This month’s open thread on climate topics. Despite everything going on, please avoid generic political arguments – there are many other places on line for that. Impacts on climate science or actions from the layoffs in the US federal government are, however, very much on topic.
Reader Interactions
134 Responses to "Unforced Variations: Mar 2025"
Comment Policy:Please note that if your comment repeats a point you have already made, or is abusive, or is the nth comment you have posted in a very short amount of time, please reflect on the whether you are using your time online to maximum efficiency. Thanks.
FYI, Trump appears to plan a lot more layoffs around March 13 — and not just probationary employees. Plan seems to be for a multiple RIFs.
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25545361/opm-omb-memo-guidance-on-agency-rif-and-reorganization-plans-requested-by-implementing-the-presidents-department-of-government-efficiency-workforce-optimization-initiative-2-26-2025.pdf
However, down in section VI (Exclusions) there are several groups that are NOT to be laid off. One of which is
“Commissioned Officer Corps of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration”
I wish I could summon a comment worthy of this moment in the history of the country I have my whole life loved and been grateful to be a citizen of.
To now watch the forces of callous shallow-minded indifference be unleashed by my Party in combination with anti-science dogma, to see these forces upend so damn many lives of dedicated public servants and their families in pursuit of satisfying the wishes of a profoundly ignorant felon breaks my heart.
The cowardice of silence by those in the House and Senate who know what is being done does not serve the best interests of the country’s citizens is equally hard to bear. I hope those of us who care will encourage everyone we know to call, write, speak out, and to both, ask the needed questions AND demand real answers from those in both Parties about what this means for public safety, economical impacts, and freedom of scientific thought both now and in the future.
It was NWS meteorologists who helped me as a young boy who was fascinated by weather and how forecasts were made. To take my first baby steps towards a better understanding of what I was reading and observing by learning how scientific “worked” for lack of a better word.. And that, I quickly discovered, in turn led to a better understanding of the world around me.
I want to say to all the regulars here, and as always, to our hosts that I have missed not being able to stop by here the last three months. Hopefully life will allow me more time again in the future.
Everyone can sympathize with people who lose their job through a layoff. Nobody likes it. Unfortunately it is often necessary. In the private sector, people get axed every day by the thousands for various reasons: for cause, poor performance, not enough work to keep them billable, etc.
If you work on construction projects in the trades (carpenter, mason, pipefitter, HVAC installer, steel worker, welder, electrician, plumber, construction manager, foreman, equipment operator, buyer, etc) or on the design side (engineer, project manager, CAD designer, secretary, architect, estimator, etc) when the job you are working on is finished, if there isn’t another job for you to work on so you are billable you will be let go. On a big job that is finishing up, hundreds or even thousands, can be let go in a short period of time with little or no notice. Some of those people do very specialized work – so they may have to relocate to find another job. It isn’t fun for most of them. Everyone understands that’s the way it is – companies can’t pay you forever if you aren’t billable – only the government can do that. These types of layoffs are not confined to construction projects – ALL BUSINESSES have cycles of good times and bad times – they ALL expand and contract the workforce as needed at the time.
The Federal Government has unreasonable rules that make it hard for employees to be let go. Because of that, it has grown way too big. It is very likely that perhaps 50% of federal government employees could be let go and Government could still do everything being done today. Many jobs in government (and in some private companies) should not even exist. Many government agencies should not exist.
Questions:
1 – Should a government that is $37,000,000,000,000 in debt keep people on the payroll if they can be eliminated and the agency can still do the mission they are tasked to do?
2 – If the mission an agency is tasked to do is not essential to the functioning of the USA, should that agency continue to be funded given the current debt?
3 – If, after decades of experience, it is proven that an agency (Dept of Education for example) is producing little or nothing of value or is actually causing harm, should that agency be eliminated?
4 – If private sector employees can be let go for any reason with little or no notice, why should government employees who are paid from the taxes of private sector employees be treated differently?
“If, after decades of experience, it is proven that an agency (Dept of Education for example) is producing little or nothing of value or is actually causing harm, should that agency be eliminated?”
The DOE provides all funding for Special Ed Education. No private schools do. Fact (if you were not so lazy, you could look it up yourself and not make posts based simply on opinion). But your messiah makes fun of those with disabilities so it is not surprise it does not matter to you as you probably do too. There’s that lack of critical thinking ability once again. Every time.
“If, after decades of experience, it is proven that an agency (Dept of Education for example) is producing little or nothing of value or is actually causing harm, should that agency be eliminated?”
Do you think the Defense Department has been particularly effective in pursuing wars of choice in Afghanistan and Iraq, in combating terrorists around the world, or monitoring military actions of China and Russia? Would your solution be to abolish the Defense Department?
Here’s some real information about waste, fraud and abuse, being perpetrated by magaMusk: President Trump has sworn to root out corruption within the government, yet one of his first acts as president was to fire over a dozen independent watchdogs who did exactly that. We spoke to seven of them about the abuses they uncovered, what they really think about DOGE and what all this means for the future of American democracy.
Gift link -> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/06/opinion/trump-doge-fires-inspectors-general.html?unlocked_article_code=1.104._S60.Vz4MmdBhn8Ay&smid=url-share [see, particularly, item 5 which details money saved for taxpayers by DOGE fired inspector generals & their colleagues. But of course this will be labeled as fake news & neither read nor fact checked because true believers in the lies don’t wish to know.]
