It’s worse than we thought: there are only five years left

Old monkeyface emailed me to say: No, not five years of planetary existence! We have only five years left before the climate emergency unravels entirely.

How do I get to that prediction? We all know how hard predictions are, especially about the future. Well, I base it all on the fundamental observation that the planet has cycles and whether we understand them or not those cycles are going to carry on cycling, and we really should just get used to it.

Now radiative physics is pretty straightforward, but the whole climate emergency is based on a substantial amplification of the modest (and probably beneficial) warming that the recent increase in carbon dioxide concentrations has allegedly contributed to. And the climate klaxons are blaring full blast because people seem to believe that the earth (which has been around a while) is teetering on the edge of countless precipices. Should we cross this threshold, or that limit, they tell us, we will plunge over the edge into a hothouse world.

Personally, I’m a tad more concerned that we slip into another ice age, mini or major; that would be much more damaging to the human race and more difficult to adapt to than a warmer world. But let’s examine one of those precipices in a bit more detail.

Ned Nikolov: Climate explainer interview video now online

Ned Nikolov writes: Our climate-science Interview is now available on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/821124143 You will learn in 17 minutes, why CO2 is not a driver of Earth’s climate, and what’s physically wrong with the “greenhouse” theory at the root of the AGW claim and all crazy Net-Zero energy policies.

Interview of Ned Nikolov by Alex Newman video

2022 Tongan volcanic eruption was largest natural explosion in more than a century, new study finds

Awesome may be an overused word, but justified here.
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The 2022 eruption of a submarine volcano in Tonga was more powerful than the largest U.S. nuclear explosion, according to a new study led by scientists at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science and the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation.

The 15-megaton volcanic explosion from Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai, one of the largest natural explosions in more than a century, generated a mega-tsunami with waves up to 45 meters high (148 feet) along the coast of Tonga’s Tofua Island and waves up to 17 meters (56 feet) on Tongatapu, the country’s most populated island, says Phys.org.

In a new analysis in Science Advances, Rosenstiel School researchers used a combination of before-and-after satellite imagery, drone mapping, and field observations collected by scientists at the University of Auckland, and data from the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation Global Reef Expedition, to produce a tsunami simulation of the Tongan Archipelago.

Solar maximum may arrive later this year, say researchers

Sunspots [image credit: NASA]

Nothing better than actual observations to make a forecast change. The sun may have put one over the pundits again.
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Solar Maximum is coming–maybe this year, says Spaceweather.com.

New research by a leading group of solar physicists predicts maximum sunspot activity in late 2023 or early 2024, a full year earlier than other forecasts.

“This is based on our work with the Termination Event,” explains Scott McIntosh, lead author of a paper describing the prediction, published in the January 2023 edition of Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences.

ULEZ Extension: Damning New Report Shatters ‘Scientific’ Claims Made By London Mayor Khan

The alarmist foundation for ULEZ expansion has disintegrated.

Read the new Together Declaration & Climate Debate UK report by Ben Pile demonstrating that neither the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) nor the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants (COMEAP) find evidence of a causal link between air pollution and mortality.

Despite Khan claiming that 4,000 Londoners die each year, both UKHSA and COMEAP explicitly advise against framing the potential mortality risk associated with air pollution exposure in terms of deaths because it is untrue and unscientific.

Antarctic Sea Ice: ‘The beginning of the end!’ – again – Net Zero Watch

Is it game over for the climate yet? Media over-excitement takes off again.
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The great sleeping giant that is Antarctica that — apart from the Antarctic Peninsula — refuses to respond to global warming may just have begun to stir, and the implications are, well, apocalyptic, jokes Dr David Whitehouse @ Net Zero Watch.

According to CNN “Antarctic sea ice hits record lows again. Scientists wonder if it’s “the beginning of the end.” CNN also reports that, “90% of ice around Antarctica has disappeared in less than a decade.”

CNN are not the only media outlets to report on this years’ record low sea ice around Antarctica in apocalyptic terms, other media extremists are available.

