OK, but getting back to the point of my post – for the mass flow and compression/expansion aspects of the working fluid, it suffices to demonstrate how dynamic energy conversion within the general circulation overwhelms the computed static radiative “warming” tendency from incremental CO2 (or from direct human emissions of H2O.)
mass flow and compression/expansion of a working fluid I can buy. Exact results not so much. Those would depend on *if* you know the composition of the working fluid exactly.
The “warming” aspect of CO2 from reflected heat whose original source is the earth is zero. It’s a rate of cooling effect, not a warming effect. Just about anything happening in the atmosphere will have more effect than zero.
The issue is not the temperature of the H2O moleule as it releases IR radiation as it precipitates. The issue is the IR radiation that is directed downward and which the GHG theory says warms the surface thereby increasing atmospheric temperature.
H2O does not radiate when it condenses. The latent heat of condensation manifests as sensible heat in the condensate, which is quickly thermalized via collisions with air molecules. This is the mechanism that reduces the lapse rate from ~10 C/km to ~6 C/km.
A little common sense! What could possibly keep H2O FROM radiating before, during and after condensation? It has a temperature >0 K! Further, if the first drops of condensate raise the surrounding air temperature, does that not stop the condensation process? A little thought must suggest that a raindrop is not hotter than the vapor it came from; the latent energy released must assume some other form (i.e., pressure, kinetic, radient, electric), none of which are measured by a thermometer.
H2O has many ways of carrying energy. Latent heat is essentially a mechanism where hydrogen bonds are extended. The “lattice” expands as it were. When water vapor encounters other particles, molecules, etc. that latent heat can be transferred raising the temperature of the receptor. That raise in temperature can cause more radiation at some point. One could say it originates with H2O. H2O also has rotational, vibrational, translational energy that can emit radiation. And, in fact, H2O has a much broader emission spectrum than CO2. Consequently, the energy handled by H2O far exceeds that of CO2.
That heat that is released as it precipitates has already been lost by the earth. Any part that goes back to the earth does not push the earth back up the time-related temperature gradient. It only slows the loss of heat by the earth by replacing part of it.
The residence time of water vapor is very short (days) and the water content of the air in the long term is a function of temperature and partial pressure, with emissions playing no role.
That is the rationalization that alarmists have used for years to downplay the role of water vapor in affecting temperatures and climate. The statement is wrong on several levels. While the residence time of an individual water molecule is short, the atmosphere is continually being recharged by evapotranspiration. However, it is not the temperature that directly controls the content. Except for near the oceans, the water content is supply-limited. The Clausius-Clapeyron relationship is an upper-bound. There is nowhere near the amount of water vapor in deserts that is predicted by the Clausius-Clapeyron relationship. Deserts have low relative humidity because water is scarce. Contrary to the claim, emissions (evapotranspiration and to a lesser extent, anthropogenic emissions of water vapor) are what determine the absolute humidity of air. That same relatively constant humidity is what helps define the different Köppen climate classes, which is a function of temperature and available water. Of course, dry air will increase the potential rate of evapotranspiration. That just means that there are interrelated feedback loops that create dynamic systems that are generally close to equilibrium. But water vapor is important in modulating temperature. It is a serious modeling error to not treat it as an important part of the system dynamics.
Thank you for this reply. I realize it was directed to hiskorr, but please allow me to clarify.
There is no disagreement at all with your points.
I note that the “emissions” of water vapor deemed “negligible” in respect to climate harm in the 2009 Endangerment Finding are the direct emissions from human activity – E.g., from evaporative cooling for heat rejection from power plants, industry, and facility air conditioning; and from combustion of hydrocarbons. It wasn’t that EPA was dismissing the central role of water vapor in the climate system.
Keep up the good work against the unwarranted climate alarm.
David, you are much too polite. As I see it, the established protocol is a free-for-all when it comes to commenting. Placing a response after a particular comment provides context, and doesn’t need an apology.
On a global scale, anthropogenic water vapor probably is currently negligible. However, that may change if we were to adopt a hydrogen economy and double the amount of released water vapor compared to hydrocarbons.
What is not negligible is the local or regional impact from things like reservoirs in arid and semi-arid areas, pivotal irrigation utilizing ground water, and golf course maintenance in places like the Phoenix (AZ) metropolitan area. When I was working for the City of Scottsdale in the late-1990s on a remote sensing study, focusing on characterizing the impervious fraction of the city, I observed something like 18 obvious, well-maintained golf courses on Landsat imagery in the metropolitan area. Speaking of metropolitan influence, I was surprised to discover that Phoenix and surrounding towns had misters at bus stops, gas stations, and many backyard patios; swimming pools were ubiquitous throughout the area! Even the ‘Greenways,’ which were established for flood control, were verdant in the middle of Summer. There is a good reason why ‘Swamp (evaporative) Coolers’ are no longer effective in the area and have become rare compared to when I lived there for a couple of years in the 1950s.
“Logically, both have negligible influence on the climate system, ” H2O, Perhaps with low altitude emissions, but that is a belief not proven. But high-altitude emissions, the dwell time is unknown, and the radiative properties ensure that it is guaranteed to effect climate.
“But high-altitude emissions, the dwell time is unknown, and the radiative properties ensure that it is guaranteed to effect climate.”
In looking at scatter plots of vertical velocity (at 700 hPa, 500 hPa, and 300 hPa) vs the vertical integral of energy conversion, the radiative “guarantee” looks to me to be vanishingly weak in comparison to the power intensity of the dynamic processes.
I will have to look at that; however, we know why it gets cold in the desert at night. Water Vapor becomes more efficient in the very cold air at 45,000 feet at reradiating IR than it does at 10,000 feet. There is significant correlation that the climate responded to high altitude water vapor emissions and is the forcing that we all are guilty of that became very obvious when the B52s stopped flying after the Vietnam war ended. The trend of SO2 emissions land and sea explains a lot, aviation exhaust gave as a sneak peak in WWII of what was to come. The surface of the oceans cooled over 0.5C in less than 12 months immediately after the Pandemic no fly enforcement and a triple dip La Nina (only 3 ever documented) followed. We have all seen garbage published with much worse correlations. That’s what I see, and I am working on a combined radiative model and if I can predict / hindcast temperature, I will publish it.
Uhhmmm….mostly it gets cold in the desert at night because of…lack of clouds and aerosols due to lack of evaporation and vegetation….consequently the ground has a good view of -270 C outer space to radiate its 8 to 14 micron IR through the atmospheric window, which is a Weins law temp range of -66 through +88, while the rest of the planet has about 65% cloud cover that the ground sees a cloud bottom temp of say zero C instead of outer space….to over-simplify the GHGas effect.
‘…while the rest of the planet has about 65% cloud cover that the ground sees a cloud bottom temp of say zero C instead of outer space….to over-simplify the GHGas effect.’
What GHG effect? The ground can only ‘see’ a cloud bottom within the atmospheric window.
Let’s consider for a bit just the cloud view from the surface…The ground sees the cloud bottom at our estimated freezing temp…and in between a hazy mix of emitting gases in very narrow little bands compared to a Planck curve….all emitting at whatever rate they emit at for their temperature…..which due to lapse rate is a little warmer than the cloud bottoms in our simplified scenario, while in between clouds those gases are comparatively a lot warmer than outer space behind….
For some numbers…let’s say cloud bottoms are at freezing and cover 2/3 of the sky….they would be sending 315 watts at freezing temp times 2/3, about 210 watt photon flux downwards…all per sq.M of surface…1/3 of the sky would be -270 outer-space sending no watts worth of photons back to the surface….so we account for 210 watts of downward photons.
But the surface “sees” about 330 watts of photon flux downward from the sky according to the NASA energy budget diagram…opposing the 398 worth of upward photons at 16 C average surface temp…so photons from water vapor and CO2 and other radiating gases must make up the other 120 watts worth of downward photons in this simplified approach…
No, I’m not. You keep conflating what the ground ‘sees’ within the atmospheric window (8 – 14 microns), i.e., outer space or cloud bottoms, depending on the degree of cloud cover and what it sees outside of this window, which is effectively the radiance of the air within its immediate vicinity.
‘But the surface “sees” about 330 watts of photon flux downward from the sky according to the NASA energy budget diagram…opposing the 398 worth of upward photons at 16 C average surface temp…’
Ironically, you routinely criticize Nicholas Schroeder for posting his criticism of ‘back radiation’, but here you are posting the same ‘330 watts’ EEB garbage as gospel without any explanation of whether it’s energy flow or radiance, and from where it comes from.
But the surface “sees” about 330 watts of photon flux downward from the sky
This is vastly overstated because gases emit at unique frequencies and nothing at other frequencies. The SB equation is not appropriate for determining total radiated power from gasses.
Jim, you are having a reading problem…I just said 210 of the 330 is from cloud bottom & SB equation and 120 remaining must be those greenhouse gas photons for which Frank said “What greenhouse effect ?” As if it didn’t exist.
D, you’ve repeatedly missed the point of my comments / questions to you re. ‘back radiation’ on several threads, so I’ll try again:
How much of the 330 W/m^2 of back radiation ‘measured’ at the surface originates from cloud bottoms, or some other form of condensed matter, within the 8-14 micron atmospheric window and how much originates, and from where, outside of the atmospheric window?
I just gave you a simplified example…which was…(looking upward with your IR eyes instead of your visible light eyes) about 210 coming down from cloud bottoms originating from their temp of 0 C that we estimated, close to zero from the non cloudy areas which are almost transparent all the way to outer space at -270, except both have a sorta foggy over-lay like thin poly plastic over a clear window or maybe a smoky sky…that sends downward 120 from water vapor, CO2, O3, dust, aerosol and what-not emitting mostly at the temperature of its surrounding air molecules…It’s really not that hard to understand if you try….BTW we’re talking long-wave here….not SW sunlight that is heating everything to start with…in case that’s your point of confusion.
Meanwhile at 15C going upwards is 398 (by SB)….for a net difference of about 60….which is the net radiant heat from the surface upward…..
A black body, which is a close approximation to the Earth’s surface, in the range of -20 to +40 C radiates about 35 % of its photon energy in the 8-14 micron band.
For an exercise….You can Goog with the following question at a temp or micron range of your choosing….
“what fraction of total photon energy is emitted in the 8 to 14 micron band by a 288K black body”
and find out that less than 10% is in the 15 and longer micron range that is sometimes stated here to absorb all the IR, which is incorrect….
Hmmm, not really interested in your loaded question… I said 120 from GHGases, dust, aerosols, ice crystals…but mostly GHG, about 2/3 water vapor.
In my simplified example of clear sky and total IR absorption by cloud bottoms that are close to BB behavior…you could say yes to your “right?”. This Is about right since the surface is emitting about 400 w/M^2 of photons, of which about 1/3 is in the 8-14 micron window, and then 2/3 of that is gonna be absorbed by cloud bottoms, leaving 1/9 or 44 going directly to outer space…and those heat budget charts usually show about 40 going directly from surface to outer space….
I’ll try again – you said ‘210’ coming down from cloud bottoms’, which necessarily has to be within the atmospheric window, otherwise we couldn’t ‘see’ it. [Hint: almost all of the thermal radiation leaving the Earth’s surface outside of the atmospheric window is absorbed and ‘thermalized’ into sensible heat within 10 – 20 meters]. That only leaves ‘120’ of ‘back radiation’ outside of the atmospheric window from GHGs, which I presume isn’t coming from altitude given that most excited GHGs in the lower troposphere undergo non-radiative deactivation via collisions with non-IR active species before they can spontaneously emit ‘photons’.
However, you also said:
‘…the surface is emitting about 400 w/M^2 of photons, of which about 1/3 is in the 8-14 micron window, and then 2/3 of that is gonna be absorbed by cloud bottoms…’
That’s about 89 if I’ve done the arithmetic correctly. Hopefully, you’ll let me know where the other 121 comes from.
400×1/3×1/3=44 leaving through the window to outer space if you do the math correctly. You seem confused about where the EMR comes from. It’s a physical phenomenon caused by the temperature. Mostly, for planet Earth and the atmosphere, you can consider that it gets its temperature as a result of recent sunlight, much in visible light bandwidth.
Mostly, for planet Earth and the atmosphere, you can consider that it gets its temperature as a result of recent sunlight, much in visible light bandwidth.
Actually that isn’t true. Insolation is absorbed by the oceans and the land. Some of this energy is stored deep in the ocean and at depth in the soil. That storage can last for periods of time and is not immediately radiated into the atmosphere.
it is a mistake to connect insolation directly to the atmosphere as that does not happen. On land, max insolation and max temp can occur with a difference of hours.
Let’s focus on the 400×1/3×2/3=89 you said is absorbed by ‘cloud bottoms’ vs the 210 you said is coming down from same. Again, where is the other 121 coming from?
I also find it interesting that a planet having ~2/3 cloud cover only has an albedo of ~30%.
You are completely ignoring the SW (sunlight) band absorption of h2O and CO2 that results in different levels re-emitting the energy as photons…as a result of exceeding their lapse rate temperature…the energy they can’t get rid of by bumping into surrounding N2 and O2..especially at higher altitudes…second interesting topic, if cloud tops have a local bond albedo of about .6 on average…does that help your conundrum ?
