From the Heartland Daily News
H. Sterling Burnett
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This issue:
- The Hunga Tonga volcano eruption behind “record-setting” warming
- Video of the Week: 20 Years of Ocean Currents: What climate activists got wrong
- Maths debunks climate alarm – Net zero trades for inconsequential temperature drop
- Forest experiment shows benefits of adding CO2
- climate comedy
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The Hunga Tonga volcano eruption behind “record-setting” warming
Soaring temperatures have dominated the news over the past year, with dozens if not hundreds of “record-breaking months/record-breaking years/record-breaking streaks” stories making mainstream media headlines. Although climate change has been blamed for this phenomenon, contrary to unfounded speculation, there is a lack of sound analysis.
Dr. Javier Vinos, author of several books on climate change, including Past, present and future climate,Solving the climate dilemmaand IPCC’s frozen view, AR6 analysisexamined the possible causes of the sudden large-scale rise in temperatures reported in 2023, and concluded in an article in Climate et al that the usual suspects, human-caused increases in carbon dioxide and El Niño, were likely not the culprits. Reductions in sulfate aerosol emissions from cleaner transportation fuels aren't a recent trend, either. Instead, he believes that the eruption of the Hungatonga volcano, which caused a large increase in water vapor entering the stratosphere, is the most likely culprit. As the water vapor decreases, the temperature will also decrease, which means that the current water vapor Increased vapor is not the new normal; it means no climate catastrophe.
“El Niño is unlikely to be responsible for this phenomenon, for the simple reason that this sudden global warming is unprecedented in our records,” Vinos explained. He explained that El Niño typically produces large The impact is still mainly regional rather than global. In addition, El Niño has occurred many times in the past, but it has not triggered large-scale global warming like in 2023.
Regarding the impact of the recently adopted Clean Shipping Fuel Standard, Vinos noted that “a recent study, still under peer review, used climate models to calculate that reducing sulfur emissions starting in 2020 could lead to Global warming of 0.02°C. Since the magnitude of warming in 2023 is 10 times greater, it is difficult to believe that emissions reductions since 2020 may be a major factor in the sudden warming in 2023 (footnote omitted).
Increases in carbon dioxide concentrations over the past year or two are also unlikely to be responsible for the rapid spike in temperatures throughout the year. As Vinos pointed out, CO2 emissions increased from 418.5 ppm to 421 ppm in 2023, an increase of about 2.5 parts per million, which is consistent with annual growth rates over the past few decades (he did not add, but I would add, This is despite governments spending trillions of dollars and restricting freedoms – meaning only pain, no gain). In ruling out carbon dioxide as the cause of the unusual temperature rise, he noted that the physics of carbon dioxide forcing, our knowledge of the past, peer-reviewed studies or climate model projections all suggest that the 2023 temperature spike was or could be responsible. Observed increase in CO2.
“The evidence is that scientists and models cannot explain what will happen in 2023,” Vinos wrote.
He believes these facts suggest that eruptions from the giant Hunga Tonga underground volcano were responsible for the spike in temperatures.
Just over a year before the sudden climate warming, in January 2022, a highly unusual volcanic eruption occurred in Tonga. He lists the evidence for his conclusion (footnotes and figures omitted):
Tonga volcanic eruptions were submarine explosions at very shallow depths (about 150 m below the sea surface). It sprayed 150 million tons of water into the stratosphere. …
NASA scientists believe the Tonga explosion occurred at the right depth to launch large amounts of water into the stratosphere… [with] Tonga volcano erupts [being] An event that occurs once in 200 years may occur less than once in a thousand years. …
We know that powerful volcanic eruptions, capable of reaching the stratosphere, can have a very strong impact on the climate, lasting for several years, and that this impact may be delayed for more than a year. The eruption of Mount Tambora in April 1815 had an impact on global climate, but it took 15 months of the summer-less year of 1816 to develop. happen at the same time.
Because the Tonga eruption was unprecedented, many of its effects are unknown. But we do know that the planetary greenhouse effect is very sensitive to changes in stratospheric water vapor because, unlike the troposphere, the stratosphere is very dry and far from greenhouse saturation.
