A CNN story implies that supposed human caused climate change is causing the Thwaites Glacier to melt, causing sea level rise. This is false. Data show that Antarctica has not been warming. Also, the study CNN cited, itself shows the glacier has declined dramatically and recovered repeatedly in the past, all without human contribution, suggesting the present decline is part of a natural cycle.
At approximately the size of Florida, the Thwaites glacier is the broadest glacier on Earth. The Thwaites glacier is often referred to as the “Doomsday Glacier,” based on the belief that a complete collapse would cause as much as two feet of sea level rise over time. The CNN story, “The ‘Doomsday Glacier’ is rapidly melting. Scientists now have evidence for when it started and why,” discusses a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which determined when the present decline began.
“By analyzing marine sediment cores extracted from beneath the ocean floor, researchers found the glacier began to significantly retreat in the 1940s, likely kicked off by a very strong El Niño event — a natural climate fluctuation which tends to have a warming impact,” reports CNN. “Since then, the glacier has been unable to recover, which may reflect the increasing impact of human-caused global warming, according to the report.”
Although the timing of commencement of Thwaites decline may now have been determined, any prognostications about future trends for the glacier are pure speculation, unsupported by historical evidence or data about present Antarctic trends.
The underlying reports determined that the Thwaites glacier’s decline commenced in the 1940s probably prompted by a powerful El Nino event which warmed the abutting waters. Even CNN allows that El Niño’s are “a natural climate fluctuation which tends to have a warming impact.” Indeed, recent years when global average temperatures have spiked have almost all coincided with El Nino events.
To be clear, from the 1940s through the 1970s global average temperatures were cooling, and CO2 concentrations were significantly lower, although beginning to increase. What’s true for the globe as a whole, however, is not true for West Antarctica, where the Thwaites Glacier is located. Research from 2023 shows that temperatures there have fallen nearly two degrees Celsius over the past two decades, at least. Other research discussed at Climate Realism suggests that whatever impact the Twaits Glacier’s decline is having on sea level rise is being mitigated by an increase in snow and ice elsewhere on the continent.
Further evidence suggesting that anthropogenic climate change has nothing to do with the Thwaites Glacier’s recent melting trend is found in the study as well. Indeed, the study determined that the Thwaites Glacier has retreated and expanded multiple times over the millennia. As CNN writes, the researchers involved found that “similar retreats have happened much further back in the past, the ice sheet recovered and regrew . . . [with] James Smith, a marine geologist at the British Antarctic Survey and a study co-author, [telling CNN] ‘Once an ice sheet retreat is set in motion it can continue for decades, even if what started it gets no worse.’”
The researchers and CNN bemoan the fact that the Thwaites glacier’s decline is not reversing, but they themselves admit that such declines in gone on for decades in the ancient past, with no help from humans. And, the precipitating event, a strong El Nino, has been repeated multiple times since the 1940s, including this year, which would tend to keep conditions for melting in place.
In short, the idea that human carbon dioxide emissions are contributing to the Thwaites Glacier’s decline is pure speculation; speculation seemingly refuted by the significant decline in surface temperature where the glacier resides, and the net gain of ice and snow on Antarctica. The Thwaites Glacier is bucking climate trends in West Antarctica and for the continent as a whole, almost surely because of El Nino warmed waters.
Climate change is not causing the Thwaites Glacier’s decline. Even still it would be prudent to plan for higher sea levels, regardless of trends for the Thwaites Glacier, because they are rising, although not at a historically rapid rate. Seas always rise between ice ages, and history suggests that they will continue to rise, with fits and starts, until the next ice age commences.
A crucial system of ocean currents may already be on course to collapse, according to a new report, with alarming implications for sea level rise and global weather — leading temperatures to plunge dramatically in some regions and rise in others.
This episode is yet another “tipping point” scare for the ocean currents, and one that has been debunked multiple times at Climate Realism.
Despite the title, rather than being “physics-based” the research published is actually “climate model-based,” describing an outcome projected by a single climate model’s calculation for the distant future for the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current (AMOC). The AMOC is also part of the well-known “Gulf Stream” current. Here’s what the AMOC pattern of currents looks like.
Figure 1 – Pictorial of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current (AMOC). The Atlantic AMOC covers the entire Atlantic Ocean in both hemispheres. Warm (near-surface) currents are shown in red, cold deep return currents in blue. The small circles show areas with strong eddy activity. Graphic: C. Böning/M. Scheinert, GEOMAR.
However, behind the scary headlines pushed by the mainstream media is this one immutable fact buried in the study: the supposed AMOC tipping point will not occur until 1758 years from now, in the year 3782 AD. This is clearly shown in figure 1A from the paper which is reproduced in Figure 2 below.
In other words, even if the study turns out to be true, there is absolutely no threat during lifetime of any person living today, or their children, or grandchildren. Or their great, great, great, great grandchildren, many generations in the future. Yet the mainstream media irresponsibly reports results of this study as if the collapse of the AMOC is just around the corner.
