Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #528 – Watts Up With That?

For some wavelengths, infrared travels less than a meter before being absorbed by CO2 at our present concentration of about 400 molecules per million molecules of air (ppmv). For a lot more wavelengths, the IR is stopped before going 10 meters. Accordingly, even with only 1 percent as much CO2 as we have, CO2 would be a strong greenhouse absorber. However, we are concerned with what happens as the atmospheric CO2 concentration increases from 400 ppmv [parts per million in volume] to 800 ppmv, as may happen during the next century.

“Calculations of the greenhouse effect for the five most abundant greenhouse gases have been done by van Wijngaarden and Happer from over a third of a million high-resolution spectral lines. The calculations are not just for the present GHG concentrations, but for fractional concentrations of each ranging from zero (f = 0 in the nearby graph) up to double the present concentration (f = 2). The graph shows my added vertical lines one-eighth, one-fourth, and one-half of present concentration.

“The vertical axis is the so-called ‘radiative forcing’—the difference in the greenhouse effect from the present. Notice that the radiative forcing for CO2 at zero concentration is negative, to be specific –30 W/m2 [watts per square meter]. I added several horizontal lines representing the greenhouse effect from CO2 with the red numbers at the right in W/m2. Notice the extremely abrupt rise of the red CO2 curve, followed by a curve of ever-decreasing slope well before half our present concentration (f = 0.5). Notice that if the concentration doubles, the CO2 greenhouse effect will change from 30 W/m2 only up to 33 W/m2. The total greenhouse effect is about 159 W/m2, so the increase due to CO2 doubling would be less than 2%.

“Believe it or not, this piddling 2% increase in the greenhouse effect due to CO2 doubling is the source of quite literally millions of ignorant statements about ‘the climate crisis,’ ‘the climate disaster,’ ‘climate legislation,’ ‘controlling the climate’ and so forth.

“The Final Straw:

“The IPCC’s admission in the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) of Working Group I (Physical Science Basis) that the greenhouse effect G is the numerical difference between surface radiation and radiation to space will eventually be their undoing. They have provided incontrovertible evidence that their representative scenarios are physically impossible.

“To understand what they have done, it is necessary to look at certain abbreviations and standards. We will be looking at scenarios (SSPs: Shared Socio-economic Pathways) such as SSP3-7. 0,, where the “3” refers to a particular scenario and the 7.0 represents the approximate “radiative forcing” in W/m2, by 2080-2100, relative to the 1850-1900 period. Temperature rises (real and predicted) are also relative to the 1850-1900 time period.

“The only source of heat for the earth (ignoring very minor amounts of geothermal heat) is radiation from the sun, and the only way for the earth to shed heat is by infrared radiation. So, IPCC uses the term ‘radiative forcing’ to include any change due to solar flux, albedo, or greenhouse effect.

“We will first be looking at SSP3-7.0, a scenario in which the radiative forcing is 7.0 W/m2 relative to 1850-1900, as shown to the right. The graph shows a dark bar (lower left) indicating a temperature rise of about 1.1ºC since the 1850-1900 period and a predicted total temperature rise to occur by 2080-2100 of 3.6ºC for this scenario.

“Now, let us have another look at the Climate Constraint Equation. Recall that it is derived from the Planetary Heat Balance (applicable to all planets), the Stefan-Boltzmann radiation law (with σ = 5.67 × 10–8 W m–2 K-4) and IPCC’s understanding of the greenhouse effect.”

At equilibrium, the radiation emitted by the surface (the Stefan-Boltzmann constant times surface temperature to the fourth power) must equal the heat radiated to space (aka the heat absorbed from the sun) plus the net IR absorption by the atmosphere (aka the greenhouse effect) [words replacing the equation].

“The 7.0 W/m2 figure for this scenario incorporates all changes occurring on the right side of Equation 1 [articulated immediately above]. Therefore, if IPCC gets things right, the change in the left-hand side should also be 7.0 W/m2. However, if the temperature rises by 3.6ºC, the left-hand side increases by 20.1 W/m2. That’s a huge inequality.

“To be fair, IPCC makes no claim that the IPCC3-7.0 scenario for the 2080-2100 period is one of equilibrium. Let us look at the sequence of events. An increase in CO2 (and other human nefarious activities) cause an increase in the greenhouse effect, so that the heat emitted to space is less than the heat absorbed from the sun. This causes the surface to warm up. But how can the surface warm up so much that the planet now radiates more heat than it absorbs from the sun? Only IPCC’s ‘climate scientists’ know for sure.”

