Revealed: Trees planted to help achieve net zero are adding to Scotland’s carbon emissions

Sitka spruce forestry in Scotland

Another avoidable green fiasco in the name of climate obsession.
– – –
Millions of pounds are being spent carpeting thousands of acres of land with conifers on the basis they will lock up CO2 from the atmosphere.

But a new report shows that many of the forests springing up around the country likely add to the risk of climate change, says the Sunday Post.

Vast tracts of peaty soil are being dug up and drained in order to plant trees, unleashing a torrent of stored carbon [dioxide] into the environment.

Climate Expert: Misinformation In The IPCC, Part 2

Image credit: sanibelrealestateguide.com

The article summary is shown below. See this link for expanded discussion and evidence. No punches pulled here. In short, the evidence doesn’t stack up, so the author – an expert in his own right – calls the IPCC’s cyclone claims ‘fiction’.
– – –
A top conclusion of the recent Synthesis Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is that the attribution of observed changes in tropical cyclones to human influence has strengthened over the past 9 years.

The IPCC does not justify its claim that both the detection of changes and attribution have been achieved, says Roger Pielke Jr.

So in Part 1 of this exploration, I tracked back the claim and found that it had no support in the one paper miscited by the IPCC in support of the claim.

In this second part, I look at official data on tropical cyclones. The evidence also does not support the IPCC claim of detection and attribution related to tropical cyclones.

What the science says (or doesn’t?) about California’s record–setting snow

Credit: NOAA

Expecting to find ‘the science’ (who owns it?) explaining why a warming climate is able to produce near-record snow, we wade in – but the sub-heading is a let-down: ‘A relentless series of ‘rivers in the sky’ is creating extreme conditions across the state, but a role for climate change is unclear’. Then we read: ‘As the atmosphere warms, atmospheric rivers are likely to become more frequent and hold more moisture, and that will result in heavy downpours of rain and snow.’ The obvious clash of warmth and snow in the same sentence is left for the reader to ponder. They end up saying in effect that the weather is getting more weathery. A self-proclaimed ‘NEWS EXPLAINER’ that can’t explain much, it seems.
– – –
Not again! Earlier this week, California was battered by heavy rain, strong winds and thick snow — the latest in a seemingly unending procession of strong storms, says Nature.

Wild weather has afflicted the previously drought-stricken state for three months, resulting in devastating floods, paralysing blizzards and dozens of deaths.

Data released Thursday show that the snowpack is the biggest on record.

Nature spoke to atmospheric and climate scientists about what’s driving the surge in wet weather and what the state could look like in a warmer future.

What caused the record-low Antarctic sea ice in austral summer 2022? Natural variation perhaps…

Antarctic sea ice [image credit: BBC]

Sea ice levels are notorious for misuse by climate alarmists. Thankfully no mention of climate red herrings in this study.
– – –
Antarctic sea ice is an important component of the climate system [snip – redundant climate waffle] — [and] significant changes in Antarctic sea ice have been observed, says Phys.org.

Specifically, it experienced a slow increase during 1979–2014, but a rapid decline thereafter.

Despite a modest recovery after the record minimum in 2017, the sea ice area during austral summer 2022 (December 2021 to February 2022) again hit a new record minimum, at 3.07 million km2, which is approximately a 25% reduction compared with its long-term mean during 1981–2010.

Surprise effect: Methane cools even as it heats, say researchers

Credit: airbus.com

If the headline seems puzzling, try the article that follows it. We’re taken back to the imaginary world of atmospheric ‘blankets’, forgetting to mention that the methane content of our air is less than 2000 parts per *billion* (= 2 per million).
– – –
Most climate models do not yet account for a new UC Riverside discovery: methane traps a great deal of heat in Earth’s atmosphere, but also creates cooling clouds that offset 30% of the heat, says Phys.org.

Greenhouse gases like methane create a kind of blanket in the atmosphere, trapping heat from Earth’s surface, called longwave energy, and preventing it from radiating out into space. This makes the planet hotter. [Talkshop comment – according to what empirical evidence?]

