Tag Archives: Tipping Point

Author Of New Paper: No AMOC Collapse…”Should Dissuade People From Climate Doomism”

From NoTricksZone

By P Gosselin

AMOC. Source: Woods Hole

By Frank Bosse

We hear it over and again: the melting ice in Greenland due to warming will soon lead to a collapse of the AMOC, making it difficult for it to “restart”.

The salt content in the north is critical because the salt-rich tropical water cools down and sinks due to the higher salt content, which is the “pump” that makes circulation possible in the first place. It also transports very large amounts of heat into the North Atlantic.

Scenarios  have been published that calculate a drastic cooling of the greater area (especially Europe) around it if the AMOC is “switched off”. The “Day after Tomorrow” scenario.

A more recent summary of these “tipping point” assumptions comes from Prof. Rahmstorf. It refers to reconstructed phases of such collapses, especially during “Heinrich Events” in the last ice age. At that time, large quantities of icebergs advanced far to the south, where they melted and thus probably brought the AMOC to a standstill through sweetening.

New paper finds no alarm

completely new paper sheds light on these events in detail and reconstructs the freshwater inputs very precisely. A very detailed discussion can be found here.

It finds a decisive difference in the situation during the last ice age and the present: whereas at that time the ice entered the Atlantic primarily in the form of icebergs from the large continental ice sheets, in the present it is Greenland – the island supplies the lion’s share of the freshwater. This has consequences: as the glaciers continue to melt and retreat further inland, fewer and fewer icebergs are released and more and more liquid water is released. This has a major impact on the AMOC. Icebergs are much more “effective”. They briefly freeze the surrounding surface seawater, which leads to warming of the water below, as ice insulates against temperature loss to the (cold) atmosphere. Due to the large mass of the icebergs, they also travel much further south before they melt and finally disappear, leading to much larger-scale sweetening.

The paper concludes that the iceberg discharges from Greenland will not last long enough to drive the AMOC into collapse. Another reason for this is that it was much weaker in ice ages than at present anyway. The lead author of the study is quoted as saying:

This is good climate news that will hopefully dissuade people from climate doomism.”

So whoever reads something about the “soon to dry up North Atlantic Current” and the catastrophic effects in the future: The current piece in “Science” files this under doomsday fantasies (“doomism”).

Whatever happened to the Siberian permafrost “tipping point” from 2005?

From Watts Up With That?

It seems like yet another climate doomsday prediction has failed to materialize.

In August of 2005, the ever-alarmed Guardian posted this scare story:

Warming hits ‘tipping point’

Siberia feels the heat It’s a frozen peat bog the size of France and Germany combined, contains billions of tonnes of greenhouse gas and, for the first time since the ice age, it is melting.

“If we don’t take action very soon, we could unleash runaway global warming that will be beyond our control and it will lead to social, economic and environmental devastation worldwide,” he said. “There’s still time to take action, but not much.

The article continues with:

Researchers who have recently returned from the region found that an area of permafrost spanning a million square kilometres – the size of France and Germany combined – has started to melt for the first time since it formed 11,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age.

It is a scenario climate scientists have feared since first identifying “tipping points” – delicate thresholds where a slight rise in the Earth’s temperature can cause a dramatic change in the environment that itself triggers a far greater increase in global temperatures.

The discovery was made by Sergei Kirpotin at Tomsk State University in western Siberia and Judith Marquand at Oxford University and is reported in New Scientist today.

The researchers found that what was until recently a barren expanse of frozen peat is turning into a broken landscape of mud and lakes, some more than a kilometre across.

Dr Kirpotin told the magazine the situation was an “ecological landslide that is probably irreversible and is undoubtedly connected to climatic warming”. He added that the thaw had probably begun in the past three or four years.

Climate scientists yesterday reacted with alarm to the finding, and warned that predictions of future global temperatures would have to be revised upwards.

“When you start messing around with these natural systems, you can end up in situations where it’s unstoppable. There are no brakes you can apply,” said David Viner, a senior scientist at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.

