Can volcanic super eruptions lead to major cooling? Study suggests no

The research came up with ‘relatively modest temperature changes’. One NASA atmospheric scientist commented: “To me, this is another example of why geoengineering via stratospheric aerosol injection is a long, long way from being a viable option.” (Here’s another one). Climate alarmists can imagine doing some things, but so can Hollywood scriptwriters.
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New research suggests that sunlight-blocking particles from an extreme eruption would not cool surface temperatures on Earth as severely as previously estimated, says Phys.org.

Some 74,000 years ago, the Toba volcano in Indonesia exploded with a force 1,000 times more powerful than the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. The mystery is what happened after that—namely, to what degree that extreme explosion might have cooled global temperatures.

When it comes to the most powerful volcanoes, researchers have long speculated how post-eruption global cooling—sometimes called volcanic winter—could potentially pose a threat to humanity.

‘Very Bizarre’: Scientists Expose Major Problems With Climate Change Data

“Climate activism has become the new religion of the 21st century – heretics are not welcome and not allowed to ask questions,” says astrophysicist Willie Soon. But data manipulation, or tampering, is rife. Most climate models over-predict warming, while natural variations continue.
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Temperature records used by climate scientists and governments to build models that then forecast dangerous manmade global warming repercussions have serious problems and even corruption in the data, multiple scientists who have published recent studies on the issue told The Epoch Times. — Zerohedge reporting.

The Biden administration leans on its latest National Climate Assessment report as evidence that global warming is accelerating because of human activities. The document states that human emissions of “greenhouse gases” such as carbon dioxide are dangerously warming the Earth.

The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) holds the same view, and its leaders are pushing major global policy changes in response.

But scientific experts from around the world in a variety of fields are pushing back.

Why atmospheric geoengineering is dead in the water

Another idea for slaying imaginary climate dragons runs into trouble, as new research finds ‘an intervention that cools the air would not be able to cool the deep ocean on the same timescale’. So for believers in a climate crisis the desired short-term effectiveness just isn’t there.
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Climate change is heating the oceans, altering currents and circulation patterns responsible for regulating climate on a global scale [Talkshop comment – empty assertions]. If temperatures dropped, some of that damage could theoretically [sic] be undone.

But employing “emergency” atmospheric geoengineering later this century in the face of continuous high carbon emissions would not be able to reverse changes to ocean currents, a new study finds.

This would critically curtail the intervention’s potential effectiveness on human-relevant timescales.

Oceans, especially the deep oceans, absorb and lose heat more slowly than the atmosphere, so an intervention that cools the air would not be able to cool the deep ocean on the same timescale, the authors found.

Atlantic’s hurricane alley is ‘so hot from El Niño’ – but not a guarantee for an active season, says UK expert

Adjectives from the alarmist climate manual are well to the fore here, but so is uncertainty.
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The Atlantic’s “hurricane alley” is already experiencing summer temperatures, despite it only being February says Live Science.

And the unprecedented temperatures could be bad news for the upcoming storm season, researchers say.

Since March 2023, average sea surface temperatures around the world have hit record-shattering highs and are still climbing. This ominous ocean heating is being driven by accelerating global warming and the El Niño climate pattern.

When the global climate has the hiccups – ‘repeated rapid increases in temperature’

Promoters of a current ‘climate crisis’ often call modern warming and/or events within it, ‘unprecedented’. However, compared to events like this: “A Neanderthal would have experienced increases in the average temperature of several degrees over the course of their life” [explains Prof.], not much is presently going on. Climate variability can happen in different ways, and repeat over long timescales.
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In recent geological history, the so-called Quaternary period, there have been repeated ice ages and warm periods, says Science Daily.

Researchers are able to determine past climate variability from the composition of climate records. In the case of the last glacial period 100,000 years ago, ice cores from Greenland in particular provide researchers with detailed data.

For example, Greenland ice cores show that there were repeated rapid increases in temperature.

“We are talking about increases of 5 to 10 degrees within 30 to 40 years on average in the case of Europe. A Neanderthal would have experienced increases in the average temperature of several degrees over the course of their life,” explains Prof. Dominik Fleitmann, Professor of Quaternary Geology at the University of Basel.

He calls the phenomena “climate hiccups.”

These Dansgaard-Oeschger events are well documented for the last glacial period, but the climate records from Greenland only cover the last 120,000 years.

It was therefore previously unknown whether these Dansgaard-Oeschger events also occurred during the penultimate glacial period 135,000 to 190,000 years ago.

Frederick Held, a PhD candidate in Fleitmann’s research group, was able to show that Dansgaard-Oeschger events also occurred during the penultimate glacial period using isotopic measurements on stalagmites.