In Re to Piotr, 28 Feb 2025 at 12:27 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/02/unforced-variations-feb-2025/comment-page-2/#comment-830747
Hallo Piotr,
Thank you very much that you went into details, I think I understand now what were you speaking about. Let me add a few explanatory comments from my side.
1) I do not think and have never assumed that Lague 2023 provides a mechanism for anthropogenic climate warming. I am happy that at least in this respect, we share a similar view.
2) The assumption that a more intensive latent heat flux from Earth surface must be accompanied by a commensurate increase in water vapour concentration in the atmosphere was not introduced in the discussion on Real Climate by me, but by Barton Paul Levenson, in his computations of the increased latent heat flux effect on global mean surface temperature from spring 2023. If you review old records of discussions from year 2023, you will find out that I doubted about this assumption from the very start.
I appreciate that Lague 2023 turned their attention to this open problem and designed first modelling experiments directed to clarifying it. I hope that further experiments using other, more sophisticated models will confirm their results and help establish a solid scientific consensus about this important relationship in Earth climate regulation.
3) Thank you for clarifying that you do not infer from available scientific evidence if (and if so how) climate sensitivity may or may not depend on water availability for evaporation from the surface. It thus appears that also in this aspect, we may in fact share the same view that the relationship between water availability for evaporation from land and climate sensitivity towards changes in atmospheric concentrations of non-condensing greenhouse gases is still an open problem.
4) I I think that even though your view that “WV change is dominated by T, and not by … water availability for evaporation from the land“ may be valid, this aspect may not be as decisive for the climate in its entirety as you appear to assume.
5) In the light of the hint provided by Lague 2023 (that Earth surface temperature may indeed depend not only on radiative power absorbed and emitted by the surface but also on water availability for evaporation), I think that what finally matters is not just “water vapour” but changes in the global mean surface temperature and/or in further important characteristics defining Earth climate, such as global annual precipitation and distribution of global mean surface precipitation between land and sea.
6) If the present climate models use fixed parameters for water availability for evaporation or assume that sensitivities of key climate characteristics towards a change in atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases do not depend on water availability for evaporation, although they in fact do, it could happen that such simplifications impair their ability to project future climates reliably.
7) I therefore believe that it may be indeed desirable to find out with a reasonable certainty if the magnitude of changes in decisive parameters characterizing global climate (such as global mean surface temperature, global annual precipitation and/or distribution of global annual precipitation between land and sea) which can be expected if atmospheric concentration of CO2 rises, indeed does not depend on water availability for evaporation from the land.
8) Oppositely, should the respective climate sensitivities in fact change when continents are drying or, oppositely, when they obtain more precipitation than they evaporate, learning more about the respective relationships and implementing the gained knowledge into climate models could help improving the quality and reliability of climate model projections significantly.
Greetings
Tomáš
P.S.
Sorry for my late reaction – when I tried to put my reply directly under your post, the February discussion was already closed.
@Tomas
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/02/unforced-variations-feb-2025/#comment-830765
A big “NO” to all of what you are suggesting.
1. I am not a follower of other people’s ideas, I love to think for myself.
2. That Zeller / Nikolov notion, as many have rightfully pointed out, is of course nonsense. I do not see how you could connect me to it..
3. My basic understanding of the GHE is consistent with the definition by the IPCC since AR5 (when they dropped “back radiation”), or Held & Soden 2000, or most people who are reasonably educated.
But there is a lot more stuff hidden in the details, well worth discussing. We touched a couple of examples here, like..
a) It is not just about what the GHE is, but also what it is not. Alternative, but wrong views, should be sorted out, like named “back radiation driven GHE”.
b) What is driving the (largely) adiabatic lapse rates of tropospheres?
c) Should we possibly distinguish between a gross and a net GHE, because of the considerations pointed out in my OP.
Things like that..
In Re to E. Schaffer, 2 Mar 2025 at 2:35 PM,
Dear Sir,
I suppose that you replied to my questions asked in my post of 28 Feb 2025 at 7:45 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/02/unforced-variations-feb-2025/#comment-830765 ,
wherein I wrote.
“I would like to ask why you see the assertions made by Zeller and Nikolov still convincing, despite of the simple explanation of their “empirical” observation provided e.g. in
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338356357_Refutation-of-Nikolov-and-Zeller-universal-theory-of-climate .
It appears that you still doubt about the prevailing view that the well-known ability to absorb infrared radiation, shared by all molecules having vibration modes that change their dipole moment, must somehow play a certain role in regulation of mean surface temperature of rocky bodies comprising such molecules in their gaseous atmospheres.
If so, could you provide an alternative explanation to the present theory that significant changes in past Earth climate were caused and/or amplified by changes in the composition of Earth atmosphere? Should they be caused and/or amplified by the respective changes in atmospheric pressure instead, where came these initial atmospheric pressure changes from?”
My feeling that you refer to the “universal theory of climate” proposed by Zeller and Nikolov was raised by following paragraph in your post of 21 Feb 2025 at 8:06 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/02/unforced-variations-feb-2025/#comment-830480 ,
that reads:
“We have like 8 objects in our solar system all with adiabatic tropospheres (Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune & Titan). They differ strongly with regard to the concentration of GHGs. The gas giants and Titan basically have no CO2, only an abundance of methane. Methane however has its main absorption band <8.5µm, irrelevant with the very low temperatures there. "Adiabatic" seems to work independently of GHGs, and it should, as it is simply a property of gases."
My understanding, based on this paragraph, was that you assume, in accordance with Zeller and Nikolov, that greenhouse gases in planetary atmospheres in fact do not play any important role, because surface temperatures of planets can be explained by the "adiabatic compression" mechanism proposed by these authors, which is independent from chemical composition of planetary atmospheres.
