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1. Eclectic at 18:28 PM on 19 April 2026
   Human-caused climate change is unmistakably distinct from Earth’s natural climate variability
   

   Eric @7 : you intrigue me.  How will A.I. itself "solve that problem for better or worse"?   Sure, the human psychology being what it is . . . we do need some sort of "savior" to effect a rapid & politically-acceptable technology that will quickly achieve Nett-Zero emissions in a few decades.  But what could that almost-miraculous technology be?  As yet, fusion-power seems to be starting the race a long way behind the starting line.

   Nigel @5/6 :

   Thank you.  And much of what you (and the A.I.)  mention boils down to Motivated Reasoning  ~ which does not arise from a low I.Q. but very much from emotionally-driven thinking  i.e. the confirmation bias & cherry-picking of aspects of climate science.

   More interesting, I reckon, is the underlying causation of such thinking ~ is it from tribal hatred of the rest of humanity, or is there a degree of individual narcissism  [ USA political comment omitted at this point! ]  or other causation of intellectual failure?

   Therefore I am keen to learn whether climate science denialists have some insight into their own style of thinking.  And whether they can be bold enough to publicize their inner thoughts & self-understandings.

2. Eric (skeptic) at 12:33 PM on 19 April 2026
   Human-caused climate change is unmistakably distinct from Earth’s natural climate variability
   

   I remember the diagram from an earlier thread and I'd like to revisit it.  The diagram shows 600 ppm and roughly 22C on the black curve and overlayed text says thermal lag and slow feedback mechanisms.  Thernal lag: yes, certainly.  But feedback increases CO2.  It does not lead to the black curve, it "merely" extends the red curve to the right.

   As the author, Dean, points out, that's even worse because we can potentially get further up via the black curve.  But that will require oceans to warm from their current 2-3C to 15 C or more.  Dean points out feedbacks take millenia.  But again that's rightward not upward on the chart.  The omnipotent AI says that equilibrium response of the deep ocean is approx 1500 years.  But that's simply the turbulent mixing timescale.

   The much discussed AMOC is connected to the SMOC.  AMOC changes could affect SMOC and vice versa.  SMOC overall is 2-3x AMOC as measured in Sv (million cubic meters / sec of water movement).  Ironically it is the slowdown of SMOC in particular that would extend the 1500 years.  AMOC is more complex with weaker AMOC increasing heat storage efficiency.

   I find if I pound on the AI enough it will finally find some (admittedly tentative) support for my claim:

   Yes, increased winter sea ice formation in a seasonally ice-free Arctic, particularly in key regions like the Laptev and Kara Seas, can enhance brine rejection and cold, dense water formation, potentially acting as a negative feedback to slow the overall decline of deep water formation

   Basically that's due to more open water in autumn leading to a larger heat loss along with the ability of (projected) fresher Arctic surface water to freeze faster.  Bottom line is we are talking millenia of thermal lag.  My own professional use of nascent AI leads me to the conclusion that millenia simply do not matter at all anymore.  I used to think a century mattered, but even before current AI I recognized the acceleration of technology.  As of now, the only thing slowing AI down is slow humans.  AI itself will solve that problem for better or worse.  I think for the better, but I've always been an optimist.

3. nigelj at 07:42 AM on 19 April 2026
   Human-caused climate change is unmistakably distinct from Earth’s natural climate variability
   

   Correction of typo:  rkcannon essentially claims that the anthropogenic warming theory is wrong because warming was strong early last century, despite yearly CO2 emissions being quite low at that time. ( as were total atmospheric CO2 concentrations)

4. nigelj at 07:28 AM on 19 April 2026
   Human-caused climate change is unmistakably distinct from Earth’s natural climate variability
   

   Regarding rkcannons comments and the moderators accurate response. I have long suspected a large propotion of the climate science denialists might be getting certain things wrong at least partly due to an innate or deeply seated difficulty they have with multi factorial situations, where an outcome is a result of a combination of multiple factors operating simultaneously. I have now tracked down some science that backs this up and added this at the end.

   Some examples of this page. rkcannon essentially claims that the anthropogenic warming theory is wrong because warming was strong early last century despite CO2 emissions. But the reasons for strong warming early last century were a complicated combination of CO2 and multiple other natural cycles and natural factors acting simultaneously, and the limited atmospheric concentrations of CO2 at that time. There are studies on this easly found by an internet search.

   rkcannon mentions China is still warming despite its use of coal burning that generates cooling aerosols. But this is due to a complicated combination of factors, many discussed by the moderator.

   The denialists have had all this explained to them many times yet persist with their denialism. I suspect some people (particularly a large proportion of the climate denialists) find holding multi factorial issues in their heads difficult, despite often being well educated people. It might be a basic psychological difference between people. Like how some people are good at multi tasking and some aren't. This might partly explain their stubborn denialism. Im not sure if this would apply to rkcannon but it looks like it applies to some people.

   I asked an AI about this and the response is as follows and includes specific references to key researchers:

   Short answer:
   Yes — there is published science showing that some people, even highly intelligent ones, have difficulty understanding situations where multiple interacting factors produce an outcome. This difficulty is not simply about “intelligence” but about specific cognitive skills, cognitive styles, and limits in working memory and reasoning.

   1. Intelligence ≠ Systems Thinking
   General intelligence (often measured as g) predicts problem‑solving in many areas, but systems thinking — the ability to understand interactions, feedback loops, and multi‑cause outcomes — is a separate cognitive skill.

   Research in cognitive psychology and decision science shows that people can be strong in abstract reasoning yet weak in:

   Integrative complexity (ability to hold multiple perspectives at once)

   Causal reasoning (understanding how multiple causes interact)

   Systems reasoning (thinking in terms of networks, not linear chains)

   These are partly independent of IQ.

   2. Working Memory Limits
   Complex situations require holding several variables in mind simultaneously. Studies in cognitive load theory show that people vary widely in working memory capacity, which strongly affects their ability to reason about multi‑factor problems.

   Even very intelligent people can have:

   Lower working memory span

   Difficulty tracking interacting variables

   A tendency to oversimplify to reduce cognitive load

   This leads to “single‑cause thinking” even when the person is otherwise bright.

   3. Cognitive Biases That Block Multi‑Factor Understanding
   Humans naturally prefer simple explanations. Several well‑documented biases contribute:

   Simplicity bias — preference for one clear cause

   Attribution error — overemphasis on personal causes vs. situational ones

   Confirmation bias — selecting the cause that fits one’s existing beliefs

   Narrative bias — preferring tidy stories over messy realities

   These biases operate regardless of intelligence.

   4. Need for Cognitive Closure
   Some people have a stronger psychological need for quick, definite answers. Research on need for closure shows that individuals high in this trait struggle with:

   Ambiguity

   Multi‑factor explanations

   Probabilistic reasoning

   They prefer a single, decisive cause even when the situation is inherently complex.

   5. Published Research Areas Supporting This
   There is substantial scientific literature across several fields:

   Cognitive psychology — working memory, causal reasoning, integrative complexity

   Decision science — multi‑attribute decision‑making, heuristics and biases

   Systems thinking research — especially in education, engineering, and management

   Neuroscience — showing that multi‑factor reasoning activates networks associated with cognitive control and abstraction

   Key researchers include:

   Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky (cognitive biases)

   Philip Tetlock (integrative complexity)

   John Sterman (systems thinking)

   Keith Stanovich (rationality vs. intelligence distinction)

   6. Bottom Line
   Some people — even very intelligent ones — genuinely struggle with multi‑factor, complex situations because:

   Systems thinking is a distinct skill

   Working memory varies between individuals

   Cognitive biases push toward simple explanations

   Some people have a psychological preference for certainty

   This difficulty is not a sign of low intelligence, but a reflection of how differently human minds handle complexity.

   -------------------

   Normally I do not post AI responses but I think it makes sense on this issue and I dont have time to write an essay in my own words, and  it includes a list of  researchers people can look up.

   Moderator Response:

   [BL] Use of AI-generated text is not explicitly banned by the SkS Comments Policy (yet), but we would request that its use be limited - and clearly identified (as you have). The last thing we want is to turn the comments section here into a battle of the AI generators.

