Day: November 18, 2023

The Global South (and China) Say Nyet to Net Zero

From CFACT

Like the “voice crying in the wilderness,” German Finance Minister Christian Lindner this week left Green Party activists and others enamored by the green religion gnashing their teeth.

“Until it is clear,” said Lindner, “that energy is available and affordable, we should end dreams of phasing out electricity from coal in 2030. Now is not the time to shut down power plants.”

Lindner also urged Germans to expand domestic production of natural gas as well as the production of renewable energies. Germany’s cost for electricity has doubled in the past 20 years, such that the nation now pays some of the world’s highest prices to turn on the lights.

Over in London, British purists are set to celebrate the long-anticipated end to all use of coal for electricity by next October, a year ahead of earlier schedules. Already, there is very little coal being delivered to or from Newcastle.

British electricity prices have soared in recent years, with the average net selling value (pence per kilowatt-hour) to all consumers (scaled to 1990 GDP) rising from 2.28 pence in 2000 to 12.43 pence in 2021 and 21.77 pence during the energy crisis in 2022.

Meanwhile, in the U.S., President Biden (or those who may really be in charge) continues to rail against not just coal, but oil and gas, as if generating electricity and fueling motor vehicles were the only uses America has for those “fossil fuels.” Electricity prices in the U.S. vary widely from state to state but overall have risen at rates above the inflation rate during the 21st Century.

Biden’s EPA has threatened to dismantle 60 percent of the U.S. power supply nearly overnight. The U.S. coal fleet is facing six rules designed to work in unison to accelerate plant closures. Biden’s Clean Power Plan 2.0 has even his own Federal Energy Regulatory Commission chairman, Willie Phillips, saying, “I am extremely concerned about the pace of retirements we are seeing of generators which are needed for reliability.”

The Biden Administration is also spending U.S. tax dollars to bribe other nations to cut their use of coal. Last November, Indonesian President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) accepted a $20 billion commitment by the Biden White House via a “just energy transition partnership” toward a goal of capping carbon dioxide releases from its electricity sector at 290 megatons by 2030.

The JETP says it will cost $600 billion to wean Indonesia from coal by 2050 – five years earlier than its previous proposal. Indonesia, with 25 billion tons of coal reserves (11th largest in the world), is today the world’s fifth largest coal producer, using about 100 million tons domestically and sending 400 million tons abroad. Don’t bet on Indonesia to quit coal soon.

In India, by contrast, the coal ministry just announced plans to increase the nation’s coal production to 1.404 billion tonnes by 2027, with an eye to further increase production to 1.577 billion tonnes by 2030. That’s a big jump from current production totals of 1.0 billion tonnes.

Currently, coal-fired power plants in India are using about 821 million tonnes per year, but the ministry is anticipating major growth in coal demand in the coming years. To meet demand, the ministry is planning to open new coal mines, expand existing mine capacities, and better utilize captive and commercial mines.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, with whom the coal-hating President Biden is meeting this week, in April 2021 pledged to “strictly control coal-fired power generation projects” in China – with his fingers crossed. In the real world (not the green fantasy world), the Chinese government continues to grow the nation’s coal industry.

In the two years prior to Xi’s pledge, China approved 127 coal plants with a combined capacity of 54 gigawatts. Since the pledge, that number has risen to 182 plants with 131 gigawatts of coal power. The upshot – China has over-doubled its new coal power capacity while the U.S. and European nations have shrunk theirs.

Irish journalist Thomas O’Reilly predicts that “the growing divide” between the West, China, and the Global South will be a hot topic at the upcoming UN Climate Conference (COP 28) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

The self-named “High Ambition Coalition” of European Union member states and the United Kingdom is expected to push for a global commitment to phase out new coal production worldwide despite its being the fuel of choice in much of Asia and the developing world. [Coal is plentiful and affordable, qualities critical for energy development in poor nations.]

The representatives of rich, mostly former colonial, nations want to force other nations to adopt more aggressive climate goals. They flatly oppose the use of carbon capture technologies by developing nations, one way these nations try to appease the ravenous West’s demands for obedience to their diktats.