He is the lead author of the study which was published in the scientific journal Nature Communications.

The North Atlantic as the source of change

The stalagmites examined originate from the Sofular Cave in Turkey, which is located in a region that is very sensitive to climate change.

The researchers therefore refer to it as a key region, as it is influenced by the winds of the North Atlantic and the Black Sea is just a few kilometers away.

“We used the isotopic composition in the stalagmites to determine the moisture sources from which they are formed — the Black Sea, the Mediterranean Sea and the North Atlantic,” explains Frederick Held.

For the first time, the evaluations carried out on the stalagmites from the Sofular Cave have proven that Dansgaard-Oeschger events also occurred during the penultimate glacial period.

“It was previously unknown whether these relatively brief temperature events actually happened in earlier glacial periods,” states Held.

However, they occurred less frequently in the penultimate glacial period than in the last one: “The temperature peaks are twice as far apart from one another, meaning there were longer cold phases between them.”

These temperature fluctuations originate in the North Atlantic, as the circulation of the ocean is a global conveyor belt for heat and can sometimes be stronger and sometimes weaker.

“For example, the circulation affects the exchange of heat between the atmosphere and the ocean, which, in turn, impacts the balance of heat in the Northern Hemisphere and air flows and rainfall,” explains Held.

He states that weakened circulation also reduces the quantity of CO2 which the ocean absorbs from the atmosphere.

These ocean currents were different in the penultimate glacial period than in the last one, which explains the different intervals between the Dansgaard-Oeschger events.

This shows that not all glacial periods are the same and not all warm periods are the same.
. . .
The geologist also hopes to clarify any outstanding questions by means of additional analyses. “For example, we do not yet know whether the increases in temperature were periodic or stochastic, in other words random.”

Full article here.

Image: Greenland ice core [credit: K. Makinson @ Wikipedia]

‘This is weird’: Experts ‘shocked’ by record-breaking longevity of Death Valley’s phantom lake

No sign of any blame being attached to human activities, in this article at least.
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A temporary lake at Badwater Basin in Death Valley National Park has persisted for more than six months, which is far longer than it has lasted before.

And experts say that it could stick around for quite a while yet, says Live Science.

Park rangers in Death Valley are scratching their heads as to how the desert’s phantom lake has persisted for more than half a year — likely its longest lifespan in living memory.

A recent rain dump also means that the puzzling pool of water, which normally dries up within weeks of appearing, could remain intact for several more months.

The regular ‘Atlantic Circulation Collapse’ story

Risking making AMOCkery of climate science with unrealistic scenarios in global models is nothing new, but this one keeps coming back like a bad penny, as NZW explains. Returning to the same faulty predictions time and again gets the headlines but is easily debunked. In this case, the researchers intend to re-run their model with ‘global warming included’, but if everything else is the same, including ‘adding unrealistically large quantities of fresh water all at once’, many of the criticisms will still apply.
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One of the many regular climate scare stories you can rely on is the one about failing currents in the Atlantic Ocean bringing cold climate chaos to Europe, says Net Zero Watch.

It’s one of the most favourite doomsday speculations, based on computer models pushed to the edge – but who cares, it’s a good shock-horror story and it pops up regularly.

Actually we should care because it’s well known that most people only register the top line of any news story — especially a climate disaster prediction – while they don’t take-in or even read up on the context and the qualifications.

Temperatures are rising, but soil is getting wetter, confounding climate theorists

One overlooked factor was the CO2 fertilization effect in plant photosynthesis. The researchers found that “it’s virtually impossible to predict soil moisture in the coming decades”, contrary to some alarmist notions about future droughts.
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Soil moisture can determine how quickly a wildfire spreads, how fast a hill turns into a mudslide and, perhaps most importantly, how productive our food systems are, says Eurekalert.

As temperatures rise due to human-caused climate change [Talkshop comment – evidence-free assertion of cause], some researchers are concerned that soils will dry.

However, between 2011 to 2020, soil moisture increased across 57% of the United States during summer, the warmest time of year.

Why did soil get wetter even as the planet got hotter?

World’s first year-long breach of ‘key’ 1.5C warming limit alarms the BBC

Alarmists mark an artificial deadline, still pretending government-driven limits can be put on long-term climate variations and attempting to reduce CO2 levels in the atmosphere, which hasn’t happened anyway. Cue the usual well-worn phrases about tackling climate change, emissions etc.
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For the first time, global warming has exceeded 1.5C across an entire year, according to the EU’s climate service.

World leaders promised in 2015 to try to limit the long-term temperature rise to 1.5C, which is seen as crucial to help avoid the most damaging impacts, says BBC News.

