Figure: Last 50-years+ of Global and Northern Hemisphere Accumulated Cyclone Energy: 24 month running sums. Note that the year indicated represents the value of ACE through the previous 24-months for the Northern Hemisphere (bottom line/gray boxes) and the entire global (top line/blue boxes). The area in between represents the Southern Hemisphere total ACE.
The term “culture shock” was introduced by Kalvero Oberg in 1954 to refer to an “abrupt loss of the familiar” or the “shock of the new.” Culture shock is caused by the anxiety that is associated with the loss of familiar signs and symbols that permeated one’s life before reaching the new environment. For years the term has appeared in titles of books written for disoriented newcomers moving to different parts of the world. In the video interview Konstantin Kisin doesn’t use that term, but it certainly applies to the experience of one’s own society losing its social norms and values. Culture shock is also witnessing alien behavior by those (many?) you thought members of your tribe.
For those who prefer reading I provide an excerpted synopsis from the closed captions. I also took the liberty of lacing the text with Jimbob and other cartoons and images that come at contemporary culture shock from different angles.
I’m looking forward to my conversation today with Konstantin Kisin. This will be the third time we’ve talked and I’ve come to regard him as a good friend and a very spirited and insightful man who grew up in Russia. He’s known Britain and recently wrote a book An Immigrant’s Love Letter to the West, which I thoroughly recommend. It’s a powerful reminder of why we should not take for granted the good things we have. He’s also a co-host of the very popular social commentary podcast Trigonometry which I know has many viewers in my own home country as well as here in Britain.
So Konstantin thanks for making it back over here and since we last talked you’ve become a dad with Nikolai just after we were together last time.
How has that experience affected your view of the world?
KK: First of all it’s awesome it’s just awesome, Fatherhood is the best thing ever. True, I haven’t slept that well for 11 months now as I did on the trip over. So not getting a lot of sleep but I love it.
Has it changed me yeah, I think it’s it’s softened me a little bit actually, it’s taken some of the edges off. It’s made me aware that it’s really really important to try and communicate in a way that makes it easier for other people to hear. Because before I likely felt the most important thing is to get my opinion out in a way that draws attention. Whereas now I really feel it’s about persuading people.
Part of it is when you see a baby you kind of realize that all human beings were that way once, and they’ve been shaped and morphed into different things by the experiences that they have. But they once were all that pure innocence. So it’s made it easier for me to connect with people as human beings I think.
Tell me about Parenting in the age of social media. It won’t be long he’ll get a bit older and he’ll notice his friends using social media and he’s going to want to use it too. How are you going to handle that what will your attitude be?
The idealistic version of me says he’s not getting the smartphone until at least 16. Oh good luck with that which is what everyone says. The truth is we’ll find out.
We just had you on trigonometry and we talked about the impact social media is having on us. I genuinely think this isn’t a mission for me but anyone who invents a smartphone that allows children to use certain apps and not others is going to make a killing. Because there’s going to be a huge demand from parents for a way that their children are able to still be connected to the world because that’s important you know. We’ve got a a guy that works for us who’s 17 years old and he’s incredible at understanding social media and YouTube and so on. So you don’t want to cut your children off from this new technology and being able to use it for for work and for their lives.
It’s going to be essential on the other hand I think there’s so much darkness and misery and addiction frankly that comes with with being on a phone particularly when your brain is not fully formed. That is definitely something that we have to protect our children against as well. So I guess the truth is we’ll find out.
You recently said that and I’m quoting: One of the biggest unspoken truths of modern Western Society is that women have been brainwashed into acting in ways that are fundamentally against their own long-term happiness and well-being, in order to maintain the myth that men and women are the same.
You’ll be surprised I’ve got quite a lot of hostile attention online but it got a lot of very positive attention as well. I’m only joking of course, but we all know that I’m not saying anything that people don’t know. And it was sparked by a conversation I had with somebody.
There are different ways to slice that particular statement; I probably regret using the word brainwashed just because that made it harder for people to hear what I was saying. Even people who agree with me generally. But look at what dating on social media or dating on apps has done to the way that men and women connect and have sex and all of these things. Women are increasingly now encouraged to have sex in the way that we think of men being more naturally leaning towards–which is transactional, you know,one-night stands no attachment. The fact is, it doesn’t actually make men happy either, but it really makes women unhappy if you talk to women about it. We’ve had a number of guests on the show particularly Louise Perry and Mary Harrington.
Also what really sparked that was a couple of conversations I had with women and one of which was after my Oxford Union speech. I was invited to do a number of things and one of them was unherd hosting an evening that I was a part of. Freddie who hosts that show told me: There’s something different about you since you since you had a son, something is going on. And I said, The future is no longer an abstraction. He has a face and it has a name and we talked about that and how my view of the world has changed and you know that that’s generally what I think.
And then I was standing outside and a woman came over to me she said thank you so much for that. It’s really changed the way I think about things particularly about children. I never thought about children, never thought that’s what I wanted, but this is what I want now. And I said how old are you and she said 43. Wow. And I hope to God that they’re able to to have a child and and get what they want, but the truth is that’s unlikely. There are many many people who are in that position in our world who’ve been, maybe brainwashed is the wrong word, but who’ve been encouraged to forget about the things that actually matter.
I’m not saying every woman should have a child. There are no shoulds in what I’m saying. And actually I think that’s one of the places people often have gone wrong and one of the reasons people resist “Traditional Values” is that they’ve been imposed with a sort of Iron Will. That’s instead of being told that if you want meaning and fulfillment in life, that’s what everybody wants, the path to that for you, not for everybody but for most people, is going to involve family and children.
Just you know I have so many conversations with women who don’t want to say this in public because it’s uncomfortable and you get attacked and whatever. Who say, you know I was obsessed with my career the whole time and then I had a child and it literally changes your brain, it literally changes you. And it does and I I think we’ve got to start talking about it. You know as well as I do, we are demographically speaking in a really dark place and if we continue down this path it’s not going to end well.
But more importantly, it’s not about asking people to have children for the sake of the nation. What we can do is say to people what do you actually want, that meaning that you crave that every human being craves, that purpose that fulfillment, human beings have known for Millennia where that comes from.
You know this existence that we live in now has necessarily put a lot of people into a mental health crisis. Well the answer to mental health is quite often meaning and purpose. And for some people that is going to be work, for others it will be the contribution they make to others. For many people it’s going to be their own family.
Some people are now referring to the depopulation bomb because we’ve had decades since the club of Rome saying, echoing Malthus earlier saying the world can’t support this population. We’ve got to cut it back and not many people have really realized that outside of Africa or some parts of the Middle East what’s happening is actually a depopulation bomb. China is leading the way and it won’t be long; The maths are fascinating on this. Before long it will be unusual for somebody to have siblings and aunts and uncles, so that most basic of family communities is contracting.
And I suspect we’re starting to see the beginnings of a different pandemic, a pandemic of loneliness. We’re already live in this atomized society, and you know it’s not just about culture. There’s an economic Dimension to it as well, which is how hard it is for young people to pair up and get together. It’s not by any means the only reason but that’s also part of it.
Look at the bunch of atomized individuals on their cell phones, on the internet, on social media. That’s not a recipe for a happy society and so the downstream impacts of that way of being are going to be tremendous and not in a good way.
So let’s trace that through. Firstly the impact of social media on the way we date now. There’s a bit of research around showing actually that it’s disastrous. You’ve got a narrow group of men who are very attractive via social media dating apps, much more attractive than they might be if you’ve met them at the pub or you know in the park the way you might have once. And they get all the attention and that’s not good for them, and then when they’re bored will cruelly just dump somebody in the ways you can with social media. So it’s not working for women either
What impact is that sort of social media role now in people meeting and forming relationships?
Well they’re not forming relationships, a lot of them. And you say dump cruelly when actually a lot of them don’t need to because that very top strand of men quite openly are saying to women now: Oh I want an open relationship, you know, I don’t want to commit. And women are in a position where because they want a guy who is you know attractive, successful and high status, financially secure and all of that. They will hope that they are the one girl that can convince this guy to settle down with her.
But he’s got no incentive to do that, and the impact on that is bad for both men and women by the way. This isn’t good for men in many different ways. For a start most men actually also feel the same disgust after a one night stand that women do. But on top of that it’s not good for men because a stable relationship is something that makes you ten times the man that you are. that’s certainly been my experience you and I wouldn’t be sitting here if it wasn’t for my wife.
