The Global Warming Sceptic  (2020-202x)
http://meteo.lcd.lu/globalwarming/index.html
version 2.2  14 Feb 2009

STATEMENT:
This page does not represent an official position of the Lycée Classique de Diekirch or the Ministry of Education on climate change and global warming. The official position of the Ministry of Environment of Luxembourg can be found here. If you do not want to read the following links and discussions, please go back!

Please take a step back, and stay cool for a moment. Shut your ears off from the deafening cries and shouts of the global warming advocates, and sharpen your mind. Try to answer the questions outlined in the papers given hereafter, and be open for good reasoning: these pages might make you think again, and wonder, if the mobiles of all these climate catastrophers are pure .... 

Working for clean air and an unpolluted atmosphere is a laudable aim, but forgetting to compare the magnitude of man-made pollutants to the natural sources, or having an absolute faith in measurement data of often dubious origin, is unscientific at least, and foolish certainly. The climate  is "the changing state of the atmosphere", so do not expect a steady state situation. Do not forget either that the sun is the engine which drives everything, and that the output of that engine is in constant change!

The newest additions to this link list are on top!    

Huge Reference of papers and articles on climate change and related problems!  Links to web sites, books and videos not embracing the IPCC consensus

                                                                                          

Previous pages: up to 2008    
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2017_2019
 

Climategate

"Quotes"  Hockey-Stick discussions

last update: 01 Jan 2024

   
Measurements of methane and nitrous oxide in human breath and the development of UK scale emissions

Watch your breath! You contribute to global warming by your methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions! Read the paper by Dawson et al. in PLOS One. If all the people in the UK stopped this noxious breathing, emissions of 54000 metric tons CO2eq could be avoided!
And vegans beware:
"Converting from high meat and protein content diets to higher fibre vegetarian options to mitigate emissions of greenhouse gases from meat production potentially results in higher production of gases in the human gut"

Atmosphere and Greenhouse Gas Primer An excellent paper by two very known physicists (Princeton and York universities). Very well explained, but you should know your graduate physics!
The authors show that an atmosphere with GHG will have a convective troposphere. They conclude: "Increasing carbon dioxide will cause a small additional warming... best estimate it is about 1C warming for every doubling of CO2 concentration, when all feedbacks are correctly accounted for".
Link is for a version with highlights; link to original here.
Discussion of electrical and thermal aspectsof offshore wind farm's power cables reliability Did you know that undersea power cable problems cause 80% of the financial losses in offshore wind farms, even if the cables are only 10% of the costs of the offshore wind farm?
Gulski et al. have a very interesting paper in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews (Elsevier) discussing the very hard problems of undersea cable technology and robustness.
The cost of cable failures could make them uninsurable, which would be the death of the offshore wind projects.
NEWcleo newcleo is a new company which develops a new small fast breeder lead-cooled nuclear reactor; this could use MOX fuel made from radioactive waste from PWR reactors. The main scientist worked at the French Superphénix project, which was a sodium-cooled breeder (link).

Read this interview in Power Magazine on this very promising Gen-IV type of small and modulable nuclear fast neutron reactors.
On Hens, Eggs, Temperature and CO2: Causal links in Earth's Atmosphere

Koutsoyiannis et al. published a very important paper on the causality between CO2 and Temperature in MDPI, using a new stochastic analysis to find who is the cause and who the effect

. They conclude that "The results are clear: changes in CO2 concentration cannot be a cause of temperature changes". Wow!!! (see also guest post in Climate_etc. and this paper by Stuart A. Harris)

 

Exhaustive analysis of the July 2023 global temperature Judith Curry, Jim Johnstone and Mark Jelinek published an exhaustive analysis of the July 2023 global temperature. Their conclusions are sobering:
1.July 2023 global temp. anomaly is slightly lower than than of 2016, and comparable to that of 1998
2. There is an anomalous shortwave heating in the NH, which is influenced by the reduction in sulfate emissions from ship fuel (ships switched to cleaner fuel)
3. Any increase of the greenhouse effect from increasing CO2 is lost in the noise.
Data shows there's no climate catastrophe looming.
 
Watch this interview with Dr. John Christy, professor of Atmospheric Science at UAH.
Very sober, very clear!
Addressing the high real cost of renwable generation Now that Vattenfall abandons its greatest offshore wind-project in the UK (see here), you may read this very interesting report on the costs of "renewable energy", and why contrary to the main-stream propaganda, the price of "renewable solar/wind electricity" steadily goes up and not down.
Aliens cause Global Warming

It's now over 20 years that Michael Crichton held his famous Michelin-Caltech lecture.

Please reread this presentation, that remains as important and true today as it was 20 years ago. His famous sentence

"There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period"
should be the leitmotiv of every serious scientist, but alas, it isn't.
Read the entire text carefully, it will be time well spent!

M. Crichton a medical doctor, scientist, writer,  filmmaker, passed away in 2008. He remains famous for his books like Jurassic Park and State of Fear.

Epic Fail in Amerca's Heartland: Climate Modles Graetly overestimate Corn Belt warming

Dr. Roy Spencer has a very telling article in his blog on the difference between observations and models of the summer temperature trends in the US corn belt: the blue rectangle = observations of the 50 years trend, , the reds = prediction of 36 different CMIP6 models.

Click here for full article!
So would you built your climate policies on these "model foundations"?

Zukunft des deutschen Stromarktes

Excellent paper by e.Venture (in German) on the future of the German decarbonized grid in 2040"Wesentliche, erwartbare Erkenntnis ist, dass die Erzeugung aus Wind und PV der geforderten Nachfrage, bzw. Last nicht entspricht...Die Höhe des leistungsseitigen Defizits ist mit brutto 120 GW bei einer Maximallast von 146 GW erheblich. Anders ausgedrückt reicht an 5.000 Stunden im Jahr die Erzeugung aus Wind und PV nicht aus, die Bedarfe zu decken.

The Holocene CO2 Dilemma

Renée Hannon has a new article on the Holocene (last 12000 years) CO2 and global temperature evolution, comparing observations (= temp.&CO2 derived from proxies) and models. The difference is breathtaking: Global temp. from proxies are inverse proportional to CO2 levels (upper plot), whereas the models show the opposite (lower plot).... and all our curent climate policies are based on these models!

