Climate Impacts

2024 To Be the Hottest Ever? Hold On!

Posted on by Ron Clutz

For sure you’ve seen the headlines declaring 2024 likely to be the Hottest year ever.  If you’re like me, your response is: That’s not the way it’s going down where I live.  Fortunately there is a website that allows anyone to check their personal experience with the weather station data nearby.  weatherspark.com provides data summaries for you to judge what’s going on in weather history where you live.  In my case a modern weather station is a few miles away  April 2024 Weather History at Montréal–Mirabel International Airport.  The story about April 2024 is evident below in charts and graphs from this site.  There’s a map that allows you to find your locale.

First, consider above the norms for April from the period 1980 to 2016.

Then, there’s April 2024 compared to the normal observations.

The graph shows April had some warm days, some cool days and overall was pretty normal.  But since climate is more than temperature, consider cloudiness.

Woah!  Most of the month was cloudy, which in spring means blocking the warming sun from hitting the surface.   And with all those clouds, let’s look at precipitation:

So, a major snowstorm April 3-4, 12 days when it rained, including heavy rain, and a couple of thunderstorms.  Given what we know about the hydrology cycles, that means a lot of heat removed upward from the surface.

So the implications for April temperatures in my locale.

There you have it before your eyes. Mostly Cool, Cold and
Very Cold, with freezing on numerous mornings.
Only five days with a few hours of comfortable temperatures.

Summary:

Claims of hottest this or that month or year are based on averages of averages of temperatures, which in principle is an intrinsic quality and distinctive to a locale.  The claim involves selecting some places and time periods where warming appears, while ignoring other places where it has been cooling.

Remember:  They want you to panic.  Before doing so, check out what the data says in your neck of the woods.  For example, NOAA declared that March 2024 was “Earth’s Warmest March on Record.”

 

 

Pope Francis Speaks as Climate Bigot

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Thomas D. Williams, Ph.D. reports at Climate Change Dispatch Unchristian: Pope Francis Says Climate Deniers Are ‘Stupid’, Skepticism ‘Perverse’.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Pope Francis told CBS News this week that climate change deniers are “stupid” to refute compelling evidence of a climate emergency. [emphasis, links added]

“Some people are stupid (necios), and stupid even if you show them research, they don’t believe it,” the pontiff told CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell when asked what he would say to the deniers of climate change.  “Why? Because they don’t understand the situation, or because of their interests, but climate change exists,” the 87-year-old pope asserted.

Pope Francis had never before sat down for an extensive interview, one-on-one, with a U.S. television network during his 11-year pontificate.

Pope Francis has been a vocal enthusiast for the war on climate change, calling global warming “one of the most serious and worrying phenomena of our time” and urging “drastic measures” to combat climate change.

He has expressed his opinion that any skepticism regarding an alleged “climate emergency” is “perverse.”

The pope has also singled out the United States as particularly to blame for the “climate emergency,” even though it is one of the countries with the cleanest air in the world.

“If we consider that emissions per individual in the United States are about two times greater than those of individuals living in China and about seven times greater than the average of the poorest countries, we can state that a broad change in the irresponsible lifestyle connected with the Western model would have a significant long-term impact,” he stated last October.

Among the “fools” denounced by the pope for their “perverse” skepticism of the climate crisis are a group of over 1,600 prominent scientists, including two Nobel Prize winners, who issued the “World Climate Declaration” last August, refuting the existence of a so-called “climate emergency.”

Among other things, the Declaration asserted that climate models have proven inadequate for predicting global warming, that carbon dioxide (CO2) is not a pollutant, and that climate change has not increased natural disasters.

The world has warmed “significantly less than predicted by IPCC on the basis of modeled anthropogenic forcing,” the text states, and the gap between the real world and the modeled world “tells us that we are far from understanding climate change.”

“There is no statistical evidence that global warming is intensifying hurricanes, floods, droughts, and such like natural disasters, or making them more frequent,” the document declared. “However, there is ample evidence that CO2-mitigation measures are as damaging as they are costly.”

“There is no climate emergency,” it concluded. “Therefore, there is no cause for panic and alarm.”

“We strongly oppose the harmful and unrealistic net-zero CO2 policy proposed for 2050. Go for adaptation instead of mitigation; adaptation works whatever the causes are,” it added.

IPCC Still Deceiving with the Hockey Stick

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Fig. 1: Common Era temperature reconstructions
featured in IPCC reports since 2001.

Source Esper et al 2024  Note:  In each graph, instrumental global annual mean land and marine temperatures are shown in a red spike, while lower resolution proxy estimates are in blue.

Just published today at Nature Communications is this paper  The IPCC’s reductive Common Era temperature history  by Esper et al.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Abstract

Common Era temperature variability has been a prominent component in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports over the last several decades and was twice featured in their Summary for Policymakers. A single reconstruction of mean Northern Hemisphere temperature variability was first highlighted in the 2001 Summary for Policymakers, despite other estimates that existed at the time. Subsequent reports assessed many large-scale temperature reconstructions, but the entirety of Common Era temperature history in the most recent Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was restricted to a single estimate of mean annual global temperatures. We argue that this focus on a single reconstruction is an insufficient summary of our understanding of temperature variability over the Common Era. We provide a complementary perspective by offering an alternative assessment of the state of our understanding in high-resolution paleoclimatology for the Common Era and call for future reports to present a more accurate and comprehensive assessment of our knowledge about this important period of human and climate history.

Fig. 5: Standard deviations in observed temperature data
and Common Era temperature reconstructions.

Estimates for the observed and reconstructed temperatures are determined over the 1878-2000 CE (blue), 1001-1877 CE (orange) and 1-1000 CE (gray) periods. Instrumental records shown on the left side include mean annual temperatures averaged over 90°S-90°N land and marine areas (global), mean annual temperatures averaged over 0°−90°S land and marine areas (SH), and mean summer (JJA) temperatures averaged over 30°−90°N land-only areas (NH).

While interpretations of the similarities and differences across the various domains and reconstructions, as shown in Fig. 5, remains the subject of important and interesting research, diagnosing the differences is not the focus of our commentary herein. Our primary concern is that substantial uncertainty exists. The consequence is that there are notable differences in the representation of large-scale estimates of CE temperature variability, as shown in Figs. 2 and 3, that were overlooked and poorly communicated by the 2021 IPCC WGI report. Both the different summary of the global P2k19 ensemble provided in Figs. 2b and 3c, and the inclusion of the additionally available NH and SH temperature reconstruction estimates in Fig. 3, imply substantial uncertainties in large-scale temperature reconstructions that better summarize the existing challenges associated with the science.