Figure 2 – The AMOC strength at 1000 m and 26°N, where the yellow shading indicates observed ranges in our present day. The cyan-colored lines indicate the magnitude of FH. The red arrow indicates the AMOC tipping point in model year 1758 which is the year 3782 AD. Source: Figure 1A from https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adk1189#body-ref-R2
The reporting on the study is also irresponsible for failing to acknowledge the recent research suggesting that AMOC has been speeding up or strengthening in recent years, as described in a 2018 study.
The Scientific Advances’ study’s conclusion is predicated on a single climate model, the Community Earth System Model (CESM), projecting far into the future and it’s also predicated on an amount of ice melt that has not happened in our lifetimes. Even then, the CESM had to have its pump primed with unrealistic meltwater data in order for the researchers to come to the conclusion they got. What they did was to run the model, then add modeled freshwater very gradually to the modeled North Atlantic, presumably simulating a melting of the Greenland ice which might shut down the AMOC.
There’s only one problem; the amount of freshwater from melting that they injected into the model is about five times the actual amount of ice available in Greenland to melt.
The study reports that 14,629,305 cubic kilometers of modeled fresh water were added to the model. Yet, the National Snow and Ice Data Center says: (bold mine)
The Greenland Ice Sheet contains about 2.9 million cubic kilometers (0.7 million cubic miles) of ice. The ice sheet extends about 1.7 million square kilometers (656,000 square miles), covering 80 percent of the world’s largest island, and is equivalent to about three times the size of Texas. It contains about 2.9 million cubic kilometers (696,000 cubic miles) of ice.
Simple math shows the water volume inflation factor: 14,629,305/2,900,00 = 5.044.
So, the researchers used an amount of melted ice that was impossible to occur because that much ice doesn’t exist in Greenland. This sort of irresponsible use of a climate model seems to have as its related goals – to grab headlines, inspire fear, and motivate government action.
Of course, the media completely missed the facts about the timing in the distant future and water volume used to goose the model, that completely negate the study and render it moot, but instead blasted out scary headlines as if doom were imminent. Journalism is supposed to check facts, as Climate Realism does daily. Instead, they rushed to publication and in the process published blatantly false information and tried to blame present day climate change.
The media also missed the fact that about 12,500 years ago the AMOC slowed down and in fact the planet’s weather and temperature changed during that time. The Younger Dryas Climate Event occurred about 12,900 to 11,700 years ago. Many of the climate changes related to that event were likely a response to increased freshwater discharge to the North Atlantic and the reduction in AMOC strength. That basically signaled the end of the most recent ice age, beginning the time when Earth became more habitable for humans, and sedentary agriculture began. Shortly after that, in geologic time the blinking of an eye, the first nascent, large-scale civilizations began developing.
This all occurred well before climate change was even a twinkle in the eye of climate catastrophists and was a completely natural event unrelated to modern day concerns.
On the status of the AMOC, the science itself, and the press reporting on it, are both bipolar. Some people in the climate debate seem to believe that “the science is settled,” yet every few months the press bombards the public with stories diametrically opposed to what they reported was occurring with the AMOC just a few months prior. Heartland Institute president James Taylor tracked news articles on the topic over the last few years, compiling a list of dozens of news stories published since 2020, all citing research on the AMOC. But the research is contradictory. Studies, sometimes published within a year of each other, sometimes within the same year, come to contradictory conclusions. Some studies say the AMOC is slowing down and about to collapse, a tipping point for worsening extreme weather, others say the AMOC is speeding up which will lead to runaway weather. The reporting swings back and forth just a quickly, reporting diametrically opposed results as if both could be true.
Concerning the AMOC, not only is the science not settled, but the media doesn’t have a clue concerning how to even determine if the science they are reporting on is grounded in fact and correct, or if the what they are writing about it is being reported accurately, or whether the conclusion of a particular study fits within the overall science on the AMOC. The reporting on this new study is yet another shameful example of the media putting their climate narrative scare stories ahead of actual facts: the AMOC is speeding up, or its declining, but in either case its bad for the world and governments need to act to prevents it, as if keeping the AMOC constant is even possible.
For years, the fight against climate change has been symbolized by one number: 1.5.
Ever since countries agreed in 2015 to an ambition of restricting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the number has become synonymous with staving off catastrophic climate change.
But what if the battle to keep global warming from overshooting this limit has already been lost?
Here’s the problem, that 1.5°C target isn’t based on science or how the natural world works. It was simply a goal set by the 2015 Paris IPCC conference based on what they thought could be done to limit the temperature. As we have seen time and time again with politicians and bureaucrats, the threshold they set was not rooted in science, but simply what sells to the public.
Of course, at the time they were not paying attention to temperature history and assumed that was actually a real and obtainable goal. Now the father of global warming James Hansen, formerly of NASA says the goal is impossible. Unfortunately, even he isn’t paying attention to the actual data of temperature history.