I wouldn’t be half the man I am if it wasn’t for my wife and that’s because we built a life together in which she had a massive stake in my success and I had a massive stake in her success. A series of transactional relationships isn’t going to do that for you. It also strikes me that for the boys and girls, if I can put it this way, who are not terribly appealing via social media if that makes sense. So if you meet someone in the pub you get the full sort of feel for their relationships so maybe they’re somebody who doesn’t look particularly interesting on social media but when you meet them there’s a great sense of humor, there’s chemistry, there’s warmth it’s a very different thing. And they potentially can miss out good decent honest people who are looking for a respectful and meaningful relationship missing out all together.
Maybe that’s partly why we’ve now got this extraordinary thing right across the West with men on their own not forming relationships living at home late into their lives with their own parents. And on top of that we have a whole series of things that give men an opportunity to experience the illusion of success without actually having to work for it.
I’m someone who’s who spent a lot of my childhood playing video games and I’m not someone who thinks video games as the root of all evil or whatever. What they do is they give you a fake sense of accomplishment and if you’re not properly socialized, if you don’t spend time around other people, if you’re stuck in that world, you can get the sense that you’re doing well that doesn’t match up to how other other people actually perceive you.
Back on the loneliness and the family formation side of it, it’s one of the economic problems that in my view are rising out of the economic mismanagement of most western economies over the last 15 years. Namely that young people can’t get a start on the economic ladder, they can’t get into a house which are two obvious amongst many other implications. It delays relationship and family formation and it also means that those young people don’t have an investment in our culture.
You know the old saying that if you’re not a socialist at 18 you’ve got no heart if you’re still a socialist at 30 you’ve got no brains, But there’s evidence showing that now through their 20s and 30s they’re drifting further to the left because they don’t feel invested in the system. This isn’t a terribly Happy story and you know this is a particular problem here in the UK where people are locked out of the opportunity to live in a home that they can call their own. We see that the average age of a house purchase I think is mid-30s onwards, the first time you buy your own place. Of course a lot of people who don’t buy their own place are stuck renting probably now forever because they’re just never going to catch up.
The average age of having the first child for a woman is going up at the same time. A good example is my wife and I having our first child, our son at 39 and it’s partly for many of the same reasons. You know it was only when we had our own place and it took my wife a few years to settle down and to feel comfortable before that conversation opened up. I think if we’d if we’d done that earlier we would have had children earlier and we would have had more children by now.
So yeah it’s a big big problem and people don’t seem to understand the reason this issue isn’t getting solved is like the fact that we’re endlessly printing money to indebt our children and grandchildren. The housing problem isn’t getting solved in this country because too many middle class people who are already on the housing ladder are invested in the price of housing always going up. And they will refuse and punish any politician who offers to solve the housing problem. Part of solving it is reducing the price of housing, there’s no way around that, It is a real social, political and economic problem that is not going away.
We also know that vast numbers of people in the west will say: My only chance of ever having a home, a roof over my head, is through inheritance. I think that sets up unhelpful family Dynamics as well. Since the parents are dying later now, you might be in your 50s or 60s by the time that happens. Do we want to have a generation of people who are still sort of children because they’re not fully an adult until they have something that they’re really responsible for. And your house, your family are things that really force you to mature quickly. A generation of people in their 50s who’ve never had that? I don’t think that’s a recipe for a good Society.
I know you’ve written a book called a love letter to the West. So you enjoy your life here, while at the same time I must say you make a great contribution to the community. And you’ve seen the alternative because you grew up in Russia. We’ll come back to this later in terms of what’s happening in Russia and the Ukraine. But in the short term you’ve got a particularly clear vision of all of this because you had difficulties imposed from on top. What we’re doing in the west, we’re doing to ourselves; it doesn’t have to be like this. It must strike you as a great irony.
it is I I think I always try to caution people I think those of us who are frustrated with many of the things that are happening in the West can sometimes overdo the comparison with the Soviet Union in which I grew up in. It’s important to have a sense of perspective. I talk about some of the issues that we’ve got going on because they they need to be addressed. But we are still the freest. most prosperous, most comfortable, stable most safe and secure Societies in the world.
I worry and you also worry that if we don’t appreciate that, and don’t celebrate that, we can throw it away. And that’s really why we’re talking about these young people who are locked out of Housing and so on. If you don’t have a stake on your Society why would you appreciate it, why would you celebrate it, why defend it you know.
So of course it’s important to remind people not to throw away the baby with the bath water when it comes to criticizing our societies. But of course we have a lot to do as well to understand now.
You put together some very very convincing words in an Oxford Union debating performance. It was quite recent yet I understand it’s been viewed over a hundred million times online, and maybe a lot more we don’t really know. Why do you think what you said had such an incredible impact because you did it quite sympathetically actually; you were careful in the way that you assertively attack the comment.
I think that’s one of the reasons why is that we live in a society in which adults are afraid of children. So when you see someone speaking to young people on their turf at a college or a university and who’s prepared to speak truth to them, but do it in a way that’s got a bit of humor, a bit of levity that tries to meet them where they’re at. It’s saying: Look I know this is what you think, here are some things you probably haven’t thought about. I think that’s quite appealing to people because as I say we live in a society where we’re fearful of telling young people what we think and what perhaps they need to hear.
That’s another of the reasons I tackle very directly the Doomsday narrative about climate change and Net Zero. And I explained to people the reality of that issue and how that isn’t isn’t going to be addressed, The fact no one has ever told these people in the UK who glue themselves to roads and throw soup on paintings and whatever, that this country produces one percent of global emissions and is responsible for another one percent so two percent. The idea of killing pensioners every winter with fuel poverty doesn’t seem as appealing if you recognize that it has absolutely no impact on global warming whatsoever.
Hopefully if I say so myself, someone trying to use logic along with some sensitivity to other people , we don’t have a lot of that going on lately. But to say look here are some things, here’s some rational arguments where you may want to modify your thinking.
That’s actually one of the most gratifying things that has happened since. I’ve had a lot of contact with a lot of people who reach out to me and say: I can see that you’re trying to win people over. Let’s talk. I’m really really keen to get past the culture war we’ve got ourselves locked into. Once you start calling something a war, it’s very difficult to see the humanity of people on the other side. I always try to make this point: I don’t know about you, maybe this isn’t true for you, but I know that when I was 20 years old I was stupid and arrogant and thought I knew everything and I had the solutions to everything. So we’ve got to remember that you know young people are like that and some of them are persuadable, some of them not all of them of course. But let’s try and persuade them.
It does tell you something about the way we now raise and educate our young people. In a sense you put up an alternative moral proposition. You’re really saying: if you pursue policies single-mindedly thinking the only challenge before us is climate change and we’ve got to turn ourselves inside out. Well what happens if that results in people in the rest of the world starving, becaus that’s a moral Dimension as well, but it’s also a practical one isn’t it. Because starving people won’t care about the environment.
That’s one aspect of it. There are alternative moral perspectives for young people who are idealistic and care about moral issues but then there’s a very hard-nosed practical one. If you really want to ensure that climate change policy is demolished break down the liberal Global Order and allow the autocrats what they want which is domination of global politics.
I mean if the Russians and, now meaning the Russian people and the Chinese people, but the people who run those countries; if they have say well you’re not going to advance arguments about climate change very effectively and that is at stake now because they are plainly seeing us as degenerate as lost as ineffective divided ill-disciplined and they’re right we should be aware that.
Why it’s important but in terms of the the moral Frameworks and all of that I think it’s really much simpler than that in some ways. The the single line that has made the greatest impact to my understanding of the world is from Thomas Sowell who to me is one of the greatest modern thinkers. “There are no Solutions, only trade-offs. You’re not gonna solve climate change, you’re not going to solve anything. You can make adjustments, and you know this much better than I do from being in government, every policy has a trade-off and very often the reason that issues become difficult and controversial is precisely because the trade-offs are as bad as the solution. So you have to pick very carefully how exactly you calibrate your solution to avoid causing a lot more damage than you’re trying to prevent. We’ve completely lost the ability to see that Nuance yeah
You know we have this conversation in this country all the time: if labor is in the reason the NHS is broken is because Labor’s broken it; if the conservatives are in it’s because the conservatory Tory Cuts or whatever. No one seems to understand that like all of these problems are Eternal they’re gonna go on forever they’re not solvable no one’s going to solve the NHS, no one’s going to solve climate change. What we can do is Tinker at the edges and improve certain aspects of it at the cost of others.
You and I talked exactly about this last time what happened over covid. People forgot that safety has trade-offs, freedom has trade-offs. No one wants to say, yes freedom of speech has the consequence that some guy is gonna be insulting to someone else online and someone might get upset. But that is the price we’re willing to pay because we want to live in a free Society. Yes not locking down the country may, we don’t know, may have caused more people to die, but locking down the country also caused more people to die. So which one of those do we want? How do we calibrate that policy?