Three things in the article are important to note:

  1. As indicated by this PowerPoint presentation, the researcher Kirpotin visited in the summer, not the winter We have no weather records back to 11,000 years ago, we don’t know if such an event occurred in the summers of past millennia. But, it is reasonable to assume that given the propensity for that region to have large temperature swings, some melting in the summer is regular event every few years or decades. From Wikipedia, bold mine:

    Verkhoyansk, a town further north and further inland, recorded a temperature of −69.8 °C (−93.6 °F) for three consecutive nights: 5, 6 and 7 February 1933. Each town is alternately considered the Northern Hemisphere’s Pole of Cold – the coldest inhabited point in the Northern hemisphere. Each town also frequently reaches 30 °C (86 °F) in the summer, giving them, and much of the rest of Russian Siberia, the world’s greatest temperature variation between summer’s highs and winter’s lows, often well over 94–100+ °C (169–180+ °F) between the seasons.
  2. They say “…the thaw had probably begun in the past three or four years.” This indicates they don’t actually know, but are speculating. Speculation is not science, it is opinion. Further, three or four years is not long enough to establish any sort or climate pattern, which is defined by the World Meteorological Organization as being 30 years:

    Climate is the average weather conditions for a particular location over a long period of time, ranging from months to thousands or millions of years. WMO uses a 30-year period to determine the average climate.
  3. The final quote in the excerpt above is from Dr. David Viner who famously (and wildly erroneously) said in 2000. “Children just aren’t going to know what snow is,” and winter snowfall “would become “a very rare and exciting event.” Given his poor track record, and the lack of any loss of snow in the northern hemisphere, take his opinion about permafrost with a grain of salt.

If we believe The Guardian story and those climate scientists in 2005, the whole area in Siberia must be a warm soupy mess by now, right?

Wrong.

That extended warming and melting just isn’t happening. While the researchers sounded alarm over a warm summer in Siberia in 2005, this past year has been completely the opposite. For example, this Washington Post Story from Jan 10, 2023: Siberia sees coldest air in two decades as temperature dips to minus-80

Or how about the story we covered on WUWT just a few days ago: Russia Reels From -60°C Cold Blast… And Munich Breaks December Snow Record

It must be tough to keep that permafrost at a melting tipping point with winter temperatures like that. Here is the view of the region today, note the widespread below zero temperatures:

You can be certain that any permafrost that “melted” during the summer is now refrozen and the tipping point aka “methane monster” is still in slumber.

Yes, in fact, the predicted tipping point from 2005 hasn’t happened at all, but undeterred, in 2022 climate science has pushed the goalposts out further, because it will happen, any day now.

Permafrost peatlands approach a climate tipping point
Permafrost peatlands in Europe and Western Siberia are much closer to a climatic tipping point than previously thought, according to a new study led by the University of Leeds. Scientists estimate that, even with the strongest efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions and therefore limit climate change, by 2040 the climates of Northern Europe will no longer be cold and dry enough to sustain peat permafrost.

If I’m still alive in 2040, I’ll write about it then. But my guess (or speculation if you like) based on the history so far is that the permafrost will still be there in Siberia, no catastrophic tipping point will have occurred, and the doomsday goalposts will have been pushed to 2060 and beyond.


For more failed climate predictions, please visit our Failed Climate Predictions Timeline feature.

Dubious climate change solutions on display at COP28

By Peter Murphy

Dubai, U.A.E.

Week two of the UN climate summit in Dubai is here.

A climate alarmist letter initially with 800 (now 1,400) signatories from business and government, “celebrities,” faith leaders and others was just released with familiar cliches (“we are at a tipping point”). They call for an “orderly phase out of fossil fuels” and, by 2030, a tripling of renewable energy. How does all this occur? By the “implementation and ratcheting of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and National Adaptation Plans well before COP30 in 2025.” In other words, the letter is another attempted money grab, particularly from the U.S., including under the guise of more NDCs stemming from the Paris Accord.

“Later is too late,” the letter concludes, which we’ve been reading for 30+ years.