Hannon concludes: "The fact that CO2 correlates well to Holocene temperatures for only the Antarctic, or <10% of our planet's surface, yet CO2 is considered as the dominant influence on climate change is a scientific dilemma."

Read also the comments after the article, especially what XJavier Vinos writes:
So it turns out that the CO2 hypothesis and associated models can only explain 50 years of the past 11,700. And in doing so they render 11,650 years of climate change unexplainable. This is the mark of a failed theory. It would have been ditched long ago if it wasn’t for the strong political support. Many paleoclimatologists are very unhappy with it.

CLINTEL's latest report on the IPCC AR6

Read CLINTEL's latest report on the IPCC AR6 (must give email to download full report)

What causes Climate Change?

Read this short, but very clear comment by Daniel Nebert:
"The fact is: the more one looks into the intricacies of Earth’s extraordinarily complex climate system, the more apparent it is, how little we really know. Therefore, it’s best to proceed slowly and carefully — ignoring the subjective hype generated by mainstream media and politicians."

Dr. John Clauser, nobelist

Nobelist (Physics, 2022) Dr. John Clauser says this: The popular narrative about climate change reflects a dangerous corruption of science that threatens the world’s economy and the well-being of billions of people. Misguided climate science has metastasized into massive shock-journalistic pseudoscience. In turn, the pseudoscience has become a scapegoat for a wide variety of other unrelated ills. It has been promoted and extended by similarly misguided business marketing agents, politicians, journalists, government agencies, and environmentalists. In my opinion, there is no real climate crisis. There is, however, a very real problem with providing a decent standard of living to the world’s large population and an associated energy crisis. The latter is being unnecessarily exacerbated by what, in my opinion, is incorrect climate science.”

Click here for the video of his exposé.

 

OFF TARGET Read this article by Prof. Lennart Bengtsson ( former at Max Planck Institute, University of Reading, European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting...)
"There is nothing wrong with setting targets. However, it is important to first ensure that the objectives are reasonable and, above all, that they are feasible. Formulating irrelevant goals – or goals that cannot be achieved for scientific, technical or economic reasons – does not benefit anyone... The most sensible thing to do today is to study those areas of the world that have managed to adapt to harsh climates."
Never trust the prophets of doom!

The 53th Earth Day is here, and not a single of the doomsday predictions by the "experts" and the media have been come true!

State of the Climate 2022 The GWPF has published Prof. Ole HUMLUM's "State of the Climate 2022" report. Prof. Humlum analysis is based mainly on observations, and his conclusions are that even if land temepratures have increased since the 1970's, the total energy content of [atmosphere + ocean] seems to remain more or less stable, which would show that observed warming may result from a " redistribution of energy between ocean and atmosphere". Especially for variations of storms and hurricanes, "the continental US remains within the normal range since 1851"
Spatial energy density of large-scale electricity generation

New very complete paper in Nature Science Communications on "Spatial energy density of large-scale electricity generation..." by Noland et al. Biomass is worst, nuclear by far the best!and "... onshore wind farms are the second most dilute source for power generation". Read a math-free, easy to follow discussion here! Attention: on the left-side figure the Y-scale is logarithmic!

Prof. Steven Koonin

Listen to the conference given by Prof. Steven Koonin in Paris the 23th March 2023 (in English, 56 minutes). Koonin is the former scientific and energy adviser of Barack Obama.His latest book is "Unsettled, what climate science tells us, what it doesn't"

Past and present warming, a temporal resolution issue Renée Hannon has an interesting contribution in the WUWT blog, comparing the average 170 years instrumental global temperature anomaly to the Holocene Optimum (w.r. to 1850-1900). When comparing using the same low resolution, she finds that "...present instrumental temperature, averaged over 170 years, does not exceed the warmest multi-century period of the Holocene based on proxy data." Only by adding to the 170 year instrumental period the modeled warming predicted up to 2100 can the IPCC write that present warming is unprecedented. If you stick to the observations, it is not. Also read the comments!
Challenging Net Zero with Science. Important new paper (45 pages) by retired Prof. Richard LINDZEN (MIT) and William HAPPER (Princeton), both specialists in atmospheric physics: . They conclude:
"The adoption of Net Zero is the rejection of overwhelming scientific evidence that there is no risk of catastrophic global warming caused by fossil fuels and CO2. Net Zero, then, violates the tenets of the scientific method that for more than 300 years has underpinned the advancement of western civilization."
How to green the world's deserts Truly stunning TED talk of biologist Allan SAVORY "": use large herds of live-stock! This goes contrary to all the fashionable hysteria about abandoning meat to save the world... and there are many examples that Savory is right!
An outstanding talk!

The energy transition delusion: the inescapable mineral realities (Youtube, 46 min.)

 

Mark MILLS has a very unsettling presentation on the mineral demands needed for the wind/solar energy transition, and also the transition from thermal to electrical transportation. The magnitude of the minerals needed are mind-boggling (an EV car needs 2 times more minerals than a Diesel car).
(Youtube, 46 min.)

An analysis of the sunshine hours I made a short analysis of the sunshine hours per day as given by our CM21 pyranometer (using Oliviéri's method to calculate sunshine from solar irradiance) and as measured directly by our vintage Haenni instrument (donated years ago by ASTA). The antique Haenni is ca 20% too low (not too bad!).
During 2022 we had a whooping 68 (CM21) or 66 (Haenni) days without sunshine... Solar photovoltaic enthusiasts beware!
Debate contra and pro a carbon tax

Interesting and easy to read debate contra and pro a carbon tax: Happer & Everett are against, Everett under very precise conditions is pro.

Happer & Everett give a sober diagnose of our putative CO2 driven climate problems.

J.B.Peterson interview of Prof. Lindzen Very interesting 1h50min interview of Prof. Lindzen by J.B.Peterson. The video has some annoying publicities, and is marred by a loss of sync between video and sound on the last parts: but what is said by Lindzen is exceptionally clear.
ALBEDO changes cause 2/3 of observed warming
 

New paper by Mingzu et al. in "Theoretical and Applied Climatology (Springer)" shows that 2/3 of the global warming during 2001 to 2018 is caused by natural changes in albedo (= mostly in cloud cover). Only 1/3 is caused by rising atmospheric CO2 levels (figure from paper, added text; calculations see my blog)

See also here. Read also this paper that shows that reduction in aerosols are mostly responsible for recent warming. Both paper  minimize (at different magnitudes) the role of CO2 increase.

