More and more evidence is emerging that the modern warming trends are naturally driven, not anthropogenic.
Per CERES observations the surface incident shortwave (SW) radiation anomaly increased by +1.61 W/m² from 2001 to 2019, and +1.75 W/m² from 2001 to 2021 (Ollila, 2023).
This SW increase is likely due to natural variations in cloud cover albedo, or reflectiveness; it can explain global warming (0.46°C) over this period.
The IPCC and climate activists have been downplaying or dismissing the increase in downwelling SW radiation as a driver of warming, as this “challenges the basis of the [climate models]” that attribute warming almost exclusively to human activities.
Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) trends have also been linked to long-term climate warming since 1750.
Most TSI reconstruction studies depict TSI rising by ~3 W/m² from 1900 to the 1930s (from -2 W/m² below to +1 W/m² above the reference level), and then TSI is “about 1.5 W/m² higher than the reference level” from around 1990 onward.
In all, TSI has increased by 1.1 W/m² since 1750, which is a non-negligible contribution to global warming.
“[T]he temperature impact of the TSI change of 1.1 W/m² from 1750 to 2020 would be 0.32°C.”
Finally, there is nothing remarkable about the modern warming trend when viewed in the context of proxy temperature reconstructions of last few millennia.
I was watching footage of the new mini-volcano in Iceland – Mount Fagradalsfjall – the other day on YouTube, with the inevitable result that the algorithm pushed other volcano footage at me. Next up was the Shishaldin volcano in the Alaskan Aleutian islands. And that set me thinking that there seems to have been a lot of seismic and volcanic activity recently. Of course, there is always the possibility that – as with reports of “extreme” weather and climate records world-wide – we are simply more aware, thanks to 24/7 news coverage, the ubiquity of the internet and smart phones and so on, of such incidents, rather than them actually becoming more frequent.
The vlogger whose excellent drone footage of Mount Fagradalsfjall I was watching, made mention of the various dangerous gases associated with it, and he also talked about the amount of CO2 being released by the volcano. For many people this is probably nothing new, but I hadn’t really looked into the subject before. It’s time to share my findings.
These are that the scale of volcanic CO2 emissions can’t be stated with any great certainty. For example, if you believe Australian climate sceptic and geologist Ian Plimer (author of “Heaven and Earth – Global Warming: the Missing Science”, published in 2009) you might conclude that volcanic CO2 emissions are rather substantial, and little understood. He points out (at page 217) that although the proportion of gases emitted varies from volcano to volcano, typically the proportion of CO2 is in the region of 8-12% (H2O being the main gas, at 70-80%, the other main gases being nitrogen and sulphur dioxide – both less than the amount of CO2 emitted – with minor proportions being hydrogen, carbon monoxide, sulphur, chlorine and argon). He also points out (lest we get too excited about the warming implications of volcanoes) that volcanic aerosols scatter incoming short-wave solar radiation, resulting in cooler surface and troposphere temperatures (but stratosphere warming). He also argues that we under-estimate the amount of CO2 released by volcanic activity, because we don’t take sufficient cognisance of submarine volcanoes.
This is obviously dangerous talk, as is the statement in his book (on page 413) to the effect that volcanoes emit more CO2 than the world’s cars and industries combined. It is so dangerous that the Guardian has gone to great lengths to discredit it, especially in the wake of his book being published. In November 2009, George Monbiot argued in the Guardian that the BBC’s flagship radio programme Today was wrong to give Ian Plimer airtime. Following a debate between Ian Plimer and George Monbiot and an interview of him by James Randerson that year, two articles damning him and his views followed in quick succession, here and here. In the wake of the Eyjafjallajokull eruption the following year, which caused such problems for the global airline business, the Guardian returned to the fray. Earlier this month the Guardian was on the warpath again. Clearly Ian Plimer is a dangerous heretic who must be silenced.
Having said all that, I have no idea whether Professor Plimer is on the money, or whether he’s talking rubbish. I am not a scientist, let alone a climate scientist or a vulcanologist. Let’s assume Professor Plimer is wrong, the Guardian is correct, and volcanoes are nothing to worry about – at least so far as their CO2 emissions are concerned. What do the “official” organisations have to say about the subject?
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is pretty clear:
Human activities emit 60 or more times the amount of carbon dioxide released by volcanoes each year. Large, violent eruptions may match the rate of human emissions for the few hours that they last, but they are too rare and fleeting to rival humanity’s annual emissions. In fact, several individual U.S. states emit more carbon dioxide in a year than all the volcanoes on the planet combined do.