   Given that AI is known to hallucinate, have you actually checked to see if the names on the list of "key researchers" it generated actually exist and have written on the topics the AI clams to have found? Links to actual papers would be far more convincing that a few unrecognizable names.

5. Eclectic at 23:49 PM on 18 April 2026
   Human-caused climate change is unmistakably distinct from Earth’s natural climate variability
   

   Rkcannon @3 ,

   You are being very droll.

   Other than for your own whimsical humor, do you have a reason for again visiting these points which have been refuted many times before ?

   You seem to be fighting old battles, without providing any new insights or valid arguments to support yourself.  Why do so?

6. rkcannon at 17:14 PM on 18 April 2026
   Human-caused climate change is unmistakably distinct from Earth’s natural climate variability
   

   Rebuttal: Systems Analysis vs. Circular Reasoning

   Subject: Response to Moderator Comments regarding Bhatta (2024) and Marks-Peterson (2026)

   While the ad hominem labels—"amateur" and "naive"—provide a look into the moderator’s temperament, they do not address the physical and statistical discrepancies presented. As a Professional Engineer (PE), I prefer to evaluate the Transfer Functions of a system rather than the consensus of the "grown-ups."

   1. On Circular Reasoning and System Gain
   The moderator admits that the Nature paper (Marks-Peterson et al., 2026) requires "important contributions" from albedo and ocean circulation to explain a 2.5°C cooling while CO2 remained stable.

   The Logic: To claim CO2 is the "key" control knob, only to demote it to a "passenger" whenever the data shows the planet cooling without its help, is circular reasoning.

   The Math: Since the early 1900s, human CO2 emissions have increased by over 1,700%. If a seventeen-fold increase in the supposed "driver" results in a warming rate statistically similar to 1910, a rational systems analysis concludes the system is insensitive to that input.

   2. The Failure of "Aerosol Masking"
   The argument that mid-century cooling was "masked" by aerosols fails the spatial and modern test.

   The Discrepancy: If industrial aerosols were a primary "cooling shield," China—with the world’s highest coal-related aerosol loading—should have been a global cool spot. Instead, China has warmed faster than the global average.

   The Conclusion: You cannot invoke a "masking shield" to explain the 1940s cooling while ignoring its failure to stop warming in modern Asia. This is curve-fitting, not physics.

   3. The Measured Driver: Albedo and the CERES Data
   The moderator’s focus on 21-year surface trends ignores the most robust data set we have: the CERES satellite record.

   The Data: Since 2000, CERES has measured a 0.8% drop in Earth’s albedo. This change in reflectivity has added roughly 2.7 W/m2 to the Earth's energy budget—effectively 100% of the warming forcing that the IPCC attributes to CO2 over the last 250 years.

   4. The Missing "Fingerprint" and UHI Bias
   If CO2 were the driver, the laws of physics dictate a "Tropical Hot Spot" in the upper troposphere. Decades of radiosonde and satellite data show this fingerprint is missing. The warming we do see is surface-based and highly correlated with Urban Heat Island (UHI) contamination. When you "homogenize" data by forcing rural stations to match urban trends, you aren't measuring global climate; you're measuring the encroachment of asphalt on thermometers.

   Conclusion
   Rational skepticism demands that models reconcile with empirical history. If the planet cooled 2.5°C with no change in CO2 in the Pliocene, and cooled for 40 years during a CO2 surge in the 20th century, the "Control Knob" theory is functionally dead. It is fascinating to watch the "Immune System" of this forum react; the Killer T-cells are working overtime to neutralize empirical data that looks like a "foreign invader" to the dogma. Nature doesn't care about your PhD or your moderation policy if your math is wrong.

   Moderator Response:

   [BL] Now you are bordering on moderation complaints, which are always off-topic. Again, read the Comments Policy.

   •  All comments must be on topic. Comments are on topic if they draw attention to possible errors of fact or interpretation in the main article, of if they discuss the immediate implications of the facts discussed in the main article. However, general discussions of Global Warming not explicitly related to the details of the main article are always off topic. Moderation complaints are always off topic and will be deleted

   You are also confusing moderators comments from other people's comments. You are also are bordering on inflammatory tone.

   • No profanity or inflammatory tone. Again, constructive discussion is difficult when overheated rhetoric or profanity is flying around.

   Your post also shows much of the same confusion apparent in the first link you provided: a lack of understanding of the carbon cycle and time scales. It is not emissions that matter - it is CO2 levels in the atmosphere. Emissions only form part of that equation, and human emissions only form part of the overall emissions.. People that understand the carbon cycle understand that the increases in human emissions represent a change from the natural balances, resulting in s slow increase in total atmospheric CO2. That slow rise in atmospheric CO2 is the "driver" involved, not emissions.

   As for the regional effect of aerosols: aerosols don't always stay where they are emitted. But they do have a larger effect locally, and the cooling effect - as well as the subsequent warming effect as China has reduced aerosol  emissions - are well-documented in the literature.

   The CERES data does not mean what you think it means. RealClimate has a recent post on this topic. Of particular interest is the error they point out in recent contrarian presentations of this "controversy". RealClimate also has a slightly older post specifically addressing the CERES forcing.

   You are also repeat an old trope about the Tropical Hot Spot. You can read more about it here. Although that post is rather old now, so is the contrarian talking point.

   Your argument about Urban Heat Islands is as bogus as your other claims. Homogenization does not force rural temperatures to follow urban ones. You can learn more by reading this post. It has several useful links at the bottom to more detailed discussions of things such as adjustment to temperature records.

   Your closing paragraph basically amounts to a "climate has changed before" argument, which is debunked here.

   Nature doesn't care how many times you repeat old, tired, debunked contrarian talking points.

   Addendum: You seem to feel that the global temperature record is contaminated by urban effects (UHI), but you seem perfectly comfortable in using that temperature record to make claims of model errors, contributions by albedo effects, aerosol masking, etc. This is typical of so many contrarian lists: data are good when you think they show what you want them to show, but data are bad when they go against your preconceived notions. The inconsistency is, well, inconsistent.

7. Bob Loblaw at 08:11 AM on 18 April 2026
   What’s cheaper: Fueling your car with gas or electricity?
   

   Michael:

   Where I live (Ontario), it looks like the electrical code was modified a few years ago to require new builds (residential) to have minimum 200A service on the main panel, and a conduit from the panel to the garage/carport to allow future feeding of a cable for EV charging.

   A builder can choose to run the cable and install an outlet in the garage, but this exceeds the minimum requirement. My guess would be that if the path from the panel to the garage is long and tortuous, installing conduit that would make for easy future cable pulls would be problematic. At that point, it makes sense to just run the cable.

   I don't know if there are any plans to upgrade the minimum code to require the cable and outlet, but at least they want to make future installation easier.

   It also looks like they want all EV charger installations done by a professional electrician. Not sure if a home-owner installation is allowed. It is for most other electrical work: choices are home owner or pro. If the home owner can't do it, they need to hire a pro, not a friend. Permits are always required.

8. John Hartz at 05:12 AM on 18 April 2026
   Skeptical Science New Research for Week #14 2026
   

   Here's the latest breaking news...

   ‘We are not going back’: Iran war forces global energy shift Nations split over doubling down on fossil fuels or accelerating renewables by Sara Schonhardt & Zack Colman, Politico, Apr 17, 2026

   Excerpt:
   "This week’s gathering of financial heavyweights in Washington made one thing clear: The Iran war is setting the world on a new energy path.

   But which one is a source of sharp disagreement among nations.

   Many of the countries that are most severely affected by the war say they recognize the benefits of transitioning faster to renewable energy to avoid future shocks related to oil disruptions. Others remain bullish on fossil fuels, including the United States — whose Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, applauded America’s rising oil and gas production, and called for fewer climate policies."

   To access the entire article, go to:

   https://www.politico.com/news/2026/04/17/iran-war-global-energy-shift-00877861

9. Evan at 04:47 AM on 18 April 2026
   What’s cheaper: Fueling your car with gas or electricity?
   

   Michael@14

   Yes, I think that NEMA 15-40 outlets in the garage are becoming more common, and most EVs can plug a portable charger into this outlet. There is no need for installing level 2 chargers with new-house construction, because once the circuit breaker and outlet are in, it is a really simple matter to connect it to a dedicated charger rather than to the outlet.