Misperception and Amplification of Climate Risk Prof. Judith Curry has a very interesting contribution on her blog Climate etc.. A catching paragraph: : "The problem here is not the climate change that has already happened, but rather “pre-traumatic stress syndrome”... Climate change pre-traumatic stress response is triggered by the continuing barrage in the media of extreme weather events that are worsened by “climate change,” the apocalyptic projections of future warming from unrealistic emissions scenario, and dystopian warnings of impacts from irresponsible politicians and leading journalists."
Is it the end of combustion and combustion engine research? Should it be?

Very  interesting and readable paper by Prof. Gautam  Kalghatgi (ex. Uni Oxford). He clearly shows how naive the concept of a quickly attainable net zero energy structure is. Forget the political or eco-blablabla and look at the numbers!

"Energy policy certainly needs to be informed by much more realism, honesty, and appreciation of broader global economic development, economic and  environmental needs"

Full Cost of Electricity (FCOE) and Energy Returns (eROI) New paper by Schernikau et al, suggesting to replace the LCOE metric (Levelized Cost Of Electricy) by a new FCOE (Full Cost of Electricity), the latter including all the stuff as storage or backup solutions needed by solar and wind electricity. They write that "Energy policy and investors should not favor wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, hydro, nuclear, gas, or coal but should support all energy systems in a manner which avoids energy shortage and energy poverty". How true!
The Rational Climate e-Book

Dr. Patrice Poyet, a French graduate from the Ecole des Mines and a PhD from University de Nice, has published an outstanding e-book of 640 pages which can be downloaded free of charge.
It is written for readers with a scientific background, and has received many compliments from distinguished scientists and professors.
He cites the professors Happer and Lindzen
reliable scientific theories come from validating theoretical predictions with observations, not consensus, peer review, government opinion or manipulated data
and this is the scientific spirit through this book from start to end.

Sun-Climate-Effect... (the search for a solar signal)

Javier Vinõs & Andy May have a many-part sequence of papers on the "Sun-Climate-Effect... (the search for a solar signal)" at the Climate Etc. blog.
It is a demanding but very interesting reading, close to a book on climate physics. Recommended reading for all who want to dive deeper into the underlying physical phenomena.

The papers start on July 31, and the last part V has been published in August 28th.
Part I begins with a sentence from Landsberg:
“Probably no subfield of meteorology has had as much effort devoted to it as the effects of solar variability on weather and climate. And none has had as little to show for the research labor.” Helmut E. Landsberg (1982)

Apocalyptic versus post-apocalyptic climate politics

by Prof. Judith Curry

One of the best comments I read during the last years... read it carefully!

"The build out of wind, solar and natural gas can fuel the transition, but this combination probably will not survive competition from new and better technologies that become available in the coming decades."

Global Optimal Climate Policies

Presentation given by Björn Lomborg for the "Stuttgarter Energiewende Tage" (in English).

"Smart policy requires less hype... Global Warming is often badly exaggerated...why do we get it so wrong on global warming: because we ignore adaptation!"

Stuttgarter Erklärung

Read here (in German) an open letter of 20 German university professors asking to continue using the remaining nuclear facilities:

"Mit einseitiger Ausrichtung auf Sonne, Wind und Erdgas wurde Deutschland in Energienot manövriert... plädieren wir für den Weiterbetrieb der deutschen Kernkraftwerke als dritte Klimaschutzsäule neben Sonne und Wind...Wir fordern die sofortige Aufhebung der Atomausstiegs-Paragraphen"

Listen also this podcast (in German) with 2 nuclear experts.

On Sea-Level change in Costal Areas

Very interesting paper by V. Courtillot, JL Le Mouël et F. Lopez analyzing the multiple cycles buried in the changes of the sea level.

These cycles are mostly found also in the orbits and astronomic influenc of the Jovian Planets. The authors also show the huge difference found when data from tidal stations or satellites are used (the former being much lower).

The "natural" cycles can explain practically the history of sea-level change, without resorting to an anthropogenic cause.

Signals from the Planets, via the Sun to the Earth

This is an older (2013), but very interesting paper from J-E.Solheim, emeritus professor from the University of Tromsö (Norway), published in the journal "Pattern Recognition in Physics"
 
He writes: "The recent global warming may be interpreted as a rising branch of a millennium cycle, identified in ice cores and sediments and also recorded in history. This cycle peaks in the second half of this century, and then a 500 yr cooling trend will start. An expected solar grand minimum due to a 200 yr cycle will introduce additional cooling in the first part of this century."

One more of the numerous scientific papers ignored by the consensus and politicized climatology, and by our media and politicians.

(2nd link, if first not ok here.)

The firing of Stuart Kirk

Stuart Kirk, Global Head of Responsible Investments at HSBC has been fired for making a presentation at the Moral Money Europe conference of the FT, where he told the public that climate change was not a big risk for the banks, and that they should preferentially invest in adaptation technology than in mitigation politics. So far for what is called "free speech".

Watch this excellent 15 minute presentation!

Other comments: https://nypost.com/2022/05/24/hsbc-banker-stuart-kirk-suspended-for-climate-change-remarks/

METALS for Clean Energy

Excellent report of KU Leuwen and Eurometaux on what will be needed in 2050 to reach Net Zero.

The necessary percentage increases are mind boggling!

Lessons from Paleoclimatology

Watch this presentation by Tom Gallagher : a sober and easy to follow voyage into the past 66 millions of Earth's climate.
Some conclusions: "...in the Holocene there is nothing unusual about our current rate of warming...embrace the warmer, humid, CO2 fertilized times now..Prepare for more glaciation ahead!"

Read here a discussion in easy words from SEPP (original here)

History of the LNT (Linear No Treshhold) theory

The History of the LNT (Linear No Treshhold) theory of radioactive risk: watch this series of videos of the HPS debunking this almost 70 years old theory, which gathered momentum by fear, but also dishonesty and unscientific behavior. Dr. Calabrese is critical of LNT and says that hormesis is real for low dosis of radiation.
A report on the same subject (Reassessing Radiation Safety) is here.