“A blanket doesn’t create heat, unless it’s electric. You feel warm because the blanket inhibits your body’s ability to send its heat into the air. This is the same concept,” explained Robert Allen, UCR assistant professor of Earth sciences.

In addition to absorbing longwave energy, it turns out methane also absorbs incoming energy from the sun, known as shortwave energy. “This should warm the planet,” said Allen, who led the research project. “But counterintuitively, the shortwave absorption encourages changes in clouds that have a slight cooling effect.”

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.

Scientists offer evidence that Venus is volcanically active

Sulphuric acid in the Venusian clouds was always a hint of possible volcanism.
– – –
Venus appears to have volcanic activity, according to a new research paper that offers strong evidence to answer the lingering question about whether Earth’s sister planet currently has eruptions and lava flows.

Venus, although similar to Earth in size and mass, differs markedly in that it does not have plate tectonics, says Phys.org. The boundaries of Earth’s moving surface plates are the primary locations of volcanic activity.

New research by University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute research professor Robert Herrick revealed a nearly 1-square-mile volcanic vent that changed in shape and grew over eight months in 1991.

Switching to hydrogen fuel could prolong ‘the methane problem’, say researchers

The imagined methane problem derived from the ‘greenhouse’ obsession, that is. Hydrogen already has a nitrogen problem, according to IPCC climate theories at least. Now it seems there’s a leaky infrastructure issue.
– – –
Hydrogen is often heralded as the clean fuel of the future, but new research suggests that leaky hydrogen infrastructure could end up increasing atmospheric methane levels, which would cause decades-long climate consequences, says Science Daily.

Hydrogen’s potential as a clean fuel could be limited by a chemical reaction in the lower atmosphere, according to research from Princeton University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association.

This is because hydrogen gas easily reacts in the atmosphere with the same molecule primarily responsible for breaking down methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

New Model Explains The Water Cycles of Mars’s Swiss Cheese-Looking South Pole

Mars [image credit: NASA]

It’s said to be related to the current obliquity cycle period of about 100,000 years. Mystery solved?
– – –
Seen from space, regions of Mars around the south pole have a bizarre, pitted “Swiss cheese” appearance, says ScienceAlert.

These formations come from alternating massive deposits of CO2 ice and water ice, similar to different layers of a cake.

For decades, planetary scientists wondered how this formation was possible, as it was long believed that this layering would not be stable for long periods of time.

Claim: Global food system emissions imperil Paris climate goals

Meat under attack [image credit: farminguk.com]

Phys.org pounces on another supposed climate alarm. Once again magical powers are assigned to trace gases with no evidence offered.
– – –
The global food system’s greenhouse gas emissions will add nearly one degree Celsius to Earth’s surface temperatures by 2100 on current trends, obliterating Paris Agreement climate goals, scientists warned Monday.

A major overhaul of the sector—from production to distribution to consumption—could reduce those emissions by more than half even as global population increases, they reported in Nature Climate Change.

Earth’s surface has warmed 1.2 C since the late 1800s, leaving only a narrow margin for staying under the 2015 treaty’s core goal of capping warming at “well under” 2 C.

Study finds exchange of carbon between ocean and atmosphere ‘is much more complicated than we first thought’

The ocean carbon cycle [credit: IAEA]

Photosynthesis springs a surprise. Why not find out what nature is doing before accusing humans of altering the global climate?
– – –
A new study demonstrates the important role of a common group of marine calcifying phytoplankton (coccolithophores) in the regulation of carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations in the atmosphere, says Phys.org.

The ocean has removed roughly a third of the CO2 released by humans since the Industrial Revolution.

It is one of the largest sinks of anthropogenic CO2 and the largest reservoir of carbon that can easily exchange with the atmosphere on our planet.

Understanding the processes that control the exchange of carbon between the ocean and atmosphere is key for projecting the future effects of carbon dioxide on climate change, ocean acidification, marine organisms, and society.

Phys.org Claims Atmospheric Rivers And Hurricanes Getting Worse. Data Says No

Credit: NOAA

Climate modellers claim to be able to prove weather is getting worse than ever before. They seem to have a method problem.
– – –
A recent article at Phys.org, originally published by the Chicago Tribune, says that climate change is behind the recent atmospheric river events in California, as well as an alleged increase in Category 4 and 5 hurricanes.