10. michael sweet at 22:38 PM on 17 April 2026
    What’s cheaper: Fueling your car with gas or electricity?
    

    You guys know more about electrical installations than I do.  I hired an electrician to do the job (it was simple in my garage),  The gas savings the first year paid for the charging set up.  I figure that in 5 years charging ports will be expected in a house sale.

    Does anyone know if new houses are being built with charging stations built in (or at least the cabling installed)?  As you point out, it is much cheaper to install the electrical during the build than to add it afterwards.

11. Evan at 21:42 PM on 17 April 2026
    What’s cheaper: Fueling your car with gas or electricity?
    

    Bob,

    Ugh! What a pain in the neck for the installation you describe. Yes, I can see why you hired an electrician.

    Because I wired our house when we built it, I was able to plan all of the charging circuits from day 1. In total, there are currently 6 vehicle charging points, with conduit leading to two more potential sites. Three of those are on the outside of the house, three on the inside. So easy to do while building the house.

    And as you mentioned, we had to size the wire for proper heat dissipation, according to whether it was bundled wires or separate wires in a conduit. I got a good education from our inspector!

    Although standard service is 200A for new construction, we went with 320A service split between two 200A panels: one in the garage and one in the mechanical room. That gives the amperage and space to add circuits now and in the future. In Minnesota it is easy to petition for 320A service. You just have to itemize your electrical needs and demonstrate why the additional 120 amps are needed. We have ground-sourced heat pumps, so installing 320A service was a no-brainer and not questioned by our utility.

12. Bob Loblaw at 10:00 AM on 17 April 2026
    What’s cheaper: Fueling your car with gas or electricity?
    

    Evan:

    The major complication in our wall charger installation was working in a finished basement. I had to cut some ceiling drywall out to access joist space, and part of the cable run passed over a stretch of HVAC ducting. Easy to pull through the existing joist space over the HVAC ducts, but for protection we used armoured cable for the entire run. That way we did not need to worry about any damage pulling it through joist space with nails coming through the overlying floor, or the many other things poking around in that space (other cables, plumbing, etc.) It would have been much easier if the EV charger had been installed before I finished the basement, but c'est la vie.

    As you mention, you need "appropriately sized wire". And space in the panel for a new breaker. And a large enough panel rated to add the extra 40A, or 80A, or whatever. Part of the installation checks was making sure we had adequate capacity in our main household feed (which is 200A). Our cable run was also reasonably short - something like 40 feet or so. The best placement of the charger in the garage was also the corner of the garage closest to the panel.

    Yes, any meets-code cable will handle the full power level, but the more you push it the less room for error there is. I suspect that our local desire to inspect all EV charging installations is to make sure no short cuts have been taken. Heat dissipation requires that you do not bunch many cables together. You wouldn't want to bundle your EV charger, dryer, and stove cables into one tight opening. A pro or knowledgeable DIYer like yourself will know this, but I'm sure our local electrical safety authority has seen some bad amateur installations.

    But even our relatively "complicated" charger installation cost less than 3% of the cost of our vehicle, as I mentioned earlier. There are things that need to be considered, but it is not an insurmountable issue and not a horrendous expense.

13. Evan at 09:25 AM on 17 April 2026
    What’s cheaper: Fueling your car with gas or electricity?
    

    Bob, we also charge at a slow rate normally, but I wired to allow for fast charging. We have a wall charger capable of the vehicle max of 48A. The charger can carge up to 80A, so I wired the wall charger to a 100A circuit breaker with appropriately sized wire. Therefore, we can comfortably charge at 48A if we need to, without any risk of overloading the system.

    My point is that you don't have to spend $1000 to set up fast charging at home, because wiring a NEMA 14-50 outlet is not that difficult to install. In Minnesota it costs about $35 to have it inspected, so that gives you the peace of mind of doing it yourself but then having a professional inspect your work.

    One point where you said that EV loads are different from other loads. Yes and no. The 80% rule for circuit breakers is to allow a circuit to handle a higher intermittent load, but be sized for steady loads about 80% of maximum. Therefore, any circuit in a house should be able to handle continuous vehicle charging up to the 80% limit. Our Tesla charger plugged into a standard 110V 15A circuit will charge at 12A, and the idea is that you should be able to plug that into any 15A 110V outlet.

    But I agree with buying the higher quality outlets for EV charging to ensure good contact and to mimize outlet heating due to poor contact. The myth I'm trying to counter is that you have to spend a lot of money to charge an EV at home, because the basic option is a fairly easily mounted NEMA 15-50 outlet.

14. Bob Loblaw at 04:16 AM on 17 April 2026
    What’s cheaper: Fueling your car with gas or electricity?
    

    Evan:

    Yes, your US electrical code is like our Canadian code. We have a 50A breaker, and a cable rated for 50A, but the EV charger maxes out at 40A.

    The same 80% rule applies to any charger plugged into a 15A circuit: nominally 12A is allowed, but such EV chargers are typically limited to 10A or less. The fact that the EV charger can run continuously for many hours makes it quite different from typical household loads such as stoves, dryers, toaster ovens, etc.

    Although I did all our basement wiring when we finished the basement a few years ago (yes, permitted and inspected) this was a job where I hired a professional. He made two trips: one for planning, and one for installation. I played "assistant", by cutting open the ceiling and drilling holes to run the cable prior to installation, and helping pull cable etc. during the installation. As I have done all the basement finishing work, I knew what was hidden behind drywall, etc. Although at the end I could say "I could do all that", it was best to have a professional working on it to make sure it was done properly.

    The electrician told me that in our area all EV charger installations were being inspected, regardless of whether it was done by a recognized electrician or not. (Often on small jobs by a known professional electrician, the inspectors sign off without an inspection.)

    We usually only charge at 240V/10A for two reasons:

    • A slower charge is probably easier on the battery - less generated heat.
    • Less demand on the electrical system, so lower fire risk when we don't need the speed of 240V/40A.
15. Evan at 03:05 AM on 17 April 2026
    What’s cheaper: Fueling your car with gas or electricity?
    

    Bob@8 you raise a good point. Not only are charging plugs plugged and unplugged, but charging outlets are routinely run at their maximum amperage. As I'm sure you know Bob, a nominal 50A outlet should only have a maximum 40A continuous load connected to it. The rule of thumb is that you only run a continous load that is 80% of the breaker value.

    I installed a 30A 220V outlet next to our front door for convenient charging for us and guests with EVs, and when I bought the outlet I special ordered one that was all copper construction, for exactly the reason you mentioned. There are higher grade outlets meant for repeated plugging/unplugging and that can handle operating at their maximum rated loads.

16. MA Rodger at 21:37 PM on 16 April 2026
    Human-caused climate change is unmistakably distinct from Earth’s natural climate variability
    

    Moderator Response @1,

    The amateur analysis of 'global average' temperature linked @1 by rkcannon is entirely naive in its method and in its reporting of conclusions.
    It concludes "...the notion that CO2 is the primary driver of global warming. If this were the case, periods with higher CO2 emissions would exhibit a faster rate of warming than periods with lower emissions," pointing to what the amateur calls his finding that "...long-term temperature rise was steeper in earlier periods when CO2 emissions were modest compared to current levels. These results hold despite changes in how time periods are defined ... and how weather stations are selected ... .")
    The grand analysis supporting such a bold assertion looked at 100, 500 and then 992 selected weather stations (so all land sites), selected for the level of data available and then calculates the temperature trends for 42, 35, 30 & 21 year periods. The 100 station results presented show the temperature trends for the latest periods are by far the steepest in two centuries under analysis, 1815-2024. (42y +0.24ºC/decade, 35y +0.25ºC/dec, 30y +0.33ºC/dec, 21y +0.41ºC/dec) which of course entirely contradicts the conclusions presented in the analysis.
    So that's worse than "amateur"!!

    The other link @1 by rkcannon is to Marks-Peterson et al (2026) which is paywalled but an associated paper Shackleton et al (2026) 'Global ocean heat content over the past 3 million years' is not. These two papers drew coverage at RealClimate. Both papers examine very very old ice which provides data with less accurate age such that ice age cycles are fuzzed out.
    The two papers are pointing to a more complex cooling 3My-0,5My bp. From the press release:-

    "The implications of the results are that the cooling of the last 3 million years probably involves, in addition to the key role of heat-trapping greenhouse gases, important contributions from other components of the climate system such as Earth’s reflectivity, variations in vegetation and/or ice cover and ocean circulation."