‘You are completely ignoring the SW (sunlight) band absorption of h2O and CO2 that results in different levels re-emitting the energy as photons…’
Not intentionally, as I only inquired about the source of the remaining 121 LWIR emitted by cloud bottoms. Am I correct to say then that of the 220 total LW emitted by cloud bottoms, 89 originated as LW from the surface and 121 originated as SW absorbed from the sun? And just to confirm, am I correct to say that the entire 220 falls within the atmospheric window?
‘…second interesting topic, if cloud tops have a local bond albedo of about .6 on average…does that help your conundrum ?’
It does, and thanks for the number. I actually took a brief look into this myself and was a bit puzzled that, in contrast to the very specific albedo value ranges provided for a number of surface features (ice, forests, oceans, etc.), the values provided for clouds seemed purposefully vague, i.e., ‘high’. [Good thing I’m not paranoid or I’d believe that this lack of specificity is something the modelers take advantage of.]
‘…as a result of exceeding their lapse rate temperature…the energy they can’t get rid of by bumping into surrounding N2 and O2..especially at higher altitudes…’
The cause and effect in this statement seem reversed, i.e., it seems to imply that the lapse rate is what causes all the bumping and emitting rather than the other way around.
It is very common in engineering applications, knowing the “depth” of the CO2 cloud that is emitting at some known temperature to give the “beam” an equivalent emissivity compared to SB. See Hottel charts used for furnace and flue gas calcs. Prob lots of examples on the net. So you’re somewhere between right and wrong. However for a few hundred ppm of CO2 below 300K those charts are outside of range….
It is very common in engineering applications, knowing the “depth” of the CO2 cloud that is emitting at some known temperature to give the “beam” an equivalent emissivity compared to SB.
I’m not going to sit down and do the work that climate science should have done years ago. Integrating Planck law from say 14 to 16 um at given temperatures should already be available. Outside those wavelengths CO2’s emissivity is essentially zero. H2O radiates strongly from~ 6 to ~13 um and >~18 um. The total power radiated by water vapor far exceeds that of CO2.
None of this accounts for the absorption of downwelling radiation prior to reaching the surface. If upwelling radiation at CO2 frequency is absorbed within 20 meters, downwelling should be absorbed also.
while the rest of the planet has about 65% cloud cover that the ground sees a cloud bottom temp of say zero C instead of outer space…
What the planet “sees” is of little consequence as to what it radiates. A planet will radiate basically as a Planck curve. A molecule of CO2 radiates pretty much based on its temperature but only at one frequency, not over a Planck curve. For CO2, 15 um.
The SB equation won’t give the correct total radiated power from CO2. It vastly overstates the power.
What part of “ a hazy mix of emitting gases in very narrow little bands compared to a Planck curve” did you fail to understand ?
You say “what the planet sees is of little consequence”….Actually that is the entirety of what radiant heat exchange in the atmosphere is all about…some surfaces radiating on a Planck-like curve at an emissivity approaching 1.0….others being gases at certain temps having a narrow emission/absorption bandwidth needing a long beam length before they absorb or radiate enough that the “beam length”can be considered to have an “equivalent emissivity”, a term usually reserved for flue gasses in engineered heaters and boilers…and consideration of “fore” and “back” radiation resulting in net heat transfer.
others being gases at certain temps having a narrow emission/absorption bandwidth needing a long beam length before they absorb or radiate enough that the “beam length”can be considered to have an “equivalent emissivity
i have seen nothing about “beam length” in any climate science papers I have read. You seem to be implying that radiation “builds up” as a beam continues. This ignores that CO2 for example absorbs downwelling radiation as well as upwelling radiation. With this fact, I am unclear how much power could accumulate.
You ignore that I said that at 15 um absorptivity/emissivity approaches 1. However at 14 and 16 m, these have fallen drastically, and at 13 and 17 um, they approach zero. This means CO2 simply cannot radiate anywhere near what a blackbody would radiate what the SB equation predicts.
Try Googing “using Hottel charts examples” and I’m sure you will find “beam length” mentioned in the first couple of steps….We have worn out this thread….talk at you next week, Jim…
Hottel charts are for use with clear-sky only if I’m not mistaken. Beam length is basically how much atmosphere the beam passes through. At TOA it hasn’t passed through any atmosphere. Beam length seems to be a metric for “path loss”, not a metric for “equivalent emissivity”.
There is positive correlation between alleged increased vegetation greening of the globe and alleged increased global temperature in the lower atmosphere. Correlation is not causation.
Here, I propose that we investigate a causation hypothesis that greening causes global warming or vice versa.
People might state that this is stupid. They might also state it is not stupid to claim that increased atmospheric CO2 causes global warming, a subject still in debate after thousands of expensive research papers.
Draw back and take a long view of global warming as popularized. What is real and what is propaganda?
Geoff S
“Draw back and take a long view of global warming as popularized. What is real and what is propaganda?”
Good suggestion! This is one reason I “draw back” to 1938 for non-political discussion of a proposed attribution of reported warming to emissions of CO2. There was no popularized movement at that time to push false guilt about “warming.” But here we are, decades later, still being manipulated toward feeling bad for using natural hydrocarbons as fuel for human betterment. https://wattsupwiththat.com/2026/03/15/open-thread-181/#comment-4174555
Keep up the good work emphasizing the “hard science” aspects of the ongoing debate.
That is one of the things I have made note to examine in my research. When I look out the window, I see green reflected light that never reached the soil to warm it. Increased green foliage must result in some diminished warming of the soil and reduced IR. What is happening? USCRN stations are out in the open so it is difficult to view a change. Forests are where the biggest change should be.
“ Logically, both have negligible influence on the climate system, for the same primary physical reason”
At least some of the energy radiation intercepted by CO2 gets transferred to water vapor either by direct collision or by “middle-men” molecules like N and O.
How does climate science handle this? Seems to me they just ignore it. It’s part of your “vertical integration”, is it not?
“It’s part of your “vertical integration”, is it not?”
Not directly. The “vertical integral of energy conversion” parameter computed within ERA5 is purely a dynamical calculation. But indirectly, the radiative heating/cooling computations would influence layer temperatures (and thus internal energy and potential energy), which in turn would end up embedded in the result.
“At least some of the energy radiation intercepted by CO2 gets transferred to water vapor either by direct collision or by “middle-men” molecules like N and O.
How does climate science handle this? Seems to me they just ignore it.” I don’t think they ignore it. It would be handled however the radiative transfer component of the model is parameterized using RRTM or RRTMG or similar coding. More here. https://rtweb.aer.com/rrtmg_lw_description.html
I don’t trust anything to do with “radiative transfer” in a model. Radiative flux is a time-related functional relationship. Parametrizing such simply doesn’t work for a “state” model. There is *never* radiative “flux rate equilibrium” anywhere in the Earth system. The link you provide never once mentions “time” as a part of the model.
Let me emphasize, while the RRTMG-LW model may be very accurate, it’s output is based on inputs from the CGM or NWP models feeding the atmospheric state at any instant into the RRTMG model. It’s the *inputs* that I don’t trust. Their uncertainties at any time step are absolutely huge because *their* inputs and algorithms also have huge uncertainties.
‘I don’t trust anything to do with “radiative transfer” in a model.’
Nor should you. From the outset, all of the models employ the conjecture that radiative transfer theory is applicable to atmospheric gases, and that the resulting phenomenological physics represents the actual mechanism by which the bulk of the heat radiated by the Earth’s surface is transported aloft through the troposphere.
And as you and David have been discussing, it all goes downhill from there.
BTW, the uncertainties in the data provided the radiation model from the climate models I estimate to be in the 10-50 W/m^2. That is sufficiently large to subsume most of the differences that are attempting to be identified. Apply that uncertainty level to your calculations and see how much of the Great Unknown you find. I’m not questioning your calculations, just the inputs to them. The uncertainties of the inputs “turn up embedded in the result”.
An important process for transporting water from the oceans and from land surface waters into the air is the wind. In some regions of the earth this results is hot steamy jungles. The coming monster El Nino will dump huge amounts of water onto the west coasts of North and South America.
Water has varying effects on the climate of a region. In hot steamy jungles there is high humidity whereas in a desert the low humidity.
Cyclones and anticyclones are engines of energy transfer from the equator to the poles and they exist as quasi-stationary and stable “structure” at different longitudes during different seasons.
The fluid which moves is air and water in all three states, gas/liquid/ice crystals.
And, all desert air has more water vapour than polar air and different deserts have different amounts.
Just like all the other gases, CO2 and water vapour PARTICIPATE in the complex engine which is the energy transfer mechanism allowing energy loss to space from ALL parts of the globe at ALL times while only SOME parts of the globe at SOME time in the 24/7/12 annual time period are subject to the input of the solar radiation.
strativarius
August 23, 2026 2:47 am
The EUSSR never accepted the Brexit vote and neither have the traitor Parliaments since 2016. This Parliament led by Labour is surreptitiously ‘increasingly aligning’ us with the EU – a member in the sense of being a rule taker, not a rule maker. Prior to Brexit we could at least make the rules. That’s how insanely wedded – desperate to be in it – they are.
One avenue back is the Erasmus+ scheme: “Erasmus+ is the EU’s programme for education, training, youth, and sport, designed to support international mobility and cooperation among students and staff across Europe.” Here we go…
A controversial EU education programme could see British schoolchildren staging “climate walkouts” and studying woke rewrites of classic fairytales.
The lesson plans form part of the Erasmus+ student exchange scheme, which will cost the UK £570million in its first year alone. Labour is bringing Britain into the programme, which features revised versions of traditional stories – which have been stripped of “any gender assumptions, ageism, racism or disablism”.
The Department for Education points teachers and youth providers towards the plans but insists this does not amount to an endorsement. One Government-approved provider confirmed the programme, expected to launch in 2027, carries a “strong emphasis on inclusion and diversity”. – GBN
This does not bode well for science. Cambridge, post Arday debacle, refuses to accept the obvious – Arday was a plagiarist and a fabulist – and claims the media was the vicious assassin of a great and noble scholar.
Arday was a superhuman ..repeatedly described running 30 marathons in 35 days—some with a fractured leg—and covering 600 miles in six days or 300 miles in three days, claiming these efforts helped raise more than £5 million for charity.
…assertion that he was non-verbal until age 11 and learned to read only as a young adult was also challenged by some former schoolmates who recalled a chatty, joke-cracking child. Other details, including certain visiting professorships and a claimed book publication, were disputed or withdrawn. Arday maintained he was not inventing stories and that no one keeps receipts for every claim in life.
Professor Arday’s claim that he could not read or write until age 18 is contradicted by his own information that he passed two GCSE exams at school in PE and textiles. Now part of those examinations is practical work but there are also written papers.
So, he could joke and at least write his name. He could also string the egg-head intellectuals along, quite easily it seems and now they are falling back on the only card they have to play –
Cambridge chancellor criticises ‘racist feeding frenzy’ around Jason Arday – BBC
The dumbing down and infantilisation is proceeding – as they say – at great pace.
They were delighted with the feeding-frenzy congratulating Arday (and faculty) when his appointment was announced. That original frenzy was orchestrated by the university, with media consultants placing him in conferences, festivals, and multiple BBC appearances including guest-editing the Today programme (a BBC flagship). That campaign was nakedly racist. It’s purpose was precisely to celebrate his race and the university’s willingness to recruit a black man.
But the entirely organic, uncoordinated second feeding-frenzy, triggered by legitimate widespread interest in his manifold faults—one that never once focussed on his race except to notice the university’s own preoccupation with it—that is not pleasing to them at all.
I saw the plump chancellor moaning about it. His is a mostly ceremonial role, but my goodness, he is the second densest person in this story. His circular reasoning and question-begging should have been thrashed out of him when he was doing his BA there.
Arday did not deserve the end he met, but that was entirely his decision. He deserved everything else he got. It seems there are many more who also deserve close scrutiny. Unfortunately Arday having set a very high bar for eye-popping headline-worthiness means it won’t happen.
He chose that ‘end’ of his own free will. And as they are won’t to say in the wokesphere: he didn’t think of the [his] children. A final heresy?
But few know that when two brains David Willetts* (Conservative) allowed Universities to raise their tuition fees to £9,000 a part of that legislative deal required DIE targets. So, universities are bound in law to….
* Willetts also argues that we need to celebrate diversity in our higher education (HE) sector, rather than a single idea of what constitutes a top university. – The Conversation
Hi. I remember NOAA? used to display a map showing ocean rise around the world, in some places there was little or no change and in others it was rising or decreasing. Is that graphic still available? A quick search only revealed a map where you enter an address rather than the little arrows pointing up or down worldwide.
The Colorado River basin is over consumed because the consumers are getting dishonest and unrealistic price signals. That, of course, is the hallmark of socialistic and communistic pricing schemes – shortages.
Agricultural water (52%) is $500 to $200 per Acre Foot (43,560 cf)
Municipal & Industrial water (18%) is $500 to $1,000 per AF.
Water at my house in July – $3,560 per AF. ($110/1,345 cf)
Yeah, it’s data & math. Give it a shot.
I’d say boost agricultural $ by 50% and run for high ground.
And don’t give me any grief about my blue grass lawn. I paid for it.
Another factor here is that in the 1920’s when long-term water allocations were being assigned, the Colorado River basin was in a period of unusually wet precipitation, giving the illusion that water supplies would be available at similar volumes well into the long-term future.