Paddison adds these quotes from Hansen:
It was the renowned climate scientist James Hansen whose comments fueled the debate. In November, he declared the 1.5 degree-limit “deader than a doornail,” saying it was a shortcoming of the scientific community “to not make clear to the political leaders what the situation is.”
The rate of global warming is accelerating, he said at a news conference in November, and the world is certain to blow past 1.5 degrees of warming. “Anybody who understands the physics knows that.”
“I’ve got three degrees in physics, and I can tell you that Jim is wrong,” said Michael Mann, a leading climate scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, referring to Hansen. The problem isn’t physics, it’s politics, he told CNN. “And political obstacles can be overcome.”
Fortunately, any layman with the ability to use his or her eyes can determine that what Mann says is false, and they don’t need “three degrees in physics” to see it.
As we have written before on Climate Realism, real-world data shows that we’ve already passed that 1.5° C so-called limit and surpassed it by as much as 0.5°C. This is clearly evident when you look at the longest running set of temperature data in the world from Europe.
Below in Figure 2 is the Berkeley Earth average surface temperature record for Europe since about 1780. Europe is a good location to analyze, because some of the longest continuous temperature records are from Europe. It shows that not just 1.5°C, but 2.0°Cof warming has already occurred.
Figure 2. (click to enlarge) Berkeley Earth average European temperature showing a 2.0°C rise since about 1820. Source: http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/regions/europe Annotated by Anthony Watts
Note that in figure 2, temperature rose by 1.5°C even before the year 2000 and then hit the 2.0°C value somewhere around 2005 to 2007. This was well before politicians had set their sights on the futile 1.5°C limit in 2015.
Despite this, CNN writer Paddington opines, “Between 1.5 and 2 degrees lies disaster: The risk of triggering a slew of climate tipping points, including ice sheet melting and mass coral reef death, and the lives and livelihoods of millions of people.”
Even though Europe has already experienced 2°C rise in temperature since 1820, nothing catastrophic has happened. The media has written about expected disasters from a 1.5°C temperature rise while ignoring the fact we’ve already exceeded a 1.5°C temperature rise. For example, one media story claimed “…Death, Destruction and Damage”. Meanwhile, other real-world data shows that while there seems to be an increase in alarming claims about what will happen with a mildly warmer world, the actual data shows that damages from global disasters is actually significantly down over the last 100 years.
Inconveniently for CNN, human mortality attributable to 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.
You would think that professional reporters such as CNN supposedly employs would be able to find such easily obtainable data and advise the readers of the good news. Unfortunately it seems that CNN has fallen into the same trap as so many other media outlets where they push doom and gloom over factual good news. They are right about one thing, and that is that the 1.5°C temperature limit is indeed “deader than a doornail,” when in fact it wasn’t even a live goal to begin with.
CNN recently posted an article claiming that climate change is causing an uptick in bear attacks in Japan. There is no evidence climate change is behind the bear attacks. In fact, there are several more relevant and direct factors likely contributing to the increase in dangerous bear encounters.
The CNN article, “Bear attacks in Japan are at a record high. Climate change and an aging population are making the problem worse,” opens describing a bear attack that was caught on camera, in which an Asiatic black bear attacked a man on his way to work. CNN interviewed supposed experts who say the bears are leaving the wild and entering urban areas more, in part because “climate change is interfering with the flowering and pollination of some of the animals’ traditional sources of food.”
The bears particularly enjoy acorns and other tree nuts. CNN quotes an associate professor from Nagaoka University of Technology, Maki Yamamoto, who explains that “you can have years of bad harvests and years of good harvest of acorns,” and during those bad years, bears “get closer to human settlements looking for fruits, chestnuts, persimmons, walnuts, and farm products in general[.]” CNN reports that indeed this year’s low acorn yield is a major contributing factor pushing bears into human populated regions.
But boom-and-bust cycles of acorn production both for oak trees and beech, among other nut-producing trees, are completely natural and not historically unusual. Scientists are not sure what the mechanism is or why large groups of trees will stop producing acorns at the same time, but it is well documented that nut producing trees evolved to have low-producing years seemingly to increase tree survival and expansion by limiting predation by fruit and nut consuming animals, like bears. This has nothing to do with climate change.
CNN goes on to quote Tsutomu Mano, senior research fellow at the Hokkaido Research Organization, who said climate change “is likely to have a significant impact on the flowering time of plants and the activity of insects responsible for pollination, which is necessary for fruiting.”
In terms of the threat to pollination, climate change is already expanding plant pollination and along with growing seasons, which is a good thing for pollinators and animals that consume the fruits, as discussed in several Climate Realism posts, here, here, and here, for example. There is no reason for believing this trend won’t continue.
Also note the future tense, not present tense, of the claim that climate change is likely to have an impact on plant flowering timing. If Japan was already seeing a sustained change in this timing over the course of the past decades’ warming, the expert would almost certainly have mentioned it. What speculatively might happen in the future, can have nothing to do with present incidences of bear attacks.