They also make Professor Plimer’s other, related, point:
Today, rather than warming global climate, volcanic eruptions often have the opposite effect. That’s because carbon dioxide isn’t the only thing that volcanoes inject into the atmosphere. Even small eruptions often produce volcanic ash and aerosol particles.
Whether from small or large eruptions, volcanic aerosols reflect sunlight back into space, cooling global climate. The 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora produced enough ash and aerosols to cancel summer in Europe and North America in 1816.
Which is a rather scary thought. As is the historic activity of volcanoes, if it were repeated today:
Volcanic activity today may pale in comparison to the carbon dioxide emissions we are generating by burning fossil fuels for energy, but over the course of geologic time, volcanoes have occasionally contributed to global warming by producing significant amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
For example, some geologists hypothesize that 250 million years ago, an extensive flood of lava poured continually from the ground in Siberia perhaps hundreds of thousands of years. This large-scale, long-lasting eruption likely raised global temperatures enough to cause one of the worst extinction events in our planet’s history. Current volcanic activity doesn’t occur on the same massive scale.
Let’s hope not, anyway.
The cited figure – that humankind produces at least 60 times as much carbon dioxide annually as volcanoes – comes from a 2013 study by Michael Burton, Georgina Sawyer, and Domenico Granieri. Two years earlier:
U.S. Geologic Survey scientist Terry Gerlach summarized five previous estimates of global volcanic carbon dioxide emission rates that had been published between 1991 and 1998. Those estimates incorporated studies reaching back to the 1970s, and they were based on a wide variety of measurements, such as direct sampling and satellite remote sensing. The global estimates fell within a range of about 0.3 ± 0.15 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, implying that human carbon dioxide emissions were more than 90 times greater than global volcanic carbon dioxide emissions.
Let’s leave Professor Plimer out of it and go with the measurements that most people are likely to rely on. We are left with a range of figures, such that humankind annually (in the absence of unusual levels of volcanic activity in any one year) produces around 60, 90 or 100 times as much CO2 as volcanoes. The “official” websites to which I have referred (as well as the Guardian, for that matter) do seem anxious to tell us that in the scheme of things, volcanoes are pretty insignificant, so far as CO2 emissions are concerned. Which I find interesting, not least since depending on who you believe, the UK’s CO2 emissions are less than 1% of humankind’s global CO2 emissions on an annual basis. Our World in Data puts the figure at 0.93%. Wikipedia puts it at “under 1%”). The Worldometer website (which supplies an out of date 2016 figure) puts it at 1.03%. Given that the UK’s annual emissions have fallen since then while most of the rest of the world’s have risen, it seems safe to assume that the UK’s emissions are indeed less than 1% of the global total.
Depending, then, on which of the “official” figures we accept for volcanic CO2 emissions, the UK’s emissions are either on a par annually with those from volcanoes, are a bit less, or are about two thirds of the level of volcanic CO2 emissions (per NASA and Burton, Sawyer, and Granieri). And if volcanic emissions are such small beer, such that we can safely discount them and not worry about them, then why the hysteria from the likes of XR and Just Stop Oil about UK emissions? Perhaps it’s time for a new protest group – Just Stop Volcanoes.
Let’s sprinkle a dash of humor onto your daily helping of apocalypse stew. I’ve just read Ben Turner’s article, “Catastrophic climate ‘doom loops’ could start in just 15 years, new study warns” and boy, I thought we had at least 16 years left! Cue ominous thunderclap.
As our dear friend Turner writes,
“According to the research, more than a fifth of the world’s potentially catastrophic tipping points — such as the melting of the Arctic permafrost, the collapse of the Greenland ice sheet and the sudden transformation of the Amazon rainforest into savanna — could occur as soon as 2038.”
If my lifelong experience of assembling IKEA furniture has taught me anything, it’s that oversimplification and poor understanding often lead to, well, collapses. You could call them “catastrophic furniture tipping points,” if you like.
And apparently,
“unlike the well-established link between the burning of fossil fuels and climate change, the study of tipping points is a young and contentious science.”
As young and contentious as my neighbor’s teenage son who just got his first electric guitar, it seems. Oh, how we love to argue with nascent phenomena, whether it’s ear-piercing music or ecological doom.
“But if these simulations miss an important element or interaction, their forecasts can land decades off the mark. For example, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the United Nations’ most important body for evaluating climate science) said in its most recent report that the Amazon rainforest could reach a tipping point that will transform it into a savannah by 2100.”
I suppose one can only be so precise when modelling the collapse of civilization. Or at least as precise as a dart game after a few drinks.
