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.
Remembering our friend John Mason
Posted on 27 September 2024 by SkS-Team
We are extremely sad to say that our esteemed Skeptical Science colleague— and good friend to many of us— John Mason passed away on Friday September 20, 2024. Only last week, we blew a horn of appreciation for John's remarkable gift for telling stories about science. Our expectation was that of John being a constant in our lives. We are truly stunned by John's unexpected departure. With this post, we want to recount some of John's many contributions to Skeptical Science, a big part of a legacy which will live on in the minds of old and new readers of John’s work. Also included are personal memories from members of our team who had the pleasure to work and collaborate with John over the years.
John published his very first blog post, The End of the Hothouse, in December 2011 and many more have followed since then. One of his most often viewed articles, the History of Climate Science, started as a 3-part series in 2012. We then collected it into a post directly linked from our homepage. If you browse John's profile page, you'll notice that many of his articles tackled the geological past and what it can tell us about current climate change. He wrote long-form and very helpful primers about the slow carbon cycle, the jet stream, and the components of Earth's climate system to name just a few. In some posts, his witty sense of humor came through.
John wasn't one to suffer fools gladly, regardless of who they were (here, here or here). But even in combative verbal repartee, John’s innately gentle nature and kindness improved his ability to communicate through clouds of confusion and misunderstanding.
The project to update our rebuttals wouldn't have been possible without John and we for sure wouldn't have seen 75(!) updated rebuttals leave our little rebuttals update factory between February 2023 and July 2024, when we announced a summer break and relaxed publication schedule. John was also instrumental in getting our collaboration with Gigafact launched to publish fact briefs, very condensed rebuttals to common climate myths. Even as he is now no longer with us, John's writing will live on and will help others better understand and appreciate climate science.
Our memories of John
Skeptical Science New Research for Week #39 2024
Posted on 26 September 2024 by Doug Bostrom, Marc Kodack
Open access notables
Refined Estimates of Global Ocean Deep and Abyssal Decadal Warming Trends, Johnson & Purkey, Geophysical Research Letters:
Deep and abyssal layer decadal temperature trends from the mid-1980s to the mid-2010s are mapped globally using Deep Argo and historical ship-based Conductivity-Temperature-Depth (CTD) instrument data. Abyssal warming trends are widespread, with the strongest warming observed around Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW) formation regions. The warming strength follows deep western boundary currents transporting abyssal waters north and decreases with distance from Antarctica. Abyssal cooling trends are found in the North Atlantic and eastern South Atlantic, regions primarily ventilated by North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW). Deep warming trends are prominent in the Southern Ocean south of about 50°S, the Greenland-Iceland-Norwegian (GIN) Seas and the western subpolar North Atlantic, with cooling in the eastern subpolar North Atlantic and the subtropical and tropical western North Atlantic. Globally integrated decadal heat content trends of 21.6 (±6.5) TW in the deep and 12.9 (±1.8) TW in the abyssal layer are more certain than previous estimates.
[Bold ours. By way of comparison: total global electrical generation capacity is in the neighborhood of 11TW, roughly a third of the constant warming power input quantified above, which itself is but a small fraction of the excess energy now being absorbed by Earth thanks to our perturbation of radiative equilibrium.]
Ocean warming as a trigger for irreversible retreat of the Antarctic ice sheet, Hill et al., Nature Climate Change:
Warmer ocean conditions could impact future ice loss from Antarctica due to their ability to thin and reduce the buttressing of laterally confined ice shelves. Previous studies highlight the potential for a cold to warm ocean regime shift within the sub-shelf cavities of the two largest Antarctic ice shelves—the Filchner–Ronne and Ross. However, how this impacts upstream ice flow and mass loss has not been quantified. Here using an ice sheet model and an ensemble of ocean-circulation model sub-shelf melt rates, we show that transition to a warm state in those ice shelf cavities leads to a destabilization and irreversible grounding line retreat in some locations. Once this ocean shift takes place, ice loss from the Filchner–Ronne and Ross catchments is greatly accelerated, and conditions begin to resemble those of the present-day Amundsen Sea sector—responsible for most current observed Antarctic ice loss—where this thermal shift has already occurred.