We’ve completely lost the ability to have those conversations, which is why I think it’s really important that we we try to bring that idea back: There are no Solutions there just aren’t.
The other great problem though is that a good government reflecting a good Society recognizes not just that there’s no absolute answer to anything, but that you actually have to be able to manage many difficult issues at any given time. You and I have to do that in our own personal lives and so do governments. Instead we’re reducing politics to a series of one-trick Pony shows, where there’s a crisis here and that’s the only thing we’ll talk about. It’s not just that there are trade-offs, we’re ignoring a whole lot of other problems which will swamp that one.
You talk about how we communicate and as I understand it, you got a lot of opportunity to communicate, I’m guessing, it was overwhelmingly on conservative shows because others don’t want to engage.
That proved to be a bit of a problem and now I’d like to break out of it because what I’m saying isn’t only conservative. I certainly have some conservative views but it’s frustrating to me because I’m just trying to express my opinion, The only left-wing publication that did interview me about it was a guy who came in here and then lied about me repeatedly to the point that they had to take whole chunks out of his article afterwards. That was the only left Winger, well he I don’t even know he’s left wing. He writes for electron publication and everybody else was somewhere in the center or right leaning and that’s because they’re afraid of what will happen if they “platform” someone who who said the things that I said. It’s a sad State of Affairs, but that’s what it is.
You came from a country where there must have been a lot of fear because Russia was autocratic for so long and people’s lives were closely surveilled and you could get into a lot of trouble saying the wrong thing. it seems to me that we’re becoming surprisingly bound up by fear in our culture now as well.
You know people say to me, oh you’re so brave. And I’m thinking, what are you talking about? What is brave about expressing your opinion in public. I don’t get it, I don’t understand why people are so afraid. And look it’s easy for me to say because when Francis and I started trigonometry for example we didn’t have a huge amount to lose; we were two comedians operating on the British comedy circuit you know there was not a huge amount for us to lose even though if it may have felt like it. There are other people, JK Rowling is a good example of somebody who had a lot potentially to lose. She’s not going to lose her wealth or status or whatever, but you’re gonna end up you know getting a bunch of death threats and hate stuff and whatever else that’s unpleasant.
But I just I just think we give way too much importance to other people’s words and opinions. We’ve got to a point where people are fearful of a Twitter backlash. Well turn your phone off, you know, it’s not real that stuff. Sometimes people will introduce me as controversial. Yet in my entire life not one person has ever come up to me on the street other than to say, Well done congratulations keep going.
Now that’s a really interesting point because there’s that disconnect. They try to box you in with the idea that they’ll be fearful consequences but we’ve been talking about this and now find friendly people everywhere wanting to engage you. People very much they need to strap on a pair; it’s not as scary as you think, not as dangerous as you think now
Look I understand some people work in in institutions and organizations where if they do say something they’re going to lose their job, but that in itself is horrendous. And that’s why woke corporations are not good. They were once leaders in defending our values, yet so often now they’re pursuing values that turn out to be very narrow and inappropriate.
I made earlier a point about being a society as in which adults are afraid of children because that’s really what’s happening in corporations. It’s the 50 60 something white straight male CEOs who are afraid of either their grandchildren or their kids at home or the people at the lower rungs of their own organizations. And frankly I understand it because we you know we’re trigonometry we now employ people who are great, but nonetheless you know young people now expect to have the input on many things from a fairly low level position within the organization. If I had the cheek to try getting involved in high level stuff at their age like that, I wouldn’t have had a very easy career, let’s put it that way. We tolerate a lot from young people and I think that’s part of it as well. People are scared of their own employees which I I you know I don’t think that’s the way it should be I think people need to show a bit of metal.
I understand there was a very interesting conversation between a BBC journalist and Elon Musk recently.
Yes, the journalist said that Twitter had a hate speech problem but when he was challenged by Musk couldn’t name a single example. It seems to me this strikes at this very problem now. Where people will put up a feelings based, prejudice-based perspective and not worry about whether it’s backed by the evidence. Moreover this is particularly true in journalism where I think there’s more than just that going on. If I’m honest I think what you have now is journalists increasingly playing to the crowd of other journalists. They have stopped trying to seek the truth or to cover the issues fairly. Instead they’re trying to make sure that other journalists see them having asked the right questions. So if you are the tech editor of the BBC and you’re interviewing Elon Musk, you have to be seen to challenge him. Because in the BBC’s conception Elon Musk is this evil right-wing billionaire who’s ruined Twitter. And so you have to ask that question.
The other thing it shows is how terrible they have become at their jobs. The worst thing about that interview isn’t even what you’ve just raised. What then happened was the guy ran out of questions. How do you run out of questions when you’re interviewing the guy who says that he wants to preserve Humanity by extending it over several planets. How do you run out of questions when you’re interviewing a guy who’s built one of the most successful breakthrough Innovative companies in the world in Tesla. No questions for a guy who spent a huge fortune and overpaid in order to buy Twitter because he believes that changing the way we’re having our conversations is essential to changing the way our society is going. Running out of questions in that situation is a dereliction of Duty.
Richard Dawkins said he was distressed and expressed dismay at the lack of curiosity amongst young people, and made the comment that it’s only these pesky Christians amongst young people that seem to have any great interest in exploring ideas. Have we lost our curiosity.
I think some people have. You and I still have it I think and the fact that people listen to your show and to mine shows that a lot of people still have it. No one can measure any of these things really. I could sit here and make a very strong argument for how our society’s lost its curiosity or could make a very good argument for why it hasn’t. It’s the glass half full half empty thing.
How do you feel about America? What are your key observations about the future of the so-called culture wars there? Because it seems like a nation divided from top to bottom although maybe the upside of that is that at least they are engaged in a full throttled exchange of ideas whereas I sometimes think in other Western countries the battle’s over
It’s interesting I think there’s truth to that. I also think there’s truth to the argument that they’re not actually engaged in the Battle of ideas. Now it feels like it’s not ideas that are being lobbed over the barricades anymore, there’s a kinetic element starting to come through. We were in DC and our team actually were out and about and they were filming stuff and they went to a protest about trans rights. There were a lot of people shouting and our guys couldn’t tell which side of the argument people were on. One of the people who was most profoundly present, let’s say shouting and whatever, and they asked can you tell us what this is about what you’re doing, and he said no. How if you’re protesting for something why wouldn’t you want to persuade a single person what you actually believe in.
It’s become very tribal and so you know, here’s my placard and here’s your placard. I feels like there’s not much of a Battle of ideas going on, only a Battle of power. I wrote a piece on my sub stack actually on the plane back I couldn’t sleep so I just typed it out on my phone. It’s called the American anti-woke Coalition, and I talk about the split between the conservatives and the old school liberals about some of these issues. The dynamic is very interesting because I think the the the path to addressing many of these radical Progressive ideas lies through uniting conservatives and the old-school liberals around the things that they all agree on.
The conservatives in America know America is a very radical country. When we spoke to Ben Shapiro actually he made this point and I think he’s absolutely right. People there are pretty intense about what they believe, and so it makes it difficult for them to work with others where there’s disagreement. The trans debate for example is a very good example of this where many conservatives have taken the position which alienates a lot of people. Namely, that the libs are transing the kids and everything else follows from that. And a lot of the old school liberals who also are concerned about gender ideology in schools, the transitioning of children, the medicalization of children. They’re quite uncomfortable with all this stuff. So what you see is a rather precarious temporary Alliance that’s not really as strong as it could be.
But America is a beautiful place, I think I am really inspired by the mindset there. There isn’t a tall poppy syndrome in America you know. If you say to somebody in Britain, I want to build a great business or I want to create a massive YouTube channel or I want to be you know hugely successful in this or that, there’s look like who do you think you are? In America it isn’t like that at all, it’s more like great go for it what can I do for you, how can we work together? And that’s inspiring for someone like me who always wanted to do great things and build things and employ people and create opportunities for others and make an impact in the world.
It’s fascinating, it also has a shadow, as anything does, there are no Solutions only trade-offs. But it’s it’s a wonderful place in many ways. When I’m in America it gives me like fuel for the rocket in in a way that no other country I’ve ever been to does.
Regarding full throated American exchange of cultural ideas,
here is the current #1 Itunes song in USA:
Those who are not “Progressive” (the perverted term progressives apply to themselves) need to positively stand for something. You get the impression that people are just interested in fighting a battle to win some points rather than build towards a more coherent Society where there are greater opportunities for freedom and human flourishing.