As Turner writes,
“After testing their systems across multiple modes — with just one cause of collapse acting, with multiple causes acting and with all of the causes plus the introduction of random noise to mimic fluctuations in climate variables — the scientists made some troubling findings: multiple causes of collapse acting together brought the abrupt transformation of some systems up to 80% closer to the present day.”
Oh, we do love our speculative modeling drama, don’t we? I mean, if you’re going to simulate the end of the world, why not turn it up to 11?
Finally, co-author Gregory Cooper says that their findings
“show the potential for each to reinforce the other. Any increasing pressure on ecosystems will be exceedingly detrimental and could have dangerous consequences.”
Ah, the grand finale. Cooper, you’ve missed your calling as a thriller writer.
Environmental problems exist, but maybe, just maybe, instead of ringing the doomsday bell at a deafening volume, we should work on solving the problems we can see right now. You know, like my neighbor’s son who’s decided to play a guitar solo at 2 am. Let’s face it, that’s a real and imminent catastrophe.
The world of climate change discourse seems to have taken a surprisingly truthful turn, with the White House accidentally letting some facts slip through the net of alarmism. In a delightful gaffe that Michael Kinsley would be proud of, the U.S administration has published a report undermining the oft-hyped narrative of a looming climate catastrophe.
Steven E. Koonin, a distinguished professor at New York University, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, and an author whose work “Unsettled” gives an insightful look into the murkier depths of climate science, unravels the details of this report in an article published in the Wall Street Journal. He is adept at exposing the emperor’s lack of clothes in the realm of climate alarmism.
The White House report, a joint production of the Council of Economic Advisers and the Office of Management and Budget, aimed to outline the potential economic impacts of climate change on the U.S. economy. The first graph from the report, reproduced in Koonin’s article, displays twelve independent peer-reviewed estimates of how America’s GDP would potentially decline due to rising global temperatures.
Surprise, surprise! The estimates all point towards an economic impact of less than a few percentage points for a few degrees of warming. The consensus, barring two extreme outliers, suggests that the current warming of 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit has led to a GDP reduction of less than 0.5%. When seen against the backdrop of an 800% growth in real GDP since 1950, this figure could easily be dismissed as a statistical hiccup.
Even under the United Nation’s climate panel’s projection of a 4.5 degrees increase by 2100, the consensus predicts a GDP reduction of less than 2%. If one is to assume a steady annual GDP growth rate of 1.5% for the next 80 years, the net growth clocks at 232%. The minuscule 2% dent due to climate change reduces the growth to 225%. As Koonin aptly puts it, such a difference lies “in the noise.”
The business of combining economic modeling with climate modeling seems akin to walking a tightrope over a pit of uncertainties and untestable assumptions. The White House report is careful to outline its caveats, acknowledging the uncertainties, uneven impacts across sectors and regions, and the limitations of GDP as the sole measure of climate’s effect. It’s refreshing to see a hint of reason in a sea of alarmist narratives.
But here’s the kicker: The report conveniently omits America’s remarkable ability to adapt and even flourish under changing climate conditions. The U.S. mainland, excluding Alaska and Hawaii, has warmed about 2 degrees Fahrenheit since 1901. In that period, the nation has experienced a population boom, drastic increase in life expectancy, and a sevenfold increase in per capita economic activity.
Predictions of further warming in the next century are treated with doomsday zeal by climate alarmists. However, our past experience should lead us to believe that any climate changes will be more a minor inconvenience than an existential threat. The fear mongering around irreversible changes such as the disintegration of the Greenland ice sheet, projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, seems disproportionate considering their minimal effect on the global economy.
The report further dampens the alarmist rhetoric by projecting how little future greenhouse-gas emissions are likely to affect the U.S. economy in the coming decades. Two extreme scenarios – one achieving net-zero emissions by 2075, and the other an unlikely high-emissions scenario – show a mere 1.4% difference in the projected “debt-to-GDP ratio” by mid-century. Such minor difference is, yet again, merely “in the noise.”
This report deserves commendation for delivering some potentially unwelcome messages and injecting a dose of reality into the climate discourse. It’s high time that the Biden administration and its climate-activist allies reassess their apocalyptic rhetoric, acknowledge the facts laid out in their own report, and cancel the imagined climate crisis.
Let’s hope this gaffe isn’t just a one-time event but rather the start of a trend towards an honest, fact-based discussion on climate change and its impacts. As Koonin rightly points out, exaggerating the magnitude, urgency, and certainty of the climate threat only encourages disruptive and costly policies that could prove more harmful than any change in the climate itself.
They are a supposed to be key weapon in the battle against global warming, by reducing carbon emissions.