The Mississippi experiences flooding from time to time. I wonder if a pipeline should be built to the west? It doesn’t totally solve the problem but it helps.
Unfortunately, they learned recently that the local granitic rock used to build the dam contains uranium in a concerning concentration. So, none of this water will be used for the next few years, allowing for testing and remediation planning if needed.
“The Chimney Hollow Reservoir is a new water storage project in Northern Colorado designed to hold up to 90,000 acre-feet of water and serve nearly one million people. The dam, which is 350 feet tall, is currently paused due to the discovery of uranium in the granite used for its construction, prompting ongoing safety tests.” 40.358083, -105.236308
And you find uranium in sedimentary rock-and limestone gravel also. Radon, for example, is a recommended test here in SW MO, and I have personally seen RE contracts pulled over a positive test, even tho it is very easily remediated. Much ado, I think, about nothing. In W. Illinois there is a town with native nuclides in the well water which have affected the local’s teeth structure…they still use the water. My point is: So what? OTH, St.Louis has a school built right next to a forgotten WW2 nuke processing site, and the local creek is posted to stay away and don’t touch or fish. Now THAT is a problem…so don’t sweat U in the granite…its stable.
Do birds have feathers? It isn’t just granitic rocks. Black shales in the east, and porous Morrison sandstones, and any recent sediments derived from uranium-bearing rocks will have uranium and its daughter products.
Scissor,
What on Earth is a “concerning concentration” of uranium in granite?
All granites will give a count on a scintillation counter. It mainly measures gamma radiation.
Gamma radiation is only of potential harm to people if they get close enough (a few metres) for long enough (all day, every day) to a particularly “hot” granite in terms of gamma radiation.
Even then, the gammas come not just from uranium, but also from potassium and the thorium decay series.
Look at hospital records. How often do death certificates state cause as “radiation from granite”?
Why get involved in the demonization of natural gamma radiation and uranium when the harm is trivial? We all evolved with it forever around us.
I used to spend hours in the pit of a huge rich uranium mine. Made it to 85 and going strong.
Geoff S
Geoff, I am almost 85 and quite healthy except for a little arthritis. There was a time, as a pre-pubscent, when I used my Gilbert Geiger counter to manually separate a bunch of carnotite into the the most radioactive pieces and ground those pieces in a mortar in the hope of making Yellow Cake. I had not yet had any formal chemistry courses and couldn’t figure out what they meant by “leaching.” Perhaps it was just as well as I was too ignorant to take any precautions like wearing a dust mask while grinding. Maybe we have reached a ripe old not in spite of our exposures, but because of them. 🙂
Wind/Solar electricity is at least 3 times more expensive than coal electricity; a main reason Europe is castrating itself.
US utilities are forced to buy offshore wind electricity for about 15 cents/kWh.
That price would have been 30 cents/kWh, if no 50% subsidies.
Hidden Costs: These are the A-to-Z costs (windmill to land fill) almost all folks are kept ignorant about.
At a future 25-30% W/S annual penetration on the grid, based on UK and German experience:
– Onshore grid expansion/reinforcement to connect far-flung W/S systems, about 2 c/kWh
– A fleet of traditional power plants to quickly counteract W/S variable output, on a less than minute-by-minute basis, 24/7/365, which means more Btu/kWh, more CO2/kWh, more cost of about 2 c/kWh
– A fleet of traditional power plants to provide electricity during 1) low-wind periods, 2) high-wind periods, when rotors are locked in place, and 3) low solar periods during mornings, evenings, at night, snow/ice on panels, which means more Btu/kWh, more CO2/kWh, more cost of about 2 c/kWh
– Pay W/S system Owners for electricity they could have produced, if no curtailment, about 1 c/kWh
– Importing electricity at high prices, when W/S output is low, 1 c/kWh
– Exporting electricity at low prices, when W/S output is high, 1 c/kWh
– Disassembly on land and at sea, reprocessing and storing at hazardous waste sites, about 2 c/kWh Total: 2 + 2 + 2 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 2 = 11 c/kWh .
Offshore wind full cost of electricity FCOE = 30 c/kWh + 11 c/kWh = 41 c/kWh, no subsidies
Offshore wind full cost of electricity FCOE = 15 c/kWh + 11 c/kWh = 26 c/kWh, with equivalent of50% subsidies
This compares with 7 c/kWh + 3 c/kWh = 10 c/kWh from existing gas, coal, nuclear, large reservoir hydro plants. Some values increase due to inflation and as more W/S systems are added to the grid.
.
Such expensive W/S electricity would have made the US even less competitive in world markets.
Any US tariffs on the European/Chinese supply of W/S systems would greatly increase their turnkey capital costs/MW and their electricity costs/ kWh.
. Here is an example of the lifetime cost of a coal plant
Coal gets very little direct subsidies in the US.
The key is running steadily at 90% output for 50 years, on average, i.e., base loaded.
.
Assume mine-mouth coal plant in Wyoming; 1800 MW; turnkey-cost $10 billion; life 50 y; Capacity factor 0.9; no direct subsidies; Wyoming coal, low-sulfur, no CO2 scrubbers needed; efficiency 0.4
Annual production = 1,800,000 kW x 8,766 h/y x 0.9 = 14,200,920,000 kWh
Coal heat value = 2000 lb/US ton x 8600 Btu/lb = 17,200,000 Btu/US ton
Year 1 coal cost = 14,200,920,000 kWh/y x (3412 Btu/kWh/0.4)/17,200,000 Btu/US ton x $15/US ton = $105,639,983/y
Year 1 O&M and other costs = 3 c/kWh. See Note.
Year 1 revenue, 14,200,920,000 kWh x $0.082kWh = $1,164,475,440/y
Payments to bank, $5 billion at 6% for 50 y; amortized at $317.2 million/y x 50 y = $15.86 billion
Owner investment, $5 billion at minimum of minimum of 10% for 50 y
Standard inflation of coal, electricity, O&M at 3.0 %/y
Year 1 electricity price $0.082kWh
Project cashflow for 50 years
Assume 20-y MACRS depreciation, if applicable
Assume no up-front tax credits; assume loan interest deduction from taxable income
.
Per google AI, the Owner’s initial cash-on-cash yield starts at 6.31% in Year 1. Because the bank debt stays entirely static while operating profits increase via inflation, the cash yield crosses the 10.00% mark by Year 11 ($533.24 Million) and hits 47.52% by Year 50. This shifts the entire 50-year weighted return profile to a 10.77% exact IRR.
NOTE:
Fixed O&M (labor, maintenance, insurance, taxes, land lease)
Variable O&M (water, chemicals, lubricants, waste disposal)
Fixed + Variable, newer plants 2 c/kWh, older plants up to 4 c/kWh
.
Traditional Nuclear has similar economics; life 60 to 80 y; CF 0.9 in the US. . For perspective, China used 2204.62/2000 x 4300 = 4740 million US ton in 2024.
China and Germany have multiple ultra-super-critical, USC, coal plants with efficiencies of 45% (LHV), 42% (HHV) https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/ultrasupercritical-plant
Looking at the pure logarithmic baseline starting from 2030, the math tells the real story:
With CO₂ moving from 435 ppm in 2030 up to 600 ppm by 2100, the temperature anomaly only inches from 0.73°C to 1.27°C. That is a total of just 0.54°C of additional warming across seven decades—with each decade adding less than the last.
Keep in mind, this is a straight baseline that does not include water vapor or other physical forces. Under the unyielding laws of physics, this logarithmic curve represents the absolute maximum CO₂ warming possible at each ppm level, because every incremental molecule of CO₂ has less impact than the one before it.
Where is the “runaway CO₂” everyone is breathlessly talking about?
When models spit out catastrophic numbers on that exact same carbon path, they aren’t reading the physics of the gas. They are adding unverified multipliers to inflate the balance sheet. The physical law dictates diminishing returns, not exponential panic.
Correct me if I am wrong, but Happer etal argue for a 1 deg warming if CO2 doubles in concentration. If we assume that the temperature has risen about 0.5 deg as measured by Christy and Spencer as per the graph on this site, then surely CO2 can’t be responsible for all of that increase as CO2 has increased by around 50ppm more or less since the warming started. Which then suggests that something else may be responsible, and possibly the rise in CO2 is in response to this warming rather than the cause?
If co2 is not the primary driver of modern warming, temperature shifts are best explained by a combination of powerful natural mechanisms: small, multi-percent variations in global cloud cover and albedo that alter raw solar input far more efficiently than trace gases; multi-decadal ocean-atmosphere oscillations (like the PDO and AMO) acting as massive thermal batteries that periodically discharge stored heat into the lower troposphere; and the shifting dynamics of solar intensity and cosmic-ray-modulated cloud nucleation. While mainstream modelers often try to patch modeling gaps by invoking sulfur dioxide “aerosol unmasking,” these three natural valves provide a robust, physically grounded accounting of historical climate variability without relying on a trace-gas panic.
My calendar says August, 2026 here down under, today.
What do we know of 2030-2100? SFA
It has not happened yet.
What educated guess are you using to provide your calculated graph?
How many volcanic eruptions have you guessed will occur and what size do you expect them to be?
My point, your figures are as worthless or as valuable as theirs.
Hi Phillip, thanks for the note. “You’re missing the point—those figures aren’t a crystal ball or a forecast of what 2030–2100 will actually do in the real world. Of course nobody knows how many volcanoes or solar shifts are coming.
That graph is a pure, isolated sensitivity calculation for CO2 alone, holding everything else completely flat to test the raw math of the gas. The Temperature is not a forecast, it is the determinant directly from the math and physics. The entire point of running that baseline is to expose the modelers’ sleight of hand: if you isolate just the greenhouse physics of CO2 up to 600 ppm without adding unverified feedback multipliers or guessing at future volcanoes, the direct warming path is inherently modest and self-limiting.
It’s not a prediction of the future; it’s an audit of the math. If computer models spit out catastrophic panic using that exact same carbon path, it proves they aren’t reading the physics of the gas—they’re baking in invisible multipliers to force a crisis.”
When analyzing Earth’s climate system strictly through natural and geological processes while omitting the unproven CO2 control theory, the historical record demonstrates that surface conditions on Earth are governed by a complex interplay of orbital mechanics, ocean circulation, atmospheric dynamics, internal geological forces and most importantly tectonic activity, . https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10167431955268812&set=pcb.28002975009395994
Image: Visualize a man with a blindfold, reaching with his hands blindly, with a glacier in the background and snow on the ground. He is saying: “I see no ice age.”
The answer is simple and easily discovered.
Long ago, it was noticed that ordinary glass used in windows could be used to make a shed, a “house”, closed off from the outside so that air circulation was minimised (it kept the wind out) where the inside was warmer than the outside especially when the sun was shining but would work even on overcast days and remained warm throughout the night when there was no light in the sky.
Plants inside the shed grew while the same plants outside died of the cold.
They were “green” amongst the brown dead outside.
In this instance, it was nothing to do with a gas; it was GLASS.
Now, the English language allows for coupling words – attribute the gas with the property of the glass – greenhouse gas – which does a similar thing.
The spectrum of sunlight allowed into the shed is from the very very hot sun, it strikes all the matter inside the shed and the matter gets warmer. However, the temperature of the warmed stuff in the shed has a totally different spectrum from the sunlight, lower frequency waves and glass is NOT nearly as transparent to the low frequency spectral spread and so less energy escapes the shed until it reaches a higher temperature than the outside.
That the term “greenhouse gas” is conceptually flawed or politically loaded rests on two distinct critiques: physical inaccuracy and semantic framing.
The Physical Critique: Misleading Analogy
From a purely thermodynamic standpoint, the term “greenhouse” is an imperfect analogy for how atmospheric trace gases trap heat.
Convection vs. Radiation: A real greenhouse works primarily by physically blocking convection. The glass roof creates a physical barrier that prevents warm air from rising, expanding, and escaping into the surrounding atmosphere.
Atmospheric Absorption: Atmospheric trace gases (like water vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane) do not trap air physically. Instead, they absorb outgoing longwave infrared radiation emitted by Earth’s surface and re-radiate a portion of it in all directions—including back toward the surface.
Because radiative absorption and convection suppression operate on entirely different physical mechanisms, physicists and meteorologists frequently note that the greenhouse analogy oversimplifies complex atmospheric thermodynamics.
The Semantic Critique: Conflation of Terms
The core of the argument regarding intentional or unintentional conflation involves three key points:
1. Conflating Natural Baselines with Human Increments
The atmospheric radiative effect is a natural property of Earth’s atmosphere, dominated primarily by water vapor and clouds. Without this natural atmospheric blanket, Earth’s global mean surface temperature would be approximately -18°C (0°F) rather than its current baseline of roughly 15°C (59°F).
Critique holds that using “greenhouse gas” blanket-wise leads non-experts to treat all warming effects as anthropogenic, obscuring the vast, natural baseline warming that makes life on Earth possible in the first place.
2. Obscuring the “Icehouse” Reality
A key paleoclimatological argument is that using terms like “greenhouse gas” primes the public to believe the planet is naturally warmer or heading toward a permanent, runaway tropical state, ignoring Earth’s macro-geological context:
The Quaternary Ice Age: Earth has been in the Late Cenozoic Ice Age for over 2.5 million years (and Antarctica has been glaciated for over 30 million years). We live in a relatively warm interglacial period (the Holocene) within an overall icehouse state.
