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.
One of the most important developments this century has been a major increase in energy access across the globe: Billions of people have gained access to modern energy, a precondition for rising from poverty.
One of the most important developments this century has been a major increase in energy access across the globe: Billions of people have gained access to modern energy, a precondition for rising from poverty.
Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region of the world not benefitting from this transformation. In Africa, energy poverty is growing. For the first time since World War II, access to electricity is also backsliding in Africa.
Over the last year, the International Energy Agency has sought to address Africa’s rising energy poverty, through organizing conferences and publishing reports. The IEA and global leaders gathered in conferences in Africa. The Norwegian Development Agency (NORAD) was a major funder of the endeavor. Yet, the IEA did not offer any practical solution to address the rising energy poverty in Africa because it is unable to utter the essential words: fossil fuels.
In fact, through its promotion of cutting loans and investments in fossil fuels in Africa, the IEA itself contributed to the decline in energy access in Africa. The IEA’s promotion of “Net-Zero” served as the basis of decisions in recent years by the G-7, World Bank, and United Nations to cut funding and investments in fossil fuels and production of electricity from fossil fuels in Africa.
The idea behind denying investments and funding for fossil fuels was that it would force Africans to adopt renewable energy. However, reducing access to fossil fuels did not lower pollution and emissions. In fact, the lack of access to stable and affordable electricity produced from fossil fuels, has led to increased pollution, emissions and premature deaths in Africa, as Africans turn to burning dung, wood, lump coal and other biomass for cooking and other basic energy functions.
The IEA acknowledges in a recently published report, “Universal Access to Clean Cooking in Africa” that burning traditional biomass releases more carbon emissions than use of fossil fuels. Despite this acknowledgment that the path to lower emissions and pollution and improved public health is through fossil fuels, the IEA isn’t willing to say the plain truth: Africa needs fossil fuels. For the IEA, like so many multi-lateral institutions, energy policy has become a cult, where fossil fuels are sacrilegious.
The new IEA report on Africa numbers 151 pages, probably cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to compile, yet doesn’t give any reasonable path for Africa to increase energy access. The report points to the transformation of China, Indonesia and India in energy access over recent decades as models for Africa. However, the IEA neglects to point out that those three countries benefitted from access to coal and government and multi-lateral funding to develop electricity produced from fossil fuels. Yet, Africa is denied funding and investments to develop its fossil fuel resources.
In the report, the IEA sets South Africa apart as an example of where modern energy access is growing and the number of homes reliant on burning biomass are declining, in contrast to countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The IEA however neglects to point out that South Africa has succeeded in expanding modern energy access by developing and burning its domestic coal reserves. Coal provides 69% of South Africa’s energy consumption and is the source of 82% of its electricity production.
In the report, the IEA acknowledges that liquified petroleum gas (LPG) and electricity are necessary to replace the use of traditional biomass. Yet, it still advocates blocking Africa from developing its own fossil fuel resources. According to the IEA report, imported LPG and natural gas can replace traditional biomass, but not local energy resources.
What is the IEA’s answer on how Africa will pay for that imported fuel and to finance new cooking stoves? The IEA suggests that Africa sell carbon credits to fund the transition from burning wood and dung to LPG and electricity. However, it is highly unlikely that enough revenue from carbon credits could be generated to finance moving from dung and wood, which is collected for free, to payment for stoves, LPG and electricity. Moreover, this would increase Africa’s dependence on handouts from abroad, instead of strengthening local economies.
The answer to Africa’s energy poverty is development of the continent’s oil, gas and coal resources. Profits and taxes from the development could be used to expand LPG and electricity access in Africa. Paradoxically, as the IEA acknowledges, developing fossil fuels and producing electricity from them would lower emissions, pollutions and pre-mature deaths in Africa.
U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright recently stated that the Trump administration is evaluating whether the U.S. should withdraw its membership from the IEA or attempt to reform the organization. The administration claims that the IEA has strayed from its mission of promoting energy security. Instead, the IEA has become another one of the dozens of major climate policy advocacy organizations. In his evaluation of the IEA, Secretary Wright should add the IEA’s role in increasing energy poverty in Africa and its use of public funding on projects that do not benefit Africans.
Prof. Brenda Shaffer is an energy expert at the U.S. Naval Post-graduate School. @ProfBShaffer
This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and made available via RealClearWire.
WMO report documents spiralling weather and climate impacts
The clear signs of human-induced climate change reached new heights in 2024, with some of the consequences being irreversible over hundreds if not thousands of years, according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which also underlined the massive economic and social upheavals from extreme weather.
We somehow missed this, it is entertaining – Anthony
WMO report documents spiralling weather and climate impacts
The clear signs of human-induced climate change reached new heights in 2024, with some of the consequences being irreversible over hundreds if not thousands of years, according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which also underlined the massive economic and social upheavals from extreme weather.
Key messages
Key climate change indicators again reach record levels
Long-term warming (averaged over decades) remains below 1.5°C
Sea-level rise and ocean warming irreversible for hundreds of years
Record greenhouse gas concentrations combined with El Niño and other factors to drive 2024 record heat
Early warnings and climate services are vital to protect communities and economies
Canva
WMO’s State of the Global Climate report confirmed that 2024 was likely the first calendar year to be more than 1.5°C above the pre-industrial era, with a global mean near-surface temperature of 1.55 ± 0.13 °C above the 1850-1900 average. This is the warmest year in the 175-year observational record.