But a decision to install air source heat pumps at Reepham High School has, say neighbours, led to pollution problems of a different kind and created a distinctly frosty environment in the town.
Residents who live just metres from the devices – which are used to heat classrooms and other buildings – say they are creating such noise pollution that they are unable to open their windows of use their gardens without being disturbed.
They have lodged complaints with the school and local council but say not enough has been done to quieten the eco devices.
They have also called in local MP, Jerome Mayhew, in an attempt to resolve the issue.
The council and school, however, insist they have already done everything they can to minimise noise from the pumps.
The electrically-powered devices work by absorbing heat from the air.
They are said to be more efficient than gas boilers and can be powered by renewable resources, rather than relying on fossil fuels.
The pumps were installed on land off Whitwell Road last year, and planning permission was only sought afterwards.
The nearest homes, on Broomhill Lane, are only around 5m away from the pumps, and problems began shortly after the pumps started whirring.
In an email to Broadland District Council, seen by this newspaper, one resident wrote: “There is an increase in the noise nuisance this proposal creates and it has a detrimental effect on our amenity spaces.”
This is a comedy of errors which [the council] should be ashamed of.”Mark Bridges, who lives nearby and is a long-term campaigner of local issues in Reepham, said: “They are very noisy.
They are a 24-hour noise nuisance.”He blamed the council for allowing the pumps to be installed in the first place, without being able to reduce the noise pollution.
He said there were “cheaper, more efficient” schemes which should have been considered.
Locals say they were assured the pumps would be switched off on bank holidays and during the school holidays, but they claim they have been left running.Mr Mayhew said: “Whilst I welcome the school’s efforts to reduce the carbon impact of their heating system, this needs to be done in a way that is considerate to their neighbours and compliant with the planning system.
“I will continue to help local residents to make sure their concerns are properly considered.”
The council said it had investigated the complaints and monitored the noise made by the pumps.A spokesman said: “The council has been working with all parties to get to a position that has enabled matters to move forwards.
“Noise testing of the pumps has been carried out and concerns and complaints have been investigated by the council’s Planning Enforcement Team.
“The proposals which provide an alternative source of renewable energy to the school will reduce the reliance on centralised, non-renewable energy sources and make a positive contribution towards achieving green energy targets, tackling the challenges of climate change and reducing the reliance on finite energy sources.”
Reepham High School and College head teacher, Tim Gibbs, said: “While I am sympathetic to the complaints raised by our neighbours, we have responded to all of their concerns and remain compliant in everything we have done with the installation of the air source heat pumps.”
A recent video news story on CNN claims that climate related deaths in Europe are 1.4 million per year. This is false. Climate change occurs on timescales longer than one year and unless a long-term trend is evident directly showing a causal connection between changes and deaths, one can’t attribute any percentage of the deaths in any one year to climate change. Further, data shows that deaths related to severe weather events and temperature related deaths both have declined significantly over recent decades globally, pollution is also trending down.
Kluge blames 1.4 million deaths per year in Europe directly on climate change and other environmental factors. He cites no data or evidence to back up his claim, because the data that exists refutes it. The interview not coincidentally coincides with The WHO conference during which the agency is calling for immediate action on climate change to prevent climate related deaths.
It is important to realize that climate change acts on long time scales. As described on Climate at a Glance: Weather vs. Climate, the World Meteorological Organization defines 30 years as the minimum for any climate related data. For deaths to be blamed on climate change one would have to see a consistent trend in deaths corresponding to changes in climate. There is no such trend. Severe weather events and sometimes extreme temperatures (more often cold than hot), experienced around the world on a day-to-day basis, can result in deaths, but those trends have declined steeply during the recent period of modest warming. Climate change can’t be causing more deaths when deaths related to weather are declining.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) AR6 report, Chapter 11, Weather and Climate Extreme Events in a Changing Climate, provides conclusions, summarized in Figure 1, illustrating the fact that severe weather events cannot be detected as increasing nor attributed to human caused climate change:
No evidence exists that any specific weather event is directly driven or worsening by so-called man-made climate change from increased carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere. Even the IPCC’s summary of the state of global climate science makes no such attribution.
Indeed, human mortality attributable to weather related disasters, including floods, droughts, storms, wildfires, and extreme temperatures has declined by more than 99 percent over the last 100 years. In the 1920s, death related to weather-related disasters averaged approximately 485,000 each year. By 2020 the average number of deaths attributable to extreme weather events had fallen 7,790. See Figure 2, below.
Figure 2. The graph demonstrates a vast improvement in human mortality related to all extreme weather events over a 100-year span from 1920 to 2021. Source: Dr. Bjorn Lomborg, data from International Disaster Database published in ScienceDirect.