If you have, in fact, a view that is different from Zeller and Nikolov, could you explain these differences in more detail, or refer to articles where your theory is explained?
Thank you in advance and best regards
Tomáš
P.S.
As a non-physicist, I do not feel qualified to comment on your points a)-c). So far, I assumed that the lapse rate is given by a "radiative-convective equilibrium" which, I supposed, has something to do with concentration of gases that are capable of longwave infrared absorption / emission.
I do not know if the concept of "back radiation" is essential therefor and/or necessary for explanation of the greenhouse effect (under which I understand higher surface temperature of a planet in comparison with its radiative equilibrium emission temperature). Personally, I see it at least useful, and do not see any discrepancy in the balances of energy fluxes as visualized in various Trenberth's diagrams.
@Tomas
Nikolov/Zeller make two basic claims (I had to look it up btw):
1. They can accurately calculate the surface temperature from the gas law, when there is an atmosphere.
There is a strict physical relation between pressure, atmospheric composition, density (close to the surface) AND temperature. Or if you take the first two as given, density and temperature are inversely related. That is why hot air balloons fly, since 1783(!). You heat the air, it expands, you get buoyancy. Inverted, given how buoyant the balloon is, or how dense the air inside, you can tell how hot the air must be. Using the gas law to calculate surface temperature thus works, but is tautology. It will NOT tell you WHY a certain density/temperature relation prevails.
2. Not quite as accurate they relate atmospheric pressure to surface temperature
This is not fundamentally wrong. Just look at gas giants. The deeper you go, the hotter it gets. Of course surface pressure, or atmospheric mass, will play a vital role. Just look at Held, Soden 2000 Figure 1 to understand how more atmosphere will allow for a larger difference between Te and Ts (Te = emissions temperature, Ts = surface temperature).
The problem rather is, NZ ignored all other factors, or denied them respectively, and tweaked some poorly based parameters to make their approach look better than it is. Evidently, if you assumed a perfectly transparent atmosphere devoid of any GH-agents, their appraoch will not work, because then Te = Ts regardless of atmospheric pressure.
Let me add a few practical considerations hereto. Most people would agree that N2, O2 and Argon do not add to the GHE of Earth. That is not quite true. If you would remove these “fillers” from the atmosphere with only trace gases remaining (at minimal pressure), of which CO2 would then make up the largest share, you would nullify the GHE. Similar to Mars btw. Going the other way, doubling atmospheric pressure by doubling these “fillers”, you would considerably enhance the GHE, despite CO2 concentration then being halved. Why? Because the pressure (and temperature) level for Te would stay the same, but Ts would need to be a lot higher.
Also practically the (average) emission altitude (in terms of pressure level) tends to be in a 0.5 to 0.1 bar range. This is not just about GHGs, but also clouds of different kinds (think of sulphur acid clouds on Venus) or other aerosols. All these GH-agents overlap each other chaotically (or redundantly) to a certain degree. Even if you removed a single GH agent, the emission altitude will not change too dramatically. Take the case of Venus. If you replaced all the CO2 there with an equal mass of N2, the sulphur clouds would still maintain a high optical thickness of the atmosphere and its GHE should not change a lot. Relative to a surface pressure of 92bar, the exact location of the emission level does not appear that important.
However, let me point out, my post you were referring to, was on discussing the nature of (largely) adiabatic lapse rates, not the GHE per se.
In Re to E. Schaffer, 4 Mar 2025 at 1:09 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/03/unforced-variations-mar-2025/#comment-830876
Dear Sir,
Thank you for your reply. Unfortunately, I still wonder what actually was your point in your previous posts of 9 Feb 2025 at 2:43 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/02/unforced-variations-feb-2025/#comment-830088 ,
of 11 Feb 2025 at 2:32 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/02/unforced-variations-feb-2025/#comment-830133 ,
of 17 Feb 2025 at 11:59 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/02/unforced-variations-feb-2025/#comment-830329
and of 21 Feb 2025 at 8:06 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/02/unforced-variations-feb-2025/#comment-830480 .
On one hand, you now admit that “assumed a perfectly transparent atmosphere devoid of any GH-agents, .. Te = Ts regardless of atmospheric pressure.”
On the other hand, you seem to believe that the adiabatic lapse rate is basically independent of the presence of GHGs, because you assume that the mechanism thereof is not the absorption of infrared radiation emitted from the surface in the atmosphere, but an “adiabatic compression”.
My understanding to lapse rate explanations provided in a textbook (specifically, I read Physical Climatology by prof. Dennis Hartmann) was, however, that infrared absorption in the atmosphere is essential for the existence of lapse rate. I thought that the role of atmospheric pressure consists in broadening of absorption bands of GHG molecules (or, in their total absence, in creating intermolecular interactions that may mimic the presence of GHG molecules).
As regards the role of water vapour, my understanding to the textbook teaching was that water vapour is also a greenhouse gas, absorbing the infrared radiation and contributing thus to the surface warming by re-emitting the absorbed radiation partly back to the surface.
Nevertheless, my understanding to Hartmann’s textbook was that evaporation of water from the surface and its condensation in the troposphere is a different aspect of climate physics, with an opposite (cooling) effect on the global average surface temperature.
So far, I thought that the cooling mechanism of the latent heat flux is basically independent from the mechanism of surface warming caused by infrared absorption in the atmosphere and by back radiation to the surface therefrom. So far, my understanding to the textbook teaching was that lowering the difference between the mean surface temperature and the emission temperature (or, in other words, the lower moist adiabatic lapse rate in comparison with the dry adiabatic lapse rate) can be explained simply by replacement of a part of the radiative energy flux from the surface by the latent heat flux.