A more likely outcome at Dubai is that China will lead its own coalition of coal-using and coal-producing nations to tell the Europeans (and Biden Democrats) to pound sand.

China, along with India, Russia (which is also ramping up coal production, even in heavily snow-covered Elga, Siberia), and South Africa (the world’s fifth largest coal producer), are bonded together in the BRICS bloc.  Even founding member Brazil is the world’s 25th largest coal user – but its coal reserves are the world’s 15th largest.

BRICS just added six countries – Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE (host to COP 28) to its membership. None of these nations appears eager to kowtow to the EU or U.S. The harder the West stamps its Rumpelstiltskin-like feet, the less likely Net Zero will remain a global vision. The world wants and needs more energy and will not let the decadent West dictate just what energy is “acceptable” and what is not.

But the West, too, would do well to abandon the “impossible dream” of decarbonization of a society comprised of carbon units (humans).

Emeritus British engineering professor Michael Kelly says while, technologically, the West MIGHT achieve Net Zero with a vast fleet of wind farms and a gigantic store of green hydrogen, barring a series of dramatic technological breakthroughs the costs of getting there would make Britain’s recent energy price crisis “look like nothing.”

With China, India, and much of the developing world saying “Nyet to Net Zero,” maybe it is time for the “virtuous” coalition (the West) to put a stop to its own wishful thinking.

This article originally appeared at Townhall

A bad recipe for science

From Climate Etc.

by Judith Curry

Politically-motivated manufacture of scientific consensus corrupts the scientific process and leads to poor policy decisions

An essay with excerpts from my new book Climate Uncertainty and Risk.

In the 21st century, humankind is facing a myriad of complex societal problems that are characterized by deep uncertainties, systemic risks and disagreements about values. Climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic are prominent examples of such wicked problems. For such problems, the relevant science has become increasingly like litigation, where truth seeking has become secondary to politics and advocacy on behalf of a preferred policy solution.

How does politics influence the scientific process for societally relevant issues? Political bias influences research funding priorities, the scientific questions that are asked, how the findings are interpreted, what is cited, and what gets canonized.  Factual statements are filtered in assessment reports and by the media with an eye to downstream political use.

How does politics influence the behavior of scientists? There is pressure on scientists to support consensus positions, moral objectives and the relevant policies.  This pressure comes from universities and professional societies, scientists themselves who are activists, journalists and from federal funding agencies in terms of research funding priorities. Because evaluations by one’s colleagues are so central to success in academia, it is easy to induce fear of social sanctions for expressing the ideas that, though not necessarily shown to be factually or scientifically wrong, are widely unpopular.

Activist scientists use their privileged position to advance moral and political agendas. This political activism extends to the professional societies that publish journals and organize conferences. This activism has a gatekeeping effect on what gets published, who gets heard at conferences, and who receives professional recognition. Virtually all professional societies whose membership has any link to climate research have issued policy statements on climate change, urging action to eliminate fossil fuel emissions.

The most pernicious manifestation of the politicization of science is when politicians, advocacy groups, journalists, and activist scientists intimidate or otherwise attempt to silence scientists whose research is judged to interfere with their moral and political agendas.

Speaking consensus to power

A critical strategy in the politicization of science is the manufacture of a scientific consensus on politically important topics, such as climate change and Covid-19.  The UN climate consensus is used as an appeal to authority in the representation of scientific results as the basis for urgent policy making.  In effect, the UN has adopted a “speaking consensus to power” approach that sees uncertainty and dissent as problematic and attempts to mediate these into a consensus. The consensus-to-power strategy reflects a specific vision of how politics deals with scientific uncertainties.

There is a key difference between a “scientific consensus” and a “consensus of scientists.” When there is true scientific certainty, such as the earth orbiting the sun, we don’t need to talk about consensus. By contrast, a “consensus of scientists” represents a deliberate expression of collective judgment by a group of scientists, often at the official request of a government.