In addition to severe weather events, mortality can also be attributed to extremes of temperature. Climate change is often cited as being the reason for increasing temperatures and therefore increased heat related deaths. But the opposite is actually true. This was confirmed by a study in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet in 2021. The study reports that the number of deaths associated with cold temperatures decreased by more than double the amount that deaths tied to hotter temperatures increased over the 20-year period of the study. But, as seen in figure 3 below the number of deaths in Europe due to cold outnumber the number of deaths due to heat by a factor of three to one.
Figure 3. Total global cold related deaths vs. heat related deaths by region from 2000 to 2019. Data source: Monash University press release.
In part as a result the decline in cold temperatures, over the period of the study, temperature-related mortality has declined significantly, with a total of 166,000 fewer deaths tied to non-optimal temperatures.
This contrary data flies in the face of the claims made on CNN by the WHO official Kluge.
But there’s more. In addition to blaming climate, WHO blames air pollution in Europe as a cause of death in the interview. But the data doesn’t even support that claim. Examining real world air pollution data from the European Environmental Agency, seen in Figure 4 below, show a sharp downtrend since 1990 on all types of air pollution in the 27 country European Union.
Figure 4. data from 27 nation EU emission inventory report 1990-2021 under the UNECE Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution, published July 3, 2023.
As with climate change, air pollution can’t be causing an increase in the number of deaths in Europe now than in the past because there is less pollution.
The bottom line is the claim that climate change is causing millions of Europeans to die each year as CNN and the WHO maintain is not supported in real world data no matter how you look at it. This is a clear-cut case of climate activism trumping truthful reporting and CNN should be ashamed to publish this interview.
Anthony Watts is a senior fellow for environment and climate at The Heartland Institute.
Watts has been in the weather business both in front of, and behind the camera as an on-air television meteorologist since 1978, and currently does daily radio forecasts.
He has created weather graphics presentation systems for television, specialized weather instrumentation, as well as co-authored peer-reviewed papers on climate issues.
He operates the most viewed website in the world on climate, the award-winning website wattsupwiththat.com.
Sometimes, even banal actions, like a government study, can exhibit more ludicrousness than smearing paint on a Monet. [emphasis, links added]
The latest Biden White House-endorsed study into curbing global warming is not just a case study in wasteful spending; it’s a Rorschach test on mental health.
And there’s a reason why they want to keep it a secret: it deals with trying to bend sun rays to prevent the Earth’s temperature from rising (via Politico) [author’s emphasis]:
The White House offered measured support for the idea of studying how to block sunlight from hitting Earth’s surface as a way to limit global warming, in a congressionally mandated report that could help bring efforts once confined to science fiction into the realm of legitimate debate.
The controversial concept known as solar radiation modification is a potentially effective response to fighting climate change, but one that could have unknown side effects stemming from altering the chemical makeup of the atmosphere, some scientists say.
The White House report released late Friday indicates that the Biden administration is open to studying the possibility that altering sunlight might quickly cool the planet.
But it added a degree of skepticism by noting that Congress has ordered the review, and the administration said it does not signal any new policy decisions related to a process that is sometimes referred to — or derided as — geoengineering.“
A program of research into the scientific and societal implications of solar radiation modification (SRM) would enable better-informed decisions about the potential risks and benefits of SRM as a component of climate policy, alongside the foundational elements of greenhouse gas emissions mitigation and adaptation,” the White House report said.
“SRM offers the possibility of cooling the planet significantly on a timescale of a few years.”
Still, the White House said in a statement accompanying the report, “there are no plans underway to establish a comprehensive research program focused on solar radiation modification.”[…]
The report, which was required by Congress in a policy report accompanying the 2022 appropriations bill, was released the same week that European Union leaders opened the door to international discussions of solar radiation modification. It also followed a call by more than 60 leading scientists to increase research on the topic.
As Politico noted, Biden opened the door to this nonsense, and, of course, he would; he thinks this is an existential threat to human civilization. But before that, it was white supremacy, right?
This study reminds me of the scene in Armageddon, where NASA scientists think that by landing a shuttle on the asteroid that’s barreling toward Earth and deploying a canopy, solar winds could shift it off course and prevent an extinction-level event.
Previous posts addressed the claim that fossil fuels are driving global warming. This post updates that analysis with the latest (2022) numbers from Energy Institute and compares World Fossil Fuel Consumption (WFFC) with three estimates of Global Mean Temperature (GMT). More on both these variables below. Note: Previously these same statistics were hosted by BP.