Climate policies come down to coercion. They entail refusing to finance fossil fuel development in poor countries, mandating electric vehicles, blocking gas pipeline construction, and so much else. This invariably

raises the cost of fossil fuels to create a “market” for alternative energy. The word, “market” often used is deceitful and Orwellian since little or no market exists for so-called renewable energy, which necessitates mandates and taxpayer subsidies to force them on the public.

The UN does, however, attempt to find climate change solutions to usher in a “just transition” to renewable energy, a commonplace term heard all during COP28. To that end, the UN conducted an “Energy Transition Changemakers” competition among companies to develop carbon mitigation projects.

One of the award recipients was Fatima Al Suwaidi, a director at Masdar-Indonesia, a global renewable energy firm. She presented on the company’s floating solar plant in the Cirata Reservoir in the West Java province of Indonesia that produces 145 megawatts of power to serve 50,000 homes. The company plans to add to this capacity.

Are floating solar panels remotely scalable or practical? Being from New York State, home of the Catskill and Adirondack forest and mountains with scores of lakes and reservoirs, it is inconceivable to picture a bunch of floating solar panels taking over. Ms. Al Suwaidi told me afterwards that waterbodies do serve places like Indonesia, Japan and elsewhere since scare open and is taken up for agriculture or otherwise mountainous. Such projects are a reminder of the clear tension and conflict between the climate change policies and traditional environmentalism and nature preservation.

Fake windmills at COP 28

Other projects included facilities to replace gas-powered heat with electricity and replace coal with massive battery storage facilities. Unanswered was the extent of government-taxpayer subsidies, reliance on battery ingredients under the control of the Chinese Communist Party dictatorship, and other thorny issues.

The climate awards ceremony occurred at the “Impact” building, which is high-tech theater with seating capacity 126 that viewed a stage and massive flat-screen equivalent in size to a stadium monitor. In between the stage and seating is a large ceiling fountain that “rained” water down in circular fashion before the presentation.

The Expo City campus in Dubai that hosted COP28 is a multi-acre campus the size of a small municipality of numerous buildings, all with state-of-the-art technology. Rest assured, this high-tech capacity could only be powered by fossil fuels, notwithstanding the handful of fake, purple-colored wind turbines wheeled in as a Potemkin display of some faux commitment to wind power.

The whole set-up for COP28 far exceeded in scale the make-shift buildings for COP27 in Egypt last year, and the two convention centers used in Glasgow, Scotland for COP26 in 2021. It will be hard to equal the capacity of the oil-rich United Arab Emirates to host a convention of 80,000 to 100,000 attendees, but the unofficial word is that next year’s summit will be in Azerbaijan, a former Soviet Republic in southwestern Asia.

Another observation that will be continued to be monitored by CFACT: the increasing visibility of political agendas and causes that are glomming onto the climate issue, including banning meat, reigning in the clothing and fashion industries, opposing Israel and western military deterrence, demanding workers’ rights, feminism, transgender rights, and more.

Regardless of what side one comes down on these issues, the nexus to climate change is indirect or non-existent. For example, emissions from cow and fertilizer are a worthwhile an ancillary byproduct to feed the world’s population with meat products and protein to improve diets; thus, banning beef would be absurd and harmful to millions of people. On the flip side, slavery and child labor in China and the Congo to produce EV batteries, turbines and solar panels warrants a campaign for workers’ rights, though I noticed no panel discussion including these particulars.

It’s evident that with billions in public and private money flowing to the climate change industry, more political agendas and causes are grifting aboard since, the rationale goes, everything comes back to climate change. This will only lead to increasing and overweening government control of every aspect of individual life and society, including in ostensibly free, democratic nations.

The post Dubious climate change solutions on display at COP28 appeared first on CFACT.

Another Day, Another Scientific Paper Insists ‘Global Warming Is Not Caused By Increased CO2’

The present increase in CO2 concentration and temperature is similar to one 55 million years ago, indicating that the Earth passed a ‘tipping point’ around 1750.

