Arguments
Explaining climate change science & rebutting global warming misinformation
Global warming is real and human-caused. It is leading to large-scale climate change. Under the guise of climate "skepticism", the public is bombarded with misinformation that casts doubt on the reality of human-caused global warming. This website gets skeptical about global warming "skepticism".
Our mission is simple: debunk climate misinformation by presenting peer-reviewed science and explaining the techniques of science denial, discourses of climate delay, and climate solutions denial.
Skeptical Science New Research for Week #23 2023
Posted on 8 June 2023 by Doug Bostrom, Marc Kodack
Open access notables
Back in April of 2020 Chi Xu et al. captivated some public attention with their paper Future of the human climate niche, which explained a reasonable case for its startling conclusion about routine habitability of large parts of our planet now supporting dense populations. Now come the same researchers along with added talent to refine and extend those results, and the news isn't getting better. Quantifying the human cost of global warming paints a grim picture. Here are our stakes in play, as reflected in the abstract:
The costs of climate change are often estimated in monetary terms, but this raises ethical issues. Here we express them in terms of numbers of people left outside the ‘human climate niche’—defined as the historically highly conserved distribution of relative human population density with respect to mean annual temperature. We show that climate change has already put ~9% of people (>600 million) outside this niche. By end-of-century (2080–2100), current policies leading to around 2.7 °C global warming could leave one-third (22–39%) of people outside the niche. Reducing global warming from 2.7 to 1.5 °C results in a ~5-fold decrease in the population exposed to unprecedented heat (mean annual temperature ≥29 °C). The lifetime emissions of ~3.5 global average citizens today (or ~1.2 average US citizens) expose one future person to unprecedented heat by end-of-century. That person comes from a place where emissions today are around half of the global average.
Each week's New Research includes a hefty collection of reports investigating various potential or actual GHG sources that add a cloud of uncertainty to our overall impact on climate, not least due to ripple effects potentially mobilizing previously stable reservoirs of organic carbon. Here's the net result: Uncertainty in non-CO2 greenhouse gas mitigation contributes to ambiguity in global climate policy feasibility.
Yet another smorgasbord of government/NGO reports this week. Here are two appetizers:
- Is That Climate Change? The Science of Extreme Event Attribution via the US Congressional Research Service is a fast on-ramp to understanding an increasingly frequent question, rigorously sourced.
- Supposing that we could shift to 100% electrified passenger vehicles powered entirely by modernized energy sources, what would we see in human health effects? The American Lung Association explores, in Driving to Clean Air: Health Benefits of Zero-Emission Cars and Electricity
155 articles in 65 journals by 984 contributing authors
Physical science of climate change, effects
An Energy Budget Framework to Understand Mechanisms of Land–Ocean Warming Contrast Induced by Increasing Greenhouse Gases. Part II: Transient Climate State, Toda et al., Journal of Climate 10.1175/jcli-d-22-0483.1
Large anomalies in future extreme precipitation sensitivity driven by atmospheric dynamics, Gu et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-023-39039-7
What Models Tell Us About the Evolution of Carbon Sources and Sinks over the Phanerozoic, Goddéris et al., Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences 10.1146/annurev-earth-032320-092701
Observations of climate change, effects
Anthropogenic emissions and land use/cover change contributions to extreme temperature changes over China, Xu et al., Atmospheric Research 10.1016/j.atmosres.2023.106845
Asymmetric warming rates between warm and cold weather regimes in Europe, Rantanen et al., Atmospheric Science Letters Open Access 10.1002/asl.1178
Giant hail in Poland produced by a supercell merger in extreme instability – A sign of a warming climate?, Piasecki et al., Atmospheric Research 10.1016/j.atmosres.2023.106843
Hydroclimatic extremes contribute to asymmetric trends in ecosystem productivity loss, Li et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access 10.1038/s43247-023-00869-4
Spatiotemporal changes in Universal Thermal Climate Index over South Asia, Kyaw et al., Atmospheric Research 10.1016/j.atmosres.2023.106838
The little-known, massive advantage that renewables hold over coal
Posted on 7 June 2023 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Karin Kirk
There are many good reasons to burn less coal: It’s polluting, expensive, damaging to human health, and emits more carbon pollution than any other form of electricity.
But an oft-overlooked factor is that burning fuel to generate electricity is astonishingly inefficient. Major energy losses are an unavoidable consequence of converting heat into motion, which is how conventional power plants generate electricity. They typically burn coal or gas to heat water, which makes steam that spins the blades of a turbine that interacts with magnets to generate electricity. More than two-thirds of the energy in coal is vented off as waste heat in the multistep process of making electricity.
By contrast, wind turbines, hydroelectric turbines, and solar panels skip the step of burning fossil fuels to heat water. Instead, a turbine powered by wind or water simply turns as the current of air or water flows by it. And solar panels convert the sun’s energy into electricity using semiconductors. No steam is required for either process.
The major differences in efficiency are best appreciated visually. The animation below sums it up.
At a glance - Can animals and plants adapt to global warming?
Posted on 6 June 2023 by John Mason, BaerbelW
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a "bump" for our ask. This week features "Can animals and plants adapt to global warming?". More will follow in the upcoming weeks. Please follow the Further Reading link at the bottom to read the full rebuttal and to join the discussion in the comment thread there.
At a glance
Just like “the climate has changed before”, this is another vague and unsubstantiated talking point. It is essentially meaningless because again it omits details – and details matter. Yes, some plants and animals can adapt – think of invasive plants like Japanese knotweed or annoying pests like rats. They seem to get on just fine under a wide range of conditions.
Other species, however, have evolved to fit into much narrower ecological zones. Think of Alpine plants: in a warming climate they may be able to extend their natural range uphill as the permanent snow-line retreats, but where can they go once they've reached the mountain-top?
