Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
The weather is heating up, and so is the “climate lawfare” radicals are using to impose draconian policies that would impoverish the masses, and even put some people in jail. On episode #118 of The Climate Realism Show we will cover that story; plus say goodbye to Jim Inhofe, one of the United States Senate’s stalwart opponents of climate alarmist policy and junk science; and poke some fun at the Crazy Climate News of the week.
The weather is heating up, and so is the “climate lawfare” radicals are using to impose draconian policies that would impoverish the masses, and even put some people in jail. On episode #118 of The Climate Realism Show we will cover that story; plus say goodbye to Jim Inhofe, one of the United States Senate’s stalwart opponents of climate alarmist policy and junk science; and poke some fun at the Crazy Climate News of the week.
At 1 p.m. ET, tune in LIVE for the stream with The Heartland Institute’s Jim Lakely, Sterling Burnett, and Linnea Lueken — as well as special guest Marc Morano of ClimateDepot.com and CFACT.
Having failed to convince skeptics of climate alarm (the science is more settled toward the positives than the negatives of carbon dioxide [CO2]), and with no change in climate policy able to affect climate for decades (if ever), critics of fossil fuels turn to the known criteria air pollutants.
โBetween 1970 and 2022, the combined emissions of the six common pollutants (PM2.5ย and PM10, SO2, NOx, VOCs, CO and Pb) dropped by 78 percent. This progress occurred while U.S. economic indicators remain strong.โ (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, โ
Having failed to convince skeptics of climate alarm (the science is more settled toward the positives than the negatives of carbon dioxide [CO2]), and with no change in climate policy able to affect climate for decades (if ever), critics of fossil fuels turn to the known criteria air pollutants. The common refrain is that such emissions kill (five million annually), as if the sources of those emissions do not save livesโmany more livesโby the minute of every day.
But the trend of each of the five criteria pollutants associated with consumer-driven, taxpayer-neutral energies is positive. And more improvement is predicted. The increasing sustainability of fossil fuels is a major theme of political economy, as it has been for decades. Fact: oil, natural gas, and coal are now environmental products, unlike a half century or more ago when air pollutants from mobile and stationary sources were largely uncontrolled.
โโโโ-
In the words of U.S. EPA, illustrated by the graph below, โBetween 1970 and 2022, the combined emissions of the six common pollutants (PM2.5 and PM10, SO2, NOx, VOCs, CO and Pb) dropped by 78 percent. This progress occurred while U.S. economic indicators remain strong.โ
โSince 1970, implementation of the Clean Air Act and technological advances from American innovators have dramatically improved air quality in the U.S. Since that time, the combined emissions of criteria and precursor pollutants have dropped by 78%. Cleaner air provides important public health benefits, and we commend our state, local, community and industry partners for helping further long-term improvement in our air quality.
Nationally, concentrations of air pollutants have dropped significantly since 1990:
Numerous air toxics have declined with percentages varying by pollutant
Despite increases in air concentrations of pollutants associated with fires, carbon monoxide and particle pollution, national average air quality concentrations remain below the current, national standards.โ
Final EPA statement: โOur Nationโs Air Continues to Improve โฆ However, work must continue to ensure healthy air for all communities. EPA and our partners at the state, tribal and local levels will continue to work to address the complex air quality problems we face.โ But sound science, not outlier studies, is needed to inform public policy in light of achievable technological change.
A new study comprehensively eviscerates a 57-year-old modeling paper upon which nearly the entirety of the IPCCโs CO2-drives-climate paradigm is based.
Carbon cycle with CO2 dioxide gas exchange process scheme outline concept. Photosynthesis, respiration and transport or factory emissions as biochemical system labeled explanation vector illustration.
A new study comprehensively eviscerates a 57-year-old modeling paper upon which nearly the entirety of the IPCCโs CO2-drives-climate paradigm is based.
Dr. Roy Clark has published a new 73-page study that rips apart the Manabe and Wetherald (1967) paper (MW67) that effectively hatched the IPCC-popularized concepts of CO2 climate sensitivity, radiative forcing, and positive/negative feedbacks so as to portray humans as predominantly responsible for climate changes.
The invalid, error-ridden conceptualization of a Earth land and ocean surface warmed by CO2 radiative forcing is one-dimensional and Flat Earth and assumes constant equilibrium, or perpetually steady states (that do not exist in the real world).
Even the most basic of assumptions in MW67 โ that CO2 warms the Earth and ocean as its concentration is increased โ is โlargely a mathematical artifact produced by using a highly simplified one-dimensional radiative convective computer model.โ CO2 climate sensitivity is but a calculation built on simplification errors.
The MW67 model (and the Hansen et al., 1981 paper that expanded it to its present-day form) neglects a host of real-world phenomena.
For example, evaporation (for the ocean) is ignored. Wind (which modulates evaporation) and waves are ignored. The ocean is assumed to be a flat, one-dimensional object that is predominantly heated by downward infrared radiation.
The effects of molecular collisions and turbulence in the troposphere are ignored. Diurnal temperature is ignored. Humidity is assumed to be perpetually constant rather than varying with the solar heating of the surface.