    Somehow there are crazy folk gleaning straws from the science to present misguided support for their crackpot version of reality. The account of Marks-Peterson et al (2026) nailed-up on the rogue planetoid Wattsuppia was headlined 'Shock New Evidence Showing No Link Between CO2 and Temperature Over Last Three Million Years Stumps Net Zero Activists' and such coverage prompted a few grownups to explain the true implications fo the two papers.

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] Thanks for taking the time to dig further than I had the patience for. Just the abstract of the first paper was enough to convince me that the author had no idea what he was talking about. From your description, it seems that he has no idea about time scales and can't differentiate between short-term variation and long-term trends. Of course, that error is common in the contrarian literature (e.g., Salby).

    As for the second paper, I'm shocked to find out that there is gambling going on here a contrarian is taking a paper out of context. In the past, rkcannon has used NoTricksZone as a source of information. That source rarely gets anything right.

17. Bob Loblaw at 09:57 AM on 16 April 2026
    What’s cheaper: Fueling your car with gas or electricity?
    

    We have a portable charging unit that came with the car that has a 120V plug on it, but it is capable of having other connector cords attached to it (replacing the one with the 120V standard plug) so that it can be plugged into several styles of 240V outlets - up to a NEMA 14-50P that will handle 40A/9.6kW.

    Our wall charger is hard-wired. Main cost in installing it was the work required to add a breaker to the main panel and run appropriate cable from the panel to the garage. It also required a permit and inspection. We would have encountered the same installation issues if we had installed a wall plug suitable for a plug-in level II charger.

    NEMA 14-50 is the style of plug used around here for kitchen stoves, but there are special outlets designed for EV charger use. I think the design difference has something to do with repeated plugging/unplugging. Stoves don't get unplugged very often, and plugging/unplugging causes wear.

18. Evan at 06:57 AM on 16 April 2026
    What’s cheaper: Fueling your car with gas or electricity?
    

    Our EV came with a charging cable that plugs into a standard, 50-amp, 220V outlet, and charges up to 40 amps. For most people it costs $100 and a couple of hours to install such an outlet themselves in a garage. An electrician can do it in an hour or so. The charging cable provided with Tesla's plugged into such an outlet can charge at a rate of of about 9 kW. Considering the range of our Tesla is about 3 miles/kWh, that's a charging rate of about 27 miles/hr. Charging overnight and you can easily add 200+ miles in an overnight charge without buying any special charging equipment and just the cost of installing a standard 50-amp outlet.

19. michael sweet at 06:44 AM on 16 April 2026
    What’s cheaper: Fueling your car with gas or electricity?
    

    Many oeople do not understand that charging an electric car is different from filling up an ICE car.  It is a PITA to fill up an ICE car.  For this reason you drive the car until it is almost empty and then go to a gas station.  By contrast, if you own or rent a home, it is easy to top off the car every time you are home.  The car is always full.

    I drive about 100 miles a day.  My car has a 250 mile range.  I normally fill up most days and rarely have less than half charge (I have a level 2 charger similar to Bob Loblaw).  Occasionally I stay at my partners home for several days.  If I plug into a normal 110 plug I get about 60 miles a day but I drive less. My cost for electricity was about 1/4 gas before the war, now it is more like 1/6.

    For long drives I go until I have about 50 miles left.  Tesla has regular chargers and there has always been one available.  Most Tesla chargers are near highways.

    My brother drives a Kia and he had to plan out long trips. Recently Kia bought into Teslas system.  He doesn't have to plan much now.

20. Bob Loblaw at 06:08 AM on 16 April 2026
    What’s cheaper: Fueling your car with gas or electricity?
    

    Our pricing plan is tiered, with on-peak, mid-peak, and off-peak rates. Times of day vary between summer and winter, but overnight (7pm-7am) is always off-peak. Current off-peak rates are $0.098/kWh, but there is also a delivery charge and a regulatory charge added to the bill each month that roughly doubles that.

    We have yet to make a long trip with the EV that would require charging away from home. Here in Canada, a lot of commercial charging stations expect you to have their app on your phone, which complicates things. There is also the issue of which stations have which plugs. Ours in not a Tesla - we have the J1772 port plus SAE/CCS fast-charging combo.

21. rkcannon at 23:23 PM on 15 April 2026
    Human-caused climate change is unmistakably distinct from Earth’s natural climate variability
    

    But other data shows less of a link to CO2.  https://pureadmin.qub.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/676577731/revisit_2.pdf,  https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-10032-y.  

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] You fail to explain what it is you expect people to see at those links. The Comments Policy is explicit:

    No link or picture only. Any link or picture should be accompanied by text summarizing both the content of the link or picture, and showing how it is relevant to the topic of discussion. Failure to do both of these things will result in the comment being considered off topic

    Your first link is to an unpublished manuscript, written by a lecturer in a university business school. This person appears to have no background in climatology or carbon cycles. There is no reason to think that he has anything useful to add to the science.

    The second link leads to a paywalled paper. The visible abstract discusses ice core records of CO2 and other gases, but gives absolutely no indication that they make any detailed examination of links between CO2 and global temperature.

     

22. scaddenp at 07:38 AM on 15 April 2026
    What’s cheaper: Fueling your car with gas or electricity?
    

    I guess it depends on your daily use. Kia EV5 is our only vehicle and we paid out for wall plug which gives us decent power if wanted from the grid, but normally it manages charging so that it only charges the car when solar panels would otherwise export power to the grid. (we get paid 17c /kWh for exported power but pay 42c / kWh to use grid power so aim to minimize that). Like Bob, we only charge to 100% prior to a long trip. If needed to charge at night, we would switch power plan to get a cheap night rate (and power box can fully charge overnight) but since I work from home, this is unnecessary. Most of our trips are for a shopping at local town or getting us to walking or biking tracks for recreation. NZ has worst ratio of EV fast chargers to EVs in OECD but we can still trip around fine with a little bit of planning.

23. Bob Loblaw at 06:03 AM on 15 April 2026
    What’s cheaper: Fueling your car with gas or electricity?
    

    paulgrace @ 2:

    "It takes days" is a highly subjective statement. Time to charge depends on how depleted your battery is, what charge level you charge it to, and the charge rate of your home charging system.

    We bought an EV about 15 months ago. It has become our primary vehicle. It now has about 12,000km on it, and has been used almost entirely for daily commuting, trips around the city, and trips to nearby cities to visit relatives. We have always charged at home. It has an 80kWh battery, with a nominal range of about 400 km. (This varies seasonally - less in winter.)

    ...but when we bought the vehicle, we also had a 240V/40A charging station installed at home. The cost of that charging station (including installation) was about 3% of the cost of the car. We typically only charge it to 80%, unless we plan a longer trip (when we'll charge it to 100%). It has never been below 34% when we started a charge cycle.

    We normally charge at a rate of 10A - about 2.4 kW. Daily usage is easily handled overnight. The longest charge cycle was about 17 hours. We can easily switch to the full charging rate of the charging station (40A), which gives a charging rate of over 9kW. At this rate, we can charge from 20% to 80% in about 5 hours.

    As a rough estimate, our electricity cost over 15 months has been about $1000 less than what it would have cost to feed an ICE vehicle with gasoline. We've already saved enough to pay for more than half the home charging station. We still have an older ICE vehicle which has become our second vehicle. I used to spend $1500 or more a year on gas when I commuted regularly and it was our primary vehicle. When I filled it earlier this month, I had not put gas in it since December.

    If you constantly drive the maximum distance of a vehicle with considerable range, and charge it using a 120V/10A charger that plugs into a regular household wall outlet, then yes it will take days to charge it. Our vehicle would take a couple of days to go from 20% to 80% at that rate, but our typical daily charge requirements would be something like 8-10 hours (and rarely exceed 16 hours). At 240V/10A, our typical charge requirements take 4-5 hours.

    As long as you are not limited to a 120V/10A charger (e.g. apartment dweller or condo owner with no decent access to electrical systems), there are many, many higher-power home charging options.