Look also at www.radiationanswers.org for Q&A.

The State of the Climate in 2021 Prof. Ole HUMLUM latest analysis of the state of climate in 2021 is published. He looks not at what climate models predict, but what the observations tell us. He writes "...“A year ago, I warned that there was great risk in using computer modelling and immature science to make extraordinary claims. The empirical observations I have reviewed show very gentle warming and no evidence of a climate crisis.”
This 54 page report should be mandatory reading for everyone looking for a genuine and not biased discussion on what we know of the state of the global climate, of the changes of global temperatures, sea-level, ice-cover, hurricanes and other climate related phenomena.
A Plan B for adressing climate change and the energy transition Prof. Judith Curry (former Georgia Tech) has a very interesting article published in the March 2022 edition of "International Affairs Forum" Most contributors write in the usual alarmist or Zeitgeist manner, but Prof. Curry has "A Plan B for adressing climate change and the energy transition" (link to a version with  highlights by me; original version in her blog here): "...The dangers of manmade climate change have been confounded with natural weather and climate variability...The planet has been warming for more than a century.  So far, the world has done a decent job at adapting to this change.  The yields for many crops have doubled or even quadruped since 1960...To make progress on this, we need to disabuse ourselves of the hubris that we can control the Earth’s climate and prevent extreme weather events..."
Experienced Engineers must take the lead in the Energy Transition

Prof. Guus Berkhout (emeritus, Uni Delft) stresses the importance of political decisions based on measurement data and not on theoretical models. Concerning climate action he asks:

  1. Is COreally the big culprit?

  2. Does massive wood burning really contribute to less global warming?

  3. Why does the output of ‘settled’ climate models not match real observations?

  4. Why do universities still go ahead with supporting green energy policies, while these policies will lead to severe poverty? Why did universities not make a plea for nuclear technology? Why was such a debate forbidden at COP26*?

Electrical storage requirements for Germany

Ruhnau and Qvist have published an interesting paper on the electrical storage requirements for Germany, assuming 100% renewable electricity production (no gas, no nuclear, state 2030). They find in their 35-years analysis that one should account for 12 weeks of energy scarcity in a year, and propose mostly hydrogen as a storage medium, with batteries playing a very small role; they ignore all the technical problems related to hydrogen storage, and probably under-estimate its cost. Including storage related losses, they find that during the 35 years there is one period where almost 3 month of storage would have been needed!
What makes one think again, is that they suggest vastly overbuilding wind and solar, and curtailing the excess power when needed. There is no reflection on the extra material consumption  for this excess capacity (which for instance needs 10 times more offshore wind than today!)

Read a critique of the R&Q paper here, and another discusssion here.

Blaming humans... largely a matter of faith!

Comment by Dr. Roy Spencer (UAH)... uncertainty about balance of outgoing/incoming radiation about 5-10 W/m2, to compare to presumed radiation forcing of human CO2 emissions of 1 W/m2. "...most recent warming could be mostly natural.. and we would never know it"

What every journalist and politician should know

R.C. Dickson has written a very interesting 3 part essay "What every journalist and politician should know":

Part 1: The Scientific Process
Part 2: Numbers in Science
Part 3: Pathological Science

Read this, it is time well spent!

The 97% consensus A very clear comment by Ian Aitken on the "97% consensus" saga that climate change is "predominantly" caused by human activity :  "Whilst there is almost total scientific consensus that climate change is ‘real’ and happening and that there has been some human-caused influence, there is no such scientific consensus over the extent of the human-caused influence and whether or not it could reasonably be described as ‘dangerous’, let alone a ‘crisis’."
Is the World ready for Good News on Climate? asks Roger Pielke Jr. (Uni. Boulder, Co.) in his discussion on his latest research, showing how many IPCC scenarios are possible and how many of its climate models get it wrong:
"...we have identified 71 of your 1,311 scenarios that reman plausible based only on what actually happened 2005 to 2020 and that number is cut in half, to 35, when we also consider the 2020 IEA projections to 2050." Link to paper here.
Earth's Albedo 1998-2017 as Measured from Earthshine. There is a new paper by Goode et al. published in Geophysical Research Letters on the Earthshine project, that since the late 1990's measures the Earth's albedo by the light reflected from the dark lunar portion.
The declining albedo is responsible for a radiative forcing of about 0.5 W/m2 during these 2 decades, similar to the 0.6 W/m2 attributed to increasing anthropogenic GHG emissions!
Reinventing Nuclear Energy from First Principles TRANSMUTEX is a new Swiss startup company that wants to solve the problem with existing nuclear waste with its TMX-Start reactor, and takes up an decade old idea of Prof. Carlo Rubbio: using a proton accelerator to produce an intense neutron beam that will convert Thorium and used nuclear waste into fissible U233, with only an absolute minimum of radioactive waste left.
Seeing how nuclear energy has many new starts is gratifying, and puts the silliness of countries allergic to nuclear power into perspective!
Climate Change - a different Perspective Here is a transcript (PDF, highlighting by me) of two discussions between Prof. Judith Curry and Christopher Balkaran of "The Strong and Free Popdcast" titled "Climate Change - a different Perspective". Curry's answer are absolutely no frills, sincere and intelligent.. The transcript is easy to read, and you will not regret the time spent!
Lecture by Prof. William Happer Watch this lecture by Princeton professor William HAPPER given in Amsterdam at Clintel the 15th Nov. 2021. Especially interesting is his point on the levels and importance of CO2 and CH4 atmospheric concentrations.
Read this essay by ecologist Michael Shellenberger : "...No global problem has ever been more exaggerated than climate change... the people who claim to be most alarmed about climate change are the ones blocking its only viable solutions, natural gas and nuclear.. .as a religion, climate change has a fraudulent aspect"
China Warming

Read this new article by Prof. Richard LINDZEN

"Despite the fact that increases of CO2 thus far have been accompanied by the greatest increase in human welfare in history, and despite the fact that there have been large increases in the Earth’s vegetated area largely due to increases in CO2’s role in photosynthesis, governments seem to have concluded that another 0.5 C will spell doom...climate hysteria in the West leads to policies that clearly benefit China...the need for an open debate over both our assessment of climate science and the proposed policies is, indeed, desperately needed"

Video by Jean Pütz

Watch this short video on Facebook by Jean Pütz, our most famous Luxembourg former TV presenter of technical things. He talks about the previsible GAU ("Grösster Anzunehmender Unfall") that the Energiewende risks to bring to the German Electricity Net. (8 minutes, German spoken). Read also this article and this one! (both in German)

Are we in a Climate Emergency?