From NoTricksZone

By Kenneth Richard on 7. December 2023

“…the rate of change in CO2 concentration is controlled, not by emissions, but by the global temperature” – Emrén, 2023

new study published in the International Journal of Global Warming once again questions the popular narrative that says humans can control the temperatures of the ocean and melt the polar ice sheets by engaging in common, everyday activities like talking on their smartphones or driving a pickup truck.

“The observed correlation between global temperature and rate of growth in atmospheric CO2 concentration shows that the global warming is not caused by increased CO2 concentration. Rather the increase in CO2 concentration is caused by the global warming. This in turn means that neither the increase in CO2 concentration nor global warming can be stopped by reducing combustion.”

Image Source: Emrén, 2023

Turmoil around the AMOC again

ANY estimation of the timing of a tipping point must take into account the uncertainties, which are so considerable that they are all inadequate in the light of day, when made. Bet you won’t read that in the media?

From The KlimaNachrichten Editor

By Fritz Vahrenholt and Frank Bosse

A reminiscence of an article about the imminent “tipping point” of the Atlantic overturning circulation:

At the end of July 2023, we reported on a paper that thought it had identified the “tipping point” of the Atlantic Overturning Circulation (AMOC): It should (most likely) be ready as early as 2057. It kicked up a lot of dust, we described it. Our summary at the time:

“DD23 is an exercise in statistics, very far from any evidence of physical significance for the AMOC itself. The conclusions are not supported by the content of the paper.”  

In the meantime (mid-September 2023), another, not yet peer-reviewed (preprint) paper appeared, which finds very similar. It uses several data series for sea surface temperatures (SST) and another “fingerprint” of the AMOC, a dipole that avoids the warming itself from being included in the result of the AMOC decrease sought.

And lo and behold: she comes to completely different conclusions. Depending on which series one uses (especially in the early years up to about 1950 they are very incomplete in direct observation and what is missing is supplemented by various “infill methods” that have a strong effect on the statistics on which the article in question is based) one comes to completely divergent results. Thus, the “collapse” of the AMOC is postponed by almost a hundred years, if you use the same “fingerprint”, only a different SST series (instead of HadISST1 ERSSTv5).

The other, also SST-based “fingerprint” postpones the “collapse” determined by the methods of the paper to between 2100 and the year 3300 and beyond! At the end, the authors, including, interestingly, Niklas Boers of PIK, who is probably concerned about the scientific reputation of the institution, write:

“We emphasize that these uncertainties, originating from underlying modelling or mechanistic assumptions as well as from the employed empirical data, need to be taken into account and propagated thoroughly before attempting to estimate a future tipping time of any potential Earth system tipping element.”  

ANY estimation of the timing of a tipping point must take into account the uncertainties, which are so considerable that they are all inadequate in the light of day, when made. Bet you won’t read that in the media? They had their hands full, with the active help of Prof. Rahmstorf, also from PIK, to propagate the imminent end of the AMOC. That’s what the attentive reader has this blog for.

Solar Set to Be Dominant Power Source by… When?

It’s simply absurd to claim that solar power will ever become the dominant power source, with or “without any further climate policies.”

From Watts Up With That?

Guest “What is never?” by David Middleton

Why does this remind me of the Monty Python Spanish Inquisition skit?

New Research: The World May Have Crossed a Solar “Tipping Point”

By UNIVERSITY OF EXETER OCTOBER 19, 2023

The world may have crossed a “tipping point” that will inevitably make solar power our main source of energy, new research suggests.

The study, based on a data-driven model of technology and economics, finds that solar PV (photovoltaics) is likely to become the dominant power source before 2050 – even without support from more ambitious climate policies.

However, it warns four “barriers” could hamper this…

[…]SciTech Daily

“The Momentum of the Solar Energy Transition”

The full text of the paper is available.

Abstract

Decarbonisation plans across the globe require zero-carbon energy sources to be widely deployed by 2050 or 2060. Solar energy is the most widely available energy resource on Earth, and its economic attractiveness is improving fast in a cycle of increasing investments. Here we use data-driven conditional technology and economic forecasting modelling to establish which zero carbon power sources could become dominant worldwide. We find that, due to technological trajectories set in motion by past policy, a global irreversible solar tipping point may have passed where solar energy gradually comes to dominate global electricity markets, without any further climate policies.