Bookkeepers of catastrophes: The overlooked role of reinsurers in climate change debates, Röper & Kohl Kohl, Global Environmental Change:
Global warming had long been discussed as an abstract matter of physics and chemistry. Only in the 1990s did the more tangible costs caused by natural catastrophes come into focus. The key corporate actors to advance this damage and risk perspective on climate change and corroborate it with data – reinsurance companies – have largely been overlooked in the literature. Drawing on expert interviews, hitherto confidential archival sources and text analysis, this paper traces how the two largest reinsurers have made sense of climate change and become important voices in creating awareness of man-made climate change. It underscores their unique role as both producers and translators of climate change knowledge and highlights the thorny and even subjective nature of interpreting climate-related data. This sheds new light on the history of climate change knowledge and raises important questions about the role of business actors.
Durably reducing conspiracy beliefs through dialogues with AI, Costello et al., Science:
Conspiracy theory beliefs are notoriously persistent. Influential hypotheses propose that they fulfill important psychological needs, thus resisting counterevidence. Yet previous failures in correcting conspiracy beliefs may be due to counterevidence being insufficiently compelling and tailored. To evaluate this possibility, we leveraged developments in generative artificial intelligence and engaged 2190 conspiracy believers in personalized evidence-based dialogues with GPT-4 Turbo. The intervention reduced conspiracy belief by ~20%. The effect remained 2 months later, generalized across a wide range of conspiracy theories, and occurred even among participants with deeply entrenched beliefs. Although the dialogues focused on a single conspiracy, they nonetheless diminished belief in unrelated conspiracies and shifted conspiracy-related behavioral intentions. These findings suggest that many conspiracy theory believers can revise their views if presented with sufficiently compelling evidence.
Why not 35°C? Reasons for reductions in limits of human thermal tolerance and their implications, Vecellio et al., Temperature:
Here, we provide a brief explanation of the most evident reasons that physiological critical limits are lower than those based on biophysical theory. That is, why do the least vulnerable, healthiest humans not reach the theoretical SH10 upper limit for thermal balance that has been used to communicate extreme heat tolerance in the literature and mass media for over the past decade-plus? Additionally, we point out additional research that has now been completed, and those studies yet to be performed, to develop a fuller understanding of critical environmental thresholds for diverse populations across the world.
From this week's government/NGO section:
[Considering how academics are routinely accused of money-grubbing by hyping climate change, the following collection should cause a rethink in some circles.]
The Influence of Fossil Fuel Funding on Climate Research, Kathuria et al, Sunrise Columbia
The authors examine the alarming influence of fossil fuel funding on climate research at Columbia University. They focused on money coming into the university through grans/donations, not through endowment investments. Their research revealed numerous conflicts of interest. For example, between 2005 and 2024, the university accepted at least $43.7 million from fossil fuel companies, over $15.7 million of which went to our premier energy research hub, the Center on Global Energy Policy.
Dissociate Cornell: A Review of Cornell's Fossil Fuel Ties, Fossil Free Cornell
The authors split the report into four sections: Web of Science, Recruitment Events, Building Names, and Donation Spotlight. The Web of Science research, is an examination of Cornell-affiliated articles funded by the fossil fuel industry, reports that there have been 178 such articles funded by fossil fuels in the last 15 years. The Recruitment Events section delves into five fossil fuel companies that have a large recruiting presence on campus. The Building Names research looks into the 173 building names on campus and reports that 24 of them have a direct affiliation with either the fossil fuel industry, environmental injustice, or racism, and calls for 5 to be renamed. Finally, the Donation Spotlight section focuses on ten companies with close ties to fossil fuels that have donated $247,358,116 to Cornell, 9% of Cornell’s total received donations over the last 10 years.