โThe effects of advection, evaporation, subsurface thermal storage and ocean transport were ignoredโ in MW67.
The steady state assumption (that was first featured in 1896 by Arrhenius) is not real, as there is โno steady state air column in the real atmosphere and both turbulent and moist convection and subsurface thermal storage have to be included in the time dependent surface energy transfer analysis.โ
The radiative โperturbationโ from a CO2 increase from 280 to 560 ppm could only produce a 0.08 K temperature change over the course of a day using the MW67 radiative transfer model calculations. This variation is too small to detect, and it cannot accumulate over days or seasons.
Simply put, MW67 effectively constructs a set of assumptions about what may only occur in an imaginary-world. And this is the Nobel Prize-winning paper that underpins the modern-day version of climate science.
In March, the US Environmental Protection Agency published new methane emissions regulations for the oil and gas industry. The European Union enacted new rules to reduce methane emissions from the energy sector in May. Agriculture is also being targeted regarding methane. But methane regulations, even if established worldwide, wonโt have a measurable effect on global temperatures. However, they will raise costs for energy and food, impacting consumers and businesses.
In March, the US Environmental Protection Agency published new methane emissions regulations for the oil and gas industry. The European Union enacted new rules to reduce methane emissions from the energy sector in May. Agriculture is also being targeted regarding methane. But methane regulations, even if established worldwide, wonโt have a measurable effect on global temperatures. However, they will raise costs for energy and food, impacting consumers and businesses.
On March 8, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized its rule on methane emissions for the oil and gas sector. The rule is intended to โreduce wasteful methane emissions that endanger communities and fuel the climate crisis.โ
The new policy will require companies to pay a penalty of $900 for every ton of methane emitted above limits set by the EPA, starting this year. A legal challenge to the EPAโs new rule has been filed by 24 states.
On May 27, the European Union (EU) announced new regulations on methane emissions from coal, gas, and oil operations. These rules will require energy firms to monitor and report methane emissions and to reduce methane flaring from operations. The rules also apply to international firms that ship hydrocarbon fuels to Europe.
Methane (CH4) is also called natural gas. It is emitted from oil and gas operations from flaring or system leaks. CH4 is also produced through the decay of organic material, such as from municipal solid waste landfills. The EPA and the EU have proposed methane regulations to try to fight global warming.
But nature and human agriculture are larger sources of methane than the energy industry. Termites and other insects emit large amounts of methane. We have about 1.5 billion cows on Earth, and numerous other livestock and wildlife, emitting methane from both the nose end and the tail end.
Methane is a greenhouse gas and part of Earthโs greenhouse effect, which is blamed for global warming. Sunlight, which is high-energy radiation, enters the atmosphere and is absorbed by Earthโs surface. Like any warm body, Earth emits radiation. Since Earthโs temperature is lower than that of the sun, Earth emits lower-energy radiation called infrared radiation or longwave radiation, which is not visible to our eyes.
This longwave radiation seeks to leave Earthโs atmosphere, but almost all of it is absorbed by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. These gases then re-radiate the absorbed energy, which acts to warm Earthโs surface. The warming caused by the absorption of infrared radiation is called the greenhouse effect. Emissions from human industrial processes add to the effect and increase global temperatures.
But Earthโs greenhouse effect is overwhelmingly a natural effect. Water vapor, not carbon dioxide or methane, is Earthโs dominant greenhouse gas. Water vapor accounts for 70 to 90 percent of the greenhouse effect.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the next most important greenhouse gas, but most of the CO2 in the atmosphere comes from nature, such as CO2 emissions from the oceans and the biosphere. Every day, nature puts 20 times as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as all human emissions and removes about the same amount. Methane ranks only as a distant third as a greenhouse gas.
โ โฆ methaneโs ability to trap heat in the atmosphere is even stronger than that of carbon dioxide. On a 100-year timescale, methane has 28 times greater global warming potential than carbon dioxide and is 84 times more potent on a 20-year timescale.โ
These assertions from the EU and other sources are widely reported, but they are incorrect. Claims about the global warming potential of methane are accurate in the laboratory, but not in the atmosphere.
No one paints a room in their house ten times, because after two coats of paint, no difference is observed. Similarly, greenhouse gases are already saturated in Earthโs atmosphere at the frequencies at which methane absorbs outgoing longwave radiation. Additional methane will have almost no effect.
A 2020 analysis by Wijngaarden and Happer looked at the absorption of outgoing longwave radiation by methane and other greenhouse gases across the radiation spectrum. The researchers found that doubling atmospheric methane, from either natural or human causes, would increase greenhouse gas absorption by only about 0.3 percent, a negligible amount.
Farming has become a target for efforts to reduce methane emissions. Earlier this year, New York Attorney General Letitia James sued JBS, the worldโs largest beef producer, over the firmโs methane emissions and for allegedly making misleading sustainability statements to the public. The costs of this litigation will add to food price inflation for consumers.