Fig. 3: Reconstructions of large-scale temperature variability
over the last 2000 years published since AR5 of the IPCC.

Reconstructions variably target seasonal to annual mean temperatures in the (a) Northern Hemisphere (Sch15, Sto15, Wil16, Xin16, Gui17, Bün20), and annual temperatures for the (b) Southern Hemisphere (Neu14) and (c) globally (P2k19; as shown in Fig. 2) over varying periods of the Common Era (see Table 1 for details). All reconstructions were smoothed using a 20-year low-pass filter and temperatures are shown as anomalies from their 1850–1900 means. Hemispheric and global means of land and ocean temperatures derived from HadCRUT5 instrumental analysis1 are also shown in each respective panel from 1850-2020 (red). Instrumental temperatures were also referenced to zero mean in the 1850–1900 interval and filtered with a 20-year lowpass filter. These instrumental representations are all consistent with the 2021 IPCC report.

Conclusions and future priorities

We propose that a visualization of the contemporary research, as in Fig. 3, offers a more accurate depiction of the uncertainty and temporal evolution of CE temperature variability compared to any single reconstruction. A general feature of Fig. 3 is that long-term trends during the second millennium CE are more coherent and robust, but major discrepancies still exist during the first millennium CE. These uncertainties in the first millennium are the product of severe reductions in the availability of high-resolution proxy records, which affects all large-scale temperature reconstructions. The SH also remains grossly under-sampled.

It is therefore premature, and possibly incorrect, to conclude that
the first millennium was free of centennial-scale temperature trends
and that the decadal variations were systematically smaller
than during subsequent centuries, as detailed in the 2021 SPM.

Regarding global temperature reconstructions specifically, we also highlight the following limitations that must continue to be contextualized in consensus reports on CE temperature reconstructions:

(i) warm season biases due to the dominance of tree-ring records during the CE,
(ii) spatial biases in proxy sampling, with a persistent lack of high-resolution proxy records from the tropics and SH, which are needed for accurately representing lower-latitude and SH temperatures over the past 2000 years,
(iii) the likely loss of variability when including time-uncertain and smoothed proxies in a large-scale reconstruction,
(iv) the potential limited ability of conventional tree-ring records to capture millennial-scale trends in climate, and
(v) the need to more accurately estimate reconstruction uncertainties that reflect changes in replication and statistical model fidelity of the underlying proxy network back in time (a constant uncertainty range back in time is unlikely to accurately represent the increasing uncertainties that exist).

With any set of methods, however, their outcome is ultimately dependent on the data that they incorporate and the assumptions that underpin the statistical model. A major initiative to produce new high-resolution proxy records that span the entire CE is therefore necessary if we are to fundamentally improve our understanding of pre-instrumental temperature variations at policy-relevant timescales. It otherwise remains uncertain how warm and cold first millennium CE temperatures actually were and what caused these earlier changes at hemispheric to global scales, with implications for our understanding of the true range of externally and internally forced variability.

My Comment:

Among the references in the paper is that of Moberg et al (2005) Highly variable Northern Hemisphere temperatures reconstructed from low- and high-resolution proxy data.  The graph below shows one example of how more recent high quality reconstructions contradict the Mann depiction of a flat hockey stick handle during the centuries prior to the 20th.

Background of the Mann Hockey Stick Saga

Rise and Fall of the Modern Warming Spike

The first graph appeared in the IPCC 1990 First Assessment Report (FAR) credited to H.H.Lamb, first director of CRU-UEA. The second graph was featured in 2001 IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR) the famous hockey stick credited to M. Mann.

Green Ideologues Vs. Farmers (and All of Us)

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Ben Pile explains the climatists’ war on farming at Daily Sceptic Farmers’ Biggest Problems are Green Ideologues, not Climate Change. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

The recent autumn and winter months have seen Britain beset by more than the usual number of storms, and more than average amount of rainfall. For most of us, this has been merely unpleasant weather, but it has seemingly caused rivers to breach their banks and put much farmland under water. This is a real problem in its own right. Predictably, now the waters are receding, adherents of green ideology are turning the farming drama into the climate crisis, with talk of “failed harvests” and predictions of our imminent hunger. But where is the evidence?

The Guardian, as we would expect, has been leading the alarmist chorus. “The U.K. faces food shortages and price rises as extreme weather linked to climate breakdown causes low yields on farms locally and abroad,” it proclaimed, adding that “scientists have said this is just the beginning of shocks to the food supply chain caused by climate breakdown”. “I wish people understood the urgent climate threat to our near-term food security,” mourned Associate Professor of Environmental Change at Leiden University in the Netherlands to the newspaper.

Citing his experiences as a carrot farmer, Extinction Rebellion (XR) co-founder Roger Hallam declared on X that, “I know what is going to happen – not because of these particularly bad years, but because of the speed at which things are getting worse now.” Only “urgent revolution” can save us. And this in a nutshell is what the entire green movement has long been warning us of – extreme weather that will force us into hunger, which will drive us into political extremism and social breakdown and the end of civilisation. So are these floods a warning from Gaia that she made no covenant with us, unlike that other God, and that clouds stand ready to unleash her revenge on us for our SUV sins?

Are these greens latter-day Noahs, or just a ship of fools?

The problem for Hallam is that carrot production in the U.K. shows very little sign of sensitivity to climate change. Since the 1950s, carrot and turnip production has quadrupled. More significantly, yield per hectare – the indicator which is more sensitive to climate and weather – has more than tripled. If Britain was experiencing a climate-related carrot crisis, we would see this indicator plunge, rather than rise. Consequently, and contrary to fears about price rises, supermarkets are selling a kilo of British-grown carrots for 65p. ‘Wonky’ or ‘imperfect’ carrots are being sold at 45p/Kg. The struggle for carrot farmers may therefore be less high water than low prices for their products.

And the same story is revealed in UN data for nearly all British-grown vegetables. Inspection of the data reveals nothing resembling a pattern of climate change for the yield of wheat, oats, and cereals in general, onions, apples and pears, dry peas and other pulses, plums, potatoes and other roots and tubers, rapeseed, raspberries and strawberries, sugar beet and tomatoes. The only reductions in yield relate to the production of cauliflower and broccoli, and green peas. However, given that these data are significant outliers, we can for the moment assume that other reasons, perhaps economic or regulatory, better account for apparent declines in yield. Meanwhile, there is plenty of evidence in the U.K. and beyond that the era of global warming – or climate crisis – has been an era of bumper harvests.