In that context appeals to preserve free speech and to talk about freedom and liberty and so forth are not enough. I’ve always said that freedom of speech is a defensive value. It’s like saying: please can I have a fair playing field for my ideas. It’s not unimportant but it’s not something you can really unite around. Once you’ve got free speech, a Level Playing Field for ideas, What ideas do you believe in?
And that’s where everyone falls out. What is the positive vision of the future that we’re offering people? That’s why hope is so important, All of us who believe free speech is important to achieve our objective: Where’s the hope since in and of itself it just means we can now have a conversation or at least we’re now allowed to speak now.
Increasingly ‘m asking people: What is it that you want to say? Because we have to start thinking about what we’re offering people. Why should you be one of us other than the fact that you’re not allowed to say what you want at work or at school or whatever.
Trying to work this for myself, I can chart one or two things that I think are going to be part of that. Jordan Peterson and I talked about the most important one. First and foremost it has to be Invitational. We have to say to them what is it that you want. what are the things that are going to give you meaning and fulfillment.
We talked about it already, for many people there’s going to be family. For a lot of people even before you get there is it’s going to be about things like mental resilience. is it good for you to think that you’re a victim?
Even if you are a victim, let’s say you’ve experienced difficult things and you and I both have and so has everybody else by the way. Is it good for you to say I’m a victim, but you’ve you’ve had it easy?
Because it’s often simply not true. The vast majority of people you meet, if you actually talk and listen to them, you’ll find out that everybody’s experienced some things that were really difficult for them. And by the way for some people growing up in a really wealthy privileged environment with parents who didn’t care about them, which often happens, is just as traumatic as growing up in poverty. People don’t want to admit that but that is true.
Most people have experienced some kind of trauma or difficulty or challenge. Then what is the right approach if you want meaning and fulfillment, purpose and happiness. I don’t believe being a victim works especially if you’ve had a hard life. This is why I’m so frustrated with this ideology because the worst thing you can teach people who are victims of life is to wallow in their victimhood.
Part of giving people a path to resilience is telling them that that’s the destination you want. Everybody should be trying to get there, to subfamily resilience. and then you have to you know
Look around look around for the Societies in the world that actually offer you an opportunity to do those things: to be successful, to be free and be prosperous. It’s Western societies it’s the anglo-sphere and a portion of Europe. That’s got something to do with their values. So which of those values do we need to preserve and celebrate? We should be focusing on that, which is way bigger than different political perspectives. If we can agree on that framework we can offer people that meaning and purpose and then we can say to them this is what we believe in come and join the team.
What are your views on why Russians supported their president in the special military operation? Don’t call it War otherwise you’ll get arrested in Russia and put into prison for 10 years.
Well I’ve said from literally day one what the likely outcome will be. There are a lot of people understandably in Ukraine who are not necessarily that happy about me saying it this way, even though I’ve obviously been a big supporter of their cause. Likewise there are lots of people in Russia who wouldn’t be happy hearing this eithe.
Look, what Ukraine needs is to make sure this never happens again. Of course coming from a Ukrainian perspective particularly, you’ve got to remember 2022 wasn’t the beginning of this process. This started in 2014 when Russia bit off chunks of Ukraine with no repercussions. Ukraine wasn’t given long-term Security in the way that it needed and so it happened again. And if the war ends somehow without Ukraine having long-term security, this will happen again in the future.
So there’ll be people who disagree but the number one goal for Ukraine in my opinion, is not actually to preserve every tiny bit of land. A much better outcome for Ukraine would be long-term security and there are only two ways to do that: NATO membership or UN peacekeeping force on the border. Personally I don’t see U.N peacekeepers there, it could happen but unlikely. So that means one thing only: Ukraine needs NATO membership now.
On the other hand, what do you have to do to get there with minimum casualties, because Ukraine is losing a lot of its people and a lot of its economic base is being destroyed even though they are fighting extremely well and courageously and I have huge admiration for them. The solution would be in my view likely that Russia gets to keep Crimea and pieces of the Donbass, NATO accepts Ukraine and this essentially ends that standoff. Because Russia is not going to invade NATO and Ukraine becomes NATO so that’s the end goal. Obviously Putin isn’t going to be happy with Ukraine joining NATO, given that the very reason he claims to have started this war. His goal is to prevent Ukraine becoming a hostile NATO force on its border.
But if ukrainians can can continue to give Russia a bloody noise which is what I’ve said from the beginning that will be in my opinion the most likely outcome. We’re sitting here on the 9th of May Victory Day as as we call it in Russia and the ukrainians are about to mount a counter-offensive which no one knows how that will go. So far Russia has lost a huge number of men wounded and killed in this war. So has Ukraine, though probably not as many. And this has been a serious blow to Russia’s military and clearly to the reputation of its military as well.
And so in terms of the end goal we we have to wait and see how the counter-offensive plays out and where that takes us. Frankly it depends on what happens and then the response from from both sides
To round this out, you’re now dad and obviously enjoying it immensely. It gives you great drive to try and make sure he’s got a secure future. What’s taking priority in your mind in terms of trying to ensure he can enjoy a secure and good life?
We talk a lot about societal issues and they are very important. But the the more I go through this journey of my life, the more I realize how the personal is essential. So the number one goal for me is to be the best man that I can be. The best guarantee of my son having a good life is me being the best husband, the best father. And to the extent that I am a public figure being the best version of that that I can be, to try and bring people over, to let go of my natural tendency to enjoy irritating people. These are parts of life but I’m trying and I hope to be more responsible with the way that I communicate.
So first and foremost you have to start the change within yourself and then in terms of society. Look , I stand for the things that I believe and support. I believe the the West is great, I believe it it’s worth preserving. I believe that we are in a good place still but presently we are moving in the wrong direction. Maybe my son has come along at a time when he’ll still have a good life, but you know is Western civilization in a terminal decline. I mean it remains to be seen and it also depends on what people do. I mean there there is always the hope that we can change the downward trajectory, but it remains to be seen.
More than anything I’ve let go of the attachment to societal outcomes because I know that I can’t change them. I can do my best I can to shape somewhat the conversation that happens in this area. And I’m I’m doing my best but that’s really all that anyone can do. Maybe if you were Deputy Prime Minister of a country, you’ve had more impact directly in that way. But even so I don’t imagine you feel like you you were able to revolutionize Australia in in the image that John Anderson would want it to be or to change Western Society for the better.
We’re just small people, all of us trying to do our best and I think for my son the best thing I can be is just a good example, Trying to be that is a noble aspiration.
Last Blast from JimBob
The best context for understanding decadal temperature changes comes from the world’s sea surface temperatures (SST), for several reasons:
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 chart below shows SST monthly anomalies as reported in HadSST4 starting in 2015 through June 2023. A global cooling pattern is seen clearly in the Tropics since its peak in 2016, joined by NH and SH cycling downward since 2016.
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. In 2021 the summer NH summer spike was joined by warming in the Tropics but offset by a drop in SH SSTs, which raised the Global anomaly slightly over the mean.
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.
Now comes El Nino as shown by the upward spike in the Tropics since January, the anomaly doubling from 0.38C to now at 0.87C. Now in June 2023, all regions rose, especially NH up from 0.7C to now 1.1C, pulling up the global anomaly to a new high for this period.
A longer view of SSTs
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.
Now in 2023 the Tropics flip from below to above average, and NH starts building up for a summer peak with June already comparable to previous years. In fact, the summer warming peaks in NH have occurred in August or September, so this June number is likely to go higher, perhaps the highest of all.
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.
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 only the Hadsst AMO dataset has data through April. It differs from Kaplan, which reported average absolute temps measured in N. Atlantic. “Hadsst 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 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 varibility, high and low, drives the annual results for this basin. Note also the peaks in 2010, lows after 2014, and a rise in 2021. 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, and now in May and June has spiked to match 2010.
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 1980-202306, value 0.38, also for the period 1997-2012. The red line is 2013-202306, value 0.64. As noted above, these rising stages are driven by the combined warming in the Tropics and NH, including both Pacific and Atlantic basins.
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?
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
There continues to be a lot of discussions (arguments?) and confusing statements regarding the Green House Gas theory of global warming, in legacy and social media. So to clear the air I am reposting a concise explanation of the theory and a summary of various independant attempts to find empirical evidence supporting it.
Many people commenting both for and against reducing emissions from burning fossil fuels assume it has been proven that rising GHGs including CO2 cause higher atmospheric temperatures. That premise has been tested and found wanting, as this post will describe. First below is a summary of Global Warming Theory as presented in the scientific literature. Then follows discussion of several unsuccessful attempts to find evidence of the hypothetical effects from GHGs in the relevant datasets. Concluding is the alternative theory of climate change deriving from solar and oceanic fluctuations.