Watch this podcast no. 373 by Modern Wisdom. It is an interview with one of Greenpeace founders Dr. Patrick Moore and covers a large section of ecologism and climate change, CO2 etc. problems.
This is a very long 1h36min video, which needs some standing power to watch...but this really is time well spent!

 Antarctic ozone hole

This is the time of the.  The Montréal Protocol should make it shrinking... does it really? Is the protocol a success?

Read my article in the blog!

There is no climate crisis. When will the hysteria end? Dr. Ferdinand Meeus is a reviewer of IPCC's AR6 and a member of CLINTEL. Read his comment . (the article has been translated by Google from Dutch to English; original is here).
Reading this clear comment might help broaden the horizon of our young climate protesters!
Fusion Research

Researchers at the MIT fusion center MIT-CFS have developed a 20 Tesla superconducting magnet, which allows to build a classical tokamak fusion reactor 40 times smaller. Their SPARC prototype is expected to start at 2025 and to be the first fusion device delivering more energy than it needs to operate (Q>1).
Remember that Luxembourg's energy minister wants to stop all research financing related to nuclear fusion!

Look also at this explaining video!

How much has the Sun influenced Northern Hemisphere temperature trends? An ongoing debate.

New and very important paper by Connolly et al. in Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics (April 2021). Read short discussion in the blog.

AR6: GHG attribution faulty since over 20 years!

Prof. Ross McKitrick shows that the IPCC relies since more than 20 years on a statistically flawed paper when attributing global warming to GHG's (AR6 says "unequivocal")

Short easy to read version here (contains link to full paper) and version with highlighted text (by me) here.

The Problem with Climate Change Politics

Read this excellent article by Alasdair McLeod :

"But it is not widely appreciated that the process of hyping up climate change into a full-blown crisis has become the consequence of a crowd psychology rather than a pursuit of the facts."

Hockeystick redux!

Here it is again! The AR6 SPM reintroduces the ignominuous hockeystick, and cancels the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods.

Read this damning critique of Steve McIntyre on this woke SPM ! "...one surely presumes that IPCC climate scientists, who are employed full time on these topics, to be competent enough to notice things that I was able to observe in my first day or so of looking at PAGES2019. But their obtuseness never ceases to amaze. "

Read also here, here and here.

How Climate Scenarios lost Touch with Reality Excellent article by Prof. Pielke Jr. & Ritchie in ISSUES in Science and Technology (no.4, 2021): "...Implausible climate scenarios are also introducing errors and bias in actual policy and business decisions."
Off Target Excellent paper by Murphy & McKitrick showing that the cost of "climate" policies to limit global warming to 1.5°C costs more than doing nothing!
Very easy and extremely clear written paper, should be a must for every economist! No frightening maths, just crystal-clear logic.
The Peril of Politicizing Science

A marvellous, really must-read essay by Anna Krylov (Uni. Southern California, LA) published in the Journal of Physical Chemistry (10 June 2021)

Teachers: let your students read this!

Decline of wind and solar electricity with increasing penetration.

New important paper by Millstein et al. on the decline of wind and solar electricity value with increasing penetration. This is a 28 pages paper, well worth to read twice! Above 20% of wind/solar penetration, the produced electriccity value falls by 30 to 40%. See BLOG !

Climate change uncertainty in 5 minutes !


An excellent exposé by Prof. Judith Curry

Safety of Grid Scale Lithium-ion Battery Energy Storage Systems

Planning for big battery storage systems for your intermittent solar and wind electricity? Beware of the huge fire risk, and read this June 2021 paper by 3 British university physics professors: "Safety of Grid Scale Lithium-ion Battery Energy Storage Systems". They write "the explosion potential and lack of engineering standards to prevent thermal runaway may put control of battery fires beyond control, experience and capabilities of local Fire and Rescue Services"

Another older comment here.

Revised estimate of ocean-atmosphere CO2 flux

The oceans absorb much more CO2 than assumed! Read this paper (Sep.2020, Nature Communications) by Watson et al. with the conclusion that "...most ocean models underestimate uptake... Some revision of the global carbon budget is required".

Supplementary information here.

TerraPower TerraPower ( a Bill Gates company) and GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy will build a fast neutron reactor called "NATRIUM" (as it is cooled by liquid sodium): this is a rather small 345 MWe breeder, with a huge molten salt thermal storage which can boost power up to 500 MWe. The reactor will be built in Wyoming, probably on the site of a former coal power station.
It's interesting that a Republican state is absolutely in-line with Democrat President Biden, concerning USA's energy future. What a difference with "old Europe"!
The State of Climate 2020

Read this latest report by Prof. Ole Humlum; this is a report based on observations, not models! Just one sentence of this outstanding report:

"Since 1979, lower troposphere temperatures have increased over both land and oceans, but most clearly over land areas. The most straightforward explanation for this phenomenon is that much of the warming is caused by solar insolation, but there may well be several supplementary reasons, such as changes in cloud cover and land use."

The Invisible Killer As a longtime asthma sufferer I appreciate clean air; our PM Airvisual measurements contribute a bit to give us real data. But environmental questions very often have an agenda, greatly helped by poor or fraudulent statistics. Read this paper on how bad the situation is in relating heart attacks to PM 2.5 concentration. Full paper here, easier to read discussion by the authors here.
Climate Policy - When Emotion Meets Reality

Watch this very sober, clear and non emotional presentation by Prof. Ross Mc Kitrick (Guelph University), 12 May 2021.
43 minutes well spent!

"...emissions mix globally... so unilateral action is useless...policies that were too small to have an effect turned out to be too costly to implement...increasing the scale of policies pushes the costs up faster than the benefits..."

Undue Climate Haste

New large 30 pages report by Marcel Crok from CLINTEL.