Institutionalized consensus building promotes groupthink, acting to confirm the consensus in a self-reinforcing way. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has worked for the past 40 years to establish a scientific consensus on human-caused climate change.  As such, the IPCC consensus is a “manufactured consensus” arising from an intentional consensus building process. The IPCC consensus has become canonized socially through a political process, bypassing the long and complex scientific validation process as to whether the conclusions are actually true.

The flip side of a manufactured consensus is “denial.” Questioning the climate change narrative has become the ultimate form of heresy in the 21st century.  Virtually all academic climate scientists are within the so-called 97 percent consensus regarding the existence of a human impact on warming of the Earth’s climate. Which scientists are ostracized and labeled as deniers? Independent thinkers, who are not supportive of the IPCC consensus, are suspect. Any criticism of the IPCC can lead to ostracism. Failure to advocate for CO2 mitigation policies leads to suspicion. Even a preference for nuclear power over wind and solar power will get you called a denier. The most reliable way to get labeled as a denier is to associate in any way with so-called enemies of the climate consensus and their preferred policies—petroleum companies, conservative think tanks, or even the “wrong” political party.

Covid-19 provides a very interesting example of a manufactured consensus.  The consensus that COVID-19 had an entirely natural origin was established by two op-eds in early 2020—The Lancet in February and Nature Medicine in March. The Lancet op-ed stated, “We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin.” The pronouncements in these op-eds effectively shut down inquiry into a possible origin as a leak from a laboratory in Wuhan. Articles in the mainstream press repeatedly stated that a consensus of experts had ruled lab escape to be out of the question or extremely unlikely.

The enormous gap between the actual state of knowledge in early 2020 and the confidence displayed in the two op-eds should have been obvious to anyone in the field of virology, or for that matter anyone with critical faculties. There were scientists from adjacent fields who said as much. The consensus wasn’t overturned until May 2021 with the publication of a lengthy article in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists that identified conflict of interests in the scientists writing the Lancet letter in hiding any links with the Wuhan lab. This article triggered a cascade of defections from scientists – the fake consensus was no longer enforceable.

What is concerning about this episode is not so much that a consensus was overturned, but that a fake consensus was so easily enforced for more than a year. A few scientists spoke up, but they were aggressively cancelled from social media. The vast majority of scientists who understood that there was a great deal of uncertainty surrounding the origins of the virus did not speak up. It was becoming increasingly clear that any virologist who challenged the community’s declared views risked being labeled as a heretic, being canceled on social media, and having their next grant application turned down by the panel of fellow virologists that advises the government grant distribution agency.  The ugly politics behind this fake consensus are only now being revealed.

Political and moral biases in a manufactured consensus can lead to widely accepted claims that reflect the scientific community’s blind spots more than they reflect justified scientific conclusions.  A manufactured consensus hampers scientific progress because of the questions that do not get asked and the investigations that are not undertaken.  Further, consensus enforcement interferes with the self-correcting nature of science via skepticism, which is a foundation of the scientific process.

Broken contract between science and policy makers

Speaking consensus to power acts to conceal uncertainties, ambiguities, dissent, and ignorance behind a scientific consensus. Greater openness about scientific uncertainties and ignorance, plus more transparency about dissent and disagreement, is needed provide policymakers with a more complete picture of policy-relevant science and its limitations.

A manufactured consensus arises from oversimplification of the problem, which leads to restricting the policy solution space and mistaken ideas that the problem can be controlled.

A manufactured consensus on a complex, wicked problem such as climate change or Covid-19 leads to the naivete of thinking that these are simple risks, and the hubris of thinking that we can control the risk.  Even beyond the technical issues, greater realism is needed about the uncertainties and politics underpinning the pursuit of control for wicked societal problems.

The pandemic illustrates that our tools for acting on a complex global problem—experts, precise scientific metrics, computer models, enforced restrictions— have resulted in much less than the desired quality of control. The global energy transition and worldwide transformations to sustainability are far more challenging than the global COVID-19 pandemic. The modernist paradigm of mastery, planning, and optimization is not appropriate for the wicked problems of the twenty-first century.