If you think that my above presented understanding to the textbook atmospheric physics is in fact wrong, could you please specify in which aspects? And, could you explain in more detail how I should have read the textbook correctly?
Thank you in advance.
Greetings
Tomáš
Fourteenth Amendment, Section 3:
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Twice a day for years, meteorologists in Kotzebue, Alaska, have launched weather balloons far into the sky to measure data like wind speed, humidity and temperature, and translated the information the balloons sent back into weather forecasts and models. It’s a ritual repeated at dozens of weather stations around the United States.
On Thursday morning, the National Weather Service, which for years has struggled with worker shortages around the country, announced that it had “indefinitely suspended” the launches from Kotzebue because of a lack of staffing.
Hours later, word of mass layoffs began to spread at the Weather Service and its parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. More than 800 people were expected to lose their jobs, the latest cuts in the Trump administration’s sweeping efforts to reshape the federal work force. As they have elsewhere, the cuts appeared to have been focused on probationary employees who are easier to dismiss.
Scott Nudds: “As they have elsewhere, the cuts appeared to have been focused on probationary employees who are easier to dismiss.
So much for Trumps and Musks assurances that they do so to weed out the “Deep State”, “corruption” and “inefficiencies” – since the people they fired had been just hired – they couldn’t have been responsible for any of these even, if they real.
That Trump’s favorite group (“I love the poorly educated”) won’t pick up on that is understandable, but what the rest of the Republican voters? Some of them must be in post-modernists – for them there is no objective truth, only conflicting self-serving narratives – so it is OK when Trump lies every day to our face – as long as he keeps me and my bros in power.
But then there are (or at least have been) people who should see this – so if you a Congressman and you support Trump’s actions knowing that they are against your values, and you do so for privilege and power – then the cognitive dissonance kicks in – we don’t want to think of ourselves as bad, so we find rationalization of the evil we do to other people – so instead of the uncomfortable admission to yourself that you have sold out your values and your soul – sure these are obvious lies and injustices, but “hey, you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs”.
And once you tolerated smaller lies that didn’t require the immediate surrender of your values, then faced with new, bigger and more outrageous lies – to reject them you would also have to admit the moral complicity in all the previous lies. So it’s easier to just rationalize them and continue.
Finally – the continuous barrage and escalation of lies and injustices , not only helps to overwhelm the media and opposition (a strategy advocated by Steve Bannon during the first Trump’s term), but also to keep down the opposition:
In totalitarian countries they would tell you the most outrageous lies, not to convince you but to break you – you know that they lie, but you can’t do anything about it. So either you join them, or I disengage – either via actual or “internal” emigration – you’d concentrate on your family and friends and stay away from politics. I.e. what the doctor (Goebbels) prescribed. And once enough people disengaged – the job of rounding with the remaining few who didn’t – became that much easier.
BTW. If you meet a Trump supporter, particularly if a person of faith – ask them is there anything Trump could do, to lose their support. Other than restoring Roe vs. Wade, of course.
Marching orders for March UV: “Impacts on climate science or actions from the layoffs in the US federal government are, however, very much on topic.”
Two leaders in the Democrat party have advice for those who lose their jobs due to layoffs, etc. Their advice was good enough for those working in fossil fuel jobs – and is applicable to those who were employed by the US federal government as well.
Hillary says get a green job – fact is that there is probably quite a bit of demand for that – for example, many people are installing PV panels on roofs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksIXqxpQNt0
Biden says just about anybody can learn to code – there’s probably some demand for that as well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDRK0MyuuIM
Video’s from 5 and 8 years ago.
The world is changing very rapidly now, in part because problems that have existed for decades and which have been ignored for decades are now causing the problems they were anticipated to cause.
The advice given in those links is no longer applicable.
By its nature, government work is very specialized and makes it difficult to transfer to unrelated civilian jobs other than possibly young workers just out of college.
Bill Clinton fired 426,000 federal workers. Many of them were defense workers or military personnel who had devoted their lives to deterring a nuclear attack on America by the Soviet Union.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/lessons-for-the-future-of-government-reform/#_ftnref1
But I don’t recall any sniveling Democrats complaining about the brutality of Draft Dodger Bill — who hated the military because they possessed a virtue he never could have.
Don Williams your link shows Clinton cut layers of middle management and old out of date rules and programmes. Trump and Musk are cutting air traffic controllers, scientists, cancer researchers, and other important front line staff. And destroying entire agencies like foreign aid. So you are comparing apples and oranges. Not saying Clinton always made perfect decisions, but the new government seem to have completely lost their minds.
I see you quite “accidentally” failed to inform us that those cuts were implemented primarily through voluntary buyouts and attrition over a period of 7 years and that Clinton also produced a balanced budget.
Just another example of your penchant for spewing disinformation and propaganda.
Curious: How much would you be willing to bet that the present admin will produce multiple years of balanced budgets like Clinton managed to?
The confidence with which you opine on subjects you only dimly comprehend is truly impressive. The “government work that is so “very specialized and difficult to transfer” led to the Internet you are currently using to broadcast your ignorance. It led to the integrated circuits that power the computer you are using. And on a daily basis, engineers from private companies contact government scientists and engineers for help solving problems and making things work.