24. paulgrace at 03:48 AM on 15 April 2026
    What’s cheaper: Fueling your car with gas or electricity?
    

    It takes days to charge at home.  Please offer comparisons to charge from a level 2 and level 3 charging stations too.

25. One Planet Only Forever at 04:17 AM on 14 April 2026
    Skeptical Science New Research for Week #14 2026
    

    John Hartz @12,

    Thanks for the additional article.

    Hopefully, people concerned about minimizing the global warming and other harms caused by fossil fuel use are willing to be the most helpful they can be. The most obvious thing everyone can do is minimize their energy consumption, not just fossil fuel use. Reduced energy consumption allows a more rapid ending of harmful fossil fuel use by making it easier for less harmful renewable energy systems to provide the total amount of required energy.

    In addition, anyone in one of the nations that has not planned to attend the First International Conference on the Just Transition Away From Fossil Fuels (only 47 nations are participating) should encourage every NGO and charitable organization they are associated with to help collectively push their regional and national leadership to join the responsible evidence-based global collective effort to limit the harm done by fossil fuel use (as was done by over 120 organizations in Canada as mentioned in the quote from the The First-of-Its-Kind International Climate Conference Many Canadians Haven’t Heard of, Dated April 2, 2026), especially people in one of the:

    • 85 nations at COP 30 that voted for developing a “roadmap” to phase out fossil fuels globally (as mentioned in the Guardian article, A new economic superpower could spark a global retreat from fossil fuels, linked to by michael sweet @9 and John Hartz @10)
    • or 60 nations that have had leaders act to deal with the ‘predictable results’ of the Israel-US attacks on Iran, as mentioned in the article John linked to in their comment @12.

    Also, NGOs and charity organizations should be encouraged to collaborate with others, supporting each others’ interests, on every progressive social issue pursuing sustainable improvement of the future for a robust diversity of humanity living as part of robust diversity of life on this amazing planet.

    Otherwise, undeserving people will continue to Win the increase and prolonging of their unjustified harmfully obtained perceptions of superiority.

26. Evan at 20:03 PM on 13 April 2026
    What’s cheaper: Fueling your car with gas or electricity?
    

    In Minnesota we charge our EV using reduced, time-of-day metering rates at night, so that the effective cost/gallon is half that shown for Minnesota, or about 65 cents. 

27. John Hartz at 04:55 AM on 11 April 2026
    Skeptical Science New Research for Week #14 2026
    

    Michel Sweet @9 and One Planet Only Forever @11:

    Also see:

    Iran war analysis: How 60 nations have responded to the global energy crisis One month into the US and Israel’s war on Iran, at least 60 countries have taken emergency measures in response to the subsequent global energy crisis, according to analysis by Carbon Brief. by Josh Gabbatiss, Carbon Brief, Apr 8, 2026

    Excerpt:
    "So far, these countries have announced nearly 200 policies to save fuel, support consumers and boost domestic energy supplies.

    Carbon Brief has drawn on tracking by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and other sources to assess the global policy response, just as a temporary ceasefire is declared.

    Since the start of the war in late February, both sides have bombed vital energy infrastructure across the region as Iran has blocked the Strait of Hormuz – a key waterway through which around a fifth of global oil and liquified natural gas (LNG) trade passes.

    This has made it impossible to export the usual volumes of fossil fuels from the region and, as a result, sent prices soaring.

    Around 30 nations, from Norway to Zambia, have cut fuel taxes to help people struggling with rising costs, making this by far the most common domestic policy response to the crisis.

    Some countries have stressed the need to boost domestic renewable-energy construction, while others – including Japan, Italy and South Korea – have opted to lean more on coal, at least in the short term.

    The most wide-ranging responses have been in Asia, where countries that rely heavily on fossil fuels from the Middle East have implemented driving bans, fuel rationing and school closures in order to reduce demand."

    To access the entire article, go to:
    https://www.carbonbrief.org/iran-war-analysis-how-60-nations-have-responded-to-the-global-energy-crisis/

28. One Planet Only Forever at 06:59 AM on 10 April 2026
    Skeptical Science New Research for Week #14 2026
    

    michael sweet @9 and John Hartz @10,

    The Climate Home News item, Major oil producers among 46 nations joining fossil fuel phase-out summit, dated April 1, 2026, list 46 nations that confirmed they plan to join the host nation, Colombia, in the First International Conference on the Just Transition Away From Fossil Fuels.

    The following news release by Citizens’ Climate Lobby Canada – Lobby Climatique des Citoyens, The First-of-Its-Kind International Climate Conference Many Canadians Haven’t Heard of, Dated April 2, 2026, includes the following quote:

    In March, Canadian civil society mobilized strongly, with over 120 organizations from across the country signing on a joint open letter, urging Canada to demonstrate credible and meaningful leadership at a critical moment for global climate action.

    That action is aligned with what Thomas Piketty says in his book A Brief History of Equality, that I mentioned and quoted in my comment @1 on 2026 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #14. Collective action by a diversity of groups will be required to effectively push against the resistance of undeserving pursuers of perceptions of Superiority/Winning.

    Selected parts of the quotes from Piketty’s book at the end of my News Roundup #14 comment (my highlighting of the last sentence):

    ... in the past, it has always been struggles and collective movements that have made it possible to replace old [harmful unsustainable] structures with new institutions.
    …
    For the countries most affected (in particular in the global South), the attenuation of the effects of a warming climate and financing for measures to adapt to it will require a transformation of the distribution of wealth and the economic system as a whole, and this in turn will involve the development of new political and social coalitions on a global scale. The idea that there might be only winners is a dangerous and anesthetizing illusion that must be abandoned immediately.

29. John Hartz at 21:12 PM on 9 April 2026
    Skeptical Science New Research for Week #14 2026
    

    Michael Sweet @9:

    Thank you for flagging The Guardian article, A new economic superpower could spark a global retreat from fossil fuels. I am posting a link to it on the SkS Facebook page. 

30. One Planet Only Forever at 08:54 AM on 8 April 2026
    2026 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #14
    

    Recent SkS posted items raise important awareness and understanding related to the historic challenge of dealing with the damage done by people who choose to fail to responsibly learn to self-regulate their actions. Thank you to Doug and Marc for curating and sharing the Weekly New Research, and to Baerbel, John, and Doug (again) for curating and sharing the Weekly News Roundups.

    A related item in this week’s Climate Policy and Politics list is, Vermont Hits Back at Trump’s Effort to Block ‘Climate Superfund’ Law. It is about responsible leaders struggling to use the powers they have, State powers in Vermont, to penalize and limit the climate change harm done by the global team of undeserving economic winners.

    Responsible leadership struggles to effectively discourage and disappoint people who want to benefit from being: less accepting of diversity, more harmful, and less helpful. Humanity, especially its leaders, has a history of struggling regionally and globally to collectively correct and recover from results of harmful pursuits of benefit and get the beneficiaries of the harm done to make equitable and adequate reparations. It is more challenging when members of a regional or global club of harmful unhelpful people Win positions of power that enable them to make-up inequitable rules and harmfully enforce rules to avoid being penalized and to threaten, penalize and punish everyone they believe is a potential threat to their undeserved perceptions of superiority.

    People passionately pursuing being perceived to be “The Winners” are most likely “The Problem”.

    Restricting a person’s freedom to continue to benefit from understandably unsustainable harmful actions - does not harm them.

    Penalizing a person for benefiting from understandably harmful actions and making their penalty help those who have been harmed - does not harm them.

     

    An earlier related item is the study The political economy of leaving fossil fuels underground: The case of producing countries, listed in Open Access Notables in Skeptical Science New Research for Week #13 2026.

    The study discusses the challenging temptation to pursue ‘Private Profits and Rents’ while creating ‘Public Problems’ by extracting and exporting non-renewable resources, especially challenging for developing nations.
    The developed economic system is fatally flawed in many ways. One of the major flaws is that it values the removal and use of non-renewable resources, and ignores the harm done (it also encourages more harm to be done because it is easier and more profitable to be more harmful). Non-renewable resources have no value when they are left in the ground.