A much more comprehensive look at the complex bear-encounter dynamic can be found in an article posted to Nippon.com, “Seeking Balance with the Bear,” which details how habitat destruction in the forests, due to the Japanese government endeavoring to plant more non-acorn producing timber-friendly trees like pines, has driven bears out of their normal range. Also, the reduction in agrarian practices in Japan has led to many abandoned farms. Attracted by the fruit, bears migrate into the abandoned orchards closer to other human dwellings than they have been in the past when the bears had more options for food, and there were more people living in rural villages to keep the bears wary of encounters with humans.
The Asiatic black bear in Japan is listed as “vulnerable” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) Red List. Despite this, IUCN reports that the Asiatic bear’s population is either stable or increasing depending on location in Japan, with 12,000 to 19,000 bears inhabiting the small island nation. If it is true that their numbers are increasing, this may lead to more food competition between bears on dwindling habitat, pushing them to seek food outside their normal range. Additionally, the human population in Japan has risen over time, although it as leveled off in recent years, and before the COVID-19 pandemic there was a massive spike in tourists visiting. Both of these trends these have likely contributed to a rise in human/bear encounters. The same is true in urban areas in the United States. Also, expanding arctic villages face similar problems with growing polar bear populations, as discussed in Climate at a Glance: Polar Bears.
CNN’s attempt to tie the increase in bear attacks in Japan to climate change is misguided at best and intentionally misleading at worst. No evidence supports the assertion that climate change is responsible for increased bear/human conflicts in Japan. Even the claims that that warming is (or will begin) impacting acorn production due to a change in pollination timing is weak, unsupported by data, and actually contrary to rainfall and greening trends. Many factors, like, growing bear populations amid habitat changes and loss, are likely contributing increased reports of bear attacks on humans; climate change is not among them.
CNN Travel: “Holidaymakers should prepare to change their travel habits now, before this change is forced upon them.”
“The negative impacts of tourism on the environment have become so severe that some are suggesting drastic changes to our travel habits are inevitable. In a report from 2023 that analyzed the future of sustainable travel, tour operator Intrepid Travel proposed that “carbon passports” will soon become a reality if the tourism industry hopes to survive. …
What is a carbon passport? The idea of a carbon passport centers on each traveler being assigned a yearly carbon allowance that they cannot exceed. These allowances can then “ration” travel. … The average annual carbon footprint for a person in the US is 16 tons – one of the highest rates in the world. In the UK this figure sits at 11.7 tons, still more than five times the figure recommended by the Paris Agreement … the average global carbon footprint needs to drop to under two tons by 2050. This figure equates to around two roundtrip flights between London and New York.
Intrepid Travel’s report predicts that we will see carbon passports in action by 2040. For emission reductions to have any meaningful effect, ticket prices would have to rise by 1.4% each year, discouraging some people from flying. …
Some European countries are beginning to take measures to reduce air travel. As of April 1, 2023, passengers on short-haul flights and older aircraft in Belgium have been subject to increased taxes to encourage alternative forms of travel.
Less than two months later, France banned short-haul domestic flights where the same trip can be made by train in two-and-a-half hours or less. Spain is expected to follow suit.
A similar scheme could also be on the horizon for Germany. In 2021, a YouGov poll found that 70% of Germans would support such measures to fight climate change if alternative transport routes like trains or ships were available.
An investigation by the European Federation for Transport and Environment in 2023 found that cruise ships pump four times as many sulphuric gases
Holidaymakers should prepare to change their travel habits now, before this change is forced upon them.
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Yahoo Finance: Could a ‘carbon passport’ be introduced for holidaymakers? – A carbon passport, as envisioned by Intrepid Travel, would be a passport that assigns each traveller an annual carbon footprint, which they cannot surpass.“By 2040, we can expect to see limitations imposed on the amount of travel that is permitted each year.” They added: “By 2040, it will be unusual to see members of Generation Alpha without a carbon-footprint tracker on their smartphones. Every Uber ride, plane journey, and trip to the supermarket will be logged in their devices, noting their carbon footprint in real time.” Related:
The summer of 2023 was very significant for the travel industry. By the end of July, international tourist arrivals globally reached 84% of pre-pandemic levels. In some European countries, such as France, Denmark and Ireland, tourism demand even surpassed its pre-pandemic level.
This may be great news economically, but there’s concern that a return to the status quo is already showing dire environmental and social consequences.
Tourism is part of the problem. The tourism sector generates around one-tenth of the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving the climate crisis.
The negative impacts of tourism on the environment have become so severe that some are suggesting drastic changes to our travel habits are inevitable. In a report from 2023 that analyzed the future of sustainable travel, tour operator Intrepid Travel proposed that “carbon passports” will soon become a reality if the tourism industry hopes to survive.
What is a carbon passport?
The idea of a carbon passport centers on each traveler being assigned a yearly carbon allowance that they cannot exceed. These allowances can then “ration” travel.
This concept may seem extreme. But the idea of personal carbon allowances is not new. A similar concept (called “personal carbon trading”) was discussed by UK Parliament in 2008, before being shut down because of to its perceived complexity and the possibility of public resistance.