This is false, says Linnea Lueken @ Climate Change Dispatch.

Atmospheric rivers are a natural part of the West coast’s climate, and neither historic data nor recent trend data indicate that the frequency or severity of those events is increasing.

Likewise, there has been no increase in major hurricanes over the past hundred years of global warming.

Science website cancels atmospheric water vapour

Photosynthesis: nature requires carbon dioxide

‘What is carbon dioxide, anyway? How does it cause global warming?’ – asks Phys.org. [Delete ‘how’ – says the Talkshop.] Anyway, the entire article they attach to their loaded-question headline never once mentions water vapour. It’s all about demonising CO2. Even climate worrier Wikipedia says: ‘Water vapour is the gaseous phase of water…Being a component of Earth’s hydrosphere and hydrologic cycle, it is particularly abundant in Earth’s atmosphere, where it acts as a greenhouse gas and warming feedback, contributing more to total greenhouse effect than non-condensable gases such as carbon dioxide and methane.’ So even for fans of greenhouse theories there’s no escaping the predominance of water vapour over carbon dioxide. Completely ignoring it makes the whole CO2-promoting article redundant.
– – –
Chemically, carbon dioxide is incredibly simple—it is just one carbon atom linked with two oxygen atoms, says Phys.org.

Together they create a colorless gas that makes up just a tiny fraction of the Earth’s atmosphere, about 0.04%.

That gas is critical to life on earth because plants use sunlight and carbon dioxide to create energy through the process of photosynthesis.

But carbon dioxide is also the primary reason the climate is warming, a long-term shift in temperature that threatens the delicately balanced ecosystems humans depend upon.

So how is something so necessary to life also so harmful? Here’s what to know:

Continued here.
– – –
A footnote to the article says:
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Benzene and toluene in polar oceans have a biological origin, study finds

Natural aerosols, not ‘human pollution’. Another climate assumption gets blown out of the water.
– – –
In addition to oxygen, nitrogen or carbon dioxide, the air we breathe contains small amounts of organic gases, such as benzene and toluene, says Phys.org.

These oxidize into small particles or aerosols that contribute to the condensation of water in the droplets that form clouds.

Now, a study by the Institut de Cièncias del Mar (ICM-CSIC), the Instituto de Química Física Rocasolano (IQFR-CSIC) and the Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML) stresses the importance of clouds, which filter solar radiation, for understanding past and future climate changes.

“If we don’t get the clouds right, we won’t get the climate right,” says Charel Wohl, ICM-CSIC researcher and lead author of the study. “We are just beginning to unveil the multiple ingredients that form cloud seeds,” he adds.

Desert dusts convert coral reefs into carbon storage

Australian coral [image credit: heraldsun.com.au]

Professor: “this study actually contributes to more accurate accounting of carbon around the globe.” Nature’s carbon cycle continues to surprise researchers.
– – –
An international study comparing data from Heron Reef and the Middle East’s Gulf of Aqaba has disproved the long-held theory that coral reefs only have the capacity to emit CO2, reports Phys.org.

The first-of-its-kind discovery is the result of an international study led by The University of Queensland which found that dust blown in from nearby deserts can convert coral reefs into CO2 sinks.

Professor Hamish McGowan from UQ’s School of Earth and Environmental Sciences said the discovery was made after researchers observed a correlation between influxes of CO2 and periods of increased dust concentrations in the atmosphere around the reefs.

“We were surprised at how significant a role dust accumulation played in switching coral reefs from a CO2 source to a CO2 sink,” Professor McGowan said.

“This process was previously thought to be impossible, but our research proves otherwise.

“We found that the build-up of dust in the traditionally low-nutrient and low-chlorophyll waters of the Gulf of Aqaba actually fertilizes and improves coral-growing conditions and photosynthesis in reef ecosystems.”

Professor McGowan said the results will allow for the development of more accurate carbon budgets for the world’s oceans.