WFFC
2022 statistics are now available from Energy Institute for international consumption of Primary Energy sources. Statistical Review of World Energy. The reporting categories are: Oil Natural Gas Coal Nuclear Hydro Renewables (other than hydro)
Note:
Energy Institute began last year to use Exajoules to replace MToe (Million Tonnes of oil equivalents.) It is logical to use an energy metric which is independent of the fuel source. OTOH renewable advocates have no doubt pressured EI to stop using oil as the baseline since their dream is a world without fossil fuel energy.From BP conversion table 1 exajoule (EJ) = 1 quintillion joules (1 x 10^18). Oil products vary from 41.6 to 49.4 tonnes per gigajoule (10^9 joules). Comparing this annual report with previous years shows that global Primary Energy (PE) in MToe is roughly 24 times the same amount in Exajoules. The conversion factor at the macro level varies from year to year depending on the fuel mix. The graphs below use the new metric.This analysis combines the first three, Oil, Gas, and Coal for total fossil fuel consumption world wide (WFFC). The chart below shows the patterns for WFFC compared to world consumption of Primary Energy from 1965 through 2022.
The graph shows that global Primary Energy (PE) consumption from all sources has grown continuously over nearly 6 decades. Since 1965 oil, gas and coal (FF, sometimes termed “Thermal”) averaged 88% of PE consumed, ranging from 93% in 1965 to 82% in 2022. Note that in 2020, PE dropped 21 EJ (4%) below 2019 consumption, then increased 31 EJ in 2021. WFFC for 2020 dropped 24 EJ (5%), then in 2021 gained back 26 EJ to slightly exceed 2019 WFFC consumption. For the 58 year period, the net changes were:
Oil
194%
Gas
525%
Coal
178%
WFFC
239%
PE
287%
Global Mean Temperatures
Everyone acknowledges that GMT is a fiction since temperature is an intrinsic property of objects, and varies dramatically over time and over the surface of the earth. No place on earth determines “average” temperature for the globe. Yet for the purpose of detecting change in temperature, major climate data sets estimate GMT and report anomalies from it.UAH record consists of satellite era global temperature estimates for the lower troposphere, a layer of air from 0 to 4km above the surface. HadSST estimates sea surface temperatures from oceans covering 71% of the planet. HadCRUT combines HadSST estimates with records from land stations whose elevations range up to 6km above sea level.Both GISS LOTI (land and ocean) and HadCRUT4 (land and ocean) use 14.0 Celsius as the climate normal, so I will add that number back into the anomalies. This is done not claiming any validity other than to achieve a reasonable measure of magnitude regarding the observed fluctuations.[Note: HadCRUT4 was discontinued after 2021 in favor of HadCRUT5.]No doubt global sea surface temperatures are typically higher than 14C, more like 17 or 18C, and of course warmer in the tropics and colder at higher latitudes. Likewise, the lapse rate in the atmosphere means that air temperatures both from satellites and elevated land stations will range colder than 14C. Still, that climate normal is a generally accepted indicator of GMT.
Correlations of GMT and WFFC
The next graph compares WFFC to GMT estimates over the decades from 1965 to 2022 from HadCRUT4, which includes HadSST4.
Since 1965 the increase in fossil fuel consumption is dramatic and monotonic, steadily increasing by 239% from 146 to 494 exajoules. Meanwhile the GMT record from Hadcrut shows multiple ups and downs with an accumulated rise of 0.8C over 56 years, 6% of the starting value.The graph below compares WFFC to GMT estimates from UAH6, and HadSST4 for the satellite era from 1980 to 2022, a period of 43 years.
In the satellite era WFFC has increased at a compounded rate of nearly 2% per year, for a total increase of 92% since 1979. At the same time, SST warming amounted to 0.53C, or 3.7% of the starting value. UAH warming was 0.52C, or 3.8% up from 1979. The temperature compounded rate of change is 0.1% per year, an order of magnitude less than WFFC. Even more obvious is the 1998 El Nino peak and flat GMT since.
Summary
The climate alarmist/activist claim is straight forward: Burning fossil fuels makes measured temperatures warmer. The Paris Accord further asserts that by reducing human use of fossil fuels, further warming can be prevented. Those claims do not bear up under scrutiny.It is enough for simple minds to see that two time series are both rising and to think that one must be causing the other. But both scientific and legal methods assert causation only when the two variables are both strongly and consistently aligned. The above shows a weak and inconsistent linkage between WFFC and GMT.Going further back in history shows even weaker correlation between fossil fuels consumption and global temperature estimates:
Figure 5.1. Comparative dynamics of the World Fuel Consumption (WFC) and Global Surface Air Temperature Anomaly (ΔT), 1861-2000. The thin dashed line represents annual ΔT, the bold line—its 13-year smoothing, and the line constructed from rectangles—WFC (in millions of tons of nominal fuel) (Klyashtorin and Lyubushin, 2003). Source: Frolov et al. 2009
Footnote: CO2 Concentrations Compared to WFFC
Contrary to claims that rising atmospheric CO2 consists of fossil fuel emissions, consider the Mauna Loa CO2 observations in recent years.
