In the time-step-iterated earth system models, the radiative transfer code is executed separately from the physics operations for mass and energy flow. I realized this fact some time ago as I was reading about the NCAR CAM5 atmospheric model. I followed up recently to better understand why this is so.
My prompt to Grok 4.6 on 9-27-2026:
“About the earth system models that are used for CMIP scenarios please describe how the mass and energy flow computations at each time step are necessarily completed separate from the execution of the radiative transfer component of the model. I am interested in understanding the nature of the sequential processing which must occur so as to compute new shortwave and longwave radiative fluxes for continuing the iteration.”
Here is the first paragraph from the response from Grok 4.6. Please read the full conversation captured in the pdf linked below it:
“Earth-system models used for CMIP simulations advance the atmosphere by operator splitting: the dynamical core and most physical parameterizations update mass and energy on a relatively short time step, while the full radiative-transfer calculation is performed far less often and then held (or only weakly updated) until the next radiation call. The two calculations cannot be performed simultaneously on the same instantaneous state because radiation is both computationally expensive and depends on a consistent thermodynamic and cloud field that itself results from the preceding mass- and energy-flow steps.”
So what? The execution of the radiative transfer component of the model is therefore best understood as a “freeze-frame” computation from the skin surface up to space through the modeled layers of the atmospheric column, using the simulated physical state conditions from the most recent iteration.
This is the same, in concept, as running the static-atmosphere MODTRAN model manually at each radiative transfer execution, using a set of cloud, surface temperature, and atmospheric selections, including CO2 and CH4 concentrations. The resulting “looking up” IR flux in W/m^2 is applied as one of the surface energy inputs. A higher CO2 concentration will always give a higher number.
The CMIP/IPCC models therefore “run hot” – some more than others – because they return a built-in “warming” trend with rising concentrations of CO2, CH4, N2O. They operate in these scenarios – by construction – as a stepped-static energy accumulator as the iteration proceeds, so as to make long-term sensible heat gain the only possible result on land, in the oceans, and in the lower atmosphere . This applies to hindcasts of the past and to projections into the future. Or in the case of a pulse exercise, a more rapid warming response occurs, modified by thermal storage.
The premise of the modeling exercise is that the computed static radiative “warming” tendency, from rising concentrations of the non-condensing IR-active trace gases, operates as a climate system “forcing” to which amplifying “feedbacks” then arise.
But that framing is based on assumptions. NO ONE KNOWS those starting assumptions to be valid in the proper context of the observed circulation. Cloud formation and dissipation within that circulation are the dominant influence on the independently observed longwave emission to space. Meanwhile, the power intensity of dynamic energy conversion, as computed within the ERA5 reanalysis, is the overwhelming influence on the vertical disposition of the energy involved in the incremental radiative “warming” tendency. And let’s not forget how the latent energy of water vapor makes horizontal and vertical energy transport so powerful within the circulation.
For these reasons, among others, the entire time-step-iterated CMIP/IPCC modeling exercise is inherently circular. The simulations animate the premise but cannot justify it.
Thank you for your patience in this matter.
P.S. Here’s something more to think about. There could well be a set of parameter-tuning values for cloud properties, for radiative transfer itself, and for representation of sub-grid-scale processes, etc., that would make one of these time-step-iterated models completely insensitive to rising CO2, even with the execution of the radiative transfer code separated from the physics steps. That would be an interesting design-of-experiments exercise.
What would be the results from a GCM run on a hypothetical Earth with all of its CO2 removed from the atmosphere? I realise such a scenario would not be good for plant/animal life but I wonder whether it would shed any light on the relative importance of CO2 in controlling surface temperature vis-a-vis H2O which I consider to be the more important of the two. When I put this question to a couple of AI systems they concluded that, in the central tropical belt, surface temperature would not change very much but polar regions would become much colder in the absence of CO2. There would also be a much steeper temperature gradient between tropical and polar regions than is the case with CO2 in our atmosphere.
What would be the results from a GCM run on a hypothetical Earth with all of its CO2 removed from the atmosphere?
Indistinguishable. Surface temperatures would still be around 90 C to – 90 C. Surface would still cool at night, and heat during the day. Try it.
Initial AI responses to questions of this nature invariably result in grovelling apologies from the AI, with profuse promises to do better in future. In my experience, anyway.
Robert – that seems to be an odd conclusion. If there is less CO2 in the middle atmosphere, what is radiating heat to space? Is it that the surface is cold but emits IR and with no CO2 it is “undiminished” by interception? That dong won’t hunt.
There is water vapour in the air and it either evaporates from water or sublimates from ice and snow. So there would be little reduction in terms of capture and re-emission from IR because CO2 is a small % of the total.
If there is less CO2 in the atmosphere it has lost some of its ability to cool by radiation so…why would it be cooler?
There is a net heat loss from the poles because they receive little and have relatively low humidity above the surface. The heat loss over Antarctica is strongly dominated by ozone. The continent is a huge heat vent. There is a lot more ozone over the Arctic so the net loss is reduced.
If CO2 dropped to zero, the IR insolation at the surface would increase with that filter removed, ergo, more evaporation of water. In the tropics the temperature of the oceans is regulated by the Willis Cloud Formation Mechanism (WCFM™) so the temperature is probably not going to change at all. If there is no CO2 and more water vapour in consequence, why would the poles cool? Let’s say the CO2 was 400 and the water vapour 20,000. CO2 goes to zero, then it would take less than 400 ppm H2O to compensate in terms of absorption. Let’s say water vapour rises to 20,300ppm. The GHG effect remains the same.
The whole “water vapour is only a feedback” idea is nonsense yet it is built into the models. That would mean sublimation and evaporation can only work in the presence of CO2. Nah…
If there is less CO2 in the atmosphere it has lost some of its ability to cool by radiation so…why would it be cooler?
Keep in mind that most IR radiation originates from the ocean/land that has absorbed the sun’s insolation. With no CO2, that notch that appears in the outgoing radiation would disappear and travel right on to space.
CO2 is NOT the way that earth cools although the CAGW folks would like you to believe that.
‘A higher CO2 concentration will always give a higher number.’
Right you are, David. This is the conjecture of all climate alarmists, and far too many ‘mainstream skeptics’. They simply apply the mechanism by which radiative transfer occurs between objects and/or surfaces composed of condensed matter to atmospheric GHGs, whose radiative properties are significantly modified by collisions with non-IR active gas species.
In a nutshell, the addition of more CO2 to an atmosphere modeled in accordance with radiative transfer theory as a series of ‘slabs’ inevitably warms like a steel greenhouse to which additional ‘shells’ have been added. Unfortunately for the alarmists, there is no evidence from either extensive carbonate rock or ice core records that the former has ever occurred.
“This is the conjecture of all climate alarmists, and far too many ‘mainstream skeptics’.” As you know, much of what I post here at WUWT in comments to articles and on the Open Thread is to show that the “mainstream skeptic” ought not to concede that *some* sensible heat gain can be attributed to rising concentration of CO2. There is no way to know that. Simpson and Brunt explained this perfectly well to Callendar in 1938. So here we are almost 90 years later, and the static framing (as expressed by Callendar) vs the dynamic framing (as expressed by Simpson and Brunt) of the incremental IR influence is still the central issue.
‘…the “mainstream skeptic” ought not to concede that *some* sensible heat gain can be attributed to rising concentration of CO2. There is no way to know that.’