The average annual carbon footprint for a person in the US is 16 tons – one of the highest rates in the world. In the UK this figure sits at 11.7 tons, still more than five times the figure recommended by the Paris Agreement to keep global temperature rise below 1.5 Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.
Globally, the average annual carbon footprint of a person is closer to 4 tons. But, to have the best chance of preventing temperature rise from overshooting 2 Celsius, the average global carbon footprint needs to drop to under two tons by 2050. This figure equates to around two roundtrip flights between London and New York.
Intrepid Travel’s report predicts that we will see carbon passports in action by 2040. However, several laws and restrictions have been put in place over the past year that suggest our travel habits may already be on the verge of change.
Targeting air travel
Between 2013 and 2018, the amount of CO₂ emitted by commercial aircraft worldwide increased by 32%. Improvements in fuel efficiency are slowly reducing per passenger emissions. But research from 2014 found that whatever the industry’s efforts to reduce its carbon emissions, they will be outweighed by the growth in air traffic.
For emission reductions to have any meaningful effect, ticket prices would have to rise by 1.4% each year, discouraging some people from flying. However, in reality, ticket prices have been falling.
Some European countries are beginning to take measures to reduce air travel. As of April 1, 2023, passengers on short-haul flights and older aircraft in Belgium have been subject to increased taxes to encourage alternative forms of travel.
Less than two months later, France banned short-haul domestic flights where the same trip can be made by train in two-and-a-half hours or less. Spain is expected to follow suit.
A similar scheme could also be on the horizon for Germany. In 2021, a YouGov poll found that 70% of Germans would support such measures to fight climate change if alternative transport routes like trains or ships were available.
Cruises and carbon
It’s not just air travel that’s being criticized. An investigation by the European Federation for Transport and Environment in 2023 found that cruise ships pump four times as many sulphuric gases (which are proven to cause acid rain and several respiratory conditions) into the atmosphere than all of Europe’s 291 million cars combined.
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Whatever the solution may be, changes to our travel habits look inevitable. Destinations across the globe, from Barcelona to the Italian riveria and even Mount Everest are already calling for limits on tourist numbers as they struggle to cope with crowds and pollution.
Holidaymakers should prepare to change their travel habits now, before this change is forced upon them.
Ross Bennett-Cook is a visiting lecturer, School of Architecture + Cities, University of Westminster
“By 2040, we can expect to see limitations imposed on the amount of travel that is permitted each year.” They added: “By 2040, it will be unusual to see members of Generation Alpha without a carbon-footprint tracker on their smartphones. Every Uber ride, plane journey, and trip to the supermarket will be logged in their devices, noting their carbon footprint in real time.”
Dear Citizen 1138, we regret to inform you that your request to travel has been denied as you have reached the limit of your carbon allowance for this period. pic.twitter.com/qJ6B8YPC7X
Every day, people across the world wake up to news about climate change affecting their lives. With the seeming randomness of a capricious roulette wheel, the doomsday clique of the climate world daily selects a fresh topic to sow seeds of anxiety among the populace.
Popular things easily recognized — even cherished — by people are continually identified as being at risk of being damaged or destroyed by climate change. Coffee, for example, is a commodity experiencing a surge in popularity, and there are no gifts for guessing what climate doomsayers are saying now.
Yes, coffee is now said to be under threat from man-made climate change. CNN, in a recent article, made the statement, “climate change poses a huge threat to the coffee business and to farmers.” Keeping with its customary approach of presenting climate change as a threat to all manner of things, CNN quotes the Inter-American Development Bank as warning that “rising temperatures will reduce the area suitable for growing coffee by up to 50%.”
Is this claim true? If so, plenty of people would be affected because coffee is selling like hot cakes.
The brew is a staple in nearly 98% of households in Brazil. According to the 2023 National Coffee Data Trends Report, coffee consumption in the U.S. has hit a 20-year peak, with over 50% of consumers gravitating towards specialty coffee.
Even in my home country, India, there is a sudden deluge of boutique coffee shops. Some chains have opened as many as 50 branches within a span of five years, and that is not an easy task in a country of 1.3 billion tea lovers. India is now the eighth largest producer of coffee beans.
More than 99% of global coffee production is comprised of the arabica and robusta species, which are just two of over 140 different species in the Coffea genus. Coffea, especially arabica, depends highly on soil fertility and temperature.
The purveyors of climate apocalypse are particularly interested in the temperature aspect as it provides a legitimate pathway for indulging in climate scaremongering. Despite widespread concern about increasing warmth, satellite temperature data collected from 1979 to 2023 indicates that there has not been a significant rise in temperatures.
Despite widespread concern about increasing warmth, global satellite temperature data collected from 1979 to 2023 indicates that there has only been a modest rise of less than one-degree C in temperature.
Besides, it is widely acknowledged that warming since the Little Ice Age and increased atmospheric CO2 since the Industrial Revolution have boosted agricultural production and the general greening of ecosystems.