WMO’s flagship report showed that:
Atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide are at the highest levels in the last 800,000 years.
Globally each of the past ten years were individually the ten warmest years on record.
Each of the past eight years has set a new record for ocean heat content.
The 18 lowest Arctic sea-ice extents on record were all in the past 18 years.
The three lowest Antarctic ice extents were in the past three years.
The largest three-year loss of glacier mass on record occurred in the past three years.
The rate of sea level rise has doubled since satellite measurements began.
“Our planet is issuing more distress signals — but this report shows that limiting long-term global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius is still possible. Leaders must step up to make it happen — seizing the benefits of cheap, clean renewables for their people and economies – – with new National climate plans due this year, ” said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.
“While a single year above 1.5 °C of warming does not indicate that the long-term temperature goals of the Paris Agreement are out of reach, it is a wake-up call that we are increasing the risks to our lives, economies and to the planet,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo.
The report said that long-term global warming is currently estimated to be between 1.34 and 1.41 °C compared to the 1850-1900 baseline based on a range of methods – although it noted the uncertainty ranges in global temperature statistics.
A WMO team of international experts is examining this further in order to ensure consistent, reliable tracking of long-term global temperature changes to be aligned with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Regardless of the methodology used, every fraction of a degree of warming matters and increases risks and costs to society.
The record global temperatures seen in 2023 and broken in 2024 were mainly due to the ongoing rise in greenhouse gas emissions, coupled with a shift from a cooling La Niña to warming El Niño event. Several other factors may have contributed to the unexpectedly unusual temperature jumps, including changes in the solar cycle, a massive volcanic eruption and a decrease in cooling aerosols, according to the report.
Temperatures are just a small part of a much bigger picture.
“Data for 2024 show that our oceans continued to warm, and sea levels continued to rise. The frozen parts of Earth’s surface, known as the cryosphere, are melting at an alarming rate: glaciers continue to retreat, and Antarctic sea ice reached its second-lowest extent ever recorded. Meanwhile, extreme weather continues to have devastating consequences around the world,” said Celeste Saulo.
Tropical cyclones, floods, droughts, and other hazards in 2024 led to the highest number of new displacements recorded for the past 16 years, contributed to worsening food crises, and caused massive economic losses.
“In response, WMO and the global community are intensifying efforts to strengthen early warning systems and climate services to help decision-makers and society at large be more resilient to extreme weather and climate. We are making progress but need to go further and need to go faster. Only half of all countries worldwide have adequate early warning systems. This must change,” said Celeste Saulo.
Investment in weather, water and climate services is more important than ever to meet the challenges and build safer, more resilient communities, she stressed.
The report is based on scientific contributions from National Meteorological and Hydrological Services, WMO Regional Climate Centres, UN partners and dozens of experts. It includes sidebars on monitoring global temperature for the Paris Agreement and understanding the temperature anomalies in 2023 and 2024. It includes supplements on climate services and on extreme weather.
Three methods for establishing an up-to-date estimate of current global warming as of 2024, compared with the IPCC AR6 method, which uses averages over the previous 10 years and is representative of warming to 2019. The best estimate resulting from each method is shown as a dark vertical line, and the uncertainty range is shown by the shaded area.
Key Indicators
Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide
Atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, as well as methane and nitrous oxide, are at the highest levels in the last 800,000 years.
Carbon dioxide concentrations in 2023 (the last year for which consolidated global annual figures are available) were 420.0 ± 0.1 parts per million (ppm), 2.3 ppm more than 2022 and 151% of the pre-industrial level (in 1750). 420 ppm corresponds to 3,276 Gt – or 3.276 trillion tonnes of CO₂ in the atmosphere.
Real-time data from specific locations show that levels of these three main greenhouse gases continued to increase in 2024. Carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere for generations, trapping heat.
Global Mean Near-surface Temperature
In addition to 2024 setting a new record, each of the past ten years, 2015-2024, were individually the ten warmest years on record.
The record temperature in 2024 was boosted by a strong El Niño which peaked at the start of the year. In every month between June 2023 and December 2024, monthly average global temperatures exceeded all monthly records prior to 2023.
Record levels of greenhouse gases were the primary driver, with the shift to El Niño playing a lesser role.
Ocean Heat Content
Around 90% of the energy trapped by greenhouse gases in the Earth system is stored in the ocean.
In 2024, ocean heat content reached its highest level in the 65-year observational record. Each of the past eight years has set a new record. The rate of ocean warming over the past two decades, 2005-2024, is more than twice that in the period 1960-2005.
Ocean warming leads to degradation of marine ecosystems, biodiversity loss, and reduction of the ocean carbon sink. It fuels tropical storms and contributes to sea-level rise. It is irreversible on centennial to millennial time scales. Climate projections show that ocean warming will continue for at least the rest of the 21st century, even for low carbon emission scenarios.