As a group of scientists showed in 2010, the impact of stratospheric water vapor changes is so important that warming decreased by 25% between 2000 and 2009 because of a 10% decrease in stratospheric water vapor changes. After the Tonga volcano erupted, temperatures increased by 10% due to the release of 150 million tons of water into the stratosphere, so we probably experienced most of the entire decade's warming in one year. …
Of course, we can't conclude that the warming is caused by volcanoes, but it's clearly by far the most likely suspect, and any other candidate should have to demonstrate the ability to act suddenly to such a severe extent and then Only then can we seriously consider it.
source: climate etc.
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Video of the week
Climate activists and media allies often promote the idea that climate change will soon slow ocean currents, spelling disaster for marine ecosystems. Now, the best available data suggests that ocean currents have actually accelerated over the past 20 years, without any catastrophe.
Maths debunks climate alarm – Net zero trades for inconsequential temperature drop
A recent paper by physicist Richard Lindzen, Ph.D., professor emeritus at MIT; William Happer, Ph.D., professor emeritus at Princeton University; and William A. van Wijngaarden, Ph.D., of York University in Toronto, shows that if the United States and the world were to The previous elimination of respective human CO2 emissions (the much-hyped “net-zero emissions”) would not have a significant impact on global temperatures – meaning it would not prevent significant “climate change”.
They applied simple mathematics to calculate the temperature impact of zero emissions, based on the number of years until 2050 and actual data on the amount of carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere each year.
“The only assumed data point is the sensitivity of the atmosphere to increases in carbon dioxide,” Greg Wrightstone said in an article describing the RealClearMarkets findings. In this regard, the values used by the researchers are almost identical to those commonly used “before global warming alarmism”.
The paper concludes: “Simple calculations… suggest that eliminating U.S. carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 would avoid a temperature increase of 0.0084°C,” or approximately 0.015°F of warming. The amount of warming avoided is too small to be measured, let alone noticed.
The paper points out that even if the climate sensitivity value is increased to four times the sensitivity of climate model assumptions promoted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the amount of avoidable warming is still only 0.034 degrees Celsius.
Since the United States accounts for about 12% of global carbon dioxide emissions, scientists then calculated what would happen if the remaining 88% of humanity's emissions were zero. They found that using the sensitivity of historical assumptions, the amount of warming that could be avoided was 0.07°C; using the exaggerated sensitivity assumptions adopted by the IPCC, the amount of warming that could be avoided was 0.28°C.
Wrightstone concluded that from a climate change perspective, the figures “remain irrelevant and certainly not worth destroying the world economy”.
Source: Real and clear market; CO2 Alliance
Forest experiment shows benefits of adding CO2
Since 2017, researchers at the University of Birmingham's Birmingham Forestry Research Institute (BIFoR) have been conducting a large-scale real-world experiment called BIFoR Free Air Carbon Dioxide Enrichment in woodland in Staffordshire. Pumping in carbon dioxide to simulate predicted atmospheric conditions in 2050.
Specifically, BIFoR researchers pumped excess carbon dioxide (140 ppm above levels in ambient air) into a 180-year-old oak forest. They found that increased carbon dioxide emissions increased woody biomass by 9.8% over seven years.
Most of the carbon dioxide is utilized and captured by the woody parts of the tree – the trunk, bark and limbs – rather than the leaves, meaning it can be stored for a long time. The study found that in addition to increasing woody biomass, higher carbon dioxide levels enhance nutrient cycling in the soil and make root systems more efficient, both of which tend to benefit the wider ecosystem.
To study the impact of carbon dioxide on trees, BIFoR researchers analyzed tree rings and conducted laser scans of tree crowns to assess tree growth and carbon sequestration. The Electroverse Substack describes some of the specific findings and their implications in more detail, writing:
Interestingly, while overall net primary productivity (NPP) grew by an average of 10.6%, much of this growth was attributed to timber production rather than increases in other organizations. This suggests that mature temperate forests, previously thought to have a limited response to increases in carbon dioxide, may play a more active role in sequestering carbon than expected.
In addition, the study found that elevated carbon dioxide concentrations led to a 43-63% increase in root exudates, stimulating soil microbial activity and increasing nutrient utilization, further improving forest growth dynamics and biodiversity.
Source: Electronic Universe; Birmingham Forest Institute
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H. Sterling Burnett
Dr. H. Sterling Burnett is director of the Heartland Institute's Robinson Center for Climate and Environmental Policy and editor-in-chief of Environment and Climate News.
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