In short, the IPCC would have us believe that in physical science, 7 will become 20 in 60 years. See http://www.sepp.org/science_papers.cfm

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Death by Starvation: Thanks to the previous government removed by revolt believing UN delusional claims of global warming from fertilizer, the people of Sri Lanka are suffering from real food shortages. Professors C. A. de Lange, J. D. Ferguson, W. Happer, and W. A. van Wijngaarden address the absurdity of UN claims that nitrous oxide (N2O) from modern fertilizer is causing dangerous warming. The abstract of their paper reads:

Higher concentrations of atmospheric nitrous oxide (N2O) are expected to slightly warm Earth’s surface because of increases in radiative forcing. Radiative forcing is the difference in the net upward thermal radiation flux from the Earth through a transparent atmosphere and radiation through an otherwise identical atmosphere with greenhouse gases. Radiative forcing, normally measured in W m−2, depends on latitude, longitude and altitude, but it is often quoted for the tropopause, about 11 km of altitude for temperate latitudes, or for the top of the atmosphere at around 90 km. For current concentrations of greenhouse gases, the radiative forcing per added N2O molecule is about 230 times larger than the forcing per added carbon dioxide (CO2) molecule. This is due to the heavy saturation of the absorption band of the relatively abundant greenhouse gas, CO2, compared to the much smaller saturation of the absorption bands of the trace greenhouse gas N2O. But the rate of increase of CO2 molecules, about 2.5 ppm/year (ppm = part per million by mole), is about 3000 times larger than the rate of increase of N2O molecules, which has held steady at around 0.00085 ppm/year since the year 1985. So, the contribution of nitrous oxide to the annual increase in forcing is 230/3000 or about 1/13 that of CO2. If the main greenhouse gases, CO2, CH4 and N2O have contributed about 0.1 C/decade of the warming observed over the past few decades, this would correspond to about 0.00064 K per year or 0.064 K per century of warming from N2O. Proposals to place harsh restrictions on nitrous oxide emissions because of warming fears are not justified by these facts. Restrictions would cause serious harm, for example, by jeopardizing world food supplies.

After going through detailed analysis showing any warming from a doubling of nitrous oxide is insignificant, in their conclusions the professors write (references omitted here):

“Since few citizens realize that the effects of total N2O emissions on climate are negligible, many governments are under pressure to “do something” about agricultural contributions of N2O. Ideologically driven government mandates on agriculture have usually led to disaster. The world has just witnessed the collapse of the once bountiful agricultural sector of Sri Lanka as a result of government restrictions on mineral fertilizer. An earlier example is the collectivization of agriculture in the Soviet Union, when the kulak (the derogatory  Bolshevik word “fist” for a successful farmer) was ‘eliminated as a class.’ In consequence, millions died of starvation. Folk memories of the Golodomor (hunger-murder) played no small part in unleashing the present war in Ukraine.

“Despite this lamentable history, various governments have proposed burdensome regulations on farming, ranching and dairying to reduce emissions of N2O. The regulations will

have no perceptible effect on climate, but some of them will do great harm to agricultural

productivity and world food supplies. As we pointed out in Section 6, one of the major

factors for the world’s unprecedented abundance of food in recent years has been the use

of mineral nitrogen fertilizers. It is not possible to maintain highly productive agriculture

without nitrogen fertilizer.

“Although agricultural emissions of N2O are no threat to climate, they can lead to eutrophication of waterways. So, nitrogen fertilizer should be used intelligently to maximize nitrogen use efficiency by crops. To limit production costs, leading farmers already use no more nitrogen fertilizer than needed. Farmers are much better qualified to make this judgement than bureaucratic ideologues.

“Mandates to reduce animal numbers and fertilizer use will reduce agricultural yields. To continue to feed the world’s growing population without mineral and natural fertilizers, agricultural areas would have to increase and encroach on native habitats, which could have remained untouched with rational use of fertilizer. The result would be more environmental stresses, not less.”

See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy and https://www.brookings.edu/podcast-episode/why-is-sri-lanka-in-crisis-and-what-comes-next/

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It Stays in Vegas: In continuing his research, atmospheric scientist Roy Spencer writes:

“Now that I’m back to researching the surface air temperature record and the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect, I decided to revisit the temperatures in Las Vegas, Nevada. It’s been over 8 years since I posted about Las Vegas being the poster child for the UHI effect and I showed some warming trend calculations from the hourly temperature data at McCarren International Airport (now Harry Reid International Airport… not kidding) which suggested that much of the warming there has been from the urban heat island, not global climate change.”