As a consequence of the exaggerated sense of knowledge and control surrounding climate and Covid-19 policies, some highly uncertain issues that should remain open for political debate are ignored in policy making. Premature foreclosure of scientific uncertainties and failure to consider ambiguities associated with wicked problems such as climate change and pandemics results in an invisible form of oppression that forecloses possible futures.

With regards to climate change, what is going on represents more than politically motivated consensus enforcement and cancel culture. Climate change has become a secular religion, rife with dogma, heretics and moral-tribal communities. The secular religion of climate change raises concerns that are far more fundamental than the risks of bad policy.  At risk is the fundamental virtues of the Scientific Revolution and the freedom to question authority.

The road ahead requires moving away from the consensus-enforcing and cancel culture approach of restricting dialogue surrounding complex societal issues such as climate change. We need to open up space for dissent and disagreement.  By acknowledging scientific uncertainties in the context of better risk management and decision- making frameworks, in combination with techno-optimism, there is a broad path forward for humanity to thrive in the twenty-first century and beyond.

This article includes excerpts from my new book, Climate Uncertainty and Risk.

CLIMATE DATA REFUTES CRISIS NARRATIVE: ‘If you concede the science, & only challenge the policies…You’re going to lose’

Edward Ring: “If you concede the science, and only challenge the policies that a biased and politicized scientific narrative is being used to justify, you’re already playing defense in your own red zone. You’re going to lose the game. Who cares if we have to enslave humanity? Our alternative is certain death from global boiling! You can’t win that argument. You must challenge the science…”

From Climate Depot

By Marc Morano

Climate Data Refutes Crisis Narrative

By EDWARD RING

On September 16, with great fanfare, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced his office had filed a lawsuit against five major oil companies. Accusing them of knowingly misleading the public regarding the alleged harm that fossil fuels would inflict on the climate, Bonta’s office seeks billions in compensatory damages. But the climate change theory that Bonta’s case relies on must ultimately be validated by observational data. And the data does not support the theory.

Suing oil companies is becoming big business. Along with California, state and local government climate change lawsuits against the fossil fuel industry have been filed in Oregon, Colorado, Minnesota, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, South Carolina, and Hawaii. Alleging these companies have directly caused global warming and extreme weather, they seek damages for consumer fraud, public nuisance, negligence, racketeering, erosion, flooding and fires.

These cases will take years to resolve, and even in victory, will cost oil companies hundreds of millions (or more) in legal fees, costs that will be passed on to consumers. The plaintiffs were handed a huge advantage in 2007 in the Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency case, when the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5 to 4 ruling, gave the EPA authority to declare CO2 a dangerous pollutant. In 2009, the EPA did just that, paving the way for litigation.

It’s no certainty the oil industry will aggressively fight these lawsuits. If a broad settlement can be reached, that is probably their preference. Not only will a settlement avoid bad publicity, there is scant economic motive for oil companies to challenge the alleged consensus on climate change. As regulations, restrictions, and litigation disrupts oil and gas development, demand outpaces supply and prices go up much faster than production costs. A rational choice by oil and gas executives would be to collect market-driven record revenues and split the windfall profits with the government. That is a lot less messy.

That’s also a shame. By sidestepping the question of whether CO2 is indeed a dangerous pollutant, and instead leaving that decision up to a politicized EPA, the U.S. Supreme Court in the Massachusetts v. EPA case issued a deeply flawed ruling. Without CO2, life on earth as we know it would not exist. CO2 is plant food, and without it, plants die. There is evidence that more atmospheric CO2 would have a primarily beneficial impact on planetary ecosystem health. If oil and gas companies defended themselves on this basis, they might take a case all the way to the Supreme Court and force a reversal of Massachusetts v. EPA.