Fossil Fuled. An Inconvenient Truth for American University, Dante Arminio, Campus Climate Network
The author presents a sample of American University's ties to the fossil fuel industry with a call to action through various examples of their contradictions to AU wanting to be a sustainable university.
In the Service of Delay. Fossil Fuel Connections to Princeton University, Clemons-Cope et al, Campus Climate Network
Princeton legitimizes and financially supports the fossil fuel industry. The University continues to invest in, profit from, and produce research that serves the interests of fossil fuel companies. The authors reveal the extent of Princeton’s entanglement with the industry across many of its' activities. The authors illustrate how Princeton’s ambition to be a climate leader and to seek truth through its' academics, is undermined by the continued advancement of fossil fuel interests. The authors focus on issues associated with Princeton’s fossil-fuel funded research and investments in the industry.
Tarred by Tradition. UNC's Enduring Ties to the Fossil Fuel Industry, Drew Phaneuf, Sunrise UNC
UNC is infested with financial and social ties to the fossil fuel industry. Since 2012, UNC-affiliated authors have published at least 82 journal articles with funding from the oil and gas industry. The top research sponsors are the Koch family, British Petroleum (BP), ExxonMobil, and Royal Dutch Shell. Furthermore, from 2013-2023, UNC received at least $11,952,183.00 from foundations associated with the fossil fuel industry. When including money from organizations known to fund climate denial, this sum jumps to $20,049,359.00. Much more fossil fuel money likely flows to UNC, as this number only reflects contributions from non-profit foundations, which are publicly available through third-party sources. Additionally, it is estimated that UNC-CH owns at least $243,000,000 in fossil fuel commodities. The university does not make information about these contributions or their investments publicly available.
It's Time for a Fossil Free UCSD. Uncovering UC San Diego's Ties to the Fossil Fuel Industry, Ahmed et al, Green New Deal at UC San Diego
The authors investigate the financial and social connections between the University of California San Diego and the fossil fuel industry. The authors uncover and make public the extent of these relationships by examining direct monetary donations, research articles, research partnerships, university investments, and endowment trustees that tie the university to fossil fuel actors, the undeniable antagonists in a world on the brink of catastrophic climate disaster.
185 articles in 68 journals by 1202 contributing authors
Physical science of climate change, effects
A Model-Based Investigation of the Recent Rebound of Shelf Water Salinity in the Ross Sea, Zhang et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2023gl106697
Cloud water adjustments to aerosol perturbations are buffered by solar heating in non-precipitating marine stratocumuli, Zhang et al., Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Open Access 10.5194/acp-24-10425-2024
Climate Adam: Turning the Tide on Climate Change
Posted on 25 September 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).
As the world heats, we face the consequences from rising seas, extreme weather, and the spread of disease. But what can we do to turn the tide? New research is revealing the climate actions that are actually working, and how we can all help build unstoppable momentum towards a climate tipping point to halt global warming.
Support ClimateAdam on patreon: https://patreon.com/climateadam
Just have a think: Arctic Sea Ice minimum 2024. Three degrees Celsius warming now baked in?
Posted on 24 September 2024 by Guest Author
This video includes conclusions of the "Just have a Think" channel's creator Dave Borlace. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any).
From the video‘s description:
Arctic Sea ice reaches it's minimum extent each year around the middle of September. This year is one of the lowest in recorded history. Ocean temperatures have been so 'off the charts' in 2023 and 2024 that scientists fear those waters have reached their capacity to mop up after us humans and are now starting to release that energy. On our current trajectory, by 2100, our planet will reach a temperature not seen for 3 MILLION years!. So...what's the plan???
Support Dave Borlace on Patreon: https://patreon.com/justhaveathink
Correcting myths about the cost of clean energy
Posted on 23 September 2024 by dana1981
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections
After decades of stable electricity prices, U.S. residents have seen their rates rise by one-third over the past four years.
The fossil fuel lobby and some Republican politicians are exploiting the opportunity to falsely place the blame on clean energy sources.
