New discovery reveals that ocean algae ‘unexpectedly’ help cool the Earth

A compound found in algae can have a significant role in cloud formation, and is said to be ‘a major source of climate-cooling gases’. A study author suggests a ‘need to rethink’ what the climate impacts are.
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A common type of ocean algae plays a significant role in producing a massively abundant compound that helps cool the Earth’s climate, new research has discovered.

The findings of the study by the University of East Anglia (UEA) and Ocean University of China (OUC) could change our understanding of how these tiny marine organisms impact our planet, says Phys.org.

The work appears in Nature Microbiology.

Why is June so cold and when will it warm up? Wind direction as usual

When the weather systems reaching the UK are coming from the northerly Icelandic direction instead of from the sub-tropical Azores, no prizes for guessing what happens next. While the UK searches for any signs of summer, Eastern Europe has a heatwave. Sky decides to explain about the jet stream anyway, in case you overdosed on the media’s human-caused warming propaganda and thought you were entitled to expect warmer weather than what’s arriving now.
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June’s wet and grey weather does not feel particularly summery, so what is going on and, more importantly, when will it warm up?

Last month was the UK’s hottest May on record, as higher temperatures during the night and warm weather in Scotland pushed up the temperature to about one degree above average, says Sky News.

But just over a week into June, the mercury has dropped.

Shape and depth of ocean floor profoundly influence how carbon is stored there, study shows

It was found that in the current geologic era ‘researchers mistakenly attribute changes in carbon sequestration to other less certain factors, such as atmospheric CO2, water column temperature, and silicates and carbonates washed into the ocean by rivers’. They now say “we plan to use new simulations and models to better understand how differently shaped ocean floors will specifically affect the carbon cycle”. But what regulates what still has uncertainties.
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The movement of carbon between the atmosphere, oceans and continents—the carbon cycle—is a fundamental process that regulates Earth’s climate, claims Phys.org.

Some factors, like volcanic eruptions or human activity, emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Others, such as forests and oceans, absorb that CO2.
. . .
A new study finds that the shape and depth of the ocean floor explain up to 50% of the changes in depth at which carbon has been sequestered in the ocean over the past 80 million years.

NASA mission flies over Arctic to study sea ice melt causes – calling ‘settled science’ into question?

NASA says: “There are many different factors that influence the sea ice. We’re measuring them to determine which were most important to melting ice this summer.” Where does that leave so-called ‘state-of-the-art’ climate models? They’re only going to be measuring seasonal factors, not longer-term cycles for example, but it’s at least an attempt to look harder at the whole topic.
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It’s not just rising air and water temperatures influencing the decades-long decline of Arctic sea ice, says NASA (via Phys.org).

Clouds, aerosols, even the bumps and dips on the ice itself can play a role.

To explore how these factors interact and impact sea ice melting, NASA is flying two aircraft equipped with scientific instruments over the Arctic Ocean north of Greenland this summer.

Study: ‘Early aerial expedition photos reveal 85 years of glacier growth and stability in East Antarctica’

That’s the title of the study, looking at an area that ‘covers approximately 2000 kilometers of coastline and contains as much ice as the entire Greenland Ice Sheet.’ This article shouldn’t be relied on entirely due to obvious alarmist biases, so maybe better to read at least the abstract of the study for a clearer picture. For example [quote from the Discussion]: ‘This positive accumulation trend and positive mass balance is anticipated to persist as snowfall is expected to increase over the entire EAIS in the next century.’
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A whaler’s forgotten aerial photos from 1937 have given researchers at the University of Copenhagen the most detailed picture of the ice evolution in East Antarctica to date, says EurekAlert.

The results show that the ice has remained stable and even grown slightly over almost a century, though scientists observe early signs of weakening [Talkshop comment – a somewhat loose interpretation of the actual study].

The research offers new insights that enhance predictions of ice changes and sea level rise [Talkshop comment – climatist waffle, see the study].
. . .
Using hundreds of old aerial photographs dating back to 1937, combined with modern computer technology, the researchers have tracked the evolution of glaciers in East Antarctica. The area covers approximately 2000 kilometers of coastline and contains as much ice as the entire Greenland Ice Sheet.

By comparing the historical aerial photos with modern satellite data, the researchers have been able to determine whether the glaciers have retreated or advanced and whether they have thickened or thinned.

The study reveals that the ice has not only remained stable but grown slightly over the last 85 years, partly due to increasing snowfall.

“We constantly hear about climate change and new melt records, so it’s refreshing to observe an area of glaciers that has remained stable for almost a century,” says PhD student Mads Dømgaard, the study’s first author.

Full article here.
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Study: Early aerial expedition photos reveal 85 years of glacier growth and stability in East Antarctica (May 2024)

NOAA’s ‘record-breaking’ hurricane season forecast – heard it before?