Ocean Acidification
Acidification of the ocean surface is continuing, as shown by the steady decrease of global average ocean surface pH. The most intense regional decreases are in the Indian Ocean, the Southern Ocean, the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, the northern tropical Pacific, and some regions in the Atlantic Ocean.
The effects of ocean acidification on habitat area, biodiversity and ecosystems have already been clearly observed, and food production from shellfish aquaculture and fisheries has been hit as have coral reefs.
Projections show that ocean acidification will continue to increase in the 21st century, at rates dependent on future emissions. Changes in deep-ocean pH are irreversible on centennial to millennial time scales.
Annual global ocean heat content down to 2000 m depth for the period 1960–2024, in zettajoules (1021 J). The shaded area indicates the 2-sigma uncertainty range on each estimate.
Global Mean Sea Level
In 2024, global mean sea level was the highest since the start of the satellite record in 1993 and the rate of increase from 2015-2024 was double that from 1993–2002, increasing from 2.1 mm per year to 4.7 mm per year.
Sea level rise has cascading damaging impacts on coastal ecosystems and infrastructure, with further impacts from flooding and saltwater contamination of groundwater.
Glacier Mass Balance
The period 2022-2024 represents the most negative three-year glacier mass balance on record. Seven of the ten most negative mass balance years since 1950 have occurred since 2016.
Exceptionally negative mass balances were experienced in Norway, Sweden, Svalbard, and the tropical Andes.
Glacier retreat increases short-term hazards, harms economies and ecosystems and long-term water security.
Glacier cumulative mass balance 1950-2024
Sea-ice Extent
The 18 lowest Arctic sea-ice minimum extents in the satellite record all occurred in the past 18 years. The annual minimum and maximum of Antarctic sea-ice extent were each the 2nd lowest in the observed record from 1979.
The minimum daily extent of sea-ice in the Arctic in 2024 was 4.28 million km2, the 7th lowest extent in the 46-year satellite record. In Antarctica, the minimum daily extent tied for the 2nd lowest minimum in the satellite era and marked the 3rd consecutive year that minimum Antarctic sea-ice extent dropped below 2 million km2. These are the three lowest Antarctic ice minima in the satellite record.
Extreme events and impacts
Extreme weather events in 2024 led to the highest number of new annual displacements since 2008, and destroyed homes, critical infrastructure, forests, farmland and biodiversity.
The compounded effect of various shocks, such as intensifying conflict, drought and high domestic food prices drove worsening food crises in 18 countries globally by mid-2024.
Tropical cyclones were responsible for many of the highest-impact events of 2024. These included Typhoon Yagi in Viet Nam, the Philippines and southern China.
In the United States, Hurricanes Helene and Milton in October both made landfall on the west coast of Florida as major hurricanes, with economic losses of tens of billions of dollars. Over 200 deaths were associated with the exceptional rainfall and flooding from Helene, the most in a mainland United States hurricane since Katrina in 2005.
Tropical Cyclone Chido caused casualties and economic losses in the French Indian Ocean Island of Mayotte, Mozambique and Malawi. It displaced around 100,000 people in Mozambique.
Earlier this year, the usual suspects were putting out horror scenarios of a summer of heat and drought across Europe in 2025. The most extreme model runs, with temperatures soaring to 45°C, were presented as serious forecasts and as being worrying evidence of runaway climate change.
Earlier this year, the usual suspects were putting out horror scenarios of a summer of heat and drought across Europe in 2025. The most extreme model runs, with temperatures soaring to 45°C, were presented as serious forecasts and as being worrying evidence of runaway climate change.
But now the opposite has occurred and the fear-mongers are now either quiet or simply distorting the facts.
Especially in Central Europe, like across Germany, the weather has turned cool and rainy.
Germany’s Das Wetter.com here recently has since warned of 30 cm of snowfall in the Alps – in July:
Anyone who thought the last few weeks had been cool and changeable should dress warmly. Because from Monday, temperatures across Germany will continue to plummet. This is due to a wave of cold Arctic air rushing in from the far north. Highs of under 20 degrees will then be the reality in many places – in July!”
Heavy snow in the Alps in July
In his article, meteorologist Johannes Habermehl then adds that the snow line in the Alps will be dropping “to just 2500 meters – in some places even lower”, with some forecasting “up to 30 centimetres of fresh snow” at higher altitudes.
And that’s during peak summer!
Global temps plummet
Global temperatures have also been plummeting since the start of this year.
The main factor is the UK Emissions Trading Scheme (UK ETS), effectively a carbon tax. CCGT plant operators must purchase allowances to cover the amount of CO2 emitted. The current market price for these allowances is around £50/Tonne CO2.
As we know, the new Administrative Strike Prices for offshore wind are well above wholesale market prices, which have been trundling along at between £70 and £80/MWh for the last year or so:
It is generally accepted that wholesale prices tend to be set by the marginal cost of gas power. But as I noted the other day, the marginal cost of a CCGT plant, i.e. the fuel cost, is currently £49/MWh – so why the discrepancy between this and £80/MWh?