The theory is well described in an article by Kristian (okulaer) prefacing his analysis of “AGW warming” fingerprints in the CERES satellite data. How the CERES EBAF Ed4 data disconfirms “AGW” in 3 different ways by okulaer November 11, 2018. Excerpts below with my bolds. Kristian provides more detailed discussion at his blog (title in red is link).
For those of you who aren’t entirely up to date with the hypothetical idea of an “(anthropogenically) enhanced GHE” (the “AGW”) and its supposed mechanism for (CO2-driven) global warming, the general principle is fairly neatly summed up here.
I’ve modified this diagram below somewhat, so as to clarify even further the concept of “the raised ERL (Effective Radiating Level)” – referred to as Ze in the schematic – and how it is meant to ‘drive’ warming within the Earth system; to simply bring the message of this fundamental premise of “AGW” thinking more clearly across.
Then we have the “doubled CO2” (t1) scenario, where the ERL has been pushed higher up into cooler air layers closer to the tropopause:
So when the atmosphere’s IR opacity increases with the excess input of CO2, the ERL is pushed up, and, with that, the temperature at ALL ALTITUDE-SPECIFIC LEVELS of the Earth system, from the surface (Ts) up through the troposphere (Ttropo) to the tropopause, directly connected via the so-called environmental lapse rate, i.e. the negative temperature profile rising up through the tropospheric column, is forced to do the same.
How, then, is this mechanism supposed to manifest itself?
Well, as the ERL, basically the “effective atmospheric layer of OUTWARD (upward) radiation”, the one conceptually/mathematically responsible for the All-Sky OLR flux at the ToA, and from now on, in this post, dubbed rather the EALOR, is lifted higher, into cooler layers of air, the diametrically opposite level, the “effective atmospheric layer of INWARD (downward) radiation” (EALIR), the one conceptually and mathematically responsible for the All-Sky DWLWIR ‘flux’ (or “the atmospheric back radiation”) to the surface, is simultaneously – and for the same physical reason, only inversely so – pulled down, into warmer layers of air closer to the surface. This latter concept was explained already in 1938 by G.S. Callendar. Feldman et al., 2015, (as an example) confirm that this is still how “Mainstream Climate Science (MCS)” views this ‘phenomenon’:
The gist being that, when we make the atmosphere more opaque to IR by putting more CO2 into it, “the atmospheric back radiation” (all-sky DWLWIR at sfc) will naturally increase as a result, reducing the radiative heat loss (net LW) from the surface up. And do note, it will increase regardless of (and thus, on top of) any atmospheric rise in temperature, which would itself cause an increase. Which is to say that it will always distinctly increase also RELATIVE TO tropospheric temps (which are, by definition, altitude-specific (fixed at one particular level, like ‘the lower troposphere’ (LT))). That is, even when tropospheric temps do go up, the DWLWIR should be observed to increase systematically and significantly MORE than what we would expect from the temperature rise alone. Because the EALIR moves further down.
Conversely, at the other end, at the ToA, the EALOR moves the opposite way, up into colder layers of air, which means the all-sky OLR (the outward emission flux) should rather be observed to systematically and significantly decrease over time relative to tropospheric temps. If tropospheric temps were to go up, while the DWLWIR at the surface should be observed to go significantly more up, the OLR at the ToA should instead be observed to go significantly less up, because the warming of the troposphere would simply serve to offset the ‘cooling’ of the effective emission to space due to the rise of the EALOR into colder strata of air.
What we’re looking for, then, if indeed there is an “enhancement” of some “radiative GHE” going on in the Earth system, causing global warming, is ideally the following:
OLR stays flat, while TLT increases significantly and systematically over time;
TLT increases systematically over time, but DWLWIR increases significantly even more.
Effectively summed up in this simplified diagram.
Figure 4. Note, this schematic disregards – for the sake of simplicity – any solar warming at work.
However, we also expect to observe one more “greenhouse” signature.
If we expect the OLR at the ToA to stay relatively flat, but the DWLWIR at the sfc to increase significantly over time, even relative to tropospheric temps, then, if we were to compare the two (OLR and DWLWIR) directly, we’d, after all, naturally expect to see a fairly remarkable systematic rise in the latter over the former (refer to Fig.4 above).
Which means we now have our three ways to test the reality of an hypothesized “enhanced GHE” as a ‘driver’ (cause) of global warming.
The null hypothesis in this case would claim or predict that, if there is NO strengthening “greenhouse mechanism” at work in the Earth system, we would observe:
1. The general evolution (beyond short-term, non-thermal noise (like ENSO-related humidity and cloud anomalies or volcanic aerosol anomalies))* of the All-Sky OLR flux at the ToA to track that of Ttropo (e.g. TLT) over time;
2. The general evolution of the All-Sky DWLWIR at the surface to track that of Ttropo (Ts + Ttropo, really) over time;
3. The general evolution of the All-Sky OLR at the ToA and the All-Sky DWLWIR at the surface to track each other over time, barring short-term, non-thermal noise.
* (We see how the curve of the all-sky OLR flux at the ToA differs quite noticeably from the TLT and DWLWIR curves, especially during some of the larger thermal fluctuations (up or down), normally associated with particularly strong ENSO events. This is because there are factors other than pure mean tropospheric temperatures that affect Earth’s final emission flux to space, like the concentration and distribution (equator→poles, surface→tropopause/stratosphere) of clouds, water vapour and aerosols. These may (and do) all vary strongly in the short term, significantly disrupting the normal temperature↔flux (Stefan-Boltzmann) connection, but in the longer term, they display a remarkable tendency to even out, leaving the tropospheric temperature signal as the only real factor to consider when comparing the OLR with Ttropo (TLT). Or not. The “AGW” idea specifically contends, resting on the premise, that these other factors (and crucially also including CO2, of course) do NOT even out over time, but rather accrue in a positive (‘warming’) direction.)
Missing Fingerprint #1
The first point above we have already covered extensively. The combined ERBS+CERES OLR record is seen to track the general progression of the UAHv6 TLT series tightly, both in the tropics and near-globally, all the way from 1985 till today (the last ~33 years), as discussed at length both here and here.
Since, however, in this post we’re specifically considering the CERES era alone, this is how the global OLR matches against the global TLT since 2000:
Figure 5.
This is simply the monthly CERES OLR flux data properly scaled (x0.266), enabling us to compare it more directly to temperatures (W/m2→K), and superimposed on the UAH TLT data. Watch how closely the two curves track each other, beyond the obvious noise. To highlight this striking state of relative congruity, we remove the main sources of visual bias in Fig.5 above. Notice, then, how the red OLR curve, after the 4-year period of fairly large ENSO-events (La Niña-El Niño-La Niña) between 2007/2008 and 2011/2012, when the cyan TLT curve goes both much lower (during the flanking La Niñas) and much higher (during the central El Niño), quickly reestablishes itself right back on top of the TLT curve, just where it used to be prior to that intermediate stretch of strong ENSO influence. And as a result, there is NO gradual divergence whatsoever to be spotted between the mean levels of these two curves, from the beginning of 2000 to the end of 2015.
Missing Fingerprint #2
The second point above is just as relevant as the first one, if we want to confirm (or disconfirm) the reality of an “enhanced GHE” at work in the Earth system. We compare the tropospheric temperatures with the DWLWIRsfc ‘flux’, that is, the apparent atmospheric thermal emission to the surface:
Figure 9. Note how the scaling of the flux (W/m2) values is different close to the surface than at the ToA. Here at the DWLWIR level, down low, we divide by 5 (x0.2), while at the OLR level, up high, we divide by 3.76 (x0.266).
We once again observe a rather close match overall. At the very least, we can safely say that there is no evidence whatsoever of any gradual, systematic rise in DWLWIR over the TLT, going from 2000 to 2018. If we plot the difference between the two curves in Fig.9 to obtain the “DWLWIR residual”, this fact becomes all the more evident:
Figure 10.
Remember now how the idea of an “enhanced GHE” requires the DWLWIR to rise significantly more than Ttropo (TLT) over time, and that its “null hypothesis” therefore postulates that such a rise should NOT be seen. Well, do we see such a rise in the plot above? Nope. Not at all. Which fits in perfectly with the impression we got at the ToA, where the TLT-curve was supposed to rise systematically up and away from the OLR-curve over time, but didn’t – no observed evidence there either of any “enhanced GHE” at work.