Earlier this year, the EU sought to impose the Sustainable Use Regulation (SUR) on European farmers. Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, stated that the agricultural sector needed to transition towards a โmore sustainable model of production.โ Farmers were asked to reduce the size of dairy herds and to limit the use of nitrogen fertilizer to reduce greenhouse gas emissions of methane and nitrous oxide. Germanyโs Federal Agricultural Minister, Cem รzdemir, even proposed a consumption tax on meat.
But angry farmers launched intense protests in France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, and other nations. Hundreds of tractors blocked traffic in major cities and police were pelted with eggs and liquid manure. The SUR was defeated, and the EU backed away from additional agricultural regulations, including regulations on methane and the use of nitrogen fertilizer.
Possibly the most bizarre law to reduce emissions was the Australia Carbon Farming Initiative Act of 2011, which awarded carbon credits for killing feral (wild) animals, including:
โโฆ the reduction of methane emissions through the management, in a humane manner, of feral goats, feral dear, feral pigs or feral camels.โ
Killing of animals for carbon credits was halted in 2012.
In any case, because of greenhouse gas saturation in the atmosphere, methane regulations across the world will have no measurable effect on global temperatures. But to the extent that they are enacted, these rules will raise the costs of energy and food production and prices to consumers and businesses.
The idea of a transition to a โnew energy futureโ is historically incorrect with wind power, grid solar, and battery-driven cars and trucks. All have a history of non-competitiveness with or displacement by fossil fuels. Energy density explains much of why the renewable energy era gave way to a far better world of coal, oil, and natural gas in recent centuries.
โThe infant industry argument is a smoke screen. The so-called infants never grow up.โ (Milton and Rose Friedman, Free to Choose, 1979, p. 49)
The idea of a transition to a โnew energy futureโ is historically incorrect with wind power, grid solar, and battery-driven cars and trucks. All have a history of non-competitiveness with or displacement by fossil fuels. Energy density explains much of why the renewable energy era gave way to a far better world of coal, oil, and natural gas in recent centuries.
1887: The first known wind turbine used to produce electricity is built in Scotland. The wind turbine is created by Prof James Blyth of Andersonโs College, Glasgow (now known as Strathclyde University). โBlythโs 10 m high, cloth-sailed wind turbine was installed in the garden of his holiday cottage at Marykirk in Kincardineshire and was used to charge accumulators developed by the Frenchman Camille Alphonse Faure, to power the lighting in the cottage, thus making it the first house in the world to have its electricity supplied by wind power. Blyth offered the surplus electricity to the people of Marykirk for lighting the main street, however, they turned down the offer as they thought electricity was โthe work of the devil.โ โ
1888: The first known US wind turbine created for electricity production is built by inventor Charles Brush to provide electricity for his mansion in Ohio. (Pictured above.)
1891: A Danish scientist, Poul la Cour, develops an electricity-generating wind turbine and later figures out how to supply a steady stream of power from the wind turbine by use of a regulator, a Kratostate.
1895: Poul la Cour converts his windmill into a prototype electrical power plant. It is then used to provide electricity for lighting for the village of Askov.
1903: Poul la Cour starts the Society of Wind Electricians. He is also the first known person to discover that wind turbines with fewer blades that spin faster are more efficient than turbines with many blades spinning slowly.
1904: The Society of Wind Electricians holds its first course on wind electricity. (Class participants pictured above.)
By 1908: 72 electricity-generating wind power systems are running across Denmark. The windmills range from 5 kW to 25 kW in size.
1927: Joe Jacobs and Marcellus Jacobs open a โJacobs Windโ factory in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They produce wind turbines for use on farms, since farms often donโt have access to the grid. The wind turbines are generally used to charge batteries and to power lights. By 1957, Jacobs Wind has now produced and sold approximately 30,000 wind turbines, including to customers in Africa and Antarctica.
1931: A vertical-axis wind turbine design called the Darrieus wind turbine is patented by Georges Jean Marie Darrieus, a French aeronautical engineer. This type of wind turbine is still used today, but for more niche applications like on boats, not nearly as widely as horizontal-axis wind turbines.
1931: A horizontal-axis wind turbine similar to the ones we use today is built in Yalta. The wind turbine has 100 kW of capacity, a 32-meter-high tower, and a 32% load factor (which is actually similar to what todayโs wind turbines get).
1941: The first megawatt-size wind turbine is connected to a local electrical distribution grid. The 1.25-MW Smith-Putnam wind turbine is erected in Castletown, Vermont. It has blades 75 feet in length.
1957: Johannes Juul, a former student of Poul la Cour, builds a horizontal-axis wind turbine with a diameter of 24 meters and 3 blades very similar in design to wind turbines still used today. The wind turbine has a capacity of 200 kW and it employs a new invention, emergency aerodynamic tip breaks, which is still used in wind turbines today. #rewpage#
1975: The first US wind farm is put online, producing enough power for up to 4,149 homes. In the same year, NASA begins a program to develop utility-scale wind turbines starts.
1978: The worldโs first multi-megawatt wind turbine is produced by Tvind school teachers and students. The 2-megawatt wind turbine โpioneered many technologies used in modern wind turbines and allowed Vestas, Siemens and others to get the parts they needed. Especially important was the novel wing construction using help from German aeronautics specialists.โ (This wind turbine is still running today.)