Caution is required here. The point that sceptics rightly make to alarmists is that weather is not climate. It would be foolish to say that just because there exists no climate signal in agricultural production statistics, there is no evidence of weather affecting farming. There is.

In the 60 years of data about the production of potatoes in the U.K. there have been two unquestionable impacts of weather. The first occurred in the drought and heat years of 1975 and ’76. The second occurred in the washout year of 2012, though not, curiously, in the non-summer of 2008 and the ‘barbecue summer’ of 2009, which left the U.K. Met Office with egg on its face. However, the consequences of these disappointing years for society more broadly is very far from famine. Whereas potato famers produced 100kg of their crop per person in the U.K. in 2011, in 2012 this fell to 72Kg, the difference being made up by imports, mostly the following year. Chips and crisps may have cost slightly more, but nobody went hungry. And imports are perhaps the explanation for the gradual decline of overall production of the crop, too. Despite the ‘crisis’, potatoes are retailing for as little as 75p/kg in supermarkets.

It remains to be seen whether or not, and to what extent, recent weather events have affected agricultural production statistics. Nonetheless, farmers across the U.K. are reporting real problems. A mostly sober article in January’s Farmer’s Guide features the experiences of farmers from Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Essex and Lincolnshire following the deluge delivered by Storm Henk, leaving in some places the “highest flood level in more than 70 years”. Again, these are reports of serious problems that can ruin a farm. But the climate change narrative distracts from this necessary discussion. The article concludes with the words of Dr. Jonathan Clarke from the Institute for Global Sustainable Development at the University of Warwick, who claims that “there is an urgent need to consider how our society can become more resilient to the worst effects of a changing climate”. But weather conditions the same as we experienced 70 years ago are not evidence of an “urgent need” as much as they are a reminder of weather being a constant problem, and therefore of academics’ and scientists’ recent departure from both reality and historical fact.

So what has been the signal from weather? The Met Office’s data show that, for the country as a whole, March, February, December, October and September of last year brought significantly more than average rainfall. In a series of monthly data spanning 188 years, those months respectively were the 19th, 4th, 11th, 8th, and 63rd wettest of those months for England, and the 31st, 11th, 9th, 7th, and 32nd for the U.K. as a whole. Nasty for all of us, and especially difficult for famers. But does it even stand as evidence of “extreme weather”, as the Guardian claims, let alone man-made climate change-induced “extreme weather”, requiring “urgent” interventions to prevent it getting worse? Isn’t it just… you know… weather?

The worst of those months for the U.K. – the ninth wettest December – can be seen in its historical context. The Met Office provides a running average, which would seem to stand as an approximation of ‘climate change’. But despite that moving trendline, there were plenty of comparable Decembers in the mid to late 19th Century, and in the early and late 20th Century.

Moreover, the inter-annual variation of December rainfall spans nearly an entire order of magnitude, from 25mm to just under 225mm. The averaging of such noisy data does not and cannot reveal any underlying changing reality because it does not and cannot tell us anything useful – the trend is a phantom. Even if we were to follow on the Guardian’s and scientists’ injunction to eliminate emissions from fossil fuels, farmers would be no better protected from either drought or deluge. Moreover, if those trends were to be interpreted as probabilistic forecasts on which decisions are based, farmers would go bust in short order, because gambling on either more or less rain is guaranteed to produce a busted flush.

Farmers are not automata whose cyclic programming requires the same conditions each year. Farming is not a process with narrow operating thresholds that have been exceeded. Farming is an art, which requires careful judgement based on experience acquired by generations of farmers developing expertise in coping with hostile circumstances, including both different weather and market conditions.

The evidence clearly shows that continuous and increasing supplies of food are produced despite radical interannual monthly, seasonal and yearly shifts in weather, regardless of any semblance of trends in those variations. It has no doubt been a wet winter and spring. And this wetness may well have an effect on this year’s harvests.

But the notion that this has anything to do with climate change,
as per the framing of the Guardian‘s radical activists and equally
ideologically-driven scientists, puts ideology before reality.

Many farmers have taken to social media to show videos of their submerged farms. And this speaks to the absurdity of framing first-order problems like flooding as extremely abstract climate-related phenomena, for which there exist little if any evidence. The extant raw data, which span 188 years, tell us all that we need to know: some months there is very little rain, and these months may coincide; some months there is a great deal more rain, and likewise this can add up to create a backlog that needs to be drained. That is the full extent of the data that policymakers require to develop drought and flood mitigation strategies, and those parameters are completely unchanged by climate change, if any climate metrics can be squeezed out of the data at all.

In other words, we already know how dry it can be, and we already know how wet it can be. Therefore, we know what we need to do to ensure that there is sufficient water in drought and sufficient drainage in times of excess rainfall. We know, therefore, how badly politicians are already failing at their job. Their preferences for saving us with policies that ban cars and domestic gas boilers, tax flights and cover agricultural land with turbines and solar panels will not change these parameters. And by pushing up the prices of energy and feedstocks, it will likely create an agricultural crisis where none needs to exist.

Climate change is a massive distraction from our real and present problems.

 

Still Surplus Arctic Ice Mid April 2024

Posted on by Ron Clutz

The animation shows  Arctic ice melting season picking up first half of April 2024.  Typically, the Pacific side goes to water first, this year Okhotsk (top left) is ahead of schedule.  Also Baffin Bay (bottom right) is opening up early. Elsewhere Arctic drift ice remains, and Barents Sea ice (top center) is well above average for mid April.

The graph below shows mid-March to mid-April daily ice extents for 2024 compared to 18 year averages, and some years of note.

 

The black line shows on average Arctic ice extents decline from a maximum near 14.9M km2 on day 76 down to ~14.1M Km2 by day 105. Exceptionally 2024 started with 15.1M km2 and exceeded the 18-year average throughout.  SII was somewhat lower than MASIE in most of April until ending nearly the same. Both 2021 melted faster than average, while 2006 ice started and ended much in deficit.

Why is this important?  All the claims of global climate emergency depend on dangerously higher temperatures, lower sea ice, and rising sea levels.  The lack of additional warming prior to 2023 El Nino is documented in a post UAH February 2024: SH Saves Global Warming.

The lack of acceleration in sea levels along coastlines has been discussed also.  See USCS Warnings of Coastal Flooding

Also, a longer term perspective is informative:

post-glacial_sea_levelThe table below shows the distribution of Sea Ice on day 105 across the Arctic Regions, on average, this year and 2006.