Glacial Buffering: Cold ocean waters and extensive polar ice caps act as massive thermal sinks. The persistent cold of an icehouse state imposes severe structural constraints on heat distribution, making a runaway “hothouse” transition radically different from typical interglacial variability.
3. Rhetorical Conflation with “Greenhouse Earth”
In paleoclimatological terminology, a “Greenhouse State” (or Hothouse Earth) refers to deep-time eras (like the Cretaceous or Early Eocene) when the planet had zero permanent polar ice caps.
Critics argue that applying “greenhouse” to everyday atmospheric trace gases implicitly conflates a minor shift in radiative forcing during an interglacial period with a complete transition into a full-scale geological Greenhouse State. This rhetorical leap can lead the public to conclude that polar ice loss means the current Ice Age itself is collapsing, rather than observing expected fluctuation within a glaciated epoch.
Actually, it is not a misleading analogy. The earth had an atmosphere from the beginning and it also consisted of a lot of water and gained more over some long time period.
No thermodynamic laws or principles are broken or omitted and it tells us that earth, if it was accidentally only rock it would have a cooler steady state baseline at its coolest. Its distance from the sun would not be able to be called the Goldilocks zone.
Someone applied an elementary theoretical model and learned something important and interesting at the dawn of modern planetary climatology. Nerds are quarrelling about who guessed it first, some claiming a woman did and others give several names of men.
‘Convection vs. Radiation: A real greenhouse works primarily by physically blocking convection. The glass roof creates a physical barrier that prevents warm air from rising, expanding, and escaping into the surrounding atmosphere.’
Thank you. For some reason Phillip would have us believe that a car only heats up on a sunny day because the windshield blocks the IR emissions from the upholstery. For those of us old enough to remember cars before a/c became standard equipment, the usual practice to cool down a hot car was to drive around with the side windows down.
Beta Blocker
August 23, 2026 11:27 am
Here in Washington state, the Climate Commitment Act dictates that the state’s carbon emissions must be cut on this highly aggressive schedule:
— By 2020, reduction to 90,500,000 metric tons (1990 levels)
— By 2030, reduction to 50,000,000 metric tons (45 percent below 1990 levels)
— By 2040, reduction to 27,000,000 metric tons (70 percent below 1990 levels)
— By 2050, reduction to 5,000,000 metric tons (95 percent below 1990 levels)
These targets are unambiguous mandates codified into law. The targets are not in any way aspirational. It is Washington State government which has final responsibility for ensuring the CCA commitments are achieved.
By government policy, all future expansion of power generation capacity in the Pacific Northwest must come from wind and solar backed by batteries. These two reports go into some depth in describing the issues which come with the wind & solar dictate:
Here in the US Pacific Northwest, natural gas plays a critical role alongside hydro in meeting peak demand. From the PNUCC 2026 Report:
“Natural gas is the region’s second largest source of electricity after hydropower and plays a critical balancing role in meeting peak demand and managing variability. As demand grows and other traditional firm resources retire, coordination between the electric and natural gas systems is increasingly important to maintain reliability, highlighting the growing interdependence between them, particularly during periods of reduced hydropower output. As policymakers and jurisdictions pursue efforts to reduce or eliminate natural gas use, this role is difficult to replace with currently available technologies. If natural gas-fired plants were removed from the power system, the challenge would not be limited to replacing energy; it would also involve replacing the resource’s ability to perform during peak conditions and respond to system stress in real time. Replacing natural gas generation requires substantial clean firm resources not yet available at scale (such as advanced geothermal, new nuclear or long-duration storage), a significant overbuild of variable resources or heavy reliance on imports from neighboring regions, each of which presents cost, risk, timing and feasibility challenges. In addition, replacing natural gas used for heating during winter peak demand without coordinated planning will add pressure to an already strained system by shifting additional load onto the electric system during its most constrained periods.”
Northwest power planners assume that natural gas will remain an important source of energy in the US Northwest for the long-term future. It’s an assumption which is directly contradicted by existing political dictates which demand a decarbonized power grid by 2050:
— New-build gas-fired capacity cannot be constructed in the Pacific Northwest, and legacy gas-fired capacity cannot be retained, without directly violating the region’s Net Zero by 2050 energy policies.
— Washington state currently has approximately 4,000 Megawatts of gas-fired generation capacity located inside the state’s borders. All of that capacity must eventually be retired if the state is to comply with its Climate Commitment Act mandates.
As it stands today, no one is calling either the region’s power planners or the state governments of the region to account for not coming to some kind of resolution concerning the issue.
From DDG Search Assist: Washington state voters upheld the Climate Commitment Act on November 5, 2024, by rejecting Initiative 2117, which aimed to repeal the act. This decision demonstrated strong public support for the state’s climate policies. About 61% voted to keep the CCA. The politicians and citizens have bought into the hysteria and the “Climate Pledge”. Use the last two words as a search string. When The Climate Pledge Arena gets a new name, we will know CO2 is no longer considered a demon witch to be eradicated.
The PNUCC report states that 32,000 Megawatts of nameplate wind and solar must be installed in the US Northwest by 2036 in order to support a baseload increase of 8,000 average Megawatts demand.
Those figures yield an expected combined annual capacity factor of 25% and a 4X wind and solar overbuild.
But the report also recognizes that capacity factors will fall below the averages in the summer and winter doldrums leaving a capacity shortage even with a 4X wind and solar overbuild.
Another situation is developing. The state governments of Washington and Oregon have now come out in favor a breaching and removing an additional four hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River system, in addition to the four already targeted, for a total of eight.
These eight hydroelectric dams have a combined output of 3,300 average Megawatts annually. The loss of these dams plus the retirement of 4,000 Megawatts of gas-fired capacity yields a total of roughly 7,000 aMW annual output which is not accounted for in the Northwest’s long-term power planning assumptions.
If we add in the 7,000 aMW capacity lost from removal of the eight dams and the early retirement of Washington state’s gas-fired capacity, then another 28,000 Megawatts of wind and solar nameplate is needed at a 4X overbuild to cover the shortfall — if not by 2036, then by 2050.
The next twenty-five years must see a minimum of 60,000 nameplate Megawatts of wind and solar installed in the US Northwest by mid-century, and possibly a lot more nameplate than that if it is eventually recognized that a 6X overbuild is necessary to minimize the battery storage needed to handle the region’s winter and summer doldrums.
Next to no progress has been made in meeting the 2030 mandated reduction target. And no one in the regional environmental NGO’s or in the regional climate activist groups are calling the State of Washington to account for the near complete lack of actual emission reduction as mandated by law.
The common use of the term “software engineer” is an anathema.
Anyone that has not acquired a Bachelor of Engineering Degree is not entitled to call themselves an engineer at all.
It is extremely annoying to have frequent reports in the media refer to ‘software engineer’ as if it is something that really exists. They are referring to people who spend all their time sitting in front of a screen and probably know very little about engineering.
Software technician is a more suitable term.
I am reminded of the story I heard at Taliesin West where the minions from licensing in the state of Arizona complained that Frank Lloyd Wright didn’t have a license to practice architectural design in the state. I’ve always thought that was a bit like John the Baptist demanding that Christ should have been baptized to make Him qualified to preach. Just having a degree does not guarantee that someone can actually do engineering work. A title or even a license does not make one an engineer.
Were Archimedes or Leonardo de Vinci engineers? How could they have been if degrees in engineering were not available during their lifetimes?
My father grew up working on Model T’s and Farmall F20’s. He had a high school education. He was an International Harvester dealer and mechanic until he died. He was a master welder but never went welding school. He could examine a new piece of equipment and predict points of failure, he could “see” how torsion, compression, and tension would affect steel, but he had no education in metallurgy or mechanical engineering. Some people are just born seeing how things work in their heads. Just like talented musicians can “see” music in their heads. A younger brother inherited that ability, but I did not. Running a perfect bead was nigh unto impossible.
Did I ever mention that I bought an IH 1970 Scout Aristocrat 4WD for doing my thesis work? I owned it for about 45 years (nearly 500,000 miles on it) before selling it for what I paid for it. The only reason that I sold it was that after 10 years in Ohio, I was having trouble keeping up with the rust damage. More damage happened to the body in the 10 years in Ohio than the previous 35 years in California.
Scouts were renowned for their rusting bodies. I had two of them. The last one was the nice 1974 Scout II built for highway with something like a 390 rear end. It would do 50 mph in low range on the sand and outrun most of on the river sand. 345 cu in engine. I couldn’t keep with the rust from road salt here in Kansas and Missouri. I also had a 1980 Travelall that was a behemoth on the road. Loved it!
The susceptibility to damage from road salt is surprising because the bodies were dipped in zinc, and the Aristocrat also had asphaltum applied to deaden sound. In my case, it also had 2″ of oil-soaked road dust on the upper horizontal portions of the frame. When I brought it out to Ohio, there was NO rust anywhere. It only took a couple of years to wash the dust away and for the salt to start eating through the two protective layers.
I change batteries in my my indoor-outdoor thermometers today. I couldn’t help but notice the difference in temmperatures as they sat side by side on the table 0.7F. It made me think of the claims made about global temperature changes in this range. It made me smile.
Negligible.
That is the word the EPA used properly in the 2009 “Endangerment Finding” to describe the potential influence of human emissions of water vapor to cause or contribute to harmful warming.
“Direct anthropogenic emissions of water vapor, in general, have a negligible effect and are thus not considered a primary driver of human-induced climate change.”
“Water produced as a byproduct of combustion at low altitudes has a negligible contribution to climate change. The residence time of water vapor is very short (days) and the water content of the air in the long term is a function of temperature and partial pressure, with emissions playing no role.”
Source:
https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2021-05/documents/federal_register-epa-hq-oar-2009-0171-dec.15-09.pdf
What physical processes are involved in making the “residence time” of water vapor so short? Within the general circulation, rising air within low pressure weather systems promotes precipitation, as expansion cooling drives condensation. And localized convective weather, with its high rates of rainfall, demonstrates the power intensity with which water vapor is rejected back to the surface so readily.
In other words, it was recognized that the energy conversion performance of the atmosphere (i.e., as latent energy is converted to internal energy during precipitation events) makes it characteristically insensitive to human emissions of water vapor. Negligible risk of harm.
With the same energy conversion performance within the general circulation, the atmosphere must also be characteristically insensitive to the computed “warming” tendency from emissions of CO2 and the other “well mixed greenhouse gases.” But EPA nevertheless held emissions of these trace gases to cause or contribute to harmful trends. This is a fundamental contradiction, which I encourage skeptics of climate alarm to more fully appreciate.
This is why I keep posting about the “vertical integral of energy conversion” values from ERA5. The plots demonstrate the inconsistency of claiming that emissions of CO2 are capable of exerting a harmful influence on climate trends while emissions of H2O are considered harmless. Logically, both have negligible influence on the climate system, for the same primary physical reason – the energy conversion performance of the atmosphere as the compressible working fluid of its own circulation.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1knv0YdUyIgyR9Mwk3jGJwccIGHv38J33/view?usp=drive_link
Thank you for your patient attention to this matter.
P.S. The claim that the “forcing” from emissions of CO2 must be expected to produce an amplifying water vapor “feedback” is also inconsistent for the same reason.
“as latent energy is converted to internal energy during precipitation events”
Sorry, but of all the forms of energy involved in condensation and cloud formation (pressure, potential, kinetic, latent, internal, even electric or electrochemical) “internal” (heat-temperature) is the one least involved, because condensation itself is an isothermal process, and a transfer of latent energy to increasing temperature would stop the condensation process. It’s obvious that the collapse of a cubic meter of water vapor into a few raindrops or a hailstone affects local pressure, kinetic, latent, and internal energies in a way that supports continued condensation, but the thermometer-readers are at a loss to explain how this happens.
Thank you for your reply.
“Sorry, but of all the forms of energy…”
Please consider that my use of these terms follows Lorenz as quoted in the readme document here.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1PDJP3F3rteoP99lR53YKp2fzuaza7Niz?usp=drive_link
You have repeatedly deflected from this framing of the forms of energy (which is in the bulk sense, not the microphysical sense) as described within the meteorological discipline.
It would be better for you to get un-stuck about all this.
All the best to you.
If the “meteorological discipline” continues to parameterize clouds and ignore “bulk” kinetic energy while pretending to examine energy into and out of the atmosphere using only thermometers, I will continue to raise real-world factors that expose the limitations of their “models”.
I continue to appreciate the way you accept their inadequate assumptions and still refute their conclusions.
Thank you for your further reply.
“…while pretending to examine energy into and out of the atmosphere using only thermometers…”
Well it’s not done that way, so the condition of your intent to raise objections is not satisfied. You may discontinue at any time with no adverse consequence to these matters.
I should point out that I use the ERA5 reanalysis model to demonstrate my points about the dynamics. There is no need to “refute their conclusions” because the model continuously ingests observed values (of pressures, temperatures, wind speeds, humidity, etc.) to keep it useful as a computed representation of the real thing. ERA5 makes no claim about attribution of historical trends or about the future.
Don’t get me wrong – no doubt we agree that the “climate” movement which uses their tuned GCM’s to project future temperatures is doing so on unsound assumptions.
Be well.
We do, indeed, agree!