And for the record, I remember the whole “Reinventing Government” scam. First, it was not nearly as chaotic or utterly clueless as is Elmo’s current debacle. Second, all it really accomplished was turning a lot of civil servant jobs into contractor jobs–seats often occupied by the same butts that occupied them before the RIF. Third, Reinventing Gummint had little to do with Clinton–that was Al Gore’s baby all the way. Finally, the effort generated a lot of protest at the time–from both Dems and Reps.
And since you bring it up: where did you serve?
DW: But I don’t recall any sniveling Democrats complaining about the brutality of Draft Dodger Bill — who hated the military because they possessed a virtue he never could have.
BPL: And don’t forget, Woodrow Wilson was a racist! I don’t recall any sniveling Democrats complaining about the brutality of Wilson–who hated the military because they possessed a virtue he could never have.
And don’t forget, James Buchanan made sure the majority of the Supreme Court was present for the Dred Scott decision! I don’t recall any sniveling Democrats complaining about the brutality of Buchanan–who hated the military because they, and he, possessed a virtue he could never have, except when he had it.
Remember, whenever someone points out a real flaw in Trump, you can always say “But what about…” and indict some Democrat–even when, in this case, the Democrat in question hasn’t been in office for 25 years.
1) Some of Bill Clinton’s subordinates try to hide the brutality of what he did – I gave a citation to one of their deceitful stories to see who here would recognize it as false. None of you did.
2) In reality, military and defense personnel cut by Bill Clinton numbered over 1,071,000. Not my numbers – those of the Government Executive journal.
https://www.govexec.com/magazine/1996/03/the-drawdown-drags-on/203/
3) And Clinton did not cut blotated “middle management “ –he cut vast numbers of people across all ages and ranks. World War II lasted 4 years and we did the GI Bill to help the military draw down. The Cold War lasted 45 years and Clinton did NOTHING to help laid off military and civilians make the transition. I was there – I survived but I saw many people stunned and depressed by how their devotion to duty and patriotism had put them and their families in a very deep hole.
https://www.govexec.com/magazine/1993/05/the-drawdown-deepens/7447/
One of those Army enlisted men laid off was a combat veteran of the first Iraq War who received a Bronze Star. A guy named Timothy McVeigh –who blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City.
4) If we are going to discuss “dimly comprehending” maybe Ladbury can explain how all those defense personnel went to cushy consulting jobs when the defense budget was cut 23 percent in the period 1992 to 1999. Especially when many defense contractors who had been around for decades disappeared.
5) Bill Clinton’s betrayal went unremarked because the Democrat News Media is always silent when a Democrat politician stabs people in the back. Barack Obama dumped 2.5 million women into unemployment and dumped 6 years of 15% unemployment onto the black American community.
6) I feel sorry for the government workers being laid off – which may be why I am the ONLY one here recognizing the real difficulty they face and making any suggestions to help them. I noted above that NOAA’s Commissioned Officer Corps is exempt from the layoffs. If someone applies and is accepted as a Primary or backup candidate they are given a temporary position in the Corps in the 6 month to one year before training begins. I noted over a month ago that some wealthy people are pursuing green energy and might have jobs for NOAA personnel.
Don Williams, you mention that Bill Clinton cut frontline military staff. And you seem to be critical of that, and think it makes him as terrible as Trump, or at least no different (?).
I think Clinton had to cut some military staff. The cold war was over and the age of huge armies was over. Technology and air power is paramount now. George Bush had plans to cut massive levels of soldiers, so both Republicans and Democrats were agreed for once.
Clinton apparently didn’t do enough to integrate these folk back into society and like you I feel that’s wrong. My father was in the army, and he was in Japan shortly after the nuclear bomb was dropped, so of course I’m sympathetic to soldiers made redundant. I don’t know why Clinton did this and I don’t want to spend time researching it, but like I previously said he obviously wasn’t perfect.
But the bottom line is Clintons cuts to government agencies and including the military had some level of justification based on evidence and commonsense. Sometimes middle management does get bloated in agencies like education. Sometimes front line staff are no longer needed and cant find places in other government agencies. I’m not a fan of slash and burn austerity policies, or very small government but the opposite extreme can also be just as problematic.
Trumps cuts appear quite different and don’t appear to be justified. They include cuts to front line staff doing cancer research, climate research, air traffic control, the FBI, weather forecasting , providing education services etc, etc. Several of these areas are already short staffed. Those activities are the sort of thing where it makes sense for governments to have a role. I cant see how those cuts are justified, but perhaps you could explain. And it appears Trump will cut medicaide. This just seems cruel to me. Ultimately there are moral issues like this.
And Clintons cuts lead to a balanced budget, more or less. This is important because there are limits to how much debt governments should have and America’s debt is getting quite high.
Trump has plans for substantial tax cuts for millionaires and the billionaires you despise, and his cuts to government spending don’t even come close. The end result will probably be some sort of awful compromise, that hugely increases Americas deficit and federal debt. And you know it.
Nigelj: A little known fact about Al Gore was that he was in charge of a major and somewhat successful effort to reduce government waste. Sadly, the 2000 election got in the way. Our future was killed in that election, for a variety of false reasons, including Clinton’s masculine delusions/privilege.
US military operations are extremely dependent upon weather information for the entire globe, not just the USA. Some things are non-obvious — e,g if you want to forecast where nuclear fallout will hit you need wind vectors at multiple layers up to 60,000 feet for the target area. I believe the Army still uses pilot balloons –wind data needed for artillery ballistics.
Laid Off NOAA employees might find refuge in DOD’s meteorological organizations and customers –e.g, STRATCOM, PACOM, etc.