Region 2024105 Day 105 Ave 2024-Ave. 2006105 2024-2006
 (0) Northern_Hemisphere 14244041 14119733 124309 13589226 654815
 (1) Beaufort_Sea 1070983 1069820 1163 1068683 2301
 (2) Chukchi_Sea 966006 964681 1325 965591 415
 (3) East_Siberian_Sea 1087137 1085571 1567 1083591 3546
 (4) Laptev_Sea 897845 893528 4316 896528 1317
 (5) Kara_Sea 935023 922957 12066 912379 22645
 (6) Barents_Sea 856908 608844 248064 495112 361796
 (7) Greenland_Sea 802111 653203 148908 599062 203049
 (8) Baffin_Bay_Gulf_of_St._Lawrence 1179443 1279861 -100418 1042266 137178
 (9) Canadian_Archipelago 854860 852951 1909 851056 3804
 (10) Hudson_Bay 1231701 1247129 -15428 1235951 -4250
 (11) Central_Arctic 3247180 3233303 13877 3168930 78250
 (12) Bering_Sea 639179 647219 -8040 667951 -28772
 (13) Baltic_Sea 31107 44493 -13386 84568 -53461
 (14) Sea_of_Okhotsk 442660 610735 -168075 507143 -64483

The overall surplus to average is 124k km2, (1%).  The only major deficits are in Baffin Bay and in Sea of Okhotsk, the latter going to open water quite early.  Those are more than offset by surpluses everywhere, especially in Barents and Greenland seas.  In fact, Barents is 120% of  its 2023 maximum.

bathymetric_map_arctic_ocean

Illustration by Eleanor Lutz shows Earth’s seasonal climate changes. If played in full screen, the four corners present views from top, bottom and sides. It is a visual representation of scientific datasets measuring Arctic ice extents.

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Our Weather Extremes Are Customary in History

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Ralph Alexander provides the facts and data in his GWPF paper Weather Extremes in Historical Context.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and selected images.

Introduction

This report refutes the popular but mistaken belief that today’s weather extremes are more common and more intense because of climate change, by examining the history of extreme weather events over the past century or so.  Drawing on newspaper archives, it presents multiple examples of past extremes that match or exceed anything experienced in the present day. That so many people are unaware of this fact shows that collective memories of extreme weather are short-lived.

Heatwaves

Heatwaves of the last few decades pale in comparison to those of the 1930s – a period whose importance is frequently downplayed by the media and environmental activists. The evidence shows that the record heat of that time was not confined to the US ‘Dust Bowl’, but extended throughout much of North America, as well as to other countries, such as France, India and Australia. US heatwaves during July 2023, falsely trumpeted by the mainstream media as the hottest month in history, failed to exceed the scorching heat of 1934.

Figure1: US heatwaves in 1930. Left: sample maximum temperatures for selected cities in April heatwave; right: exceptionally warm July heatwave in New York city.

Figure5: Observed changes in heatwaves in the contiguous US, 1901–2018. Source: CSSR.99

Heatwaves lasting a week or longer in the 1930s were not confined to North America; the Southern Hemisphere baked too. Adelaide, on Australia’s south coast, experienced a heatwave at least 11 days long in 1930, and Perth on the west coast saw a 10-day spell in 1933.  In August 1930, Australian and New Zealand (and presumably French) newspapers recounted a French heatwave that month, in which the temperature soared to a staggering 50°C (122°F) in the Loire valley – besting a purported record of 46°C (115°F) set in southern France in 2019. Many more examples exist of the exceptionally hot 1930s all over the globe. Even with modern global warming, there’s nothing unprecedented about current heatwaves, either in frequency or magnitude.

Floods

Major floods today are no more common nor deadly or disruptive than any of the thousands of floods in the past, despite heavier precipitation in a warming world (which has increased flash flooding in some regions).  Many of the world’s countries regularly experience major floods, especially China, India and Pakistan. A significant 1931 flood in China covered a far greater area and affected many more people than the devastating 2022 floods in Pakistan.

Figure 8: Disastrous Yangtze River flood in China, 1931.

Figure 10: Annual number of deaths from major floods in Pakistan, 1950 to 2012. Source: M.J. Paulikas and M.K. Rahman.100

The Pakistan floods of 2022 were the nation’s sixth since 1950 to kill over 1,000 people, although the death toll from the 2022 floods was a comparable 1,739. Major floods which killed as many as 3,100 people afflicted the country in 1950, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1959, throughout the 1970s and in more recent years.

Monsoonal rains in 1950 led to flooding that killed an estimated 2,900 people across the country and caused the Ravi River in northeastern Pakistan to burst its banks; 10,000 villages were decimated and 900,000 people made homeless.  In 1973, one of Pakistan’s worst-ever floods followed intense rainfall of 325 mm (13 inches) in Punjab (which means ‘Five Rivers’) province, affecting more than 4.8 million people out of a total population of about 65 million.

Droughts

Severe droughts have been a continuing feature of the Earth’s climate for millennia, despite the brouhaha in the mainstream media over the extended drought in Europe during the summer of 2022. Not only was the European drought not unprecedented, but there have been numerous longer and drier droughts throughout history, including during the past century.

Figure 12: Famine following drought in India, 1966–67

Figure14: Percentage of the US in drought 1895–2015. Based on the Palmer Drought Severity Index. Source: NOAA/NCEI.101

As an illustration that the 1930s and 1950s were not the only decades over the past century in which the US experienced significant droughts, Figure 14 depicts observational data showing the area of the contiguous US in drought from 1895 up until 2015. As can be seen, the long-term pattern in the US is featureless, despite global warming. Reconstructions of ancient droughts using tree rings or pollen as proxies reveal that historical droughts were even longer and more severe than those described here, many lasting for decades – so-called ‘megadroughts.’

Figure13: Texas drought, 1950–57. Left top photo: car being towed after becoming stuck in parched riverbed; left bottom photo: once lakeside cabins on shrinking Lake Waco; right top photo: dry lakebed; right bottom: newspaper excerpt.

Hurricanes

Hurricanes overall actually show a decreasing trend around the globe, and the frequency of their landfalling has not changed for at least 50 years. The deadliest US hurricane in recorded history, which killed an estimated 8–12,000 people, struck Galveston, Texas in 1900. As a comparison, the death toll of 2022’s Category 5 Hurricane Ian, which ldeluged much of Florida with a storm surge as high as Galveston’s, was just 156.