Missing Fingerprint #3
Finally, the third point above is also pretty interesting. It is simply to verify whether or not the CERES EBAF Ed4 ‘radiation flux’ data products are indeed suggesting a strengthening of some radiatively defined “greenhouse mechanism”. We sort of know the answer to this already, though, from going through points 1 and 2 above. Since neither the OLR at the ToA nor the DWLWIR at the surface deviated meaningfully from the UAHv6 TLT series (the same one used to compare with both, after all), we expect rather by necessity that the two CERES ‘flux products’ also shouldn’t themselves deviate meaningfully overall from one another. And, unsurprisingly, they don’t:
Figure 14. Difference plot (“DWLWIR residual”)
Again, it is so easy here to allow oneself to be fooled by the visual impact of that late – obviously ENSO-related – peak, and, in this case, also a definite ENSO-based trough right at the start (you’ll plainly recognise it in Fig.14); another perfect example of how one’s perception and interpretation of a plot is directly affected by “the end-point bias”. Don’t be fooled:
If we expect the OLR at the ToA to stay relatively flat, but the DWLWIR at the sfc to increase significantly over time, even relative to tropospheric temps, then, if we were to compare the two (OLR and DWLWIR) directly, we’d […] naturally expect to see a fairly remarkable systematic rise in the latter over the former (refer to Fig.4 above).
Looking at Fig.14, and taking into account the various ENSO states along the way, does such a “remarkable systematic rise” in DWLWIR over OLR manifest itself during the CERES era?
I’m afraid not …
The above analysis showing lack of GHG warming in the CERES data is added to four other atmospheric heat radiation studies.
1. In 2004 Ferenc MIskolczi studied the radiosonde datasets and found that the optical density at the top of the troposphere does not change with increasing CO2, since reducing H2O maintains optimal radiating efficiency. His publication was suppressed by NASA, and he resigned from his job there. He has elaborated on his findings in publications as recently as 2014. See: The Curious Case of Dr. Miskolczi
2. Ronan and Michael Connolly studied radiosonde data and concluded in 2014:
“It can be seen from the infra-red cooling model of Figure 19 that the greenhouse effect theory predicts a strong influence from the greenhouse gases on the barometric temperature profile. Moreover, the modeled net effect of the greenhouse gases on infra-red cooling varies substantially over the entire atmospheric profile.
However, when we analysed the barometric temperature profiles of the radiosondes in this paper, we were unable to detect any influence from greenhouse gases. Instead, the profiles were very well described by the thermodynamic properties of the main atmospheric gases, i.e., N 2 and O 2 , in a gravitational field.”
While water vapour is a greenhouse gas, the effects of water vapour on the temperature profile did not appear to be related to its radiative properties, but rather its different molecular structure and the latent heat released/gained by water in its gas/liquid/solid phase changes.
For this reason, our results suggest that the magnitude of the greenhouse effect is very small, perhaps negligible. At any rate, its magnitude appears to be too small to be detected from the archived radiosonde data.” Pg. 18 of referenced research paper
See: The Physics Of The Earth’s Atmosphere I. Phase Change Associated With Tropopause
3. An important proof against the CO2 global warming claim was included in John Christy’s testimony 29 March 2017 at the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. The text and diagram below are from that document which can be accessed here.
IPCC Assessment Reports show that the IPCC climate models performed best versus observations when they did not include extra GHGs and this result can be demonstrated with a statistical model as well.
Figure 5. Simplification of IPCC AR5 shown above in Fig. 4. The colored lines represent the range of results for the models and observations. The trends here represent trends at different levels of the tropical atmosphere from the surface up to 50,000 ft. The gray lines are the bounds for the range of observations, the blue for the range of IPCC model results without extra GHGs and the red for IPCC model results with extra GHGs.The key point displayed is the lack of overlap between the GHG model results (red) and the observations (gray). The nonGHG model runs (blue) overlap the observations almost completely.
The updating of this previous post is timely following on Dr. William Happer’s additional test of Global Warming Theory, the notion that rising CO2 causes dangerous warming of earth’s climate. A synopsis of that presentation is at Climate Change and CO2 Not a Problem. For the purpose of this discussion I will add at the end Happer’s finding that additional CO2 (from any and all sources) shows negligible effect in the radiative profile of the atmosphere.
The full discussion of this slide is in the linked synopsis at the top. In summary here, Happer points to the black line of CO2 infrared absorption at 400 ppm, compared to CO2 IR absorption at 800 ppm.
The important point here is the red line. This is what Earth would radiate to space if you were to double the CO2 concentration from today’s value. Right in the middle of these curves, you can see a gap in spectrum. The gap is caused by CO2 absorbing radiation that would otherwise cool the Earth. If you double the amount of CO2, you don’t double the size of that gap. You just go from the black curve to the red curve, and you can barely see the difference. The gap hardly changes.
The message I want you to understand, which practically no one really understands, is that doubling CO2 makes almost no difference.
Dan Pangburn is a professional engineer who has synthesized the solar and oceanic factors into a mathematical model that correlates with Average Global Temperature (AGT). On his blog is posted a monograph Cause of Global Climate Change explaining clearly his thinking and the maths. I provided a post with some excerpts and graphs as a synopsis of his analysis, in hopes others will also access and appreciate his work on this issue. See Quantifying Natural Climate Change
Footnote on the status of an hypothetical effect too small to be measured: Bertrand Russell’s teapot
Postscript: For an explanation why CO2 has negligible effect on thermal properties of the atmosphere, and why all W/m2 are not created equal, see: Light Bulbs Disprove Global Warming
The previous June Arctic ice update showed that shallow basins on the Pacific side lost their ice rapidly. The animation above shows in the last 15 days how Hudson Bay (bottom right) is nearly all open water. And Baffin Bay (center right) is down to 22% of its March max. The images also show CAA (Canadian Arctic Archipelago–center bottom) is still blocking the Northwest Passage, despite open water in Baffin Bay and in Beaufort Sea to the west. Also the Russian shelf seas (left) are starting to open. This is all normal melting of Arctic drift ice, presently at 56% (8.4 M km2) of last March maximum, heading toward the September minimum.
The graph for the last 30 days shows the normal melt is ~2.5M km2 down to 8.3 M km2. 2023 was above average for 3 weeks, and matching average the last week. SII tracked the MASIE average throughout, as did 2007 in June, but dropped lower toward the end.
The table for day 197 shows how the ice extent is distributed across the Arctic regions, incomparison to 17 year average and 2007.
| Region | 2023197 | Day 197 Average | 2023-Ave. | 2007197 | 2023-2007 |
| (0) Northern_Hemisphere | 8356350 | 8252843 | 103507 | 7963047 | 393303 |
| (1) Beaufort_Sea | 843873 | 864156 | -20283 | 825810 | 18063 |
| (2) Chukchi_Sea | 736044 | 627024 | 109019 | 550547 | 185496 |
| (3) East_Siberian_Sea | 891273 | 909597 | -18324 | 729250 | 162022 |
| (4) Laptev_Sea | 632760 | 547279 | 85481 | 525724 | 107036 |
| (5) Kara_Sea | 313437 | 331825 | -18389 | 401874 | -88438 |
| (6) Barents_Sea | 64976 | 54022 | 10954 | 60637 | 4339 |
| (7) Greenland_Sea | 433035 | 394327 | 38708 | 434750 | -1715 |
| (8) Baffin_Bay_Gulf_of_St._Lawrence | 397917 | 292326 | 105591 | 314783 | 83134 |
| (9) Canadian_Archipelago | 649440 | 710624 | -61184 | 711889 | -62449 |
| (10) Hudson_Bay | 165147 | 348600 | -183452 | 183962 | -18814 |
| (11) Central_Arctic | 3227307 | 3169018 | 58289 | 3222022 | 5284 |
The table shows that Hudson Bay is the anomaly, melting out early, but will soon be matched by the average there. CAA is also in slight deficit to average, while surpluses appear in Chukchi, Laptev, Baffin Bay and Central Arctic. 2007 was nearly 400k km2 lower than yesterday.
Anthony Watts has a short and to the point video entitled The True Relationship of CO2 and Temperature That the Media Won’t Tell You. For those who prefer reading I provide below a transcript in italics, lightly edited from the closed captions, along with images and my bolds. H/T Geo Rublik
Climate change is in fact real. Climate has changed on the earth for millennia. Okay that’s just the natural order of things–climate is not static in any way shape or form. Let’s start with that.
However it is down on the lower side of things, almost minuscule. The reason is the fact that we have reached saturation of the effect of carbon dioxide on warming the atmosphere. It happens in the first 100 parts per million and then after that it’s a logarithmic scale. The effect flattens out at the top, and we’re very nearly at the top of the curve of the effect of carbon dioxide warming the planet. The ability for additional carbon dioxide to affect the temperature is is quickly diminishing to become flat.