Scientists in Brazil have discovered that “carbon dioxide fertilization offsets negative impacts of climate change on arabica coffee yield.” They say that the CO2 fertilization effect will cause a net increase of the average Brazilian arabica coffee harvest by the years 2040-2070.
CO2enrichment studies in Latin America show that elevated CO2 increased photosynthesis by 40% and increased the efficiency plants’ water use by approximately 60%. Higher CO2 eventually caused a 7-14% increase in plant height and a 12-14% increase in yield. Another study showed that there were significant increases in all leaf area and biomass markers in response to increased CO2.
The research indicates that we might already be reaping the rewards of increased productivity rates in both arabica and robusta coffee varieties thanks to the recent rise in atmospheric CO2. This reality is reflected in the plantations across the globe. Production in South America and Southeast Asia have shown increases in yield during the past two decades.
Brazil and Vietnam are the top two coffee bean producers. Both countries have seen remarkable increases in their yield, with Vietnam’s production climbing from 1.2 metric tonnes per hectare in 2002 to 2.48 tonnes per hectare in 2021. Meanwhile, Brazil’s yield has also shown significant growth, rising from 1.1 tonnes per hectare in 2002 to 1.95 tonnes per hectare in 2020.
Even if the temperatures were to increase dramatically, experts say that coffee cultivation would be possible in cooler regions at latitudes away from equator or at higher altitudes.
So, sit back and drink that morning cup of Joe. Climate is not going to steal your coffee and thank CO2 for keeping the plantations productive.
This commentary was first published at American Thinker on December 7, 2023.
Vijay Jayaraj is a Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Virginia. He holds a master’s degree in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia, UK.
Data refutes the assertion that extreme weather is becoming more frequent or severe. As a result, climate change cannot be behind the rise in weather related damage. The real reason is a matter of demographics and economics, especially population growth and increased development in natural disaster-prone areas.
CNN claims that the United States experiences a weather event costing $1 billion in damage every three weeks, as opposed to “40 years ago, when extreme weather episodes that cost an inflation-adjusted $1 billion happened once every four months on average.” This figure comes from the Biden administration’s recent National Climate Assessment (NCA) report.
What CNN neglects to mention in their effort to tie rising disaster costs to climate change is that property values – both in the form of objects like houses, cars, and home goods, as well as land values – have increased over time. This obviously contributes to the rising costs of damages, with or without inflation factored in. In addition, more people than ever before insure their property, under various government backed flood, disaster, and crop insurance programs.
Coastal development has increased over time as well, and the total number of people (and their possessions) has also increased in the United States, particularly in states like Florida, Texas, and California, which are prone to natural disasters like hurricanes, severe droughts, and wildfires, all of which damage property. (See figure below)
Figure 1: Graphic from Wikipedia showing states by population growth between 2010 and 2018, according to the U.S. Census Bureau 2018 Annual Estimate of the Resident Population. States with population growth greater than the United States as a whole are in dark green, states with population growth slower than the United States in light green, and states with declining populations in light red.
Florida’s population, for example, has nearly doubled since 1983, putting an additional 10 million people in harm’s way when hurricanes strike there. Population and associated development has also increased in most other coastal locations and along attractive rivers and streams, meaning when hurricanes occur or rivers rise, more people are at ground zero for harm.
The Daily Callerinterviewed University of Colorado professor and climate researcher Roger Pielke, Jr., who explained plainly that “[t]here is no peer reviewed science that attributes any part of increasing disaster losses to changes in climate,” says economic data is not a good metric for making claims about climate change, largely because of the economic conditions that change regardless of the weather.
CNN also says that the “cost of extreme weather events is expected to grow in the near term with a projected rise in sea levels and temperatures,” but this is more unsupported speculation. While it is true that sea levels have risen gradually since the end of the last glaciation, as discussed in Climate Realism post “Sorry, Washington Post, Climate Change Isn’t Worsening Hurricanes, but Storm-Resilient Military Bases Make Sense,” there is no evidence that sea level rise is making it so storms are more damaging. Also, as Climate Realism has pointed out many times, there is no data showing an increase in severe tropical cyclones.
Regarding the point on temperature, CNN does not elaborate on how higher temperatures will cause more costly damage, except that they say “agricultural losses” and “worker injuries” are counted among the NCA report’s damage calculations. This is nebulous at best, but crop production in the United States has been increasing over the same period of modest warming, and worker injuries don’t appear to be getting more common, according to the most recent U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data. (See figure below)
There has been no increase in heatwaves in the United States, either, with the most extreme recorded summer heat in U.S. history was during the 1930s, well before climate alarmists claim there was accelerated human-caused warming.
Weather and natural disasters certainly result in billions of dollars in cost each year, but using economic figures as proof of a climate catastrophe is misleading. Not only has extreme weather not become worse in the United States over time, but the NCA report and CNN both ignore myriad the other factors, like population growth and greater development, that result in higher damages costs now than in the past when extreme weather and other types of disasters strike.