In discussing his research Spencer states [Graph of findings not shown here]:

“I computed 50-year trends for Las Vegas and for a rural Nevada station, Winnemucca from 24-hourly data, which allows us to see how the trends change with time of day. I did this for the warmest half of the year, April through September. The following plot shows a remarkable feature… the strong warming in Las Vegas has been entirely at night. Winnemucca shows the background climate signal, with fairly uniform (and weak) warming trends throughout the day. But the impervious surfaces in Vegas — buildings, concrete, asphalt — absorb more sunlight during the day than the surrounding desert, and then at night release that heat into the air.

“Part of the reason this happens is the albedo of the city is lower than that of the surrounding desert (thanks to Anthony Watts for reminding me of this). But at least as important is that fact that concrete has a thermal conductivity 9 times as large as sand does, so when it is heated by the sun, much more energy is stored down into the pavement. Sand would have gotten exceedingly hot, but just at the surface, and the extra energy would radiate away (infrared) as well as drive stronger atmospheric (dry) convection which would carry that heat away during the daytime.

“Why would such a thing not show up during the day just as well? Because turbulent mixing driven by a strong super-adiabatic lapse rate near the surface spreads the heat up through the atmosphere and cooler air comes down to replace it, cooling the city during the day. But then at night, a temperature inversion forms, and the lowest levels of the atmosphere no longer exchange energy convectively with higher altitudes. In effect, the strong nighttime inversion that naturally occurs in the desert has weakened over the city as the pavement releases the extra energy it has stored during the day.

“The actual background climate warming in the last 50 years in Las Vegas (whatever its cause), based upon the above plot, looks to be around 0.25 deg. C/decade. This is also part of the reason why it is important to monitor global temperature trends with satellite measurements of the deep troposphere — it provides a more robust measurement that is not as influenced by surface effects, such as the Urban Heat Island, and avoids conflation of Las Vegas heat with the ‘climate crisis’.”

Spencer’s research on the UHI demonstrates why the UN and US emphasis on surface temperature data while ignoring atmospheric data results in meaningless conclusions. See link under Challenging the Orthodoxy.

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Real Harm: On her blog, Climate Etc. Judith Curry cites academic studies showing the psychological health effects of climate change on children and young adults:

…including elevated levels of anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, increased incidences of suicide, substance abuse, social disruptions including increased violence, and a distressing sense of loss.

The psychological injuries to children associated with climate change are featured prominently by Our Children’s Trust which is “representing and supporting youth securing their legal rights to a safe climate.”  This group sponsored the lawsuit Juliana vs. the United States, plus lawsuits in virtually all of the U.S. states and globally including Netherlands and Colombia.  A key rationale for these Complaints/lawsuits is the psychological harm being inflicted on the Youth Plaintiffs. Here is one example from the Juliana complaint:

“’Defendants have caused psychological and emotional harm to Kelsey as a result of her fear of a changing climate, her knowledge of the impacts that will occur in her lifetime, and her knowledge that Defendants are continuing to cause harms that threaten her life and wellbeing. As a result of the acts and omissions of Defendants, Kelsey believes that she will not be able to continue to do all of the things described in this Complaint for her life, health, and enjoyment, nor will she one day be able to share those experiences with her children.’

“This is by no means the worst/alarming statement by the Youth Plaintiffs that I’ve seen, but it is the first one I spotted in a search of the Juliana Complaint.

“Lise Van Susteren, a clinical psychiatrist, submitted an Expert Report on Behalf of Juliana et al.  From her introduction:

“’The science and literature show that a vast range of health impacts, including mental health impacts, from climate change are already impacting, and expected to impact in increasingly harmful ways, our most vulnerable population, children. Climate change is already harming children, including these youth Plaintiffs, psychologically, and this suffering increases as climate change worsens and as the federal government continues to exacerbate the dangers of climate change and does not act to stop the climate crisis. This report focuses on the current and expected psychological harms facing children as a result of climate change, and the menacing conditions that threaten future harm, if no meaningful action is taken to address climate change by the federal government. I discuss both acute and chronic climate harms because climate change has short- and long-term impacts on mental health. I discuss how these harms are worse because the federal government, including these defendants, are causing the harm, and failing to properly respond to the threats posed by climate change. I also discuss why children, including some of the Plaintiffs in this case, are experiencing disproportionally harmful, and what I expect to be life-long, mental health impacts, as a result of climate change and the government’s role in causing it.’

“I have personally received emails from children and young adults suffering from such effects, which were featured in previous blog posts. I have received numerous additional emails from teens and young adults that are very sincere and communicating with me because they are grasping for reasons not to be so depressed about this issue.  These psychological injuries, at least in some individuals, seem real to me.

“There is little basis in the IPCC assessments for a level of alarm that would induce such psychological effects — even in context of the IPCC’s numerous erroneous assumptions and dubious judgment calls that were outlined in my previous blog post The climate crisis isn’t what it used to be . The apocalyptic and misleading rhetoric in the media and political discourse about climate change is arguably the driving impetus of these adverse psychological health effects.”