Conclusion: "In any case, the message of this essay was that we are in no hurry and that panic is unwarranted. Climate change always deserves our attention, but the idea that we need to turn our energy supply upside down right now seems mainly an emotional decision."

Read this extraordinary clear and lucid comment of Prof. Judith Curry:

"This redefinition of ‘climate change’ to refer only to manmade climate change has effectively eliminated natural climate change from the public discussion on climate change....Climate change has thus become a grand narrative in which human-caused climate change has become a dominant cause of societal problems...This grand narrative misleads us to think that if we solve the problem of manmade climate change, then these other problems would also be solved"

Read also this comment by Andrew Roman.

Heat storage for the house Mathias SCHMIDT and Marc LINDER have written an intersecting paper in Frontiers in Energy Research (link) how to use excess PV electricity in summer to get heat storage for the house during the winter. They use the exothermic reaction of calcium oxide --> calcium hydroxide, and find that an overall storage efficiency of nearly 96% would be possible, with a manageable volume of this low-cost material.
The 12 pages paper is relatively easy to read!
Climate Emergency... not so fast!

Excellent, very clear and sober article by two world-renowned physicists : Richard Lindzen, MIT, and William Happer, Princeton. A French translation is here.

Read also this article of Dr. Roy Spencer: An Earth Day Reminder: "Global Warming" is Only ~50% of What Models Predict.

Excerpt: "Yes, more CO2 must produce some warming. But the amount of warming makes all the difference to global energy policies. Seldom is the public ever informed of these glaring discrepancies between basic science and what politicians and pop-scientists tell us."

Saving the Planet...

Watch George Carlin's humorous presentation, and bring a few laugh's into these depressing times! (YouTube, 8 minutes)

An Assessment of the Sustainability of Nuclear Power for the EU Taxonomy Consultation 2019

Full text of the report "An Assessment of the Sustainability of Nuclear Power for the EU Taxonomy Consultation 2019"
"The state of public and political discussion around nuclear energy rarely reflects the factual state of things. Emotions like fear take hold, even though from a statistical and scientific point of view, there is less to fear from nuclear energy than from practically any other energy source..." Read also the BLOG

What we need to know about the pace of decarbonization.

Read this excellent policy brief by Prof. Vaclav Smil (Uni. of Manitoba) and reflect on this sentence, that says it all:

"Designing hypothetical roadmaps outlining complete elimination of fossil carbon from the global energy supply by 2050 is nothing but an exercise in wishful thinking that ignores fundamental physical realities."

Read the new UNSCEAR report on the health consequences of the Fukushima accident:
"increased body of evidence that the observed thyroid cancers are not attributable to radiation exposure... no health effects in emergency and recovery workers... average doses of evacuees less than 6mSv" (the average dose in Luxembourg is about 3 to 5 mSv,  without any medical usage as X-Rays, thyroid or heart screening...)

Comments here.

The risk of communicating extreme climate forecasts

Discussion of a new paper by Rode&Fischbeck (Carnegie Mellon) "...When it comes to climate change, the authors advise "thinking small." That is, focusing on making predictions that are less grandiose and shorter in term."

(the full text of the paper is pay-walled)

Die Energiewende ist gescheitert

Read this caustic article (in German) by Dr. Björn Peters (a physicist) at the Umwelt-Watchblog. "Die Energiewende ist also an ihren eigenen Zielsetzungen und ihrer eigenen Metrik gescheitert, nicht auf Basis der Verleumdungen ihrer Gegner".

About 800 scientists have written a letter to Biden, von der Leyen and al., asking them to stop using forests as biomass (wrongly considered carbon neutral in the EU). Among the signaturies is Jean-Pascal van Ipersele from Uni. Louvain, , former IPCC vice-president!
" ... governments must end subsidies and other incentives that today exist for the burning of wood whether from their forests or others. TheEuropean Union needs to stop treating the burning of biomass as carbon neutral".
 
Read this optimistic report from Indur Goklany (Assistant Director, US. Dept. of Interior) which shows the abyss separating reality and perception (using only public available data).
In these times of gloom and doom, finally a report which should enhance our confidence for a better future!
 
What to do

for going to net zero in 2050, if actual fuel consumption would not increase and would be replaced by "renewables" in 2050

 

Build two 2.1 GW nuclear stations every week up to 2050

or

Build 1000 Wind Turbines every day and one 2.1 GW nuclear station every week up to 2050

or

Build 500km2 area of solar panels and one 2.1 GW nuclear station every week up to 2050

(free adapted from here, very conservative numbers)

Adaptation much more profitable than mitigation

Clintel has a new Press Release titled  "adaptation much more profitable than mitigation".

They write that "one dollar invested in adaptation yields about 4 dollar in benefits" whereas (according to B. Lomborg) "one dollar spent for mitigation leads only to 11 cent benefit".

Especially telling is the graph (click for full scale) which shows that the deaths from climate related catastrophic events decreased spectacularly since 1920, whereas the non-climate catastrophe death toll remains more or less constant.

Nicola Scafetta (Uni. Naples) published a very interesting open-access paper on the contamination of land-temperature measurements by the UHI (Urban Heat Island) effect (Springer, Climate Dynamics). Click here for the full paper. He concludes that the ubiquitous CMIP5 climate models may overestimate global warming since 1940 by up to 40% !
Distorting the view of our climate future: The misuse and abuse of climate pathways and scenarios

Very interesting new  paper by Roger Pielke Jr. (University of Colorado)and  Justin Ritchie (University of British Columbia):
"... much of the climate research community is presently off-track from scientific coherence and policy-relevance. Attempts to address scenario misuse within the community have thus far not worked. The result has been the widespread production of myopic or misleading perspectives on future climate change and climate policy"

"..the hegemony of the IPCC has become a source of myopia, rather than enlightment"

Attention: the paper is paywalled!

One of the best long-time temperature series is the Central England Temperature series, called CET. It goes back to about 1650 (read more on it's history here).
This series does not show any dangerous or disturbing warming at all!
The little warming (1.2°C) begins with the end of the Little Ice Age (LIA) after the 1850's. You may remember that the LIA was a general colder period!

Read more here! 

