{"id":439695,"date":"2026-04-15T10:12:25","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T17:12:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=439695"},"modified":"2026-04-15T10:12:27","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T17:12:27","slug":"john-clauser-exposes-flaws-in-earths-energy-imbalance-at-heartland-iccc16","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=439695","title":{"rendered":"John Clauser Exposes Flaws in Earth\u2019s Energy Imbalance at Heartland ICCC16"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Heartland Institute’s 16th International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC16) took place April 8\u20139, 2026, in Washington, D.C. A recurring theme across sessions was “What Is The Proof?” \u2014 a data-focused challenge to core claims in the mainstream climate narrative, rather than policy debate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On April 9, Nobel Prize-winning physicist John Clauser (2022 Physics Nobel for work on quantum entanglement) delivered a keynote that addressed extreme weather in the first part and devoted the bulk of his time to Earth’s Energy Imbalance (EEI) as purported “proof” of a human-driven crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

EEI is the net difference (at the top of the atmosphere, or TOA) between absorbed incoming solar radiation and outgoing longwave (infrared) radiation emitted to space. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A sustained positive EEI means the planet is gaining energy overall, which must show up as warming (mostly in oceans, ~90% of the excess).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Total typical flows:<\/strong> ~340 W\/m\u00b2 incoming solar; ~100 W\/m\u00b2 reflected shortwave + ~239 W\/m\u00b2 outgoing longwave = ~339 W\/m\u00b2 outgoing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Claimed recent EEI:<\/strong> ~0.7 W\/m\u00b2 (about 0.2% of the total flux), per IPCC AR6 and recent WMO reports. This tiny residual is cited as direct physical evidence of anthropogenic greenhouse-gas trapping, with recent increases linked to record ocean heat uptake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Proponents see it as more robust than surface-temperature records because it sidesteps urban-heat-island effects, sparse station coverage, and averaging issues with intensive variables like temperature. IPCC AR6 shifted emphasis toward EEI partly for these reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clauser argued that claims of a significant, alarming EEI lack robust proof due to measurement challenges and data adjustments.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clauser’s presentation at Heartland highlights legitimate questions about measurement precision, calibration practices, and the gap between raw observations and interpreted “proof” of crisis-level anthropogenic dominance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Science benefits from such scrutiny, especially on a metric as foundational as planetary energy balance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, the convergence of satellite, ocean, and surface data on net energy gain (however small in W\/m\u00b2 terms) represents a physical constraint that any complete climate explanation must address\u2014natural variability alone has struggled to fully account for post-1950s trends without invoking greenhouse forcing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The debate underscores the difference between detecting a signal and proving its magnitude, attribution, and future implications demand high evidentiary standards. Heartland events like this serve as a counterpoint to consensus-focused forums, emphasizing data examination over alarm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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At The Heartland Climate Conference: \u201cWhat Is The Proof?\u201d, Earth\u2019s Energy Imbalance Edition<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From The Manhattan Contrarian<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Francis Menton<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his April 9 address to the Heartland Climate Conference, physicist John Clauser devoted the first quarter of his time to the issue of extreme weather events, and the remainder to something called the Earth\u2019s Energy Imbalance, or EEI. On April 10, I summarized the portion of the presentation relating to extreme weather events in my prior post here<\/a>. Today I will discuss Clauser\u2019s presentation on EEI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before hearing Clauser\u2019s presentation, I had heard of the EEI metric, but I had not studied it in depth. Nor had I realized the extent to which the IPCC and the climate cabal have embraced this metric as providing the preferred proof of impending dangerous global warming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The metric that has previously been most used as the supposed proof of dangerous atmospheric warming generally goes by the name Global Average Surface Temperature, or GAST. Multiple entities put out non-identical versions of GAST. The big three entities that report GAST data are NOAA and NASA in the U.S., and the Hadley Center in the UK. To calculate some version of GAST, these organizations identify a collection of surface thermometer monitoring stations around the world, and obtain the readings from each of those stations on a daily basis. Typically, they average the high and low temperatures at each station to obtain a daily average for that station, and then average all the daily averages to obtain a monthly average for each station. Then they average the monthly averages for all the stations to obtain a world-wide average for each month. The number is typically reported not as an absolute temperature, but rather as an \u201canomaly,\u201d that is, a deviation from some baseline. Each of the reporting entities has a different collection of stations and a different method for calculating the baseline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The GAST methodology is how NASA and NOAA create their monthly charts showing a sharply rising world temperature trend. This is the methodology used by Mann, et al., to create the rapidly-rising \u201cblade\u201d of their famous Hockey Stick graph. And it is one of the three \u201clines of evidence\u201d by which EPA claimed to find CO2 and other \u201cgreenhouse gases\u201d to be a \u201cdanger to human health and welfare\u201d in the 2009 Endangerment Finding (recently rescinded by the Trump administration).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But do the GAST graphs really prove that some kind of \u201caverage\u201d temperature of the earth is rising, let alone that it will continue to rise in the future? There are big problems with using GAST as a measure of global average temperature, many of which Clauser pointed out:<\/p>\n\n\n\n