An aggressive defense against Bonta’s lawsuit by Exxon Mobil, Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips,, BP, and the American Petroleum Institute would attack the core premise of the plaintiffs, the alleged evidence of global warming and extreme weather. Because what is being presented as “evidence” supporting a climate “crisis” is consistently misleading and often outright fraudulent.

Earlier this month in Orange County, California, at an event attended by water industry executives, a debate between two climate experts offered a revealing look into the tactics and the mentality of the climate alarmists, as well as the beleaguered integrity of climatologists still willing to challenge the narrative.

In a session with the unsubtle name “Is it fair to blame climate change for everything?,” two very divergent points of view were on display. To represent the alarmist perspective, a professor from a world-famous university – who shall remain anonymous – presented a series of maps of the U.S., with a specific focus on the Southwest and on California. The maps depicted “before climate change” and “after climate change” scenarios, using the now familiar technique of benign blue and green overlays in areas with normal cool temperatures, and scary orange and red overlays in areas suffering alarming heat. Predictably enough, without delving into the details, the “after climate change” maps were a sea of red and orange.

The only thing about this presentation that was certain was the certainty of the presenter. We are in a climate crisis, human activity has caused this crisis, and “the evidence is overwhelming.” We only later learned that the maps being displayed weren’t based on actual temperature observations, but had been produced by a computer simulation.

After this first presenter finished, Dr. John R. Christy stepped up to offer a different conclusion. With a Ph.D in Atmospheric Science and currently serving as the Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science and Director of the Earth System Science Center at The University of Alabama, Christy is eminently qualified to share his views on our climate future. As a native of California, Christy assured the audience that he has been giving that state special attention his entire life. He then presented a series of slides that unequivocally contradict what we hear every day. California, to say nothing of the rest of the world, is not experiencing rapid warming, nor is it experiencing unusually violent weather.

Christy’s message might be summarized as follows: There may be some warming occurring over the past century in California, but it is not extreme, nor is it accompanied by unusually severe anything: droughts, extreme wildfires, heavy rainfall, diminished snowpacks, reduced river volumes, or drier air. Readers are encouraged to scroll through Christy’s charts, which are reposted (with permission) following this text.

The data that Dr. Christy used in his presentation did not come from hypothetical climate models, but were compiled from actual climate and weather observations gathered by weather stations and satellites and extracted from databases maintained by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and other internationally recognized official sources.

If you haven’t heard of John R. Christy despite him being one of the preeminent climate scientists in the world, that’s no accident. Along with Dr. Richard Lindzen, Dr. Judith Curry, and hundreds of others, his work is marginalized and his press and online coverage is either nonexistent or negative. Back in 2019, back when President Trump’s regulatory reforms had the climate industrial complex fearing for its life, Dr. Curry published an expose of what she dubbed “consensus enforcement.” In it, she described how the world’s most prestigious climate journals were yielding to pressure – mostly supported by their own editorial management – to refuse to publish anything by climate “contrarians.”

As we know, suppression of unwanted facts and analysis regardless of credibility or intent is not restricted to climate contrarians. In March 2023, Michael Shellenberger – once honored in 2008 as a Time Magazine “Hero of the Environment,” testified before the U.S. Congress on what many have joined him in calling the “Censorship Industrial Complex,” a coalition of corporate special interests, government agencies, and major online platforms that smothers honest dialog on topics of urgent national importance.

Attempting to compile information on climate that doesn’t support a crisis narrative is demonstrably challenging, as anyone attempting to use a mainstream search engine will quickly attest. For every analysis or declaration that may exist, claiming there is not a climate crisis, search engines will offer a page full of reports debunking the analysis and discrediting the source. Often it is almost impossible to even find a link to the analysis or the declaration itself. The World Climate Declaration, a petition signed (so far) by more than 1,800 experts who assert there is no climate emergency, is an example of a suppressed and unfairly stigmatized document. But with or without great numbers, the presence of scientists like Christy, Lindzen, Curry, and many others with extraordinary credentials who make this claim should put to rest the notion that the science is settled. Science is not a democracy. It is a search for truth through trial and error.