1978: Danish wind turbine manufacturer Vestas produces its first wind turbine.
1978: The Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA P.L. 95-617) requires that utilities interconnect renewable energy projects to the grid at an โavoided costโ purchase price.
1980: Wind developer Zond is founded (bought by Enron in 1997, Enron Wind is sold to GE in 2002 to become GE Wind Energy.
1980: Wind turbine manufacturer Danregn Vindkraft is founded, spinning off from a Danish manufacturer of irrigation systems. It later becomes Bonus Energy and then Siemens Wind Power.
1980: The worldโs first wind farm (20 turbines) is put online
1980s: Enertech begins building 1.8 kW wind turbines that can connect to the grid. Commercial wind turbine rotors get up to a diameter of 17 meters and a capacity of 75 kilowatts.
1981: A second wind farm goes up in the US., with total US installed wind power capacity reaching approximately 10 megawatts.
1981: California implements tax credits for wind turbines, which expire 1986.
1984: Fifteen wind farms are online in the US, almost double the year before, producing enough power for up to 146,000 homes.
1986: Vestas, which had previously focused on other types of machines (dating back to 1898), decides to focus 100% on the wind turbine market. It forms Vestas Wind Systems A/S and sells off its other business arms. Vestas would sell its 1,000th wind turbine in 1991 and does public in 1998.
1987: A 3.2-megawatt wind turbine is developed by the NASA wind turbine program.
1990: The Solar, Wind, Waste, and Geothermal Power Production Incentives Act of 1990 is enacted to amend PURPA and remove size limitations on renewable energy power plants qualifying for PURPA benefits.
1990: 46 wind farms are online in the US, providing enough power for up to nearly 300,000 homes.
1991: The first offshore wind farm in the world is constructed in southern Denmark. It includes 11 wind turbines manufactured by Bonus Energy, each with a capacity of 450 kW.
1991: The UKโs first onshore wind farm is constructed in Cornwall. The wind farm includes 10 wind farms that together produce enough electricity for approximately 2,700 homes. #rewpage#
1992: The United States implements the Production Tax Credit (PTC) for wind power. The PTC incentives electricity production rather than simply incentivizing installation (which resulted in problems with performance and reliability). In the initial years, wind power producers get paid 1.5ยข per kWh for electricity they produce for the first 10 years of operation.
1995: Vestas produces its first offshore wind turbine.
2000: Global wind power capacity reaches 17,400 megawatts.
A judge tossed out Baltimoreโs climate lawsuit against major energy corporations on Wednesday.
Judge Videtta Brown of the Baltimore City Circuit Court ruled Wednesday to throw out the cityโs lawsuit seeking to hold major oil companies โ including British Petroleum (BP), Chevron and ExxonMobil โ liable for climate change and an alleged effort to deceive the public about the environmental damage they knew their products would cause. Brown wrote that the lawsuit โgoes beyond the limits of Maryland state lawโ in her ruling.
โThis court finds that Baltimoreโs complaint is entirely about addressing the injuries of global climate change and seeking damages for such alleged injuries. The explanation by Baltimore that it only seeks to address and hold Defendants accountable for a deceptive misinformation campaign is simply a way to get in the back door what they cannot get in the front door,โ Brown wrote in the ruling. โWhether the complaint is characterized one way or another, the analysis and the answer are the same โ the Constitutionโs federal structure does not allow the application of state law to claims like those presented by Baltimore.โ
Brownโs legal analysis resembles that of other critics of the climate lawsuit phenomenon, including those who filed amicus briefs with the Supreme Court this spring pertaining to Honoluluโs similar climate nuisance lawsuit against oil giants, for example.
Beyond concerns about federalism, other observers have pointed out that different rulings in different courts regarding oil companiesโ liability for climate change could imperil national security by undermining national energy production.
โThe Courtโs well-reasoned opinion recognizes that climate policy cannot be advanced by the unconstitutional application of state law to regulate global emissions,โ Theodore Boutrous Jr., Chevronโs counsel, said of the ruling. โAs the court stated, Baltimoreโs claims are โbeyond the limits of Maryland state lawโ and โcannot survive because they are preempted by federal common law (and the Clean Air Act).โ The meritless state tort cases now being orchestrated by a small group of plaintiffsโ lawyers only detract from legitimate progress toward a lower carbon global energy system.โ
The office of Democratic Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, BP and ExxonMobil did not respond immediately to requests for comment.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporterโs byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
Polar bear habitat for June โ the last month of spring in the Arctic โ is still within 2 standard deviations of the long-term average despite sea ice expertsโ predictions that catastrophic declines can be expected any year now.
Polar bear habitat for June โ the last month of spring in the Arctic โ is stillย within 2 standard deviationsย of the long-term average despite sea ice expertsโ predictions that catastrophic declines can be expected any year now.