“The process we have identified in this study actually contributes to more accurate accounting of carbon around the globe,” Professor McGowan said.

“This informs predictions of the impact of atmospheric carbon on climate and climate sensitive ecosystems such as coral reefs.”
. . .
The research establishes the causal controls on reef water temperatures, as opposed to previous predictions which were more focused on the correlation of global warming and coral bleaching.

Professor Lensky said these findings will allow researchers to correctly attribute the cause of, for example, extreme high water temperature events that result in coral bleaching.

“Our research, which included analysis of data collected at Heron Reef on the Great Barrier Reef, has confirmed the crucial role of local meteorology and the prevailing weather patterns in determining reef water temperatures,” Professor Lensky said.

Full report here.
– – –
Earlier research: Dust in Earth system can affect oceans, carbon cycle, temperatures, and health (2010) – ScienceDaily

Science Writer Warns Ozone Hole Recovery Claims Likely Premature, Too Optimistic

Credit: earthhow.com

Is there a role for natural climate variation here, and if so, what is going on?
– – –
Claims by a UN-backed expert panel that the ozone layer is healing and headed to full recovery may be premature and overly optimistic, Net Zero Watch’s Science Editor Dr. David Whitehouse has warned.

Any internet search will find hundreds of news stories announcing that the ozone hole over the Antarctic is slowly filling and that by about the middle of this century mankind’s vandalism of this natural atmospheric layer will have been remedied, says Benny Peiser via Climate Change Dispatch.

The ozone hole has become an icon of anthropogenic interference in the natural world — and a hopeful signpost that there is a way back. But is the ozone hole healing? Not by as much as many headlines suggest, it would appear.

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

What was the point of all those UN climate conferences again?
– – –
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.

California’s Newsom blames climate change as more storms line up to batter state

“Hot’s getting a lot hotter,” Newsom said. “Dry’s getting a lot dryer. But the wet’s getting a lot wetter, as well.” — The weather’s getting more weathery? It’s as if the wonder gas carbon dioxide can do anything, even at a tiny atmospheric concentration of 0.04%. Of course severe weather is a serious matter for those concerned, but the amazing power of CO2 is beyond belief /sarc!
– – –
Newsom said climate change is to blame for the increase in the number of atmospheric rivers and intensity, reports Fox News.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced during a press conference on Sunday that he is requesting a state of emergency from the White House as another round of storms targets the Golden State this week.

Severe storms in California knocked out power to over 560,000 homes on Sunday.

Temps Cause CO2 Changes, Not the Reverse. 2023 Update

.
.
Not forgetting that CO2 is only a minor trace gas, at ~0.04% of the atmosphere.

Science Matters

This post is about proving that CO2 changes in response to temperature changes, not the other way around, as is often claimed.  In order to do  that we need two datasets: one for measurements of changes in atmospheric CO2 concentrations over time and one for estimates of Global Mean Temperature changes over time.

Climate science is unsettling because past data are not fixed, but change later on.  I ran into this previously and now again in 2021 and 2022 when I set out to update an analysis done in 2014 by Jeremy Shiers (discussed in a previous post reprinted at the end).  Jeremy provided a spreadsheet in his essay Murray Salby Showed CO2 Follows Temperature Now You Can Too posted in January 2014. I downloaded his spreadsheet intending to bring the analysis up to the present to see if the results hold up.  The two sources of data were:

Temperature…

View original post 1,375 more words

NASA cancels climate change satellite to monitor greenhouse gases

Lift-off [image credit: NASA]

Collecting mountains of data on so-called greenhouse gases was not going to be cost-effective, says NASA. ‘Technical concerns’ played a part in the decision.
– – –
All good things must come to an end, and in the case of NASA’s GeoCarb mission, some good things must end before they really begin, says Space.com.

NASA has canceled the GeoCarb mission, which was a collaboration with the University of Oklahoma and Lockheed Martin that intended to put a greenhouse gas–monitoring satellite into geostationary orbit.

GeoCarb would have measured levels of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and methane in the atmosphere about 4 million times per day. The mission was selected by NASA in 2016.