“We are going to get the energy prices down,” former President Donald Trump said at an August 2024 rally in Wisconsin. “You know, this was caused by their horrible energy – wind.”
In reality, wind is the cheapest source of new power in the United States today.
It’s true that electricity from wind and sunshine is intermittent, depending on the weather and time of day. So these power sources require building more energy storage and electrical transmission lines. But their fuel is free, unlike fossil fuels, whose prices vary wildly.
A plethora of evidence, including real-world electricity rates and power generation mixes, demonstrates that wind and solar energy tend to reduce electricity prices compared to fossil fuels. Bottom line: Electricity prices have generally increased for the same reason as everything else – inflation.
Some states with lots of cheap renewables have low electricity rates
Wind energy has been the cheapest source of new electricity in the U.S. for about a decade, according to the Lazard financial services company’s annual levelized cost of energy report.
This analysis accounts for the cost of electricity generation over the lifetime of the source, including factors like capital, operations and maintenance, fuel costs, financing, and utilization rates. In other words, it accounts for the fact that wind and solar power are intermittent. They are nevertheless the two cheapest sources of new power available in the U.S. today, especially when including clean energy tax credits from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA.
2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #38
Posted on 22 September 2024 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom, John Hartz
Story of the week
Our Story of the Week is about a newly released long term Earth surface temperature chronology. But this report is locally completely overshadowed for us by news of bereavement arriving only yesterday as of publication. Withholding our loss seems inhuman so here and now we'll collide with an awful reality.
We are extremely sad to say that our esteemed Skeptical Science colleague— and good friend to many of us— John Mason has passed away. Only last week we blew a horn of appreciation for John's remarkable gift for telling stories about science. Our expectation was that of John being a constant in our lives. We are truly stunned by John's unexpected departure. We will have more to say in extolling John but at this moment we can only bow our heads in appreciation of enjoying his many virtues, sadness at his loss. And we can remember that every day is a gift.
John would certainly want us to carry on— as will his words as people continure reading his works--and so we shall.
Phantastic Job! says NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies Director Gavin Schmidt, in his
RealClimate post about a newly published record of Earth's temperature spanning the Phanerozoic and reaching back nearly half a billion years. Waxing eloquent, Dr. Schmidt fills us in on the work's tantalizing promise:
There is something tremendously satisfying about seeing a project start, and then many years later see the results actually emerge and done better than you could have imagined. Especially one as challenging as accurately tracking half a billion years of Earth’s climate.
Think about what is involved – biological proxies from extinct species, plate tectonic movement, disappearance in subduction zones of vast amounts of ocean sediment, interpolating sparse data in space and time, degradation of samples over such vast amounts of time. All of which adds to the uncertainty.
It is not as though people have not tried – we discussed this here in 2014, where we made a plea for better graphs of the global temperature. Now, 10 years later, we finally have something.
Emily Judd and coauthors describe their approach and report results in A 485-million-year history of Earth’s surface temperature, via AAAS' Science. The team unifies both proxy records and models to produce a more comprehensive picture of deep time Earth paleoclimate than we've ever before seen.
What's the urgent takeaway from a record extending into the dim mists of prehistory? We're changing Earth's temperature at a rate never approached over a span of 485 million years. Quite an accomplishment.
Schmidt's writeup identifies some areas for further investigation, and possible improvements in the paper's estimation of climate sensitivity. We can look forward to knowing more, but at this point in time Judd et al. have already earned accolades for extending our perspective.
Stories we promoted this week, by publication date:
Before September 16
- Departures From Climate Action 100+ Highlight U.S.-Europe Divide Over ESG Investing, Science, Inside Climate News, Mathilde Augustin. "In recent months, several major U.S. financial firms have left Climate Action 100+ in apparent response to political pressure. Abroad, the initiative is anything but losing steam."
- When Will the EV Sales Slump End? Here’s What the Experts Say, Clean Energy News, Inside Climate News, Dan Gearino. "Three questions and answers to help get a handle on the electric vehicle market."