“the model continuously ingests observed values (of pressures, temperatures, wind speeds, humidity, etc.) to keep it useful as a computed representation of the real thing.”
Really? Where are these “observed” values coming from on a continuous basis? Radiosondes have huge time steps with low spatial granularity.
While the computation may be accurate it, it will have at least the same uncertainty that the inputs do.
“Really? Where are these “observed” values coming from on a continuous basis?”
See tables 14 and 15 here. Satellites, METARs, aircraft, radiosondes, etc. In saying “continuous” I mean it in the same sense as weather modeling. So ERA5 is essentially a record from the same forecasting system (IFS) used by ECMWF.
https://confluence.ecmwf.int/spaces/CKB/pages/76414402/ERA5+data+documentation
“While the computation may be accurate it, it will have at least the same uncertainty that the inputs do.”
Correct. In respect to the dynamics, which I care about most, the result would be of the same fidelity, say, as a most-recent-model-run forecast.
“ result would be of the same fidelity, say, as a most-recent-model-run forecast.”
That’s not a ringing endorsement of the accuracy of the result.
“That’s not a ringing endorsement of the accuracy of the result.”
OK, but getting back to the point of my post – for the mass flow and compression/expansion aspects of the working fluid, it suffices to demonstrate how dynamic energy conversion within the general circulation overwhelms the computed static radiative “warming” tendency from incremental CO2 (or from direct human emissions of H2O.)
mass flow and compression/expansion of a working fluid I can buy. Exact results not so much. Those would depend on *if* you know the composition of the working fluid exactly.
The “warming” aspect of CO2 from reflected heat whose original source is the earth is zero. It’s a rate of cooling effect, not a warming effect. Just about anything happening in the atmosphere will have more effect than zero.
The issue is not the temperature of the H2O moleule as it releases IR radiation as it precipitates. The issue is the IR radiation that is directed downward and which the GHG theory says warms the surface thereby increasing atmospheric temperature.
H2O does not radiate when it condenses. The latent heat of condensation manifests as sensible heat in the condensate, which is quickly thermalized via collisions with air molecules. This is the mechanism that reduces the lapse rate from ~10 C/km to ~6 C/km.
A little common sense! What could possibly keep H2O FROM radiating before, during and after condensation? It has a temperature >0 K! Further, if the first drops of condensate raise the surrounding air temperature, does that not stop the condensation process? A little thought must suggest that a raindrop is not hotter than the vapor it came from; the latent energy released must assume some other form (i.e., pressure, kinetic, radient, electric), none of which are measured by a thermometer.
H2O has many ways of carrying energy. Latent heat is essentially a mechanism where hydrogen bonds are extended. The “lattice” expands as it were. When water vapor encounters other particles, molecules, etc. that latent heat can be transferred raising the temperature of the receptor. That raise in temperature can cause more radiation at some point. One could say it originates with H2O. H2O also has rotational, vibrational, translational energy that can emit radiation. And, in fact, H2O has a much broader emission spectrum than CO2. Consequently, the energy handled by H2O far exceeds that of CO2.
Radiance ?, energy, no.
That heat that is released as it precipitates has already been lost by the earth. Any part that goes back to the earth does not push the earth back up the time-related temperature gradient. It only slows the loss of heat by the earth by replacing part of it.
That is the rationalization that alarmists have used for years to downplay the role of water vapor in affecting temperatures and climate. The statement is wrong on several levels. While the residence time of an individual water molecule is short, the atmosphere is continually being recharged by evapotranspiration. However, it is not the temperature that directly controls the content. Except for near the oceans, the water content is supply-limited. The Clausius-Clapeyron relationship is an upper-bound. There is nowhere near the amount of water vapor in deserts that is predicted by the Clausius-Clapeyron relationship. Deserts have low relative humidity because water is scarce. Contrary to the claim, emissions (evapotranspiration and to a lesser extent, anthropogenic emissions of water vapor) are what determine the absolute humidity of air. That same relatively constant humidity is what helps define the different Köppen climate classes, which is a function of temperature and available water. Of course, dry air will increase the potential rate of evapotranspiration. That just means that there are interrelated feedback loops that create dynamic systems that are generally close to equilibrium. But water vapor is important in modulating temperature. It is a serious modeling error to not treat it as an important part of the system dynamics.
Thank you for this reply. I realize it was directed to hiskorr, but please allow me to clarify.
There is no disagreement at all with your points.
I note that the “emissions” of water vapor deemed “negligible” in respect to climate harm in the 2009 Endangerment Finding are the direct emissions from human activity – E.g., from evaporative cooling for heat rejection from power plants, industry, and facility air conditioning; and from combustion of hydrocarbons. It wasn’t that EPA was dismissing the central role of water vapor in the climate system.
Keep up the good work against the unwarranted climate alarm.
David, you are much too polite. As I see it, the established protocol is a free-for-all when it comes to commenting. Placing a response after a particular comment provides context, and doesn’t need an apology.
On a global scale, anthropogenic water vapor probably is currently negligible. However, that may change if we were to adopt a hydrogen economy and double the amount of released water vapor compared to hydrocarbons.
What is not negligible is the local or regional impact from things like reservoirs in arid and semi-arid areas, pivotal irrigation utilizing ground water, and golf course maintenance in places like the Phoenix (AZ) metropolitan area. When I was working for the City of Scottsdale in the late-1990s on a remote sensing study, focusing on characterizing the impervious fraction of the city, I observed something like 18 obvious, well-maintained golf courses on Landsat imagery in the metropolitan area. Speaking of metropolitan influence, I was surprised to discover that Phoenix and surrounding towns had misters at bus stops, gas stations, and many backyard patios; swimming pools were ubiquitous throughout the area! Even the ‘Greenways,’ which were established for flood control, were verdant in the middle of Summer. There is a good reason why ‘Swamp (evaporative) Coolers’ are no longer effective in the area and have become rare compared to when I lived there for a couple of years in the 1950s.
“Logically, both have negligible influence on the climate system, ” H2O, Perhaps with low altitude emissions, but that is a belief not proven. But high-altitude emissions, the dwell time is unknown, and the radiative properties ensure that it is guaranteed to effect climate.
Thank you for your reply.
“But high-altitude emissions, the dwell time is unknown, and the radiative properties ensure that it is guaranteed to effect climate.”
In looking at scatter plots of vertical velocity (at 700 hPa, 500 hPa, and 300 hPa) vs the vertical integral of energy conversion, the radiative “guarantee” looks to me to be vanishingly weak in comparison to the power intensity of the dynamic processes.
More explanation here.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2026/03/15/open-thread-181/#comment-4174555
Be well.
I will have to look at that; however, we know why it gets cold in the desert at night. Water Vapor becomes more efficient in the very cold air at 45,000 feet at reradiating IR than it does at 10,000 feet. There is significant correlation that the climate responded to high altitude water vapor emissions and is the forcing that we all are guilty of that became very obvious when the B52s stopped flying after the Vietnam war ended. The trend of SO2 emissions land and sea explains a lot, aviation exhaust gave as a sneak peak in WWII of what was to come. The surface of the oceans cooled over 0.5C in less than 12 months immediately after the Pandemic no fly enforcement and a triple dip La Nina (only 3 ever documented) followed. We have all seen garbage published with much worse correlations. That’s what I see, and I am working on a combined radiative model and if I can predict / hindcast temperature, I will publish it.
Uhhmmm….mostly it gets cold in the desert at night because of…lack of clouds and aerosols due to lack of evaporation and vegetation….consequently the ground has a good view of -270 C outer space to radiate its 8 to 14 micron IR through the atmospheric window, which is a Weins law temp range of -66 through +88, while the rest of the planet has about 65% cloud cover that the ground sees a cloud bottom temp of say zero C instead of outer space….to over-simplify the GHGas effect.
‘…while the rest of the planet has about 65% cloud cover that the ground sees a cloud bottom temp of say zero C instead of outer space….to over-simplify the GHGas effect.’
What GHG effect? The ground can only ‘see’ a cloud bottom within the atmospheric window.
What GHG effect ? Surely you jest.
Let’s consider for a bit just the cloud view from the surface…The ground sees the cloud bottom at our estimated freezing temp…and in between a hazy mix of emitting gases in very narrow little bands compared to a Planck curve….all emitting at whatever rate they emit at for their temperature…..which due to lapse rate is a little warmer than the cloud bottoms in our simplified scenario, while in between clouds those gases are comparatively a lot warmer than outer space behind….
For some numbers…let’s say cloud bottoms are at freezing and cover 2/3 of the sky….they would be sending 315 watts at freezing temp times 2/3, about 210 watt photon flux downwards…all per sq.M of surface…1/3 of the sky would be -270 outer-space sending no watts worth of photons back to the surface….so we account for 210 watts of downward photons.
But the surface “sees” about 330 watts of photon flux downward from the sky according to the NASA energy budget diagram…opposing the 398 worth of upward photons at 16 C average surface temp…so photons from water vapor and CO2 and other radiating gases must make up the other 120 watts worth of downward photons in this simplified approach…
‘Surely you jest.’
No, I’m not. You keep conflating what the ground ‘sees’ within the atmospheric window (8 – 14 microns), i.e., outer space or cloud bottoms, depending on the degree of cloud cover and what it sees outside of this window, which is effectively the radiance of the air within its immediate vicinity.
‘But the surface “sees” about 330 watts of photon flux downward from the sky according to the NASA energy budget diagram…opposing the 398 worth of upward photons at 16 C average surface temp…’
Ironically, you routinely criticize Nicholas Schroeder for posting his criticism of ‘back radiation’, but here you are posting the same ‘330 watts’ EEB garbage as gospel without any explanation of whether it’s energy flow or radiance, and from where it comes from.
This is vastly overstated because gases emit at unique frequencies and nothing at other frequencies. The SB equation is not appropriate for determining total radiated power from gasses.
Jim, you are having a reading problem…I just said 210 of the 330 is from cloud bottom & SB equation and 120 remaining must be those greenhouse gas photons for which Frank said “What greenhouse effect ?” As if it didn’t exist.
D, you’ve repeatedly missed the point of my comments / questions to you re. ‘back radiation’ on several threads, so I’ll try again:
How much of the 330 W/m^2 of back radiation ‘measured’ at the surface originates from cloud bottoms, or some other form of condensed matter, within the 8-14 micron atmospheric window and how much originates, and from where, outside of the atmospheric window?
“…originates and from where”
I just gave you a simplified example…which was…(looking upward with your IR eyes instead of your visible light eyes) about 210 coming down from cloud bottoms originating from their temp of 0 C that we estimated, close to zero from the non cloudy areas which are almost transparent all the way to outer space at -270, except both have a sorta foggy over-lay like thin poly plastic over a clear window or maybe a smoky sky…that sends downward 120 from water vapor, CO2, O3, dust, aerosol and what-not emitting mostly at the temperature of its surrounding air molecules…It’s really not that hard to understand if you try….BTW we’re talking long-wave here….not SW sunlight that is heating everything to start with…in case that’s your point of confusion.
Meanwhile at 15C going upwards is 398 (by SB)….for a net difference of about 60….which is the net radiant heat from the surface upward…..
A black body, which is a close approximation to the Earth’s surface, in the range of -20 to +40 C radiates about 35 % of its photon energy in the 8-14 micron band.
For an exercise….You can Goog with the following question at a temp or micron range of your choosing….
“what fraction of total photon energy is emitted in the 8 to 14 micron band by a 288K black body”
and find out that less than 10% is in the 15 and longer micron range that is sometimes stated here to absorb all the IR, which is incorrect….
So, 210 within the atmospheric window from condensed matter and 120 outside the atmospheric window from GHGs, right?
Hmmm, not really interested in your loaded question… I said 120 from GHGases, dust, aerosols, ice crystals…but mostly GHG, about 2/3 water vapor.
In my simplified example of clear sky and total IR absorption by cloud bottoms that are close to BB behavior…you could say yes to your “right?”. This Is about right since the surface is emitting about 400 w/M^2 of photons, of which about 1/3 is in the 8-14 micron window, and then 2/3 of that is gonna be absorbed by cloud bottoms, leaving 1/9 or 44 going directly to outer space…and those heat budget charts usually show about 40 going directly from surface to outer space….
‘…not really interested in your loaded question…’
I’ll try again – you said ‘210’ coming down from cloud bottoms’, which necessarily has to be within the atmospheric window, otherwise we couldn’t ‘see’ it. [Hint: almost all of the thermal radiation leaving the Earth’s surface outside of the atmospheric window is absorbed and ‘thermalized’ into sensible heat within 10 – 20 meters]. That only leaves ‘120’ of ‘back radiation’ outside of the atmospheric window from GHGs, which I presume isn’t coming from altitude given that most excited GHGs in the lower troposphere undergo non-radiative deactivation via collisions with non-IR active species before they can spontaneously emit ‘photons’.
However, you also said:
‘…the surface is emitting about 400 w/M^2 of photons, of which about 1/3 is in the 8-14 micron window, and then 2/3 of that is gonna be absorbed by cloud bottoms…’
That’s about 89 if I’ve done the arithmetic correctly. Hopefully, you’ll let me know where the other 121 comes from.
Don’t forget that H2O radiates from ~6 – 13 and >18 um.
Yes, H2O overlaps.