Carbon Pricing
The main factor is the UK Emissions Trading Scheme (UK ETS), effectively a carbon tax. CCGT plant operators must purchase allowances to cover the amount of CO2 emitted. The current market price for these allowances is around £50/Tonne CO2.
This equates to a surcharge on CCGTs of about £18/MWh.
So although the cost of fuel might only be £49/MWh, the carbon tax increases this to £67/MWh.
Market prices, of course, reflect supply and demand – when wind power is plentiful, for instance, prices fall. Often the market price might also be set by interconnectors or the most expensive gas generators when supply is tight.
But ultimately, at current gas prices, the new strike prices for offshore wind are more than double the cost of a modern CCGT plant.
Dramatically reversing federal management of the nation’s natural resources, an over two-decades-old rule that has left millions of acres of U.S. Forest Service lands at high risk of catastrophic wildfires is being put to the torch by the Trump administration.
Dramatically reversing federal management of the nation’s natural resources, an over two-decades-old rule that has left millions of acres of U.S. Forest Service lands at high risk of catastrophic wildfires is being put to the torch by the Trump administration.
Developed by the Clinton administration in the late 1990s, and going into effect in 2001, the Roadless Area Conservation Rule was said to protect over 58 million acres of Forest Service lands by banning logging and the construction of roads in what amounts to 30 percent of the National Forest System.
But separating these vast lands from the human touch has severely undermined the health of both the forests and the people living in nearby communities. The prohibition on logging has allowed the forests to become overgrown, where not even diseased or dead trees can be removed or brush to be cleared by machinery, resulting in the emergence of giant tinderboxes ready to explode at the first lightning strike or casually thrown-away cigarette. Firefighters attempting to extinguish blazes that break out in roadless areas are hindered from doing their job due to the…lack of roads.
“Instead of protecting forests,” Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins wrote of the Roadless Rule in The Desert News, “it has trapped them in a cycle of neglect and devastation. To date, we’ve seen more than 8 million acres of Roadless Areas burn. To put that into perspective, the average acreage lost to wildfire each year has more than doubled since 2001.”
With a new wildfire season rapidly upon us, the Agriculture Department, which oversees the Forest Service, paints a dire picture of what the Roadless Rule has wrought. ”Of the 58.5 million acres of inventoried roadless areas covered under the 2001 Roadless Rule, 28 million acres are in areas of high or very high risk of wildfire,” the department notes in a press release. “Rescinding this rule will allow this land to be managed at the local forest level, with more flexibility to take swift action to reduce wildfire risk and help protect surrounding communities and infrastructure.”
In addition to the loss of wildlife, vegetation, people, and property caught up in rapidly spreading infernos, wildfire smoke has serious health effects on people not directly in the path of a blaze. Exposure to wildfire smoke, which can travel hundreds of miles under prevailing winds, is closely tied to the health effects emanating from fine particles. “Fine particles,” the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) explains in its evaluation of human exposure to wildfire smoke, “are respiratory irritants, and exposures to high concentrations can cause persistent coughing, phlegm, wheezing, and difficulty breathing. Even in healthy people, exposure to fine particles can potentially lead to transient reductions in lung function, and pulmonary inflammation.”
An environmental policy that is environmentally destructive and leads to more people being exposed to the hazards of wildfire smoke is something the public does not have to tolerate. “The forests we see today are not the same as the forests of 2001,” Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz points out. “They are dangerously overstocked and increasingly threatened by drought, insect-borne disease, and wildfire.”
By allowing timber to be harvested in areas that were off-limits to logging under the Roadless Rule, both the thinning of dangerously overgrown forests and the revitalization of the nation’s timber industry can be accomplished. Especially hard hit by the Clinton-era Roadless Rule were Washington, Oregon, and Northern California. Lumber production in the Pacific Northwest’s national forests has plummeted since the rule went into effect, with the void being filled by heavily subsidized Canadian lumber. As inflation cools, mortgage rates are expected to fall in the coming months, triggering a demand for new home construction. The millions of acres of Forest Service land that will soon be open to logging will help meet that demand.
The conspicuous failure of the Roadless Rule to deliver on its promise of healthier forests has not kept eco-warriors from yearning for a world that never was. “Stripping our national forests of roadless rule protections will put close to 60 million acres of wildlands on the chopping block,” said Alex Craven, the Sierra Club’s forest campaign manager.
What is really on the chopping block – at long last – is a scheme that has wreaked havoc with the very forests it was supposed to protect.
They make it sound like we’re all going to be better off!
According to the Telegraph:
“Ed Miliband will plough hundreds of millions of pounds into battery storage technology as the cost of ordering wind farms to shut down spirals out of control.
GB Energy, which is backed by the taxpayer, will use a chunk of its newly minted budget to invest in energy storage systems as households and businesses are forced to foot the bill to prevent the creaking power grid from getting congested.
More than £700m has been spent so far this year on switching off wind farms to avoid overloading the grid as well as firing up alternatives to keep the lights on. This is up from about £450m over the same period in 2024, with the money ultimately coming from energy bills.
Officials are also keen to ensure clean power remains reliable during periods of high demand.
An industry source said: “How do you get around the fact that the wind blows one day, doesn’t blow the next? They have to keep switching off the turbines because they can’t store the energy. GB Energy think they’ve got a role to play in trying to fund the innovation.”