- 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37, Skeptical Science, Bärbel Winkler, Doug Bostrom & John Hartz. A listing of 31 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, September 8, 2024 thru Sat, September 14, 2024.
- How to Talk to Anxious Children About Climate Change, Inside Climate News, Nina Dietz. For years, educators and parents often avoided the subject. But that is starting to change, as therapists urge parents to listen to their kids and help them understand that their fears are normal.
- Race is on to produce a super-coral to survive world’s warming seas, Environment, The Observer/The Guardian, Robin McKie. "Widespread bleaching of reefs is devastating delicate ecosystems"
- Impact Of Climate Change On Agriculture Suggests Even Greater Challenges To Environment, Global Food Supply And Public Health, Eurasia Review, Staff.
- Arctic Sea Ice minimum 2024. Three degrees Celsius warming now baked in!, Just have a Think on Youtube, Dave Borlace. In his latest "Just have aThink" video, Dave Borlace talks about Arctic Sea Ice
- Data center emissions probably 662% higher than big tech claims. Can it keep up the ruse?, Technology, The Guardian, Isabel O'Brien. "Emissions from in-house data centers of Google, Microsoft, Meta and Apple may be 7.62 times higher than official tally"
Skeptical Science New Research for Week #38 2024
Posted on 19 September 2024 by Doug Bostrom, Marc Kodack
Open access notables
A just world on a safe planet: a Lancet Planetary Health–Earth Commission report on Earth-system boundaries, translations, and transformations, Gupta et al., The Lancet Planetary Health:
The health of the planet and its people are at risk. The deterioration of the global commons—ie, the natural systems that support life on Earth—is exacerbating energy, food, and water insecurity, and increasing the risk of disease, disaster, displacement, and conflict. In this Commission, we quantify safe and just Earth-system boundaries (ESBs) and assess minimum access to natural resources required for human dignity and to enable escape from poverty. Collectively, these describe a safe and just corridor that is essential to ensuring sustainable and resilient human and planetary health and thriving in the Anthropocene. We then discuss the need for translation of ESBs across scales to inform science-based targets for action by key actors (and the challenges in doing so), and conclude by identifying the system transformations necessary to bring about a safe and just future.
Thermal tolerance traits of individual corals are widely distributed across the Great Barrier Reef, Denis et al., Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences:
Adaptation of reef-building corals to global warming depends upon standing heritable variation in tolerance traits upon which selection can act. Yet limited knowledge exists on heat-tolerance variation among conspecific individuals separated by metres to hundreds of kilometres. Here, we performed standardized acute heat-stress assays to quantify the thermal tolerance traits of 709 colonies of Acropora spathulata from 13 reefs spanning 1060 km (9.5° latitude) of the Great Barrier Reef. Thermal thresholds for photochemical efficiency and chlorophyll retention varied considerably among individual colonies both among reefs (approximately 6°C) and within reefs (approximately 3°C). Although tolerance rankings of colonies varied between traits, the most heat-tolerant corals (i.e. top 25% of each trait) were found at virtually all reefs, indicating widespread phenotypic variation. Reef-scale environmental predictors explained 12–62% of trait variation. Corals exposed to high thermal averages and recent thermal stress exhibited the greatest photochemical performance, probably reflecting local adaptation and stress pre-acclimatization, and the lowest chlorophyll retention suggesting stress pre-sensitization. Importantly, heat tolerance relative to local summer temperatures was the greatest on higher latitude reefs suggestive of higher adaptive potential. These results can be used to identify naturally tolerant coral populations and individuals for conservation and restoration applications.