The Arctic sea ice cover in June 2024 retreated at a below average pace, leading to a larger total sea ice extentย for the month than in recent years.ย NSIDC, 3 July 2024
Oddly, the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) employees who wrote up the sea ice summary for June felt it appropriate to bring up a recently-published prediction of impending doom for Southern Hudson Bay polar bears based on a sea ice prediction (Stroeve et al. 2024), which I covered here. The inclusion of this topic is a naked promotion of the Stroeve sea ice modelling paper which not only doesnโt fit the reality of this yearโs sea ice conditions but their discussion doesnโt include a single piece of evidence that Southern Hudson Bay polar bears came off the ice earlier than usual.
Extent this year for June, at 10.9 mkm2, compared to previous years was just about exactly what it was in 2006 and slightly lower than it was last year, as the graph below shows:
Southernย Hudson Bay
The NSIDC report states: โThe average date for ice retreat of southern Hudson Bay ranges between mid-June to late-July, so there is typically enough ice available for polar bears to hunt ringed seal pups, a major food source for them. If the ice breaks up too early, as is the case this year, the bears are stranded on land for more of the summer and autumn season, which extends their annual fasting period.โ
First of all, polar bears do not โhunt ringed seal pupsโ from mid-June to late July in Hudson Bay. Young seals have been weaned by that time and are out feeding in open water. The only potential prey are adult and subadult seals that may be resting on sea ice while they are moulting, but it is very rare for bears to successfully hunt these older seals since they are experienced enough to be ever-vigilant and predator-savvy. As I have pointed out countless times, polar bears may stay on the ice into July or even August if they can but it is not to hunt seals.
Moreover, there was still ice in James Bay at 18 June (see chart below), so breakup wasnโt unusually early and there was still abundant ice along the SW shore of Hudson Bay where many SH bears come off the ice.
CIS chart for 18 June 2024
In fact, there is still abundant ice along the SW shore of Hudson Bay and all the way up into Western Hudson Bay and itโs almost mid-July! The sea ice chart closeup of Hudson Bay shown below is for July 10 and there is still ice along the shore of theย Southern Hudson Bay subpopulation region:
CIS chart for 10 July 2024
In other words, despite the fact that a large swath of open water developed in eastern Hudson Bay in May, all indicators point to this not being an early breakup year for Southern Hudson Bay sea ice as far as polar bears are concerned.
And I would be remise if I did not point out that the supposedly dire consequence of a modelled early breakup for Southern Hudson Bay bears contradicts an earlier study that showed only late freeze-ups negatively affected this subpopulation (Obbard et al. 2016).
Hereโs what Obbard and colleagues had to say about the relationship between body condition and sea ice of Southern Hudson Bay bears(my bold):
โDate of freeze-up had a stronger influence on subsequent body condition than date of break-up in our study. โฆwe suggest that a stronger effect of date of freeze-up may be because even though break-up has advanced by up to 3-4 weeks in portions of Hudson Bay it still occurs no earlier than late June or early July so does not yet interfere with opportunities to feed on neonate ringed seal pups that are born in March-April in eastern Hudson Bay. Therefore, losing days or weeks of hunting opportunities during June and July deprives polar bears of the opportunity to feed on adult seals, but does not deprive them of the critical spring period when they are truly hyperphagic. No doubt, the loss of hunting opportunities to kill adult seals has a negative effect on body condition, but it appears that for bears in SH a forced extension of the fast in late fall has a greater negative effect on subsequent body condition.โ [my bold]
Western Hudson Bay
By the end of June in Western Hudson Bay this year, all but one of University of Albertaโs tagged bears were still on the ice:
Note that the โbehavioural plasticityโ that Derocher refers to above refers to a pattern noted since at least 2015, where polar bears have been staying out on melting sea ice well past the stage that โexpertsโ previously insisted would cause bears to abandon the ice for shore. Their sea ice/polar bear survival models all depend on this failed assumption, including the Stroeve paper.
Itโs getting harder and harder for Derocher and colleagues to ignore the fact that their assumptions about sea ice concentration and polar bear behaviour was flat-out wrong. This year, some WH bears could again remain on the ice until August, despite what has been, on paper, the earliest breakup year on record for Hudson Bay sea ice.
References
Obbard, M.E., Cattet, M.R.I., Howe, E.J., Middel, K.R., Newton, E.J., Kolenosky, G.B., Abraham, K.F. and Greenwood, C.J. 2016. Trends in body condition in polar bears (Ursus maritimus) from the Southern Hudson Bay subpopulation in relation to changes in sea ice. Arctic Science, in press. 10.1139/AS-2015-0027
Stroeve, J., Crawford, A., Ferguson, S., Stirling, I., Archer, L., York, G., Babb, D. and Mallet, R. 2024. Ice-free period too long for Southern and Western Hudson Bay polar bear populations if global warming exceeds 1.6 to 2.60 C. Nature Communications Earth & Environment 5:296 [open access] https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01430-7
The process is called Direct Air Capture (DAC) and supposedly the Mammoth plant achieves something equivalent to taking โ8,000 cars off the roadโ each year, as if that was a useful thing.
The problem for the Swiss Company (Climaworks) is that the most efficient machines for capturing carbon are plants, and theyโre cheap and out of patent.