Reports from France are that in the first week of rioting, 5,600 cars were burned – taking them off the road. Now, aside from political and societal disruption, the carbon pollution from the burning of these vehicles hardly compares with, say, a volcanic eruption or a giant forest fire. But just think: That’s 5,600 sources of carbon pollution gone!
Statisticians tell us electrifying America’s buildings (eliminating gas-, oil-, and coal-fired boilers entirely) “would be like taking 65 million cars off road.” So, getting rid of cars is good – right?
Susan Rakov, chair of Environment America Research and Policy Center’s clean energy program, admitted she was just fine with her gas stove – until it failed. But shouldn’t a true environmentalist have always had an induction stove? They have been around since the 1970s.
Susan first enrolled in Harvard in 1979 – some 44 years ago. She began working as a community organizer for MassPIRG in 1984 – a true, committed greenie. She likely bought her first house decades ago – long after induction stoves had become available. Only now does she gurgle, “It sure is different – and I love it. It boils water faster than my old gas stove.”
And then Susan’s pitch. “It doesn’t release dangerous air pollutants into my home when we’re cooking, and I no longer have to worry about escaping methane from the stove contributing to global warming.” But surely, as an advocate, she has known this for decades. So why did she wait so long?
It is gratifying to know that Susan can boil water – but “cooking with gas” cannot be replicated with any electric stove. The flame is the name of the game. You can’t even make Bananas Foster without a flame.
Every lit cigarette, joint, bong, candle, and, yes, campfire involves flames. Even electric fireplaces simulate flames – because you feel the heat and it smells good!
But we are not just talking about smoke. Ahead of the Fourth of July weekend, on just one day (June 28), over 1,200 flights were canceled, and another 5,600 were delayed.
Again, good news for the planet! Airplanes account for up to 3.5 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions – far more than gas stoves. And global CO2 emissions from international air travel more than doubled from 1990 to 2017. So, 1,200 flights canceled help the environment, we are told.
There is an exception, though, as John Kerry once so clearly explained. For guys like him and his fellow Davos billionaires, a private jet is “the only choice for somebody like me.”
The Smithsonian informs us that there are 56 active volcanic eruptions worldwide, including six that began this year. The most powerful was an underwater volcano in the South Pacific. The Hunga Tonga – Hunga Haʻapai submarine volcano sent ash into the third layer of Earth’s atmosphere – 36 miles high, higher than even from any on-ground volcanic eruption. It sent enough water to fill 60,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools into the atmosphere that scientists say “could warm our atmosphere in the future.” [Add in El Niño, and that future seems now!]
Now another study has revealed that at least 2,600 lightning bolts per minute were detected during peak volcanic activity – from that one volcano – nearly 200,000 lightning flashes over the 11-hour eruption, with some occurring as high as 19 miles above sea level.
Speaking of volcanoes, Antarctica is home to the largest volcano range on Earth, with 138 identified and many likely yet undiscovered. Two currently active volcanos are a significant reason for melting ice in the Ross Sea.
Lest anyone forget, the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helen’s in Washington State took 1,300 feet off the top of the volcano, destroyed over 230 square miles of forest in a 3-minute period, and sent 540 million tons of ash into the atmosphere up to 15 miles into the air.
The 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo was even more powerful, sending 20 million metric tons of sulfur dioxide up to 20 miles into the stratosphere. This and other volcanic eruptions have caused declines in Earth’s surface temperatures of up to 0.5ͦ F for up to 3 years.
While the Biden Administration is reportedly considering blocking the sun to slow global warming, we have no reports of federal efforts to stop volcanoes from belching smoke and ash into the atmosphere.
While hardly an ordinary occurrence, scientists now speculate that a comet that slammed into Earth 56 million years ago “may have triggered” global warming. The comet, we are told, jump-started the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, during which time CO2 levels rose to 1,000 parts per million (2.5 times current levels), and Antarctica became a lush tropical region.