Defeating cap-and-trade: How the fossil fuel industry and climate change counter movement obstruct U.S. Climate Change Legislation, Nanko & Coan, Global Environmental Change:
This study investigates the role of climate change contrarians in the defeat of the American Clean Energy and Security Act in 2010, a pivotal moment in U.S. climate policy that marked the end of extensive efforts to enact cap-and-trade climate legislation in the United States. Our research objectives are twofold: firstly, to determine the extent to which climate contrarians gained access to testify at congressional hearings in the years leading up to the bill’s ultimate defeat; and secondly, to examine the potential influence of fossil fuel industry (FFI) funds in facilitating this access. We compile a comprehensive new dataset encompassing all witnesses testifying at cap-and-trade and climate science hearings from 2003 to 2010. This information is cross-referenced with other pertinent data concerning interest groups, lobbying activities, and Congress. Our findings reveal a significant correlation between FFI lobbying expenditures and campaign contributions and the presence of contrarian witnesses at these hearings, suggesting a coordinated effort by the FFI to obstruct climate legislation. We find that contrarians were able to obtain disproportionate access to central hearings in key committees with jurisdiction over cap-and-trade bills, increasing their potential to obstruct legislation. Moreover, our analysis exposes a concerning over-representation of scientists known to deny the scientific consensus at these hearings, undermining the scientific consensus on climate change and perpetuating doubt about the urgency of climate action.
Durably reducing conspiracy beliefs through dialogues with AI, Costello et al., Science:
Conspiracy theory beliefs are notoriously persistent. Influential hypotheses propose that they fulfill important psychological needs, thus resisting counterevidence. Yet previous failures in correcting conspiracy beliefs may be due to counterevidence being insufficiently compelling and tailored. To evaluate this possibility, we leveraged developments in generative artificial intelligence and engaged 2190 conspiracy believers in personalized evidence-based dialogues with GPT-4 Turbo. The intervention reduced conspiracy belief by ~20%. The effect remained 2 months later, generalized across a wide range of conspiracy theories, and occurred even among participants with deeply entrenched beliefs. Although the dialogues focused on a single conspiracy, they nonetheless diminished belief in unrelated conspiracies and shifted conspiracy-related behavioral intentions. These findings suggest that many conspiracy theory believers can revise their views if presented with sufficiently compelling evidence.
From this week's government and NGO section:
Big Oil in Court - The latest trends in climate litigation against fossil fuel companies, Oil Change International and Zero Carbon Analytics
The authors analyze the escalating wave of climate litigation aimed at fossil fuel companies, e.g., 86 climate lawsuits have been filed against the world’s largest oil, gas, and coal-producing corporations – including BP, Chevron, Eni, ExxonMobil, Shell, and TotalEnergies. The number of cases filed against fossil fuel companies each year has nearly tripled since the Paris Agreement was reached in 2015, highlighting a growing global movement to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for their role in the climate crisis.
Climate Change Adaptation in Areas Beyond Government Control: Opportunities and Limitations, Karen Meijer and Ann Sophie Böhle, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Areas beyond government control constitute a highly diverse subgroup of fragile and conflict-affected settings. As a result of conflict and weak governance, many of these areas have become more vulnerable to climate change and their communities have been left with limited capacity to respond to changing climatic conditions and extreme weather events. These settings pose unique challenges for external engagement and have, therefore, long been overlooked in adaptation efforts. The authors explore both opportunities for and the limitations of climate change adaptation in areas beyond government control. By highlighting the diversity of these settings and the range of possible adaptation measures, the authors propose a framework with four guiding questions designed to help identify context-appropriate adaptation options.
87 articles in 50 journals by 550 contributing authors
Physical science of climate change, effects
A Model-Based Investigation of the Recent Rebound of Shelf Water Salinity in the Ross Sea, ZHANG et al., Open Access pdf 10.22541/essoar.169755485.54197066/v1
Observations of climate change, effects
Amplified precipitation extremes since 21st century in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration, China, Wang et al., Atmospheric Research Open Access 10.1016/j.atmosres.2024.107695
Doubling down?
Posted on 18 September 2024 by Ken Rice
This is a re-post from And Then There's Physics
I wrote a post a little while ago commenting on a Sabine Hossenfelder video suggesting that she was now worried about climate change because the Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) could be much higher than most estimates have suggested. I wasn’t too taken with Sabine’s arguments, and there were others who were also somewhat critical.