Climeworks built this project in Iceland, of course, so they can use โcleanโ geothermal energy. But that raises the question of how much electricity it takes to turn CO2 into limestone. If we ran it off coal fired power would it ever be carbon neutral?
In May this year, on the flat plains of an Icelandic geothermal reserve, a gigantic vacuum cleaner designed to suck planet-warming carbon dioxide out of the sky was switched on.
The machine, called Mammoth, would not be entirely out of place on a Mad Max setโฆ.
The big machine in Iceland and will soon start pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere each year and turning it into calcium carbonate rock underground.
In a world where humans make 37 billion tons of carbon dioxide annually the project will be able to remove 36,000 tons of CO2 each year, which is approximately one millionth of human annual emissions.
Cost estimates are said to be โcloser to $1,000 a tonโ to remove the CO2. Effectively, weโre spending 36 million dollars US to convert one millionth of human annual emissions of a fertilizing gas into limestone rock we donโt need.
Flagrant Big Government wastage doesnโt get much more pointless than this.
File this away for the history books of the future like the quest for perpetual motion machines.
The process is called Direct Air Capture (DAC) and supposedly the Mammoth plant achieves something equivalent to taking โ8,000 cars off the roadโ each year, as if that was a useful thing.
The problem for the Swiss Company (Climaworks) is that the most efficient machines for capturing carbon are plants, and theyโre cheap and out of patent.
Climeworks built this project in Iceland, of course, so they can use โcleanโ geothermal energy. But that raises the question of how much electricity it takes to turn CO2 into limestone. If we ran it off coal fired power would it ever be carbon neutral?
โItโs essentially a SodaStream on steroids,โ says Douglas Chan, COO of Climeworks. Absorption water is injected at the top of the tower and trickles down through packing that fills the column. The water dissolves the CO2 coming up through the bottom of the tower producing a pressurised mix that is ready for injection underground through two onsite wells operated by project partner Carbfix. Deep under the earth it reacts with the rock, becoming mineralised, locking up the emissions for long-term storage.
Jan Wurzbacher, Climeworks CEO, said: โWithin two years, the CO2 has become solid carbonate rock, 800m underground where it will stay for the next couple of millions of years for sure.โ
As for the cost of capturing the carbon, Wurzbacher says: โToday we are closer to the US$1,000 per tonne mark than we are to the US$100 per tonne mark.โ
If we pretend the costs will fall like they did with slave-made solar panels subsidized by the Chinese Communist Party this process will become wildly cheap I promise:
โIf we apply learning rates, which are known from other industries such as solar PV and the wind industry, and if we compare them to our predicted technological learning, weโll end up at a cost level at the order of US$100 per tonne, going towards 2050.โ
Even if this fantasy comes true, itโs still $100 a ton we donโt have to spend.
Changes in CO2 follow changes in global temperatures on all time scales, from last monthโs observations to ice core datasets spanning millenia. Since CO2 is the lagging variable, it cannot logically be the cause of temperature, the leading variable. It is folly to imagine that by reducing human emissions of CO2, we can change global temperatures, which are obviously driven by other factors.
Previously I have demonstrated that changes in atmospheric CO2 levels follow changes in Global Mean Temperatures (GMT) as shown by satellite measurements from University of Alabama at Huntsville (UAH). That background post is reprinted later below.
My curiosity was piqued by the remarkable GMT spike starting in January 2023 and rising through April 2024, the monthly anomaly increasing from -0.04C to +1.05C that month. Now in May and June, temps have cooled, suggesting the warming peak is over. The chart above shows the two monthly datasets: CO2 levels in blue reported at Mauna Loa, and Global temperature anomalies in purple reported by UAH, both through June 2024. Would such a sharp increase in temperature be reflected in rising CO2 levels, according to the successful mathematical forecasting model? And would subsequent cooling lead to lower CO2 levels?
The answer is yes: that temperature spike results in a corresponding CO2 rise and drop as expected.
Above are UAH temperature anomalies compared to CO2 monthly changes year over year.
Changes in monthly CO2 synchronize with temperature fluctuations, which for UAH are anomalies now referenced to the 1991-2020 period. CO2 differentials are calculated for the present month by subtracting the value for the same month in the previous year (for example June 2024 minus June 2023). Temp anomalies are calculated by comparing the present month with the baseline month. Note the recent CO2 upward spike following the temperature spike and the drop afterward.
The final proof that CO2 follows temperature due to stimulation of natural CO2 reservoirs is demonstrated by the ability to calculate CO2 levels since 1979 with a simple mathematical formula:
For each subsequent year, the CO2 level for each month was generated
CO2ย ย this month this yearย = a + bย ร Tempย this month this yearย + CO2ย this month last year
The values for a and b are constants applied to all monthly temps, and are chosen to scale the forecasted CO2 level for comparison with the observed value. Here is the result of those calculations.
In the chart calculated CO2 levels correlate with observed CO2 levels at 0.9987 out of 1.0000.ย This mathematical generation of CO2 atmospheric levels is only possible if they are driven by temperature-dependent natural sources, and not by human emissions which are small in comparison, rise steadily and monotonically.ย For a more detailed look at the recent fluxes, here are the results since 2015, an ENSO neutral year.