“Bill Clinton fired 426,000 federal workers. Many of them were defense workers or military personnel who had devoted their lives to deterring a nuclear attack on America by the Soviet Union. …”
False equivalence.
Under Clinton, Al Gore set up a commission that studied government agencies for 6 months. After that, they took the results to congress and recommended the cuts. Congress then enacted legislation to perform the cuts (about 4 % of the workforce). The legislation passed both houses with large majorities (99-1 in the senate IIRC). As others here have pointed out, the majority of this was done by attrition, over a period of years. What Trump and Musk are doing is nothing at all like this. They are not rooting out fraud and waste, they are gutting agencies that they don’t like in an attempt to get rid of regulations (or enforcement of them) and reduce the effect of their tax cuts on the deficit down to the level where they can use Budget Reconciliation to pass it.
Propagandists don’t do minor details like you post.
They are after the lizard brain not anything higher. Note even the tone used is trying to activate the lizard brain as in Clinton somehow caused OKC. Wow!
(And let’s grant him his hypothesis: What the heck does he expect to see now???!!! From angry and arbitrarily abused generals and admirals, no less? Many empires and civilizations have broken up and fallen for precisely that reason.)
Not to mention that many of those let go as civil servants were then rehired as contractors. The whole “Reinventing Government” push was a scam. Nonetheless, through raising taxes and considered cuts, Clinton left office with a balanced budget. Then came Bush’s tax cuts and wars and Trump’s tax cuts and the housing crisis and COVID, and the deficit exploded.
Were the current efforts actually to be directed at bringing deficits under control, I might have more sympathy, but every penny and more is already earmarked for more tax cuts targeted at billionaires.
1) Again, people here do not see how the US News Media is misleading them. As I already noted, Clinton did not just layoff 400,000 workers – he dumped 700,000 military personnel and 400,000 civilian employees within DOD. And very few got even a fraction of the claimed $25,000 buyout.
2) But what none of you noted is that an Additional 1.4 million jobs were lost in military contractors in the period 1987 to 1996—some of which were started in George H Bush’s administration.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/pressure-to-grow/ (A decade of shrinking)
https://ciaotest.cc.columbia.edu/book/markusen/oden.html#table7
(see section III Worker Conversion)
3) The second reference notes the fate of the laid off workers:
“On the basis of several samples of displaced defense workers taken between 1987 and 1997, we argue that many, perhaps most, workers displaced from defense firms during this period found jobs that paid them less than their former wages and that failed to take advantage of their defense–bred skills, A sizable minority experienced a drop in earnings of 50% or more in their first job after becoming re–employed.”
“Kodrzycki (1995) found that the median unemployment spell among re-employed defense workers in New England was eleven months, and that 25% of the re-employed workers took at least 17 months to find a new job. She also found that new employers tended to discount the skills and experience of defense workers: workers recalled to their former jobs had wage replacement rates about 21 percentage points higher than those who accepted a job with a new employer.”
“Another major ingredient in assessing conversion outcomes for defense workers in the 1990s involves looking at the terms of their transition from defense to civilian work. Here we find that a significant subset of laid–off defense workers had not become re–employed after as long as a year after layoff and that the drop in wages at re-employment was typically substantial, (see Tables 8 & 9).”
In contrast, the EXECUTIVES and shareholders of major contractors got huge pots of government money to reorganize – the infamous “Payoffs for Layoffs”.
4) Many civilian jobs – police, construction worker, teacher,etc — have hundreds even thousands of employers around the country. In contrast, the US Government is a single employer and the experience gained there is usually not useful elsewhere.
5) I note the above facts as a warning to the current government employees being laid off:
a) No one in Congress — Republican or Democrat – will care about the misery and pain you experience.
b) “Social Activists” may exploit your pain to grind their favorite political axe – but will not actually do anything to help either.
c) No one in the News Media will report truthfully about what is happening to you. In my opinion, politicians and reporters are prostitutes for the Rich. The steep rise in Gold shows that the value of the dollar is dropping, the interest on federal debt is massive and none of the Rich want to reduce the debt by paying higher taxes. The Trust Funds for the Social Security and Medicare Ponzi schemes will be exhausted circa 1933 and at some point young workers will tell the baby boomers to eat dog food.
d) I am sorry I can not provide better options for NOAA than the three I suggested but I recommend people out of work move quickly to find whatever job they can get.
“Laid Off NOAA employees might find refuge in DOD’s meteorological organizations and customers –e.g, STRATCOM, PACOM, etc.”
That is pure BS. None of those organizations are looking to expand or hire all those being laid off/fired. It is pure disruption of their lives to benefit the tax cuts for billionaires.
Some places that might have meteorology jobs:
1) AvMet Applications (Reston VA –aviation weather)– https://avmet.com/join-our-team/
2) First Street: (Does forecasts of future adverse weather effects –flooding etc – due to climate change): https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/firststreet
3) Peraton (Chantilly VA): https://careers.peraton.com/search-jobs?search=meteorology
4) Try searching Indeed.com for “Meterorologist”: https://www.indeed.com/q-Meteorologist-jobs.html?vjk=34626e68e3e9884b
5) The Air Force needs “Weather and Environmental Sciences Officers” but it looks like the person would have to join the Air Force:
https://www.airforce.com/careers/aviation-and-flight/weather-and-environmental-sciences-officer
Simon Clark has a video about climate progress.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1jOqyjcO4g
An entertaining, colorful and informative look at the world as it was, as it is, and as it could be.