One of the saddest examples of suppression is the reluctance of conservative editors to challenge the scientific arguments used to support the climate crisis narrative. An article I recently wrote for American Spectator, “California AG Sues Big Oil for Telling the Truth About Fossil Fuels,” was refused by two conservative publications that have frequently accepted my work. Both of them have significant reach and credibility among mainstream conservatives. Rather than identify them, which is not necessary to make the point, here are verbatim excerpts from the rejection emails I received from each editor:

“We’ll pass on this, but thanks for showing it in. On the question of climate change, there’s no editorial line, but I tend to be uneasy about publishing anything directly on the science (mainly because I am not a scientist). Much more interesting to me is how climate policy is being abused (SEC, Fed) and how much of it makes no sense even by its own lights.”

And,

“Ed—we generally avoid getting too deeply into climate science, as it is very hard for me to judge. That is different than the economic trade-offs, absurd mandates, the unavoidability of fossil fuel energy to meet the needs of a growing, ever-more technology-driven society, etc. So I think we should pass on this one, as it does contain some strong climate claims…”

Got that? “Because I’m not a scientist,” and “it is very hard for me to judge.”

But that does not stop any of the crisis mongers. Is Rob Bonta a scientist? Gavin Newsom? Joe Biden? Al Gore? Greta Thunberg? How many of the in-house editors at the Los Angeles Times are scientists, much less climate scientists? But none of these people have any reluctance to hector us with their opinions, often not even derived from those climate scientists who are part of the “consensus,” but lifted from other pundits who got their material directly from press releases that featured cherry picked “impactful” nuggets taken from abstracts and summaries which in turn were exaggerations and misrepresentations of studies that even in their totality were paid for, inherently biased exercises.

If being a scientist is not a requirement for being a climate alarmist, it should not be a requirement for anyone skeptical of climate alarmism. Our capacity as intelligent non-scientists to assess competing scientific analysis may be limited, but no more so than the Bontas, Newsoms, Bidens, Gores, and Thunbergs of the world. And it isn’t hard to see an agenda at work, when every time the climate so much as hiccoughs, every mainstream news source in the world is regurgitating precisely the same terrifying soundbites and images, and repeating the same phrases and admonitions over and over and over again. Confronting such obvious and coordinated propaganda should raise skepticism in anyone with common sense and a sense of history.

If you concede the science, and only challenge the policies that a biased and politicized scientific narrative is being used to justify, you’re already playing defense in your own red zone. You’re going to lose the game. Who cares if we have to enslave humanity? Our alternative is certain death from global boiling! You can’t win that argument. You must challenge the science, and you can, because scientists like John Christy and others are still available.

The following charts were presented by Dr. Christy on October 13 at a conference in Southern California:

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This article originally appeared in American Greatness.

Edward Ring: “If you concede the science, and only challenge the policies that a biased and politicized scientific narrative is being used to justify, you’re already playing defense in your own red zone. You’re going to lose the game. Who cares if we have to enslave humanity? Our alternative is certain death from global boiling! You can’t win that argument. You must challenge the science…”

UAH: Amazing Air Warming Spike October 2023

From Science Matters

By Ron Clutz

The post below updates the UAH record of air temperatures over land and ocean. Each month and year exposed again the growing disconnect between the real world and the Zero Carbon zealots.  It is as though the anti-hydrocarbon band wagon hopes to drown out the data contradicting their justification for the Great Energy Transition.  Yes, there is warming from an El Nino buildup coincidental with North Atlantic warming, but no basis to blame it on CO2.  

As an overview consider how recent rapid cooling  completely overcame the warming from the last 3 El Ninos (1998, 2010 and 2016).  The UAH record shows that the effects of the last one were gone as of April 2021, again in November 2021, and in February and June 2022  At year end 2022 and continuing into 2023 global temp anomaly matched or went lower than average since 1995, an ENSO neutral year. (UAH baseline is now 1991-2020).