For this recent period, the calculated CO2 values match the annual peaks, while some annual generated minimums of CO2 are slightly lower than those observed at that time of year, which tends to be Sept.-Nov. Still the correlation for this period is 0.9919.
Key Point
Changes in CO2 follow changes in global temperatures on all time scales, from last monthโs observations to ice core datasets spanning millenia. Since CO2 is the lagging variable, it cannot logically be the cause of temperature, the leading variable. It is folly to imagine that by reducing human emissions of CO2, we can change global temperatures, which are obviously driven by other factors.
Background Post Temperature Changes Cause CO2 Changes, Not the Reverse
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:
Uploading the CO2 dataset showed that many numbers had changed (why?).
The blue line shows annual observed differences in monthly values year over year, e.g. June 2020 minus June 2019 etc. The first 12 months (1979) provide the observed starting values from which differentials are calculated. The orange line shows those CO2 values changed slightly in the 2020 dataset vs. the 2014 dataset, on average +0.035 ppm. But there is no pattern or trend added, and deviations vary randomly between + and -. So last year I took the 2020 dataset to replace the older one for updating the analysis.
Now I find the NOAA dataset starting in 2021 has almost completely new values due to a method shift in February 2021, requiring a recalibration of all previous measurements. The new picture of ฮCO2 is graphed below.
The method shift is reported at a NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory webpage, Carbon Dioxide (CO2) WMO Scale, with a justification for the difference between X2007 results and the new results from X2019 now in force. The orange line shows that the shift has resulted in higher values, especially early on and a general slightly increasing trend over time. However, these are small variations at the decimal level on values 340 and above. Further, the graph shows that yearly differentials month by month are virtually the same as before. Thus I redid the analysis with the new values.
Global Temperature Anomalies (ฮTemp)
The other time series was the record of global temperature anomalies according to RSS. The current RSS dataset is not at all the same as the past.
Here we see some seriously unsettling science at work. The purple line is RSS in 2014, and the blue is RSS as of 2020. Some further increases appear in the gold 2022 rss dataset. The red line shows alterations from the old to the new. There is a slight cooling of the data in the beginning years, then the three versions mostly match until 1997, when systematic warming enters the record. From 1997/5 to 2003/12 the average anomaly increases by 0.04C. After 2004/1 to 2012/8 the average increase is 0.15C. At the end from 2012/9 to 2013/12, the average anomaly was higher by 0.21. The 2022 version added slight warming over 2020 values.
RSS continues that accelerated warming to the present, but it cannot be trusted. And who knows what the numbers will be a few years down the line? As Dr. Ole Humlum said some years ago (regarding Gistemp): โIt should however be noted, that a temperature record which keeps on changing the past hardly can qualify as being correct.โ
Given the above manipulations, I went instead to the other satellite dataset UAH version 6. UAH has also made a shift by changing its baseline from 1981-2010 to 1991-2020. This resulted in systematically reducing the anomaly values, but did not alter the pattern of variation over time. For comparison, here are the two records with measurements through December 2023.
Comparing UAH temperature anomalies to NOAA CO2 changes.
Here are UAH temperature anomalies compared to CO2 monthly changes year over year.
Changes in monthly CO2 synchronize with temperature fluctuations, which for UAH are anomalies now referenced to the 1991-2020 period. As stated above, CO2 differentials are calculated for the present month by subtracting the value for the same month in the previous year (for example June 2022 minus June 2021). Temp anomalies are calculated by comparing the present month with the baseline month.
The final proof that CO2 follows temperature due to stimulation of natural CO2 reservoirs is demonstrated by the ability to calculate CO2 levels since 1979 with a simple mathematical formula:
For each subsequent year, the co2 level for each month was generated
CO2 this month this year = a + b ร Temp this month this year + CO2 this month last year
Jeremy used Python to estimate a and b, but I used his spreadsheet to guess values that place for comparison the observed and calculated CO2 levels on top of each other.
In the chart calculated CO2 levels correlate with observed CO2 levels at 0.9986 out of 1.0000. This mathematical generation of CO2 atmospheric levels is only possible if they are driven by temperature-dependent natural sources, and not by human emissions which are small in comparison, rise steadily and monotonically.
Comment: UAH dataset reported a sharp warming spike starting mid year, with causes speculated but not proven. In any case, that surprising peak has not yet driven CO2 higher, though it might, but only if it persists despite the likely cooling already under way.
Previous Post: What Causes Rising Atmospheric CO2?
This post is prompted by a recent exchange with those reasserting the โconsensusโ view attributing all additional atmospheric CO2 to humans burning fossil fuels.
The IPCC doctrine which has long been promoted goes as follows. We have a number over here for monthly fossil fuel CO2 emissions, and a number over there for monthly atmospheric CO2. We donโt have good numbers for the rest of it-oceans, soils, biosphereโthough rough estimates are orders of magnitude higher, dwarfing human CO2. So we ignore nature and assume it is always a sink, explaining the difference between the two numbers we do have. Easy peasy, science settled.