JAXA ARCTIC SEA ICE EXTENT: 13,310,739 KM2 as at 01-Mar-2025
– Extent loss on this day 2k which is 2 k more than the average loss on this day (of the last 10 years) of 0k,
– Extent gain from minimum on this date is 9,238 k, which is 454 k, 4.7% less than the 10 year average of 9,692 k.
– Extent is 1st lowest in the 47 year satellite record. Extent has been lowest for 43 days so far this year.
Source: https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php?topic=4329.msg421469#msg421469
NSIDC ARCTIC SEA ICE AREA (5-day trailing average): 12,059,115 KM2 as at 01-Mar-2025
– Area loss on this day 2k, which is 8 k less than the average gain on this day (of the last 10 years) of 6k,
– Area gain from minimum on this date is 9,547 k, which is 165k km2, 1.7% less than the 10 year average of 9,713 k.
– Area is at position #1 in the satellite record (#1=lowest), and for 34 days this year.
Source: https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php?topic=4329.msg421500#msg421500
1. ASI is notoriously difficult to predict, though the ENSO/ASI model has done so for each EN since 2015.
2. The greatest impact is from weather conditions in any given year. E.g. 2012:
A. Unexplained large drop of almost 1M sq. km in early spring, heavy insolation in June (the single most highly correlated yearly effect on ASI), the infamous GAC (great arctic cyclone) of early Aug. and, most damaging, the di-pole that set up to funnel ASI from the Pacific side out through the Fram Strait for virtually the entire summer.
Despite *none* of those conditions repeating since 2012, and, in fact, ice retention conditions dominating every year for the decade following, the lower levels in 2015-16, 2019-20 and 2024 all followed the EN/ASI low model projections.
That all said, we all know there is unprecedented warming occurring. Various sources peg the beginning as early as 2014, which would signal a whole-system shift, or goosing of the system due to oncoming EN in 2015-16, others (Hansen, et al.) set it around 2023 due to reductions in sulfur beginning in 2020 or so. I’ve also seen the trend of increasing rates of change pegged to the 2016-2018 period.
Pick your poison, but my take is quite simple: we have hit a tipping point. A recent paper shows high latitude areas have become carbon sources since as early as 2012. This points to the slow-rolling nature of the early phases of a tipping point, IMO. They gain momentum as each domino falls and, unlike dominoes, speed up because, as I have both asked and stated for at least 15 years, IIRC, where is the hysteresis? Dominoes have a built-in hysteresis in the form of friction against each other, a uniform rate of gravitational force, etc., but we have been knocking down all the dominoes at the same time. Flipping the table, so to speak. Again, IMO.
So, with ASI at record lows as the ice-forming season ends, record temps (+1.7C for February) globally still present and evidence the oceans are becoming saturated with heat/energy, we may well be looking at a new record low, if not a BOE (Blue Ocean Event), this summer.
Pray for absolutely perfect ice-retaining conditions this summer: Cool temps, no GACs, no dipole, primarily easterly winds, low insolation.
Washington Post: US winter just past was Coldest since 2013-2014 and 1.1 degrees below average:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/the-u-s-just-experienced-its-coldest-winter-in-more-than-a-decade/ar-AA1A8sEr
Warmer in other places but US voters are mostly indifferent to what is happening in south Asia, Africa, etc.
As I noted before, the natural variability of weather in the USA makes it hard to convince the voters of climate change. We have had multiple heat waves –the one in 1936 set records that still stand:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_North_American_heat_wave
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_heat_waves
Greater warming is supposedly occurring in the Arctic but (a) very few Americans have been in the Arctic and (b) our temperature data in that area from 70 to 100 years ago is very sparse:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/01/2024-hindsight/#comment-829168
To show Change you have to have a solid starting point as well as today’s measurements –which are far more extensive and accurate than what we have had in the past.
As I have mentioned before, it would be helpful to have more physical evidence of global warming that the average US voter can see — e.g, shrinkage of glaciers.
Don Williams, scientists have spent the last 30 years or so looking for various forms of physical evidence of climate change and the chances of finding more would be near zero especially something the public could relate to and compare to past years.. Surely you must realise this.
I can give you one example from my own observations, when I took an extended holiday in North America and the UK in 2001. (Between April and early June, I suspect things would have been VERY different 6 months later.)
One of the highlights for me was travelling by tourist train from Vancouver to Calgary, and then by Coach Tour back to Vancouver. During the return trip we spent a couple of hours at the edge of the Columbia Icefield, and specifically at the toe of:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athabasca_Glacier
That glacier was then and still is clearly shrinking, based on direct comparison between 1950’s photographs and the current day.
ozajh, I don’t know if answering the concern trolling from DW is going to have any effect, but you did remind me of something.
We just had this strange weather event which turned the property into a sea of ice… very deceptive crusted snow which tempted you to “just break through”, but hah hah you couldn’t. It wasn’t a glacier adventure, but I had to find my old crampons in the basement, and the trip to the wood pile was actually scary.
Lots of small-area effects like this are obvious when you live somewhere a while… things that used to happen “elsewhere”.
Point is, anyone who connects with the outdoors and has been around a while doesn’t need convincing. The farmers will deny that it has to do with fossil fuels because Fox News tells them to, and they want to keep getting their welfare payments, but the fact of change is not in question.
https://www.usgs.gov/news/national-news-release/glaciers-rapidly-shrinking-and-disappearing-50-years-glacier-change
DW: quibblers might find this a useful informative perspective, good for interested laypeople as well (cites RealClimate authors):
Climate models are getting it wrong! What’s going on? “Modern climate models are incredibly sophisticated machines. And with the advent of artificial intelligence they’re getting better all the time. But they’re still not able to accurately reflect what’s actually going on in the real world. So, should we be relying on them any more?” [tl;dr – underestimates due to systemic problems]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sORs8MqOlRg
Don Williams “Washington Post: US winter just past was Coldest since 2013-2014”
>2 % of global is not “global” AND “one colder winter after 11 year of warmer winters ” is not a change in the “climate”.