On average, species that can migrate are moving some six kilometres polewards a decade, but such movements are not necessarily successful. For example, a butterfly may attempt to extend its range polewards, but if its food-plants do not grow in the territory it migrates to, then its caterpillars will have nothing to eat. Is that a recipe for success? Finally, whilst some species are capable of quickly migrating to places with more favourable physical conditions, others are not. A coral reef cannot simply pack up and move, can it?
We can clearly see how we've also made things more difficult for many species to adapt. One only has to consider the combination of a warming climate, gradually shifting Earth's climatic belts toward the poles and the amount of alterations we've already made to the planet's surface. Species run short of options. They can either interact with us to a far greater extent or they dwindle away until they are gone.
Another unwanted consequence of such changes is the emergence of zoonotic pathogens. These are things like viruses that have evolved to jump from other animal species to humans, bringing an increasing risk of pandemics. These are details that the person saying or writing, "animals and plants can adapt", is omitting from the conversation. Details always matter.
Please use this form to provide feedback about this new "at a glance" section. Read a more technical version via the link below!
Click for Further details
What ‘The Simpsons’ taught ’90s kids about climate change
Posted on 5 June 2023 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Sara Peach
In 1989, cartoonist Matt Groening told a reporter that his new television show, “The Simpsons,” would tackle the serious subjects in life.
“It always amazes me how few cartoonists in print or animation go after the bigger issues, the kinds of things that keep you lying awake in the middle of the night,” Groening said, as reported by journalist Chris Turner in the book “Planet Simpson: How A Cartoon Masterpiece Defined A Generation.”
Groening’s creation, an animated series about the yellow-colored, often-vulgar Simpsons family, went on to become the longest-running American sitcom. With its renewal for a 35th and 36th season by Fox in January 2023, the show is on track to surpass the 800-episode milestone.
The show’s ratings have fallen since its heyday in the ’90s, when 33.6 million watched an episode about Bart’s bad grades, but it remains more popular than you might think. Over 4 million people watched the season 34 premiere in September 2022, more than the number — 2.65 million — who saw the final episode of Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox.
True to Groening’s intention, “The Simpsons” used biting satire in its early years to examine societal problems, including climate change. In the show’s earliest mention of the issue, news anchor Kent Brockman expresses an apathetic attitude toward a spate of warm winter weather (“Mr. Plow,” air date Nov. 19, 1992).
2023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #22
Posted on 4 June 2023 by BaerbelW
This week, several shared articles did quite well on our Facebook page: At a glance - How reliable are climate models?, Call for help: Update or create translations for updated rebuttals!, Meteorologists face unprecedented harassment from conspiracy theorists, and, Antarctic Sea Ice Is at Record Lows. Is It an Alarming Shift?.
Links posted on Facebook
- One in three GB News presenters cast doubt on climate science, study reveals by Damien Gayle & Adam Barnett, The Guardian, May 26, 2023
- Meteorologists face unprecedented harassment from conspiracy theorists by Laura Paddison, CNN, CNN, May 27, 2023
- We're NOT about to pass the 1.5 degree climate change limit by Adam Levy, ClimateAdam on YouTube, May 27, 2023
- Antarctic Sea Ice Is at Record Lows. Is It an Alarming Shift? by Matt Simon, Wired, May 26, 2023
- At a glance - How reliable are climate models? by John Mason, Skeptical Science, May 30, 2023
- Report Finds 228 Local Restrictions Against Siting Wind, Solar, and Other Renewables, as Well as 293 Contested Projects by Matthew Eisenson, Sabine Center, May 31, 2023
- No other planet: Utopian visions for a climate-changed world by Joe Davidson, Environmental Politics, May 16, 2023
- Ohio solar projects face an unclear path around local opposition by Kathiann M. Kowalski, Energy News Network, May 22, 2023
- Debunked CO2, climate claim resurfaces online by Roland Lloyd Parry, AFP, May 31, 2023
- How the CIA Secretly Spied On Climate Change by Joe Hanson, "Be Smart" on Youtube, June 1, 2023
- Call for help: Update or create translations for updated rebuttals! by Bärbel Winkler, Skeptical Science, June 2, 2023
- Investigative Journalism and the New Climate Creator Movement by Cody Simms, My Climate Journey (MCJ), June 2, 2023
- Students and Faculty at Ohio State Respond to a Bill That Would Restrict College Discussions of Climate Policies by Dan Gearino, inside Climate News, May 31, 2023
If you happen upon high quality climate-science and/or climate-myth busting articles from reliable sources while surfing the web, please feel free to submit them via this Google form for possible inclusion on our Facebook page. Thanks!
Call for help: Update or create translations for updated rebuttals!
Posted on 2 June 2023 by BaerbelW
Over the years, we've published several calls for help with translations but most of them were rather generalized in nature like last year's blog post published in February 2022. This time around, we are asking for help with a quite specific task, namely to update existing translations for the rebuttals included in our ongoing Rebuttals Update Project.
By the time this blog post gets published we will have completed updates for about 15 rebuttals with another 25 additional rebuttals getting close to completion. Importantly, the updated rebuttals now all include the new at-a-glance section, for which there are no current translations. These are relatively short, with most of them having under 500 words, so translating them should not be a huge undertaking but could be quite beneficial. However, the rest of the rebuttal translation should ideally also get checked and updated as most of them will not have been updated in quite some time - often since they were first created.
We have 480(!) translations for these rebuttals in up to 20 languages and 440 translations yet to be created as shown in our overview figure 1 below. You can also download the overview as a PDF which includes clickable links to the rebuttals in case you'd like to check them out.