400×1/3×1/3=44 leaving through the window to outer space if you do the math correctly. You seem confused about where the EMR comes from. It’s a physical phenomenon caused by the temperature. Mostly, for planet Earth and the atmosphere, you can consider that it gets its temperature as a result of recent sunlight, much in visible light bandwidth.
Actually that isn’t true. Insolation is absorbed by the oceans and the land. Some of this energy is stored deep in the ocean and at depth in the soil. That storage can last for periods of time and is not immediately radiated into the atmosphere.
it is a mistake to connect insolation directly to the atmosphere as that does not happen. On land, max insolation and max temp can occur with a difference of hours.
Let’s focus on the 400×1/3×2/3=89 you said is absorbed by ‘cloud bottoms’ vs the 210 you said is coming down from same. Again, where is the other 121 coming from?
I also find it interesting that a planet having ~2/3 cloud cover only has an albedo of ~30%.
You are completely ignoring the SW (sunlight) band absorption of h2O and CO2 that results in different levels re-emitting the energy as photons…as a result of exceeding their lapse rate temperature…the energy they can’t get rid of by bumping into surrounding N2 and O2..especially at higher altitudes…second interesting topic, if cloud tops have a local bond albedo of about .6 on average…does that help your conundrum ?
‘You are completely ignoring the SW (sunlight) band absorption of h2O and CO2 that results in different levels re-emitting the energy as photons…’
Not intentionally, as I only inquired about the source of the remaining 121 LWIR emitted by cloud bottoms. Am I correct to say then that of the 220 total LW emitted by cloud bottoms, 89 originated as LW from the surface and 121 originated as SW absorbed from the sun? And just to confirm, am I correct to say that the entire 220 falls within the atmospheric window?
‘…second interesting topic, if cloud tops have a local bond albedo of about .6 on average…does that help your conundrum ?’
It does, and thanks for the number. I actually took a brief look into this myself and was a bit puzzled that, in contrast to the very specific albedo value ranges provided for a number of surface features (ice, forests, oceans, etc.), the values provided for clouds seemed purposefully vague, i.e., ‘high’. [Good thing I’m not paranoid or I’d believe that this lack of specificity is something the modelers take advantage of.]
‘…as a result of exceeding their lapse rate temperature…the energy they can’t get rid of by bumping into surrounding N2 and O2..especially at higher altitudes…’
The cause and effect in this statement seem reversed, i.e., it seems to imply that the lapse rate is what causes all the bumping and emitting rather than the other way around.
It is very common in engineering applications, knowing the “depth” of the CO2 cloud that is emitting at some known temperature to give the “beam” an equivalent emissivity compared to SB. See Hottel charts used for furnace and flue gas calcs. Prob lots of examples on the net. So you’re somewhere between right and wrong. However for a few hundred ppm of CO2 below 300K those charts are outside of range….
I’m not going to sit down and do the work that climate science should have done years ago. Integrating Planck law from say 14 to 16 um at given temperatures should already be available. Outside those wavelengths CO2’s emissivity is essentially zero. H2O radiates strongly from~ 6 to ~13 um and >~18 um. The total power radiated by water vapor far exceeds that of CO2.
None of this accounts for the absorption of downwelling radiation prior to reaching the surface. If upwelling radiation at CO2 frequency is absorbed within 20 meters, downwelling should be absorbed also.
‘The total power radiated by water vapor far exceeds that of CO2.’
Yup, not to mention that CO2 can’t spontaneously emit to space below ~84k per van Wijngaarden and Happer.
‘If upwelling radiation at CO2 frequency is absorbed within 20 meters, downwelling should be absorbed also.’
Bingo.
But NS says back radiation doesn’t exist, while I do…possibly an important distinction…?
What the planet “sees” is of little consequence as to what it radiates. A planet will radiate basically as a Planck curve. A molecule of CO2 radiates pretty much based on its temperature but only at one frequency, not over a Planck curve. For CO2, 15 um.
The SB equation won’t give the correct total radiated power from CO2. It vastly overstates the power.
What part of “ a hazy mix of emitting gases in very narrow little bands compared to a Planck curve” did you fail to understand ?
You say “what the planet sees is of little consequence”….Actually that is the entirety of what radiant heat exchange in the atmosphere is all about…some surfaces radiating on a Planck-like curve at an emissivity approaching 1.0….others being gases at certain temps having a narrow emission/absorption bandwidth needing a long beam length before they absorb or radiate enough that the “beam length”can be considered to have an “equivalent emissivity”, a term usually reserved for flue gasses in engineered heaters and boilers…and consideration of “fore” and “back”
radiation resulting in net heat transfer.
i have seen nothing about “beam length” in any climate science papers I have read. You seem to be implying that radiation “builds up” as a beam continues. This ignores that CO2 for example absorbs downwelling radiation as well as upwelling radiation. With this fact, I am unclear how much power could accumulate.
You ignore that I said that at 15 um absorptivity/emissivity approaches 1. However at 14 and 16 m, these have fallen drastically, and at 13 and 17 um, they approach zero. This means CO2 simply cannot radiate anywhere near what a blackbody would radiate what the SB equation predicts.
Try Googing “using Hottel charts examples” and I’m sure you will find “beam length” mentioned in the first couple of steps….We have worn out this thread….talk at you next week, Jim…
Hottel charts are for use with clear-sky only if I’m not mistaken. Beam length is basically how much atmosphere the beam passes through. At TOA it hasn’t passed through any atmosphere. Beam length seems to be a metric for “path loss”, not a metric for “equivalent emissivity”.
Hottel charts are “wide-band” for engineers to design boilers and heaters. They are for much higher temp and CO2 – H2O than atmospheric conditions.
“Hottel charts are “wide-band” for engineers to design boilers and heaters. They are for much higher temp and CO2 – H2O than atmospheric conditions.”
Then why did you say to google them?
There is positive correlation between alleged increased vegetation greening of the globe and alleged increased global temperature in the lower atmosphere. Correlation is not causation.
Here, I propose that we investigate a causation hypothesis that greening causes global warming or vice versa.
People might state that this is stupid. They might also state it is not stupid to claim that increased atmospheric CO2 causes global warming, a subject still in debate after thousands of expensive research papers.
Draw back and take a long view of global warming as popularized. What is real and what is propaganda?
Geoff S
“Draw back and take a long view of global warming as popularized. What is real and what is propaganda?”
Good suggestion! This is one reason I “draw back” to 1938 for non-political discussion of a proposed attribution of reported warming to emissions of CO2. There was no popularized movement at that time to push false guilt about “warming.” But here we are, decades later, still being manipulated toward feeling bad for using natural hydrocarbons as fuel for human betterment.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2026/03/15/open-thread-181/#comment-4174555
Keep up the good work emphasizing the “hard science” aspects of the ongoing debate.
That is one of the things I have made note to examine in my research. When I look out the window, I see green reflected light that never reached the soil to warm it. Increased green foliage must result in some diminished warming of the soil and reduced IR. What is happening? USCRN stations are out in the open so it is difficult to view a change. Forests are where the biggest change should be.
“ Logically, both have negligible influence on the climate system, for the same primary physical reason”
At least some of the energy radiation intercepted by CO2 gets transferred to water vapor either by direct collision or by “middle-men” molecules like N and O.
How does climate science handle this? Seems to me they just ignore it. It’s part of your “vertical integration”, is it not?
“It’s part of your “vertical integration”, is it not?”
Not directly. The “vertical integral of energy conversion” parameter computed within ERA5 is purely a dynamical calculation. But indirectly, the radiative heating/cooling computations would influence layer temperatures (and thus internal energy and potential energy), which in turn would end up embedded in the result.
“At least some of the energy radiation intercepted by CO2 gets transferred to water vapor either by direct collision or by “middle-men” molecules like N and O.
How does climate science handle this? Seems to me they just ignore it.” I don’t think they ignore it. It would be handled however the radiative transfer component of the model is parameterized using RRTM or RRTMG or similar coding. More here.
https://rtweb.aer.com/rrtmg_lw_description.html
Good questions.
I don’t trust anything to do with “radiative transfer” in a model. Radiative flux is a time-related functional relationship. Parametrizing such simply doesn’t work for a “state” model. There is *never* radiative “flux rate equilibrium” anywhere in the Earth system. The link you provide never once mentions “time” as a part of the model.
Let me emphasize, while the RRTMG-LW model may be very accurate, it’s output is based on inputs from the CGM or NWP models feeding the atmospheric state at any instant into the RRTMG model. It’s the *inputs* that I don’t trust. Their uncertainties at any time step are absolutely huge because *their* inputs and algorithms also have huge uncertainties.
‘I don’t trust anything to do with “radiative transfer” in a model.’
Nor should you. From the outset, all of the models employ the conjecture that radiative transfer theory is applicable to atmospheric gases, and that the resulting phenomenological physics represents the actual mechanism by which the bulk of the heat radiated by the Earth’s surface is transported aloft through the troposphere.
And as you and David have been discussing, it all goes downhill from there.
BTW, the uncertainties in the data provided the radiation model from the climate models I estimate to be in the 10-50 W/m^2. That is sufficiently large to subsume most of the differences that are attempting to be identified. Apply that uncertainty level to your calculations and see how much of the Great Unknown you find. I’m not questioning your calculations, just the inputs to them. The uncertainties of the inputs “turn up embedded in the result”.
An important process for transporting water from the oceans and from land surface waters into the air is the wind. In some regions of the earth this results is hot steamy jungles. The coming monster El Nino will dump huge amounts of water onto the west coasts of North and South America.
Water has varying effects on the climate of a region. In hot steamy jungles there is high humidity whereas in a desert the low humidity.
Cyclones and anticyclones are engines of energy transfer from the equator to the poles and they exist as quasi-stationary and stable “structure” at different longitudes during different seasons.
The fluid which moves is air and water in all three states, gas/liquid/ice crystals.
And, all desert air has more water vapour than polar air and different deserts have different amounts.
Just like all the other gases, CO2 and water vapour PARTICIPATE in the complex engine which is the energy transfer mechanism allowing energy loss to space from ALL parts of the globe at ALL times while only SOME parts of the globe at SOME time in the 24/7/12 annual time period are subject to the input of the solar radiation.
The EUSSR never accepted the Brexit vote and neither have the traitor Parliaments since 2016. This Parliament led by Labour is surreptitiously ‘increasingly aligning’ us with the EU – a member in the sense of being a rule taker, not a rule maker. Prior to Brexit we could at least make the rules. That’s how insanely wedded – desperate to be in it – they are.
One avenue back is the Erasmus+ scheme: “Erasmus+ is the EU’s programme for education, training, youth, and sport, designed to support international mobility and cooperation among students and staff across Europe.” Here we go…
A controversial EU education programme could see British schoolchildren staging “climate walkouts” and studying woke rewrites of classic fairytales.
The lesson plans form part of the Erasmus+ student exchange scheme, which will cost the UK £570million in its first year alone. Labour is bringing Britain into the programme, which features revised versions of traditional stories – which have been stripped of “any gender assumptions, ageism, racism or disablism”.
The Department for Education points teachers and youth providers towards the plans but insists this does not amount to an endorsement. One Government-approved provider confirmed the programme, expected to launch in 2027, carries a “strong emphasis on inclusion and diversity”. – GBN
This does not bode well for science. Cambridge, post Arday debacle, refuses to accept the obvious – Arday was a plagiarist and a fabulist – and claims the media was the vicious assassin of a great and noble scholar.
Arday was a superhuman
..repeatedly described running 30 marathons in 35 days—some with a fractured leg—and covering 600 miles in six days or 300 miles in three days, claiming these efforts helped raise more than £5 million for charity.
…assertion that he was non-verbal until age 11 and learned to read only as a young adult was also challenged by some former schoolmates who recalled a chatty, joke-cracking child. Other details, including certain visiting professorships and a claimed book publication, were disputed or withdrawn. Arday maintained he was not inventing stories and that no one keeps receipts for every claim in life.
Professor Arday’s claim that he could not read or write until age 18 is contradicted by his own information that he passed two GCSE exams at school in PE and textiles. Now part of those examinations is practical work but there are also written papers.
So, he could joke and at least write his name. He could also string the egg-head intellectuals along, quite easily it seems and now they are falling back on the only card they have to play –
Cambridge chancellor criticises ‘racist feeding frenzy’ around Jason Arday – BBC
The dumbing down and infantilisation is proceeding – as they say – at great pace.
They were delighted with the feeding-frenzy congratulating Arday (and faculty) when his appointment was announced. That original frenzy was orchestrated by the university, with media consultants placing him in conferences, festivals, and multiple BBC appearances including guest-editing the Today programme (a BBC flagship). That campaign was nakedly racist. It’s purpose was precisely to celebrate his race and the university’s willingness to recruit a black man.
But the entirely organic, uncoordinated second feeding-frenzy, triggered by legitimate widespread interest in his manifold faults—one that never once focussed on his race except to notice the university’s own preoccupation with it—that is not pleasing to them at all.
I saw the plump chancellor moaning about it. His is a mostly ceremonial role, but my goodness, he is the second densest person in this story. His circular reasoning and question-begging should have been thrashed out of him when he was doing his BA there.
Arday did not deserve the end he met, but that was entirely his decision. He deserved everything else he got. It seems there are many more who also deserve close scrutiny. Unfortunately Arday having set a very high bar for eye-popping headline-worthiness means it won’t happen.