This mod trend calculation shows exactly what I’m talking about. In the first hundred parts per million, it’s just a rapid increase. And then it tapers off more and more. So the idea of climate running away due to carbon dioxide isn’t going to happen. So yes carbon dioxide does have an effect which gets smaller as the amount of concentration of co2 gets larger.
Namely, that we are retaining more and more heat in our local areas due to increased infrastructure, increased concrete, asphalt and so forth. So are locales are retaining heat at night. And the more artificial structures and surfaces we have in the vicinity of the thermometer, the more it warms the temperature at night, it doesn’t get as cold.
Well the climate folks track climate change per se using the average temperature. That average temperature is obtained by averaging between the daily high and the low. So if the low goes up and the high stays the same. then the average is going to go up. That’s the result showing a warming planet, mostly based on the nighttime temperature going up. [Note the dotted red line for daytime averages changes little compared to the rise of nightime averages shown by blue dotted line.]
That’s due both to carbon dioxide retarding heat going to space and
because we’ve got more localized influences of infrastructure retaining heat
which affects the thermometers. it’s just that simple.
Addendum
There’s a third point Anthony didn’t raise, but I will. There has also been man made warming of the temperature record by making adjustments to the observations. And those data alterations always serve to increase the warming trend.
The diagram above comes from KNMI showing how repeated adjustments over time added increments of warming to the GISSTemp record. The blue line is the GISS value for January 1910. The red line is GISS value for January 2000. The values for both months change many times between the GISS dataset at May 2008 and the same dataset at June 2023. The effect is to increase the warming (the difference between January 1910 and 2000) from 0.45 C to 0.67 C, due to lowering the 1910 number and increasing the 2000 number.
Dr. Ole Humlum commented: A temperature record which keeps on changing the past hardly can qualify as being correct.
I have also done a study of the records of surface stations rated by Watts’ project as having a #1 rating for siting quality–no urban heat sources nearby. That analysis compared raw data (as reported by the local weather authority) with the adjusted data (reanalyzed before input into climatology models.) See Updated Review of Temperature Data which also confirms the problems noted above.
The analysis showed the effect of GHCN adjustments on each of the 23 stations in the sample. The average station was warmed by +0.58 C/Century, from +.18 to +.76, comparing adjusted to unadjusted records. 19 station records were warmed, 6 of them by more than +1 C/century. 4 stations were cooled, most of the total cooling coming at one station, Tallahassee. So for this set of stations, the chance of adjustments producing warming is 19/23 or 83%. For example, Baker City Oregon
Gregory Wrightstone tells it like it is at CO2 Coalition Data Shows We’re NOT Seeing Record Heat. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.
It was widely reported recently that July 4th, 2023 was the hottest day in Earth’s recorded history.
Paulo Ceppi, a climate scientist at London’s Grantham Institute stated: “It hasn’t been this warm since at least 125,000 years ago, which was the previous interglacial.” And, of course, it was reported that it was our fault due to our “sins of emission.”
This didn’t meet the smell test for the scientists at the CO2 Coalition. We know that previous warm periods were warmer than our modern temperatures. For example, during the Roman Warm Period there was citrus being grown in the north of England and barley was grown by Vikings on Greenland 1,000 years ago. Why aren’t they grown there now? It’s quite simple: Lower modern temperatures.
So, here at the CO2 Coalition, we did what scientists are trained to do:
We looked at the available data. Our Science and Research Associate Byron Soepyan reviewed temperature data from the US Historical Climatology Network and found that both the number of weather stations reporting temperature over 100 degrees F and the Maximum Average Temperature for July 4th were slightly declining since the record began in 1895 – not increasing – as Ceppi claimed.
The Great Texas Heat Wave
It is summer. It is hot in Texas. It is not unusual or unprecedented. Below is a chart of the percentage of days in Texas that were above 100 degrees Fahrenheit since 1895. Despite a significant and steady rise in CO2 emissions, there has been a decline in the occurrence of very hot days.
Gregory Wrightstone is a geologist; executive director of the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, VA; and author of Inconvenient Facts: The Science That Al Gore Doesn’t Want You to Know.
New York City Covered in Thick Smoke from Western USA and Canada Wildfires
The Wild Weather meme has gone viral, along with the usual suspects claiming it’s climate change. Just in the last 24 hours:
Extreme weather is terrorizing the world. It’s only just begun. Yahoo
Heatwaves are one of the deadliest hazards to emerge in extreme weather, and they’re occurring on a global scale.
After Earth’s hottest week on record, extreme weather surprises everyone — even climate scientists CBC.ca
This past week was the Earth’s hottest on record, as extreme weather from wildfires to floods ravaged various corners of the world. Here’s a closer look at what’s happening.
There’s no escaping climate change as extreme weather events abound The Washington Post
Extreme weather highlights need for greater climate action: WMO UN News Centre
Scorching temperatures are engulfing large parts of the Northern hemisphere, while devastating floods triggered by relentless rainfall have disrupted lives and livelihoods, underscoring the urgent need for more climate action,
White House details ‘extreme heat strategy’ amid blistering temperatures in U.S. City News
Crippling heat waves are an annual fixture in the United States — but it’s not every day the White House announces a detailed strategy to confront them. So far, it’s been an extreme-weather summer
U.S. lays out extreme heat plan amid record temperatures. What about Canada? Global News
Like in the U.S., the federal government in Canada has staked much of its reputation on enunciating and enacting a comprehensive response to climate change.
NASA climate adviser warns extreme weather events will persist if temps keep rising. wusf.usf.edu
With much of the U.S. facing extreme weather, NASA chief scientist and senior climate adviser Kate Calvin talks to NPR’s A Martinez about what we can expect as global temperatures continue to rise.
What this summer’s extreme weather events mean for humanity. Public Radio International
As the worldwide heat record fell last week, the acute effects are emerging quickly. Extreme weather events are proliferating across the globe.
Floods, tornadoes, heat: more extreme weather predicted across US. The Guardian
Over a third of Americans under extreme heat warnings as Vermont, still recovering from historic flooding, prepares for more storms
More than 40% of Californians say they were affected by recent extreme weather, poll finds Yahoo Canada Sports
An overwhelming majority of respondents say climate change is impacting their community, but are less confident in government’s readiness to respond.
El Niño is back: Surging temperatures bring extreme weather and threaten lives Euronews
“Early warnings and anticipatory action of extreme weather events associated with this major climate phenomenon are vital to save lives and livelihoods.” Rising sea temperatures are already …
Cities fight to keep the lights on in extreme weather events Politico Europe
More intense and longer-lasting heat waves are a challenge for the electricity grids that power Europe’s urban centers.
Heat: 3 in 4 Californians say climate change is contributing to the state’s extreme weather events East Bay Times
With a heat wave approaching that could send inland temperatures soaring this weekend to more than 105 degrees, a new poll shows Californians’ concerns are rising about climate change and its connections to extreme weather.
Extreme Weather Bakes the South, Soaks the Northeast The Globe and Mail
This extreme weather from coast to coast: Is it ‘a new abnormal’? Yahoo News Canada
Wildfire smoke engulfed the iconic skyline of New York, blotting out the Empire State Building in a dystopian orange haze. A massive heat dome broke temperature records in Texas, straining the power grid and killing 13 people.
This seasonal outbreak of distressing media hype deserves a rational response, so I am reposting wise words from meteorologist Cliff Mass from summer 2021.
CBS News headline was: ‘Pacific Northwest heat wave would have been “virtually impossible” without climate change, experts say.’
Eric Felton provides a useful reprise of the campaign to exploit a recent Washington State heat wave for climate hysteria mongering. His article at Real Clear Investigations is Does Climate Change Cause Extreme Weather Now? Here’s a Scorcher of a Reality Check. This discussion is timely since you can soon expect an inundation of hype saying our SUVs caused whatever damage is done by Hurricane (or Tropical Storm) Henri, shown below approaching Long Island and New England. Excerpts from Felton’s article are below in italics with my bolds.
The Pacific Northwest was hit with a record-shattering heat wave in June, with temperatures over 35 degrees higher than normal in some places. On June 28, Portland, Ore., reached 116 degrees. Late last week the region suffered another blast of hot weather, with a high in Portland of 103 degrees. The New York Times didn’t hesitate to pronounce the region’s bouts of extreme weather proof that the climate wasn’t just changing, but catastrophically so.