Skeptical Science New Research for Week #22 2023
Posted on 1 June 2023 by Doug Bostrom, Marc Kodack
Open access notables
Multiple studies indicate changes in the properties of Antarctic bottom water (AABW) over the past half century. These changes involve density and hence will affect both local and distant circulation of the oceans, not least overturning effects that are vital for marine biology but also climate and weather far distant from Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. While we can see what's happening, our understanding of what's driving change is incomplete. By synthesizing multiple observational channels in a uniquely suitable region, Kathryn Gunn et al. produce an important increment in our understanding of what's perturbing this system in Recent reduced abyssal overturning and ventilation in the Australian Antarctic Basin, just published in Nature Climate Change. It looks as though glacial meltwater is an growingly important factor. The paper confirms and extends prior indication that substantial change is occurring in Antarctic bottom waters. This article is also rewarding for a general readership thanks to its excellent introduction and synopsis of the problems the authors attack.
"Talk is cheap," quantified: Destruction (energy) is at the heart of everything we do: Chevron’s junk climate action agenda and how it intensifies global harm. From our gov./NGO section, a report by Corporate Accountabilty details how an exemplar oil major is failing to deliver on promises to deliver "net zero" fossil fuels. The authors report that Chevron ends up with a cosmetically impoved by still expanding emissions footprint— while also promoting blundering and harmful offset schemes.
Book review: Climate obstruction: how Denial, delay and inaction are heating the planet. In this book the authors draw on previous work in assembling a taxonomy of individual actions and failings leading to climate failure, relating the whole to identify a new formality they call "climate obstructionism." Reviewer Hauke Dannemann praises the book's novel contribtuions while also setting the stage for further synthesis. Dannemann concludes: "Climate Obstruction is an eye-opening, thought-provoking contribution and a must-read for everybody who despairs of understanding why late modern societies are sliding into climate catastrophe with their eyes wide open, or – to be precise – are already in the midst of it."
Most of us are happy and intrigued to try new foods. But when it's hinted we may have to change our diets due to circumstances beyond our control, our mood changes— or so it would seem from heated discussions on the topic Emotional attachments aside, a plethora of research suggests that coming decades will include multiple stressors on natural and artificial systems connected with our obtaining food, and that our agriculture itself is increasingly a stress point on climate. Something may have to give, whatever our personal preferences. But what, and how? Authors Sonali Shukla McDermid and coauthors persuasively describe major gaps in our understanding of important details of how we can alter our food supply to the extent it turns out we must, in Research needs for a food system transition. McDermid et al. conclude that major interdisciplinary cooperation is needed in order to have sufficient information to cope with mandatory changes we're likely to encounter.
Superficially it may sound like "discourses of delay" and/or "solutions denial," but it's not. In their perspective piece in Conservation Letters C. Javier Durá-Alemañ et al make a sincere plea against accidental harm committed while addressing universally agreed urgencies. Climate change and energy crisis drive an unprecedented EU environmental law regression. Pointing out that various efforts to reduce friction in buliding out renewable energy supplies entail their own forms of risk, the authors have a reasonable ask: accelerations of renewable energy deployments should remain anchored in evidence allowing us to have a full, clear understanding of biodiversity trade-offs and opportunity costs attached to our energy modernization.
116 articles in 58 journals by 765 contributing authors
Physical science of climate change, effects
Recent Deoxygenation of Patagonian Fjord Subsurface Waters Connected to the Peru–Chile Undercurrent and Equatorial Subsurface Water Variability, Linford et al., Global Biogeochemical Cycles 10.1029/2022gb007688
Sea surface warming patterns drive hydrological sensitivity uncertainties, Zhang et al., Nature Climate Change Open Access 10.1038/s41558-023-01678-5
The circulation and rainfall response in the southern hemisphere extra-tropics to climate stabilisation, Grose & King, Weather and Climate Extremes Open Access 10.1016/j.wace.2023.100577
Observations of climate change, effects
Influence of Indian Ocean warming on rainfall of Sri Lanka, Kajakokulan et al., International Journal of Climatology 10.1002/joc.8124
Observed and projected changes in snow accumulation and snowline in California’s snowy mountains, Shulgina et al., Climate Dynamics Open Access 10.1007/s00382-023-06776-w
Climate Adam: We're NOT about to pass the 1.5 degree climate change limit
Posted on 31 May 2023 by Guest Author, BaerbelW
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Adam Levy. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any).
The world is getting hotter and the headlines are scary. So does climate change mean the world is about to pass the 1.5 degree limit set by the Paris Climate Agreement? And what would passing this limit even mean? Rather than showing that it's game over, increasing extreme weather and sea level rise would indicate that it's never been so urgent to stop climate change - it's never been so urgent to stop punching ourselves in the face..
Support ClimateAdam on patreon: https://patreon.com/climateadam
At a glance - How reliable are climate models?
Posted on 30 May 2023 by John Mason, BaerbelW
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a "bump" for our ask. This week features "How reliable are climate models?". More will follow in the upcoming weeks. Please follow the Further Reading link at the bottom to read the full rebuttal and to join the discussion in the comment thread there.
At a glance
So, what are computer models? Computer modelling is the simulation and study of complex physical systems using mathematics and computer science. Models can be used to explore the effects of changes to any or all of the system components. Such techniques have a wide range of applications. For example, engineering makes a lot of use of computer models, from aircraft design to dam construction and everything in between. Many aspects of our modern lives depend, one way and another, on computer modelling. If you don't trust computer models but like flying, you might want to think about that.
Computer models can be as simple or as complicated as required. It depends on what part of a system you're looking at and its complexity. A simple model might consist of a few equations on a spreadsheet. Complex models, on the other hand, can run to millions of lines of code. Designing them involves intensive collaboration between multiple specialist scientists, mathematicians and top-end coders working as a team.
Modelling of the planet's climate system dates back to the late 1960s. Climate modelling involves incorporating all the equations that describe the interactions between all the components of our climate system. Climate modelling is especially maths-heavy, requiring phenomenal computer power to run vast numbers of equations at the same time.
Climate models are designed to estimate trends rather than events. For example, a fairly simple climate model can readily tell you it will be colder in winter. However, it can’t tell you what the temperature will be on a specific day – that’s weather forecasting. Weather forecast-models rarely extend to even a fortnight ahead. Big difference. Climate trends deal with things such as temperature or sea-level changes, over multiple decades. Trends are important because they eliminate or 'smooth out' single events that may be extreme but uncommon. In other words, trends tell you which way the system's heading.