For reference I added an overlay of CO2 annual concentrations as measured at Mauna Loa.  While temperatures fluctuated up and down ending flat, CO2 went up steadily by ~60 ppm, a 15% increase.

Furthermore, going back to previous warmings prior to the satellite record shows that the entire rise of 0.8C since 1947 is due to oceanic, not human activity.

The animation is an update of a previous analysis from Dr. Murry Salby.  These graphs use Hadcrut4 and include the 2016 El Nino warming event.  The exhibit shows since 1947 GMT warmed by 0.8 C, from 13.9 to 14.7, as estimated by Hadcrut4.  This resulted from three natural warming events involving ocean cycles. The most recent rise 2013-16 lifted temperatures by 0.2C.  Previously the 1997-98 El Nino produced a plateau increase of 0.4C.  Before that, a rise from 1977-81 added 0.2C to start the warming since 1947.

Importantly, the theory of human-caused global warming asserts that increasing CO2 in the atmosphere changes the baseline and causes systemic warming in our climate.  On the contrary, all of the warming since 1947 was episodic, coming from three brief events associated with oceanic cycles. And now in 2023 we are seeing an amazing episode with a temperature spike driven by ocean air warming along with higher land air temps.

Update August 3, 2021

Chris Schoeneveld has produced a similar graph to the animation above, with a temperature series combining HadCRUT4 and UAH6. H/T WUWT

See Also Worst Threat: Greenhouse Gas or Quiet Sun?

October 2023 Update New Warming Spike Led by Tropics High

With apologies to Paul Revere, this post is on the lookout for cooler weather with an eye on both the Land and the Sea.  While you will hear a lot about 2020-21 temperatures matching 2016 as the highest ever, that spin ignores how fast the cooling set in.  The UAH data analyzed below shows that warming from the last El Nino had fully dissipated with chilly temperatures in all regions. After a warming blip in 2022, land and ocean temps dropped again with 2023 starting below the mean since 1995.  Spring and Summer 2023 saw a series of warmings.  Now in October a new high resulted from a major rise in ocean air temps in all regions, along with higher land air temps in NH and Tropics. 

UAH has updated their tlt (temperatures in lower troposphere) dataset for October 2023. Posts on their reading of ocean air temps this month preceded updated records from HadSST4.  I last posted on SSTs using HadSST4 September 2023 Ocean Warming Crests, Solar Coincidence? This month also has a separate graph of land air temps because the comparisons and contrasts are interesting as we contemplate possible cooling in coming months and years. Sometimes air temps over land diverge from ocean air changes.  For example in October 2023, a new warming high was driven by ocean air temps despite SH land temps dropping back down. The Tropics and NH showed warming in both land and sea air.

In October, as shown later on, Global ocean air reached a record high peak with all regions warming, especially Tropics. Land air temps rose in NH and Tropics, with a SH dropping down.   Thus the land + ocean Global UAH temperature is now exceeding the 2016 peak.

Note:  UAH has shifted their baseline from 1981-2010 to 1991-2020 beginning with January 2021.  In the charts below, the trends and fluctuations remain the same but the anomaly values change with the baseline reference shift.

Presently sea surface temperatures (SST) are the best available indicator of heat content gained or lost from earth’s climate system.  Enthalpy is the thermodynamic term for total heat content in a system, and humidity differences in air parcels affect enthalpy.  Measuring water temperature directly avoids distorted impressions from air measurements.  In addition, ocean covers 71% of the planet surface and thus dominates surface temperature estimates.  Eventually we will likely have reliable means of recording water temperatures at depth.

Recently, Dr. Ole Humlum reported from his research that air temperatures lag 2-3 months behind changes in SST.  Thus the cooling oceans now portend cooling land air temperatures to follow.  He also observed that changes in CO2 atmospheric concentrations lag behind SST by 11-12 months.  This latter point is addressed in a previous post Who to Blame for Rising CO2?