CNN published an article this weekend raising alarm about “disappearing” snowfall during the past 50 years, all the while burying the negligible amount of snow decline. By CNN’s own data, snowfall has declined merely 2 percent during the past half-century, which is statistically insignificant and barely measurable.
Moreover, 1973 was an above-average snowfall year, so choosing 1973 as the starting point is dishonest. Finally, CNN failed to mention that snow cover trends have been flat for decades and are actually rising during the past 30 years.
All these facts show that CNN – like climate activists do regarding so many climate issues – is crying ‘the sky is falling’ over essentially nothing.
“Snowfall is declining globally as temperatures warm because of human-caused climate change, a new analysis and maps from a NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] climate scientist show,” reads the article’s opening paragraph. The article then asserts that less snow somehow “threatens to disrupt food and water for billions of people.”
However, there is no decline at all in precipitation. In fact, NOAA reports there has been an increase in precipitation in recent decades. Instead, precipitation is merely shifting – on the very edge of wintry late fall and early spring – from snow to rain. How does more precipitation and longer growing seasons threaten to disrupt food and water for billions of people?
Worse, only after five paragraphs of alarm does CNN quietly note that snowfall has declined just 2 percent during the past half century. That is an almost indistinguishable small amount that can barely be measured. At that pace, it would take 250 years for a mere 10 percent of our current snowfall to then be falling as rain.
Still further, the snowfall data show an increase in snowfall in many American ski destinations like Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and Utah. The lion’s share of the modest snow decline is in the U.S. Southeast, which does not receive much snowfall, anyway.
The choice of 1973 as a starting point is also suspect. Rutgers University Global Snow Lab tracks global snow cover going back to November 1966, when satellites first began to track global snow cover. The year 1973 had unusually high snow extent, even for the early years of snow measurement. If current snowfall was compared to1967, which was the first full year of the satellite record, CNN would be reporting on an increase rather than decrease in snowfall, and CNN would likely be crying alarm and blaming increasing snowfall on global warming, also. The same holds for an analysis beginning in 1990 or 2000, with snow cover modestly increasing since then.
In short, there is no declining snowfall crisis. There is only a crisis of media dishonesty regarding all things climate change.
James Taylor is the President of the Heartland Institute.
Taylor is also director of Heartland’s Arthur B. Robinson Center for Climate and Environmental Policy.
Taylor is the former managing editor (2001-2014) of Environment & Climate News, a national monthly publication devoted to sound science and free-market environmentalism.
A recent article posted by CNN claims that western Antarctica is melting rapidly and can’t be stopped, due to human-caused global warming, which will result in a dangerous rise ocean levels. This is false.
A recent article posted by CNN claims that western Antarctica is melting rapidly and can’t be stopped, due to human-caused global warming, which will result in a dangerous rise ocean levels. This is false. While the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) has seen more melting than other parts of the continent, it is due not to climate change but rather to localized temporary weather conditions and ongoing subsurface volcanic activity below the ice sheet. Indeed, outside of West Antarctica and the Antarctic peninsula, the larger part of the continent has gained ice mass in recent decades and has actually experienced a cooling trend.
The article, “Rapid melting in West Antarctica is ‘unavoidable,’ with potentially disastrous consequences for sea level rise, study finds,” says that West Antarctica’s ice shelves are melting rapidly, and probably can’t be stopped. CNN claims this will lead to “potentially devastating implications for sea level rise around the world,” citing a recent study in Nature Climate Change. The study’s authors claim that even if the world were to meet emissions and warming targets, like limiting warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial global average temperature, the WAIS will still experience “substantial ocean warming and ice shelf melting[.]”
The study’s authors considered most WAIS melting to be due to “basal melting,” due to warm ocean currents that heat the ice from below. It is notable that they do not consider subsurface geothermal heating from volcanic activity below the ice as a potential contributor, especially since several recent studies suggest that the WAIS, particularly around the Thwaites glacier, sits on top of a large number of subsurface volcanoes which are believed to be contributing to melting below the ice and localized increased water temperatures.
Basal melting, then, really is the best explanation, but only appears to be occurring in the WAIS, because the rest of the continent has seen a gain in ice mass in its interior.
Sea ice itself melting cannot contribute to sea level rise, since it is already displacing water, but the Nature Climate Change study’s authors explain that the melt of the sea ice can cause land ice to shift forward and likewise melt into the warmer waters. This makes sense and likely occurs; but the recorded interior ice mass gain makes it unclear whether there is a net loss of ice for Antarctica as a whole, and if so, by how much and at what rate, making claims about rising seas extremely uncertain. Data contained in a recent study even shows that Antarctica has seen a small expansion of sea ice in total over the past seven decades, providing a compelling visual demonstration of the continent’s recent cooling trend. (See graphic below)
Indeed, the authors of the Nature Climate Change study themselves admit that their modeling suggested “internal climate variability will be extremely important in determining the future of the WAIS.” Perhaps because this admitted uncertainty fails to advance the climate crisis narrative CNN consistently pushes, the news outlet did not quote from that portion of the study, and seemingly ignored its role in Antarctica’s net ice balance.