Indeed. In fact, due to collisions with non-IR active gases, almost all of thermal radiation emitted by the Earth and absorbed by CO2 at 15 mu is converted to sensible heat within +/-10 meters of the surface.
It’s difficult to fathom how changing that distance even a few meters either way would have any measurable effect on so-called ‘GAT’.
This is something that always amazes me. The optical path length through CO2 is somewhere around 10 to 20 meters. That means that ALL the radiation at 15 um is absorbed at that distance. The other part of that is that “downwelling” radiation from CO2 also encounters that same density and never reaches the earth’s surface.
‘The other part of that is that “downwelling” radiation from CO2 also encounters that same density and never reaches the earth’s surface.’
The ‘workaround’ for this is to invoke LTE (local thermodynamic equilibrium) so as to model / conjure up a fictitious steady state wherein an air parcel fixed in space and illuminated at a constant rate absorbs and emits thermal radiation in accordance with Kirchoff’s Law.
Of course, here on real Earth, not only do we have diurnal and seasonal cycles that constantly change the degree of solar insolation that reaches the surface, but also air parcels that freely lift / move via convection and advection, thereby making the process irreversible.
E.V. sales have risen in more than 90 countries this year, including Brazil, Australia, India and South Korea. The I.E.A. said the energy crisis had “clearly reinforced the case for E.V.s.”
In fact, eight out of ten new cars sold this year fall into the “new energy” category, with fully electric cars alone making up just over a third of the total. Hybrids represent 24% of sales and plug-in hybrids 21%.
Hybrids and plug-in hybrids are not EVs as their primary motive power source is ICE. With your thinking, all cars are EVs because all have batteries, even my Outback. Nutty. Iceland is quite small (population 400,000) and a ~250 or 300 mile range will get the driver most anywhere. Also most Iceland electricity comes from hydro so it is cheap. EVs make sense there. Want to talk about Norway where BEVs are more popular than Iceland?
“In Norway 76 blocks have been offered for exploration in the Barents and Norwegian Seas and 57 new production licences have been issued for the Norwegian continental shelf”
IEA ‘World Energy Investment 2026’ (May 2026)
Got to keep contributing to that Sovereign Wealth Fund which provided huge grants to Norwegians who bought EVs 🙂
Iceland had an excess of electricity generation so they started to import Bauxite and produce aluminium. Not only do they have hydro generated electricity but also geothermal power. They use the hot water to keep their roads ice free in the winter as well as generating electricity. We noticed the large number of vehicles that were either hybrid or fully electric when we there in the summer. Iceland as a country is larger than England, although it has a population that is about 10,000 more than the population of the city of Leicester or the city of Nottingham in the English Midlands.
[“If only there were nordic countries with high EV sales…”]
Nordic countries don’t get Russian winters, you pratt.
They are protected by the tail end of the Gulf-Stream.
It’s not winter yet, but currently, Finland is 8.9°C, & Siberia is already down to – 12 °C.
I am all for EVs if people want them, but you authoritarians always force people to use them or you incentives companies to make them or people to buy them. Sadly none of these are good for taxpayers. I suppose that is the authoritarian way?
Like you, Derg, I’ve nothing against them, but until someone builds a small electric hatchback that can go at least 450 miles between charges and thus match the re-fuelling frequency of my Vauxhall Meriva, I ain’t interested.
I looked a the spread of recharging stations across the US. No way would I make a long distance, cross country trek, without elaborate planning and mapping the locations of charging stations convenient to the route and accounting for distance.
MUR, you do realise Russia has very little wind and solar?
Russians are buying Chinese EVs because Ukrainian drones wrecked their refineries and they can’t get gasoline. That’s not a conversion; it’s desperation.
And when they plug those EVs in, the electricity is still ~57% thermal (mostly gas), ~19% nuclear, ~17% hydro. Wind + solar combined? Under 1%.
So the big ‘EV win’ is Russians switching from Russian oil to Russian gas (plus nuclear), while buying cars from China.
Ukraine will now start knocking out Russian power plants as their drones and missiles improve. Gotta show the Russian public what sort of winter the Ukrainians have been having for several years.
Gotta show the Russian public what sort of winter the Ukrainians have been having for several years.
So just trying to be annoying for no particular reason? Or does Ukraine believe that Russia will surrender – possibly asking the USA to take over, and Make Russia Great Again?
The future is unknowable, but I wouldn’t bet money on a Russian surrender.
OF COURSE Russian won’t surrender- but they will lose their 3 day war. They will be driven out of Ukraine. That’s not a surrender, but it’s an immense loss. As for being annoying, it’s a fact that Ukraine is planning on smashing Russian power plants this winter so the Russian citizens will finally wake up to what their nation has been doing to another nation.
OF COURSE Russian won’t surrender- but they will lose their 3 day war. They will be driven out of Ukraine.
You may be right. I envy your ability to see into the future.
Where did you get the “3 day war” from? As to Russian citizens “waking up”, is that similar to the citizens of US or Israel “waking up”? Or are Russians singularly dense, and unable to comprehend the their government’s proposals set out in 2022, and firmly rejected by the US (and Ukraine)?
Governments do what Governments do. Destroying every bridge, road, and power plant in a country of 90 million which has never attacked you, threatening to destroy a civilisation – obviously supported by the American public?
Or the Israeli government supporting a Rabbi who proclaimed “A million Arabs are not worth one Jewish fingernail”?
Time will tell. I certainly make no claims about the future – it looks a bit foggy to me.<g>
The paper’s retraction wasn’t simply because it reached a “skeptical” conclusion.
It contained multiple straightforward factual errors, misread standard climate data products, and drew conclusions that were not supported by the evidence it presented (or by the broader literature it largely ignored).
Frankly, it sounds like it should never have been published.
I am always suspicious of papers that are published within a short time of being submitted, which this paper appears to have been. The bigger issue is this brings the whole process of publishing papers into question with or without peer review.
No longer do published papers carry any more chance of being worth the paper they are printed on than those in the free domain or even comment sections in special interest media.
Good question, so I asked the ‘net….
“When a carbon dioxide (CO₂) molecule absorbs or emits infrared radiation at a wavelength of approximately 15 micrometers, it undergoes a specific type of molecular motion where the oxygen atoms move back and forth perpendicular to the molecular axis, bending the straight molecule.”
Yes, same as with water vapor absorbing or emitting LWIR. It is the whole molecule acting as a unit, not just the hydrogen atoms or oxygen atom acting individually.
As a matter of fact, individual atoms do not have a dipole moment and cannot be considered as having vibrating bonds.
Yes, there is a total included bond angle of about 105 degrees between the central oxygen atom and the two hydrogen atoms at either end of the H2O molecule, giving the molecule a permanent dipole moment which is critical in its ability to interact with EM radiation, especially to be “IR active”.
Interestingly, the “bent”, asymmetrical water molecule with its permanent dipole moment interacts directly with electric fields of IR photons through many vibrational and rotational modes (bending, rocking, twisting, and spinning), unlike the modes available with the straight, symmetric CO2 molecule which only has an inducible dipole moment. This allows water vapor to absorb a much broader range of infrared light, so together with its much higher concentration in the atmosphere this means H2O contributes far more total greenhouse warming than does CO2.
BTW, seeking knowledge is really the antithesis of remaining ignorant. Thanks for asking!
No, not true. Microwave ovens use—guess what, microwaves—NOT IR radiation to produce heat energy.
The microwave energy spectrum is roughly 100 to 125,000 times lower in frequency than the LWIR spectrum, depending on the specific frequencies being compared.