    And the challenge is made worse by unjust made-up rules like the 1994 Energy Charter Treaty (Wikipedia link) (ECT). The EU formally withdrew from the ECT in June 2024. But the ECT rules were include ‘protection’ of Fossil Fuel investment rewards for 20 years after withdrawal (to 2044).

     

    Another recent related item is Quantifying climate loss and damage consistent with a social cost of carbon, the first item listed in Open Access Notables in Skeptical Science New Research for Week #14 2026, (which was the basis of news item, Past CO2 emissions may drive far bigger future economic losses, in 2026 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #13). The study explains that calculating the penalty owed today for fossil fuel harms of emissions-to-date should begin as early as 1980 and extend far into the future.

    The following quote is regarding the earliest date it would be reasonable to say leaders would struggle to deny understanding the harmfulness of fossil fuel use:

    To estimate when to begin counting emissions, we set our baseline ‘year of knowledge’ as 1990, or a year after the establishment of the IPCC. This is perhaps conservative: using text-based analysis of United Nations documents, other analyses set the date a decade earlier, and internal company documents reveal that some major emitters were aware of climate risks beginning around 1980.

    Any pursuer of profit from fossil fuel use since 1990, and potentially since 1980, would struggle to credibly claim that they were unaware of the harm done by fossil fuel use. This reinforces the understanding that the Energy Charter Treaty was an unjust rule made-up by undeserving wealthy people.

     

    Both studies also relate to Don Gillmore’s 2025 book, On Oil that I recently commented about (here @ comment 25 on the SkS post, After a major blow to U.S. climate regulations, what comes next?). In addition to presenting the general understanding that Alberta and other regional populations are easily tempted to pursue benefit from harmful fossil fuel use, and things really took off in about 1980, the chapter titled The Battle Begins opens with the following reinforcement of 1980 as a legitimate start date for evaluating penalties to apply to beneficiaries of harmful fossil fuel use:

    In 1980, Ronald Reagan became president of the United States and appointed James Watt, a determined anti-environmentalist, as secretary of the Department of the Interior. Watt described environmentalists as “a leftwing cult dedicated to bringing down the type of government I believe in,” and refused to meet with them. Watt was a devout Christian who believed the End Times were near. “I do not know,” he said to Congress in 1981, “how many future generations we can count on before the Lord returns.” In the meantime there wasn’t much point in preserving the environment. Reagan concurred, telling television evangelist Jim Bakker, “We may be the generation that sees Armageddon.”

    Anne Gorsuch, a lawyer who was scornful of climate science (and whose son Neil sits on the Supreme Court), was given the role of Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and cut the EPA budget by 22 percent and staff by almost 30 percent. Enforcement declined by 79 percent during her first year. She hired people from the industries the EPA was supposed to be regulating, tried to weaken pollution standards, and facilitated the use of restricted-use pesticides. She resigned in 1983 amid scandal, ... Her most lasting legacy may have been to solidify political battle lines around oil and the environment: If you were a Republican, you were pro-development and, if not anti-environment, at least anti-environmentalist. It began as a corporate issue, then became a political issue and to some extent a generational issue, and finally, like so much these days, it became a tribal issue.

    The formation of the ECT in 1994, 14 years after 1980, should be understood to be a misleading attempt to unjustifiably obtain benefit and protect against the loss of undeserved perceptions of superiority. And since 1980 it has continually become clearer that investments in new fossil fuel pursuits should be considered to be bets in the marketplace that deserve whatever ‘penalties or losses of opportunity for benefit’ happen. The people who benefited from the delay of transition away from fossil fuel use since 1980, particularly business leaders and investors, could and should be penalized rather than be protected and rewarded. ‘Legal creations’ like the ECT should not be able to be used to evade penalty for past ‘bad bets made on benefiting from fossil fuel use’.

    There is a long diverse history of harmful pursers of personal benefit seriously damaging and delaying the development of sustainable improvements for the future of humanity. The, now officially discredited, Doctrine of Discovery developed as Papal Bulls in the 1400s (Link to Canadian Museum for Human Rights) and was formally brought into American Law by US Supreme Court Justice John Marshall in 1823 (Link to Wikipedia). It was misleading marketing to excuse undeniably harmful colonialism, racism, and slavery. The incorrect beliefs about the ‘fundamental superiority of a sub-set of humanity’ persist in the supposedly most advanced societies today, and contaminate the thoughts and actions in many developing societies, allowing neocolonialism (link to Wikipedia) to flourish.

    People passionately pursuing being perceived to be “The Winners” are most likely “The Problem”.

     

    I have also been re-reading Thomas Piketty’s 2021 book, A Brief History of Equality (first english translation 2022). The following are selected related quotes:

    From Chapter 9, Exiting Neocolonialism, which includes a sub-section with the heading, The Pretenses of International Aid and Climate Policies.

    The battle for equality is not over. It must be continued by pushing to its logical conclusion the movement toward the welfare state, progressive taxation, real equality, and the struggle against all kinds of discrimination. The battle also, and especially, involves a structural transformation of the global economic system [including reparations (penalties) for harms done by past emissions, and no compensation for people claiming to be harmed by restrictions of their harmfulness and penalties for being harmful] .
    …
    Our current economic organization, which is founded on the uncontrolled circulation of capital lacking either a social or environmental objective, often resembles a form of neocolonialism that benefits the wealthiest persons. This model of development is politically and ecologically untenable. Moving beyond it requires the transformation of the national welfare state into a federal [multi-national] welfare state open to the global South, along with a profound revision of the rules and treaties that currently govern globalization.
    ...
    We must also emphasize the extreme hypocrisy that surrounds the very notion of international aid. First, public aid for development is much more limited than is often imagined: in all, it represents less than 0.2 percent of the global GDP (and scarcely 0.03 percent of the global GDP for emergency humanitarian aid). In comparison, the cost of climatic damage inflicted on poor countries by past and current emissions from rich countries amounts by itself to several points of the global GDP. The second problem, which is not a detail [not a minor technicality], is that in most of the countries supposedly “aided” in Africa, South Asia, and elsewhere, the amount of outflow in the form of multinationals’ profits and capital flights [evading taxation] is in reality several times greater than the incoming flows from public assistance, …

    Chapter 10 sub-section with the heading, Climate Change and the Battle Between Ideologies.

    All the transformations [sustainable improvements reducing harmful inequality] discussed in this book, whether the development of the welfare state, progressive taxation, participatory socialism, electoral and educational equality, or the exit from neocolonialism, will occur only if they are accompanied by strong mobilizations and power relationships. There is nothing surprising about that: in the past, it has always been struggles and collective movements that have made it possible to replace old [harmful unsustainable] structures with new institutions.
    …
    Environmental catastrophes are, of course, among the factors that may help accelerate the pace of change. In theory, we could hope that the mere prospect of these catastrophes, whose future occurrence scientific research has increasingly confirmed, might suffice to provoke adequate mobilization. Unfortunately, it is possible that only tangible concrete damage greater than we have already seen will manage to break down conservative attitudes and radically challenge the current economic system.
    …
    In the darkest scenario, the signals will come too late to avoid conflicts between nations over resources, and it will take decades to realize possible, as yet hypothetical reconstructions [sustainable developments like Diversity, Equity and Inclusion pursuits to mitigate and correct high levels of inequality] [we are potentially already experiencing that Darkest Scenario].
    …
    We can also foresee hostile reactions towards countries and social groups whose ways of life have contributed most to the disaster, starting with the richest classes in the United States, but also in Europe and the rest of the world.
    …
    the global North, despite a limited population (about 15% of world population for the United States, Canada, Europe, Russia, and Japan), has produced nearly 80% of the carbon emissions that have accumulated since the beginning of the Industrial Age.
    …
    However, we have to qualify the idea that a green Enlightenment will be likely to save the planet. In reality, people have suspected for a long time – indeed almost since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution – that this accelerated burning of fossil fuels might have harmful effects. If reactions have been slow and remain so limited even today, that is also and especially because the economic interests at stake are considerable, between countries as well as within them. For the countries most affected (in particular in the global South), the attenuation of the effects of a warming climate and financing for measures to adapt to it will require a transformation of the distribution of wealth and the economic system as a whole, and this in turn will involve the development of new political and social coalitions on a global scale. The idea that there might be only winners is a dangerous and anesthetizing illusion that must be abandoned immediately.