Arday did not deserve the end he met
He chose that ‘end’ of his own free will. And as they are won’t to say in the wokesphere: he didn’t think of the [his] children. A final heresy?
But few know that when two brains David Willetts* (Conservative) allowed Universities to raise their tuition fees to £9,000 a part of that legislative deal required DIE targets. So, universities are bound in law to….
*
Willetts also argues that we need to celebrate diversity in our higher education (HE) sector, rather than a single idea of what constitutes a top university. – The Conversation
It must have been difficult to meet the time commitments and run 6 marathons in a week.
At least he didn’t let the fractured leg slow him down! What is the expression? “Some things are so stupid that only an academic could believe them!”
that provided a nice chuckle
h/t George Orwell?
“Arday did not deserve the end he met”
He must have, since he gave it to himself. I have no symnpathy.
“He deserved everything else he got”
Actually he did not deserve any of the accolades he got heaped on him.
Yet even when proven a complete charlatan, he is still worshipped by the far-left.
A worthy petition to allow fracking in the Delaware River Basin:
https://shepstone.net/two-rivers-no-justice/
Please consider signing.
Hi. I remember NOAA? used to display a map showing ocean rise around the world, in some places there was little or no change and in others it was rising or decreasing. Is that graphic still available? A quick search only revealed a map where you enter an address rather than the little arrows pointing up or down worldwide.
They have a beta product here:
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/trends-and-extremes/main-product.html?mapTab=station&tab=trends
The Colorado River basin is over consumed because the consumers are getting dishonest and unrealistic price signals. That, of course, is the hallmark of socialistic and communistic pricing schemes – shortages.
Agricultural water (52%) is $500 to $200 per Acre Foot (43,560 cf)
Municipal & Industrial water (18%) is $500 to $1,000 per AF.
Water at my house in July – $3,560 per AF. ($110/1,345 cf)
Yeah, it’s data & math. Give it a shot.
I’d say boost agricultural $ by 50% and run for high ground.
And don’t give me any grief about my blue grass lawn. I paid for it.
Another factor here is that in the 1920’s when long-term water allocations were being assigned, the Colorado River basin was in a period of unusually wet precipitation, giving the illusion that water supplies would be available at similar volumes well into the long-term future.
The Mississippi experiences flooding from time to time. I wonder if a pipeline should be built to the west? It doesn’t totally solve the problem but it helps.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qi19eD0cxJQ
Unfortunately, they learned recently that the local granitic rock used to build the dam contains uranium in a concerning concentration. So, none of this water will be used for the next few years, allowing for testing and remediation planning if needed.
“The Chimney Hollow Reservoir is a new water storage project in Northern Colorado designed to hold up to 90,000 acre-feet of water and serve nearly one million people. The dam, which is 350 feet tall, is currently paused due to the discovery of uranium in the granite used for its construction, prompting ongoing safety tests.”
40.358083, -105.236308
And you find uranium in sedimentary rock-and limestone gravel also. Radon, for example, is a recommended test here in SW MO, and I have personally seen RE contracts pulled over a positive test, even tho it is very easily remediated. Much ado, I think, about nothing. In W. Illinois there is a town with native nuclides in the well water which have affected the local’s teeth structure…they still use the water. My point is: So what? OTH, St.Louis has a school built right next to a forgotten WW2 nuke processing site, and the local creek is posted to stay away and don’t touch or fish. Now THAT is a problem…so don’t sweat U in the granite…its stable.
Do birds have feathers? It isn’t just granitic rocks. Black shales in the east, and porous Morrison sandstones, and any recent sediments derived from uranium-bearing rocks will have uranium and its daughter products.
Scissor,
What on Earth is a “concerning concentration” of uranium in granite?
All granites will give a count on a scintillation counter. It mainly measures gamma radiation.
Gamma radiation is only of potential harm to people if they get close enough (a few metres) for long enough (all day, every day) to a particularly “hot” granite in terms of gamma radiation.
Even then, the gammas come not just from uranium, but also from potassium and the thorium decay series.
Look at hospital records. How often do death certificates state cause as “radiation from granite”?
Why get involved in the demonization of natural gamma radiation and uranium when the harm is trivial? We all evolved with it forever around us.
I used to spend hours in the pit of a huge rich uranium mine. Made it to 85 and going strong.
Geoff S
Thanks for the value of experience!
Geoff, I am almost 85 and quite healthy except for a little arthritis. There was a time, as a pre-pubscent, when I used my Gilbert Geiger counter to manually separate a bunch of carnotite into the the most radioactive pieces and ground those pieces in a mortar in the hope of making Yellow Cake. I had not yet had any formal chemistry courses and couldn’t figure out what they meant by “leaching.” Perhaps it was just as well as I was too ignorant to take any precautions like wearing a dust mask while grinding. Maybe we have reached a ripe old not in spite of our exposures, but because of them. 🙂
NEW MINE-MOUTH COAL ELECTRICITY LESS COSTLY, AVAILABLE NOW, NOT PIE IN THE SKY, LIKE EXPENSIVE FUSION AND SMALL MODULAR NUCLEAR
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/coal-electricity-less-costly-available-now-not-pie-in-the-sky
Wind/Solar electricity is at least 3 times more expensive than coal electricity; a main reason Europe is castrating itself.
US utilities are forced to buy offshore wind electricity for about 15 cents/kWh.
That price would have been 30 cents/kWh, if no 50% subsidies.
Hidden Costs: These are the A-to-Z costs (windmill to land fill) almost all folks are kept ignorant about.
At a future 25-30% W/S annual penetration on the grid, based on UK and German experience:
– Onshore grid expansion/reinforcement to connect far-flung W/S systems, about 2 c/kWh
– A fleet of traditional power plants to quickly counteract W/S variable output, on a less than minute-by-minute basis, 24/7/365, which means more Btu/kWh, more CO2/kWh, more cost of about 2 c/kWh
– A fleet of traditional power plants to provide electricity during 1) low-wind periods, 2) high-wind periods, when rotors are locked in place, and 3) low solar periods during mornings, evenings, at night, snow/ice on panels, which means more Btu/kWh, more CO2/kWh, more cost of about 2 c/kWh
– Pay W/S system Owners for electricity they could have produced, if no curtailment, about 1 c/kWh
– Importing electricity at high prices, when W/S output is low, 1 c/kWh
– Exporting electricity at low prices, when W/S output is high, 1 c/kWh
– Disassembly on land and at sea, reprocessing and storing at hazardous waste sites, about 2 c/kWh
Total: 2 + 2 + 2 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 2 = 11 c/kWh
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Offshore wind full cost of electricity FCOE = 30 c/kWh + 11 c/kWh = 41 c/kWh, no subsidies
Offshore wind full cost of electricity FCOE = 15 c/kWh + 11 c/kWh = 26 c/kWh, with equivalent of 50% subsidies
This compares with 7 c/kWh + 3 c/kWh = 10 c/kWh from existing gas, coal, nuclear, large reservoir hydro plants.
Some values increase due to inflation and as more W/S systems are added to the grid.
.
Such expensive W/S electricity would have made the US even less competitive in world markets.
Any US tariffs on the European/Chinese supply of W/S systems would greatly increase their turnkey capital costs/MW and their electricity costs/ kWh.
.
Here is an example of the lifetime cost of a coal plant
Coal gets very little direct subsidies in the US.
The key is running steadily at 90% output for 50 years, on average, i.e., base loaded.
.
Assume mine-mouth coal plant in Wyoming; 1800 MW; turnkey-cost $10 billion; life 50 y; Capacity factor 0.9; no direct subsidies; Wyoming coal, low-sulfur, no CO2 scrubbers needed; efficiency 0.4
Annual production = 1,800,000 kW x 8,766 h/y x 0.9 = 14,200,920,000 kWh
Coal heat value = 2000 lb/US ton x 8600 Btu/lb = 17,200,000 Btu/US ton
Year 1 coal cost = 14,200,920,000 kWh/y x (3412 Btu/kWh/0.4)/17,200,000 Btu/US ton x $15/US ton = $105,639,983/y
Year 1 O&M and other costs = 3 c/kWh. See Note.
Year 1 revenue, 14,200,920,000 kWh x $0.082kWh = $1,164,475,440/y
Payments to bank, $5 billion at 6% for 50 y; amortized at $317.2 million/y x 50 y = $15.86 billion
Owner investment, $5 billion at minimum of minimum of 10% for 50 y
Standard inflation of coal, electricity, O&M at 3.0 %/y
Year 1 electricity price $0.082kWh
Project cashflow for 50 years
Assume 20-y MACRS depreciation, if applicable
Assume no up-front tax credits; assume loan interest deduction from taxable income
.
Per google AI, the Owner’s initial cash-on-cash yield starts at 6.31% in Year 1. Because the bank debt stays entirely static while operating profits increase via inflation, the cash yield crosses the 10.00% mark by Year 11 ($533.24 Million) and hits 47.52% by Year 50. This shifts the entire 50-year weighted return profile to a 10.77% exact IRR.
NOTE:
Fixed O&M (labor, maintenance, insurance, taxes, land lease)
Variable O&M (water, chemicals, lubricants, waste disposal)
Fixed + Variable, newer plants 2 c/kWh, older plants up to 4 c/kWh
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Traditional Nuclear has similar economics; life 60 to 80 y; CF 0.9 in the US.
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For perspective, China used 2204.62/2000 x 4300 = 4740 million US ton in 2024.
China and Germany have multiple ultra-super-critical, USC, coal plants with efficiencies of 45% (LHV), 42% (HHV)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/ultrasupercritical-plant
Looking at the pure logarithmic baseline starting from 2030, the math tells the real story:
With CO₂ moving from 435 ppm in 2030 up to 600 ppm by 2100, the temperature anomaly only inches from 0.73°C to 1.27°C. That is a total of just 0.54°C of additional warming across seven decades—with each decade adding less than the last.
Keep in mind, this is a straight baseline that does not include water vapor or other physical forces. Under the unyielding laws of physics, this logarithmic curve represents the absolute maximum CO₂ warming possible at each ppm level, because every incremental molecule of CO₂ has less impact than the one before it.
Where is the “runaway CO₂” everyone is breathlessly talking about?
When models spit out catastrophic numbers on that exact same carbon path, they aren’t reading the physics of the gas. They are adding unverified multipliers to inflate the balance sheet. The physical law dictates diminishing returns, not exponential panic.
Correct me if I am wrong, but Happer etal argue for a 1 deg warming if CO2 doubles in concentration. If we assume that the temperature has risen about 0.5 deg as measured by Christy and Spencer as per the graph on this site, then surely CO2 can’t be responsible for all of that increase as CO2 has increased by around 50ppm more or less since the warming started. Which then suggests that something else may be responsible, and possibly the rise in CO2 is in response to this warming rather than the cause?
Bingo!
If co2 is not the primary driver of modern warming, temperature shifts are best explained by a combination of powerful natural mechanisms: small, multi-percent variations in global cloud cover and albedo that alter raw solar input far more efficiently than trace gases; multi-decadal ocean-atmosphere oscillations (like the PDO and AMO) acting as massive thermal batteries that periodically discharge stored heat into the lower troposphere; and the shifting dynamics of solar intensity and cosmic-ray-modulated cloud nucleation. While mainstream modelers often try to patch modeling gaps by invoking sulfur dioxide “aerosol unmasking,” these three natural valves provide a robust, physically grounded accounting of historical climate variability without relying on a trace-gas panic.
My calendar says August, 2026 here down under, today.
What do we know of 2030-2100? SFA
It has not happened yet.
What educated guess are you using to provide your calculated graph?
How many volcanic eruptions have you guessed will occur and what size do you expect them to be?
My point, your figures are as worthless or as valuable as theirs.
Hi Phillip, thanks for the note. “You’re missing the point—those figures aren’t a crystal ball or a forecast of what 2030–2100 will actually do in the real world. Of course nobody knows how many volcanoes or solar shifts are coming.
That graph is a pure, isolated sensitivity calculation for CO2 alone, holding everything else completely flat to test the raw math of the gas. The Temperature is not a forecast, it is the determinant directly from the math and physics. The entire point of running that baseline is to expose the modelers’ sleight of hand: if you isolate just the greenhouse physics of CO2 up to 600 ppm without adding unverified feedback multipliers or guessing at future volcanoes, the direct warming path is inherently modest and self-limiting.
It’s not a prediction of the future; it’s an audit of the math. If computer models spit out catastrophic panic using that exact same carbon path, it proves they aren’t reading the physics of the gas—they’re baking in invisible multipliers to force a crisis.”
“Where is the “runaway CO₂” everyone is breathlessly talking about?”
In the psyche of the computer programmers developing the models.
Or the politicians spending other peoples money.
When analyzing Earth’s climate system strictly through natural and geological processes while omitting the unproven CO2 control theory, the historical record demonstrates that surface conditions on Earth are governed by a complex interplay of orbital mechanics, ocean circulation, atmospheric dynamics, internal geological forces and most importantly tectonic activity, .
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10167431955268812&set=pcb.28002975009395994
Ever wonder…
Why the name: “Greenhouse gases”?
Why not “Warming gases”?
The atmosphere is nothing like a greenhouse.
Could it be…
It brings to mind Earth’s “Greenhouse state”.
A far warmer time than today.
Distracting from the current “Icehouse state”
All too real.