Dependence of Earth’s Thermal Radiation on Five Most Abundant Greenhouse Gases,

W.A.Wijngaarden (York Uni., Canada) and W. Happer (Princeton Uni.,USA) have published a remarkable paper on the influence of doubling the actual concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHG). The paper is very math-heavy and not easy to read, but 2 conclusions are important:

1. at current concentrations the forcings from all GHG are saturated, so...
2. doubling the concentrations of 5 GHG increases the forcings only by a few percent in the cloud-free atmosphere

Link is to the preprint.

James Randi James Randi, the master of the skeptical scientists and magician extraordinaire passed away 92 years old. Read the New York times obituary of this outstanding debunker of scientific and paranormal fraud, and read here what he had to say on climate change.

Persistent warm Mediterranean surface waters during the Roman period

 

A new paper by Margaritelli et al. published in Nature - Science Reports (link) shows that the Mediterranean surface water temperature were during the Roman Warm Period about 2°C warmer than today! CO2 levels are assumed < 280 ppm at these times, which should make you think again. The authors conclude that during the Roman Optimum " ... developed the greatest ancient civilization of all time, the Roman one. We hypothesise the relevance that these climate conditions may had in the expansion of the Roman Empire and its collapse with the general development of colder conditions." (the original figure left has been edited by me by adding text and arrows).

Tell this the climate alarmists of today!

Meridional Distributions of Historical Zonal Averages and Their Use to Quantify the Global and Spheroidal Mean Near-Surface Temperature of the Terrestrial Atmosphere

A very important new paper by Kramm et al. shows how historic papers from 1850 to 1910 evaluate zonal yearly average temperatures, and how they differ to the "consensus" values.
The authors conclude that the historic data do not show global warming during the last 100 years, as the older temperatures are higher than those given by the consensus climatology.
Read the blog for part1 and part2.

Temperature and mineral dust variability recorded in two low-accumulation Alpine ice cores over the last millenium A very interesting paper by Bohleber et al. published in "Climate of the Past". From 2 ice core drillings done at the Colle Gnifetti (Monte Rosa) they deduce from the observed dust layers a temperature profile going back to 800 AD. And surely, the MWP (Medieval Warm Period) and the LIA (Little Ice Age) are there, all periods which have been belittled in the TAR of the IPCC (because old warming periods not caused by CO2 do not fit into the narrative!). More on the blog!
Nicht predigen sollt ihr, sondern forschen! Outstanding article by Thea Dorn in the German ZEIT online
"...Wissenschaftler haben durch Zweifel zu glänzen, nicht durch Rechthaberei...Eine der tragischsten Taten, die eine Demokratie begehen kann, ist Selbstunterwerfung unter die rigiden Handlungsvorschriften einer klerikal auftretenden Naturwissenschaft aus Angst vor dem Unterworfensein unter die Macht der Natur..."
Impact des EnR Watch this very interesting video of the presentation of Marc Jancovici on the impact of renewable energy in France (French spoken). I do not agree with Jancovici on his appreciation of climate urgency, but as an engineer he has very clear and solid arguments concerning intermittent renewables and nuclear energy.
Especially interesting is his graph showing that  the price of "renewable" electricity risks becoming negative above a certain percentage of produced wind-power w.r. to the installed capacity (a more and more frequent situation in Germany, for instance).
Open letter to the KNAW

 ... (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences) by Prof. Guus Berkhout, founder of CLINTEL (Climate Intelligence Foundation), asking for not excluding scientists with alternative views.
" What concerns me about this embarrassing state of affairs is that science is being misused to provide spurious justification for wishful climate policy and that the scientific establishment is looking the other way...The IPCC was supposed to be a scientific initiative – I was a strong supporter of it myself. However, it has emerged as a political organisation that abuses science."

Read also this open letter by CLINTEL "Fight Virus not Carbon"

On Behalf of Environmentalists I apologize for the Climate Scare

writes well known environmentalist and climate activist Michael Shellenberger. In his list of what to do note this:

- 100% renewables would require increasing the land use for energy from today's 0.5% to 50%
- the most important thing for reducing air pollution and carbon emissions is moving from wood to coal to petroleum to natural gas to uranium

An oversimplified picture of the climate behavior based on a single process can lead to distorted conclusions

Prof. Richard Lindzen has published a very interesting paper "An oversimplified picture of the climate behavior based on a single process can lead to distorted conclusions". Please read the blog!

E-cars may cause 73% higher GHG emissions than modern Diesel cars.

New study by Ulrich Schmidt (Kiel Policy Brief 143, Jun. 2020, Institut für Weltwirtschaft) on E-cars: "...führen zu 73% höheren Treibhausgasmissionen als moderne Diesel-PKW"

Frost Saints days are cooling The Frost Saints or Ice Saints days ("Eisheiligentage") are cooling since 1998 at meteoLCD, and still longer in Germany. Did you hear about that in the media?
Injected CO2 mineralizes in just 2 years

Research done at a geothermal power station in Iceland has shown that gazeous CO2 dissolved in water which is injected into underground basalt rocks mineralizes in just 2 years, and such will be safely stored away indefinitely without any risk of leakage as they may exist in traditional CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) systems..

Ongoing increase in cosmic radiation

The ongoing solar minimum continues to increase the cosmic radiation at the altitudes of transatlantic flights (20000 - 40000 feet). The hourly dose may reach about 3800nSv, to be compared to the 80nSv common at ground level (look at our radioactive measurements!)

Similar sinus pattern of the velocity of warming and the change in ocean heat content

Look at these graphs which show a similar 60-year sinus-pattern for the velocity of warming and the change in ocean heat content. Note also that the velocity of warming seems to be uncorrelated to the yearly CO2 emissions (here gigaton C/year, right axis, red plot).

12 very logical questions

The German philosoph Gunnar KAISER asks 12 very logical, but easy to understand questions regarding climate and its variation; he asks these questions to the famous TV physics professor Harald Lesch. Watch the YouTube video (German spoken, about 17 minutes) and just try to follow the logic! h.t. Die Kalte Sonne

HALEU

Read this interesting article on HALEU (high-assay, low enriched) nuclear fuel from disused ERBII reactor and its planned use in the Oklo Aurora micro-reactor at INL (Idaho National Laboratory). HALEU is seen by many as the fuel for small reactors and as a tool to recup energy from spent nuclear fuel.