After a change in priorities, updates are now exclusive to HadSST4.  For comparison we can also look at lower troposphere temperatures (TLT) from UAHv6 which are now posted for September.  The temperature record is derived from microwave sounding units (MSU) on board satellites like the one pictured above. Recently there was a change in UAH processing of satellite drift corrections, including dropping one platform which can no longer be corrected. The graphs below are taken from the revised and current dataset.

The UAH dataset includes temperature results for air above the oceans, and thus should be most comparable to the SSTs. There is the additional feature that ocean air temps avoid Urban Heat Islands (UHI).  The graph below shows monthly anomalies for ocean air temps since January 2015.

Note 2020 was warmed mainly by a spike in February in all regions, and secondarily by an October spike in NH alone. In 2021, SH and the Tropics both pulled the Global anomaly down to a new low in April. Then SH and Tropics upward spikes, along with NH warming brought Global temps to a peak in October.  That warmth was gone as November 2021 ocean temps plummeted everywhere. After an upward bump 01/2022 temps reversed and plunged downward in June.  After an upward spike in July, ocean air everywhere cooled in August and also in September.   

After sharp cooling everywhere in January 2023, all regions were into negative territory. Note the Tropics matched the lowest value, but since have spiked sharply upward +1.26C, with the largest increases in April to July 2023.  NH also warmed 0.7C in the last 4 months, while SH ocean air rose the same. Global Ocean air October 2023 is now exceeding 2016, the main difference being the much higher rise in SH anomalies since April.  The strength of the El Nino will determine the latter part of this year.

Land Air Temperatures Tracking Downward in Seesaw Pattern

We sometimes overlook that in climate temperature records, while the oceans are measured directly with SSTs, land temps are measured only indirectly.  The land temperature records at surface stations sample air temps at 2 meters above ground.  UAH gives tlt anomalies for air over land separately from ocean air temps.  The graph updated for September is below.

Here we have fresh evidence of the greater volatility of the Land temperatures, along with extraordinary departures by SH land.  Land temps are dominated by NH with a 2021 spike in January,  then dropping before rising in the summer to peak in October 2021. As with the ocean air temps, all that was erased in November with a sharp cooling everywhere.  After a summer 2022 NH spike, land temps dropped everywhere, and in January, further cooling in SH and Tropics offset by an uptick in NH. 

Remarkably, in 2023, SH land air anomaly shot up 1.5C, from  -0.56C in January to +0.93 in July, then dropped to 0.53 in August. In September SH shot up again to 1.5C.  Tropical land temps are up 1.48 since January and NH Land air temps rose 0.9, mostly since May. Despite SH land air dropping in October, the consolidated rise greatly exceeds the upward spikes peaking in  2016.

The Bigger Picture UAH Global Since 1980

The chart shows monthly Global anomalies starting 01/1980 to present.  The average monthly anomaly is -0.06, for this period of more than four decades.  The graph shows the 1998 El Nino after which the mean resumed, and again after the smaller 2010 event. The 2016 El Nino matched 1998 peak and in addition NH after effects lasted longer, followed by the NH warming 2019-20.   An upward bump in 2021 was reversed with temps having returned close to the mean as of 2/2022.  March and April brought warmer Global temps, later reversed.

With the sharp drops in Nov., Dec. and January 2023 temps, there was no increase over 1980. Now in 2023 the buildup to the October peak exceeds the sharp April peak of the El Nino 1998 event. It also surpasses the February peak in 2016.  Where it goes from here, up or down, remains to be seen.

The graph reminds of another chart showing the abrupt ejection of humid air from Hunga Tonga eruption.

TLTs include mixing above the oceans and probably some influence from nearby more volatile land temps.  Clearly NH and Global land temps have been dropping in a seesaw pattern, nearly 1C lower than the 2016 peak.  Since the ocean has 1000 times the heat capacity as the atmosphere, that cooling is a significant driving force.  TLT measures started the recent cooling later than SSTs from HadSST3, but are now showing the same pattern. Despite the three El Ninos, their warming has not persisted prior to 2023, and without them it would probably have cooled since 1995.  Of course, the future has not yet been written.