Figure 17: Annual number of North Atlantic hurricanes, 1851–2022. Source: NOAA Hurricane Research Division103 and Paul Homewood.104

Hurricanes have been a fact of life for Americans in and around the Gulf of Mexico since Galveston and before. The death toll has fallen over time, with improvements in planning and engineering to safeguard structures, and the development of early warning systems to allow evacuation of threatened communities. Nevertheless, the frequency of North Atlantic hurricanes has been essentially unchanged since 1851, as shown in Figure 17. The apparent heightened hurricane activity over the last 20 years, particularly in 2005 and 2020, simply reflects improvements in observational capabilities since 1970, and is unlikely to be a true climate trend, say a team of hurricane experts. The incidence of major North Atlantic hurricanes in recent decades is no higher than that in the 1950s and 1960s, when the Earth was actually cooling, unlike today.

Figure22: Hurricane Camille, 1969.

These are just a handful of hurricanes from our past, all as massive and deadly as Category 5 Hurricane Ian, which in 2022 deluged Florida with a storm surge as high as Galveston’s and rainfall up to 685 mm (27 inches); 156 were killed. Hurricanes are not on the rise today

Tornadoes

Likewise, there is no evidence that climate change is causing tornadoes to become more frequent and stronger. The annual number of strong (EF3 or greater) US tornadoes has in fact declined dramatically over the last 72 years, and there are ample examples of past tornadoes just as or more violent and deadly than today’s.

Figure26: Super Outbreak of tornadoes, 1974. Left: distribution and approximate path lengths of tornadoes; top right photo: F5 tornado approaching Xenia, Ohio (population 29,000); center right and bottom right photos: consequent wreckage in Xenia.

Figure27: Annual count of EF3 and above tornadoes in the US, 1950–2021. Source: Source: NOAA/NCEI.106, 107

After a flurry of tornadoes swarmed the central US in March 2023, the media quickly fell into the trap of linking the surge to climate change, as often occurs with other forms of extreme weather. But there is no evidence that climate change is causing tornadoes to become more frequent and  stronger, any more than hurricanes are increasing in strength and number.

Wildfires

Wildfires are not increasing either. On the contrary, the area burned annually is diminishing in most countries. The total number of US fires and the area burned in 2022 were both 20% less than in 2007; data before 1983 that mysteriously disappeared recently from a government website shows an even larger historical decline. And, in  spite of popular belief, ignition of wildfires by arson plays a larger role than sustained high temperatures and wind.

Figure30: Wildfires in northern California Left: near Auburn, Mt. Shasta and Yosemite, 1936; right: in Mendocino County, known for its redwood forests, 1945.

Figure32: Global forest area burned by wildfires, 1900–2010 Source: Jia Yang et al.108

Smoke that wafted over the US from extensive Canadian wildfires in 2023 has given credence to the mistaken belief that wildfires are intensifying because of climate change. However, just as with all the other examples of extreme weather, there is no scientific evidence that wildfires today are any more frequent or severe than anything experienced in the past. Although they can be exacerbated by weather extremes, such as heatwaves and droughts, we’ve already seen that those are not on the rise either.

In addition to examples of past weather extremes from newspaper archives, the report concludes with a short section on documented extreme weather events dating back centuries and even millennia.

Conclusion

The perception that extreme weather is increasing in frequency and severity is primarily a consequence of modern technology – the Internet and smart phones – which have revolutionised communication and made us much more aware of such disasters than we were 50 or 100 years ago. The misperception has only been amplified by the mainstream media, eager to promote the latest climate scare. And as psychologists know, constant repetition of a false belief can, over time, create the illusion of truth. But history tells a different story.

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Arctic Ice Marches Upward 2024

Posted on by Ron Clutz

The animation shows end of March Arctic ice extents on day 91 over the last 19 years (length of MASIE dataset). Of course central Arctic basins are frozen solid, and the fluctuations are visible on the marginal basins both the Atlantic side (right) and the Pacific (left). Note the higher extents in 2012, followed by lesser ice, now overcome by 2024.

The graph below shows Monthly averages for March since 2007.  March is the maximum month in the annual cycle in contrast to September being the minimum Arctic ice extents. Note the low 2007 extents followed by several years over15M km2, then lesser extents 2015 to 2018, and increasing extents up to 2024 nearly averaging 15M for the month.

 

The graph below shows March daily ice extents for 2024 compared to 18 year averages, and some years of note.

 

The black line shows during March on average Arctic ice extents nearly reach 15 Wadhams (15M km2) on Day 62, March 2.  A slow decline is normal until Day 91, March 31.  However, that period in 2024 saw Arctic ice go over 15M on day 68 and remain there until day 79. Afterward both MASIE and SII show above average extents to month end.  2006 was the first year in this dataset and ended March ~800k km2 in deficit to average.  2021 and 2023 were ~200k below average on Day 91 while 2024 ended 266k km2 surplus ice.   As usual in transitional months like March and September, SII (Sea Ice Index) shows a similar pattern with generally lower extents.

Why is this important?  All the claims of global climate emergency depend on dangerously higher temperatures, lower sea ice, and rising sea levels.  The lack of additional warming prior to 2023 El Nino is documented in a post UAH February 2024: SH Saves Global Warming.

The lack of acceleration in sea levels along coastlines has been discussed also.  See USCS Warnings of Coastal Flooding

Also, a longer term perspective is informative:

post-glacial_sea_levelThe table below shows the distribution of Sea Ice on day 91 across the Arctic Regions, on average, this year and 2006.

Region 2024091 Day 91 ave 2024-Ave. 2006091 2024-2006
 (0) Northern_Hemisphere 14854967 14589377 265590 13821470 1033497
 (1) Beaufort_Sea 1070983 1070226 758 1068683 2301
 (2) Chukchi_Sea 966006 963401 2606 959091 6915
 (3) East_Siberian_Sea 1087137 1086151 987 1084120 3017
 (4) Laptev_Sea 897845 896053 1792 896510 1335
 (5) Kara_Sea 935023 919656 15367 910487 24536
 (6) Barents_Sea 845789 657875 187914 622588 223201
 (7) Greenland_Sea 771533 661909 109624 601310 170223
 (8) Baffin_Bay_Gulf_of_St._Lawrence 1238205 1384413 -146208 1003875 234330
 (9) Canadian_Archipelago 854860 853089 1772 851691 3169
 (10) Hudson_Bay 1260903 1255353 5551 1240389 20514
 (11) Central_Arctic 3248013 3235452 12561 3239349 8664
 (12) Bering_Sea 724493 703487 21006 658979 65514
 (13) Baltic_Sea 50165 61636 -11471 114622 -64457
 (14) Sea_of_Okhotsk 900660 831057 69602 558027 342633

The overall surplus to average is 266k km2, (2%).  The only major deficit is in Baffin Bay, more than offset by surpluses everywhere, especially in Okhotsk, Barents and Greenland seas.  Note Arctic ice yesterday was more than a Wadham greater than the same day in 2006.

bathymetric_map_arctic_ocean

Illustration by Eleanor Lutz shows Earth’s seasonal climate changes. If played in full screen, the four corners present views from top, bottom and sides. It is a visual representation of scientific datasets measuring Arctic ice extents.