The ‘average’ 2022 season was supposed to be a big one but not much happened until near the end of it. Any hurricane season prediction could turn out to be better than guesswork of course, but the current skill level of forecasters is debatable, perhaps coloured by alarmist expectations in some cases. Last week a Forbes article had the title: Climate Change, Though Quite Real, Isn’t Spawning More Hurricanes. (‘Quite real’ is an amusingly weak endorsement, one of the I-suppose-I-should-say-that variety as a nod to alarmist theory). Forbes: ‘are we seeing an ominous upward historical trend in the hazard posed by major Atlantic hurricanes? No.’
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More than two dozen hurricanes could be on their way this year, thanks to climate change [Talkshop comment – of course!] and La Niña, experts have forecast.

Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have made their highest-ever May forecast for an Atlantic hurricane season: 17 to 25 named storms, says LiveScience.

According to the forecast, 13 of these storms will be hurricanes, with winds of 74 mph (119 km/h) or higher, and four to seven will be major hurricanes, with winds of 111 mph (179 km/h) or higher.

Battle of the skies as airlines fight over impact of contrails on the climate

This report summary says ‘Vapour trails conundrum resurfaces’. Cloud formation plays an uncertain part in the debate, for example. An experiment using AI found that real time route selection could play a part in reducing the supposed ’emissions’ problem. Proposed financial penalties for airlines are inevitably resisted, but they’re up against net zero climate obsession.
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Airlines are usually rather good at presenting a united face to the world, particularly when it comes to lobbying global policymakers, says The Telegraph.

But a recent move by the EU to clampdown on so-called contrails, the vapour that spews from an aircraft’s jet engines in a thin cloud-like formation, has set carriers at each other’s throats.

The International Air Transport Association (Iata), which counts most of the world’s flag-carriers among its members, has lobbied Brussels to limit the mandatory monitoring of contrails to only flights within the bloc, in an effort to ease the burden of data collection.

But it has stoked the ire of low-cost operators including EasyJet and Ryanair.

Net zero CO2 emissions: A damaging and totally unnecessary goal – Roy Spencer explains why

We may not believe CO2 plays a big part in global atmospherics anyway, but even if it somehow does, the full story is not being told according to this information. Quote: ‘Even though the CO2 emissions continue, atmospheric CO2 levels start to fall around 2060.’
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The goal of reaching “net zero” global anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide sounds overwhelmingly difficult.

But that’s not true, because nature doesn’t work that way, says Dr.Roy Spencer (via Climate Change Dispatch).

While humanity continues producing CO2 at increasing rates (with a temporary pause during COVID), how can we ever reach the point where these emissions start to fall, let alone reach zero by 2050 or 2060?

What isn’t being discussed (as far as I can tell) is the fact that atmospheric CO2 levels (which we will assume for the sake of discussion causes global warming) will start to fall even while humanity is producing lots of CO2.

Photos of torrential Dubai flash floods show the downsides of trying to control the weather

The UAE’s cloud seeding operations worsened the Dubai flash floods according to this source. Would-be climate savers with grandiose schemes can take note.
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Summary:
— The United Arab Emirates experienced torrential rainfall and severe flash floods on Tuesday.
— The flooding was worsened by the UAE’s cloud seeding practice to address water scarcity.
— The weather modification method involves getting clouds to drop more precipitation.
* * *
Torrential rainfall pummeled the United Arab Emirates this week, resulting in flash floods that have caused air travel delays, closed schools, and deluged homes, says Business Insider.

Dubai International Airport — recently named the most luxurious airport in the world — was diverting planes as of Tuesday evening until the weather conditions improved, according to a statement.

Need for a rethink of ‘the critical role’ of atmospheric dust in Earth’s climate

It seems ‘classical dust cycle models have over-estimated the amount of dust emission.’ This in turn affects the results from climate models, which ‘have only been providing a fraction of the story’. This ‘has significant implications’ for reconstructions of past climate.
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You may think of dust as an annoyance to be vacuumed and disposed of, but actually, on a grander scale, it is far more important than most people realize, says Phys.org.

Globally, dust plays a critical role in regulating our climate, radiation balance, nutrient cycles, soil formation, air quality and even human health.

But our understanding of it has been hampered by limitations in current mathematical models. These models, built on methods developed decades ago, struggle to accurately simulate the properties and quantities of dust.

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.

Flying laboratory measuring cloud chemistry above Australia aims to improve climate model predictions

The German scientists are engaged in an ongoing project intended to help refine climate modelling. One sums up their approach: “To predict it, we really need to understand it.” But ideally that understanding, if or when it occurs, should have preceded many of the dire claims already put forward that the global climate is going downhill due to human activities. Such biases could be a hindrance to research.
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A team of German scientists have been circling the skies above northern Australia and the Pacific Ocean in a high-tech research aircraft studying the atmospheric chemistry occurring above the clouds, says ABC News.