For Sky News it’s the accelerating melt of polar regions. For the BBC “There is now less sea-ice surrounding the Antarctic continent than at any time since we began using satellites to measure it in the late 1970s.” All this is technically true, but misleading. When it’s put into context one sees a different picture.

So let’s have a look at the actual satellite data of Antarctic sea ice collected monthly since 1979. The NSIDC gives two data sets for what it calls i) sea ice extent, and ii) sea ice area. So let’s examine both of them.

The first graph is sea ice area, the second sea ice extent [see here].

From the empirical data it is evident that there is hardly any change of sea ice over the 44-year time span. Since 2016 there is a dip with possibly more variability (of which more later), and the lowest month (February) does show a record low, but by hardly anything (and also look at the data for 1992).

Does this actual data look like the beginning of the end to you? Where is CNN’s 90% loss or Sky News acceleration?

Antarctic sea ice evolution has no significant trends along the whole period, but a volume drop is observed since 2016.

Full article here.

Climate models and the Holocene global temperature conundrum

Earth and climate – an ongoing controversy

Here we learn “our review revealed how surprisingly little we know about slow-moving climate variability”. In between unsupported assertions about human-caused modern warming, the authors of the review article ponder the realities of natural climate variability, including a warmer-than-today period in the Holocene, under the headings ‘What we know’, ‘What we don’t know’, and ‘Why it matters’. The closing line: “Our review suggests that climate models are underestimating important climate feedbacks that can amplify global warming.” Is this another way of saying long-term natural variation is being underestimated by the models?
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Accurate climate models play a critical role in climate science and policy, helping to inform policy- and decision-makers throughout the world as they consider ways to slow the deadly effects of a warming planet and to adapt to changes already in progress, says Eurekalert.

To test their accuracy, models are programmed to simulate past climate to see if they agree with the geologic evidence.

The model simulations can conflict with the evidence. How can we know which is correct?

A review article published today in Nature addresses this conflict between models and evidence, known as the Holocene global temperature conundrum.

Greenhouse gas concentrations further increased in 2022, finds analysis of global satellite data

What was the point of all those UN climate conferences again?
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Preliminary analyses of global satellite data by environmental researchers at the University of Bremen show that atmospheric concentrations of the two important greenhouse gases carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) continued to rise sharply in 2022, reports Phys.org.

The increase in both gases is similar to that of previous years. However, the increase in methane does not reach the record levels of 2020 and 2021.

The Institute of Environmental Physics (IUP) at the University of Bremen is a world-leading institute in the field of evaluation and interpretation of global satellite measurements of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) and other atmospheric trace gases that are of great importance for climate and air quality.

The institute leads the GHG-CCI greenhouse gas project of the European Space Agency’s Climate Change Initiative (ESA) and provides related data to the European Copernicus Climate Change Service C3S and the Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service CAMS.

Antarctic icebergs still exist today where 1700-era sailors spotted and tracked them

Antarctic sea ice [image credit: BBC]

Probably not the result that was expected from this study. Captain Cook’s descriptions of iceberg sightings still seem valid. Is saying ‘large icebergs…are not as sensitive to climate change’ enough to avoid raising questions about modern global warming theories?
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A new study comparing observations of large Antarctic icebergs from the 1700s with modern satellite datasets shows the massive icebergs are found in the same areas where they were pinpointed three centuries ago, reports Phys.org.

The study shows that despite their rudimentary tools, the old explorers truly knew their craft, and it confirms that the icebergs have behaved consistently for more than 300 years.

Using primarily the journal records of Captain James Cook’s 1772–1775 Antarctic circumnavigation on the HMS Resolution (where he noted the positions of hundreds of icebergs), a trio of researchers from Brigham Young University, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of Washington’s School of Oceanography made comparisons with the two largest modern datasets available today: the BYU/National Ice Center and Alfred Wegener Institute datasets.

They found that Cook’s description of the iceberg plume east of Antarctica’s Amery Ice Shelf, along with iceberg distributions in the Weddell, Ross and Amundsen Seas, agree with modern data.

Sea level is stable around the world

No acceleration in the historical trend. No correlation with CO2 increase. End of story.
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We have been studying climate change and potentially associated sea level changes resulting from melting ice and warming oceans for a half century, says CFACT.