[…]Nijsse et al., 2023

Nobody Expects “the Momentum of the Solar Energy Transition”!

The authors suggest that solar power will become the dominant power source by 2050 without “more ambitious climate policies.” However, four barriers could stand in the way.

Nobody expects “the momentum of the solar energy transition”! Our chief barrier is grid resilience… grid resilience and access to finance… grid resilience and access to finance… Our two barriers are grid resilience and access to finance… and supply chains…. Our three barriers are grid resilience, and access to finance, and supply chains… and an almost fanatical devotion to silencing political opposition… Our four… no… Amongst our barriers… are such elements as grid resilience, access to finance… I’ll come in again.Apologies to Monty Python

Overcoming the Solar Barriers

  1. “Grid Resilience”: Only use electricity only when the sun is shining.
  2. “Access to finance”: Raise taxes.
  3. “Supply chains”: Drive up the prices of almost all mineral resources.
  4. “Political opposition”: Reeducation camps.

Am I Being Flippant?

  • Grid resilience: Solar generation is variable (day/night, season, weather) so grids must be designed for this. Dr Nijsse said: “If you don’t put the processes in place to deal with that variability, you could end up having to compensate by burning fossil fuels.” She said methods of building resilience include investing in other renewables such as wind, transmission cables linking different regions, extensive electricity storage, and policy to manage demand (such as incentives to charge electric cars at non-peak times). Government subsidies and funding for R&D are important in the early stages of creating a resilient grid, she added.
  • Access to finance: Solar growth will inevitably depend on the availability of finance. At present, low-carbon finance is highly concentrated in high-income countries. Even international funding largely favors middle-income countries, leaving lower-income countries – particularly those in Africa – deficient in solar finance despite the enormous investment potential.
  • Supply chains: A solar-dominated future is likely to be metal- and mineral-intensive. Future demand for “critical minerals” will increase. Electrification and batteries require large-scale raw materials such as lithium and copper. As countries accelerate their decarbonization efforts, renewable technologies are projected to make up 40% of the total mineral demand for copper and rare earth elements, between 60 and 70% for nickel and cobalt, and almost 90% for lithium by 2040.
  • Political opposition: Resistance from declining industries may impact the transition. The pace of the transition depends not only on economic decisions by entrepreneurs but also on how desirable policymakers consider it. A rapid solar transition may put at risk the livelihood of up to 13 million people worldwide working in fossil fuel industries and dependent industries. Regional economic and industrial development policies can resolve inequity and can mitigate risks posed by resistance from declining industries

SciTech Daily

“Even without support from more ambitious climate policies”

Can someone please explain to me how they plan to overcome these barriers “without support from more ambitious climate policies” (AKA massive government intervention)?

Nijsse et al., 2023 envisions the following energy transition:

Nijsse et al., 2023 envisions the following energy transition:

Nijsse et al., 2023

Bear in mind, this is where we are now in the USA:

Solar power is very dependent on… the Sun. The annular eclipse on October 14, 2023, did this to ERCOT’s solar power at high noon on a sunny day:

Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT)

The loss of solar generation was accompanied by the usual midday doldrum. 4,904 MW of solar and wind generation tool a lunch break that day. Fortunately, it occurred on a Saturday, the high temperature was only 63 °F and natural gas-fired generation quickly ramped up to fill the gap.

Timestamp (Hour Ending)Wind (MWh)Wind (ΔMWh)Solar (MWh)Solar (ΔMWh)Natural gas (MWh)Natural gas (ΔMWh)Coal (MWh)Coal (ΔMWh)Nuclear (MWh)Nuclear (ΔMWh)
10/14/2023 11 a.m. CDT12,665 6,100 13,271 5,045 5,045 
10/14/2023 12 p.m. CDT9,709(2,956)4,152(1,948)17,8894,6185,7637185,0461
10/14/2023 1 p.m. CDT7,120(2,589)5,9811,82918,0231346,1644015,0482

EIA Hourly Grid Monitor

There Has Never Been an Energy Transition

All of the blather about the “energy transition” omits a very pertinent fact: There has never been an energy transition. Nor will there ever be an actual energy transition unless we manage to harness nuclear fusion.