Keeping the public in the dark.
Better they stay ignorant of the ice age
Assuming it’s over.
Same for Tectonic Activity that got us here.
Part of the Fear Mongering.
Image: Visualize a man with a blindfold, reaching with his hands blindly, with a glacier in the background and snow on the ground. He is saying: “I see no ice age.”
The answer is simple and easily discovered.
Long ago, it was noticed that ordinary glass used in windows could be used to make a shed, a “house”, closed off from the outside so that air circulation was minimised (it kept the wind out) where the inside was warmer than the outside especially when the sun was shining but would work even on overcast days and remained warm throughout the night when there was no light in the sky.
Plants inside the shed grew while the same plants outside died of the cold.
They were “green” amongst the brown dead outside.
In this instance, it was nothing to do with a gas; it was GLASS.
Now, the English language allows for coupling words – attribute the gas with the property of the glass – greenhouse gas – which does a similar thing.
The spectrum of sunlight allowed into the shed is from the very very hot sun, it strikes all the matter inside the shed and the matter gets warmer. However, the temperature of the warmed stuff in the shed has a totally different spectrum from the sunlight, lower frequency waves and glass is NOT nearly as transparent to the low frequency spectral spread and so less energy escapes the shed until it reaches a higher temperature than the outside.
That the term “greenhouse gas” is conceptually flawed or politically loaded rests on two distinct critiques: physical inaccuracy and semantic framing.
The Physical Critique: Misleading Analogy
From a purely thermodynamic standpoint, the term “greenhouse” is an imperfect analogy for how atmospheric trace gases trap heat.
Convection vs. Radiation: A real greenhouse works primarily by physically blocking convection. The glass roof creates a physical barrier that prevents warm air from rising, expanding, and escaping into the surrounding atmosphere.
Atmospheric Absorption: Atmospheric trace gases (like water vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane) do not trap air physically. Instead, they absorb outgoing longwave infrared radiation emitted by Earth’s surface and re-radiate a portion of it in all directions—including back toward the surface.
Because radiative absorption and convection suppression operate on entirely different physical mechanisms, physicists and meteorologists frequently note that the greenhouse analogy oversimplifies complex atmospheric thermodynamics.
The Semantic Critique: Conflation of Terms
The core of the argument regarding intentional or unintentional conflation involves three key points:
1. Conflating Natural Baselines with Human Increments
The atmospheric radiative effect is a natural property of Earth’s atmosphere, dominated primarily by water vapor and clouds. Without this natural atmospheric blanket, Earth’s global mean surface temperature would be approximately -18°C (0°F) rather than its current baseline of roughly 15°C (59°F).
Critique holds that using “greenhouse gas” blanket-wise leads non-experts to treat all warming effects as anthropogenic, obscuring the vast, natural baseline warming that makes life on Earth possible in the first place.
2. Obscuring the “Icehouse” Reality
A key paleoclimatological argument is that using terms like “greenhouse gas” primes the public to believe the planet is naturally warmer or heading toward a permanent, runaway tropical state, ignoring Earth’s macro-geological context:
The Quaternary Ice Age: Earth has been in the Late Cenozoic Ice Age for over 2.5 million years (and Antarctica has been glaciated for over 30 million years). We live in a relatively warm interglacial period (the Holocene) within an overall icehouse state.
Glacial Buffering: Cold ocean waters and extensive polar ice caps act as massive thermal sinks. The persistent cold of an icehouse state imposes severe structural constraints on heat distribution, making a runaway “hothouse” transition radically different from typical interglacial variability.
3. Rhetorical Conflation with “Greenhouse Earth”
In paleoclimatological terminology, a “Greenhouse State” (or Hothouse Earth) refers to deep-time eras (like the Cretaceous or Early Eocene) when the planet had zero permanent polar ice caps.
Critics argue that applying “greenhouse” to everyday atmospheric trace gases implicitly conflates a minor shift in radiative forcing during an interglacial period with a complete transition into a full-scale geological Greenhouse State. This rhetorical leap can lead the public to conclude that polar ice loss means the current Ice Age itself is collapsing, rather than observing expected fluctuation within a glaciated epoch.
Actually, it is not a misleading analogy. The earth had an atmosphere from the beginning and it also consisted of a lot of water and gained more over some long time period.
No thermodynamic laws or principles are broken or omitted and it tells us that earth, if it was accidentally only rock it would have a cooler steady state baseline at its coolest. Its distance from the sun would not be able to be called the Goldilocks zone.
Someone applied an elementary theoretical model and learned something important and interesting at the dawn of modern planetary climatology. Nerds are quarrelling about who guessed it first, some claiming a woman did and others give several names of men.
‘Convection vs. Radiation: A real greenhouse works primarily by physically blocking convection. The glass roof creates a physical barrier that prevents warm air from rising, expanding, and escaping into the surrounding atmosphere.’
Thank you. For some reason Phillip would have us believe that a car only heats up on a sunny day because the windshield blocks the IR emissions from the upholstery. For those of us old enough to remember cars before a/c became standard equipment, the usual practice to cool down a hot car was to drive around with the side windows down.
Here in Washington state, the Climate Commitment Act dictates that the state’s carbon emissions must be cut on this highly aggressive schedule:
— By 2020, reduction to 90,500,000 metric tons (1990 levels)
— By 2030, reduction to 50,000,000 metric tons (45 percent below 1990 levels)
— By 2040, reduction to 27,000,000 metric tons (70 percent below 1990 levels)
— By 2050, reduction to 5,000,000 metric tons (95 percent below 1990 levels)
These targets are unambiguous mandates codified into law. The targets are not in any way aspirational. It is Washington State government which has final responsibility for ensuring the CCA commitments are achieved.
By government policy, all future expansion of power generation capacity in the Pacific Northwest must come from wind and solar backed by batteries. These two reports go into some depth in describing the issues which come with the wind & solar dictate:
Northwest Regional Forecast of Power Loads and Resources, August 2026 through July 2036
(Pacific Northwest Utilities Conference Committee — PNUCC)
Draft Ninth Northwest Power Plan (Northwest Power and Conservation Council — NWPCC)
Here in the US Pacific Northwest, natural gas plays a critical role alongside hydro in meeting peak demand. From the PNUCC 2026 Report:
“Natural gas is the region’s second largest source of electricity after hydropower and plays a critical balancing role in meeting peak demand and managing variability. As demand grows and other traditional firm resources retire, coordination between the electric and natural gas systems is increasingly important to maintain reliability, highlighting the growing interdependence between them, particularly during periods of reduced hydropower output. As policymakers and jurisdictions pursue efforts to reduce or eliminate natural gas use, this role is difficult to replace with currently available technologies. If natural gas-fired plants were removed from the power system, the challenge would not be limited to replacing energy; it would also involve replacing the resource’s ability to perform during peak conditions and respond to system stress in real time. Replacing natural gas generation requires substantial clean firm resources not yet available at scale (such as advanced geothermal, new nuclear or long-duration storage), a significant overbuild of variable resources or heavy reliance on imports from neighboring regions, each of which presents cost, risk, timing and feasibility challenges. In addition, replacing natural gas used for heating during winter peak demand without coordinated planning will add pressure to an already strained system by shifting additional load onto the electric system during its most constrained periods.”
Northwest power planners assume that natural gas will remain an important source of energy in the US Northwest for the long-term future. It’s an assumption which is directly contradicted by existing political dictates which demand a decarbonized power grid by 2050:
— New-build gas-fired capacity cannot be constructed in the Pacific Northwest, and legacy gas-fired capacity cannot be retained, without directly violating the region’s Net Zero by 2050 energy policies.
— Washington state currently has approximately 4,000 Megawatts of gas-fired generation capacity located inside the state’s borders. All of that capacity must eventually be retired if the state is to comply with its Climate Commitment Act mandates.
As it stands today, no one is calling either the region’s power planners or the state governments of the region to account for not coming to some kind of resolution concerning the issue.
From DDG Search Assist: Washington state voters upheld the Climate Commitment Act on November 5, 2024, by rejecting Initiative 2117, which aimed to repeal the act. This decision demonstrated strong public support for the state’s climate policies.
About 61% voted to keep the CCA. The politicians and citizens have bought into the hysteria and the “Climate Pledge”. Use the last two words as a search string. When The Climate Pledge Arena gets a new name, we will know CO2 is no longer considered a demon witch to be eradicated.
The PNUCC report states that 32,000 Megawatts of nameplate wind and solar must be installed in the US Northwest by 2036 in order to support a baseload increase of 8,000 average Megawatts demand.
Those figures yield an expected combined annual capacity factor of 25% and a 4X wind and solar overbuild.
But the report also recognizes that capacity factors will fall below the averages in the summer and winter doldrums leaving a capacity shortage even with a 4X wind and solar overbuild.
Another situation is developing. The state governments of Washington and Oregon have now come out in favor a breaching and removing an additional four hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River system, in addition to the four already targeted, for a total of eight.
These eight hydroelectric dams have a combined output of 3,300 average Megawatts annually. The loss of these dams plus the retirement of 4,000 Megawatts of gas-fired capacity yields a total of roughly 7,000 aMW annual output which is not accounted for in the Northwest’s long-term power planning assumptions.
If we add in the 7,000 aMW capacity lost from removal of the eight dams and the early retirement of Washington state’s gas-fired capacity, then another 28,000 Megawatts of wind and solar nameplate is needed at a 4X overbuild to cover the shortfall — if not by 2036, then by 2050.
The next twenty-five years must see a minimum of 60,000 nameplate Megawatts of wind and solar installed in the US Northwest by mid-century, and possibly a lot more nameplate than that if it is eventually recognized that a 6X overbuild is necessary to minimize the battery storage needed to handle the region’s winter and summer doldrums.
It is mid-way between the 2020 and 2030 mandates. How is the state doing?
Next to no progress has been made in meeting the 2030 mandated reduction target. And no one in the regional environmental NGO’s or in the regional climate activist groups are calling the State of Washington to account for the near complete lack of actual emission reduction as mandated by law.
The air above citicontains less CO2 than vegetation heavy areas?
Who would have thunk it with nature providing more CO2 than humans?
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/meet-luca-mcgill-the-arizona-eighth-grader-who-flew-a-drone-120-metres-into-the-sky-expecting-cities-to-have-the-most-ground-level-co2-rural-areas-did-instead/articleshow/133425451.cms
Really like the article image 🙂
I wonder why someone gave you a down-vote?
The common use of the term “software engineer” is an anathema.
Anyone that has not acquired a Bachelor of Engineering Degree is not entitled to call themselves an engineer at all.
It is extremely annoying to have frequent reports in the media refer to ‘software engineer’ as if it is something that really exists. They are referring to people who spend all their time sitting in front of a screen and probably know very little about engineering.
Software technician is a more suitable term.
I am reminded of the story I heard at Taliesin West where the minions from licensing in the state of Arizona complained that Frank Lloyd Wright didn’t have a license to practice architectural design in the state. I’ve always thought that was a bit like John the Baptist demanding that Christ should have been baptized to make Him qualified to preach. Just having a degree does not guarantee that someone can actually do engineering work. A title or even a license does not make one an engineer.
Were Archimedes or Leonardo de Vinci engineers? How could they have been if degrees in engineering were not available during their lifetimes?
My father grew up working on Model T’s and Farmall F20’s. He had a high school education. He was an International Harvester dealer and mechanic until he died. He was a master welder but never went welding school. He could examine a new piece of equipment and predict points of failure, he could “see” how torsion, compression, and tension would affect steel, but he had no education in metallurgy or mechanical engineering. Some people are just born seeing how things work in their heads. Just like talented musicians can “see” music in their heads. A younger brother inherited that ability, but I did not. Running a perfect bead was nigh unto impossible.
Did I ever mention that I bought an IH 1970 Scout Aristocrat 4WD for doing my thesis work? I owned it for about 45 years (nearly 500,000 miles on it) before selling it for what I paid for it. The only reason that I sold it was that after 10 years in Ohio, I was having trouble keeping up with the rust damage. More damage happened to the body in the 10 years in Ohio than the previous 35 years in California.
Scouts were renowned for their rusting bodies. I had two of them. The last one was the nice 1974 Scout II built for highway with something like a 390 rear end. It would do 50 mph in low range on the sand and outrun most of on the river sand. 345 cu in engine. I couldn’t keep with the rust from road salt here in Kansas and Missouri. I also had a 1980 Travelall that was a behemoth on the road. Loved it!
The susceptibility to damage from road salt is surprising because the bodies were dipped in zinc, and the Aristocrat also had asphaltum applied to deaden sound. In my case, it also had 2″ of oil-soaked road dust on the upper horizontal portions of the frame. When I brought it out to Ohio, there was NO rust anywhere. It only took a couple of years to wash the dust away and for the salt to start eating through the two protective layers.
The art work for Open Thread is beautiful.
Shallow, selective in who is a ‘scientist’, left-leaning newspaper, falacious arguments, ….:
The world inches toward catastrophic climate events: ‘Bigger shocks are on the way’ – Victoria Times Colonist
I change batteries in my my indoor-outdoor thermometers today. I couldn’t help but notice the difference in temmperatures as they sat side by side on the table 0.7F. It made me think of the claims made about global temperature changes in this range. It made me smile.
Photo of my indoor-outdoor thermometers