In the 1970s our primary concern was global cooling and an advancing new ice age.

Many believe that increasing quantities of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere could result in rising levels of the sea in general. The record does not show this to be true.

Long-term Western precipitation trends are stable, says atmospheric scientist

California flood control channel [image credit: UC Berkeley]

Looking a lot further back than the satellite era can give a better perspective in weather trends. Nothing for alarmists to see here.
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Although the West has experienced major ups and downs in its precipitation patterns from year to year, over the past 130 years regions that provide the major source for spring and summer runoff have not shown a long-term pattern that indicates a permanent decline in precipitation, according to research by Dr. John Christy, a distinguished professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Earth Science at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH).

The results of Dr. Christy’s construction and analysis of the longest, regional-scale time series of snowfall accumulations for Washington, Oregon and California from 1890–2020 are in a paper in the December 2022 issue of the American Meteorological Society’s Journal of Hydrometeorology, says Phys.org.

As part of a joint project between UAH and the Department of Energy, Dr. Christy examined archived snowfall data dating back to 1890 from over 700 stations located in the three states.

Clouds less climate-sensitive than assumed

Cumulus clouds from above [image credit: Jakec @ Wikipedia]

From airborne observations, these researchers find ‘trade-wind clouds are far less sensitive to global warming than has long been assumed’. Their study says: ‘Our observational analyses render models with large positive feedbacks implausible’. Consequently, they believe, extreme rise in Earth’s temperatures is less likely than previously thought.
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In a major field campaign in 2020, Dr. Raphaela Vogel who is now at Universität Hamburg’s Center for Earth System Research and Sustainability (CEN) and an international team from the Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique in Paris and the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg analyzed observational data they and others collected in fields of cumulus clouds near the Atlantic island of Barbados.

Their analysis revealed that these clouds’ contribution to climate warming has to be reassessed, says Eurekalert.

“Trade-wind clouds influence the climate system around the globe, but the data demonstrate behavior differently than previously assumed. Consequently, an extreme rise in Earth’s temperatures is less likely than previously thought,” says Vogel, an atmospheric scientist.

Sea floor evidence from millennia of Atlantic storms tells its own story

Hurricane Dorian

If ‘evidence indicates that the Atlantic has experienced even stormier periods in the past than we’ve seen in recent years’, as stated below, then natural variation can easily account for whatever happened in those recent years. No need to invoke changes to the level of any minor trace gases to explain the data.
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If you look back at the history of Atlantic hurricanes since the late 1800s, it might seem hurricane frequency is on the rise, says The Conversation (via Phys.org).

The year 2020 had the most tropical cyclones in the Atlantic, with 31, and 2021 had the third-highest, after 2005. The past decade saw five of the six most destructive Atlantic hurricanes in modern history. [Talkshop comment – define ‘destructive’, money-based comparisons tell us nothing]

Then a year like 2022 comes along, with no major hurricane landfalls until Fiona and Ian struck in late September.

New analysis attempts to reconcile differences between satellites and climate models

Space satellite orbiting the earth

An academic attempt to gloss over some glaring discrepancies between results from theory-based climate models and observed data. The research paper says: ‘Climate-model simulations exhibit approximately two times more tropical tropospheric warming than satellite observations since 1979’. Over forty years of being so wrong, by their own admission, takes a lot of explaining.
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Satellite observations and computer simulations are important tools for understanding past changes in Earth’s climate and for projecting future changes, says Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (via Phys.org).

However, satellite observations consistently show less warming than climate model simulations from 1979 to the present, especially in the tropical troposphere (the lowest ~15 km of Earth’s atmosphere).

This difference has raised concerns that models may overstate future temperature changes.

Lucas resonances of the three planet system TOI-1749

Artist’s impression of an exoplanetary system [credit: NASA]

The three exoplanets of the TOI-1749 system are labelled b, c and d. A year ago, an article in the Astronomical Journal on this system by a group of scientists noted a near 2:1 orbital ratio of planets c and d, but made no reference to synodic periods.