What about the fact that nature continues to absorb about half of human emissions, even while FF CO2 increased by 60% over the last 2 decades? What about the fact that in 2020 FF CO2 declined significantly with no discernable impact on rising atmospheric CO2?
These and other issues are raised by Murray Salby and others who conclude that it is not that simple, and the science is not settled. And so these dissenters must be cancelled lest the narrative be weakened.
The non-IPCC paradigm is that atmospheric CO2 levels are a function of two very different fluxes. FF CO2 changes rapidly and increases steadily, while Natural CO2 changes slowly over time, and fluctuates up and down from temperature changes. The implications are that human CO2 is a simple addition, while natural CO2 comes from the integral of previous fluctuations. Jeremy Shiers has a series of posts at his blog clarifying this paradigm. See Increasing CO2 Raises Global Temperature Or Does Increasing Temperature Raise CO2 Excerpts in italics with my bolds.
The following graph which shows the change in CO2 levels (rather than the levels directly) makes this much clearer.
Note the vertical scale refers to the first differential of the CO2 level not the level itself. The graph depicts that change rate in ppm per year.
There are big swings in the amount of CO2 emitted. Taking the mean as 1.6 ppmv/year (at a guess) there are +/- swings of around 1.2 nearly +/- 100%.
And, surprise surprise, the change in net emissions of CO2 is very strongly correlated with changes in global temperature.
This clearly indicates the net amount of CO2 emitted in any one year is directly linked to global mean temperature in that year.
For any given year the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere will be the sum of
all the net annual emissions of CO2
in all previous years.
For each year the net annual emission of CO2 is proportional to the annual global mean temperature.
This means the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere will be related to the sum of temperatures in previous years.
So CO2 levels are not directly related to the current temperature but the integral of temperature over previous years.
The following graph again shows observed levels of CO2 and global temperatures but also has calculated levels of CO2 based on sum of previous years temperatures (dotted blue line).
Summary:
The massive fluxes from natural sources dominate the flow of CO2 through the atmosphere. Human CO2 from burning fossil fuels is around 4% of the annual addition from all sources. Even if rising CO2 could cause rising temperatures (no evidence, only claims), reducing our emissions would have little impact.
The problem for Professor Ron Barrettโs theory of why people taking advantage of market distorting subsidies will drive adoption is renewable energy is in no way a solution to the worldโs energy problems.
According to Professor of Anthropology Ron Barrett, you donโt have to believe in climate action to benefit from renewable energy. But the professor has overlooked an important issue.
Can humanity address climate change without believing it? Medical history suggests it is possible
Published: July 10, 2024 10.14pm AEST Ron Barrett Professor of Anthropology, Macalester College
Strange as it may seem, early germ theorists could tell us a lot about todayโs attitudes toward climate change.
While researching for a new book about the history of emerging infections, I found many similarities between early debates over the existence of microbes and current debates over the existence of global warming.
โIf anyone chooses to assume that the septic material is not of the nature of the living organisms, but a so-called chemical ferment destitute of vitality โฆ such a notion, unwarranted though I believe it to be by any scientific evidence, will in a practical point of view be equivalent to a germ theory, since it will inculcate precisely the same methods of antiseptic management.โ
Lister was more concerned with saving lives than winning arguments. As long as the surgeons adopted his methods, Lister cared little about their justifications. When it came to preventing infection, it was the behaviors rather than the beliefs that counted.
โฆ
Republicans are more likely to prioritize the economic benefits of renewable energy than Democrats, who tend to list global warming as their driving concern.
The economic benefits could explain why red states produce the largest share of Americaโs wind energy and why three of these states are among the nationโs top five producers of solar energy. Their adoption correlates with the geography of the wind and sun belts, where farmers see favorable returns for producing power and a stable source of income to buffer the price fluctuations of weather-sensitive crops. Livelihood is a powerful motivator.
The problem for Professor Ron Barrettโs theory of why people taking advantage of market distorting subsidies will drive adoption is renewable energy is in no way a solution to the worldโs energy problems.
In the absence of affordable, long term energy storage, all renewable energy systems have to be backed by a duplicate dispatchable energy system, which can be activated at a momentโs notice when the renewables let you down โ which they frequently do. The cost of maintaining two parallel systems โ the fake renewable system, and the dispatchable system which produces power during the days or weeks when the renewables stop working, this is what drives up energy bills in states and nations which have embraced renewables.
In Australia, the threat the next government will pull the renewable subsidies and invest in nuclear instead appears to have dampened enthusiasm for investment. Renewables cannot compete with real energy, even nuclear power.
The charade of farmers filling their fields with renewables will only continue so long as taxpayer subsidies make it profitable to do so. The moment the subsidies dry up, so will the profits and new installations.
The great surgeon Joseph Lister is one of my heroes. There is a great documentary about Lister which I watched many years ago as a kid (I canโt find a link sorry), which details how Lister campaigned relentlessly, and made everyone in the hospital wash their hands and practice antiseptic and aseptic surgery, after he realised all the harm which transmission of contaminated material between patients was causing.
You must be logged in to post a comment.