Far from cutting costs, however, building lots of battery storage will simply add to them, as NESO’s Clean Power 2030 plan admitted:
As well as the capital and operating costs, battery storage is not 100% efficient – it loses a certain amount of electricity every time it cycles. These are known as round-trip losses. A cost of £10/MWh works out at £3 billion a year on current generation levels, all of which will get added onto power bills.
Meanwhile constraint payments will carry on rising regardless – NESO reckon growth in wind and solar power will add another £15/MWh to the cost of electricity, £4.5 billion a year by 2030:
But there is also another, more serious misunderstanding in the Telegraph report, one that is commonplace in the media. This is that storage will keep the electricity flowing for the days and weeks when the wind stops blowing.
According to the Telegraph:
There is particular need for so-called long-duration storage that can be deployed over weeks rather than days to counter periods of “dunkelflaute”, when cloudy skies and stagnant wind conditions reduce the output of renewables.
Under Mr Miliband’s plan for a clean power system by 2030, the amount of long-duration energy storage is expected to rise from about three gigawatts today to between four and six gigawatts – enough to power millions of homes.
Traditional lithium ion batteries are not ideal for this owing to their high cost and relatively short-term output, as well as degradation over time and the large numbers that would need to be built.
Possible alternatives include “flow” batteries, which store energy in liquid electrolytes, pumped hydro storage, compressed air storage, heat storage such as thermal bricks or molten salt, and caves that can be used to store hydrogen.
Apart from hydrogen storage, which is not feasible at scale in the next decade at least, this “long-duration storage” does not exist. As usual, the Telegraph talk about “six gigawatts”, but don’t mention how much electricity this will supply.
Pumped storage, for instance, might supply power for a few hours at most; compressed air is no better.
NESO inform us though that 5-8 GW will store 50-99 GWh, in other words about ten hours supply. This of course will be irrelevant when we are short of power for days on end.
Moreover, 50 GWh would only be enough to run the grid for an hour.
It is time that the Telegraph started asking real questions about Miliband’s mad agenda, instead of these silly, puff pieces.
Earth’s ionosphere is a bit like Swiss cheese. It contains holes called “equatorial plasma bubbles.” If any of these bubbles drift across your sky–grip the steering wheel–your GPS might go haywire.
Earth’s ionosphere is a bit like Swiss cheese. It contains holes called “equatorial plasma bubbles.” If any of these bubbles drift across your sky–grip the steering wheel–your GPS might go haywire.
That’s exactly what happened during a geomagnetic storm in March 2023. A new study published in the research journal Space Weather recounts how GPS radio signals began to rapidly flicker, akin to the twinkling of a star, causing positioning errors across a wide swath of the Americas.
GPS satellites transmitting through a bubbly ionosphere.
“This is the most intense event we have analyzed,” says Fabiano Rodrigues, a physics professor at the University of Texas at Dallas and one of the paper’s lead authors. “It produced extremely intense disruptions at low latitudes for more than 10 hours and was even detectable by our mid-latitude sensor in Dallas (UTD in the diagram below), which is unusual.”
Completely surrounding Earth, the ionosphere is a shell of ionized gas created by the sun. Solar ultraviolet radiation ionizes air near the edge of space, creating a dynamic layer of plasma that varies with solar activity, time of day, and latitude. The ionosphere plays a critical role in GPS systems by reflecting or distorting radio waves passing through it.
When the sun sets, the ionosphere becomes unstable. This happens because the sun’s ionizing radiation suddenly disappears. A Rayleigh-Taylor instability takes hold, and bubbles of low-density plasma begin to rise, much like blobs in a lava lamp.
These structures are especially common near the magnetic equator, where electric and magnetic fields enhance the effect. That’s why they’re called equatorial plasma bubbles.
The March 23-24, 2023, event was remarkable because the bubbles were so widespread. They are normally confined within +/- 20 degrees of the magnetic equator, but during this storm, they spread at least twice as far, affecting population centers at middle latitudes. Peak position errors were wider than urban roadways.
Above: Red-orange-yellow marks where rapid fluctuations were observed during the March 2023 geomagnetic storm. A plume of yellow extends all the way into Texas.
Savvy readers may wonder if something similar happened during the Great Geomagnetic Storm of May 2024. After all, that was the biggest geomagnetic storm in decades (G5+), far more intense than the March 2023 storm (G4). The answer, surprisingly, seems to be “no.” The same sensors were running during both storms, yet only the lesser storm produced extraordinary scintillation.
“This is an example of how the ionosphere can respond differently to different magnetic storms,” says Rodrigues. “We still have a lot to learn.”
Do It Yourself: Rodrigues’s team monitors equatorial plasma bubbles using a low-cost sensor called ScintPi, based on the Raspberry Pi computer. You can build one yourself. Hobbyists are using them to observe geomagnetic storms and even solar eclipses.
A recent story posted by Reuters blames recent wildfire numbers and severity that have erupted across Mediterranean Europe on climate change. Data and history debunk such claims. Satellite data from Europe and the United States show wildfire is in decline globally, including across Europe, and research and reports show wildfires have been common across the arid Mediterranean region throughout history.