All climate models must be tested to find out if they work before they are deployed. That can be done by using the past. We know what happened back then either because we made observations or since evidence is preserved in the geological record. If a model can correctly simulate trends from a starting point somewhere in the past through to the present day, it has passed that test. We can therefore expect it to simulate what might happen in the future. And that's exactly what has happened. From early on, climate models predicted future global warming. Multiple lines of hard physical evidence now confirm the prediction was correct.
Finally, all models, weather or climate, have uncertainties associated with them. This doesn't mean scientists don't know anything - far from it. If you work in science, uncertainty is an everyday word and is to be expected. Sources of uncertainty can be identified, isolated and worked upon. As a consequence, a model's performance improves. In this way, science is a self-correcting process over time. This is quite different from climate science denial, whose practitioners speak confidently and with certainty about something they do not work on day in and day out. They don't need to fully understand the topic, since spreading confusion and doubt is their task.
Climate models are not perfect. Nothing is. But they are phenomenally useful.
Please use this form to provide feedback about this new "at a glance" section. Read a more technical version via the link below!
Click for Further details
California bill would hit oil companies with $1 million penalty for health impacts
Posted on 29 May 2023 by Guest Author
This story by Aaron Cantú was originally published in Capital & Main and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.
Monic Uriarte was thrilled to get approved for an affordable apartment in Los Angeles’ University Park, close to USC. But soon after she and her family moved there in 2004, they started experiencing headaches and other illnesses.
Her mother was diagnosed with asthma at age 70. Her daughter had to sleep propped up because she’d get nosebleeds so bad she’d choke. On sweltering days, when they opened the windows, they noticed the air had a nauseatingly sweet taste.
Uriarte eventually learned they’d moved into an apartment just 30 feet from an area with dozens of oil wells and a gas processing facility, hidden behind layers of brick and iron and trees.
“Our bodies were the oil company’s filters,” Uriarte said.
That realization kick-started Uriarte’s career as an environmental activist. Now she’s advocating for a statewide measure, backed by climate and environmental groups, that would impose what is likely the strongest law in the nation to hold oil and gas companies accountable when their operations make people sick. The bill, SB 556, comes on the heels of an industry-funded referendum campaign that halted a law to create buffer zones, or “setbacks,” between oil and gas wells and homes, schools, parks and health clinics.
It also emerges in the context of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on April 24 that allows lawsuits filed by cities and states against fossil fuel companies over climate change to move forward in state courts. Hundreds of such climate cases have been filed worldwide, but SB 556 may be the first policy that would specifically link drilling to paid compensation for acute health impacts. It’s already passed out of an important legislative committee, despite a pro-business law group’s warning that it would be extremely difficult to attribute harm to specific wells.
In the last decade, much more research on the harmful effects of oil and gas wells on human health has been published, including their disproportionate impacts on low-income communities, where the dirtiest and most productive wells are often located. Chronic exposure is as harmful as breathing freeway exhaust or secondhand smoke. A recent study that examined the health of residents living within the Las Cienegas Oil Field in South Los Angeles — where Uriarte lived with her family — found that people within 200 meters (656 feet) and downwind from wells reported symptoms including wheezing, eye and nose irritation, sore throats, dizziness, and weaker lungs overall.
SB 556 says children or seniors diagnosed with lung ailments, those who endure dangerous pregnancies and residents diagnosed with cancer who live within 3,200 feet of an active well can sue companies and their board members. The payout runs between $250,000 and $1 million, with potential for doubling or tripling penalties as a “deterrent.” About 2.76 million people in California live within that zone, according to FracTracker. State prosecuting authorities would also have the ability to sue companies to recoup costs for public health programs.
2023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #21
Posted on 28 May 2023 by BaerbelW
This week, several shared articles did quite well on our Facebook page: The Upper Atmosphere Is Cooling, Prompting New Climate Concerns, At a glance - Global cooling - Is global warming still happening?, Global heating will push billions outside ‘human climate niche’, and Can Climate Change spark (zombie) Pandemics?
Links posted on Facebook
- The Upper Atmosphere Is Cooling, Prompting New Climate Concerns by Fred Pearce, Yale Environment 360, May 18, 2023
- Can Climate Change spark (zombie) Pandemics? by Adam Levy, ClimateAdam on Youtube, May 11, 2023
- At a glance - Global cooling - Is global warming still happening? by John Mason, Skeptical Science, May 23, 2023
- Global heating will push billions outside ‘human climate niche’ by Damian Carrington, The Guardian, May 22, 2023
- Climate change conspiracy theory about cataclysmic changes in Earth’s magnetic field goes viral on TikTok by Ilana Berger and Abbie Richards, MediaMatters for America, May 24, 2023
- Tweets, Ads, and Lies: Researchers Are Fighting against Climate Misinformation by Jessica Colarossi, The Brink, May 23, 2023
- Climate scientists flee Twitter as hostility surges by Roland Lloyd Parry, YahooNews, May 24, 2023
- ‘The public wants certainty’: why have Americans stopped trusting in science? by Chris McGreal, The Guardian, May 25, 2023
- Emissions are no longer following the worst case scenario by Zeke Hausfather, The Climate Brink, May 25, 2023
- With Climate Panel as a Beacon, Global Group Takes On Misinformation by Steven Lee Myers, New York Times, May 24, 2023
- Skeptical Science New Research for Week #21 2023 by Doug Bostrom & Marc Kodack, Skeptical Science, May 25, 2023
If you happen upon high quality climate-science and/or climate-myth busting articles from reliable sources while surfing the web, please feel free to submit them via this Google form for possible inclusion on our Facebook page. Thanks!