Microwaves do not have enough energy per photon or the correct frequency to excite true molecular vibrations in water. Instead, they primarily cause polar water molecules to undergo forced, incomplete rotational oscillations (“flipping” back and forth with the alternating electric field). This rapid reorientation creates intermolecular friction, which manifests as thermal energy (aka, “dielectric heating”).
This is fundamentally different from LWIR directly coupling with and exciting the vibrational energy levels of the water molecule bonds, which raises the over kinetic energy (temperature) of the water molecule . . . no friction being involved.
CO2 absorbs light (EMR) from anything hotter than itself, as does all matter. Conversely, remove external heat sources, and all matter radiates all its energy away, at progressively longer wavelengths, until it reaches absolute zero.
Isn’t that a simplification of the fact that “all matter (in a vacuum) radiates … until it reaches absolute zero” while absorbing radiation from all other matter above absolute zero to reach a net “balancing” radiating temperature? Otherwise, you are asking an emitter to be aware of the temperature of its various targets.
It starts out with a stated assumption that valence bonds are modelled as springs.
Electrostatic forces do not have a modulus of elasticity.
There is no “anchor” so it is not like a tuning fork.
A single oxygen atom cannot move relative to the molecule as a whole.
Carbon is less mass than oxygen.
A moving oxygen atom drags the carbon and that rotates the other oxygen all with the unstated assumption that a single atom can be impacted by a “photon particle.”
Consider also the infinite number of orientations an atom has relative to the sun and the infinite number of motion vectors.
Even if one could target the center of an oxygen atom, there would be very few that responded in that way.
It is kinda like a poor interpretation of Planck’s theory. Planck resolved early on that analyzing heat radiation atom by atom was going to be a downer from a mathematical point of view. He hypothesized using a small volume (dτ) that had enough mass to allow a macro view of what was occurring was the appropriate method. This led to his postulating that a series of “springs” existed in the dτ that were energized during absorption and led to his frequency-based quanta.
CO2 can emit at all frequencies (within limits), proportional to its absolute temperature.
Just above absolute zero, the emitted wavelengths are very long. At say 500 C, a lot shorter – the same as those emitted by the rest of the air compressed in a compression ignition engine (Diesel).
Of course, some people are convinced that CO2 can only absorb and emit specific frequencies, which means that have to invent “new physics” to explain how solid CO2 can turn into a gas, if it can only absorb the frequencies which frozen CO2 emits!
This harks back to Maxwell’s wave theory, which leads to things like the “ultraviolet catastrophe”. Some otherwise intelligent and highly educated peoples’ minds are still firmly attached to 19th century concepts.
Adding CO2 to air does not make thermometers hotter, in any case.
Agreed. Solid CO2 will likely have a broader radiation range than at gas temperatures. Black bodies don’t exist, but grey body solids have surfaces and lattices that can have a large number of different radiation frequencies.
Really none. A solid body such as the earth’s land, is in essence a lattice with all kinds of various connections and levels of excitation. This allows radiating as a grey body and why the Planck Curve is shown matching earth’s radiation. It is what separates the surface from the gaseous atmosphere that has limited absorption frequencies.
Bruce Cobb
October 4, 2026 5:05 am
In 4 weeks, we in the US will once again be undergoing our semi-annual ritual of reverting from DST (Daylight Stupid Time) back to ST (Smart Time). In 1918, President Wilson implemented DST, thinking it would “save energy” (spoiler alert; it doesn’t). Seven months later, it was repealed. Oops. Then in 1942, President Roosevelt revived the practice, but it didn’t become official until 1966, when President Johnson signed a law making the start and end dates of DST uniform across the country (with 2 holdouts, Arizona and Hawaii, along with several US territories). Around the world, 69 other countries also adhere to the DST (Daylight Stupid Time) regime. If the “cool kid” does it, then it must be OK, I guess. Now, some geniuses want to make Daylight Stupid Time permanent, which is literally doubling down on Stupid. Oh, they have their “reasons”. All of them conveniently ignore the downsides. The bottom line is that science, as well as common sense argues for ditching the semi-annual switching and staying on Smart Time year-round.
DST avoids dark/black mornings when people go to work or school. DST was eliminated briefly in 1974 but increased pre-sunrise accidents, particularly involving school kids, led to cancellation of the change. Injured/dead kids is the downside.
Ditto, and 77 also in a week. But as a kid that hour change just gave we’uns more time to raise Hell in the dark, and walking in the dark was always cool.
Employers are a lot more flexible on start times than they used to be. Many companies are used to their programmers not showing until 9 or even 10 — if they even come in.
In the late 1960’s the U.K. government decided to run a three year trial of maintaining British Summer Time (GMT+1/Zulu+1) throughout. I was at school in the English East Midlands at the time, during the winter months the sun rose between 9 AM and 9-30 AM, however in Scotland sunrise was between 10AM and 10-30AM. The experiment lasted one year because of increases in Road Traffic Accidents.
Medically, look at the effect of shift work.
Those subject to it get diurnal dysrhythmia and have the same increase tendency to MVAs and other accidents.
It is the abrupt change which is the problem
The rigidity is in all the legislation concerning commerce and labour laws. Swings and roundabouts.
I was a nurse working in A&E/ED and our rotating shift pattern was three weeks on days, 7 days of nights followed by 7 days off. The shifts were 12.5 hours. It used to take me until my fifth day off to recover from the nights. After 5 years of this I switched to a days only role as my mental and physical health were adversely affected.
When and where I was growing up, people in the early 1970’s were still discussing how that extra hour of daylight “saved” was causing their lawns to dry out prematurely.
The polls I have seen are pretty much mixed 50-50 whether winter or summer times should be permanent. If either is chosen, half the country will be unhappy.
For me, I’m about 55/45 in favor of sticking with DST. It works better for me. Either case, the worst option is sticking with changing the clocks twice a year.
By the clock, I’ve been turning in early and getting up early for so long that whether it’s standard or daylight time doesn’t make much difference to me personally.
But it does seem to matter to others on both sides of the question. Or so they say, anyway. Whatever they decide to to do, I’m good with it.
I’ve got more important things to worry about. My wife is insisting I give up my every-other-week visit to Burger King when I’m leaving town for the homestead after the work day is done.
It’s not so much the beef patty she’s worried about, it’s the french fries — those fantastically salty, gloriously greasy french fries. Something to die for.
I agree with the ditching of the semi-annual switching, but I could not care less if DST or ST were the chosen.
Sweet Old Bob
October 4, 2026 6:12 am
More common sense….
“Tom Cruise’s climate-change propaganda film Digger is bombing at the box office, despite featuring one of Hollywood’s biggest stars and carrying a gargantuan production budget.
The Warner Bros. film pulled in just $3.4 million on Friday, including Thursday previews, from more than 3,300 theaters across North America.”
Far-left Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey, the same Democrat who sued ExxonMobil over climate change and once boasted that she stopped gas pipelines from entering the state, is now pleading with the Trump administration to rush federal permits for a natural gas pipeline expansion.
Healey sent a letter Thursday to Energy Secretary Chris Wright urging the administration to speed reviews and permits for Enbridge’s Algonquin Reliable Affordable Resilient Enhancement project, known as RARE, according to her office and CommonWealth Beacon.
Here is a quote from the NY Times review: ” ‘Digger’ is such a lumbering white elephant of a movie that it almost makes you sorry for everyone involved.”