This first year-long breach doesn’t break that landmark “Paris agreement”, but it does bring the world closer to doing so in the long-term.

Climate Scientists Want Space Umbrellas The Size Of Argentina To Blot Out The Sun

Mr. Burns blocks the sun

Bad luck for solar panel owners and users, and anything relying on photosynthesis. But as such umbrellas would be far too heavy to move even if they could be made, probably nothing to worry about. Just another climate alarm concoction in search of funding.
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A team of climate scientists wants to launch enormous umbrellas into space to reduce the Earth’s exposure to the sun and fight climate change, The New York Times reported Friday (via Climate Change Dispatch).

The underlying idea is that large parasols could be positioned in space such that they marginally reduce the intensity of sunlight the Earth receives and thereby mitigate some global warming, the Times reported.

To block out enough radiation, a single sunshade would need to be approximately the size of Argentina — nearly one million square miles — and would weigh about 2.5 million tons, so scientists are looking to prove the idea could work by first producing a 100-square foot prototype with the help of $10 to $20 million of funding.

Two global temperature graphs – spot the difference

We’ve done it already. The sloping green line in each graph, or ‘Manhattan’, has been added by the Talkshop. Of course it’s the same data, but the presentation is noticeably different. In the first one from The Conversation the green slope line is at 45° to the horizontal, and in the second one from NOAA (the creator of the graph) the same line is a more modest, although still quite steep, 35°. Is someone trying too hard to impress?
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Graph 1

Source: The Conversation
https://theconversation.com/ice-storms-january-downpours-heavy-snow-no-snow-diagnosing-warming-winter-syndrome-221956

Graph 2

Source: NOAA
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/monthly-report/global/202313

EV drivers urged to preheat batteries amid cold weather (aka winter)

Not the latest model

EV owners might want to consider the risks of putting a heat source near a lithium battery. If that goes wrong, it can really go wrong. But if they don’t or can’t preheat their battery in cold conditions, e.g. it’s parked in the street, they can look forward to a significant range reduction, made worse by using the car heater.
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In the wake of the coldest night of the winter in the UK, Edmund King, President of the AA, has issued guidance to electric vehicle (EV) owners, emphasising the importance of preheating their cars and charging overnight, reports Energy Live News.

As the nation grapples with snow and ice that led to the closure of numerous schools, Mr King warns that colder temperatures can adversely affect EV batteries, leading to longer charging times and reduced efficiency.

The AA noted that electric cars may experience a reduction in range ranging from 10% to 20% in colder temperatures.

This is attributed to the diminished efficiency of the lithium-ion battery, exacerbated by drivers activating features like heating.

This advice comes as electric vehicle users in the US, particularly in Chicago, have faced difficulties due to freezing temperatures, with reports of Tesla owners abandoning their vehicles.

Full report here.

Oldie but Goldie: Climategate: how the conspirators gagged on their deceptions

Andrew Bolt Herald Sun Dec 6 2009

I’ve wondered whether Climategate scientist Tom Wigley, an Australian, finally choked on all the fraud, fiddling and coverups he was witnessing from fellow members of his Climategate cabal. Steven Hayward points out that many other Climategate scientists privately had trouble swallowing the practices of their colleagues:

In 1998 three scientists from American universities–Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley, and Malcolm Hughes–unveiled in Nature magazine what was regarded as a signal breakthrough in paleoclimatology–the now notorious “hockey stick” temperature reconstruction (picture a flat “handle” extending from the year 1000 to roughly 1900, and a sharply upsloping “blade” from 1900 to 2000). Their paper purported to prove that current global temperatures are the highest in the last thousand years by a large margin–far outside the range of natural variability. The medieval warm period (MWP) and the little ice (LIA) age both disappeared.

2023’s record heat partly driven by ‘mystery’ process: NASA scientist

It’s warming, but not as they thought they knew it. ‘Everybody has lots of ideas, but it doesn’t quite add up.’ Aerosols, undersea volcano, El Niño, ‘new processes’ – the list of suspects goes on, but nothing convincing so far. Settled science has been unsettled, but persists with its usual assertions blaming humans anyway.
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It’s no secret human activity is warming the planet, driving more frequent and intense extreme weather events and transforming ecosystems at an extraordinary rate, claims Phys.org.

But the record-shattering temperatures of 2023 have nonetheless alarmed scientists, and hint at some “mysterious” new processes that may be under way, NASA’s top climatologist Gavin Schmidt tells AFP.