Skeptical Science New Research for Week #21 2023
Posted on 25 May 2023 by Doug Bostrom, Marc Kodack
Open access notables
Publishing in Environmental Science & Technology, Brian Stone Jr. et al. explore what might be termed a new branch of health physics, namely how human populations will fare in a landscape featuring extreme temperatures affecting both humans and power infrastructure. How Blackouts during Heat Waves Amplify Mortality and Morbidity Risk employs uncontroversial inputs to model health effects of heat waves juiced by climate change when dangerous levels of warmth also degrade electrical power supply delivery. Foreeable events include some astounding numbers, such as 50% of Phoenix, Arizona's 1.7M+ population urgently requiring medical attention in the event of an extreme heat wave overstressing available electrical supply. Notably, "extreme" heat waves will become more normal. The authors suggest actions that could ameliorate or avoid the worst effects of such conjunctions. Meanwhile, while those researchers are modeling the future, the North American Electricity Reliability Corporation (NERC) has just released the 2023 Summer Reliability Assessment, finding that substantial parts of the US will be at risk of supply shortfalls this summer. Of further concern, the report notes that with summer temperatures becoming more prolonged, accustomed maintenance windows for electrical generation and distribution are shrinking, which of course if unaddressed will increase odds of catastrophic events modeled by Stone et al.
Here's an archetypal bit of scientific understatement:
"Public decision-making is not entirely rational (Cook and Lewandowsky 2016; Druckman and McGrath 2019) and, for controversial topics, motivated reasoning may lead individuals to prioritise opinions or norms of socio-political in-groups over scientific evidence (DiMaggio 1997; Druckman and McGrath 2019; Hornsey 2021; Kahan and Braman 2006; Kahan et al. 2007; Kunda 1990)."
"People make seemingly crazy choices based on factors entirely unrelated to objective requirements of decisions at hand" is another way of saying the same thing. That's our intutiion informed by experience speaking, but we don't have to listen only to that inner voice. While introducing their particular topic, Hughes et al. provide us with a succinct literature review on how our rationality goes off the rails when we feel things we cherish to be threatened by our understanding of cold, hard facts. For anybody wondering why we're so badly failing to cope with climate change Endorsement of scientific inquiry promotes better evaluation of climate policy evidence is worth reading for the introductory material alone. The paper's actual line of investigation is to further explore "endorsement of scientific inquiry" (ESI) as a predictor of public ability to discriiminate the worth of policy responses to our climate mess. The authors' results are not cause for celebration.
Heather Jacobs, Aarti Gupta & Ina Möller explore details of our species' amazingly inventive ability to procrastinate, in Governing-by-aspiration? Assessing the nature and implications of including negative emission technologies (NETs) in country long-term climate strategies. The meat of the question the authors address:
Crucially, the extent to which an expansion of the carbon sink is needed depends on the speed at which carbon emissions can be reduced or phased out globally. Critical social scientists are now questioning whether prospectively hoping to rely on a variety of NETs in long-term climate commitments might lead to a delayed sense of urgency in setting or meeting emission reduction targets in the shorter term. As such, empirical assessment of this eventuality is increasingly important, even if methodologically challenging (Carton et al. 2023). While the shorter-term NDCs are the subject of increasing analysis, in terms of mitigation ambition or inclusion of NETs and the link to potential mitigation deterrence, the long-term strategies require more attention.
Systematic review of mitigation plans in support of committed pledges to address GHG contributions reveals a disturbing pattern:
Given the promise of future NETs use, countries may initially be distracted from urgently needed short-term mitigation, or at least see the two as complements. Yet, as they explore future use of specific NETs more fully, the uncertainties and limitations of each option come to the fore. In the face of this uncertainty, countries may shift attention and resources to setting up systems to measure and account for future actions relating to NETs, rather than to the actual taking of emission reduction actions now. It may also fuel a shift from one NET option to the other. This keeps alive the possibility of a future viable NET option, thereby fueling a potential delay in current mitigation action.
Government/NGO
This week's collection of government and NGO reports and reviews is particularly rich, with 15 products of hard work on urgent climate-related matters. These are done to generally high standards and are largely founded in scientific research. Each listing includes a synopsis. Interested? Scroll down, or click here.
105 articles in 60 journals by 644 contributing authors
Physical science of climate change, effects
A Possible Hysteresis in the Arctic Ocean due to Release of Subsurface Heat during Sea Ice Retreat, Beer et al., Journal of Physical Oceanography 10.1175/jpo-d-22-0131.1
Connections between Upper Tropospheric and Lower Stratospheric Circulation Responses to Increased CO2, Menzel et al., Journal of Climate 10.1175/jcli-d-22-0851.1
Forcing, Cloud Feedbacks, Cloud Masking, and Internal Variability in the Cloud Radiative Effect Satellite Record, Raghuraman et al., Journal of Climate Open Access pdf 10.1175/jcli-d-22-0555.1
Implied Heat Transport from CERES Data: Direct Radiative Effect of Clouds on Regional Patterns and Hemispheric Symmetry, Pearce & Bodas-Salcedo, Journal of Climate 10.1175/jcli-d-22-0149.1
Radiative forcing due to carbon dioxide decomposed into its component vibrational bands, Shine & Perry, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society 10.1002/qj.4485
Role of warm ocean conditions in the genesis and rapid intensification of tropical cyclone ‘Tauktae’ along the west coast of India, Ratnakaran & Abish, Theoretical and Applied Climatology 10.1007/s00704-023-04480-7
The influence of bathymetry over heat transport onto the Amundsen Sea continental shelf, Haigh et al., Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans 10.1029/2022jc019460
Observations of climate change, effects
North-West Europe Hottest Days Are Warming Twice as Fast as Mean Summer Days, Patterson, Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2023gl102757
Spring wildfires in the eastern US got off to a roaring start this year
Posted on 24 May 2023 by Guest Author
This story by Katie Myers was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here. This story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.