A recent story posted by Reuters blames recent wildfire numbers and severity that have erupted across Mediterranean Europe on climate change. Data and history debunk such claims. Satellite data from Europe and the United States show wildfire is in decline globally, including across Europe, and research and reports show wildfires have been common across the arid Mediterranean region throughout history.
In the Reuters story, “How climate change fuels wildfires in Europe,” writer Kate Abnett writes, “[w]ildfires have burnt 227,000 hectares of land since the beginning of the year – more than double the average for this time of year over the past two decades,” noting that while this years acreage lost to wildfires is far above the recent average (consistent records have only been kept since 2002), it is far below the recent record.
Abnett uncritically blames climate change for causing the Southern Europe’s fires, writing:
Scientists say the Mediterranean region’s hotter, drier summers put it at high risk of wildfires. …
Climate change exacerbates this risk, by creating hotter and drier background conditions. In the countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea, that has contributed to the fire season starting earlier in recent years, breaking records for the intensity of fires, and burning more land.
Greenhouse gas emissions, mainly from burning coal, oil and gas, have heated the planet by about 1.3 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times. Europe has warmed at twice the global average since the 1980s, according to the World Meteorological Organization.
Abnett’s narrative may be compelling, but it is compelling fiction, unmoored from a historical understanding of fire in the region, and refuted by hard data and research.
As a matter of geography the climate of the Mediterranean region is naturally arid, prone to drought, extreme heat, and yes, associated wildfires. Abnett in particular discusses wildfires in parts of France (documented, for example, here and here), Greece (documented, for example, here and here), Spain (documented, for example, here and here), and even Syria (documented, for example, here and here). Syria is not normally considered part of Europe but I guess Abnett threw it into the mix because there are fires burning there and it is located to the Mediterranean Sea. The problem is research and historical reports from each of the countries and regions mentioned by Abnett show that wildfires, often set intentionally by people during wars, have been common there.
Fire helped shape the ecology of the entire region. Some past fires have been huge. For instance, more than 112 years of global warming ago, when global average temperatures were cooler and humans weren’t contributing significantly to atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, the great Thessaloniki fire burned for 13 days, left more than 70,000 people homeless, and destroyed two-thirds of Greece’s second largest city.
Factions have used fire as a tool to fight wars throughout history. In fact, many of the fires in Syria today have been set during its ongoing political strife or civil war. In the waning days of the Assad regime, it became common for militia’s fighting the government to set fires, which drained resources from the regime. Nowhere in Abnett’s story does she discuss the fact that many fires now burning and that have scorched the region in recent years have been the result of human carelessness, and sometimes intentionally set for political reasons or purely perverse ends.
That’s the history and context Abnett ignores in her rush to climate judgement.
Additionally, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) undermines Abnett’s linking long-term climate change and the increase in wildfires. The IPCC says in Chapter 12 of its Sixth Assessment Report there has been no observable change in the wildfire regime. “There is low confidence in any long-term increases in meteorological drought or fire weather at the global scale,” states the IPCC. The organization goes on say that, based on trends and models forecasts, it does not expect any observable change in wildfire behavior, numbers, intensity, or acreage lost, to arise by 2050 or even by 2100.
On this point, the IPCC would seem to be on solid ground since satellite data sets from NASA and the European Space Agency both show a decline in wildfires in recent decades.
In short, since wildfires are declining, it is impossible for climate change to be making wildfires more frequent or severe.
To the extent that people perceive wildfire trends as worsening it is likely due to the fact that with population and associated housing and infrastructure growth and expansion into regions historically prone to wildfires, more people are being affected by wildfires when they occur even when they aren’t as widespread or severe. In addition, the 24-seven global news cycle, a factor that never existed in human history before the last 50 years, makes people aware of even distant wildfires when they occur, making fires appear more frequent.
In the end, rather than focusing on the real factors behind today’s wildfires, Reuters chose to continue the drumbeat that climate change is behind everything bad that happens. This is especially unfortunate with regard to discussions of how to reduce wildfires, since the story ignores real world means of preventing and/or reducing the extend and damage from wildfires when they occur, such as increased active forest management, improved access for firefighting purposes, and hardening infrastructure. Instead, the story implies falsely that if only humans stopped burning oil, natural gas, and coal, wildfires would be relegated to the history books.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Wildfires are natural. They have been, remain, and will continue to be a fact of life for the foreseeable future, regardless of fossil fuel use. But the judicious use of fossil fuels, can help fight fires, by powering equipment, pumps, and timber removal machinery, for example, and by providing the on demand electric power and plastics which house electronics used to discover, map, track and to pinpoint suppression efforts. Fossil fuels also allow society to to map potential fuel load build ups and favorable meteorological conditions rapidly, to anticipate and possibly prevent fires before they occur. That’s what Abnett would have the world give up to prevent a modest rise in future temperatures.
Another day, another groaner of a climate alarmist press release—this time from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), touting a new study that claims the 2023 marine heatwaves were “unprecedented” and may “signal a climate tipping point” posted at EurekAlert, July 24th, 2025.