Buried in the article is the NASA datum that global temperatures in 2016 had risen only 1.4ͦ F (0.83ͦ C) since 1880. To be sure, the jet-setting climate alarmists will tell you the sky is falling, or rather, the oceans are rising and will soon drown entire nations.
Take the alarmism that “the Marshall Islands could be wiped out by climate change” by 2035. Scary, eh? But in the real world, we learn that hundreds of atolls in the Pacific nations of the Marshall Islands and Kiribati, as well as the Maldives archipelago in the Indian Ocean, have grown up to 8 percent in size over the past six decades despite sea level rise.
According to the BBC, the world’s wealthiest 1 percent produce double the combined CO2 emissions of the poorest 50 percent, and the richest 5 percent are responsible for 37 percent of emissions growth between 1990 and 2015. The BBC also reports that global warming has likely contributed to the GDP per capita of several rich nations that are among the largest emitters of greenhouse gases.
It is quite the paradox that the wealthiest who are pouring billions (mostly taxpayer dollars) into imposing restrictions on the masses in the name of climate change are also making bank as they continue to “pollute.” Al Gore, who popularized climate fear 33 years ago with his book Earth in the Balance, has enriched himself by $300 million through that advocacy.
Is there any wonder that climate activists seek to suppress research findings that contradict their dire predictions or point out flaws in their beloved, disaster-predicting computer models? Is there any wonder why we can easily see there is a two-tier structure on sacrificing our freedoms and our prosperity in the name of climate change?
They get richer; we get poorer, and all the while, they claim the virtue seat for forcing us – not them – to change their lifestyles.
We get to quibble over the climate impact of giving up gas stoves, auto and air travel, and even eating meat while the climate elites party like it’s 1999.
Just take a gander at this video from the 2012 party held during the world conference of the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) in Belo Horizonte, Brazil — a lavish affair replete with rich food, champagne, and even a fashion show as they demand economic contraction from everyone but them.
And you can bet that Al Gore and his chums at Davos are not dining on insects as they rake in the cash from scaring the bejeezus out of our children and gullible adults.
Duggan Flanakin is a Senior Policy Analyst with the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow.
A former Senior Fellow with the Texas Public Policy Foundation, Mr. Flanakin authored definitive works on the creation of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and on environmental education in Texas. A brief history of his multifaceted career appears in his book, “Infinite Galaxies: Poems from the Dugout.”
The preservation of civilisation is all yours, for the bargain price of US $196 trillion (AU $300 trillion).
$300 trillion is needed to stop global warming, and that’s a bargain
Mark Gongloff July 6, 2023 — 8.45am
What price tag would you put on preserving a functioning human civilisation? Would $300 trillion just about cover it? Could that even be a bargain?
Bloomberg’s green-energy research team, BNEF, estimates in a new report this week it could cost $US196 trillion ($295 trillion) in investments to zero out the world’s carbon emissions by 2050, as many countries have pledged to do, to avoid society-destroying global warming.
It probably won’t shock you to learn the world’s net-zero pledges haven’t yet been followed by the hard cash, or even promises of hard cash, necessary to make them a reality.
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As shockingly large as these numbers may seem, they are minimal compared with the likely price tag for doing nothing. Insurance giant Swiss Re has estimated that runaway global warming could gouge $US23 trillion per year from global GDP, with developed economies possibly 10 per cent smaller than they should be in a cooler world. By such measures, spending $US200 trillion over 27 years sounds relatively cheap.
Under the most negative ‘business as usual’ scenario, climate change will cost Asia more than a quarter (26.5%) of GDP by 2050. That’s the highest regional toll after the Middle East and Africa (27.6%).
Emerging Asia will bear the brunt of climate change impacts. Due to a combination of geography and lack of adaptive capacity such as climate mitigation infrastructure, markets like Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines rank on the low end of the Index, while economies such as Japan, Australia, Hong Kong, Korea and Singapore score relatively well.
However, the research demonstrates conclusively that there are no winners in a world of rising temperatures. In a most severe scenario Japan would lose 12% of GDP by mid-century, and Singapore 46.4% – roughly the same proportion as its less prosperous Southeast Asian neighbours.
To put these numbers into perspective, back in the 1950s Manhattan scientists discovered a means of building a manned starship using 1950s technology (search the link for “momentum limited”). The starship could have reached a top speed of 3.3% of the speed of light – just over a human lifetime to reach the nearest star. The estimated cost of one of these starships was 10% of the USA’s annual GDP – around $2.3 trillion in today’s dollars.
With $300 trillion, We could build 130 of these starships and start colonising our corner of the galaxy.
Don’t forget folks, renewable energy is still cheaper than coal. Do I need a /sarc tag?
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Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