In the implications section, the authors explain that they only focused on a single ice-ocean model and a single climate model, in the process ignoring many other potential feedbacks. They also said that increased snowfall could actually offset sea level rise, which tracks with the ice mass gain in the interior as discussed. In any case, the study authors say adaptation should be a major focus when it comes to sea level rise over the next several centuries. Most notably, “[i]nternal climate variability, which we cannot predict or control, may be the deciding factor in the rate of ice loss during this time.”
Using only a single model, and including woefully flawed RCP8.5 scenario among those examined undercuts any confidence one might have in the accuracy of the study’s predictions.
Regarding “dangerous” sea level rise, again Antarctica’s contributions are uncertain. If, as some studies show, the interior and eastern portions are gaining ice even as the WAIS suffers some melt, the continent may not contribute very much at all. The authors acknowledge this. Regardless, adaption to sea level rise is something that city planners and developers should take into account, because as discussed in Climate Realismhere, here, and here, sea levels are rising in some areas, and if there is ice melt as the planet modestly warms, we can expect this trend to continue, albeit at a less alarming pace than some in the media would have us believe.
Despite the paper acknowledging significant uncertainties, one of the study’s authors claimed that we have “lost control” of west Antarctic melting. This is pure hyperbole because humanity never had such control. The underlying paper cited by CNN displayed at least a modicum of caution and restraint. Sadly, CNN, in reporting on it, did not do the same. Rather they used some of its authors’ too-eager willingness to catastrophize in order to paint a picture of climate doom stemming from human fossil fuel use.
In a recent article by CNN, a dramatic narrative is woven, linking the mental health of young people to the omnipresent specter of climate change. The article, titled “Climate change can have ‘lifelong impacts’ on young people’s mental health, report says”, presents a tapestry of assertions, suggesting that the “existential threat” of climate change is a significant contributor to a spectrum of mental health issues among the youth.
the article begins, setting the stage for a narrative that intertwines the psychological well-being of the youth with the environmental challenges of our times. The authors lean heavily on a report from the American Psychological Association, which acts as the cornerstone of their argument, providing the structural framework upon which the story unfolds, just another of the myriad examples of ideological capture of Western institutions.
The Plot: A Cascade of Consequences
The article unfolds a cascade of consequences, suggesting that environmental events linked to climate change, such as “weather disasters, extreme heat and poor air quality,” act as triggers, exacerbating mental health issues in children and teenagers. The narrative is embroidered with details, suggesting that these environmental adversities can lead to “post-traumatic stress disorder,” and a host of other psychological challenges, including
“anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, aggression, cognitive impairment and more.”
The Characters: Vulnerable Protagonists
Young people are portrayed as particularly vulnerable protagonists in this narrative. The article suggests that the youth, due to their developmental stage, lack the coping strategies that adults might possess, making them more susceptible to the mental health impacts of climate adversities. The narrative is punctuated with quotes that emphasize the vulnerability of the youth, such as,
“Experiencing trauma at an early age can have lifelong impacts on emotional health and well-being.”
The Antagonist: Climate Change and its Many Faces
Climate change is cast in a multifaceted role, an antagonist with many faces, ranging from extreme weather events to subtle influencers such as maternal anxiety. The article insanely suggests that the impacts of climate change begin to cast their shadows even before birth, influencing the mental health trajectory of individuals from a very early stage.
Those mental health consequences begin even before a child is born, the report says. Prenatal exposure to weather disasters, high temperatures, air pollution and maternal anxiety can raise a child’s risk of a variety of behavioral and developmental issues, including anxiety, depression, ADHD, developmental delays, low self-control and psychiatric disorders.
The Climax: Adolescence and the Turmoil of Uncertainty
A significant portion of the article is dedicated to the exploration of the impacts of climate change on adolescents and young adults. It suggests a landscape where the youth are navigating a terrain marked by uncertainty, anxiety, and a lack of clarity about the future. Quotes such as,
“How do you plan for the future when you don’t know what the future will look like?”
encapsulate the essence of the challenges faced by the youth in this narrative.
Conclusion: A Call for Collective Action
The article concludes with a call for collective action, suggesting roles for various sectors, including education and healthcare, in mitigating the impacts of climate change on youth mental health. It emphasizes the universal nature of the challenge, suggesting that it is not merely a concern for healthcare professionals but a broader societal issue that requires concerted effort and action.
In conclusion, the CNN article presents a vivid narrative that seeks to establish a strong link between climate change and youth mental health, despite no trends in temperature or weather that a human could detect without advanced instruments and esoteric statistical handsprings.
While it is rich in details and quotes that emphasize the vulnerability of the youth in the face of climate adversities, it is nothing but delusional fantasy, casting climate change as a pervasive and omnipotent influencer of mental health trajectories.
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.
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