The Oklo Aurora reactor is a reactor running on metallic fuel, without any liquid circuits.

The baseline problem of temperature series Clive BEST has a good article on the baseline problem of temperature series, and why the choice of the baseline period is influencing the concordance (or discordance) between models and observational data: "It is the model projections which change dramatically when using different baselines. One should always bear this in mind whenever  an ensemble of models seem to perfectly  match the data well."
Why Greta Thunberg should go back to school Read this essay by Alessandro van den Berg, an economics teacher from the Netherlands and also a person with autism. (7 Jan 2020).
There is no Climate Emergency

800 scientists wrote a letter to the UN Secretary-General with the message that there is no climate emergency.They write that "warming is far slower as predicted", that "climate policy must respect scientific and economic realities" and that "our advice to political leaders is that science should strive for a significantly better understanding of the climate system, while politics should focus on minimizing potential climate damage by prioritizing adaption strategies based on proven and affordable technologies"

Read the text here with the (provisional) list of the signatures. Read also here, watch this video (3.2 min.) by Prof. Denis Rancourt and this video (17 min) of Prof. Guus Berkhout from COP25.

Decadal Changes of the Reflected Solar Radiation and the Earth Energy Imbalance

 

Steven DeWitte et al. (RMI and Uni. Brussels)have published a very interesting paper on the changes of the imbalance of the Earth's radiative budget during the period 2010-2018. Despite an increasing concentration of atmospheric greenhouse gases this imbalance has not increased (as one would expect) but ***decreased***, in correlation with the changes in the heat content of the oceans. They also find that the influence of changes in global sea ice to the amount of reflected solar radiation is small.
We’ve just had the best decade in human history. Seriously. For the coming days of joy and appeasement, read this optimistic comment of Dr. Matt Ridley in The Spectator. "A modern irony is that many green policies advocated now would actually reverse the trend towards using less stuff....Environmental opposition to nuclear power has hindered the generating system that needs the least land, least fuel and least steel or concrete per megawatt...Technology has put us on a path to a cleaner, greener planet. We don’t need to veer off in a new direction. If we do, we risk retarding progress.".
Click here for a cartoon by Josh.
The Toxic Rhetoric of Climate Change Excellent text by Prof. Judith Curry from Climate etc. (14-Dec_2019):
 
" ...Over the past century, there has been a 99% decline in the death toll from natural disasters, during the same period that the global population quadrupled....
... We still don’t have a realistic assessment of how a warmer climate will impact us and whether it is ‘dangerous.’ ...
... We have not only oversimplified the problem of climate change, but we have also oversimplified its ‘solution’".
Has global warming already arrived? An interesting paper by Varotsos and Efstathiou (Climate Research Group, Uni Athens) published in the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics:  The authors analyze satellite data and find that the observed temperature field in the global troposphere and lower stratosphere is different from what global warming theory says. They conclude that
"...it is not possible to reliably support the view of the presence of global warming in the sense of an enhanced greenhouse effect due to human activities".
Capacity factors for wind and solar in the UK (2002-2018) Here are the capacity factors for UK wind and solar production from 2002 to 2018, and notice how solar PV remains practically constant at an appalling low figure of 10% (to be compared to nuclear or gas at ~90%). More here.

Click here to see the (similar) situation in Luxembourg (2012 to 2018) and here to see the Nov.2019 solar production in Germany.
Interview with Prof. Hans von Storch Prof. Hans von Storch (Institut f. Meteorlogie, Uni Hamburg) gave a resounding interview (in German) to FOCUS online: On the climate protests of Fridays for Future: "Wenn es sich in der Forderung nach symbolischen Akten erschöpft, bringt es nichts...Panik ist ein miserabler Ratgeber..."
On (some) climate researchers: "Sie sollten nur nicht anfangen zu sagen, dass ihr Problem viel wichtiger ist als andere Probleme..." Read also here.
Climate limits and timelines Read the comments by Prof. Judith Curry.
Podcast Dr. Stefan Kröpelin (Uni Köln), one of the best desert specialists, has been interviewed by 2 journalists of the Rheinische Post (in German). Listen to this exciting podcast (46 minutes) where he resists to accept continuous suggestions to scary climate change:
Listen at minutes 10, 19, 21, 25, 29
(ht. notrickszone)
International Energy Outlook 2019 ... published by the EIA (US Energy Information Administration).
Consumption of petroleum and other liquid fuels is expected to rise in 2050 from actual 50 to about 80 million barrels/day in non-OECD countries, and remain more or less stable at 45 in OECD countries; so total world consumption would be about 130 million barrels/day in 2050 (about 100 in 2018).
Observational data from tide-gauges

Even if some alarmist (German) climatists speak of accelerating global sea-level rise, this is not so. Read this comment and this report from Prof. Judith Curry. Click here for observational data from tide-gauges (Prof. Ole Humlum's climate4you web site) for many locations. The level measured by tide-gauges (relative sea-level) is what counts for eventual adaptation measures!German (Wismar) and Dutch (Den Helder) tide gauges show an unspectacular linear trend of about 1.41 mm/y since 1860 (i.e. the end of the Little Ice Age cooling).

Interruption of two decades of Jakobshavn Isbrae acceleration and thinning as regional ocean cools In these times where media news of Arctic and NH glacier meltdown might drive you into depression, recover to sanity by reading this paper by Khazendar et al, published by Nature GeoScience (paywalled, full version easy to find). This glacier is the biggest contributor to Greenland ice loss. Since 2016 its retreat and thinning has stopped: it is now thickening and advancing!
The cause is the well-documented North Atlantic cooling, itself probably influenced by the AMO (Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation).
Propagation of Error and the Reliability of Temperature Projections

This paper by Dr. Patrick Frank (SLAC, Princeton University) did much furore and lead to many lively discussions, also among climate realists. Applying standard text-book error/uncertainty calculations, he shows that the temperature projections by the climate models can not be trusted, as the small predicted increase is buried in a huge uncertainty (because these models ignore/do not properly account for cloud forcing uncertainty). Read also the comments here and here.

Why renewables can't save the world (and why nuclear can!). Watch this TEDx (Danubia) presentation by environmentalist Michael Shellenberger.

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