 

2023 Climate Report: Earth’s Climate Is Fine

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Preface

This report is written for people wishing to form their own opinion on issues relating to climate. Its focus is on publicly available observational datasets, and not on the output of numerical models, although there are a few exceptions, such as Figure 42. References and data sources are listed at the end.

The observational data presented here reveal a vast number of natural variations, some of which appear in more than one series. The existence of such natural climatic variations is not always fully acknowledged, and therefore generally not considered in contemporary climate conversations. The drivers of most of these climatic variations are not yet fully understood, but should represent an important focus for climatic research in future.

In this report, meteorological and climatic observations are described according to the following overall structure: atmosphere, oceans, sea level, sea ice, snow cover, precipitation, and storms. Finally, in the last section (below), the observational evidence as at 2023 is briefly summarised.

Ten facts about the year 2023

1. Air temperatures in 2023 were the highest on record (since 1850/1880/1979, according to the particular data series). Recent warming is not symmetrical, but is mainly seen in the Northern Hemisphere (Figures 1 and 13).

Figure 1: 2023 surface air temperatures compared to the average for the previous 10 years. Green-yellow-red colours indicate areas with higher temperature than the average, while blue colours indicate lower than average temperatures. Data source: Remote Sensed Surface Temperature Anomaly, AIRS/Aqua L3 Monthly Standard Physical Retrieval 1-degree x 1-degree V006 (https://airs.jpl.nasa.gov/), obtained from the GISS data portal (https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/maps/).

 Figure 13: Zonal air temperatures. Global monthly average lower troposphere temperature since 1979 for the tropics and the northern and southern extratropics, according to University of Alabama at Huntsville, USA. Thin lines: monthly value; thick lines: 3-year running mean.

2. Arctic air temperatures have increased during the satellite era (since 1979), but Antarctic temperatures remain essentially stable (Figure 14).

Figure 14: Polar temperatures Global monthly average lower troposphere temperature since 1979 for the North and South Pole regions, according to University of Alabama at Huntsville (UAH), USA. Thick lines are the simple running 37-month average.

3. Since 2004, globally, the upper 1900m of the oceans has seen net warming of about 0.037°C. The greatest warming (of about 0.2°C) is in the uppermost 100m, and mainly in regions near the Equator, where the greatest amount of solar radiation is received (Figure 28).

Figure 28: Temperature changes 0–1900m Global ocean net temperature change since 2004 from surface to 1900m depth, using Argo-data. Source: Global Marine Argo Atlas.

4. Since 2004, the northern oceans (55–65°N) have, on average, experienced a marked cooling down to 1400m depth, and slight warming below that (Figure 29). Over the same period, the southern oceans (55–65°S) have, on average, seen some warming at most depths (above 1900m), but mainly near the surface.

Figure 29: Temperature changes 0–1900m Global ocean net temperature change since 2004 from surface to 1900m depth. Source: Global Marine Argo Atlas

5. Sea level globally is increasing at about 3.4 mm per year or more according to satellites, but only at 1-2 mm per year according to coastal tide gauges (Figures 39 and 41). Local and regional sea-level changes usually deviate significantly from such global averages.

Figure 39: Global sea level change since December 1992 The two lower panels show the annual sea level change, calculated for 1- and 10-year time windows, respectively. These values are plotted at the end of the interval considered. Source: Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research at University of Colorado at Boulder. The blue dots are the individual observations (with calculated GIA e”ect removed), and the purple line represents the running 121-month (ca. 10-year) average.

Figure 41: Holgate-9 monthly tide gauge data from PSMSL Data Explorer The Holgate-9 are a series of tide gauges located in geologically stable sites. The two lower panels show the annual sea level change, calculated for 1- and 10-year time windows, respectively. These values are plotted at the end of the interval considered. Source: Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research at University of Colorado at Boulder. The blue dots are the individual observations, and the purple line represents the running 121-month (ca. 10-year) average.

6. Global sea-ice extent remains well below the average for the satellite era (since 1979). Since 2018, however, it has remained quasistable, perhaps even exhibiting a small increase (Figure 43).

Figure 43: Global and hemispheric sea ice extent since 1979 12-month running means. The October 1979 value represents the monthly average of November 1978–October 1979, the November 1979 value represents the average of December 1978–November 1979, etc. The stippled lines represent a 61-month (ca. 5 years) average. The last month included in the 12-month calculations is shown to the right in the diagram. Data source: National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).

7. Global snow cover has remained essentially stable throughout the satellite era (Figure 47), although with important regional and seasonal variations.

Figure 47: Northern hemisphere weekly snow cover since 2000 (a) Since January 2000 and (b) Since 1972. Source: Rutgers University Global Snow Laboratory. The thin blue line is the weekly data, and the thick blue line is the running 53-week average (approximately 1 year). The horizontal red line is the 1972–2022 average.

8. Global precipitation varies from more than 3000mm per year in humid regions to almost nothing in deserts. Global average precipitation exhibits variations from one year to the next, and from decade to decade, but since 1901 there has been no clear overall trend (Figure 50).

Figure 50: Global precipitation anomalies. Variation of annual anomalies in relation to the global average precipitation from 1901 to 2021 based on rainfall and snowfall measurements from land-based weather stations worldwide. Data source: United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

9. Storms and hurricanes display variable frequency over time, but without any clear global trend towards higher or lower values (Figure 51).

Figure 51: Annual global accumulated cyclone energy Source: Ryan Maue.

 

10. Observations confirm the continuing long-term variability of average meteorological and oceanographic conditions, but do not support the notion of an ongoing climate crisis.

Summing up

The global climate system is multifaceted, involving sun, planets, atmosphere, oceans, land, geological processes, biological life, and complex interactions between them. Many components and their mutual coupling are still not fully understood or perhaps not even recognised.

Believing that one minor constituent of the atmosphere (CO2) controls nearly all aspects of climate is naïve and entirely unrealistic.

The global climate has remained in a quasi-stable condition within certain limits for millions of years, although with important variations playing out over periods ranging from years to centuries or more, but the global climate has never been in a fully stable state without change.

Modern observations show that this behaviour continues today;
there is no evidence of a global climate crisis.

