A fresh World Meteorological Organization (WMO) report triggered the usual round of apocalyptic media headlines about record global warming and climate crisis.

Marcel Crok argues that the report — and the way warming is described — unintentionally highlights the Sun as the primary driver:

Most of the recent “excess energy” is accumulating in the oceans (where ~90% of planetary heat uptake occurs).

This opens the door to solar influences: variations in Total Solar Irradiance (TSI), ultraviolet output, solar magnetic activity, cosmic ray modulation (affecting clouds via the Svensmark mechanism), and solar wind effects on atmospheric circulation.

The piece presents it as a modern update to the long-standing skeptic slogan “It’s the sun, stupid!” (popularized for years by Willie Soon and others).

Crok notes: “Unintentionally, the WMO has also opened the door to another important factor (or rather, the most important factor) in the climate: the sun.”

Crok frames it as a modern twist on the long-standing skeptic motto “It’s the sun, stupid!” (popularized for years by Dr. Willie Soon and others): “Unintentionally, the WMO has also opened the door to another important factor (or rather, the most important factor) in the climate: the sun.”

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It’s the sun, sucker!

From Indepen

By Marcel Crok

A new report by the World Meteorological Organization led to apocalyptic headlines in the newspapers again last week. Unintentionally, however, Marcel Crok writes, the report opens the door to the most important factor in our climate, the sun.

While bombs and grenades are descending on the Middle East and causing death and destruction, it is also just March and therefore time for the annual State of the Global Climate report of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). “The earth’s climate is increasingly out of balance,” was the headline of the WMO press release and similar headlines also dominated the Dutch media. The NOS opened with “Meteorologists: earth retains more heat than ever, consequences will be felt for centuries”. RTL News opted for “Climate more out of balance than ever measured, meteorologists warn”, at NRC the verdict was “UN report: earth more out of balance than ever measured, all signals on red” and Trouw finally held it up “The last eleven years were the warmest ever measured, reports the UN meteorological organization”.

Anyone who reads the documents would think that our last hour has come. Not because of an imminent nuclear war, but because of devastating climate change. “Human activities are increasingly disrupting the natural balance, and we will have to live with the consequences for hundreds, if not thousands, of years to come,” WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said in the press release. By ‘human activities’, it obviously means those activities that lead to the emission of greenhouse gases, in particular CO2.

Earth in imbalance

For the first time, the WMO reports on the radiation balance of the earth. Of course, the WMO does not do that just like that. Apparently, something alarming can be deduced from that radiation balance. Never before has the earth been so out of balance, according to the WMO. “Never before” here means the last 65 years, because that is how far back in time their graph goes.

Climate skeptics in particular have regularly pointed out (an important paper was this one from 2003) that, if you are interested in global warming (or cooling), you will have to look at the energy content of the oceans. This is where more than 90 percent of the climate’s energy is located. The atmosphere, the thin shell in which we live, contains only 1 percent of the earth’s energy. It is therefore commendable that the WMO also recognizes this and is now reporting on it.

Over the past twenty years, work has been done on a network (Argo) of about 4000 buoys that float freely in the oceans and dive into the ocean for ten days each time to take measurements. Once at the top, the data is transmitted after which a new ten-day measurement campaign begins. At the same time, NASA satellites (CERES) have been installed to measure how much radiation enters and leaves the Earth. With the data from these two measurement campaigns, we can estimate the extent to which the earth retains or releases heat. The WMO’s verdict is that the earth retains a record amount of heat and they also state that the retention of that heat has been accelerating in recent years (i.e. accelerating).

In the report, they link this (of course, you would almost say) one-to-one to the increase in greenhouse gases (they themselves like to speak of accumulation or accumulation) in the atmosphere. For example, they write: “The energy imbalance of the earth is an important indicator of the climate. It measures how fast the heat trapped by human greenhouse gas emissions accumulates in the climate system.” In Trouw, Frank Selten of the KNMI is allowed to say exactly the same thing twice (I assume by accident): “The further out of balance, the faster the warming.”

The indicator (the Earth Energy Imbalance, EEI) therefore fits perfectly into the alarmist alley of the WMO (and the KNMI). Unintentionally, however, the WMO has also opened the door to another important factor (or rather the most important factor) in the climate: the sun. How does that work?

The sun warms the earth

Almost all the energy that the earth receives comes from the sun (a very small part is heat that comes from the interior of the earth). Friend and foe agree on that. Scientists call this short-wave radiation. The earth is heated by the sun and in turn emits infrared radiation (scientists call this long-wave radiation, because the wavelength of this radiation is longer than that of solar radiation). Greenhouse gases such as CO2 and water vapor are able to ‘capture’ that long-wave radiation, making the thin layer of atmosphere in which we live just a bit warmer (read: more pleasant) than if we had an atmosphere without greenhouse gases. Most calculations (there is debate about this) suggest that without greenhouse gases it would be 33 degrees colder on earth, which would make the average temperature on earth not +15 degrees Celsius but -18 degrees Celsius, which would make large parts of the planet uninhabitable. Water and CO2 therefore make the planet habitable.