Now, with newer data from exoplanet.eu, we analyse the synodics. The mean period between alignments of two planets with their star is as follows:
b-c = 5.0989527 days
c-d = 8.922796
b-d = 3.2447389

From that, the ratios can be obtained:
7 b-c = 35.692668 days
4 c-d = 35.691184
11 b-d = 35.692127

4:7:11 coincides with the Lucas number series which is closely related to the Fibonacci series and the golden ratio.

Jet stream waviness theory of Arctic warming revived by modellers after scientific debunking

Credit: weather.com

A 2020 news report (H/T Belfast Telegraph) headlined Extreme weather being caused by jet stream ‘not because of Arctic warming’, with the sub-heading: ‘Any link is more likely to be a result of random fluctuations in the jet stream influencing Arctic temperatures, researchers say’ – cites a study that comprehensively contradicts the findings described in the article below. “The well-publicised idea that Arctic warming is leading to a wavier jet stream just does not hold up to scrutiny”, said Professor James Screen [University of Exeter]. “With the benefit of 10 more years of data and model experiments, we find no evidence of long-term changes in waviness despite on-going Arctic warming.” But the stated lack of evidence hasn’t deterred this new research. Are they flogging the proverbial dead horse?
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A quartet of researchers, two with the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics and two with Pukyong National University, has created a group of simulations of changes to the jet stream under global warming, says Phys.org.

In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes using math theory to describe wind motion under given circumstances to create their simulations.

Over the past several years, the jet stream has become wavier than it used to be. Both peaks and valleys have become more extreme.

This has led to changes in weather patterns—some places have grown wetter and some drier, and there have also been more extended hot and cold spells around the globe.

Global Financial System at Risk From Flawed Climate Models

An unflattering analysis of climate models. Using mean values from numerous models is questioned. Climate attribution studies don’t fare any better: “these approaches are likely to be flawed”.
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A team of Australian scientists, financiers and economists have issued a stark warning over the use of “flawed” climate models to predict financial risk, says Net Zero Watch.

Writing in the journal Environmental Research they say building future strategies on information that is not understood and potentially misleading is likely to expose the global financial system to systemic risks of its own making.

Politicians and policy-makers are increasingly seeking to assess the potential risks to the financial system associated with climate change.

Gamblers update: Eli Rabett vs Tallbloke on Arctic Sea Ice extent

Six years ago this week, I agreed to a wager with Eli Rabett on the trend in Arctic sea ice extent from 2006-2026. Now we’re more than halfway to the finish line, it’s a good time to check on progress. Here’s how the Sea Ice Extent graph looks from mid 2006 to mid 2022. The trend is still towards less ice, but not by much. There’s no ‘climate emergency tipping point’ visible in the data.

The terms we agreed are detailed in the image of the twitter convo below.

The climate attribution game

As described below, when climate scientists removed the warming factors they chose to create in their models, the results showed lower temperatures. They seem unaware or uninterested that this proves little or nothing, but label it science anyway and say their studies attribute most of the blame for any observed warming to human factors.
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Since 1880, the average global temperature on Earth has increased by at least 1.1 °C. The culprit? Climate change, of course, asserts Phys.org.

Getting hotter, faster

According to findings released by the World Weather Attribution (WWA) initiative, a global collaboration between climate scientists and specialists, the record temperatures would have been up to 4 °C cooler without human-caused climate change.

The hottest day ever (40.3 °C) in the UK was registered on 19 July. The WWA analysis also claims [sic] that climate change made this heatwave 10 times more likely.
. . .
Dr. Radhika Khosla from the Oxford Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment applauded the WWA’s efforts:

No change in weather extremes, just a moving of the goalposts

A reading of the executive summary of the new GWPF paper is probably enough to confirm many suspicions about alarmist claims.
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A PAPER from the Global Warming Policy Foundation says that a recent shift in methodology by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has led to misleading claims about increases in weather extremes.

The review by physicist Dr Ralph Alexander finds that IPCC claims are largely unsupported by observational evidence, says Paul Homewood @ The Conservative Woman.