Sabine has since posted a response to the various reactions. I think this response is rather unfortunate and doesn’t really engage with the criticisms of her earlier video. She suggests that Andrew Dessler and Zeke Hausfather have lost touch with reality because they say:
Arguments over ECS are distractions. Whether it’s 3C or 5C is a bit like whether a firing squad has 6 rifleman or 10.
It might be a bit flippant, but I think they’re probably just being realistic. Whatever the ECS, the goal will be to rapidly decarbonise our societies and the rate at which we do so will probably be determined more by societal and political factors than by whether the ECS is 3°C or 5°C.
Sabine then goes on to criticise those who highlight that there are many lines of evidence and that we shouldn’t focus too much on individual studies. Sabine argues that she is making a different point and suggests that climate scientists are suffering from confirmation bias. The high-ECS ‘hot’ models have already been used in IPCC reports and arguing now that they should use climate sensitivity to screen out models implies an unjustified bias against the possibility that the ECS could actually be as high as these models suggest.
Essentially, once we’ve started collecting data and doing some analysis, we shouldn’t then change how the data is used, or modify the analysis, simply because the results aren’t consistent with previous expectations. However, this isn’t quite that simple. This is an ensemble of models that are developed to try and understand the physical climate system.
We can look at how well these models compare with observations. The ‘hot’ models tend to have poor agreement with historical temperatures and struggle to reproduce the last glacial maximum. If we select models based on their transient climate response (TCR) they do a better job of matching observations. So, the argument that we should screen models isn’t simply because they have a higher ECS than might be expected.
Of course, Sabine is correct that we can’t actually rule out high ECS values. The latest IPCC report says that the “best estimate of ECS is 3°C, the likely range is 2.5°C to 4°C, and the very likely range is 2°C to 5°C”. This certainly doesn’t rule out an ECS between 4oC and 5oC and doesn’t even entirely rule out values of 5oC and above, even if it suggests these are very unlikely.
Given that the highest risk is from the low-probability high-impact events, it seems entirely reasonable to be particularly concerned about the possibility that the ECS is something like 5oC, or higher. None of the information presented by climate scientists has ever really suggested that people shouldn’t do so. However, in general, the broader societal response has not been focussed on this possibility. I doubt that this is going to change anytime soon, and it’s certainly not because climate scientists have failed to highlight the potential risks associated with global warming and climate change.
The doom spiral
Posted on 17 September 2024 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler
In his last post, Zeke discussed incredible warmth of 2023 and 2024 and its implications for future warming. A few readers looked at it and freaked out:
This is terrifying
and
This update really put me in a spiral. I want to have hope, but when people like Leon Simons surround your articles with scary language, it’s hard not to become a Doomer. Not sure, what I am going for with this comment, just a soul reaching out.
and
Feeling doomed
Please don’t feel this way!
There are two facts that keep me grounded, and here they are:
-
When humans stop emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the climate will stop warming.
-
We have the technology to mostly stop emissions over the next few decades.
Zero-emissions commitment
The amount of warming the Earth experiences after emissions stop is known in the climate biz as the zero-emissions commitment, often abbreviated ZEC.
Recent work over the last decade suggests that the ZEC is zero. In other words, once we stop emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the climate will stop warming. For example, we can simulate this in models and they show:
The left panel shows atmospheric abundance of CO2 when emissions cease and it shows that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere starts to decline as soon as we stop emitting CO2. The right panel shows temperature after emissions stop. Some models show a few tenths of a degree of warming and others a few tenths of a degree of cooling. However, our central estimate is that the global average temperature does not change once emissions stop.
We have a good theoretical understanding of this: the decline in radiative forcing from the CO2 decrease cancels the disequilibrum between the ocean’s mixed layer and the radiative forcing, so there’s no net warming.
Now for the second fact …
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
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
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
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
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?
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
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:
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.
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.
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 .
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
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.
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.