We never transitioned from traditional biomass to fossil fuels. On a per capita basis, we consume as much “traditional biomass” for energy as we did when we started burning coal. We have just piled new forms of energy on top of older ones. Now, we have changed the way we consume energy sources. In the 1800’s the biomass came from whale oil and clear-cutting forests. Whereas, today’s biomass is less harmful to whales and forests.

Life Expectancy: Our World in Data
Energy Consumption: Bjorn Lomborg, LinkedIn

From 1800 to 1900, per capita energy consumption, primarily from biomass, remained relatively flat; as did the average life expectancy. From 1900 to 1978, per capita energy consumption roughly tripled with the rapid growth in fossil fuel (coal, oil & natural gas) consumption. This was accompanied by a doubling of average life expectancy. While I can’t say that fossil fuels caused the increase in life expectancy, I can unequivocally state that everything that enabled the increase in life expectancy wouldn’t have existed or happened without fossil fuels, particularly petroleum.

It’s simply absurd to claim that solar power will ever become the dominant power source, with or “without any further climate policies.” Nobody should expect an energy transition. Wishful thinking dressed up as scientific research just encourages politicians to make bad policy decisions.

“Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition!”

I just had to include this:

Greenland’s Tipping Point Cancelled? Claims Of A Runaway Melt Are Overblown

The hyperventilating is typical of researchers in search for more grant money. Journalists fall prey (too often wittingly) to anything they think will advance their climate change agenda. Temperature trends across the ice-free part of Greenland indicate cooling since 2001.

From NoTricksZone

By P Gosselin on 22. October 2023

By KlimaNachrichten

We have carefully read the definition of a “tipping point” as conveyed by Potsdam Institute (PIK): “It’s like a pencil that you push further and further over the edge of a table with your finger. First nothing happens – then it falls.” That’s what the PIK website says.

Spatial distribution of global and regional tipping elements. The colors indicate the temperature range in which tipping is likely. Figure designed at PIK (under CC-BY license), scientific basis is Armstrong McKay et al., Science (2022).

Nothing can bring the pencil back to the table except a failure of gravity, which is not conceivable. Then PIK lists various “elements” that are supposed to exhibit such behavior. To the ice sheet of Greenland one finds there

There are indications that the tipping point, which leads to an almost complete loss of ice in the long term (about 10,000 years), could probably be reached at a global warming of just under 1.5°C (possible from 0.8°C global warming, at the latest at 3°C).“

Now there’s a paper on the subject has appeared in “Nature“, which paints a different picture. It finds that even after a possibly “critical warming threshold” has been crossed, “the pencil does not fall down:

We find several stable intermediate ice-sheet configurations … that return to the present-day state if the climate returns to present-day conditions.”

in addition, models often determine the warming in Greenland (the root of the evil) using the mean global warming rate and then apply an “Arctic amplification” factor to each warming to determine the temperature swing in Greenland. The paper states:

Recently, it has been shown that the Arctic warms four times faster than the global average and thus substantially exceeds previous estimates and projections from climate models. Arctic amplification of this magnitude would reduce the safe space for the GrIS substantially. However, surface temperatures around Greenland might not increase that severely in the future.”

Observations since 2000 now show that during this period the warming of the Arctic is far from uniform:

The warming trends (in °C / year) since 2000 of the Arctic region. The figure was generated with the KNMI Climate Explorer. The “Arctic amplification” in the Arctic strikes in large parts of its European part, but in Greenland, of all places, the observed trends are much lower, especially in the area in the south and center of the island, which is particularly vulnerable to “thawing”.

A constant factor, therefore, according to observations, is a further overestimation of the danger of the occurrence of “galloping ice melt” in Greenland. The “Last Generation – before the tipping points” has perhaps been misled not only with the characteristics of tipping points (the “falling pencil”) , but also with the real dangers of the tipping elements.