Spring fire season is a regular occurrence in the eastern U.S. It’s not nearly as dramatic as what’s seen across the West, mostly due to the region’s increased rainfall and high humidity, but it can cause serious damage. Wildfires have scorched 351,821 acres so far this year, and firefighters throughout the mid-Atlantic and South remain on alert, with “red flag” warnings and burn bans across multiple states.
Things got off to a roaring start in southern New Jersey, where firefighters have battled 160 wildfires, four of which were major. The largest of them tore a streak across the rural Pine Barrens region and saw 200-foot walls of flames earlier this month; it burned nearly 4,000 acres, driven by record heat that included nighttime temperatures rarely dropping below the 60s. As in the West, warming conditions driven by climate change are leading to longer fire seasons that begin earlier in the year.
“We’re seeing this peak fire season that was confined to about a two-to-three month period extending into a four-to-five month period,” Greg McLaughlin, administrator and chief of the New Jersey Forest Fire Service, told WHYY News. Fire season in the Garden State typically runs from March through May, but these days it’s been starting in February and heading into late June and early July, he said.
Unusually warm temperatures, low humidity, and gusting winds drove the fires that burned thousands of acres in Pendleton County, West Virginia, and in Daniel Boone National Forest in south-central Kentucky last week.
In coastal North Carolina, 245 federal and state firefighters continue battling a blaze that has blackened 36,000 acres in Croatan National Forest. The conflagration started last Wednesday evening, and crews have contained just 15 percent of it. The immense amount of smoke has led to air quality warnings in 21 nearby counties, encouraging residents to stay inside and limit outdoor exercise. While the Croatan is adapted to fire, which is a normal part of the ecosystem, officials say the current blaze is unusually large — the second worst in the forest’s history.
”This is larger than normal,” said James Wettstaed, a U.S. Forest Service public information officer currently stationed in North Carolina.
At a glance - Global cooling - is global warming still happening?
Posted on 23 May 2023 by John Mason, BaerbelW
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a "bump" for our ask. This week features "Global cooling - Is global warming still happening?". More will follow in the upcoming weeks. Please follow the Further Reading link at the bottom to read the full rebuttal and to join the discussion in the comment thread there.
At a glance
Earth's surface, oceans and atmosphere are all warming due to our greenhouse gas emissions, but at different rates. Some places are also warming much faster than others: parts of the Arctic for example. That variability is partly because other phenomena act to offset or enhance warming at times. A good example are the effects of La Nina and El Nino, an irregular variation in winds and sea surface temperatures over the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean that can influence temperatures and rainfall patterns right around the world.
El Nino causes even warmer years whereas La Nina tends to peg temperatures back to an extent. Thus 2016 – an El Nino year - was the warmest year on record, according to the USA-based National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, but other recent years have not been far behind – 2020 and 2019 are in second and third place respectively. The worrying thing is that 2019 only saw a mild El Nino and 2020 was “neutral” - there were neither El Nino or La Nina conditions. And even with a La Nina featuring, 2021 and 2022 were, respectively, still the seventh and sixth hottest years on record.
The year 1998 featured a massive El Nino and consequent temperature spike that was a strong outlier, well above the steady upward trend. That spike and the subsequent return to a more “normal” warming pattern led to claims in the popular media that global warming had “paused” or had even stopped. This was a typical misinformation tactic that, as usual, time has proved wrong. As things currently stand, the top ten warmest years have all been since 2010 and 1998 is nowhere to be seen any more. By modern standards, it simply wasn't warm enough.
Please use this form to provide feedback about this new "at a glance" section. Read a more technical version via the link below!
Click for Further details
Can Climate Change spark (zombie) Pandemics?
Posted on 22 May 2023 by Guest Author
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Adam Levy. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any).
The Last of Us tells the story of a fungal zombie apocalypse... triggered by climate change. So could this kind of pandemic actually happen? Could global warming see Pedro Pascal running for his life from the undead? And what are the other disease threats that climate change could trigger? From malaria, to new pandemics, to zombie viruses - the truth is worth a hard-hitting TV series of its own.
Support ClimateAdam on patreon: https://patreon.com/climateadam
2023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #20
Posted on 21 May 2023 by BaerbelW
This week, several shared articles did quite well on our Facebook page: 10 year anniversary of 97% consensus study, Solving Climate Change - A guide for learners and leaders, At a glance - The 97% consensus on global warming, Meteorologists targeted in climate misinfo surge, and The challenges and promises of climate lawsuits.
Links posted on Facebook
- Meteorologists targeted in climate misinfo surge by Various, Phys Org, May 13 2023
- The challenges and promises of climate lawsuits by Katrina Zimmer, Knowable Magazine, May 13, 2023
- Climate crisis deniers target scientists for vicious abuse on Musk’s Twitter by Anna Fazackerley, The Observer, May 14, 2023
- 10 year anniversary of 97% consensus study by John Cook & Bärbel Winkler, Skeptical Science, May 15, 2023
- Solving Climate Change - A guide for learners and leaders by Jonathan Koomey and Ian Monroe, IOP Publishing, Dec 2022
- At a glance - The 97% consensus on global warming by John Mason, Skeptical Science, May 16, 2023
- European State of the Climate 2022 by European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) on behalf of the European Commission., Copernicus, Spring 2023
- Montana Is Paying a Climate Denier to Give Expert Testimony in Upcoming Trial by Dana Drugmand, DeSmog, May 15, 2023
- Finland’s ‘visionary’ fight against disinformation teaches citizens to question what they see online by Yvonne Lau, National Observer, May 16, 2023
- How Big Oil is manipulating the way you think about climate change by Kathleen Dean Moore, Salon, May 13, 2023
- Most teachers support teaching students about climate change, survey finds by YCC Team, Yale Climate Connections, May 18, 2023
- Skeptical Science New Research for Week #20 2023 by Doug Bostrom & Marc Kodack, Skeptical Science, May 18, 2023
- If swing voters were terrified of the climate crisis, ministers would take it seriously by Gaby Hinsliff, Guardian, May 19, 2023
- https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/19/fossil-fuel-firms-owe-climate-reparations-of-281bn-a-year-says-study by Nina Lakhani, Guardian, May 19th 2023
If you happen upon high quality climate-science and/or climate-myth busting articles from reliable sources while surfing the web, please feel free to submit them via this Google form for possible inclusion on our Facebook page. Thanks!
