UAH July 2024: Little Warming from “Hot” July

Posted on by Ron Clutz

The post below updates the UAH record of air temperatures over land and ocean. Each month and year exposes again the growing disconnect between the real world and the Zero Carbon zealots.  It is as though the anti-hydrocarbon band wagon hopes to drown out the data contradicting their justification for the Great Energy Transition.  Yes, there has been warming from an El Nino buildup coincidental with North Atlantic warming, but no basis to blame it on CO2.  

As an overview consider how recent rapid cooling  completely overcame the warming from the last 3 El Ninos (1998, 2010 and 2016).  The UAH record shows that the effects of the last one were gone as of April 2021, again in November 2021, and in February and June 2022  At year end 2022 and continuing into 2023 global temp anomaly matched or went lower than average since 1995, an ENSO neutral year. (UAH baseline is now 1991-2020). Now we have an usual El Nino warming spike of uncertain cause, but unrelated to steadily rising CO2.

For reference I added an overlay of CO2 annual concentrations as measured at Mauna Loa.  While temperatures fluctuated up and down ending flat, CO2 went up steadily by ~60 ppm, a 15% increase.

Furthermore, going back to previous warmings prior to the satellite record shows that the entire rise of 0.8C since 1947 is due to oceanic, not human activity.

gmt-warming-events

The animation is an update of a previous analysis from Dr. Murry Salby.  These graphs use Hadcrut4 and include the 2016 El Nino warming event.  The exhibit shows since 1947 GMT warmed by 0.8 C, from 13.9 to 14.7, as estimated by Hadcrut4.  This resulted from three natural warming events involving ocean cycles. The most recent rise 2013-16 lifted temperatures by 0.2C.  Previously the 1997-98 El Nino produced a plateau increase of 0.4C.  Before that, a rise from 1977-81 added 0.2C to start the warming since 1947.

Importantly, the theory of human-caused global warming asserts that increasing CO2 in the atmosphere changes the baseline and causes systemic warming in our climate.  On the contrary, all of the warming since 1947 was episodic, coming from three brief events associated with oceanic cycles. And now in 2024 we have seen an amazing episode with a temperature spike driven by ocean air warming in all regions, along with rising NH land temperatures, now receding from its peak.

Chris Schoeneveld has produced a similar graph to the animation above, with a temperature series combining HadCRUT4 and UAH6. H/T WUWT

image-8

 

mc_wh_gas_web20210423124932

See Also Worst Threat: Greenhouse Gas or Quiet Sun?

July 2024 Global Temps Little Changed by Land Warmingbanner-blog

With apologies to Paul Revere, this post is on the lookout for cooler weather with an eye on both the Land and the Sea.  While you heard a lot about 2020-21 temperatures matching 2016 as the highest ever, that spin ignores how fast the cooling set in.  The UAH data analyzed below shows that warming from the last El Nino had fully dissipated with chilly temperatures in all regions. After a warming blip in 2022, land and ocean temps dropped again with 2023 starting below the mean since 1995.  Spring and Summer 2023 saw a series of warmings, continuing into October, followed by cooling. 

UAH has updated their tlt (temperatures in lower troposphere) dataset for July 2024. Posts on their reading of ocean air temps this month follows the update from HadSST4.  I posted last week on SSTs using HadSST4 Oceans Warming Uptick July 2024. This month also has a separate graph of land air temps because the comparisons and contrasts are interesting as we contemplate possible cooling in coming months and years.

Sometimes air temps over land diverge from ocean air changes. Last February 2024, both ocean and land air temps went higher driven by SH, while NH and the Tropics cooled slightly, resulting in Global anomaly matching October 2023 peak. Then in March Ocean anomalies cooled while Land anomalies rose everywhere. After a mixed pattern in April, the May anomalies were back down led by a large drop in NH land, and a smaller ocean decline in all regions. In June all Ocean regions dropped down, as well as dips in SH and Tropical land temps. Now in July all Oceans were unchanged except for Tropical warming, while all land regions rose slightly. 

Note:  UAH has shifted their baseline from 1981-2010 to 1991-2020 beginning with January 2021.  In the charts below, the trends and fluctuations remain the same but the anomaly values changed with the baseline reference shift.

Presently sea surface temperatures (SST) are the best available indicator of heat content gained or lost from earth’s climate system.  Enthalpy is the thermodynamic term for total heat content in a system, and humidity differences in air parcels affect enthalpy.  Measuring water temperature directly avoids distorted impressions from air measurements.  In addition, ocean covers 71% of the planet surface and thus dominates surface temperature estimates.  Eventually we will likely have reliable means of recording water temperatures at depth.

Recently, Dr. Ole Humlum reported from his research that air temperatures lag 2-3 months behind changes in SST.  Thus cooling oceans portend cooling land air temperatures to follow.  He also observed that changes in CO2 atmospheric concentrations lag behind SST by 11-12 months.  This latter point is addressed in a previous post Who to Blame for Rising CO2?

After a change in priorities, updates are now exclusive to HadSST4.  For comparison we can also look at lower troposphere temperatures (TLT) from UAHv6 which are now posted for July.  The temperature record is derived from microwave sounding units (MSU) on board satellites like the one pictured above. Recently there was a change in UAH processing of satellite drift corrections, including dropping one platform which can no longer be corrected. The graphs below are taken from the revised and current dataset.

The UAH dataset includes temperature results for air above the oceans, and thus should be most comparable to the SSTs. There is the additional feature that ocean air temps avoid Urban Heat Islands (UHI).  The graph below shows monthly anomalies for ocean air temps since January 2015.

Note 2020 was warmed mainly by a spike in February in all regions, and secondarily by an October spike in NH alone. In 2021, SH and the Tropics both pulled the Global anomaly down to a new low in April. Then SH and Tropics upward spikes, along with NH warming brought Global temps to a peak in October.  That warmth was gone as November 2021 ocean temps plummeted everywhere. After an upward bump 01/2022 temps reversed and plunged downward in June.  After an upward spike in July, ocean air everywhere cooled in August and also in September.   

After sharp cooling everywhere in January 2023, all regions were into negative territory. Note the Tropics matched the lowest value, but since have spiked sharply upward +1.7C, with the largest increases in April to July, and continuing through adding to a new high of 1.3C January to March 2024.  In April and May that started dropping in all regions.   June showed a sharp decline everywhere, led by the Tropics down 0.5C. The Global anomaly fell to nearly match the September 2023 value. Now in July, the Tropics rose slightly while SH, NH and the Global Anomaly were unchanged.

Land Air Temperatures Tracking in Seesaw Pattern

We sometimes overlook that in climate temperature records, while the oceans are measured directly with SSTs, land temps are measured only indirectly.  The land temperature records at surface stations sample air temps at 2 meters above ground.  UAH gives tlt anomalies for air over land separately from ocean air temps.  The graph updated for July is below.

 

Here we have fresh evidence of the greater volatility of the Land temperatures, along with extraordinary departures by SH land.  Land temps are dominated by NH with a 2021 spike in January,  then dropping before rising in the summer to peak in October 2021. As with the ocean air temps, all that was erased in November with a sharp cooling everywhere.  After a summer 2022 NH spike, land temps dropped everywhere, and in January, further cooling in SH and Tropics offset by an uptick in NH. 

Remarkably, in 2023, SH land air anomaly shot up 2.1C, from  -0.6C in January to +1.5 in September, then dropped sharply to 0.6 in January 2024, matching the SH peak in 2016. Then in February and March SH anomaly jumped up nearly 0.7C, and Tropics went up to a new high of 1.5C, pulling up the Global land anomaly to match 10/2023. In April SH dropped sharply back to 0.6C, Tropics cooled very slightly, but NH land jumped up to a new high of 1.5C, pulling up Global land anomaly to its new high of 1.24C.

In May that NH spike started to reverse.  Despite warming in Tropics and SH, the much larger NH land mass pulled the Global land anomaly back down to the February value. In June, sharp drops in SH and Tropics land temps overcame an upward bump in NH, pulling Global land anomaly down to match last December. Now in July, all land regions rose slightly, pulling the Global land anomaly up by o.16°C. Despite this land warming, the Global land and ocean combined anomaly rose only 0.05°C.