US: Winter storm brings ‘life-threatening’ cold

Instead of imagining dire global warming, many US citizens can step outside for a sharp dose of a different reality. “EVERY state in the US has an active NWS watch, warning, or advisory”. One to remember when summer heatwaves come around and UN-led warmist miserablism fires up again.
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The mercury was plummeting across the US Midwest on Saturday as a biting winter storm left hundreds of thousands without power and threatened to disrupt the first key event in the 2024 presidential election campaign, says DW.com.

Over a quarter of a million people in Michigan and Wisconsin were left without power as freezing temperatures spread across the region, according to the PowerOutage.US website.

Winds and heavy snow also grounded planes at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport with some 7,600 flights delayed across the country.

Polar vortex wobbled ‘like a top’ in December

The Polar Vortex Wobbled in December

Unusual but not unheard of.
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‘Since the December outbreak of PSCs [polar stratospheric clouds], which ended around Christmas, the polar stratosphere has warmed more than 30 degrees Celsius.’

Mind the Gaps: How the UN Climate Plan Fails to Follow the Science

Image credit: livescience.com

That old nebulous concept is invoked again: ‘the science’. It aims to sound like infallible authority, but that’s not what real science is. Talk of “uncharted territory” reminds us that most of Earth’s climate history also falls into that category. Made-up temperature limits based on the use of global averaging have little meaning in reality, as some politicians appear to have noticed.
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Climate negotiators meeting in Dubai last month pledged to chart a course for stabilizing the climate system using good science, says Fred Pearce at Yale Environment360.

But many scientists say these promises are at best ill-defined and at worst a travesty of good science — vague and full of loopholes.

The U.N. climate conference in Dubai agreed on an action plan for two key objectives: to keep the world on track to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F), and to stay below this threshold by achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Negotiators pledged that both objectives would be pursued “in keeping with the science.”

But neither of the objectives have agreed definitions that would allow a judgment on whether they have been achieved.

Swedish snow chaos leaves 1,000 vehicles trapped on main Euro route as temperatures fall as low as -43°C

A chance to counterbalance a few of the ‘rapid warming’/’boiling planet’ summer outbursts of climate obsessives. The BBC says a weather station in northern Sweden recorded its coldest night (-43.6C) for 25 years, i.e. since 1979 when satellite weather data became widely available.
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People who got trapped in 1,000 vehicles in heavy snow for more than 24 hours have been evacuated, Swedish authorities say.

Rescuers worked through the night to free people stuck on the main E22 road in the Skane area of southern Sweden, reports BBC News.

Many of those trapped were evacuated by rescue teams and told to return to their cars later.

The travel chaos occurred amid plummeting winter temperatures across the Nordic countries.

Sky News called out on air for arguing ‘both sides’ on climate change

Sceptic of human-caused climate disturbance theories painted as a right-wing pantomime villain by ‘how dare they’ activist type. Seeking as usual to avoid true debate, e.g. on the repeated failure of alarmist predictions, by resorting to irrelevant caricatures. The fact Sky News invited a sceptic at all suggests awareness that ignoring them has not worked, and the public is by no means all on board with media propaganda.
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SKY News has been criticised for arguing “both sides” on climate change after the Met Office said 2023 had been the second warmest year for the UK since records began in 1884, reports The National (Scotland).

In a segment on the news, presenter Kay Burley spoke to writer James Woudhuysen and activist Zoe Cohen from Just Stop Oil about the issue.

Cohen used her time on air to rip into bosses at Sky for platforming Woudhuysen, who questioned whether the statistics from the Met Office were accurate, claiming they were “very difficult to believe”.

Researchers use new 3D global climate model to test runaway greenhouse theory, with odd results

We quote the last part of this Phys.org article, headed: ‘A planet Earth in a fragile equilibrium.’ Somehow the model finds that once the oceans have eventually evaporated ‘we would even reach 273 bars of surface pressure and over 1,500°C’. This seems a bit unlikely on the face of it as it’s three times the surface pressure, and temperature [note the link between those two] of Venus despite being nearly 40% further away from the Sun. We note that it’s not unheard of for climate models to over-predict temperature effects.
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Talkshop note – the article earlier states:
One of the key points of the study describes the appearance of a very peculiar cloud pattern, increasing the runaway effect, and making the process irreversible. “From the start of the transition, we can observe some very dense clouds developing in the high atmosphere. Actually, the latter does not display anymore the temperature inversion characteristic of the Earth atmosphere and separating its two main layers: the troposphere and the stratosphere. The structure of the atmosphere is deeply altered,” says Chaverot.
. . .
A planet Earth in a fragile equilibrium.

With their new climate models, the scientists have calculated that a very small increase of the solar irradiation—leading to an increase of the global Earth temperature, of only a few tens of degrees—would be enough to trigger this irreversible runaway process on Earth and make our planet as inhospitable as Venus.