Skeptical Science New Research for Week #20 2023
Posted on 18 May 2023 by Doug Bostrom, Marc Kodack
Open access notables
Visiting online haunts of climate science rejectionists reveals a nexus of anxieties in some sections of the public: climate change and population migration. Judging from connections formed in headlines and article texts, one could easily conclude that readers' fears are being exploited; it's not hard to find content implying that the concept of climate change is a subterfuge to justify opening borders to "foreigners." Given what we know of developing physical effects of climate change, it may seem intuitively obvious that growing pressures on populations can lead affected people to "upping stakes" and trying to escape increasingly poor living conditions. What's the reality of the situation? It's not entirely clear, according to Tabitha Watson et al., publishing in Climate Resileince and Sustainability and offering their literature survey The climate change, conflict and migration nexus: A holistic view. The authors find a picture that is largely framed by early hypothesis and challenged by complicated circumstances, the latter imposing difficulties on attribution. They conclude that a more interdisciplinary approach is vital for making progress in this research area, which can offer direct advice for implications on immigration policy. Such advice-by-evidence should be of particular concern for countries that may be less urgently affected by climate change even as they may be more responsible for its cause.
Assessing public support for climate policy is notoriously difficult, yet for all kinds of reasons beginning with "policy should be responsive to public wishes" and leading to "public rejection means no policy progress" it's absolutely key that public attitudes and beliefs about policy are faithfully captured. Troubles begin with survey mechanical and logistical limitations and constraints and only build with cognitive load placed on participants. Answering questions means juggling abstract concepts incorporating a lot of complexity, with only highly simplified available replies. How can we do better? Maria Juschten & Ines Omann report promising results from their survey tool PVE, in Evaluating the relevance, credibility and legitimacy of a novel participatory online tool just published in Environmental Science & Policy. The authors have crafted a survey method presenting what could be called a less impoverished means of thinking about and answering questions about climate mitigation support, providing feedback to respondents as part of the elicitation process.
One of these days somebody will publish a paper that may well fly beneath the radar of the popular mind in its moment of appearance but ultimately becomes even if indirectly world-famous for beneficial impacts. We've seen it happen before. Not to claim a solid win in this department, but such a paper might look like High-strength and machinable load-bearing integrated electrochemical capacitors based on polymeric solid electrolyte, published in Nature Communications by Jinmeng Zhang et al. and for those of us with at least some passing familiarity with engineering and energy storage terms making some very exciting claims. From our "Decarbonization" section, illustrating how "just modernize our energy systems" unpacks as a myriad of fascinating details— and a frenzy of research activity (there's a lot of money at stake here, an attractive win-win situation).
Luija Zhang et al.'s Tropical Cyclone Stalling Shifts Northward and Brings Increasing Flood Risks to East Asian Coast is yet another article where climate waming is becoming baked into diverse lines of inquiry; changes are happening all over the world that have anthropogenic climate change as a background steering factor. The authors are concerned with immediate hydrometeoroloogical effects but remind us of the elephant in the shadows in their conclusions— with direct implications on extending their work:
Based on climate simulations, anthropogenic warming was widely considered the culprit to the northward shift and the slowdown of TC (Studholme et al., 2022; Zhang et al., 2020). On TC stalling and its northward shift, more detection and attribution work using coupled models is needed to verify and delineate the proposed role of semidirect binary interaction from the observed anthropogenic warming. This will improve the scientific view of the stalling behavior and facilitate more proper adaptations against greater hydrological threats brought by more frequent TC stalling alongshore East Asia.
An investigation from Climate Action Against Disinformation brings disturbing news about promises made but broken. Youtube's Climate Denial Dollars details how Alphabet subsidiary YouTube is profiting from acting as a vehicle for harmful climate myths, despite published policy that content “contradicting authoritative scientific consensus on the existence of and causes behind climate change” will not be monetized. Instead, it's easy to find breaches of YouTube's claims, with over 73 million people deceived as part of an industrial-scale misinformation campaign earning Alphabet money that may be small in their own estimation but for most of us is absolutely large.
Also in our gov/NGO section and from the US EPA, a report reminding us of what's at stake in upcoming matters before the Supreme Court of the United States: Climate Change and Children’s Health and Well-Being in the United States. Litigation on EPA's authority is now arguably centered on esoteric matters fairly far away from the spirit of EPA's purpose as exemplified by avoidance of harms detailed in the report. The legal evolution leads to a question: in order of priority what principles are most important?
180 articles in 74 journals by 1,032 contributing authors
Physical science of climate change, effects
A note on integrating the Clapeyron equation without neglecting the specific fluid volume, Swanson, Atmospheric Science Letters Open Access 10.1002/asl.1176
Disentangling the mechanisms of equatorial Pacific climate change, Kang et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.adf5059
‘It’s gotten really ugly.’ A community of freedom-lovers squares off against climate change in the Arizona desert
Posted on 17 May 2023 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Osha Davidson
When I arrived at Karen Nabity’s place in Arizona’s Rio Verde Foothills on a spring afternoon, she opened the door and flashed a big smile. “Oh good!” she said, laughing as she ushered me inside. “You got here in time for happy hour!”
I’m not much of a drinker, but as it turned out she wasn’t talking about adult beverages for humans. Happy hour at the Nabity spread is when she tosses handfuls of birdseed onto her yard of crushed tan rock, attracting a variety of cacophonous desert birds. Even outside of happy hour, jack rabbits, coyotes, mule deer, and javelina, a distant desert relative of pigs, are likely to visit. (Nabity confessed she could do without the javelina, which devour her tall stands of prickly pear cactus and uproot the giant blue agaves.)