Another day, another groaner of a climate alarmist press release—this time from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), touting a new study that claims the 2023 marine heatwaves were “unprecedented” and may “signal a climate tipping point” posted at EurekAlert, July 24th, 2025.
The breathless tone is familiar, and the underlying logic is seriously flawed. But hey, if we scare people into action, we just might save the planet.
Let’s unpack this claim using a simple but often overlooked principle: context matters. Particularly in climate, which has cycles that span millennia, not just decades.
The foundational flaw in this study is its timescale. The research relies on satellite data beginning in 1982. That gives us about 40 years of observational history, which is virtually nothing in terms of Earth’s climate system. Prior to satellite coverage, comprehensive, high-resolution global measurements of sea surface temperatures simply didn’t exist. Claims of “unprecedented” events must be framed within that very limited context. As I’ve said before, declaring a “record” based on such a short window is like calling a coin flip streak a “trend” after four tosses.
Ocean temperatures fluctuate naturally over decadal, centennial, and even millennial scales. Our current observational capacity doesn’t cover even half of one oceanic oscillation cycle, such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), which paleoclimatology suggests runs as long as 50-70 years. To suggest a climate “tipping point” based on this short dataset is not just premature—it’s scientifically irresponsible.
The study makes much of the marine heatwaves’ “extreme” scale and persistence, yet it also quietly admits the 2023 heat spikes were linked to a strong El Niño. This is a naturally recurring phenomenon, not a man-made one. El Niño has been driving global climate variability for thousands of years, influencing ocean currents, sea surface temperatures, and atmospheric patterns.
The Tropical Eastern Pacific, one of the hottest zones in the 2023 event, is historically the epicenter of El Niño conditions. It should surprise no one that temperatures peaked there. What’s odd is the leap from observing a known, cyclical pattern to proclaiming it a new climate threshold.
The modeling mirage is strong with this one. Dong et al. used ECCO2 (Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean – Phase II), a high-resolution ocean model that ingests satellite data to reconstruct conditions like mixed-layer heat budgets. While ECCO2 is a valuable scientific tool, let’s not forget: models are not measurements. They are educated guesses constrained by initial assumptions and historical tuning.
All models are simplifications, and when dealing with something as complex as ocean-atmosphere interactions, even a small error can yield a wildly different output. Yet here, model outputs are used not just to analyze the past but to hint at an ominous future—a future where every warm patch of seawater is a harbinger of ecological doom.
The press release tries to go for the jugular by suggesting that these marine heatwaves might “portend an emerging climate tipping point”. That’s a phrase straight from the climate playbook of fear, designed to bypass critical thinking and stampede policymakers into hasty action. Even the photo supplied with the press release was chosen to look “hot” and drive fear. Nowhere in the abstract or methods is there clear empirical evidence linking this event to irreversible climate shifts. It’s pure conjecture, wrapped in technical jargon and served up with a greasy side of urgency.
According to the press release, the authors cite “region-specific drivers” for each major marine heatwave. In the North Atlantic, enhanced shortwave radiation and a shallower mixed layer were culprits. In the Southwest Pacific, the heat was attributed to reduced cloud cover and increased advection. The Tropical Eastern Pacific was influenced by oceanic advection.
Notice anything? These aren’t unified, global changes due to increased CO2. They are local, meteorological, and oceanographic phenomena—exactly the kinds of natural variability we should expect in a dynamic system. The fact that these local causes are acknowledged undercuts the paper’s own argument for a singular, global cause rooted in greenhouse gas emissions.
Bad science and an unjustified extrapolation is the gist of this study and press release. Perhaps the most egregious leap comes in the suggestion that the 2023 marine heatwaves might represent a “tipping point” in the Earth’s climate system. The term “tipping point” implies a sudden, irreversible shift—a planetary point of no return. But what evidence is there for this? The authors provide none beyond the temperature anomalies themselves and vague references to mixed-layer dynamics.
No historical precedent is given. No paleoclimatic comparisons are offered. No quantitative thresholds are defined. It’s all speculation dressed up in technical language.
Predictably, the press release connects the marine heatwaves to coral bleaching, fishery losses, and ecological disaster. While it is true that marine heatwaves can affect ecosystems, the narrative ignores the fact that marine species have adapted to variability over millions of years.
Corals, for instance, have survived past periods of much higher global temperatures. Many fish species migrate or dive to avoid surface heat. And let’s not forget: ecosystems are resilient. The doom-and-gloom language betrays a bias that prioritizes alarm over understanding.
My conclusion: another tale of confirmation bias
The 2023 marine heatwaves were notable, yes. But were they a sign of a planetary tipping point? Unlikely. The evidence is thin, the dataset is short, and the logic is stretched.
Here’s what we actually know:
Our observational record of global ocean temperatures is limited to a few decades.
Natural variability, including El Niño and decadal oscillations, can easily account for short-term spikes.
The study’s own data points to region-specific, localized drivers.
The models used, while complex, are not infallible representations of reality.
No historical context or thresholds are provided to justify claims of a tipping point.
Science should seek to inform, not frighten. The AAAS release on this study opts for drama over depth, projection over precision. In doing so, it exemplifies what’s wrong with climate discourse today: a preference for narrative over nuance.