So the earth can warm up in two ways; because more radiation from the sun enters or is retained or because less infrared radiation emits because of those damned greenhouse gases. The WMO keeps it to the second of course in the sentence shown above. But the NASA satellite measurements indicate the former. In the last twenty years, the earth retains more sunlight! About thirty percent of the sunlight that reaches the earth is reflected, mainly by clouds but also by snow and ice (this is called albedo). In the last twenty years, however, that percentage seems to have decreased. Less sunlight is reflected and more is therefore retained by the earth. Where? Especially in the oceans. It is a new variant of a motto that many climate skeptics have had for years: it’s the sun, stupid! (“It’s the sun, sucker!”).

Diving

People who dive know that sunlight can penetrate deep into the water (up to 100 meters deep). Infrared radiation from CO2 and water vapor also radiates from the atmosphere back to the earth’s surface but can only penetrate 0.1 mm of the sea surface. Later in the WMO report, this option is also mentioned: “This [the disturbed energy balance, ed.] has also been associated with an increase in absorbed solar radiation, due to reduced reflection from clouds and sea ice.”

Why has the Earth started to retain more sunlight? Good question! This is what science is looking into. In an earlier article at Indepen, we already pointed out the eruption of the Hunga Tonga volcano that probably had a major impact on the spectacular warming we saw in 2023 and 2024. There, too, more sunlight in the oceans played an important role. But the trend towards more retained sunlight has been going on for some time. Fewer clouds is a likely reason. A decrease in air pollution (which reflects sunlight) may also play a role. This is still a puzzle for the scientists.

But what the WMO keeps underexposed is this: the oceans are warmer than the air above them and according to the second law of thermodynamics, heat can only flow from warm to cold. We all know this: if you’ve been in the bath and you leave the water, the next morning it will be the same temperature as the air in the bathroom.

The oceans are therefore warming up because more sunlight is penetrating. The oceans then warm up the air above them and wind will also cause warming on land (especially in coastal areas). Where else in the story are greenhouse gases discussed? Almost not! Above the sea, the greenhouse gases do virtually nothing. Climate science is now desperately trying to keep their greenhouse story afloat. How? By stating that thanks to the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the air above the oceans will be relatively warmer and that the heat flow from the oceans to the air will be tempered. This is the marginal role that remains for CO2. Of course, the WMO report does not mention this, but it is the ultimate consequence of their own observations.

Snags

However, there are more snags behind the WMO’s story. The WMO, but also the IPCC (United Nations climate panel) claim that they can measure the radiation balance of the earth with a high degree of precision. However, a recently published paper by a group of American and Australian researchers (Dutch press release about it here at Clintel) on the network of buoys (ARGO) in particular states that the uncertainties surrounding the Earth’s radiation balance are a factor of ten greater than reported by the climate community. According to them, it means that claims such as “highest ever” and “accelerates” cannot be made at all (the uncertainties do not allow that). They also mention that the NASA satellite measurements (Ceres) measurements will be adjusted to the results of the ARGO network. Therefore, they are not independent measurements of each other and therefore cannot be presented as separate evidence for the imbalance of the earth.

Extremes

As nice as it is that these measurement campaigns exist (they should certainly be continued), the measurements still raise more questions than they provide clear answers. And if we seem to be able to learn anything from the past twenty years of measurements, it is that the earth seems to retain more sunlight, for reasons that are unclear.

It is completely out of place to start shouting that it is 2 to 12 on the basis of the uncertain measurements of the radiation balance of the earth. Yet that is exactly what the UN does (of course). “The global climate is in a state of emergency. Planet Earth is being pushed beyond its limits. Every major climate indicator is red,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres.

Of course, the extremes are also brought out again. “Our weather is becoming more and more extreme. In 2025, heatwaves, wildfires, droughts, tropical cyclones, storms and floods will have claimed thousands of lives, affected millions of people and caused billions of euros in damage,” said Celeste Saulo. This is pure disinformation from the WMO and the UN. Yes, extreme weather also caused damage and casualties in 2025, but as previously published by Indepen, the number of victims due to extreme weather has been falling spectacularly for decades. In terms of damage, 2025 was a below-average year, as the American researcher Roger Pielke Jr shows on his substack page.

Damage

The damage last year was about 0.18% of global GDP, which is below the long-term average of 0.22% and also below the long-term trend (red dotted line). Pielke also mentions that the largest reinsurer of this type of damage in the world, Munich Re, made a profit of 6 billion dollars last year!

A constant temperature is best for humans, says Frank Selten of the KNMI in conclusion in the Trouw article. A curious comment. From winter to summer, people go through temperature transitions of tens of degrees. Both in Oslo (annual average temperature 7 degrees Celsius) and in Singapore (annual average temperature 27 degrees Celsius) people are perfectly capable of living a prosperous, long and healthy life. That humanity would suffer from a degree of warming (or 2) is quite absurd.