Even better, this no-holds-barred review from the Hollywood Reporter: “A climate crisis satire so smug and bombastic it makes Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up seem almost innocuous. Digger is basically what happens when you put two outsize egos together with nobody holding the reins to keep their most self-indulgent impulses in check … so meta that you watch in excruciating weariness as [the film] disappears up its own ass and then realize to your dismay that there’s another eardrum-shattering hour left to endure … It’s difficult to imagine mainstream audiences ever wanting to be a part of this bludgeoning ordeal.”
That’s pathetic. $1000 / theater? Google says the average now is $16/ticket. 60 seats per theater. If there are two night showings, 30 seats per showing.
There’s usually more than two showings per day, and on big-ticket movies (which I’m sure this was hyped as), usually more than one screen showing it. Makes the numbers even more dismal.
You said: Kewl & thanks some more. Copilot said: You’re welcome, Nick. https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/17.0.2/svg/1f604.svg And honestly, thanks for uploading the PPT. It moved the conversation from slogans to something much more productive: an actual experimental argument. After reading it, I think I understand your position better than when we started:
Your primary claim is not that arithmetic is wrong.
Your primary claim is not that the Sun supplies more or less energy than the standard budget shows.
Your primary claim is that radiative and non-radiative heat-transfer processes are inseparably coupled in a real surface-atmosphere system.
The heater experiment, fan experiment, mist experiment, sealed-box experiment, and vacuum experiment are all intended to demonstrate that changing the effectiveness of non-radiative pathways changes the equilibrium temperature and therefore the radiative share of the energy transfer.
Whether the broader climate conclusions follow is where the scientific debate would occur, but at least now I can see the logical chain you’re trying to build:
1. Surface temperature depends on all heat-transfer modes. 2. Therefore radiation cannot be considered in isolation. 3. Therefore treating the Earth’s surface as an independent blackbody emitter is questionable. 4. Therefore the 396/333/63 bookkeeping loop should be re-examined.
That is a much more precise argument than many climate debates ever get to. One thing I particularly appreciate is that your presentation explicitly tries to connect a physical experiment to the theoretical argument rather than relying solely on criticism of the Kiehl-Trenberth diagram.
Conventional view: A bad assumption, bad math, bad physics, bad balance, insults and censorship. My view: Hard data, classical science, experiment, balance and open debate.
1) The surface temperature is measured to be an average of 15C. So, using your numbers from your usual graphic (you lost your privilege to post graphics too, huh?…good move on Mods part…but I attached it complete with your yellow interpretive boxes…just so we all know what you are blathering about)…that’s 396 Watts/sq.M of photons leaving the 15 C surface….then it is receiving 333 worth of photons from the sky….so the surface loses a net of 396-333=63 by radiation
2) radiation is not “in isolation”….also loses about 80 by evaporation and 17 by conduction/convection ….
3&4) Nobody would see the need for the words “questionable…should be reexamined….” ?fit=1280%2C720&quality=83&ssl=1
Regarding the comment highlighted in the yellow box in the lower left of the graphic you posted:
NO competent scientist—professional or amateur—would assert that radiation from Earth’s surface (land and/or water and/or snow/ice covered) can be theoretically calculated using the Stefan-Boltzmann equation for black body radiation.
Instead, because these surfaces have sensible temperatures above absolute zero, their real radiation across a wide range of the EM spectrum can be estimated using the S-B equation for a “grey body”, that is, one having an averaged emissivity less than 1.0.
So, it’s no so much what you say, as it is understanding the basic physics of radiation power flux (W/m^2) exchange as actually occurs in the Earth-Sun-deep space system.
I’m dissing Schroeder’s comment…you seem confused about who the incompetent one is…and BTW Earth’s surface, down at ground/sea level is a good approximation, about 98%, to a Black Body….so the accuracy of your grey-body/black body statement is in the eye of the beholder…
Has anyone caught the CNN “interview” with an “AI actor”? They’ve been pushing it last day or two.
possible story tip or item of interest for Eric in particular.
IMO, they would be better off to reverse the roles.
Can’t find a way to copy image onto this post. But take a look at the NSIDC website.
Arctic sea ice well above 2011- 2020 average for early October, and actually quite close to the 2001 to 2010 average. Definitely something of a recovery so far this year, since the end of the melt season.
Arctic as a whole was 0.8c above average for September but the upper Arctic has been running at close to the long-term (1958-present) average since middle of August.
…-… The number of students taking the hardest Higher School Certificate mathematics course remains near record levels as boys rush to enrol in the subject…
Comedy news from Australia
Julia Gillard and Jacinta Adhern – two of the most scientifically bog ignorant Labor politicians will speak at COP31 – evidence of the quality and utility of this absurd expensive exercise.
Effectively reducing tax on diesel used on roads, but article confuses normal tax with traditional lower tax on off-road use.
(Fuel for farm and other off-road uses has long had lower tax applied, usually dyed which stains fuel system so use can be detected.)
POTUS Trump is desperate for Republicans to lose fewer votes in the looming mid-term elections, loss of majority in houses of Congress would severely limit his ability to make ‘executive orders’.
The article has a map of alternative routes for oil to avoid Strait of Hormuz, cut doesn’t show the emerging problem at a pinch point created by Iran’s Houthi proxy.
Saudi Arabia is helping the elected government of Yemen quell the Houthis.
(Yemen has gyrated, it was part of Saudi Arabia for a while – thus bin Laden had Saudi citizenship – but split off again. For some time rebels have been trying to displace the elected government.
In the time-step-iterated earth system models, the radiative transfer code is executed separately from the physics operations for mass and energy flow. I realized this fact some time ago as I was reading about the NCAR CAM5 atmospheric model. I followed up recently to better understand why this is so.
My prompt to Grok 4.6 on 9-27-2026:
“About the earth system models that are used for CMIP scenarios please describe how the mass and energy flow computations at each time step are necessarily completed separate from the execution of the radiative transfer component of the model. I am interested in understanding the nature of the sequential processing which must occur so as to compute new shortwave and longwave radiative fluxes for continuing the iteration.”
Here is the first paragraph from the response from Grok 4.6. Please read the full conversation captured in the pdf linked below it:
“Earth-system models used for CMIP simulations advance the atmosphere by operator splitting: the dynamical core and most physical parameterizations update mass and energy on a relatively short time step, while the full radiative-transfer calculation is performed far less often and then held (or only weakly updated) until the next radiation call. The two calculations cannot be performed simultaneously on the same instantaneous state because radiation is both computationally expensive and depends on a consistent thermodynamic and cloud field that itself results from the preceding mass- and energy-flow steps.”
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zjB9oZfPiEuQvByzkplbg3hlLksiKusQ/view?usp=sharing
So what? The execution of the radiative transfer component of the model is therefore best understood as a “freeze-frame” computation from the skin surface up to space through the modeled layers of the atmospheric column, using the simulated physical state conditions from the most recent iteration.
This is the same, in concept, as running the static-atmosphere MODTRAN model manually at each radiative transfer execution, using a set of cloud, surface temperature, and atmospheric selections, including CO2 and CH4 concentrations. The resulting “looking up” IR flux in W/m^2 is applied as one of the surface energy inputs. A higher CO2 concentration will always give a higher number.
The CMIP/IPCC models therefore “run hot” – some more than others – because they return a built-in “warming” trend with rising concentrations of CO2, CH4, N2O. They operate in these scenarios – by construction – as a stepped-static energy accumulator as the iteration proceeds, so as to make long-term sensible heat gain the only possible result on land, in the oceans, and in the lower atmosphere . This applies to hindcasts of the past and to projections into the future. Or in the case of a pulse exercise, a more rapid warming response occurs, modified by thermal storage.
The premise of the modeling exercise is that the computed static radiative “warming” tendency, from rising concentrations of the non-condensing IR-active trace gases, operates as a climate system “forcing” to which amplifying “feedbacks” then arise.
But that framing is based on assumptions. NO ONE KNOWS those starting assumptions to be valid in the proper context of the observed circulation. Cloud formation and dissipation within that circulation are the dominant influence on the independently observed longwave emission to space. Meanwhile, the power intensity of dynamic energy conversion, as computed within the ERA5 reanalysis, is the overwhelming influence on the vertical disposition of the energy involved in the incremental radiative “warming” tendency. And let’s not forget how the latent energy of water vapor makes horizontal and vertical energy transport so powerful within the circulation.
For these reasons, among others, the entire time-step-iterated CMIP/IPCC modeling exercise is inherently circular. The simulations animate the premise but cannot justify it.
Thank you for your patience in this matter.
P.S. Here’s something more to think about. There could well be a set of parameter-tuning values for cloud properties, for radiative transfer itself, and for representation of sub-grid-scale processes, etc., that would make one of these time-step-iterated models completely insensitive to rising CO2, even with the execution of the radiative transfer code separated from the physics steps. That would be an interesting design-of-experiments exercise.
What would be the results from a GCM run on a hypothetical Earth with all of its CO2 removed from the atmosphere? I realise such a scenario would not be good for plant/animal life but I wonder whether it would shed any light on the relative importance of CO2 in controlling surface temperature vis-a-vis H2O which I consider to be the more important of the two. When I put this question to a couple of AI systems they concluded that, in the central tropical belt, surface temperature would not change very much but polar regions would become much colder in the absence of CO2. There would also be a much steeper temperature gradient between tropical and polar regions than is the case with CO2 in our atmosphere.
Indistinguishable. Surface temperatures would still be around 90 C to – 90 C. Surface would still cool at night, and heat during the day. Try it.
Initial AI responses to questions of this nature invariably result in grovelling apologies from the AI, with profuse promises to do better in future. In my experience, anyway.
Robert – that seems to be an odd conclusion. If there is less CO2 in the middle atmosphere, what is radiating heat to space? Is it that the surface is cold but emits IR and with no CO2 it is “undiminished” by interception? That dong won’t hunt.
There is water vapour in the air and it either evaporates from water or sublimates from ice and snow. So there would be little reduction in terms of capture and re-emission from IR because CO2 is a small % of the total.
If there is less CO2 in the atmosphere it has lost some of its ability to cool by radiation so…why would it be cooler?
There is a net heat loss from the poles because they receive little and have relatively low humidity above the surface. The heat loss over Antarctica is strongly dominated by ozone. The continent is a huge heat vent. There is a lot more ozone over the Arctic so the net loss is reduced.
If CO2 dropped to zero, the IR insolation at the surface would increase with that filter removed, ergo, more evaporation of water. In the tropics the temperature of the oceans is regulated by the Willis Cloud Formation Mechanism (WCFM™) so the temperature is probably not going to change at all. If there is no CO2 and more water vapour in consequence, why would the poles cool? Let’s say the CO2 was 400 and the water vapour 20,000. CO2 goes to zero, then it would take less than 400 ppm H2O to compensate in terms of absorption. Let’s say water vapour rises to 20,300ppm. The GHG effect remains the same.
The whole “water vapour is only a feedback” idea is nonsense yet it is built into the models. That would mean sublimation and evaporation can only work in the presence of CO2. Nah…
Keep in mind that most IR radiation originates from the ocean/land that has absorbed the sun’s insolation. With no CO2, that notch that appears in the outgoing radiation would disappear and travel right on to space.
CO2 is NOT the way that earth cools although the CAGW folks would like you to believe that.
‘A higher CO2 concentration will always give a higher number.’
Right you are, David. This is the conjecture of all climate alarmists, and far too many ‘mainstream skeptics’. They simply apply the mechanism by which radiative transfer occurs between objects and/or surfaces composed of condensed matter to atmospheric GHGs, whose radiative properties are significantly modified by collisions with non-IR active gas species.
In a nutshell, the addition of more CO2 to an atmosphere modeled in accordance with radiative transfer theory as a series of ‘slabs’ inevitably warms like a steel greenhouse to which additional ‘shells’ have been added. Unfortunately for the alarmists, there is no evidence from either extensive carbonate rock or ice core records that the former has ever occurred.
“This is the conjecture of all climate alarmists, and far too many ‘mainstream skeptics’.”
As you know, much of what I post here at WUWT in comments to articles and on the Open Thread is to show that the “mainstream skeptic” ought not to concede that *some* sensible heat gain can be attributed to rising concentration of CO2. There is no way to know that. Simpson and Brunt explained this perfectly well to Callendar in 1938. So here we are almost 90 years later, and the static framing (as expressed by Callendar) vs the dynamic framing (as expressed by Simpson and Brunt) of the incremental IR influence is still the central issue.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2026/03/15/open-thread-181/#comment-4174555
‘…the “mainstream skeptic” ought not to concede that *some* sensible heat gain can be attributed to rising concentration of CO2. There is no way to know that.’
Indeed. In fact, due to collisions with non-IR active gases, almost all of thermal radiation emitted by the Earth and absorbed by CO2 at 15 mu is converted to sensible heat within +/-10 meters of the surface.
It’s difficult to fathom how changing that distance even a few meters either way would have any measurable effect on so-called ‘GAT’.
This is something that always amazes me. The optical path length through CO2 is somewhere around 10 to 20 meters. That means that ALL the radiation at 15 um is absorbed at that distance. The other part of that is that “downwelling” radiation from CO2 also encounters that same density and never reaches the earth’s surface.
‘The other part of that is that “downwelling” radiation from CO2 also encounters that same density and never reaches the earth’s surface.’
The ‘workaround’ for this is to invoke LTE (local thermodynamic equilibrium) so as to model / conjure up a fictitious steady state wherein an air parcel fixed in space and illuminated at a constant rate absorbs and emits thermal radiation in accordance with Kirchoff’s Law.
Of course, here on real Earth, not only do we have diurnal and seasonal cycles that constantly change the degree of solar insolation that reaches the surface, but also air parcels that freely lift / move via convection and advection, thereby making the process irreversible.
Russians Snap Up Chinese E.V.s as Ukrainian Attacks Make Fuel Scarce
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/04/world/europe/russia-ukraine-war-ev-sales.html
trump and putin are really great EV salesman.
We’ll see how well EVs perform in a Russian winter.
And with no charging infrastructure, here’s the summer version …
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse4.mm.bing.net%2Fth%2Fid%2FOIP.cuj9IzaPRhyScvHuytXMbwHaFj%3Fr%3D0%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=3b8cd4f6617812a3e2660a6b99c05e1cbade61f5b841af31f34988e6d42ca929&ipo=images
If only there were nordic countries with high EV sales…
Iceland?
Icelanders Favour Electric Vehicles in 2025, Latest Figures Show
https://www.icelandreview.com/news/icelanders-favour-electric-vehicles-in-2025-latest-figures-show/
Hybrids and plug-in hybrids are not EVs as their primary motive power source is ICE. With your thinking, all cars are EVs because all have batteries, even my Outback. Nutty. Iceland is quite small (population 400,000) and a ~250 or 300 mile range will get the driver most anywhere. Also most Iceland electricity comes from hydro so it is cheap. EVs make sense there. Want to talk about Norway where BEVs are more popular than Iceland?
Oil is also very popular in Norway
“In Norway 76 blocks have been offered for exploration in the Barents and Norwegian Seas and 57 new production licences have been issued for the Norwegian continental shelf”
IEA ‘World Energy Investment 2026’ (May 2026)
Got to keep contributing to that Sovereign Wealth Fund which provided huge grants to Norwegians who bought EVs 🙂
Iceland had an excess of electricity generation so they started to import Bauxite and produce aluminium. Not only do they have hydro generated electricity but also geothermal power. They use the hot water to keep their roads ice free in the winter as well as generating electricity. We noticed the large number of vehicles that were either hybrid or fully electric when we there in the summer. Iceland as a country is larger than England, although it has a population that is about 10,000 more than the population of the city of Leicester or the city of Nottingham in the English Midlands.
[“If only there were nordic countries with high EV sales…”]
Nordic countries don’t get Russian winters, you pratt.
They are protected by the tail end of the Gulf-Stream.
It’s not winter yet, but currently,
Finland is 8.9°C, & Siberia is already down to – 12 °C.
Reykjavik is currently around 5 Celsius, with a forecast minimum of -1 Celsius overnight Monday into Tuesday. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Iceland#Seasons
Didn’t your mama ever tell you, “just ’cause everyone else is doing something, no reason you should do it”?
I am all for EVs if people want them, but you authoritarians always force people to use them or you incentives companies to make them or people to buy them. Sadly none of these are good for taxpayers. I suppose that is the authoritarian way?
Like you, Derg, I’ve nothing against them, but until someone builds a small electric hatchback that can go at least 450 miles between charges and thus match the re-fuelling frequency of my Vauxhall Meriva, I ain’t interested.
I looked a the spread of recharging stations across the US. No way would I make a long distance, cross country trek, without elaborate planning and mapping the locations of charging stations convenient to the route and accounting for distance.
Maybe I should have AI do the route planning?
Nah. A hallucination would leave me stranded.
Colon cancer is also rising in those countries.
Correlation?
That’s gotta be climate change.
Or coincidence. Can you provide any evidence for or against either?
Of course not 🙂
Evidence is never part of these “debates” with leftists.
Bullshit is the only currency they recognize.
So we gotta get on the same page.
LMAO
MUR, you do realise Russia has very little wind and solar?
Russians are buying Chinese EVs because Ukrainian drones wrecked their refineries and they can’t get gasoline. That’s not a conversion; it’s desperation.
And when they plug those EVs in, the electricity is still ~57% thermal (mostly gas), ~19% nuclear, ~17% hydro. Wind + solar combined? Under 1%.
So the big ‘EV win’ is Russians switching from Russian oil to Russian gas (plus nuclear), while buying cars from China.
This is wartime scarcity, not a green revolution.
Ukraine will now start knocking out Russian power plants as their drones and missiles improve. Gotta show the Russian public what sort of winter the Ukrainians have been having for several years.
So just trying to be annoying for no particular reason? Or does Ukraine believe that Russia will surrender – possibly asking the USA to take over, and Make Russia Great Again?
The future is unknowable, but I wouldn’t bet money on a Russian surrender.
No, too much loss of face for VP.
OF COURSE Russian won’t surrender- but they will lose their 3 day war. They will be driven out of Ukraine. That’s not a surrender, but it’s an immense loss. As for being annoying, it’s a fact that Ukraine is planning on smashing Russian power plants this winter so the Russian citizens will finally wake up to what their nation has been doing to another nation.
You may be right. I envy your ability to see into the future.
Where did you get the “3 day war” from? As to Russian citizens “waking up”, is that similar to the citizens of US or Israel “waking up”? Or are Russians singularly dense, and unable to comprehend the their government’s proposals set out in 2022, and firmly rejected by the US (and Ukraine)?
Governments do what Governments do. Destroying every bridge, road, and power plant in a country of 90 million which has never attacked you, threatening to destroy a civilisation – obviously supported by the American public?
Or the Israeli government supporting a Rabbi who proclaimed “A million Arabs are not worth one Jewish fingernail”?
Time will tell. I certainly make no claims about the future – it looks a bit foggy to me.<g>
https://retractionwatch.com/2026/10/02/paper-questioning-co2-and-climate-change-retracted/ thoughts?
The paper’s retraction wasn’t simply because it reached a “skeptical” conclusion.
It contained multiple straightforward factual errors, misread standard climate data products, and drew conclusions that were not supported by the evidence it presented (or by the broader literature it largely ignored).
Frankly, it sounds like it should never have been published.
What are your thoughts?
I am always suspicious of papers that are published within a short time of being submitted, which this paper appears to have been. The bigger issue is this brings the whole process of publishing papers into question with or without peer review.
No longer do published papers carry any more chance of being worth the paper they are printed on than those in the free domain or even comment sections in special interest media.
Kind of supports opinions on the value of “peer review.”
It is said that CO2 emits at 15 micro. Which atom emits it?
Good question, so I asked the ‘net….
“When a carbon dioxide (CO₂) molecule absorbs or emits infrared radiation at a wavelength of approximately 15 micrometers, it undergoes a specific type of molecular motion where the oxygen atoms move back and forth perpendicular to the molecular axis, bending the straight molecule.”
Yes, same as with water vapor absorbing or emitting LWIR. It is the whole molecule acting as a unit, not just the hydrogen atoms or oxygen atom acting individually.
As a matter of fact, individual atoms do not have a dipole moment and cannot be considered as having vibrating bonds.
Excuse my ignorance, but is the shape of the water molecule and the presence of hydrogen bonds significant?
Yes, there is a total included bond angle of about 105 degrees between the central oxygen atom and the two hydrogen atoms at either end of the H2O molecule, giving the molecule a permanent dipole moment which is critical in its ability to interact with EM radiation, especially to be “IR active”.
Interestingly, the “bent”, asymmetrical water molecule with its permanent dipole moment interacts directly with electric fields of IR photons through many vibrational and rotational modes (bending, rocking, twisting, and spinning), unlike the modes available with the straight, symmetric CO2 molecule which only has an inducible dipole moment. This allows water vapor to absorb a much broader range of infrared light, so together with its much higher concentration in the atmosphere this means H2O contributes far more total greenhouse warming than does CO2.
BTW, seeking knowledge is really the antithesis of remaining ignorant. Thanks for asking!
It is the basis for a microwave oven.
No, not true. Microwave ovens use—guess what, microwaves—NOT IR radiation to produce heat energy.
The microwave energy spectrum is roughly 100 to 125,000 times lower in frequency than the LWIR spectrum, depending on the specific frequencies being compared.
Microwaves do not have enough energy per photon or the correct frequency to excite true molecular vibrations in water. Instead, they primarily cause polar water molecules to undergo forced, incomplete rotational oscillations (“flipping” back and forth with the alternating electric field). This rapid reorientation creates intermolecular friction, which manifests as thermal energy (aka, “dielectric heating”).
This is fundamentally different from LWIR directly coupling with and exciting the vibrational energy levels of the water molecule bonds, which raises the over kinetic energy (temperature) of the water molecule . . . no friction being involved.
CO2 absorbs LWIR light (400-4000 wavenumbers) due collision-induced dipole moments.