To make that claim, the Times relied on a “consortium of climate experts” that calls itself World Weather Attribution, a group organized not just to attribute extreme weather events to climate change, but to do so quickly. Within days of the June heat wave, the researchers released an analysis, declaring that the torrid spell “was virtually impossible without human-caused climate change.”
World Weather Attribution and its alarming report were trumpeted by Time magazine, touted by the NOAA website Climate.gov , and featured by CBS News, CNBC, Scientific American, CNN, the Washington Post, USAToday, and the New York Times, among others.
The group’s claim that global warming was to blame was perhaps less significant than the speed with which that conclusion was provided to the media. Previous efforts to tie extreme weather events to climate change hadn’t had the impact scientists had hoped for, according to Time, because it “wasn’t producing results fast enough to get attention from people outside the climate science world.”
“Being able to confidently say that a given weather disaster was caused by climate change while said event still has the world’s attention,” Time explained, approvingly, “can be an enormously useful tool to convince leaders, lawmakers and others that climate change is a threat that must be addressed.” In other words, the value of rapid attribution is primarily political, not scientific.
World Weather Attribution was organized to quickly attribute extreme weather events to climate change. World Weather Attribution
Inconveniently for World Weather Attribution, an atmospheric scientist with extensive knowledge of the Pacific Northwest climate was actively running weather models that accurately predicted the heatwave. Cliff Mass rejected the notion that global warming was to blame for the scorching temperatures. He calculated that global warming might have been responsible for two degrees of the near 40-degree anomaly. With or without climate change, Mass wrote, the region “still would have experienced the most severe heat wave of the past century.”
Mass has no shortage of credentials relevant to the issue: A professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington, he is author of the book “The Weather of the Pacific Northwest.”
Mass took on the World Weather Attribution group directly: “Unfortunately, there are serious flaws in their approach.” According to Mass, the heatwave was the result of “natural variability.” The models being used by the international group lacked the “resolution to correctly simulate critical intense, local precipitation features,” and “they generally use unrealistic greenhouse gas emissions.”
WWA issued a “rebuttal” calling Mass’ criticisms “misleading and incorrect.” But the gauntlet thrown down by Mass did seem to affect WWA’s confidence in its claims. The group, which had originally declared the heatwave would have been “virtually impossible without human-caused climate change,” altered its tone. In subsequent public statements, it emphasized that it had merely been making “best estimates” and had presented them “with the appropriate caveats and uncertainties.” Scientists with the attribution group did not respond to questions about Mass’s criticisms posed by RealClearInvestigations.
But what of the group’s basic mission, the attribution of individual weather events to climate change? Hasn’t it been a fundamental rule of discussing extreme temperatures in a given place not to conflate weather with climate? Weather, it is regularly pointed out, refers to conditions during a short time in a limited area; climate is said to describe longer-term atmospheric patterns over large areas.
Until recently, at least, climate scientists long warned against using individual weather events to ponder the existence or otherwise of global warming. Typically, that argument is used to respond to those who might argue a spate of extreme cold is reason to doubt the planet is warming. Using individual weather events to say anything about the climate is “dangerous nonsense,” the New Scientist warned a decade ago.
Perhaps, but it happens all the time now that climate advocates have found it to be an effective tool. In 2019, The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago found that three-fourths of those polled said their views about climate change had been shaped by extreme weather events. Leah Sprain, in the book “Ethics and Practice in Science Communication,” says that even though it may be legitimate to make the broad claim that climate change “may result in future extreme weather,” when one tries “arguing weather patterns were caused by climate change, things get dicey.” Which creates a tension: “For some communicators, the ultimate goal – mobilizing political action – warrants rhetorical use of extreme weather events.” But that makes scientists nervous, Sprain writes, because “misrepresenting science will undermine the credibility of arguments for climate change.”
Which is exactly what happened with the World Weather Attribution group, according to Mass: “Many of the climate attribution studies are resulting in headlines that are deceptive and result in people coming to incorrect conclusions about the relative roles of global warming and natural variability in current extreme weather,” he wrote at his blog. “Scary headlines and apocalyptic attribution studies needlessly provoke fear.”
The blogging professor laments that atmospheric sciences have been “poisoned” by politics. “It’s damaged climate science,” he told RCI.
And not just politics – Mass also says that the accepted tenets of global warming have become a sort of religion. Consider the language used, he says, such as the question of whether one “believes” in anthropogenic climate change. “You don’t believe in gravity,” he says. The religious metaphor also explains why colleagues get so bent out of shape with him, Mass says: “There’s nothing worse than an apostate priest.”
That goes even for those who are merely mild apostates. Mass doesn’t dispute warming, he merely questions how big a problem it is. “We need to worry about climate change,” he has said. “But hype and exaggeration of its impacts only undermine the potential for effective action.”
For a more in depth look at the the science of attributing causes of extreme weather events, see:
Activists and their media allies are Hell-bent to spoil our summertime joy by stirring up climate fear to further their zero carbon agenda.
The calendar turning to June and the official start to summer triggers the usual alarms that this year will surely be the hottest ever. Headlines recently:
♦ Is 2023 going to be the hottest year on record? World Economic Forum
♦ Why 2023 is shaping up to be the hottest year on record New Scientist
♦ Global temperatures in 2023 set to be among hottest on record The Guardian
♦ 2023 will be ‘one of the hottest on record’ says Met Office BBC
And of course you can count on NYT to totally jump the shark:
♦ The Last 8 Years Were the Hottest on Record – The New York Times
In the past few years, the earth cooled after warming from the 2015-2016 El Nino, and with higher North Atlantic summer anomalies repeating in 2020. The cooling was significant as shown in the chart below (from the UAH satellite temperature dataset.)
The Global anomaly dropped from +0.7C January 2016 to <0.0C January 2023. And of course the media ignored that cooling since they are addicted to the global warming narrative: temperatures can only go up, since CO2 keeps rising. On the contrary, the chart shows CO2 did rise steadily, while temps fluctuated up and down, ending this period of 27 years flat.
Curiously, a lot of us have so far seen unseasonably cool temperatures this year, and wonder where this hottest year could be? I mean, 60 cm of snow one June day in Jasper Park Alberta? Suspecting that we have again a weather/climate perception that exists everywhere elsewhere, I turned to NOAA’s Climate at a Glance website to see what their data shows.
Climate reporting is confusing because the scope of temperature averaging gives very different impressions, and at the mega scale rarely corresponds to anyone’s particular experience. So generalizations are claimed extrapolating from statistics, contradicted by many persons’ direct experience.
NOAA State of the Climate is another site advocating for the IPCC agenda and illustrates how this works. First the Global Climate Report:
So there is the #1 hottest month out of 174 years–warmest Land, Ocean and combined Global. Now let’s look at the year to date (YTD):
Whoops, that’s not as scary; the first half of 2023 is not #1. Rather, the ocean is #2, Land #5, and the Global start to the year is #3. And the table shows that 2016 was the hottest, consistent with the UAH graph above. We start to see how media reports are speculating and hoping for this to be the hottest year, despite the first half of the year.
And to understand why most people will be put off by hottest year claims, we go to the Regional Analysis in order to see what the year has been like in various continents (land by definition).
It becomes obvious that no matter where I live, don’t tell me this is the hottest year ever. OK some Africans and Europeans may agree, but those in Oceania (mostly Australians) will boo you out of the room.
The Extended Reconstructed Sea Surface Temperature (ERSST) dataset is a global monthly analysis of SST data derived from the International Comprehensive Ocean–Atmosphere Dataset (ICOADS). The dataset can be used for long-term global and basin-wide studies and incorporates smoothed local and short-term variations.
The Global Historical Climatology Network monthly (GHCNm) dataset provides monthly climate summaries from thousands of weather stations around the world. The initial version was developed in the early 1990s, and subsequent iterations were released in 1997, 2011, and most recently in 2018. The period of record for each summary varies by station, with the earliest observations dating to the 18th century. Some station records are purely historical and are no longer updated, but many others are still operational and provide short time delay updates that are useful for climate monitoring. The current version (GHCNm v4) consists of mean monthly temperature data, as well as a beta release of monthly precipitation data. [Reported station data are subject to adjustments by way of a procedure, known as the Pairwise Homogenization Algorithm (PHA)]
In addition, a previous post gives directions and links for anyone to get the unbiased climate history where they live, including the example of my locale. See June 2023 the Hottest Ever? Not So Fast!
Footnote: Everyone has an agenda and packages data in support of their POV. Those who joined the anti-hydrocarbon crusade are bound to find and amplify any bit of global warming they can find. My agenda is for people to consider the full amount of relevant data and facts, and to reason accordingly rather than go along with the crowd or their feelings. My approach is best expressed in this essay:
Science Matters 