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For Millions of Years Earth Temperatures Not Driven by CO2

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Figure 5 , W J Davis (2017)

The Relationship between Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Concentration and Global Temperature for the Last 425 Million Years by W. Jackson Davis describes the evidence why earth temperatures are decoupled from CO2 throughout 425 Million years of history.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

Abstract:

Assessing human impacts on climate and biodiversity requires an understanding of the relationship between the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Earth’s atmosphere and global temperature (T). Here I explore this relationship empirically using comprehensive, recently-compiled databases of stable-isotope proxies from the Phanerozoic Eon (~540 to 0 years before the present) and through complementary modeling using the atmospheric absorption/ transmittance code MODTRAN.

Atmospheric CO2 concentration is correlated weakly but negatively
with linearly-detrended T proxies over the last 425 million years.

Of 68 correlation coefficients (half non-parametric) between CO2 and T proxies encompassing all known major Phanerozoic climate transitions, 77.9% are non-discernible (p > 0.05) and 60.0% of discernible correlations are negative. Marginal radiative forcing (ΔRFCO2), the change in forcing at the top of the troposphere associated with a unit increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration, was computed using MODTRAN. The correlation between ΔRFCO2 and linearly-detrended T across the Phanerozoic Eon is positive and discernible, but only 2.6% of variance in T is attributable to variance in ΔRFCO2.

Spectral analysis, auto- and cross-correlation show that proxies for T, atmospheric CO2 concentration and ΔRFCO2 oscillate across the Phanerozoic, and cycles of CO2 and ΔRFCO2 are antiphasic. A prominent 15 million-year CO2 cycle coincides closely with identified mass extinctions of the past, suggesting a pressing need for research on the relationship between CO2, biodiversity extinction, and related carbon policies.

This study demonstrates that changes in atmospheric CO2 concentration did not cause temperature change in the ancient climate.

Introduction

The role of atmospheric CO2 in climate includes short- and long-term aspects. In the short term, atmospheric trace gases including CO2 are widely considered to affect weather by influencing surface sea temperature anomalies and sea-ice variation, which are key leading indicators of annual and decadal atmospheric circulation and consequent rainfall, drought, floods and other weather extremes [33–37]. Understanding the role of atmospheric CO2 in forcing global temperature, therefore has the potential to improve weather forecasting.

In the long term, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) promulgates a significant role for CO2 in forcing global climate, estimating a “most likely” sensitivity of global temperature to a doubling of CO2 concentration as 2–4 °C [29–31]. Policies intended to adapt to the projected consequences of global warming and to mitigate the projected effects by reducing anthropogenic CO2 emissions are on the agenda of local, regional and national governments and international bodies.

The compilation in the last decade of comprehensive empirical databases containing proxies of Phanerozoic temperature and atmospheric CO2 concentration enables a fresh analytic approach to the CO2/T relationship. The temperature-proxy databases include thousands of measurements by hundreds of investigators for the time period from 522 to 0 Mybp [28,38,39], while proxies for atmospheric CO2 from the Phanerozoic Eon encompass 831 measurements reported independently by hundreds of investigators for the time period from 425 to 0 Mybp [40]. Such an unprecedented volume of data on the Phanerozoic climate enables the most accurate quantitative empirical evaluation to date of the relationship between atmospheric CO2 concentration and temperature in the ancient climate, which is the purpose of this study.

I report here that proxies for temperature and atmospheric CO2 concentration
are generally uncorrelated across the Phanerozoic climate,
showing that atmospheric CO2 did not drive the ancient climate.

The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is a less-direct measure of its effect on global temperature than marginal radiative forcing, however, which is nonetheless also generally uncorrelated with temperature across the Phanerozoic. The present findings from the Phanerozoic climate provide possible insights into the role of atmospheric CO2 in more recent glacial cycling and for contemporary climate science and carbon policies. Finally, I report that the concentration of atmospheric CO2 oscillated regularly during the Phanerozoic and peaks in CO2 concentration closely match the peaks of mass extinctions identified by previous investigators. This finding suggests an urgent need for research aimed at quantifying the relationship between atmospheric CO2  concentration and past mass extinctions. I conclude that that limiting anthropogenic emissions of CO2 may not be helpful in preventing harmful global warming, but may be essential to  conserving biodiversity.

Discussion of Temperature versus Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide

Temperature and atmospheric CO2 concentration proxies plotted in the same time series panel (Figure 5) show an apparent dissociation and even an antiphasic relationship. For example, a CO2 concentration peak near 415 My occurs near a temperature trough at 445 My. Similarly, CO2 concentration peaks around 285 Mybp coincide with a temperature trough at about 280 My and also  with the Permo-Carboniferous glacial period (labeled 2 in Figure 5). In more recent time periods, where data sampling resolution is greater, the same trend is visually evident. The atmospheric CO2  concentration peak near 200 My occurs during a cooling climate, as does another, smaller CO2 concentration peak at approximately 37 My. The shorter cooling periods of the Phanerozoic, labeled 1–10 in Figure 5, do not appear qualitatively, at least, to bear any definitive relationship with fluctuations in the atmospheric concentration of CO2.

[My Comment: Antiphasic in this context refers to times when temperatures are rising while CO2 is declining, and also periods when temperatures are falling while CO2 is going higher.  These negative correlations are to be expected if temperature is the leading variable and CO2 the dependent variable.]

Regression of linearly-detrended temperature proxies (Figure 3b, lower red curve) against atmospheric CO2 concentration proxy data reveals a weak but discernible negative correlation between CO2 concentration and T (Figure 6). Contrary to the conventional expectation, therefore, as the concentration of atmospheric CO2 increased during the Phanerozoic climate, T decreased. This finding is consistent with the apparent weak antiphasic relation between atmospheric CO2 concentration proxies and T suggested by visual examination of empirical data (Figure 5). The percent of variance in T that can be explained by variance in atmospheric CO2 concentration, or conversely, R2 × 100, is 3.6%. Therefore, more than 95% of the variance in T is explained by unidentified variables other than the atmospheric concentration of CO2.

Regression of non-detrended temperature against atmospheric CO2 concentration shows a weak but discernible positive correlation between CO2 concentration and T. This weak positive association may result from the general decline in temperature accompanied by a weak overall decline in CO2 concentration.

The correlation coefficients between the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere and T were computed also across 15 shorter time segments of the Phanerozoic.

These time periods were selected to include or bracket the three major glacial periods of the Phanerozoic, ten global cooling events identified by stratigraphic indicators, and major transitions between warming and cooling of the Earth designated by the bar across the top of Figure 5. The analysis was done separately for the most recent time periods of the Phanerozoic, where the sampling resolution was highest (Table 1), and for the older time periods of the Phanerozoic, where the sampling resolution was lower (Table 2).

For the most highly-resolved Phanerozoic data (Table 1), 12/15 (80.0%) Pearson correlation coefficients computed between atmospheric CO2 concentration proxies and T proxies are non-discernible (p > 0.05). Of the three discernible correlation coefficients, all are negative, i.e., T and atmospheric CO2 concentration are inversely related across the corresponding time periods.

For the less highly-resolved older Phanerozoic data (Table 2), 14/20 (70.0%) Pearson correlation coefficients computed between atmospheric CO2 concentration and T are non-discernible. Of the six discernible correlation coefficients, two are negative. For the less-sampled older Phanerozoic (Table 2), 17/20 (85.0%) Spearman correlation coefficients are non-discernible. Of the three discernible Spearman correlation coefficients, one is negative.

Combining atmospheric CO2 concentration vs. T correlation coefficients
from both tables, 53/68 (77.9%) are non-discernible, and of
the 15 discernible correlation coefficients, nine (60.0%) are negative.

These data collectively support the conclusion that the atmospheric concentration of CO2 was largely decoupled from T over the majority of the Phanerozoic climate.

The finding that periodograms of atmospheric CO2 concentration proxies and T proxies exhibit different frequency profiles implies that atmospheric CO2 concentration and T oscillated at different frequencies during the Phanerozoic, consistent with disassociation between the respective cycles. This conclusion is corroborated by auto- and cross-correlation analysis.

If ΔRFCO2 is a more direct indicator of the impact of CO2 on temperature than atmospheric concentration as hypothesized, then the correlation between ΔRFCO2 and T over the Phanerozoic Eon might be expected to be positive and statistically discernible. This hypothesis is confirmed (Figure 9). This analysis entailed averaging atmospheric CO2 concentration in one-My bins over the recent Phanerozoic and either averaging or interpolating CO2 values over the older Phanerozoic (Methods). Owing to the relatively large sample size, the Pearson correlation coefficient is statistically discernible despite its small value (R = 0.16, n = 199), with the consequence that only a small fraction (2.56%) of the variance in T can be explained by variance in ΔRFCO2 (Figure 9). Even though the correlation coefficient between ΔRFCO2 and T is positive and discernible as hypothesized, therefore, the correlation coefficient can be considered negligible and the maximum effect of ΔRFCO2 on T is for practical purposes insignificant (<95%).

Conclusions

The principal findings of this study are that neither the atmospheric concentration
of CO2 nor ΔRFCO2 is correlated with T over most of the ancient (Phanerozoic) climate.

Over all major climate transitions of the Phanerozoic Eon, about three-quarters of 136 correlation coefficients computed here between T and atmospheric CO2 concentration, and between T and ΔRFCO2, are non-discernible, and about half of the discernible correlations are negative. Correlation does not imply causality, but the absence of correlation proves conclusively the absence of causality [63]. The finding that atmospheric CO2 concentration and ΔRFCO2 are generally uncorrelated with T, therefore, implies either that neither variable exerted significant causal influence on T during the Phanerozoic Eon or that the underlying proxy databases do not accurately reflect the variables evaluated.

The generally weak or absent correlations between the atmospheric concentration of CO2 and T,and between ΔRFCO2 and T, imply that other, unidentified variables caused most (>95%) of the variance in T across the Phanerozoic climate record. The dissimilar structures of periodograms for T and atmospheric CO2 concentration found here also imply that different but unidentified forces drove independent cyclic fluctuations in T and CO2. Since cycles in atmospheric CO2 concentrationoccur independently of temperature cycles, the respective rhythms must have a different etiology. It has been suggested that volcanic activity and seafloor spreading produce periodic CO2 emissions from the Earth’s mantle ([69] and references therein) which could in principle increase radiative forcing of temperature globally.

The present findings corroborate the earlier conclusion based on study of the Paleozoic climate that “global climate may be independent of variations in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration.” [64] (p. 198). The present study shows further, however, that past atmospheric CO2 concentration oscillates on a cycle of 15–20 My and an amplitude of a few hundred to several hundreds of ppmv. A second longer cycle oscillates at 60–70 My. As discussed below, the peaks of the ~15 My cycles align closely with the times of identified mass extinctions during the Phanerozoic Eon, inviting further research on the relationship between atmospheric CO2 concentration and mass extinctions during the Phanerozoic.

My Added Comment

Some climatists will admit that CO2 changes did not cause ancient climate changes, but then assert that everything shifted when humans began burning hydrocarbons and releasing CO2.  Somehow natural processes ceased and now only warming can occur due to CO2 added by humans.  On the contrary, we can look more recently at the recovery from the LIA (Little Ice Age) to see the same antiphasic pattern described in the above paper.

Moberg is a highly respected recontruction of NH temperatures over the last 2000 years.  It shows peak warming after 1000, followed by a sharp cooling hitting bottom by 1600.  Kouwenberg is a CO2 time series based on plant stomata proxies.  For 250 years during the cooling, CO2 was rising, and then later CO2 was declining for 240 years while temperatures were rising.

As for the 20th century, consider the graph from climate4you (KNMI Climate Explorer)

Even with modern instrumental temperature records, correlation is inconsistent between temperature and CO2.  Much ado is made about the happenstance of positive linking between the 1990s to 2007, while ignoring the negative relation earlier, and a weak connection since.  The latter period is obviously driven by oceanic ENSO activity rather than CO2 radiation.

 

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WMO Jumps the Warming Shark

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Considering the relentless fear mongering by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the acronym should  be pronounced “Whaammo.”  The latest is their hype about temperatures in 2023 as reported in the Daily Mail Climate change is ‘off the charts’:

Damning report reveals how records were smashed for greenhouse gas emissions, global temperatures and sea level rise in 2023 – and scientists warn ‘changes are speeding up’

Their killer graph is this one:

John Ray explains the exaggerations in comments at his blog In talics with my bolds and added images.

Here we go again. The temperature changes they are talking about are tiny and their link to human activities is just a wobbly theory. There is no proof that human activities had any impact at all.

All the warming since 1947 followed three strong El Nino events.

And note the chart. It is calibrated in TENTHS of one degree and has to go back to 1850 to show anything like a smooth rise. A more detailed chart would show long periods of stasis and falls, unlike CO emissions, which have been rising fairly steadily as industrial civilization has progressed. It is all just asssertion and even they admit that recent rises could be due to El Nino rather than CO2 emissions

And note that they show NO details of the CO2 changes which they allege to be at fault.

The sharp rise in ocean temps in 2023 has uncertain causes, but cannot be attributed to slow systemtic increases in CO2.