The Chemistry of the Atmosphere: Field Experiment (CAFE) team has tracked weather events and taken samples and measurements up to 15 kilometres above sea level.

Professor Mira Pöhlker from the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research and Max Planck Institute for Chemistry said the team’s research would help refine weather and climate models leading to better forecasts and projections.

Is tree planting overrated as a climate benefit? Researchers think so

Nature’s carbon cycle carries on regardless.
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Roughly a third of the climate cooling that forests achieve by removing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere is offset through changes to atmospheric composition and decreased surface reflectivity, researchers report.

The findings suggest that the benefits of wide-scale forestation efforts may be overestimated and do not represent a single solution for addressing climate change, says EurekAlert.

They also highlight the urgency of simultaneously focusing on emissions reductions. Planting trees has been widely promoted as a nature-based solution to remove anthropogenic CO2 from the atmosphere to help mitigate ongoing climate warming.

However, wide-scale forest expansion may drive feedbacks within the Earth system that lead to warming.

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.

Clouds disappear quickly during a solar eclipse, shows study – ‘a warning for climate engineering’

The research, titled ‘Clouds dissipate quickly during solar eclipses as the land surface cools’, suggests interfering with solar radiation to try and weaken natural warming would be even riskier than previously thought.
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Cumulus clouds over land start to disappear almost instantly during a partial solar eclipse, says Phys.org.

Until recently, satellite measurements during the eclipse resulted in dark spots in the cloud map, but researchers from TU Delft and KNMI were able to recover the satellite measurements by using a new method.

The results may have implications for proposed climate engineering ideas because disappearing clouds can partly oppose the cooling effect of artificial solar eclipses.

El Niño fading, ‘good chance’ of La Niña to follow says atmospheric physicist

Natural phenomena dictating weather patterns. The El Niño of 2023-24 is described as ‘strange’, possibly due to some extent to the Tonga undersea volcanic eruption of 2022.
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Wild weather has been roiling North America for the past few months, thanks in part to a strong El Niño that sent temperatures surging in 2023, says The Conversation (via Phys.org).

The climate phenomenon fed atmospheric rivers drenching the West Coast and contributed to summer’s extreme heat in the South and Midwest and fall’s wet storms across the East.

That strong El Niño is now starting to weaken and will likely be gone by late spring 2024.

Dose of engineering reality needed to counter climate obsessions

Using ‘Green Energy’ To Wreck Our Way Of Life

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Talkshop comment:
Playing the expensive renewable energy game isn’t an option for the majority of ‘non-wealthy’ countries anyway, regardless of promoters of climate alarm. China for example forges ahead with dozens of new coal mines every year to help keep its growing economy functioning, while countries like Britain attempt to survive without any. Somebody has it wrong and it’s not going to be China.

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.

Aircraft observations show northern tropical Africa is not the large source of CO2 that satellite data ‘suggested’

This must put a dent in the credibility of at least some supposedly climate-related satellite data. On the positive side, a significant chunk of the alleged global carbon dioxide problem disappears, as the carbon cycle of a large region turns out to be self-balancing. The CO2 struck off, so to speak, is ‘equivalent to about 10% of annual emissions from the burning of fossil fuels’.
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The forests and grasslands of northern tropical Africa take in about as much carbon dioxide in the wet season as they release in the dry season, according to a new study based on observations from aircraft.

The findings contradict earlier research that relied on satellite data and found that these ecosystems may be adding significantly more carbon to the atmosphere than they absorb over the course of a year, says Phys.org.

The research, published in the journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles, highlights the difficulty of measuring carbon dioxide from space and the need for more frequent and robust observations from both the air and ground.

Study finds oceanic carbon cycle still works for carbon dioxide uptake

The ocean carbon cycle [credit: IAEA]

Of course it does, but there seems a hint of surprise in the findings. It’s long been known that colder water absorbs more atmospheric CO2, just as warmer water absorbs less. Anyone familiar with fizzy drinks knows the story, or ought to. The article here announces that ‘the oceans present vast and promising potential for storing carbon dioxide’. Surely this is not regarded as news? As for potential, it’s always happened.
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The recent cold spell has plunged South Korea into a deep freeze, resulting in the closure of 247 national parks, the cancellation of 14 domestic flights, and the scrapping of 107 cruise ship voyages, says Phys.org.

While the cold snap brought relief by significantly reducing the prevalence of particulate matter obscuring our surroundings, a recent study indicates that, besides diminishing particulate matter, it significantly contributes to the heightened uptake of carbon dioxide by the East Sea.

According to research conducted by a team of researchers, including Professor Kitack Lee from the Division of Environmental Science & Engineering at Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) and Professor Tongsup Lee and So-Yun Kim from the Department of Oceanography at Pusan National University, the cold atmosphere in the Arctic is influencing the absorption of carbon dioxide by the East Sea.