Let’s not mistake a one year snapshot for a trend—or worse, for a crisis.
The paper: Record-breaking 2023 marine heatwaves
Dong et al., Science 24 Jul 2025 Vol 389, Issue 6758 pp. 369-374
The year 2023 witnessed an extraordinary surge in marine heatwaves (MHWs) across Earth’s oceans, setting new records in duration, extent, and intensity, with MHW activity totaling 53.6 billion °C days square kilometer—more than three standard deviations above the historical norm since 1982. Notable events include the North Atlantic MHW (276-year return period) and the Southwest Pacific (141 years). Using ECCO2 (Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean-Phase II) high-resolution daily data, we conducted a mixed-layer heat budget analysis and identified region-specific drivers: enhanced shortwave flux and a shallower mixed layer in the North Atlantic and North Pacific, reduced cloud cover and increased advection in the Southwest Pacific, and oceanic advections in the Tropical Eastern Pacific. The 2023 MHWs highlight the intensifying impacts of a warm climate and the challenges in understanding extreme events.
In a droll, but scathing assessment, Matt Ridley calculates that even in a best case scenario, with the most generous estimate of how useful a wind turbine might be, the people in the UK are spending £25 billion a year to reduce global emissions of CO2 by 0.00002 or two hundredths of one percent.
The poor today are even paying to help the very rich people of 2100 get slightly richer
Matt Ridley
In a droll, but scathing assessment, Matt Ridley calculates that even in a best case scenario, with the most generous estimate of how useful a wind turbine might be, the people in the UK are spending £25 billion a year to reduce global emissions of CO2 by 0.00002 or two hundredths of one percent.
At that rate getting the world to net zero will cost £100 trillion a year – or the entire world’s economic output.
The numbers burn like the Hindenburg, yet serious people keep a straight face, like we are living in an episode of Monty Python. The Parliamentarians pretend to save the world, the scientists research a pretend world, and the media pretend to be journalists.
The climate boondoggle is one of the most regressive wealth transfers in history: never in the field of human commerce, or at least not since the sheriff of Nottingham, has so much tax been paid by people so poor to people so rich. Perhaps Ed Miliband is hoping that by giving lots of money to rich people, he can then impose a wealth tax on them in a sort of economic perpetual-motion machine.
There appears to be no end to his generosity to the rich. He has recently announced an increase in subsidies for electric cars, electric heating and electricity bills, and this week he quietly let slip that he will raise the amount he pays for new wind farms and index-link the payment for an extra five years.
What’s that? You don’t have a wind farm? Bad luck. Landowners who do can trouser £150,000 per wind turbine per year in rent for twenty to thirty years. One is arguing in court that £10m a year for his wind farm is not enough. …
Ridley quotes the latest official State of the Climate Report and asks:”Wheres the horror, Ed?”
The state of the climate report, which he presented to Parliament last week, says only that “recent decades have been warmer, wetter and sunnier than the 20th Century” with earlier springs and more “lawn-cutting days”. Mostly good news unless you hate lawn-mowing. There has been more warming in winter than summer, so less frost, less snow and fewer “heating days”: good news given that death rates spike in cold weather much more than in hot weather.
It says we now have 10% more rain, most of it in winter but the report can only “suggest a slight increase” in heavy rainfall while finding a “downward trend” in both average wind speed and maximum gust speed. On balance, good news. The only bad news is that sea level is rising, still very slowly – about a foot per century – but perhaps with a slight acceleration.
The inescapable pointlessness of the wind power boondoggle is there for all to see:
…let’s do the sums: Britain produces 0.8% of the world’s emissions. Electricity supplies roughly 20% of our energy and wind supplied about 25% of our electricity last year.
Let’s be generous and assume that windmills cut emissions by maybe 60% over their lifetimes compared with gas turbines…
It follows that Britain’s wind farms are achieving a reduction of 0.008 x 0.20 x 0.25 x 0.6 = 0.0002, or two hundredths of one percent of global emissions. That is what £25 billion a year, paid by you in direct and indirect subsidies according to the Renewable Energy Foundation, is buying you. At that rate getting the world to net zero will cost £100 trillion a year – or the entire world’s economic output.
He cites Richard Tol’s study showing that even if the world warms by (an unbelieveable) 3 degrees, global GDP will only be about 2% smaller than it would have otherwise been. And total GDP is expected to grow massively, either way.
Alternatively, if we go by the IPCC‘s business-as-usual model, and if “…we forget about climate change and just let the fossil-fuel economy rip” the average person will be an “astonishing 9.8 times richer in 2100 even with the effects of rapid climate change, instead of 10.4 times without it”.
Matt Ridley:
So Mr Miliband is asking you to reduce your standard of living today to save a bunch of very, very wealthy future people from being slightly less – but still very, very – wealthy. Your prosperity is sacrificed to their posterity. This is therefore yet another way in which he is transferring money from the poor to the rich. Was he sheriff of Nottingham in a previous life?
Read it in full on X, there is a lot more — or in a somewhat edited version in the Daily Mail, which Matt warns contains errors, introduced by editors while he was away.
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