The wild beauty of the Sonoran Desert is a large part of why Nabity and her husband bought land just north of Scottsdale and built their dream retirement house here in 2014. “Our four children had flown the coop,” she said. “So we drew up our house plan and subcontracted it out. It was a blast. And now we want to live here forever.”
It’s easy to see why. The McDowell Sonoran Desert Preserve is a five-minute stroll from their front door. One of largest urban parks in the nation, it boasts 180 miles of hiking trails that wind around stands of the iconic giant saguaro and includes one trail that gains 1,300 feet in a short distance before ending at the base of a 200-foot-high granite spire that’s a favorite with rock climbers.
But it’s an open question how long the Nabitys will be able to live here, as they and their neighbors are faced with the intractable reality of a changing climate, a great drying of the West that recently caused their drinking water to be turned off.
At a glance - The 97% consensus on global warming
Posted on 16 May 2023 by John Mason, BaerbelW
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a "bump" for our ask. This week features "The 97% consensus on global warming". More will follow in the upcoming weeks. Please follow the Further Reading link at the bottom to read the full rebuttal and to join the discussion in the comment thread there.
At a glance
What is consensus? In science, it's when the vast majority of specialists agree about a basic, well-established principle. Thus, astronomers agree that the Earth orbits around the Sun. Biologists accept that tadpoles hatch out from frog-spawn and grow into adult frogs. Almost all geologists agree that plate tectonics is real and you'd be hard-placed to find a doctor who thinks smoking is harmless.
In each above case, a phenomenon has been so thoroughly investigated that those who specialise in its study have stopped arguing about its explanation. Nevertheless, these examples are all things that were once argued about, often passionately. That's how progress works.
The establishment of scientific consensus is therefore the end-point of an often lengthy time-line starting with something being observed and ending with it being explained. Let's look at a classic and highly relevant example.
In the late 1700s, the Earth-Sun distance was calculated. The value, 149 million kilometres and incredibly close to modern measurements, got French physicist Joseph Fourier thinking. He innocently asked, in the 1820s, something along these lines:
“Why is Planet Earth such a warm place? It should be an ice-ball at this distance from the Sun.”
Such fundamental questions about our home planet are as attractive to inquisitive scientists as ripened fruit is to wasps. Fourier's initial query set in motion a process of research that within a few decades had experimentally confirmed that carbon dioxide has heat-trapping properties. Through the twentieth century, the research intensified, particularly during the Cold War when there was major interest in the behaviour of infra-red (IR) radiation in the atmosphere. Why? Because heat-seeking missiles, invented at the time, home in on jet exhausts which are IR hotspots, so they needed to thoroughly understand what makes IR tick.
That research led to the publication, some 130 years after Fourier's initial interest, of the landmark 1955 paper by Gilbert Plass, “The Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climatic Change”, explaining in detail how CO2 traps heat in our atmosphere. Note in passing that Plass used the term "Climatic Change" all the way back then, contrary to the deniers' frequent claim that it is used nowadays because of a recent and motivated change in terminology.
From observation to explanation, this is a classic illustration of the scientific method at work, Fourier gets people thinking, experiments are designed and performed and in time a hypothesis emerges. The Oxford English Dictionary states: “a hypothesis is a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation.”
Once a hypothesis is proposed, it becomes subject to rigorous testing within the relevant specialist scientific community. Testing ensures that incorrect hypotheses fall by the wayside, because they don't stand up to scrutiny. But some hypotheses survive such interrogation. As their supporting evidence mounts up over time, they eventually graduate to become theories.
Theories are valid explanations for things that are supported by an expert consensus of specialists. Gravity, jet aviation, electronics, you name it, all are based on solid theories that are known to work because they have stood the test of time and prolonged scientific inquiry.
In climate science today, there is overwhelming (greater than 97%) expert consensus that CO2 traps heat and adding it to the atmosphere warms the planet. Whatever claims are made to the contrary, that principle has been established for almost seventy years, since the publication of that 1955 landmark paper.
Expert consensus is a powerful thing. None of us have the time or ability to learn about everything, so we frequently defer to the conclusions of experts. It’s precisely why we visit doctors when we’re ill. Yet the public underestimates the degree of expert consensus that our vast greenhouse gas emissions trap heat and warm the planet. That is because alongside information, we have misinformation and certain sections of the mass-media are as happy to trot out the latter as the former. We saw a very similar phenomenon during the COVID-19 pandemic and it cost many lives.
For those who want to learn more, a much longer and detailed account of the history of climate science is available on this website.
Please use this form to provide feedback about this new "at a glance" section. Read a more technical version via the link below!
Click for Further details
10 year anniversary of 97% consensus study
Posted on 15 May 2023 by John Cook, BaerbelW
10 years after and still going strong!
Ten years ago today - on May 15, 2013 - our team published the paper Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature (Cook et al. 2013). Little did we know that our publication, organized as a citizens’ science project and published open access thanks to speedy crowdfunding support from Skeptical Science readers, would make such an impact and still be of much interest ten years later. But, that it’s still of interest is quite visible when visiting the Environmental Research Letters website where, together with other consensus-related publications, Cook at al. (2013) has been consistently among the Top 10 papers read. Other indicators of continued interest are the download numbers which currently are at 1.39 million and the Dimensions stats:
The text on the Dimensions page is interesting:
"This publication in Environmental Research Letters has been cited 778 times. 22% of its citations have been received in the past two years, which is higher than you might expect, suggesting that it is currently receiving a lot of interest.
Compared to other publications in the same field, this publication is extremely highly cited and has received approximately 121 times more citations than average."
Some highlights
A lot has happened since the paper was published and we’ve written about several milestones before, so here is just a short list of our favorite memories:
