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.

 

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2024's unusually persistent warmth

Posted on 16 September 2024 by Zeke Hausfather

This is a re-post from The Climate Brink

My inaugural post on The Climate Brink 18 months ago looked at the year 2024, and found that it was likely to be the warmest year on record on the back of a (than forecast) El Nino event. I suggested “there is a real chance that the world exceeds 1.5C above preindustrial levels in 2024 in the Berkeley Earth record” but that “it is still more likely than not that 2024 temperatures come in below that level.”

Since that post, I think its safe to say that the intervening year and a half surprised us all. We saw extreme (one might even say gobsmacking) global surface temperatures in the second half of 2023, which pushed the year above 1.5C in the Berkeley Earth record (and just shy of 1.5C in Copernicus).1 This heat arrived far earlier than any of us anticipated; even before the El Nino event that we expected to drive record warmth had fully developed. Global temperature records were shattered by between 0.3C and 0.5C in each month from July to December 2023.

In early 2024 it appeared as if the world had potentially returned to a more predictable (though far from good!) regime, with global temperature records exceeding the prior records set in the winter of 2016 by around 0.1C, which is reasonably in-line with what we would expect to see for a big El Nino event 8 years after the 2016 super El Nino.

At the time I (and others) suggested that global temperatures would likely begin to fall back down to around 1.3C above preindustrial levels by June, and end up well below 2023 for the second half of the year as El Nino faded and La Nina conditions potentially developed. This seemed like a reasonable expectation based on the trajectory of prior El Nino events (e.g. 2016). However, nature had something else in mind:

Rather than falling out of record territories, global temperatures have remained highly elevated going into the summer and fall months. We saw new temperature records in May and June, and tied the exceptional heat of 2023 in July and August. Its only in September – which shattered prior records by 0.5C in 2023 – that we will very likely see global temperatures falling out of record territory.2

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2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37

Posted on 15 September 2024 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom, John Hartz

Story of the week

From time to time we like to make our Story of the Week all about us— and this is one of those moments, except that "us" is more than only Skeptical Science.

This week we published our 16th Fact Brief of the year, Does manmade CO2 have any detectable fingerprint?  As with all Fact Briefs it's a slightly different look than our usual output.

The "fact brief" format is a less typical communications mode for us but the main effort at Gigafact, our partner and precipitating instigator in creating these bite-sized cognitive correctants. In a fine example of finding an importantly needful job vacancy and filling it, Gigafact has zeroed in on a significant communications niche going begging and is filling it via a laser-focused method:

Gigafact helps local newsrooms who join the network to implement a new standardized fact-checking editorial methodology via software tools, training, support and startup funding. Each week the newsrooms publish several short, sober and informative “fact briefs” that respond to influential claims and correct the record. Gigafact then assists in the amplification and distribution of those fact briefs to maximize the opportunity for the public to encounter them. This helps the newsrooms discover new audiences and growth opportunities. See one Gigafact newsroom talk about their experience here.

In an era when scanty advertisement dollars and increasingly distant and uncaring ownership have decimated newsrooms Gigafact has found an efficient way to broadly increase the strength and immediate impact of journalism, eliminating redundant effort and affording reporters and editors ready access to reliable debunking of common misunderstandings. Fact Briefs circulated by Gigafact's extensive and growing network are powerful effort multipliers. What could be hundreds of duplicative hours of work for journalists working scattered and alone becomes affordably shrunken and contained, already done and with results instantly accessible. 

As Gigafact's collaborator our role is to tap into our body of work and assist with creating fact briefs on matters touching anthropogenic climate change. Climate confusion is not quite as venerable as moon landing conspiracy theories or confusion about what direction water circles drains in the Southern Hemisphere, but it's still unfortunately the case that Skeptical Science has been up and running and dealing with tiresomely repetitious climate bunk for some 17 years. We've become reluctant experts and are not exactly happy with having to play the role we do— but we're certainly delighted to share our misery so as to help others.

We've found creation of fact briefs to be an intriguing and even challenging activity. Gigafact fact briefs are intended for drop-in use in news journalism, compatible with easy placement in tight page real estate, quick to hand (and kindly to our attention spans). Each fact brief has a hard limit of 150 words— and that often makes conveying the nitty-gritty on knowledge frequently sitting on deeply complicated foundations quite tricky. Authoring fact briefs is a demanding exercise in finding economy while avoiding informational gaps or ambiguty. It's safe to say we're the better for honing these skills. Benefit is flowing in all directions as we work with Gigafact.

We announced this current run of fact briefs (we worked with Gigafact's predecessor some time ago) back in early April. With the sharpened focus of the new fact brief format it's taken us a while to comfortably come up to pace but with this 16th publication we feel we're hitting our stride.

Although each brief is small in layout there's a lot going on behind the scenery. Our own talented science communicator John Mason works with Gigafact editorial staffers Sue Bin Park and Austin Tannenbaum to sculpt comprehensively detailed explanations of human-caused climate change particularities down to teacup size. This needs a generous amount of coauthorial repartee, patience, and perhaps hardest of all a willingness to strip prose of all poetry. On the Skeptical Science side our esteemed Baerbel Winkler handles details of this program's administration and scheduling.

Everybody in this crew deserves a hearty thanks. 

Here are this year's previous Gigafact Fact Briefs, chosen and prioritized for treatment due to saliency in public discussion:

• Fact brief - Does manmade CO2 have any detectable fingerprint?
• Fact brief - Is recent global warming part of a natural cycle?
• Fact brief - Is decreased cosmic ray activity driving global warming?
• Fact brief - Does CO2 correlate with global temperature long-term?
• Fact brief - Are carbon dioxide emissions from human activities enough to affect the climate?
• Fact brief - Are polar bears endangered?
• Fact brief - Were scientists caught falsifying data in the hacked emails incident dubbed 'climategate'?
• Fact Brief - Does temperature have to rise before CO2 does?
• Fact Brief - Was the Medieval Warm Period a global event?
• Fact Brief - Is ocean acidification from human activities enough to impact marine ecosystems?
• Fact Brief - Is the ocean acidifying?
• Fact Brief - Have climate models overestimated global warming?
• Fact Brief - Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?
• Fact Brief - Is Antarctica gaining land ice?
• Fact Brief - Did global warming stop in 1998?
• Fact Brief - Was an Ice Age predicted in the 1970s?

Stories we promoted this week, by publication date:

Before September 8

• Lessons From Superstorms Past, Covering Climate Now, CCNOW. "The media ignored the climate connection to 2012’s Hurricane Sandy; here’s how to do better next time"
• The Deteriorating Environment Is a Public Concern, but Americans Misunderstand Their Contribution to the Problem, Science, Inside Climate News, Katie Surma. "A global survey suggests 88 percent of people are worried about the state of nature, but such polling says nothing about where those issues sit among competing concerns, like immigration and the economy."
• If Trump wins the election, this is what's at stake, US News, The Guardian, Bill McKibben.
• Billionaire Kelcy Warren invests in pipelines — and Trump, Energy Wire, E&E News, Mike Soraghan. "The Energy Transfer boss’ political strategy can yield big returns."
• Climate change and its impacts on the water cycle; how can it increase both droughts and heavy downpours?, Science Feedback, Editor: Darrik Burns.
• Project Bison fails. What’s next for the carbon removal megaproject?, Climate Wire, E&E Nrws, Corbin Hiar. "The Wyoming venture’s collapse raises questions about the fledgling direct air capture industry — and the Biden administration’s support of it."
• This World War I Prisoner of War Solved the Mystery of the Ice Ages, Smithsonian Magazine, Rudy Molinek. Serbian scientist Milutin Milankovi? changed our understanding of Earth’s climate—and did a key part of his work while detained by Austro-Hungarian forces

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Fact brief - Does manmade CO2 have any detectable fingerprint?

Posted on 14 September 2024 by John Mason, Guest Author

Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park from the Gigafact team in collaboration with John Mason. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline.

Does manmade CO2 have any detectable fingerprint?

Atmospheric chemistry shows that humans are driving the recent CO2 increase.

A key piece of evidence involves carbon isotope ratios in the atmosphere. Isotopes are different versions of the same element. Carbon comes in three isotopes of different weights and amounts: carbon-12 (98.9% of all carbon), carbon-13 (1.1%) and carbon-14 (trace amounts only).

Photosynthetic plants prefer the lightest isotope, carbon-12, because it is favored in photosynthesis reactions. That means plant tissues have relatively less carbon-13 than carbon-12. Fossil fuels, made of dead plants, also carry that distinct low carbon-13 isotope ratio, as does the CO₂ produced by burning them.

Measurements over recent decades show a shift in the isotope ratio of atmospheric CO₂, consistent with our burning of large amounts of ancient plant-derived carbon - in other words, fossil fuels. Natural carbon sources, like volcanoes, cannot explain this “fingerprint”.

Go to full rebuttal on Skeptical Science or to the fact brief on Gigafact

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This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

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Sources

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Stable Carbon and the Carbon Cycle

Global Biogeochemical Cycles Changes to Carbon Isotopes in Atmospheric CO2 Over the Industrial Era and Into the Future

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration How do we know the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is caused by humans?

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Skeptical Science New Research for Week #37 2024

Posted on 12 September 2024 by Doug Bostrom, Marc Kodack

Open access notables

Early knowledge but delays in climate actions: An ecocide case against both transnational oil corporations and national governments, Hauser et al., Environmental Science & Policy:

Cast within the wide context of investigating the collusion at play between powerful political-economic actors and decision-makers as monopolists and debates about ‘the modern corporation and private property’ (Berle and Means, 1932/2017), ‘the new industrial state’ (Galbraith, 1967), and ‘the economic theory of regulation’ (Stigler, 1971), the paper reviews the contentious relationship between states, corporations, and markets. Specifically, the article probes strategies of oil corporations and national governments intended to delay the inclusion of environmental concerns in policies and avoid accountability. Our method of content analysis of articles, reports, and international declarations of different actors and periods relies on a qualitative methodology and ontology of critical realism. We find that not only did oil corporations hide the truth, but also that national governments, that knew (or should have known) about the threat posed by oil industrial activities and which have wider responsibilities than corporations, did not act and are (at least) as responsible and as ‘ecocidal’ in what could be called an oil TNC-state alliance. 

Fossil fuel industry influence in higher education: A review and a research agenda, Hiltner et al., WIREs Climate Change:

The evolution of fossil fuel industry tactics for obstructing climate action, from outright denial of climate change to more subtle techniques of delay, is under growing scrutiny. One key site of ongoing climate obstructionism identified by researchers, journalists, and advocates is higher education. Scholars have exhaustively documented how industry-sponsored academic research tends to bias scholarship in favor of tobacco, pharmaceutical, food, sugar, lead, and other industries, but the contemporary influence of fossil fuel interests on higher education has received relatively little academic attention. We report the first literature review of academic and civil society investigations into fossil fuel industry ties to higher education in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. We find that universities are an established yet under-researched vehicle of climate obstruction by the fossil fuel industry, and that universities' lack of transparency about their partnerships with this industry poses a challenge to empirical research. We propose a research agenda of topical and methodological directions for future analyses of the prevalence and consequences of fossil fuel industry–university partnerships, and responses to them.

Who are the green transition experts? Towards a new research agenda on climate change knowledge, Frandsen & Hasselbalch, WIREs Climate Change:

Experts play a significant role in shaping global and local norms on how societies should respond to the climate crisis. However, current scholarship on the relationship between expertise and climate change has not fully addressed recent transformations in the field, specifically the emergence and increasingly influential role of what we term “green transition expertise.” We define green transition expertise as a more applied, normative, and contextual form of climate change knowledge that is contrasted with the formalized, pure science of “climate expertise.” If climate experts assess the deteriorating state of the global climate, then transition experts tell states and corporations what they should do about it. We argue that if the social science of climate change knowledge is to further deepen its grasp of the politics of the green transition analytically and normatively, it must embrace a “post-IPCC” research agenda that turns increasingly toward studying the power of transition experts in directing state and corporate climate action. Based on a review of the literature, we contrast the extant IPCC agenda with an emerging post-IPCC agenda along three dimensions: expert cast (who are the experts?), expert content (what do they know?) and expert context (where are they located?).

Tackling the academic air travel dependency. An analysis of the (in)consistency between academics’ travel behaviour and their attitudes, De Vos et al., Global Environmental Change:

While the unsustainability of aviation is well-recognised in academia, academics themselves are often frequent flyers – generating the emissions many of them also problematise. To investigate this contradiction, we survey 1,116 staff members from University College London (UK). We cluster academics based on their opinions of academic travel and international conference organisation, and examine how these groups participate in, and travel to, academic activities. Five clusters are identified: 1) Conservative frequent flyers, 2) Progressive infrequent flyers, 3) In-person conference avoiders, 4) Involuntary flyers, and 5) Traditional conference lovers. Despite some levels of similarity between academic travel attitudes and behaviour, results show that certain types of academics seem forced to regularly fly to distant conferences. In fact, members of our largest cluster (Involuntary flyers) have negative attitudes towards flying, yet have the plane as dominant travel mode. To reduce academic air travel (dependency), we provide tailored policy instruments for each cluster, aimed at reducing the need to travel to lowering the impact of travel.

What is a heat wave: A survey and literature synthesis of heat wave definitions across the United States, Bunting et al., PLOS Climate:

Heat waves are the last extreme weather events without a formal, on the books, definition. Instead, across the U.S. those working on extreme heat event management, forecasting, and planning are using differing definitions in their work. With such differing definitions being used there are widespread impacts including some to human and environmental health, natural resource management, and long-term emergency management planning. For instance, when should heat advisories for vulnerable populations be released when an event impacts a region using multiple definitions? There are concrete and justifiable reasons for the lack of a formal heat wave definition including, at its simplest, differences in what temperature is extreme enough, compared to the region’s climatological regimens, to be deemed as an extreme heat event or heat wave. This study looks for patterns and commonalities in emergency managers and climatologists, those most commonly addressing or planning for such events, definition of heat wave events through a review of the literature and widespread survey across the United States. Through a short 11-questions survey and subsequent text mining, we find widespread variability in the common heat wave definitions but a consistent pattern of core key term usage including aspects of heat duration, extreme temperature, and humidity. However, we also see little to no usage of non-climatological variables such as exposure, vulnerability, population, and land cover/land use.

Readiness for a clean energy future: Prevalence, perceptions, and barriers to adoption of electric stoves and solar panels in New York city, Lane et al., Energy Policy:

Adoption of electric stoves and rooftop solar can reduce fossil-fuel reliance and improve health by decreasing indoor air pollution and alleviating energy insecurity. This study assessed prevalence and perceptions of these clean-energy technologies to increase adoption in New York City (NYC). A representative survey of 1950 NYC adults was conducted from February 28 to April 1, 2022. Fourteen percent of people had an electric stove; 86% had gas stoves. Black, Latino/a, and lower-income residents were more likely to have electric stoves than White and higher-income residents. Only 14% of residents were interested in switching from gas to electric stoves. Of the 71% with gas stoves uninterested in switching, nearly half (45%) preferred gas cooking, particularly among White and higher-income residents, indicating a large opportunity to shift preferences. About 5% used solar for their home or building; another 77% were interested in solar. Of the 18% uninterested in solar, reasons included lack of agency, confusion about operation, and costs.

From this week's government and NGO section:

Choosing Our Future: Education for Climate Action, Sabarwal et al., World Bank Group

Education is a key asset for climate action. Education reshapes behaviors, develops skills, and spurs innovation—everything we need to combat the greatest crisis facing humanity. Better educated people are more resilient and adaptable, better equipped to create and work in green jobs, and critical to driving solutions. Yet, education is massively overlooked in the climate agenda. Almost no climate finance goes to education. Channeling more climate funding to education could significantly boost climate change mitigation and adaptation. The economic losses and human cost of climate change are enormous. Despite this, climate action remains slow due to information gaps, skills gaps, and knowledge gaps. Education is the key to addressing these gaps and driving climate action around the world. Indeed, education is the greatest predicator of climate-friendly behavior.

Michigan's Clean Energy Economic Comeback: How Local Economies in Michigan Are Benefitting from State and Federal Climate Policies, 5 Lakes Energy, Evergreen Collaborative

Overall, the authors found that the combined effects of federal and state climate policies in Michigan is projected to reduce energy costs across the whole economy, including lowering Michigan families’ energy bills by an average of $297 per year by 2030 and $713 per year by 2040, relative to the baseline expected energy cost if federal and state climate policies were not in place; bring the state $15.6 billion in Inflation Reduction Act investments cumulatively by 2030 and $30.7 billion cumulatively by 2040 broken down by prosperity region in the report; reduce Michigan's greenhouse gas emissions from the electric power sector by at least 65% by 2030 and 88% by 2040l and save Michigan $7.3 billion by 2030 in avoided public health costs (deaths, hospitalizations, lost school & work days, and more) and $27.8 billion cumulatively by 2040.

135 articles in 55 journals by 872 contributing authors

Physical science of climate change, effects

Antarctic meltwater reduces the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation through oceanic freshwater transport and atmospheric teleconnections, An et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access 10.1038/s43247-024-01670-7

Boreal Forest Fire Causes Daytime Surface Warming During Summer to Exceed Surface Cooling During Winter in North America, Helbig et al., AGU Advances Open Access 10.1029/2024av001327

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Voters love this climate policy they’ve never heard of

Posted on 11 September 2024 by Guest Author

This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Karin Kirk

The Inflation Reduction Act is the Biden administration’s signature climate law and the largest U.S. government investment in reducing climate pollution to date. Among climate advocates, the policy is well-known and celebrated, but beyond that, only a minority of Americans have heard much about it. 

Once voters learn a bit about this landmark law, however, a large majority support it.

These findings are from a survey of U.S. registered voters, conducted jointly by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication (the publisher of this site) and the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University. 

In the nationally representative survey, participants were first asked if they’d heard about the Inflation Reduction Act. Only 39% of participants said they’d heard either “a lot” or “some” information about it.  Surprisingly, the number of people who had heard about the law remains unchanged from one year ago, even as the legislation has begun to spur a surge in U.S. manufacturing of batteries, solar panels, and automobiles — and has helped consumers make energy-saving purchases.

Next, survey participants read a short description of the Inflation Reduction Act:

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New Models Show Stronger Atlantic Hurricanes, and More of Them

Posted on 10 September 2024 by greenman3610

This is a re-post from This is Not Cool

Here’s an example of some of the best kind of climate reporting, especially in that it relates to impacts that will directly affect the audience.

WFLA in Tampa conducted a study in collaboration with the Department of Energy, analyzing trends in hurricane strength, and projecting hurricane activity in to the future.
The results are sobering.

One of the predictions is for hurricanes with 20 percent stronger maximum winds. As Jeff Berardelli explains below, that 20 percent is actually much, much worse than it sounds.

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How mismanagement, not wind and solar energy, causes blackouts

Posted on 9 September 2024 by dana1981

This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections

In February 2021, several severe storms swept across the United States, culminating with one that the Weather Channel unofficially named Winter Storm Uri. In Texas, Uri knocked out power to over 4.5 million homes and 10 million people. Hundreds of Texans died as a result, and the storm is estimated to have cost the state $130 billion.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, quickly sought to blame the crisis on renewable energy. While the storm and blackouts were still ongoing, Abbott told Sean Hannity of Fox News, “This shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America … fossil fuel is necessary for the state of Texas as well as other states to make sure we will be able to heat our homes in the wintertime and cool our homes in the summertime.”

Subsequent investigations into the causes of the Texas blackouts concluded that Gov. Abbott was wrong. Although wind energy underperformed in the cold temperatures, so did gas and coal power plants. But incidents like these raise the question: Will clean energy and climate policies make communities more vulnerable to dangerous power outages?

The answer, as other states have demonstrated, is no – with sufficient planning and preparation, that is.

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2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #36

Posted on 8 September 2024 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom, John Hartz

Story of the week

Our Story of the Week is about how people are not born stupid but can be fooled into appearing exactly so to the rest of us.

This week we posted a critique of Australian Queensland state senator Gerard Rennick  by journalist and author Peter Hadfield, sailing under his Potholer54 YouTube flag. The title "Could this be the stupidest politician in Australia?" is certainly not a flattering introduction to Rennick, but hearing the senator express his understanding of CO2's role in Earth's atmosphere in his own voice and words certainly gives us pause. Rennick really does sound stupid— obdurately so.

Is Senator Rennick unusually stupid? Doubtful. Rennick holds two post-graduate degrees, each from respectable institutions not prone to handing out sheepskin to all comers.  Given their knowledge domains and the typical adjacency  of commerce to laissez-faire philosophy, these degrees may however offer a clue as to how Rennick has come to be found spouting humiliatingly wrong comprehension of the interaction and behavior of energy and matter in Earth's atmosphere. 

How does somebody come to appear as stupid while actually being reasonably intellectually competent? Indicators from a lot of research on human psychology and cognition suggest that our beliefs are heavily influenced by our ideology. In supporting our principles, we selectively choose what to believe, as a largely unconscious process. Even when reality doesn't comport with supporting our principles, we may cling to beliefs that bolster our bedrock values.

Judging by his own words and stated policy concerns, Senator Rennick appears commited to the principle that government is overly invasive. This poses a cognitive problem in connection with human-caused climate change, given that without goverment interventions we can't solve the problem we've created by our changing Earth's climate. To resolve this uncomfortable logical collision, Rennick has apparently has sought and found explanations that avoid this dilemma by simply rearranging our perception of reality to fit his principles. Unfortunately, repeating these faulty rationalizations makes Rennick appear to be very stupid when clearly he is not genuinely unintelligent. 

How did Senator Rennick come up with the ideas he's embarrassingly reciting into the permanent historical record of Queensland's parliament? A generous reading of this situation is that Rennick is vulnerable and has  been victimized.  In all probability the claptrap he's repeating is not original but rather is regurgitation of disinformation, bunk he's found outside the space between his own two ears. Because what he hears supports his principles, Rennick is a gullible mark.

The perpetrators of the deceit Rennick has found and adopted are surely congratulating themselves for finding a parrot with such a high profile.  

Sadly it's the case that victims like Rennick are exposed to a postive firehose of rubbish delivered by social networks. We can expect worse to come, given that so-called "AI" is being used to increase proliferation of lies such as those repeated by Senator Rennick. A paper just published in Communications Earth & Environment by Skeptical Science founder Dr. John Cook and colleagues explores how this is happening on the social media service formerly known as Twitter. 

We wish Senator Rennick would take better care of his own reputation and our collective future. He might well start by reading the review paper Science Denial, which could help by arming him for some self-reflection.  

Stories we promoted this week, by publication date:

Before September 1

• South Korean court says government must do more to fight climate change, NBC News World News, Reuters. Climate advocacy groups said it was the first high court ruling on a government’s climate action in Asia, potentially setting a precedent in a region where similar lawsuits have been filed in Taiwan and Japan.
• Air Conditioning Poses a Climate Conundrum, State of the Planet, Renée Cho. Air conditioning is leaving the realm of luxury and becoming vital to health, yet more air conditioning makes our climate problem harder.
• Business Group Sues Texas Officials Over Law That Shields Oil Industry, Climate, New York Times, Karen Zraick. "The suit challenges a measure that prohibits state entities like retirement funds from doing business with firms that 'boycott energy companies.' "
• The World’s Largest Wetland Is Burning, and Rare Animals Are Dying, World, New York Times, Ana Ionova. "In Brazil, wildfires have roared across the Pantanal, a maze of rivers, forests and marshlands that sprawl over an area 20 times the size of the Everglades."
• The Quantum Mechanics of the Greenhouse Effect, Science, Quanta/Wired, Joseph Howlett. "Carbon dioxide’s powerful heat-trapping effect has been traced to a quirk of its quantum structure. The finding may explain climate change better than any computer model."
• Harris and Trump offer starkly different visions on climate change and energy, AP News, Matthew Daley.
• Could this be the stupidest politician in Australia?, potholer54 on Youtube, Peter Hadfield.
• Labor Day weekend will start out restful for the Hurricane Hunters. Then what?, Eye on the Storm, Yale Climate Connections, Jeff Masters & Bob Henson. "The intrepid aviators may get called into duty as soon as Sunday as an Atlantic disturbance slowly organizes."
• Guest post: Just 15 countries account for 98% of new coal-power development, Energy, Carbon Brief, Lucy Hummer, Jeanette Lim, Jelena Babajeva, Claire Pitre & Xing Zhang .

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Skeptical Science New Research for Week #36 2024

Posted on 5 September 2024 by Doug Bostrom, Marc Kodack

Open access notables

Diurnal Temperature Range Trends Differ Below and Above the Melting Point, Pithan & Schatt, Geophysical Research Letters:

The globally averaged diurnal temperature range (DTR) has shrunk since the mid-20th century, and climate models project further shrinking. Observations indicate a slowdown or reversal of this trend in recent decades. Here, we show that DTR has a minimum for average temperatures close to 0°C. Observed DTR shrinks strongly at colder temperature, where warming shifts the average temperature toward the DTR minimum, and expands at warmer temperature, where warming shifts the average temperature away from the DTR minimum. Most, but not all climate models reproduce the minimum DTR close to average temperatures of 0°C and a stronger DTR shrinking at colder temperature. In models that reproduce the DTR minimum, DTR shrinking slows down significantly in recent decades. Models project that the global-mean DTR will shrink over the 21st century, and models with a DTR minimum close to 0°C project slower shrinking than other models.

Rock glaciers across the United States predominantly accelerate coincident with rise in air temperatures, Kääb & Røste, Nature Communications

Despite their extensive global presence and the importance of variations in their speed as an essential climate variable, only about a dozen global time series document long-term changes in the velocity of rock glaciers – large tongue-shaped flows of frozen mountain debris. By analysing historical aerial photographs, we reconstruct here 16 new time series, a type of data that has not previously existed for the North American continent. We observe substantial accelerations, as much as 2–3 fold, in the surface displacement rates of rock glaciers across the mountains of the western contiguous United States over the past six to seven decades, most consistent with strongly increasing air temperatures in that region. Variations between individual time series suggest that different local and internal conditions of the frozen debris bodies modulate this overall climate response. Our observations indicate fundamental long-term environmental changes associated with frozen ground in the study region.

Impacts of AMOC Collapse on Monsoon Rainfall: A Multi-Model Comparison, Ben-Yami et al., Earth's Future:

A collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) would have substantial impacts on global precipitation patterns, especially in the vulnerable tropical monsoon regions. We assess these impacts in experiments that apply the same freshwater hosing to four state-of-the-art climate models with bistable AMOC. As opposed to previous results, we find that the spatial and seasonal patterns of precipitation change are remarkably consistent across models. We focus on the South American Monsoon (SAM), the West African Monsoon (WAM), the Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM) and the East Asian Summer Monsoon (EASM). Models consistently suggest substantial disruptions for WAM, ISM, and EASM with shorter wet and longer dry seasons (−29.07%, −18.76%, and −3.78% ensemble mean annual rainfall change, respectively). Models also agree on changes for the SAM, suggesting rainfall increases overall, in contrast to previous studies. These are more pronounced in the southern Amazon (+43.79%), accompanied by decreasing dry-season length. Consistently across models, our results suggest a robust and major rearranging of all tropical monsoon systems in response to an AMOC collapse.

The feasibility of reaching gigatonne scale CO2 storage by mid-century, Zhang et al., Nature Communications:

The Sixth Assessment Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects subsurface carbon storage at rates of 1 – 30 GtCO2 yr−1 by 2050. These projections, however, overlook potential geological, geographical, and techno-economic limitations to growth. We evaluate the feasibility of scaling up CO2 storage using a geographically resolved growth model that considers constraints from both geology and scale-up rate. Our results suggest a maximum global storage rate of 16 GtCO2 yr−1 by 2050, but this is contingent on the United States contributing 60% of the total. These values contrast with projections in the Sixth Assessment Report that vastly overestimate the feasibility of deployment in China, Indonesia, and South Korea. A feasible benchmark for global CO2 storage projections, and consistent with current government technology roadmaps, suggests a global storage rate of 5-6 GtCO2 yr−1, with the United States contributing around 1 GtCO2 yr−1.

Small reduction in land surface albedo due to solar panel expansion worldwide, Wei et al., Communications Earth & Environment:

Photovoltaic (PV) panel deployment for decarbonization may reduce local terrestrial albedo, triggering a positive radiative forcing that counteracts the desired negative radiative forcing from carbon emission reductions. Yet, this potential adverse impact remains uncertain due to limited observations at PV sites. Herein we employ a robust linear parameterization method to quantify PV-induced albedo changes based on satellite data globally. We find an overall albedo decrease of −1.28 (−1.80, −0.90) × 10−2 (median and interquartile range), specific for land-cover types and climate regimes. However, the extent of albedo reduction is markedly lower than simplistic assumed values in simulating climate feedback for solar farming in Earth system models. Moreover, the albedo-induced positive radiative forcing can be offset by negative radiative forcing from clean solar generation in most PV farms within one year. Our findings underscore PV’s potential in mitigating global warming and stress the need for more accurate model estimations.

From this week's government and NGO section: 

Quarterly EV Cost Savings Report, Coltura

Drivers in all 50 states are experiencing significant fuel savings from driving an electric vehicle. In Q2 2024, based on US average gasoline prices, utility rates, and fuel efficiency, an American driver saves 8.1 cents per mile on fuel by driving an EV instead of a gas car, up from 7.6 cents at the end of 2023. The average U.S. EV driver saved $100 a month on fuel and maintenance in the second quarter. A gasoline Superuser (a person in the top 10% of US gasoline consumption) who uses more than 100 gallons a month would save on average $400 on fuel and maintenance with an EV. The analysis also breaks this down by state and by vehicle type. Per mile, the greatest savings are from drivers in Washington state — because of its high gas prices and low electricity prices — where drivers can save 13.1 cents per mile on fuel, which translates to $120 a month on average. Electricity is cheaper than gasoline in all 50 states and DC, for all vehicle types. Even in a state with relatively low gas costs and high electricity rates, such as Massachusetts, fuel savings for switching to an EV are 4.7 cents per mile, $44 per month on average.

Wargaming Climate Change A Structure for Incorporating Physical and Social Effects into Strategic Military Planning, Tingstad et al, RAND

The authors summarize insights about approaches for understanding the implications of climate change in a national security context through the use of analytic gaming. These reflections are based on experience that has been developed while gaming climate change for the U.S. Department of Defense. There are multiple sources of climate information and data that are available to the defense gaming community, but using these sources effectively requires knowledge of how to obtain them and their respective benefits and limitations. Wargames focusing on or including climate change can serve purposes from concept development to education to engagement. Climate information and data can be used to shape assumptions, model starting conditions, create crisis narratives, move scene-setters, and make final adjudications.

99 articles in 47 journals by 650 contributing authors

Physical science of climate change, effects

Changing Role of Horizontal Moisture Advection in the Lower Troposphere Under Extreme Arctic Amplification, Hori et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2024gl109299

Enhanced generation of internal tides under global warming, Yang et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-024-52073-3

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The thermodynamics of electric vs. internal combustion cars

Posted on 4 September 2024 by Guest Author

This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler

I love thermodynamics. Thermodynamics is like your mom: it may not tell you what you can do, but it damn well tells you what you can’t do. I’ve written a few previous posts that include thermodynamics, like one on air capture of carbon dioxide and one on air conditioning. For whatever reason, they tend to get a lot of traffic. Well, here’s another one.

I was charging my electric vehicle (EV) at a DC fast charger the other day and was pumping electrons into my car at around 200 kilowatts (kW). Man, that’s a lot of power, I thought to myself. For reference, 200 kW is the average power draw of around 60 houses. Just going into my car.

That got me thinking about a comparison between charging EVs to “charging” gasoline cars by filling the tank with gas.

The energy stored in gasoline is astounding — it really is an incredibly high-density fuel. One gallon of gasoline contains 132 megajoules (MJ = a million joules) of energy. That’s comparable to the energy a house requires in a day.

This means that an SUV’s 20-gallon gas tank contains about 2.6 gigajoules (GJ = 1 billion joules) of energy. If it takes 4 minutes to fill your tank, then you can calculate the rate that you’re transferring energy into the gas tank as energy content of gasoline divided by time: 2.6 GJ divided by 240 seconds = 10 megawatts (MW = 1 million joules per second)1.

10 MW is an absolutely insane amount of power. It’s roughly equal to the power output of an enormous wind turbine at peak performance. Or the power required to drive ten locomotives. Or enough to power 3,000 houses. 10 MW is also equal to 13,000 horsepower. Let me repeat: It’s a lot of power.

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Five ingenious ways people could beat the heat without cranking the AC

Posted on 3 September 2024 by Guest Author

This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Daisy Simmons

Every summer brings a new spate of headlines about record-breaking heat – for good reason: 2023 was the hottest year on record, in keeping with the upward trend scientists have been clocking for decades.

With climate forecasts suggesting that heat waves will only become more frequent and severe in the future, it’s increasingly clear that the world needs new ways to adapt to heat – in addition to eliminating climate-warming pollution.

Heat waves pose a serious (and costly) public health risk, given that extreme heat can prompt heat exhaustion, dehydration, and heat stroke and can also worsen chronic conditions like cardiovascular and respiratory diseases.

Cranking up the collective AC isn’t the answer to this rising threat. Although AC is still necessary to protect people’s health in many circumstances, relying on air conditioning alone will become even less feasible than it is now for those who can’t afford higher electricity bills. What’s more, conventional air conditioning systems and units are major climate culprits, accounting for roughly 10% of the world’s electricity use and almost 4% of annual climate-warming emissions.

The good news is that people are working to find alternatives. From wrapping a bridge in tin foil to feeding zoo animals Popsicles and designating millions of dollars to a prize for developing affordable and climate-friendly cooling solutions, it’s safe to say people have been getting creative in the effort to beat the heat.

In honor of creative problem-solving everywhere, we rounded up a few intriguing solutions that could help communities adapt to a hotter world.

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New paper about detecting climate misinformation on Twitter/X

Posted on 2 September 2024 by John Cook

Together with Cristian Rojas, Frank Algra-Maschio, Mark Andrejevic, Travis Coan, and Yuan-Fang Li, I just published a paper in Nature Communications Earth & Environment where we use the Computer Assisted Recognition of Denial and Skepticism (CARDS) machine learning model to detect climate misinformation in 5 million climate tweets. We find over half of climate misinformation tweets involve personal attacks or conspiracy theories. This new paper builds on work published in 2021 which I wrote about in the article How machine learning holds a key to combating misinformation.

Here is the abstract of our open access paper "Hierarchical machine learning models can identify stimuli of climate change misinformation on social media":

Misinformation about climate change poses a substantial threat to societal well-being, prompting the urgent need for effective mitigation strategies. However, the rapid proliferation of online misinformation on social media platforms outpaces the ability of fact-checkers to debunk false claims. Automated detection of climate change misinformation offers a promising solution. In this study, we address this gap by developing a two-step hierarchical model. The Augmented Computer Assisted Recognition of Denial and Skepticism (CARDS) model is specifically designed for categorising climate claims on Twitter. Furthermore, we apply the Augmented CARDS model to five million climate-themed tweets over a six-month period in 2022. We find that over half of contrarian climate claims on Twitter involve attacks on climate actors. Spikes in climate contrarianism coincide with one of four stimuli: political events, natural events, contrarian influencers, or convinced influencers. Implications for automated responses to climate misinformation are discussed.

We used the taxonomy from Coan et al. (2021) where we developed the CARDS model for detecting misinformation claims. There are 5 categories of misinformation: it's not real, it's not us, it's not bad, solutions won't work, experts aren't reliable:

This taxonomy provides a comprehensive overview of the frequently employed main claim and its corresponding subarguments utilized to bolster contrarian perspectives on climate change. Source: Coan et al. (2021)

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2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35

Posted on 1 September 2024 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom, John Hartz

Story of the week

After another crammed week of climate news including updates on climate tipping points, increasing threats from rising seas, burgeoning disease threats and tropical storms juiced by too much warmth, Our Story of the Week is about root cause and excacerbator for all of the above.

Writing for Jacobin, former Rhode Island state representative Aaron Regenburg delivers a critique and rebuttal of a previous essay in the same publication. Regenburg's target is a sincerely delivered but incorrect argument that climate disinformation is not a matter of priority when talking to the general public about solving our climate mishap, an ill-conceived premise that we should save our words by ignoring climate disinformation and instead forcus on climate solutions.

As Regenburg points  out, choosing a single frame in this way is a false choice, a misindentification of mutual exclusivity. Following this advice would only prolong the disastrous outcome we're now living. After all, the problems listed in this edition of Climate News of the Week are much worse thanks to a decades long, concerted, pervasive and well-funded campaign of disinformaton on behalf of the fossil fuel industry.

Downplaying or ignoring intentional deceit delivered on an industrial scale is a bit like thinking that wishing hard enough to stay dry is as good as an umbrella when encountering a rainstorm. Climate remedy will happen via effective public policy, public policy is an outcome of politics and hence systematic climate mitigation is an inherently political matter. Electorates confused by disinformation into flaccid support for or even hostile reactions against useful climate policy cut the legs from beneath our ability to confront and solve our climate problem. 

Writes Regenburg, "The climate movement can walk and chew gum at the same time." Perfectly true, and it's equally true that people can be told and understand both how they're being misled and what they can do to help fix our problem. Doubt and uncertainty over the very existence of climate change as a matter of concern clearly preempts impetus to act, so if there were an attention or communications resource shortage, we'd better be looking to first clear up climate confusion. In reality there is no inherent dilemma or condundrum in simultaneous delivery, and it's even arguably a bit insulting to suggest that average people can't cope with full information. 

Stories we promoted this week, by publication date:

Before August 25

• Scientists closely watching these 3 disastrous climate change scenarios, Nation, USA TODAY, Doyle Rice.
• This chart of ocean heat is terrifying, Climate, Vox, Benji Jones. "The Gulf’s looming hurricane problem, explained in a simple graph."
• The need for pluralism in climate modelling, RealClimate, Guest post by Marina Baldissera Pacchetti, Julie Jebeile and Erica Thompson. How should we allocate resources for climate modelling if the goal is to improve climate-related decisions? Higher resolution, machine learning and/or storylines? A call for a deeper discussion on how we should develop the climate modelling toolbox.
• China and India are so big. Do my country`s climate actions even matter?, Yale Climate Connections, Dana Nuccitelli. Though some countries contribute more to climate change than others, the crisis can only be averted if every major polluter does its part.
• The Tipping Points of Climate Change — and Where We Stand, TED on Youtube, Johan Rochström.

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Fact brief - Is recent global warming part of a natural cycle?

Posted on 31 August 2024 by Guest Author, John Mason

Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park from the Gigafact team in collaboration with John Mason. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline.

Is recent global warming part of a natural cycle?

While natural cycles explain some historical periods of climate change, the current one is due to human activity.

Solar energy reaching the Earth varies regularly over thousands of years with "Milankovitch cycles" in the planet's orbital path, tilt, and wobble. As an example of "external forcing", they affect the total energy present in Earth's climate system.

But those cycles are in a cooling phase and cannot explain recent warming. Man made greenhouse gasses can.

Shorter-term cycles ("internal variability"), like the El Nino Southern Oscillation, merely move energy around within the climate system. In warm El Nino years, heat is released from the oceans to the atmosphere. In cooler La Nina years, the reverse occurs.

However, even La Nina years are getting warmer. 2022 was the warmest La Nina year on record and the 5th warmest year globally. This runs counter to natural cycles contributing to current global warming.

Go to full rebuttal on Skeptical Science or to the fact brief on Gigafact

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This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

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Sources

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration What is Attribution?

NASA Why Milankovitch (Orbital) Cycles Can’t Explain Earth’s Current Warming

Geophysical Research Letters The recent global warming hiatus: What is the role of Pacific variability?

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Skeptical Science New Research for Week #35 2024

Posted on 29 August 2024 by Doug Bostrom, Marc Kodack

Climate policies that achieved major emission reductions: Global evidence from two decades, Stechemesser et al., Science:

Meeting the Paris Agreement’s climate targets necessitates better knowledge about which climate policies work in reducing emissions at the necessary scale. We provide a global, systematic ex post evaluation to identify policy combinations that have led to large emission reductions out of 1500 climate policies implemented between 1998 and 2022 across 41 countries from six continents. Our approach integrates a comprehensive climate policy database with a machine learning–based extension of the common difference-in-differences approach. We identified 63 successful policy interventions with total emission reductions between 0.6 billion and 1.8 billion metric tonnes CO2. Our insights on effective but rarely studied policy combinations highlight the important role of price-based instruments in well-designed policy mixes and the policy efforts necessary for closing the emissions gap.

“Disempowered by the transition”: Manipulated and coerced agency in displacements induced by accelerated extraction of energy transition minerals in Zimbabwe, Matanzima, Energy Research & Social Science:

The theme of manipulated and coerced agency is the foci of this manuscript. I show how the “urgency” to decarbonize and fast- tracked ETMs mining interact to induce displacements in absence of due diligence. Urgency by mining companies to extract minerals interacts with weak governance and corruption to induce forced resettlement characterized by manipulation of consent in regions where ETMs are concentrated. This article focuses on the case of Buhera district (south-eastern Zimbabwe) where communities were displaced due to lithium mining activities at the Sabi Star mine (run by a Chinese mining company known as Max Mind) to elucidate how manipulation and coercion were utilized to get people to agree to “unfair” resettlement terms. The resettlement programme was deliberately jumbled to confuse peasants so that they consent to a flawed displacement scheme. In the aftermath, people agreed to hasty removals coupled with unfair compensation resulting in their impoverishment. The Buhera case is an epitome of the political ecologies of energy transitions and displacements prevailing across the global south, that needs to be urgently addressed if we are to achieve a fairer and just energy transition. The article leans on the political ecology arguments to argue its case. 

Infectious disease responses to human climate change adaptations, Titcomb et al., Global Change Biology:

The ways humans respond to climate change, either through adaptation or mitigation, have underappreciated, yet hugely impactful effects on infectious disease transmission, often in complex and sometimes nonintuitive ways. Thus, in addition to investigating the direct effects of climate changes on infectious diseases, it is critical to consider how human preventative measures and adaptations to climate change will alter the environments and hosts that support pathogens. Here, we consider the ways that human responses to climate change will likely impact disease risk in both positive and negative ways. We evaluate the evidence for these impacts based on the available data, and identify research directions needed to address climate change while minimizing externalities associated with infectious disease, especially for vulnerable communities. We identify several different human adaptations to climate change that are likely to affect infectious disease risk independently of the effects of climate change itself. We categorize these changes into adaptation strategies to secure access to water, food, and shelter, and mitigation strategies to decrease greenhouse gas emissions. We recognize that adaptation strategies are more likely to have infectious disease consequences for under-resourced communities, and call attention to the need for socio-ecological studies to connect human behavioral responses to climate change and their impacts on infectious disease. 

From this week's government and NGO section:

State of the Climate in 2023, American Meteorological Society

Notable findings from the international report include Earth’s greenhouse gas concentrations being the highest on record, record temperatures notable across the globe, El Niño conditions contributed to record-high sea surface temperatures, ocean heat and global sea level were the highest on record, heatwaves and droughts contributed to massive wildfires around the world, the Arctic was warm and navigable, Antarctica sea ice sets record lows throughout 2023, and tropical cyclone activity was below average, but storms still set records around the globe.

Surging Seas in a Warming World, UN Secretary-General’s Climate Action Team, United Nations

The authors provide a summary of the latest science on sea-level rise and its present-day and projected impacts — including coastal flooding — at a global and regional level, with a focus on major coastal cities in the Group of Twenty (G20) countries and the Pacific Small Island Developing States. The findings demonstrate that sea-level rise is affecting the lives and livelihoods of coastal communities and low-lying island nations around the world today, and it is accelerating. The climate actions and decisions taken by political leaders and policymakers in the coming months and years will determine how devastating these impacts become and how quickly they worsen.

218 articles in 79 journals by 1516 contributing authors

Physical science of climate change, effects

Amazon drought amplifies SST warming in the North Tropical Atlantic, Lou et al., Climate Dynamics 10.1007/s00382-024-07400-1

Decreased cloud cover partially offsets the cooling effects of surface albedo change due to deforestation, Luo et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-024-51783-y

Ice Sheet-Albedo Feedback Estimated From Most Recent Deglaciation, Booth et al., 10.22541/essoar.171535275.57284648/v1

Role of the Labrador Current in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation response to greenhouse warming, Shan et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-024-51449-9

Understanding the role of contrails and contrail cirrus in climate change: a global perspective, Singh et al., Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Open Access 10.5194/acp-24-9219-2024

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Climate Adam: Can Coral Reefs survive Climate Change?

Posted on 28 August 2024 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).

Coral reefs are in hot water... literally. Climate change is ramping up temperatures, causing increasing bleaching of reefs across the world. On top of that, these unique, vital ecosystems are facing threats from plastic pollution, ocean acidification, and overfishing. And new research shows just how in danger the Great Barrier Reef is. But there are solutions to protect reefs from global warming - helping them adapt to a warming world and removing the threats they face. But if we don't stop climate change as soon as possible, we may live to see the end of coral reefs.

Support ClimateAdam on patreon: https://patreon.com/climateadam

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The bold plan to save coral reefs

Posted on 27 August 2024 by Guest Author

This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Osha Davidson