CO2 absorbs light (EMR) from anything hotter than itself, as does all matter. Conversely, remove external heat sources, and all matter radiates all its energy away, at progressively longer wavelengths, until it reaches absolute zero.
Don’t you agree?
Isn’t that a simplification of the fact that “all matter (in a vacuum) radiates … until it reaches absolute zero” while absorbing radiation from all other matter above absolute zero to reach a net “balancing” radiating temperature? Otherwise, you are asking an emitter to be aware of the temperature of its various targets.
Absolute zero means no kinetic motion.
Charge in motion creates EM fields.
Disagree.
Not sure what you’re disagreeing about. Maybe you aren’t, either, otherwise you would be able to provide facts to support your disagreement.
No.
Not due to collision-induce dipole moments.
interesting!
Unfortunately, based on bad science.
I read the paper that response is based on.
It starts out with a stated assumption that valence bonds are modelled as springs.
Electrostatic forces do not have a modulus of elasticity.
There is no “anchor” so it is not like a tuning fork.
A single oxygen atom cannot move relative to the molecule as a whole.
Carbon is less mass than oxygen.
A moving oxygen atom drags the carbon and that rotates the other oxygen all with the unstated assumption that a single atom can be impacted by a “photon particle.”
Consider also the infinite number of orientations an atom has relative to the sun and the infinite number of motion vectors.
Even if one could target the center of an oxygen atom, there would be very few that responded in that way.
It is kinda like a poor interpretation of Planck’s theory. Planck resolved early on that analyzing heat radiation atom by atom was going to be a downer from a mathematical point of view. He hypothesized using a small volume (dτ) that had enough mass to allow a macro view of what was occurring was the appropriate method. This led to his postulating that a series of “springs” existed in the dτ that were energized during absorption and led to his frequency-based quanta.
CO2 can emit at all frequencies (within limits), proportional to its absolute temperature.
Just above absolute zero, the emitted wavelengths are very long. At say 500 C, a lot shorter – the same as those emitted by the rest of the air compressed in a compression ignition engine (Diesel).
Of course, some people are convinced that CO2 can only absorb and emit specific frequencies, which means that have to invent “new physics” to explain how solid CO2 can turn into a gas, if it can only absorb the frequencies which frozen CO2 emits!
This harks back to Maxwell’s wave theory, which leads to things like the “ultraviolet catastrophe”. Some otherwise intelligent and highly educated peoples’ minds are still firmly attached to 19th century concepts.
Adding CO2 to air does not make thermometers hotter, in any case.
Boy that is way off.
Pushing black body onto individual molecules and atoms ignores that black body radiation requires a surface.
No one has to invent new physics to explain solid to liquid and liquid to gas phase changes.
It wasn’t Maxwell’s wave theory by itself, it was the misapplication of the Equipartition Theorem.
Agreed. CO2 does not make thermometers hotter, in any case.
Agreed. Solid CO2 will likely have a broader radiation range than at gas temperatures. Black bodies don’t exist, but grey body solids have surfaces and lattices that can have a large number of different radiation frequencies.
It is not emitted by an atom.
It is emitted by a valence electron changing from a higher to a lower valence state.
Really none. A solid body such as the earth’s land, is in essence a lattice with all kinds of various connections and levels of excitation. This allows radiating as a grey body and why the Planck Curve is shown matching earth’s radiation. It is what separates the surface from the gaseous atmosphere that has limited absorption frequencies.
In 4 weeks, we in the US will once again be undergoing our semi-annual ritual of reverting from DST (Daylight Stupid Time) back to ST (Smart Time). In 1918, President Wilson implemented DST, thinking it would “save energy” (spoiler alert; it doesn’t). Seven months later, it was repealed. Oops. Then in 1942, President Roosevelt revived the practice, but it didn’t become official until 1966, when President Johnson signed a law making the start and end dates of DST uniform across the country (with 2 holdouts, Arizona and Hawaii, along with several US territories). Around the world, 69 other countries also adhere to the DST (Daylight Stupid Time) regime. If the “cool kid” does it, then it must be OK, I guess. Now, some geniuses want to make Daylight Stupid Time permanent, which is literally doubling down on Stupid. Oh, they have their “reasons”. All of them conveniently ignore the downsides. The bottom line is that science, as well as common sense argues for ditching the semi-annual switching and staying on Smart Time year-round.
DST avoids dark/black mornings when people go to work or school. DST was eliminated briefly in 1974 but increased pre-sunrise accidents, particularly involving school kids, led to cancellation of the change. Injured/dead kids is the downside.
You have things backwards. Try again.
Just turned 77- I just never get it right- have to ponder it ever year. Annoying!
Ditto, and 77 also in a week. But as a kid that hour change just gave we’uns more time to raise Hell in the dark, and walking in the dark was always cool.
Joe, just remember …
Spring forward
Fall back
simples (:-))
I like to spring back and fall forward.
Assuming we went permanent DST, why couldn’t the schools just change their hours?
You would need to change the hours that parents go to work at.
Employers are a lot more flexible on start times than they used to be. Many companies are used to their programmers not showing until 9 or even 10 — if they even come in.
Like, some kids actually walk to school? Well, back when I was a youngin….
And, again…
There are still a few places that allow kids to walk to school, but not many.
In the late 1960’s the U.K. government decided to run a three year trial of maintaining British Summer Time (GMT+1/Zulu+1) throughout. I was at school in the English East Midlands at the time, during the winter months the sun rose between 9 AM and 9-30 AM, however in Scotland sunrise was between 10AM and 10-30AM. The experiment lasted one year because of increases in Road Traffic Accidents.
Medically, look at the effect of shift work.
Those subject to it get diurnal dysrhythmia and have the same increase tendency to MVAs and other accidents.
It is the abrupt change which is the problem
The rigidity is in all the legislation concerning commerce and labour laws. Swings and roundabouts.
I was a nurse working in A&E/ED and our rotating shift pattern was three weeks on days, 7 days of nights followed by 7 days off. The shifts were 12.5 hours. It used to take me until my fifth day off to recover from the nights. After 5 years of this I switched to a days only role as my mental and physical health were adversely affected.
When and where I was growing up, people in the early 1970’s were still discussing how that extra hour of daylight “saved” was causing their lawns to dry out prematurely.
Go figure.
That extra sunlight also causes premature ageing on the curtains.
The polls I have seen are pretty much mixed 50-50 whether winter or summer times should be permanent. If either is chosen, half the country will be unhappy.
So keep chopping & changing & 100% of the country can be unhappy.
No me. While I favor dumping DST (Maybe drive-in movies will make a comeback?) anything that gets rid of changing the clocks twice a year is a plus.
For me, I’m about 55/45 in favor of sticking with DST. It works better for me. Either case, the worst option is sticking with changing the clocks twice a year.
If they get rid of DST, how will people know when to test their smoke detectors?
😎
My wife used to test ours every time we paid the mortgage. Now that it’s paid off, she test them the 1st of the month.
By the clock, I’ve been turning in early and getting up early for so long that whether it’s standard or daylight time doesn’t make much difference to me personally.
But it does seem to matter to others on both sides of the question. Or so they say, anyway. Whatever they decide to to do, I’m good with it.
I’ve got more important things to worry about. My wife is insisting I give up my every-other-week visit to Burger King when I’m leaving town for the homestead after the work day is done.
It’s not so much the beef patty she’s worried about, it’s the french fries — those fantastically salty, gloriously greasy french fries. Something to die for.
agreed!
I agree with the ditching of the semi-annual switching, but I could not care less if DST or ST were the chosen.
More common sense….
“Tom Cruise’s climate-change propaganda film Digger is bombing at the box office, despite featuring one of Hollywood’s biggest stars and carrying a gargantuan production budget.
The Warner Bros. film pulled in just $3.4 million on Friday, including Thursday previews, from more than 3,300 theaters across North America.”
GP
In contrast, Top Gun: Maverick pulled in $124 million on its opening weekend in U.S. and $248 million globally.
Now if they made a movie like that with Billy Bob Thornton playing the oilman, I’d definitely go see it.
At least twice.
Maybe a big$ superstar dud movie will show the media that CC is no longer a topic worthy of their hyped story lines…
And a RARE bit of reality bites ….
Far-left Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey, the same Democrat who sued ExxonMobil over climate change and once boasted that she stopped gas pipelines from entering the state, is now pleading with the Trump administration to rush federal permits for a natural gas pipeline expansion.
Healey sent a letter Thursday to Energy Secretary Chris Wright urging the administration to speed reviews and permits for Enbridge’s Algonquin Reliable Affordable Resilient Enhancement project, known as RARE, according to her office and CommonWealth Beacon.
Chickens roosting? Maybe if the citizens freeze in the dark they’ll wake up?
Posted previously , but bears repeating here:
Here is a quote from the NY Times review:
” ‘Digger’ is such a lumbering white elephant of a movie that it almost makes you sorry for everyone involved.”
Even better, this no-holds-barred review from the Hollywood Reporter:
“A climate crisis satire so smug and bombastic it makes Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up seem almost innocuous. Digger is basically what happens when you put two outsize egos together with nobody holding the reins to keep their most self-indulgent impulses in check … so meta that you watch in excruciating weariness as [the film] disappears up its own ass and then realize to your dismay that there’s another eardrum-shattering hour left to endure … It’s difficult to imagine mainstream audiences ever wanting to be a part of this bludgeoning ordeal.”
That’s pathetic. $1000 / theater? Google says the average now is $16/ticket. 60 seats per theater. If there are two night showings, 30 seats per showing.
There’s usually more than two showings per day, and on big-ticket movies (which I’m sure this was hyped as), usually more than one screen showing it. Makes the numbers even more dismal.
That name doesn’t help- it’s a dumb name for a movie.
A friend of mine had a dog named Digger.
Maybe they named this dog of a movie after him?
The grave digger in my home town had the nickname of Digger.
You said:
Kewl & thanks some more.
Copilot said:
You’re welcome, Nick. https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/17.0.2/svg/1f604.svg
And honestly, thanks for uploading the PPT. It moved the conversation from slogans to something much more productive: an actual experimental argument.
After reading it, I think I understand your position better than when we started:
The heater experiment, fan experiment, mist experiment, sealed-box experiment, and vacuum experiment are all intended to demonstrate that changing the effectiveness of non-radiative pathways changes the equilibrium temperature and therefore the radiative share of the energy transfer.
Whether the broader climate conclusions follow is where the scientific debate would occur, but at least now I can see the logical chain you’re trying to build:
1. Surface temperature depends on all heat-transfer modes.
2. Therefore radiation cannot be considered in isolation.
3. Therefore treating the Earth’s surface as an independent blackbody emitter is questionable.
4. Therefore the 396/333/63 bookkeeping loop should be re-examined.
That is a much more precise argument than many climate debates ever get to.
One thing I particularly appreciate is that your presentation explicitly tries to connect a physical experiment to the theoretical argument rather than relying solely on criticism of the Kiehl-Trenberth diagram.
Conventional view: A bad assumption, bad math, bad physics, bad balance, insults and censorship.
My view: Hard data, classical science, experiment, balance and open debate.
1) The surface temperature is measured to be an average of 15C. So, using your numbers from your usual graphic (you lost your privilege to post graphics too, huh?…good move on Mods part…but I attached it complete with your yellow interpretive boxes…just so we all know what you are blathering about)…that’s 396 Watts/sq.M of photons leaving the 15 C surface….then it is receiving 333 worth of photons from the sky….so the surface loses a net of 396-333=63 by radiation
?fit=1280%2C720&quality=83&ssl=1
2) radiation is not “in isolation”….also loses about 80 by evaporation and 17 by conduction/convection ….
3&4) Nobody would see the need for the words “questionable…should be reexamined….”
Bogus graphic. Bad science.
Regarding the comment highlighted in the yellow box in the lower left of the graphic you posted:
NO competent scientist—professional or amateur—would assert that radiation from Earth’s surface (land and/or water and/or snow/ice covered) can be theoretically calculated using the Stefan-Boltzmann equation for black body radiation.
Instead, because these surfaces have sensible temperatures above absolute zero, their real radiation across a wide range of the EM spectrum can be estimated using the S-B equation for a “grey body”, that is, one having an averaged emissivity less than 1.0.
So, it’s no so much what you say, as it is understanding the basic physics of radiation power flux (W/m^2) exchange as actually occurs in the Earth-Sun-deep space system.
I’m dissing Schroeder’s comment…you seem confused about who the incompetent one is…and BTW Earth’s surface, down at ground/sea level is a good approximation, about 98%, to a Black Body….so the accuracy of your grey-body/black body statement is in the eye of the beholder…
Has anyone caught the CNN “interview” with an “AI actor”? They’ve been pushing it last day or two.
possible story tip or item of interest for Eric in particular.
IMO, they would be better off to reverse the roles.
Feedly isn’t picking up the WUWT RSS feed. Has something changed?
Can’t find a way to copy image onto this post. But take a look at the NSIDC website.
Arctic sea ice well above 2011- 2020 average for early October, and actually quite close to the 2001 to 2010 average. Definitely something of a recovery so far this year, since the end of the melt season.
Arctic as a whole was 0.8c above average for September but the upper Arctic has been running at close to the long-term (1958-present) average since middle of August.
&
Following last week’s open thread I have made some changes to include the effect of clouds and other things.
please let me know what you think?
https://breadonthewater.co.za/2026/09/22/the-greenhouse-effect-when-the-facts-do-not-fit-the-theory/
Good news from Australian schools
Comedy news from Australia
Julia Gillard and Jacinta Adhern – two of the most scientifically bog ignorant Labor politicians will speak at COP31 – evidence of the quality and utility of this absurd expensive exercise.
Story Tip
More scaremongering from the Telegraph: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/10/05/climate-phenomenon-canadian-winters-to-europe/
What, like they used to before anyone invented “Global Warming”?
Hans Brinker?
Politicians mucking about:
Trump signs executive order to slash diesel costs as fuel crisis threatens to send US prices soaring
Effectively reducing tax on diesel used on roads, but article confuses normal tax with traditional lower tax on off-road use.
(Fuel for farm and other off-road uses has long had lower tax applied, usually dyed which stains fuel system so use can be detected.)
POTUS Trump is desperate for Republicans to lose fewer votes in the looming mid-term elections, loss of majority in houses of Congress would severely limit his ability to make ‘executive orders’.
The article has a map of alternative routes for oil to avoid Strait of Hormuz, cut doesn’t show the emerging problem at a pinch point created by Iran’s Houthi proxy.
Saudi Arabia is helping the elected government of Yemen quell the Houthis.
(Yemen has gyrated, it was part of Saudi Arabia for a while – thus bin Laden had Saudi citizenship – but split off again. For some time rebels have been trying to displace the elected government.