Curry concludes her essay:

“It is difficult to avoid concluding that children are being used as tools in adults’ political agenda surrounding climate change.  This tooldom [using children as a tool?] is having adverse impacts on the mental health of children and young adults.

“I find the K-12 educational brainwashing by establishment educators to be particularly reprehensible.  Wouldn’t it be much better for the children to learn about geology and meteorology, mass media influences on politics and society, and critical thinking about big societal issues?  Wouldn’t it be great to motivate students to want to contribute to solving society’s problems and give them the academic tools to take advantage of opportunities?

“But a more fundamental issue is how children are being raised, so that they are lacking in resilience and hardiness.

“And finally, there are near- and long-term political implications.  Does anyone think that throwing tomato soup at paintings in museums is helping the “cause”?  In the longer term, all of this propaganda and brainwashing will backfire when it becomes apparent in a decade or two that there is no climate catastrophe, and young adults are rebelling against the ‘establishment’.”

Curry lets the IPCC off too lightly. The UN IPCC and the authors of the US National Climate Assessments must be aware of the harm they are doing. Their “science” is not a physical science using the earth’s real atmosphere. Their false claim that it is a physical science results in real harm to children. The UN’s using Greta Thunberg as a spokesperson for a science that the UN does not understand the physical world was just one disgusting example.

In the end, given its ineptness in responding to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and its distortion of an important physical science, one must ask does the UN have any value for humanity? See links under Communicating Better to the Public – Use Propaganda on Children.

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Dead Corals Reborn: Using photographic evidence, Jennifer Marohasy shows the Great Coral Reef is not dead or dying in two films on the reef contesting the false claims of the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS). A screening of “Bleached Colourful” is being held in Perth followed by the existing film, “Finding Porites.” As Marohasy writes:

“While the amount of government money for Great Barrier Reef research has been increasing exponentially, the quality of this research has gone out the window – literally. Now much of the research about the state of the Great Barrier Reef, and particularly ‘the science’ that making media headlines, is out of airplane windows.”

See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy and Changing Seas.

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Last week TWTW discussed the “Friend of the Court” brief filed by Professors Happer and Lindzen against the EPA non-scientific endangerment finding. Next week it will discuss the petition to the US Circuit Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia.

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Number of the Week: 3 nanograms per liter (ng/L). The Attorney General of California has filed a lawsuit against 3M and DuPont for concealing:

“…health hazards associated with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from the public and continued producing them for public use.”

Although PFAS is a blanket term for thousands of compounds, the lawsuit specifically applies to seven detected in high levels in California waters: perfluorooctanoic acid, perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), perfluorobutanesulfonic acid, perfluorohexanesulfonic acid, perfluorohexanoic acid, perfluoroheptanoic acid and perfluorononanoic acid.

The name ‘forever chemicals’ derives from the compounds’ resilience and resistance to degradation in nature, and according to data from California’s State Water Resources Control Board, they are detectable in 146 water systems that provide water to about 16 million residents of the state.”

The California’s State Water Resources Control Board notification states:

“According to the 2022-2026 Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR 5), U.S.

“EPA Method 533 will be used to analyze for PFHxS in drinking water samples and has a

minimum reporting level of 3 ng/L.” “3 nanograms per liter (ng/L)”

“Toxicological Endpoint: Decreased total thyroid hormone in male rats,” [Boldface added]

By definition, a nanogram is one billionth of a gram or about one trillionth of a pound. One of the most toxic chemicals known to man is the nerve agent VX, which is classified by the UN as a weapon of mass destruction.

“The CDC calls it ‘he most potent of all nerve agents.’ It kills quickly, even after exposure to infinitesimal amounts. Death by VX, which is a clear, motor oil-like liquid at room temperature, can occur after breathing in 25 to 30 milligrams, or just 10 milligrams if it comes into contact with the skin.” [Boldface added]

There are 1,000 milligrams in a gram (milli meaning one-thousandth). There are 1,000,000,000 nanograms in a gram. A milligram has a million (1,000,000) nanograms. According to California Water Board, forever chemicals are a million times more lethal than VX. The AG’s office and California regulators must be infected with mass innumeracy, (numerical illiteracy).

See links under California Dreaming and https://www.inverse.com/article/37072-what-is-vx-poison-nerve-agent#:~:text=Death%20by%20VX%2C%20which%20is,into%20contact%20with%20the%20skin.

Climategate Continued

Climategate, the Movie: Boffins Turning Tricks

By Tony Thomas, Quadrant, Nov 8, 2022