The Bigger Picture UAH Global Since 1980

The chart shows monthly Global anomalies starting 01/1980 to present.  The average monthly anomaly is -0.04, for this period of more than four decades.  The graph shows the 1998 El Nino after which the mean resumed, and again after the smaller 2010 event. The 2016 El Nino matched 1998 peak and in addition NH after effects lasted longer, followed by the NH warming 2019-20.   An upward bump in 2021 was reversed with temps having returned close to the mean as of 2/2022.  March and April brought warmer Global temps, later reversed

With the sharp drops in Nov., Dec. and January 2023 temps, there was no increase over 1980. Then in 2023 the buildup to the October/November peak exceeded the sharp April peak of the El Nino 1998 event. It also surpassed the February peak in 2016. After March and April took the Global anomaly to a new peak of 1.05C.  The cool down started with May dropping to 0.90C, and in June a further decline to 0.80C.  Despite an uptick to 0.85 in July,   it remains to be seen whether El Nino will weaken or gain strength, and it whether we are past the recent peak.

The graph reminds of another chart showing the abrupt ejection of humid air from Hunga Tonga eruption.

TLTs include mixing above the oceans and probably some influence from nearby more volatile land temps.  Clearly NH and Global land temps have been dropping in a seesaw pattern, nearly 1C lower than the 2016 peak.  Since the ocean has 1000 times the heat capacity as the atmosphere, that cooling is a significant driving force.  TLT measures started the recent cooling later than SSTs from HadSST4, but are now showing the same pattern. Despite the three El Ninos, their warming has not persisted prior to 2023, and without them it would probably have cooled since 1995.  Of course, the future has not yet been written.

 

The Original Sin of GHG Theory

Posted on by Ron Clutz

In reality, Water only spontaneously flows down a
pressure gradient (downhill). Energy only spontaneously flows
down an energy density gradient (from high to low).

In the domain of theology, original sin refers to Adam and Eve choosing to trust the serpent’s lies rather than natural truth placed by God in the Garden of Eden.  In legal proceedings, a similar concept concerns evidence obtained under false pretences.  “The fruit of a poisonous tree” refers to analyses, interpretations or conclusions that must be excluded because they started with a falsehood.

This post delves into a fraud at the root of consensus Climate Science™, illustrated by the image above showing how both water and energy flow down their respective gradients.  William Happer alluded to the problem in a recent presentation: (See Happer: Cloud Radiation Matters, CO2 Not So Much)

As we shall see below, mischief is a very polite term for a math and science error that has poisoned most all thinking and discussion about changes in climate and weather.  In a previous post, I summarized an important empirical experiment by Thomas Allmendinger proving that a parcel of pure CO2 and a parcel of ordinary air warm exactly the same when exposed to both SW and LW radiation.  (See Experimental Proof Nil Warming from GHGs).

So we know the notion is empirically wrong, now let’s discuss how GHG theory went off the rails from the beginning.  For that I provide below a synopsis of commentary by blogger Morpheus which he posted at Tallbloke’s Talkshop.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images. (Title in red is link to blog)

CAGW (Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming, due to CO2)
is nothing more than a complex mathematical scam.

The takeaways:

1) The climatologists have conflated their purported “greenhouse effect” with the Kelvin-Helmholtz Gravitational Auto-Compression Effect (aka the lapse rate).

2) The climatologists purport the causative agent for their purported “greenhouse effect” to be “backradiation”.

3) The Kelvin-Helmholtz Gravitational Auto-Compression Effect’s causative agent is, of course, gravity.

4) “Backradiation” is physically impossible because energy cannot spontaneously flow up an energy density gradient.

5) The climatologists misuse the Stefan-Boltzmann (S-B) equation, using the idealized blackbody form of the equation upon graybody objects, which manufactures out of thin air their purported “backradiation”. It is only a mathematical artifact due to that aforementioned misuse of the S-B equation. It does not and cannot actually exist. Its existence would imply rampant violations of the fundamental physical laws.

6) Polyatomic molecules are net atmospheric radiative coolants, not “global warming” gases. Far from the ‘global warming gas’ claimed by the climatologists, water acts as a literal refrigerant (in the strict ‘refrigeration cycle’ sense) below the tropopause. CO2 is the most prevalent atmospheric radiative coolant above the tropopause and the second-most prevalent (behind water vapor) below the tropopause. Peer reviewed studies corroborating this are referenced in the paper at the end of this post.

As you can see, there are two forms of the Stefan-Boltzmann (S-B) equation… one for idealized blackbody objects, one for graybody objects.

The idealized blackbody form of the S-B equation assumes emission to 0 K and ε = 1 by the very definition of idealized blackbody objects. ( ε is the term for emissivity from 0 to 1).

Idealized Blackbody Object (assumes emission to 0 K and ε = 1 by definition):
q_bb = ε σ (T_h^4 – T_c^4) A_h
= 1 σ (T_h^4 – 0 K) 1 m^2
=    σ  T^4

The graybody form of the S-B equation assumes emission to > 0 K and ε < 1.

Graybody Object (assumes emission to > 0 K and ε < 1):
q_gb = ε σ (T_h^4 – T_c^4) A_h

The ‘A_h’ term is merely a multiplier, used if one is calculating for an area larger than unity [for instance: >1 m^2], which converts the result from radiant exitance (W m-2, radiant flux per unit area) to radiant flux (W).

One can see from the immediately-above equation that the Stefan-Boltzmann (S-B) equation is all about subtracting the radiation energy density of the cooler object from the radiation energy density of the warmer object.

So radiant exitance at its most simplified (and thus the S-B equation at its most simplified) is just the emissivity of the warmer object (because emissivity only applies to objects which are emitting, and only the warmer object will be emitting… the colder object will be unable to emit in the direction of the warmer object because energy cannot spontaneously flow up an energy density gradient) multiplied by the speed of light in vacua, multiplied by the energy density differential, all divided by 4.

For graybody objects, it is the radiation energy density differential between warmer object and cooler object which determines warmer object radiant exitance. Warmer objects don’t absorb radiation from cooler objects (a violation of 2LoT in the Clausius Statement sense and Stefan’s Law); the lower radiation energy density gradient between warmer and cooler objects (as compared to between warmer object and 0 K) lowers radiant exitance of the warmer object (as compared to its radiant exitance if it were emitting to 0 K). The radiation energy density differential between objects manifests a radiation energy density gradient, each surface’s radiation energy density manifesting a proportional radiation pressure.

The climatologists use:   q = σ T^4… on graybody objects, and sometimes slap ε<1 onto that,
when they should be using:  q = ε σ (T_h^4 – T_c^4)

This has the effect of artificially inflating radiant exitance of all calculated-upon objects.

Essentially, the climatologists are treating real-world graybody objects as though they are idealized blackbody objects… with emission to 0 K and emissivity of 1 (sometimes… other times they slap emissivity onto the idealized blackbody form of the S-B equation while still assuming emission to 0 K… which is still a misuse of the S-B equation, for graybody objects).

This essentially isolates each object into its own system so it cannot interact with other objects via the ambient EM field, which grossly inflates radiant exitance of all objects, necessitating that the climatologists carry these incorrect values through their calculation and cancel them on the back end (to get their equation to balance) by subtracting a wholly-fictive ‘cooler to warmer’ energy flow from the real (but far too high because it was calculated for emission to 0 K) ‘warmer to cooler’ energy flow.

That wholly-fictive ‘cooler to warmer’ energy flow is otherwise known as ‘backradiation’... it is nothing more than a mathematical artifact due to that aforementioned misuse of the S-B equation.

As I show here and in the below-linked paper, the correct usage of the S-B equation for graybody objects is via subtracting cooler object energy density from warmer object energy density to arrive at the energy density gradient, which determines radiant exitance of the warmer object.

So we’re talking about the same concept as water only spontaneously flowing down a pressure gradient (ie: downhill) when we talk of energy (of any form) only spontaneously flowing down an energy density gradient. Energy density is pressure, an energy density gradient is a pressure gradient… for energy.

It’s a bit more complicated for gases because they can convert that energy density to a change in volume (1 J m-3 = 1 Pa), for constant-pressure processes, which means the unconstrained volume of a gas will change such that its energy density (in J m-3) will tend toward being equal to pressure (in Pa). This is the underlying mechanism for convection. It should also have clued the climatologists in to the fact that it is solar insolation and atmospheric pressure which ‘sets’ temperature, not any ‘global warming’ gases.

Since a warmer object will have higher radiation energy density at all wavelengths than a cooler object (because remember, temperature is a measure of radiation energy density, equal to the fourth root of radiation energy density divided by Stefan’s Constant):

… ‘backradiation’ can do nothing to warm the surface because energy cannot spontaneously radiatively flow from lower to higher radiation energy density, and thus CAGW is nothing more than a complex mathematical scam perpetrated to obtain multiple billions of dollars in funding for trough-grubbing line-toeing ‘scientists’ and by perfidious politicians.

“But how does that make CAGW a scam?”, some may ask… well, because we’re being lied to, based upon an unscientific premise.

The climatologists have misused the Stefan-Boltzmann (S-B) equation (and the fundamental physical laws), and in the process, have practically flipped reality on its head… polyatomics (CO2, H2O, etc.) are not “global warming gases”, they are net atmospheric radiative coolants (radiative emission to space being the only way that Earth can shed energy); monoatomics (Ar) are not inert gases that have no effect upon climate, they are the actual “greenhouse gases” (because they cannot emit IR, and thus cannot shed energy to space… they dilute the radiative coolant gases); homonuclear diatomics (N2, O2) are somewhere in between… they can radiatively emit IR (and thus shed energy from the system known as ‘Earth’), but only under certain conditions (collisional perturbation of their net-zero electric dipole, which is why homonuclear diatomic vibrational mode quantum states are meta-stable and relatively long-lived. Collisions happen exponentially less frequently as altitude increases), and thus are “greenhouse gases” like the monoatomics, just not to the same extent.

We live, at the planet’s surface, in what can be analogized to the evaporator section of a world-sized AC unit, with polyatomics being net atmospheric radiative coolants (a higher concentration of them increases thermodynamic coupling between heat source (surface) and sink (space)), and with monoatomics and homonuclear diatomics playing the same role as non-condensable gases would play in an AC unit… diluting the polyatomic radiative gases which transit the majority of the energy, thus reducing the efficiency at which energy is transited from surface to upper atmosphere, then radiatively emitted to space.

Think about it this way… we all know the air warms up during the daytime as the planet’s surface absorbs energy from the sun. Conduction of that energy when air contacts the planet’s surface is the major reason air warms up.

How does that ~99% of the atmosphere (N2, O2, Ar) cool down? It cannot effectively radiatively emit.

Convection moves energy around in the atmosphere, but it cannot shed energy to space. Conduction depends upon thermal contact with other matter and since space is essentially a vacuum, conduction cannot shed energy to space… this leaves only radiative emission. The only way our planet can shed energy is via radiative emission to space. Fully ~76.2% of all surface energy is removed via convection, advection and evaporation. The surface only radiatively emits ~23.8% of all surface energy to space. That ~76.2% must be emitted to space by the atmosphere.

ERBE Earth Radiation Budget Experiment

Thus, common sense dictates that the thermal energy of the constituents of the atmosphere which cannot effectively radiatively emit (N2, O2, Ar) must be transferred to the so-called ‘greenhouse gases’ (CO2 being a lesser contributor below the tropopause and the largest contributor above the tropopause, water vapor being the main contributor below the tropopause) which can radiatively emit and thus shed that energy to space. Peer-reviewed studies corroborating this are referenced in the linked file below.

So, far from being ‘greenhouse gases’ which ‘trap heat’ in the atmosphere, those polyatomic radiative gases actually shed energy from the atmosphere to space. They are net atmospheric radiative coolants.

In short, in an atmosphere sufficiently dense such that collisional energy transfer can significantly occur, all polyatomic radiative molecules play the part of atmospheric radiative coolants at and above the temperature at which the combined translational mode energy of two colliding particles (atoms or molecules) exceeds the lowest excited vibrational mode quantum state energy of the radiative molecule. Below this temperature, they act to warm the atmosphere via thermalization (the mechanism the climate alarmists claim happens all the time), but if that occurs below the tropopause, the net result is an increase of Convective Available Potential Energy, which increases convection, which is a net cooling process. It is a gradation… as temperature increases, so too does the population of vibrationally excited polyatomics, and thus increases radiative emission. For CO2, that ‘transition temperature’ (the temperature at which the molecule transitions from being ‘net warmant’ to ‘net coolant’ and vice versa) is ~288 K.

The climatologists only told people half the story (thermalization by CO2 via vibrational mode to translation mode (v-t) collisional energy transfer processes). They didn’t tell anyone about the inverse (translational mode to vibrational mode (t-v) collisional energy transfer processes, (then that energy being radiatively emitted to space)), which is a cooling process. That didn’t fit their doomsaying narrative, so they left it out.

In other words, the climatologists only told people about the warming part (thermalization), not the cooling part. In order to hew to the fundamental physical laws, one must consider energy flow both to and from the CO2 molecule.

This doesn’t just apply to CO2, however. It applies to all atmospheric polyatomic molecules. In fact, far from the ‘global warming gas’ claimed by the climatologists, water acts as a literal refrigerant (in the strict ‘refrigeration cycle’ sense) below the tropopause:

That’s why, after all, the humid adiabatic lapse rate (~3.5 to ~6.5 K km-1) is lower than the dry adiabatic lapse rate (~9.81 K km-1).

You will note that the dry adiabatic lapse rate is due to the monoatomics and homonuclear diatomics... we’ve removed in this case the predominant polyatomic which reduces lapse rate.

Remember that an actual greenhouse works by hindering convection of energy out of the greenhouse.

In an atmosphere consisting of solely monoatomics and homonuclear diatomics (ie: no polyatomic radiative molecules), the atoms / molecules could pick up energy via conduction by contacting the surface, just as the polyatomics do; they could convect just as the polyatomics do… but once in the upper atmosphere, they could not as effectively radiatively emit that energy, the upper atmosphere would warm, lending less buoyancy to convecting air, thus hindering convection… and that’s how an actual greenhouse works, by hindering convection.

For homonuclear diatomics, there would be some collisional perturbation of their net-zero electric dipole and thus some emission in the atmosphere, but by and large the atmosphere could not effectively emit (especially at higher altitudes, because the probability of collision decreases exponentially with altitude).

Thus the surface would have to radiatively emit that energy (which is currently ~76.2% of all energy removed from the surface via radiation, convection and evaporation) instead… and a higher surface radiant exitance implies a higher surface temperature.

On the contrary, in our actual atmosphere, as temperature increases, (t-v) (translational mode -to- vibrational mode) collisional energy transfer processes increase and thus spectral emission increases only because CO2 is a net atmospheric radiative coolant (transferring translational mode energy to vibrational mode energy, then radiatively emitting it). So they are attempting to claim that CO2 is a “global warming gas” and simultaneously a net atmospheric radiative coolant, a contradiction… which is why their claims make no sense upon close examination.

In fact, removing CO2 would increase upper atmosphere temperature (due to fewer emitters in the upper atmosphere), which would set the starting point of the lapse rate higher, which translates down through the lapse rate to a warmer surface. That doesn’t occur with Ar, because it is a monoatomic, has no vibrational mode quantum states and thus cannot emit (nor absorb) IR in any case, and thus it only dilutes the radiative polyatomics, reducing the efficiency by which energy is transited from surface to space.

Because we don’t live in a ‘greenhouse’ as the climatologists claim… we live in what can be analogized to a world-sized AC unit… the surface is akin to the AC unit’s evaporator section (ie: the heat source); the atmosphere is akin to the AC unit’s working fluid; space is akin to the AC unit’s condenser section (ie: the heat sink); convection is akin to the AC unit’s compressor (ie: the motive force to move the working fluid).

These concepts used to be common knowledge. Somewhere along the way, the concepts got skewed to fit a particular narrative. Eventually, the concepts described herein will be common knowledge again, whereupon CAGW and its offshoots will be dumped on the midden heap of bad scientific ideas.

 

Mid August 2024 Normal Arctic Ice Melt in Progress

Posted on by Ron Clutz

 

The graph above shows Mid July to Mid August daily ice extents for 2024 compared to 18 year averages, and some years of note.

The black line shows on average Arctic ice extents during this period decline 2.4M km2 down to 5.8M Km2 by day 229.  2024 tracked somewhat lower than the 18-year average in late July, then in August drew near to average before slipping into deficit the last 5 days. In the end, 2024 is presently close to 2023 and 2007, ~200k km2 below the 18 year MASIE average.

Remarkably, SII is showing much larger deficits to average than MASIE does. This period began with SII having a gap of 400k km2 less ice extent than MASIE, then increased that deficit as high as 700k km2, before reporting a gap of 537k km2 on day 229, a difference of half a Wadham. The effect will be for SII to report much lower monthly averages for ice extents during July and August, prior to the annual minimum occurring in September.

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 June 2024: Oceans Lead Cool Down.

The lack of acceleration in sea levels along coastlines has been discussed also.  See Observed vs. Imagined Sea Levels 2023 Update.

Also, a longer term perspective is informative:

post-glacial_sea_levelThe table below shows the distribution of Sea Ice on day 229 across the Arctic Regions, on average, this year and 2007. At this point in the year, Bering and Okhotsk seas are open water and thus dropped from the table.

Region 2024229 Day 229 Ave 2024-Ave. 2007229 2024-2007
 (0) Northern_Hemisphere 5623262 5828731 -205469 5673531 -50270
 (1) Beaufort_Sea 591190 698788 -107598 767181 -175991
 (2) Chukchi_Sea 554701 425156 129544 253092 301609
 (3) East_Siberian_Sea 641562 535416 106146 154536 487026
 (4) Laptev_Sea 268971 240911 28059 284910 -15939
 (5) Kara_Sea 14414 96702 -82288 201203 -186789
 (6) Barents_Sea 0 21833 -21833 17229 -17229
 (7) Greenland_Sea 120478 216573 -96095 310070 -189591
 (8) Baffin_Bay_Gulf_of_St._Lawrence 46366 53298 -6932 75105 -28739
 (9) Canadian_Archipelago 319281 399712 -80431 382407 -63126
 (10) Hudson_Bay 33319 58874 -25555 89354 -56034
 (11) Central_Arctic 3031923 3080445 -48523 3137188.82 -105266

The overall deficit to average is 205k km2, (3.5%).  The major deficits are in  Beaufort, Kara, Greenland Sea and CAA (Canadian Archipelago), partly offset by surpluses in Chukchi and East Siberian.

For more on the differences between MASIE and SII see this post:

Support MASIE Arctic Ice Dataset

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 ice and snow extents.

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This Summer Celebrate Our Warm Climate

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Legacy and social media keep up a constant drumbeat of warnings about a degree or two of planetary warming without any historical context for considering the significance of the alternative.  A poem of Robert Frost comes to mind as some applicable wisdom:

The diagram at the top shows how grateful we should be for living in today’s climate instead of a glacial icehouse. (H/T Raymond Inauen)  For most of its history Earth has been frozen rather than the mostly green place it is today.  And the reference is to the extent of the North American ice sheet during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM).

For further context consider that geologists refer to our time as a “Severe Icehouse World”, among the various conditions in earth’s history, as diagramed by paleo climatologist Christopher Scotese. Referring to the Global Mean Temperatures, it appears after many decades, we are slowly rising to “Icehouse World”, which would seem to be a good thing.

Instead of fear mongering over a bit of warming, we should celebrate our good fortune, and do our best for humanity and the biosphere.  Matthew Ridley takes it from there in a previous post. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Background from previous post The Goodness of Global Warming

LAI refers to Leaf Area Index.

As noted in other posts here, warming comes and goes and a cooling period may now be ensuing. See No Global Warming, Chilly January Land and Sea.  Matt Ridley provides a concise and clear argument to celebrate any warming that comes to our world in his Spiked article Why global warming is good for us.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Climate change is creating a greener, safer planet.

Global warming is real. It is also – so far – mostly beneficial. This startling fact is kept from the public by a determined effort on the part of alarmists and their media allies who are determined to use the language of crisis and emergency. The goal of Net Zero emissions in the UK by 2050 is controversial enough as a policy because of the pain it is causing. But what if that pain is all to prevent something that is not doing net harm?

The biggest benefit of emissions is global greening, the increase year after year of green vegetation on the land surface of the planet. Forests grow more thickly, grasslands more richly and scrub more rapidly. This has been measured using satellites and on-the-ground recording of plant-growth rates. It is happening in all habitats, from tundra to rainforest. In the four decades since 1982, as Bjorn Lomborg points out, NASA data show that global greening has added 618,000 square kilometres of extra green leaves each year, equivalent to three Great Britains. You read that right: every year there’s more greenery on the planet to the extent of three Britains. I bet Greta Thunberg did not tell you that.

The cause of this greening? Although tree planting, natural reforestation, slightly longer growing seasons and a bit more rain all contribute, the big cause is something else. All studies agree that by far the largest contributor to global greening – responsible for roughly half the effect – is the extra carbon dioxide in the air. In 40 years, the proportion of the atmosphere that is CO2 has gone from 0.034 per cent to 0.041 per cent. That may seem a small change but, with more ‘food’ in the air, plants don’t need to lose as much water through their pores (‘stomata’) to acquire a given amount of carbon. So dry areas, like the Sahel region of Africa, are seeing some of the biggest improvements in greenery. Since this is one of the poorest places on the planet, it is good news that there is more food for people, goats and wildlife.

But because good news is no news, green pressure groups and environmental correspondents in the media prefer to ignore global greening. Astonishingly, it merited no mentions on the BBC’s recent Green Planet series, despite the name. Or, if it is mentioned, the media point to studies suggesting greening may soon cease. These studies are based on questionable models, not data (because data show the effect continuing at the same pace). On the very few occasions when the BBC has mentioned global greening it is always accompanied by a health warning in case any viewer might glimpse a silver lining to climate change – for example, ‘extra foliage helps slow climate change, but researchers warn this will be offset by rising temperatures’.

Another bit of good news is on deaths. We’re against them, right? A recent study shows that rising temperatures have resulted in half a million fewer deaths in Britain over the past two decades. That is because cold weather kills about ’20 times as many people as hot weather’, according to the study, which analyses ‘over 74million deaths in 384 locations across 13 countries’. This is especially true in a temperate place like Britain, where summer days are rarely hot enough to kill. So global warming and the unrelated phenomenon of urban warming relative to rural areas, caused by the retention of heat by buildings plus energy use, are both preventing premature deaths on a huge scale.

Figure 8: Warming in the tropical troposphere according to the CMIP6 models.
Trends 1979–2014 (except the rightmost model, which is to 2007), for 20°N–20°S, 300–200 hPa.  Source John Christy

 

Summer temperatures in the US are changing at half the rate of winter temperatures and daytimes are warming 20 per cent slower than nighttimes. A similar pattern is seen in most countries. Tropical nations are mostly experiencing very slow, almost undetectable daytime warming (outside cities), while Arctic nations are seeing quite rapid change, especially in winter and at night. Alarmists love to talk about polar amplification of average climate change, but they usually omit its inevitable flip side: that tropical temperatures (where most poor people live) are changing more slowly than the average.

My Mind is Made Up, Don’t Confuse Me with the Facts. H/T Bjorn Lomborg, WUWT

But are we not told to expect more volatile weather as a result of climate change? It is certainly assumed that we should. Yet there’s no evidence to suggest weather volatility is increasing and no good theory to suggest it will. The decreasing temperature differential between the tropics and the Arctic may actually diminish the volatility of weather a little.

 

Indeed, as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) repeatedly confirms, there is no clear pattern of storms growing in either frequency or ferocity, droughts are decreasing slightly and floods are getting worse only where land-use changes (like deforestation or building houses on flood plains) create a problem. Globally, deaths from droughts, floods and storms are down by about 98 per cent over the past 100 years – not because weather is less dangerous but because shelter, transport and communication (which are mostly the products of the fossil-fuel economy) have dramatically improved people’s ability to survive such natural disasters.

The effect of today’s warming (and greening) on farming is, on average, positive: crops can be grown farther north and for longer seasons and rainfall is slightly heavier in dry regions. We are feeding over seven billion people today much more easily than we fed three billion in the 1960s, and from a similar acreage of farmland. Global cereal production is on course to break its record this year, for the sixth time in 10 years.

Nature, too, will do generally better in a warming world. There are more species in warmer climates, so more new birds and insects are arriving to breed in southern England than are disappearing from northern Scotland. Warmer means wetter, too: 9,000 years ago, when the climate was warmer than today, the Sahara was green. Alarmists like to imply that concern about climate change goes hand in hand with concern about nature generally. But this is belied by the evidence. Climate policies often harm wildlife: biofuels compete for land with agriculture, eroding the benefits of improved agricultural productivity and increasing pressure on wild land; wind farms kill birds and bats; and the reckless planting of alien sitka spruce trees turns diverse moorland into dark monoculture.

Meanwhile, real environmental issues are ignored or neglected because of the obsession with climate. With the help of local volunteers I have been fighting to protect the red squirrel in Northumberland for years. The government does literally nothing to help us, while it pours money into grants for studying the most far-fetched and minuscule possible climate-change impacts. Invasive alien species are the main cause of species extinction worldwide (like grey squirrels driving the red to the margins), whereas climate change has yet to be shown to have caused a single species to die out altogether anywhere.

Source: Phanerozoic_Biodiversity.png Author: SVG version by Albert Mestre

Of course, climate change does and will bring problems as well as benefits. Rapid sea-level rise could be catastrophic. But whereas the sea level shot up between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago, rising by about 60 metres in two millennia, or roughly three metres per century, today the change is nine times slower: three millimetres a year, or a foot per century, and with not much sign of acceleration. Countries like the Netherlands and Vietnam show that it is possible to gain land from the sea even in a world where sea levels are rising. The land area of the planet is actually increasing, not shrinking, thanks to siltation and reclamation.

Environmentalists don’t get donations or invitations to appear on the telly if they say moderate things. To stand up and pronounce that ‘climate change is real and needs to be tackled, but it’s not happening very fast and other environmental issues are more urgent’ would be about as popular as an MP in Oliver Cromwell’s parliament declaring, ‘The evidence for God is looking a bit weak, and I’m not so very sure that fornication really is a sin’. And I speak as someone who has made several speeches on climate in parliament.

No wonder we don’t hear about the good news on climate change.

 

 

Oceans Warming Uptick July 2024

Posted on by Ron Clutz

The best context for understanding decadal temperature changes comes from the world’s sea surface temperatures (SST), for several reasons:

  • The ocean covers 71% of the globe and drives average temperatures;
  • SSTs have a constant water content, (unlike air temperatures), so give a better reading of heat content variations;
  • Major El Ninos have been the dominant climate feature in recent years.

HadSST is generally regarded as the best of the global SST data sets, and so the temperature story here comes from that source. Previously I used HadSST3 for these reports, but Hadley Centre has made HadSST4 the priority, and v.3 will no longer be updated.  HadSST4 is the same as v.3, except that the older data from ship water intake was re-estimated to be generally lower temperatures than shown in v.3.  The effect is that v.4 has lower average anomalies for the baseline period 1961-1990, thereby showing higher current anomalies than v.3. This analysis concerns more recent time periods and depends on very similar differentials as those from v.3 despite higher absolute anomaly values in v.4.  More on what distinguishes HadSST3 and 4 from other SST products at the end. The user guide for HadSST4 is here.

The Current Context

The chart below shows SST monthly anomalies as reported in HadSST4 starting in 2015 through July 2024.  A global cooling pattern is seen clearly in the Tropics since its peak in 2016, joined by NH and SH cycling downward since 2016, followed by rising temperatures in 2023 and 2024.

Note that in 2015-2016 the Tropics and SH peaked in between two summer NH spikes.  That pattern repeated in 2019-2020 with a lesser Tropics peak and SH bump, but with higher NH spikes. By end of 2020, cooler SSTs in all regions took the Global anomaly well below the mean for this period.  

Then in 2022, another strong NH summer spike peaked in August, but this time both the Tropic and SH were countervailing, resulting in only slight Global warming, later receding to the mean.   Oct./Nov. temps dropped  in NH and the Tropics took the Global anomaly below the average for this period. After an uptick in December, temps in January 2023 dropped everywhere, strongest in NH, with the Global anomaly further below the mean since 2015.

Then came El Nino as shown by the upward spike in the Tropics since January 2023, the anomaly nearly tripling from 0.38C to 1.09C.  In September 2023, all regions rose, especially NH up from 0.70C to 1.41C, pulling up the global anomaly to a new high for this period. By December, NH cooled to 1.1C and the Global anomaly down to 0.94C from its peak of 1.10C, despite slight warming in SH and Tropics.

In January 2024 both Tropics and SH rose, resulting in Global Anomaly going higher. Since then Tropics have cooled from a  peak of 1.29C down to 0.84C.  SH also dropped down from 0.89C to 0.65C. NH lost ~0.4C as of March 2024, but has risen 0.2C over April to June. Despite that upward NH bump, the Global SST anomaly cooled further.  Now in July there was a warming uptick in all regions, bringing the global anomaly up to match January 2024. The NH anomaly is now matching July 2023. The next months will reveal the strength of 2024 NH warming spike, which could rise to the 2023 level or recede.

Comment:

The climatists have seized on this unusual warming as proof their Zero Carbon agenda is needed, without addressing how impossible it would be for CO2 warming the air to raise ocean temperatures.  It is the ocean that warms the air, not the other way around.  Recently Steven Koonin had this to say about the phonomenon confirmed in the graph above:

El Nino is a phenomenon in the climate system that happens once every four or five years.  Heat builds up in the equatorial Pacific to the west of Indonesia and so on.  Then when enough of it builds up it surges across the Pacific and changes the currents and the winds.  As it surges toward South America it was discovered and named in the 19th century  It iswell understood at this point that the phenomenon has nothing to do with CO2.

Now people talk about changes in that phenomena as a result of CO2 but it’s there in the climate system already and when it happens it influences weather all over the world.   We feel it when it gets rainier in Southern California for example.  So for the last 3 years we have been in the opposite of an El Nino, a La Nina, part of the reason people think the West Coast has been in drought.

It has now shifted in the last months to an El Nino condition that warms the globe and is thought to contribute to this Spike we have seen. But there are other contributions as well.  One of the most surprising ones is that back in January of 2022 an enormous underwater volcano went off in Tonga and it put up a lot of water vapor into the upper atmosphere. It increased the upper atmosphere of water vapor by about 10 percent, and that’s a warming effect, and it may be that is contributing to why the spike is so high.

A longer view of SSTs

To enlarge, open image in new tab.

The graph above is noisy, but the density is needed to see the seasonal patterns in the oceanic fluctuations.  Previous posts focused on the rise and fall of the last El Nino starting in 2015.  This post adds a longer view, encompassing the significant 1998 El Nino and since.  The color schemes are retained for Global, Tropics, NH and SH anomalies.  Despite the longer time frame, I have kept the monthly data (rather than yearly averages) because of interesting shifts between January and July. 1995 is a reasonable (ENSO neutral) starting point prior to the first El Nino. 

The sharp Tropical rise peaking in 1998 is dominant in the record, starting Jan. ’97 to pull up SSTs uniformly before returning to the same level Jan. ’99. There were strong cool periods before and after the 1998 El Nino event. Then SSTs in all regions returned to the mean in 2001-2. 

SSTS fluctuate around the mean until 2007, when another, smaller ENSO event occurs. There is cooling 2007-8,  a lower peak warming in 2009-10, following by cooling in 2011-12.  Again SSTs are average 2013-14.

Now a different pattern appears.  The Tropics cooled sharply to Jan 11, then rise steadily for 4 years to Jan 15, at which point the most recent major El Nino takes off.  But this time in contrast to ’97-’99, the Northern Hemisphere produces peaks every summer pulling up the Global average.  In fact, these NH peaks appear every July starting in 2003, growing stronger to produce 3 massive highs in 2014, 15 and 16.  NH July 2017 was only slightly lower, and a fifth NH peak still lower in Sept. 2018.

The highest summer NH peaks came in 2019 and 2020, only this time the Tropics and SH were offsetting rather adding to the warming. (Note: these are high anomalies on top of the highest absolute temps in the NH.)  Since 2014 SH has played a moderating role, offsetting the NH warming pulses. After September 2020 temps dropped off down until February 2021.  In 2021-22 there were again summer NH spikes, but in 2022 moderated first by cooling Tropics and SH SSTs, then in October to January 2023 by deeper cooling in NH and Tropics.  

Then in 2023 the Tropics flipped from below to well above average, while NH produced a summer peak extending into September higher than any previous year.  Despite El Nino driving the Tropics January 2024 anomaly higher than 1998 and 2016 peaks, following months cooled in all regions, and the Tropics continued cooling in April, May and June along with SH dropping, suggesting that the peak might be reached, though now in July NH warming has again pulled the global anomaly higher.

What to make of all this? The patterns suggest that in addition to El Ninos in the Pacific driving the Tropic SSTs, something else is going on in the NH.  The obvious culprit is the North Atlantic, since I have seen this sort of pulsing before.  After reading some papers by David Dilley, I confirmed his observation of Atlantic pulses into the Arctic every 8 to 10 years.

Contemporary AMO Observations

Through January 2023 I depended on the Kaplan AMO Index (not smoothed, not detrended) for N. Atlantic observations. But it is no longer being updated, and NOAA says they don’t know its future.  So I find that ERSSTv5 AMO dataset has current data.  It differs from Kaplan, which reported average absolute temps measured in N. Atlantic.  “ERSST5 AMO  follows Trenberth and Shea (2006) proposal to use the NA region EQ-60°N, 0°-80°W and subtract the global rise of SST 60°S-60°N to obtain a measure of the internal variability, arguing that the effect of external forcing on the North Atlantic should be similar to the effect on the other oceans.”  So the values represent sst anomaly differences between the N. Atlantic and the Global ocean.

The chart above confirms what Kaplan also showed.  As August is the hottest month for the N. Atlantic, its variability, high and low, drives the annual results for this basin.  Note also the peaks in 2010, lows after 2014, and a rise in 2021. Now in 2023 the peak was holding at 1.4C before declining.  An annual chart below is informative:

Note the difference between blue/green years, beige/brown, and purple/red years.  2010, 2021, 2022 all peaked strongly in August or September.  1998 and 2007 were mildly warm.  2016 and 2018 were matching or cooler than the global average.  2023 started out slightly warm, then rose steadily to an  extraordinary peak in July.  August to October were only slightly lower, but by December cooled by ~0.4C.

Now in 2024 the AMO anomaly started higher than any previous year, then leveled off for two months declining slightly into April.  Remarkably, May shows an upward leap putting this on a higher track than 2023, and rising slightly higher in June.  In July 2024 the anomaly declined and is now lower than the peak reached in 2023.

The pattern suggests the ocean may be demonstrating a stairstep pattern like that we have also seen in HadCRUT4. 

The purple line is the average anomaly 1980-1996 inclusive, value 0.18.  The orange line the average 1980-202404, value 0.39, also for the period 1997-2012. The red line is 2013-202404, value 0.66. As noted above, these rising stages are driven by the combined warming in the Tropics and NH, including both Pacific and Atlantic basins.

See Also:

2024 El Nino Collapsing

Curiosity:  Solar Coincidence?

The news about our current solar cycle 25 is that the solar activity is hitting peak numbers now and higher  than expected 1-2 years in the future.  As livescience put it:  Solar maximum could hit us harder and sooner than we thought. How dangerous will the sun’s chaotic peak be?  Some charts from spaceweatherlive look familar to these sea surface temperature charts.

Summary

The oceans are driving the warming this century.  SSTs took a step up with the 1998 El Nino and have stayed there with help from the North Atlantic, and more recently the Pacific northern “Blob.”  The ocean surfaces are releasing a lot of energy, warming the air, but eventually will have a cooling effect.  The decline after 1937 was rapid by comparison, so one wonders: How long can the oceans keep this up? And is the sun adding forcing to this process?

Space weather impacts the ionosphere in this animation. Credits: NASA/GSFC/CIL/Krystofer Kim

Footnote: Why Rely on HadSST4

HadSST is distinguished from other SST products because HadCRU (Hadley Climatic Research Unit) does not engage in SST interpolation, i.e. infilling estimated anomalies into grid cells lacking sufficient sampling in a given month. From reading the documentation and from queries to Met Office, this is their procedure.

HadSST4 imports data from gridcells containing ocean, excluding land cells. From past records, they have calculated daily and monthly average readings for each grid cell for the period 1961 to 1990. Those temperatures form the baseline from which anomalies are calculated.

In a given month, each gridcell with sufficient sampling is averaged for the month and then the baseline value for that cell and that month is subtracted, resulting in the monthly anomaly for that cell. All cells with monthly anomalies are averaged to produce global, hemispheric and tropical anomalies for the month, based on the cells in those locations. For example, Tropics averages include ocean grid cells lying between latitudes 20N and 20S.

Gridcells lacking sufficient sampling that month are left out of the averaging, and the uncertainty from such missing data is estimated. IMO that is more reasonable than inventing data to infill. And it seems that the Global Drifter Array displayed in the top image is providing more uniform coverage of the oceans than in the past.

uss-pearl-harbor-deploys-global-drifter-buoys-in-pacific-ocean

USS Pearl Harbor deploys Global Drifter Buoys in Pacific Ocean

 

 

July 2024 the Hottest Ever? Not So Fast!

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 July 2024 Weather History at Montréal–Mirabel International Airport  The story about July 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 July from the period 1980 to 2016.

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

The graph shows July 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 summer means blocking the warming sun from hitting the surface.   And with all those clouds, let’s look at precipitation:

So, there were sixteen days when it rained, including five days of thunderstorms with heavy rainfall. Given what we know about the hydrology cycles, that means a lot of heat removed upward from the surface.

So the implications for July temperatures in my locale.

There you have it before your eyes. Mostly warm days for the
peak summer month, with exactly one brief hot afternoon.
Otherwise comfortable and cool, and a couple of hot
afternoons in first week of August.

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 “July 2024 was the warmest ever recorded for the globe.”

 

Yes, IPCC, Our Climate Responds to Our Sun

Posted on by Ron Clutz

John Gideon Hartnett writes at Spectator Australia The sun is in control of our oceans. Text is from John Ray at his blog, excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

In recent years, there has been observed an increase in ocean temperature. Those who adhere to the Climate Change version of events say that the oceans are getting warmer because of trapped carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere causing a massive greenhouse effect leading to boiling oceans.

Well, anyone who has a brain knows that the oceans are not boiling, but let’s assume that is just hyperbole. When actual research – when actual measurements were taken – reality turns out to be the exact opposite.

New research shows that the temperature of our oceans are controlled by incident radiation from the Sun. Who would have guessed?

And as a consequence of the oceans warming, dissolved carbon dioxide gas is released due to reduced is solubility in ocean water. This means the warming of the oceans would lead (or cause) an increase in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.  One of the researchers in the study wrote on X.com:

A decrease in cloud cover and albedo means more short wavelength (SW) solar radiation reaches the oceans. Albedo is the reflectivity of the Earth. Lower albedo means more sunlight reaching the land and oceans and more warming by the Sun.

Figure 8. Comparison between observed global temperature anomalies and CERES-reported changes in the Earth’s absorbed solar flux. The two data series representing 13-month running means are highly correlated with the absorbed SW flux explaining 78% of the temperature variation (R2 = 0.78). The global temperature lags the absorbed solar radiation between 0 and 9 months, which indicates that climate change in the 21st Century was driven by solar forcing.

I mean to say that this is so obvious. The Sun heats Earth’s surface of which 71% is covered by the oceans! Basic physics!

The energy from the Sun powers all life on the planet and causes all Earth changes. Every second, the Earth receives the equivalent energy of 42 megatons of TNT in radiation from the Sun. That cannot be ignored. 

Climate Change, the ideological movement which I prefer to call a cult, views all evidence through the lens of their religious belief that the Earth is warmed by human activity. That activity releases carbon dioxide gas, which has been observed to be increasing. Their belief is that CO2 traps heat in a giant greenhouse effect. That is the dogma anyway. And I must add, we all are the carbon they want to eliminate.

But how much of that observed increase in CO2 is actually from natural causes and not from human activity? At least 94 per cent is. This new evidence now suggests it could be even more than that.

If the oceans emit CO2 gas following changes in the water temperature, which this research shows is due to the amount (flux) of solar radiation reaching the surface, then more CO2 comes from natural causes.

It is basic physics that as you heat water the dissolved gases are released due to a decrease in gas solubility. This means as the solar flux increases CO2 gas is released from the warmer ocean water.

Thus an ocean temperature increase leads to an increase in CO2 in the atmosphere, and not the other way around.

Space weather impacts the ionosphere in this animation. Credits: NASA/GSFC/CIL/Krystofer Kim

Update: Woke Tyranny Vs. Jordan Peterson

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Jordan Peterson writes at National Post this update on his battle against censoring bureaucrats  I will see this contemptible ‘re-education’ process through to its absurd end.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Having failed to persuade the Supreme Court, I am going
to see what constraints are put on my speech,
and I am going to make it as public as possible.

On Thursday, my attempt to defend myself against the ideologues and petty tyrants that now occupy so many positions of authority in Canada came to an end — or I finally got what I deserve, due to my incautious verbal utterances, depending on your stance. I am (still) a licensed psychologist in Ontario, and was once a full professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. Back in 2016, both of those occupations basically came to an end, when I had the temerity to object to the idiot legislation passed by our jackanapes prime minister, Justin Trudeau, the worst leader Canada has ever had, and a contender for the worst in the western world. His moralizing compatriots decided at the time that it was a good idea to rejig the very definition of sex — what could go wrong with that? — and to simultaneously compel everyone to accept that redesignation, on pain of law.

But we have become such fools in Canada, moralizing blindly and pridefully while inverting our traditions and perverting our legal system. Who cares? Why die on that hill? People asked me such things when I said very publicly that I would rather rot in jail than use the bloody pronouns demanded of me by people too stupid to understand what they were doing — the outright metastatic communists of the progressive liberals and the minor moralizing tyrants of the elite liberal bureaucracy. I care. Why? Because I could see where all this idiocy was headed, as clear as day. I told the arrogant fools in the Canadian Senate (and a hostile and dismissive bunch they were) that confusing young people about their sexual identity would lead to an epidemic of gender dysphoria among young women, and that is precisely what has happened.

I use social media regularly — and well. I have literally tens of millions of people who subscribe to my various channels, and hundreds of millions who listen to and watch my YouTube videos and their derivatives. I have used those channels to voice my thoughts about such affairs of sex and gender, criticizing the ideologues who are practising their evil craft on the most vulnerable members of society. I believe that the ”transing” of minors is: first, a crime against humanity (as the involuntary sterilization of human beings is so defined by the United Nations); and second, the worst moral crime that the medical community has ever committed.

There were some people, out there in the wide world, who objected to my tweets. The College of Psychologists of Ontario has a convenient complaint portal on its website that anyone, anywhere can use to inform and carp about my behaviour (and that of other psychologists) for any reason at any time. This is true whether they were one of my clients or not — or even knew anyone who had been one of my clients. Such complaint processes regarding professional conduct have been weaponized by the Machiavellian left, experts as they are at the kind of covert warfare that characterizes those with so-called Cluster B psychopathology: the histrionic, borderline, narcissistic antisocial types who use gossip and reputation destruction to carve their destructive swath through their own lives, the lives of others and the general social world.

So they submitted their complaints, electronically, at no cost to themselves, with no risk of public exposure, and to my detriment. The College of Psychologists of Ontario is duty-bound to investigate every complaint, no matter how trivial or falsely motivated, and then to decide what to pursue.

Unfortunately, that body has also been taken over by the same ideological types, and at least a small coterie of them (and it is so often now exactly that small coterie) have decided that holding my clinical license hostage, attempting to destroy my reputation and subjecting me to tremendous legal expenses (I have already spent more than $1 million defending myself against this lawfare), insanity-making stress and interference with my livelihood is something well worth doing, given that I have had the constant temerity to inform the public — as is my duty — about just what the hell is transpiring on the psychological front. Hence the series of complaints that have been upheld by this delightful board, even after my insistence that all of this is politically motivated, as it is, culminating in the college’s decision to subject me to indefinite “re-education,” at my own expense, at the hands of one of their so-called social media experts (a professional designation that in no way even exists), until I have learned whatever lesson I am supposed to learn, which I suppose is to hold my bloody tongue.

I objected to such cavalier and ideologically motivated treatment at the hands of an ideologically captured and essentially anonymous accusatory mob, and pushed my objections through the provincial court of appeal, which rejected them, to the Supreme Court itself, which did the same thing as its provincial counterpart on Aug. 8. I am now subject to the re-education process, and have no further appeal. I have no idea how this charade is going to play itself out.

Who is going to teach me? What am I supposed to learn? Do not fool yourself into thinking that there is any precedent to this, or any plan. It is all being made up by the subterranean prosecutors who are pushing their ideological agenda. Where will it end? I cannot say, but I can tell you this:

Canadians once again have a very hard choice in front of them. The Supreme Court has essentially decided (or, more accurately, failed to take responsibility and therefore decided by default) that the much-vaunted Charter of Rights and Freedoms can be completely ignored by the regulatory bodies that license professionals in Canada. There are two conclusions that must be drawn in the aftermath of this decision. The first is that the Charter itself is not worth the paper it is written on. If comparatively low-level bureaucrats can suspend its most important provisions, more or less at will, it is a document with no real force whatsoever. I suspected as much when it was implemented back in the 1980s, and it is certainly the case that my worst suspicions have been justified.

Worse, however, is the clear consequence for professionals and those they serve in Canada. My fellow citizens: it is now a legal requirement in your sad state for the lawyers, engineers, teachers, physicians, psychologists and social workers who serve you — often in your hours of most desperate need — to lie to you, in order to ensure they are not transgressing against the ideological assumptions of those who fly the flag of the radical left. This means that if you have a child in psychological trouble, for example, you will not get the truth from the professionals whose counsel you may be driven to seek. The same applies to lawyers — and even more so to the physicians who will now be more likely to castrate and slice off breasts and sterilize when children present themselves with the typical confusion of adolescence.

Why believe me? If I was in the position of the average Canadian, I would be unlikely to do so. Here is the terrible conundrum such individuals now find themselves in: either Jordan B. Peterson is an unreliable purveyor of paranoid fantasies, and rude to boot, or the entire Liberal party, Justin Trudeau, the higher education system itself (and let us not forget about the appalling K-12 leftist teacher-led propaganda venture) has become unreliable to the point of inviable corruption.

It is much easier to believe the former.
Unfortunately, the former is not true.

I am merely saying publicly, however badly, what all my cowardly, craven, lying colleagues know full well to be true: that all this “gender-affirming” nonsense is not only a lie, but a foul, dangerous lie; that the overwhelming majority of children with so-called gender dysphoria will grow out of it by the time they are adults; and that the course of action with the least possible damage is the right response to such confusion. The right response is anything but the identity transformation, puberty blockers, hormonal interventions and grotesque and brutal surgical procedures that are far too often recommended by those who should, and likely do, know better.

Why are all the professionals — psychological, legal and medical — going along with this madness? Because they do not want to suffer the same fate — loss of employment, loss of practice, complex legal entanglement, severe stress, unsustainable financial expense — that has come to visit my family and me. So they lie through their teeth, to ensure the demented propositions of the radicals can remain unchallenged, and their destructive and increasingly deadly ideology can continue its propagation through our once-great institutions.

Here’s where we are, Canucks. To reiterate: on Aug. 8, your Supreme Court determined that professionals practising in your country cannot rely on the most fundamental document of our polity — the Charter of Rights and Freedoms — to protect them against the nonsense-purveyors of the idiot left. If your professionals cannot speak their minds, not only can they not do their jobs, but their fate indicates yours. If lawyers, physicians, psychologists, engineers and other highly skilled, licensed people have to lie in order to maintain their standing — to ensure their livelihoods, to maintain their reputations, to stay free of the long and increasingly corrupt hand of the law — what makes you think you have any chance whatsoever to maintain a relationship with the truth?

I really do not have an iron in this fire, practically speaking. I could escape to the United States (an increasingly tempting alternative), or tell the college to go to perdition and renounce the professional license that I am more and more embarrassed to have, given the stunning cowardice of my compatriots, and which I really do not use in any case, because working as a practising psychologist has become something untenable for me. But I am instead going to see this contemptible process through to what will almost certainly be its absurd end. I am going to find out just what sort of person will step forward to “re-educate” me. I am going to see what constraints are put on my movement, and the sound of my tongue, while all that unfolds, and I am going to make it as public as possible.

But in the meantime, my fellow citizens, you might consider awakening from your slumber. The Canada of today is not what it was 20 years ago — even 10 — and its new configuration is not one that will bring you the benefits to which you have become accustomed. We now live in a land — not least courtesy of Bill C-16, which I warned you about, to my great peril — where it is potentially illegal to insist that a man is a man and a woman is a woman, or to object to the castration and mutilation of children. We now live in a land where the federal government is essentially in opposition to the economic engine of the land (dependent as we are, for better or worse, on the resource economy). We are poorer than our American cousins.

Our real estate costs have spiralled out of control.
Our borders are open.
Our leader is a juvenile narcissist.
Our finances are a mess. And,
Our Charter of Rights is not worth the ink that was spilled in its production.

 

Put Climate Insanity Behind Us

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Conrad Black writes at National Post Time for the climate insanity to stop.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

We have been racing to destroy our standard of living
to avert a crisis that never materialized

We must by now be getting reasonably close the point where there is a consensus for re-examining the issue of climate change and related subjects. For decades, those of us who had our doubts were effectively shut down by the endless deafening repetition, as if from the massed choir of an operatic catechism school, of the alleged truism: “98 per cent of scientists agree …” (that the world is coming to an end in a few years if we don’t abolish the combustion engine). Decades have gone by in which the polar bears were supposed to become extinct because of the vanishing polar ice cap, the glaciers were supposed to have melted in the rising heat and the impact of melting ice would raise ocean levels to the point that Pacific islands, such as former U.S. vice-president Al Gore’s oratorical dreamworld, the Pacific island state of Tuvalu, would only be accessible to snorkelers. There has been no progress toward any of this. Ocean levels have not risen appreciably, nothing has been submerged and the polar bear population has risen substantially.

A large part of the problem has been the fanaticism of the alarmist forces. This has not been one of those issues where people may equably disagree. There was a spontaneous campaign to denigrate those of us who were opposed to taking drastic and extremely expensive economic steps to reduce carbon emissions on the basis of existing evidence: we could not be tolerated as potentially sensible doubters; we were labelled “deniers,” a reference to Holocaust-deniers who would sweep evidence of horrible atrocities under the rug. For our own corrupt or perverse motives, we were promoting the destruction of the world and unimaginable human misery. There has been climate hysteria like other panics in history, such as those recounted in Charles MacKay’s “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds,” particularly the 1630’s tulip mania, in which a single tulip bulb briefly sold for the current equivalent of $25,000.

In western Europe, and particularly in the United States, where the full panic of climate change prevailed, the agrarian and working echelons of society have rebelled against the onerous financial penalties of the war on carbon emissions. There have been movements in some countries to suppress the population of cows because of the impact of their flatulence on the composition of the atmosphere. This has created an alliance of convenience between the environmental extremists and the dietary authoritarians as they take dead aim at the joint targets of carbon emissions and obesity. Germany, which should be the most powerful and exemplary of Europe’s nations, has blundered headlong into the climate crisis by conceding political power to militant Greens. It has shut down its advanced and completely safe nuclear power program, the ultimate efficient fuel, and has flirted with abolishing leisure automobile drives on the weekends.

Claims that tropical storms have become more frequent are rebutted by meticulously recorded statistics. Claims that forest fires are more frequent and extensive have also been shown not to be true. My own analysis, which is based on observations and makes no pretense to scientific research, as I have had occasion to express here before, is that the honourable, if often tiresome, conservation movement, the zealots of Greenpeace and the Sierra Club, were suddenly displaced as organizers and leaders of the environmental movement by the international left, which was routed in the Cold War. Their western sympathizers demonstrated a genius for improvisation that none of us who knew them in the Cold War would have imagined that they possessed, and they took over the environmental bandwagon and converted it into a battering ram against capitalism in the name of saving the planet.

Everyone dislikes pollution and wants the cleanest air and water possible. All conscientious people want the cleanest environment that’s economically feasible. We should also aspire to the highest attainable level of accurate information before we embark on, or go any further with, drastic and hideously expensive methods of replacing fossil fuels. Large-scale disruptions to our ways of life at immense cost to consumers and taxpayers, mainly borne by those who can least easily afford it, are a mistake. We can all excuse zeal in a sincerely embraced cause, but it is time to de-escalate this discussion from its long intemperate nature of hurling thunderbolts back and forth, and instead focus on serious research that will furnish a genuine consensus. I think this was essentially what former prime minister Stephen Harper and former environment minister John Baird were advocating in what they called a ”Canadian solution” to the climate question. Since then, our policy has been fabricated by fanatics, including the prime minister, who do not wish to be confused by the facts. The inconvenient truth is now the truth that inconveniences them.

Western Europe has effectively abandoned its net-zero carbon emission goals; the world is not deteriorating remotely as quickly as Al Gore, King Charles, Tony Blair and the Liberal Party of Canada predicted. Some of the largest polluters — China, India and Russia — do not seem to care about any of this. Canada should lead the world toward a rational consensus with intensified research aiming at finding an appropriate response to the challenge. What we have had is faddishness and public frenzy. Historians will wonder why the West made war on its own standard of living in pursuit of a wild fantasy, and no immediate chance of accomplishing anything useful. We have been cheered on by the under-developed world because they seek reparations from the advanced countries, although some of them are among the worst climate offenders. It is insane. Canada should help lead the patient back to sanity.

Postscript:

So to be more constructive, let’s consider what should be proposed by political leaders regarding climate, energy and the environment.  IMO these should be the pillars:

♦  Climate change is real, but not an emergency.

♦  We must use our time to adapt to future climate extremes.

♦  We must transition to a diversified energy platform.

♦  We must safeguard our air and water from industrial pollutants.

A Rational Climate Policy

This is your brain on climate alarm. Just say N0!

Scottish Wind Power from Diesel Generators

Posted on by Ron Clutz

John Gideon Hartnett writes at Spectator Australia Another climate myth busted  explaining how the Scottish public was scammed about their virtuous green wind power by the public authority.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images from post by John Ray at his blog.

What I like to call ‘climate cult’ wind farms expose the myth that wind can replace hydrocarbon fuels for power generation. The following story is typical of the problems associated with using wind turbines to generate electricity in a cold environment.

Apparently, diesel-fuelled generators are being used to power some wind turbines as a way of de-icing them in cold weather, that is, to keep them rotating. Also, it appears that the wind turbines have been drawing electric power directly from the grid instead of supplying it to the grid.

Scotland’s wind turbines have been secretly using fossil fuels.

The revelation is now fueling environmental, health and safety concerns, especially since the diesel-generated turbines were running for up to six hours a day.

Scottish Power said the company was forced to hook up 71 windmills to the fossil fuel supply after a fault on its grid. The move was an attempt to keep the turbines warm and working during the cold month of December.

South Scotland Labor MSP Colin Smyth said regardless of the reasons, using diesel to deice faulty turbines is “environmental madness”.  Source: Straight Arrow News

Charging system for Teslas at Davos WEF meeting.

Nevertheless, those pushing these technologies are so blind to the physical realities of the world that they are prepared to ignore failures while pretending to efficiently generate electricity. I say ‘failures’ because wind energy was put out of service the day the Industrial Revolution was fired up (pun intended) with carbon-based fuels, from petroleum and coal. And in the case of modern wind turbines, they do not always generate electricity; they sometimes consume it from the grid.

Green energy needs the hydrocarbon-based fuel it claims to replace.

Hydrocarbon-based fuels were provided providentially by the Creator of this planet for our use. That includes coal, which has been demonised in the Western press as some sort of evil. But those who run that line must have forgotten to tell China, because they build two coal-fired power stations every other week. No other source of non-nuclear power is as reliable for baseload generation.

How will wind turbines work in a globally cooling climate as Earth heads into a grand solar minimum and temperatures plummet? This case from Scotland may give us a hint. As cloud cover increases with cooler weather, and more precipitation occurs, how will solar perform? It won’t.
The two worst choices for electricity generation in cold, wet, and stormy environments are solar and wind. Solar is obvious. No sun means no power generation. But you might think wind is a much better choice under those conditions.

However, wind turbine rotors have to be shut down if the wind becomes too strong and/or rapidly changes in strength. They are shut down when too much ice forms or when there is insufficient wind. And now we have learned in Scotland they just turn on the diesel generators when that happens or they draw power directly from the grid.

Where are all the real engineers? Were they fired?

In regards to wind turbines going forward, once their presence in the market has destroyed all the coal or natural gas electricity generators, how are they going to keep the rotors turning and the lights on?

These devices are based on a rotating shaft with a massive bearing, that suffers massive frictional forces. In this case, only a high-quality heavy-duty oil can lubricate this system and I am sure it would need to be regularly replaced.

Wind turbine gearbox accelerates blade rotor (left) up to 1800 rpm output to electical generator (right)

Massive amounts of carbon-based oil are needed for the lubrication of all gears and bearings in a wind turbine system, which is mechanical in its nature. In 2019, wind turbine applications were estimated to consume around 80 per cent of the total supply of synthetic lubricants. Synthetic lubricants are manufactured using chemically modified petroleum components rather than whole crude oil. These are used in the wind turbine gearboxes, generator bearings, and open gear systems such as pitch and yaw gears.

Now we also know that icing causes the rotors to stop turning so diesel power has to be used to keep the bearings warm during cold weather. The diesel generator is needed to get the blades turning on start-up to overcome the limiting friction of the bearing or when the speed of the rotor drops too low.

In this case in Scotland, 71 windmills on the farm were supplied with diesel power. Each windmill has its own diesel generator. Just think of that.

What about the manufacturing of these windmills?

The blades are made from tons of fibreglass. Manufacturing fibreglass requires the mining of silica sand, limestone, kaolin clay, dolomite, and other minerals, which requires diesel-driven machines. These minerals are melted in a furnace at high temperatures (around 1,400°C) to produce the glass. Where does that heat come from? Not solar or wind power, that is for sure. The resin in the fibreglass comes from alcohol or petroleum-based manufacturing processes.

The metal structure is made from steel that requires tons of coking coal (carbon) essential to make pig iron, which is made from iron ore in a blast furnace at temperatures up to 2,200°C. The coal and iron ore is mined from the ground with giant diesel-powered machines and trucks. The steel is made with pig iron and added carbon in another furnace powered by massive electric currents. Carbon is a critical element in steel making, as it reacts with iron to form the desired steel alloy. None of this comes from wind and solar power.

Wind turbine power generation is inherently intermittent and unreliable.
It can hardly called green as the wind turbines require enormous
amounts of hydrocarbons in their manufacture and continued operation.