    It all closes back to the SkS items that this comment started with.

    People passionately pursuing being perceived to be “The Winners” are most likely “The Problem”.

31. Nick Palmer at 22:22 PM on 7 April 2026
    Our new research is published - but we're not done yet with the 'Experiment'
    

    £25 on way!

32. michael sweet at 22:04 PM on 7 April 2026
    Skeptical Science New Research for Week #14 2026
    

    The Guardian had an article today describing a new international organization that will focus on the switch to renewable energy.  About 85 countries have signed up.   The rules will not allow a few (fossil fuel loving governments) to veto climate solutions like happens at UN meetings.  The objective is to provide guide posts for economies to become more carbon free and to develop solutions to problems.

    They have organized the First International Conference on the Just Transition Away From Fossil Fuels.

    It will be interesting to see the results of the first meeting!  

33. John Hartz at 13:41 PM on 6 April 2026
    Skeptical Science New Research for Week #14 2026
    

    Prove we are smart @7:

    Thank you for the clarificiation. Peace.

34. prove we are smart at 10:14 AM on 6 April 2026
    Skeptical Science New Research for Week #14 2026
    

    John Hartz @4,  the fact that most American politicians become much more wealthy while in office and after, should tell you many things. With the American president wanting a trillion dollars for the next military budget, this US military is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases of any institution on Earth, generating an estimated 636 million metric tons of CO₂ equivalent (a standardised measure of greenhouse gas emissions) between 2010 and 2019.www.sciencefocus.com/news/us-military-carbon-footprint

    Some countries leaders are deniers of climate change and the USA has now elected twice, a very good example of this. I'm advocating your politicians follow what their constituents want, not what a wanna be dictator wants. The only good thing (from the biospheres perspective), coming from this American/Israeli war is how attractive renewables look as they mostly free a country from fossil fuel dependence.

35. michael sweet at 07:43 AM on 6 April 2026
    Skeptical Science New Research for Week #14 2026
    

    John,

    Great references!  There is so much to read.  I hope everyone calls for renewable energy to protect the economy from these expensive price shocks.  It will also help counter climate change.

36. John Hartz at 02:25 AM on 6 April 2026
    Skeptical Science New Research for Week #14 2026
    

    Michael Sweet @1:

    Here's another article:

    • How Trump’s Iran war could make the world more reliant on coal The energy crisis sparked by the war is making some countries consider ramping up their use of dirty fuels by Eduardo Porter, The Guardian, Apr 5, 2026
37. John Hartz at 02:00 AM on 6 April 2026
    Skeptical Science New Research for Week #14 2026
    

    Prove we are smart @3:

    Are you advocating that US politicians stick their individual and collective heeads in the sand and completely ignore the realities of man-made climate change? Are politicians supposed to lead, or just follow public opinion like a herd of sheep?

38. prove we are smart at 15:13 PM on 5 April 2026
    Skeptical Science New Research for Week #14 2026
    

     Climate Change has dropped below number 8 of the USAs most worried concerns. Inflation/cost of living and health/social security being in the top 3 worries for 6 years now, www.statista.com/chart/32304/key-issues-in-the-us-according-to-respondents/.

    Belatedly, American polititians will hopefully realize, "It's better to admit you went through the wrong door than to spend your life in the wrong room."

39. John Hartz at 14:55 PM on 5 April 2026
    Skeptical Science New Research for Week #14 2026
    

    Michel Sweet @1:

    For handy reference and easy access, here's a list of recent articles about the potential impacts of Trump's War of Choice Against Iran on renewable energy that I have recently posted links to on the SkS Facebook page: 

    • Energy fallout from Iran war signals a global wake-up call for renewable energy by Aniruddha Ghosal , Anton L Delgado & Allan Oilingo, AP News, Mar 20, 2026
    • How the Iran War Reveals the Extent of Fossil Fuel Propaganda With consumer prices rising due to the United States and Israel’s war with Iran, interest in renewables and EVs is rising. Misinformation may be holding consumers back. by Lee Hedgepeth, Inside Climate News, Mar 20, 2026
    • Trump’s Iran war and drilling push show ‘dangerous volatility’ of fossil fuel era Critics say president is locking into 20th-century energy systems even as his ‘bet’ on oil and gas ‘isn’t going so well by Oliver Milman, The Guardian, Mar 31, 2026
    • What the Iran conflict means for gas prices, clean energy, and the climate U.S. gas prices could hit $7 a gallon if the Strait of Hormuz remains restricted through June. Here’s how that could affect EVs, wind, and solar. by Dana Nuccitelli, Yale Climate Connections, Apr 1, 2026
40. michael sweet at 03:36 AM on 5 April 2026
    Skeptical Science New Research for Week #14 2026
    

    There have been widespread reports in newspapers of countries saying they plan to accelerate installation of renewable energy to escape the fossil fuel roller coaster.  This would slso help with climate change.

    Encourage your representatives to support more renewable energy to reduce prices and stabilize the economy.  Perhaps some politicians who do not care about climate change will go for stabilizing the economy!

41. MA Rodger at 18:05 PM on 3 April 2026
    The El Niño cometh
    

    green tortoise,

    Concerning in-thread images - There are a number of sites offering on-line image hosting images for free. As an example, I've just uploaded an the image below with this site. It can be a for-ever upload if you choose but in this case it will be live for a month.

    The graphic is actually on-line on my The Banana!!! Watch site which is hosted by GoogleSites who don't allow hot URL links.

    

    Concerning the present global SAT/SST - The Climate Pulse site is excelent for giving year-on-year up-to-the-moment temperatures but these do need to be both de-wobbled and adjusted for the underlying rate of AGW to allow the comparison you attempt.

    The monthly SAT anomalies in this graphic above show the start of 2026 pretty-much on the 2010-22 trend line. That is what we also see back in 2015, prior to the 2016 El Niño. The situation in early 2023 was a little different as the La Niña had not lessened at all in preceding years, so the SAT would be expected to be significantly depressed prior to the El Niño wobble.

    Of course, the 2010-22 warming trend of +0.30ºC/dec does not escape discussion. In the preceding decades, AGW had been strongly constant, stuck at roughly +0.18ºC/dec when models suggested there should have been some acceleration. The models do show today's AGW at +0.30ºC/dec with that acceleration.

    The less-wobbly monthly SST anomalies (60N to 60S) provided by Climate Pulse show a strong warming since November last year and that warming has now reversed the cooling seen Jan-Nov. But comparisons with previous pre-El Niño periods show that such a warming is quite normal in pre-El Niño periods. Mind there is the possibility that the coming El Niño will come with a repeat of those 'bananas!!!' temperatures.

    Concerning the coming El Niño - The NINO3.4 SST which is used to calculate the ONI (a measure of the ENSO) has just poked its head above zero. The forecasts are strongly pointing to an El Niño by the end of the year and the models have shifted it a little stronger in the last month. (Note that ONI has recently had a new friend RONI - Relative Oceanic Niño Index - that allows for better comparisons back through the years. Today RONI runs lower than ONI)

42. green tortoise at 08:01 AM on 1 April 2026
    The El Niño cometh
    

    What I find rather disturbing is that, SST-wise, we are at much worse situation than in 2023. I will post the COPERNICUS SST and SSTA, taken from the "Climate Pulse" website:

    Climate Pulse (COPERNICUS EU)

    The graph shows that 2026 has already topped 2023 and 2025, trailing barely behind only 2024. The El Niño has just begun (and not in the central Pacific yet). Current SST is at 21°C (like in the apex of 2023 series) and SSTA is increasing in like in 2023 (but offset by a warming of 0.15-0.2 °C).

    If the trend persists, 2024 will be topped in a month or two (SST-wise)...

    NB: unfortunately I could not post the image, as COPERNICUS just allows to dowload the jpg images,  this website cannot upload raw images. Please tell me if there is some way to solve this technical obstacle...

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] There is a brief description near the end of the Comments Policy, describing how to include images.

    You are correct that you cannot upload images to SkS. Images need to be available as a file in an image format (JPG, PNG, etc.), hosted on a publicly-visible web page. You can then use the link to that image  as a pointer in your comment, using the Insert Image tool on the Insert tab of the editor.

    For example, the link to the first graph in the OP is the rather messy "https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YOJ-!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F010d462f-072b-40f1-bbf5-c33522eafb9c_4162x2060.png."

    If I use the chain link icon on the "Insert" tab of the comment editor, I can put that link behind other text so that people can follow the link (as you have done to point to the Copernicus web page).

    If I use the icon on the Insert tab that looks like a tree, then I can put the link to the picture so that the image appears in the comment: (but don't forget to specify an image size <500 pixels wide).

    

     

    Unfortunately, the Copernicus page you have linked to appears to be generating dynamic, interactive images. Your only choice would be to do a screen grab, save a file, place that file on some public page you can write to and SkS can read from, and then link to that file.

43. Paul Pukite at 00:05 AM on 31 March 2026
    The El Niño cometh
    

    Actually the other way around. Chaose is reduced by periodic forcing. Lorenz himself explored whether the "butterfly effect" in the atmosphere could be mitigated by the annual cycle of solar heating, finding that forcing can indeed confine a system to a more restricted, predictable region of its state space.

    Edward N. Lorenz (1990). "Can chaos and intransitivity be removed by periodic forcing?" Tellus A: Dynamic Meteorology and Oceanography, 42(3), 282-293.

44. prove we are smart at 17:56 PM on 27 March 2026
    The El Niño cometh
    

    Air masses are related to climate zones. They are large bodies of air that influence weather patterns and climate by carrying specific characteristics, such as temperature and moisture, over different regions.
    Air masses can significantly affect the climate of a region, leading to variations in weather and temperature.

    They are classified based on their source regions and characteristics, which determine their impact on local climates. The interaction of air masses with geographical features contributes to the establishment of climate zones, such as tropical, temperate, polar, and arid.
    In summary, air masses play a crucial role in shaping climate zones and influencing weather conditions across the globe.

    There has always been a unpredictable forecast about how long and how far or even when the air from these climate zones will travel into their neighbouring zones. Currently, so many multitudinous disasters happening on our watch as climate change does this. e360.yale.edu/features/redrawing-the-map-how-the-worlds-climate-zones-are-shifting#:~:text=Rising%20global%20temperatures%20are%20altering%20climatic%20zones%20around,move.%20By%20Nicola%20Jones%20%E2%80%A2%20October%2023%2C%202018

    My censored link was to info for the no kings rally. Without rules for all-where would we be?

     

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] I don't know about "rules for all", but rules for people commenting here at SkS are clearly outlined in the Comments Policy. Those rules include:

    No link or picture only. Any link or picture should be accompanied by text summarizing both the content of the link or picture, and showing how it is relevant to the topic of discussion. Failure to do both of these things will result in the comment being considered off topic.

    and

     

    All comments must be on topic. Comments are on topic if they draw attention to possible errors of fact or interpretation in the main article, of if they discuss the immediate implications of the facts discussed in the main article. However, general discussions of Global Warming not explicitly related to the details of the main article are always off topic. Moderation complaints are always off topic and will be deleted

    In particular, note the last sentence in the second paragraph.

45. scaddenp at 08:05 AM on 27 March 2026
    The El Niño cometh
    

    Paul, I think that is getting into the semantics of what can be described as "chaotic". In the usual sense of extreme sensitivity in complex non-linear system, then phase-locked systems can be chaotic (eg Chaos In Phase Locked Loop). While almost all ESNO switching has a predictable seasonal pattern, it appears that switching remains extremely sensitive to the details of the coupled interactions in the ocean/atmosphere. 
    
    I would also agree that ENSO tends to amplify already extreme weather.

46. Paul Pukite at 02:22 AM on 27 March 2026
    The El Niño cometh
    

    "Climate change is increasing the natural chaos of the air masses"

    What is that even supposed to mean?  El Ninos are not chaotic, as they are triggered by an annual impulse  If they were truly chaotic they could would evolve at any time and not be phase-locked to the seasonal cycle.

47. prove we are smart at 11:51 AM on 26 March 2026
    The El Niño cometh
    

    Climate change is increasing the natural chaos of the air masses that move around our tilted planet. In near twelve months,one hemisphere then the other, take its turn, absorbing the more perpendicular radiation from our star.

    The current and ever increasing unprecedented weather catastrophes will surely be amplified by the Enso phases. All countries really need and especially in this climate, leaders and government with foresight and empathy and using qualified people to navigate. Sometimes it is obvious how poorly gov perform and sometimes you need to look up and be an unsilent majority-make science great again. www.nokings.org/

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] The link you added at the end appears to have no connection to the topic, and has been snipped. You've been around here long enough to know the rules.

48. Eclectic at 10:10 AM on 26 March 2026
    Fact brief - Is 'wind-turbine syndrome' a medically recognized diagnosis?
    

    Uncertain, whether the objection to wind turbines is partisan political or visual/artistic.  Or both.  Are the wind turbines ugly shapes ruining the rural vista, or are they elegant towers & harbingers of a better climate in the future?   But no doubt those who object to them will seek as wide a range of reasons/pretexts as possible.  That's human nature ~ even extending into the borderland of trendy hysteria.   And that too can overlap with the powerful "Nocebo" effect, where we genuinely feel worse (in the absence of demonstrable disease).

    Counterbalance that, with the powerful "Placebo" effect.   #Picture that you have a nagging toothache, resistant to household painkillers.  And no dentist is available for many days yet.  Then suddenly your rich uncle in China dies, and his lawyers inform you of a $10 million inheritance coming your way.  All of a sudden, your toothache becomes ever so trivial in its strength.

    Anecdotally, it seems that the farmers who receive a nice rental payment for wind turbines on their land . . . suffer no "infra-sound" bad effects.  While farmers on more distant properties sometimes may experience ongoing horrid disturbances of health & sleep.  Are they the vocal, partisan, minority ~ or is there a genuine problem?

    Just possibly, the turbine blade design could be modified toward more quietness ~ even if there were a small reduction in efficiency.

49. nigelj at 06:04 AM on 26 March 2026
    Fact brief - Is 'wind-turbine syndrome' a medically recognized diagnosis?
    

    Bolt: "Nigel's strawman ad hominem is not helpful"

    With all due respect, your comments aren't accurate. My comment is not a strawman, or an ad hominem .My comment was 'hyperbole'. And it was to point out out how many of the people complaining about wind turbines probably have subwoofers or similar audio systems, that can potentially damage hearing, but that doesn't seem to worry them. And if you think wind turbines are a huge problem try living next to a road with all that loud traffic noise which includes low frequency components. And billions of people live like that. So in comparison wind turbines are a trivial problem at worst. Bearing in mind that the science quoted in the article says the low frequncy noise is not damaging at all.

    Bolt: "criticism of complainants as hysterical? sexist and unscientific."

    Not sexist. Where did I make reference to one particular sex? And hysterical reactions are a known phemomenon in psychology one of the social science. The reactions of some people to wind turbines have the characteristics of hysteria.

    Bolt; "And a sub-woofer might be a good way to mask a low frequency sound."

    I don't think so. Its very difficult masking low frequency sounds. A subwoofer would only mask low frequency sounds of wind turbines if its very loud. That is basic accoustics. And playing the subwoofer loud defeats the purpose! It just creates eveen more irritation.

    Bolt: "Without long term real world field recording and analysis this syndrome will not be disproven."

    How do you define long term? How do you know this hasn't been done? Have you read the studies? Wind turbines have been around for decades and that is quite long term.

50. Bolt at 23:58 PM on 25 March 2026
    Fact brief - Is 'wind-turbine syndrome' a medically recognized diagnosis?
    

    Low frequency sound travels further than higher frequencies as they are less prone to scattering.

    Wind turbines do not operate in isolation so there are likely synergetic effects that would depend on local conditions such as air movement (louder downwind) and relative frequencies (ie phasing), resonance (ie bed springs).

    It is demonstrated that sleep disturbance leads to negative health impacts.

    Perhaps naming the syndrome gave people permission to complain about an issue that had hitherto been considered personal.

    Nigel's strawman ad hominem is not helpful, criticism of complainants as hysterical? sexist and unscientific. And a sub-woofer might be a good way to mask a low frequency sound.

    Without long term real world field recording and analysis this syndrome will not be disproven.

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