DW Warmer in other places but US voters are mostly indifferent to what is happening in south Asia, Africa, etc.
And this makes the underlying selfishness – right? The American Dream: “Screw you, screw future generations, as long as I am ahead in the short term” ?
DW: “the natural variability of weather in the USA makes it hard to convince the voters of climate change.”
See also: “ it was hard to convince members of the Medieval Age Great Again that the Earth is not flat”. And that DESPITE hardly anybody’s ^* livelihood dependent on the belief in its flatness
—-
^* with the possible exceptions of school supply stores making brisk business selling the flat models of Earth, and the Canadian newspaper: “The Plane and Mail”.
Piotr: “And this makes the underlying selfishness – right? The American Dream: “Screw you, screw future generations, as long as I am ahead in the short term” ?”
That is being a bit unfair. Would you expect people to connect with every woman across the world equally to the way they connect with their mother, wife or daughter? Of course not, so why would you expect people to connect with those thousands of miles away overseas out of sight out of mind in the same way as they would connect with their neighbouring/state/country population? If you expect people to be as purely logical as Mr Spock and as unbiased as a machine, you will forever be disappointed.
Games theory makes no assumption of rationality on the part of players. Yet in general, cooperative strategies are usually much better for all players once you get beyond the first turn than dishonest strategies.
A really neat thing seen often in simulations is the growth of islands of cooperation which leads exactly to connecting with people far away, or the appearance of doing so anyway.
Piotr: “And this makes the underlying selfishness – right? The American Dream: “Screw you, screw future generations, as long as I am ahead in the short term” ?”
Adam Lea: That is being a bit unfair
Piotr: A straw-man argument. The alternative to Trump’s appeal to the individual, ethnic and racial selfishness is NOT the IMPOSSIBLE standard that could be realized by only a saint:
“ to connect with every woman across the world equally to the way they connect with their mother, wife or daughter?“, but acting in a decent manner that does not DISCOUNT ENTIRELY the impacts of your action on other people and on future generations as if their lives are worthless.
You know – what is supposed to differ us from animals – the ability to use our intellect and our morality to not follow blindly the selfish animal instincts?
So what Trump, and before him Thatcher (“ there’s no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families “) and social darwinists before them have been doing, was the appeal to, and therefore the validation of, the lowest common denominator – to abandoning our morality in favour of our animal instincts and the primitive understanding of evolution and culture, as driven exclusively by competition, where the benefit of one comes at the expense of the other, and where might makes it right.
FYI:
“In a high emissions future, the world’s strongest ocean current could slow down by 20% by 2050, further accelerating Antarctic ice sheet melting and sea level rise, an Australian-led study has found.
“The Antarctic Circumpolar Current – a clockwise current more than four times stronger than the Gulf Stream that links the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans – plays a critical role in the climate system by influencing the uptake of heat and carbon dioxide in the ocean and preventing warmer waters from reaching Antarctica …
“The results … revealed a clear link between meltwater from Antarctic ice shelves and circumpolar current slowdown … What they found suggested a substantial reconfiguration of Southern Ocean dynamics, with far-reaching impacts on global climate patterns, oceanic heat distribution, and marine ecosystems.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/mar/03/antarctic-circumpolar-current-slow-down-ice-melting-climate
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/adb31c
The study abstract notes, “Our results show that, by 2050, the strength of the ACC declines by ∼20% for a high-emissions scenario.” Similar, a 2023 study projects 42% decline of the Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW), and AMOC decline of 19%. https://climatestate.com/2023/04/16/antarctic-ice-melt-slows-deep-ocean-current-with-potential-impact-on-worlds-climate-for-centuries/
Additional, the authors suspect similar results under a low emission scenario, when considering the rate of sea level rise gaining pace. Which leaves room for interpretation in regards to current emission trajectory outcomes. https://climatestate.com/2025/03/04/study-earths-strongest-ocean-current-will-be-slowed-by-melting-antarctic-ice-sheets/
I just came back from a screening (prerelease I think) of the climate science film The Memory of Darkness Light and Ice film at Columbia University organized by their climate school. It was an engaging documentary. It had parts where scientists talked about their research with scenes of lab work. That made the science more relatable.
There was this guy Eric Stieg in it. I’ve never heard of him.
Geothermal Power Is a Climate Moon Shot Beneath Our Feet: The center of the Earth is so hot that it could satisfy the entire world’s energy needs. But can scientists safely tap into it?
open link: https://archive.ph/VeMSJ
I am skeptical that geothermal energy will become widely available for utility scale electrical generation.
I’m not a geologist, but it seems that there are fundamental physical limitations.
At best, the temperature difference between the hot rocks and the surface can be utilized as a Carnot engine to generate electricity. The efficiency would depend on that difference, so the hotter the rocks you can access, the better your engine. The heat increase with depth is quasi-linear, so the deeper you go, the better. However, the pressure increase is also quasi-linear, so it gets harder to maintain open channels to allow fluid to circulate. This depends somewhat on the strength of the rock. The channels probably shrink faster than the temperature increases once you get to some critical depth where the rock squeezes into open channels.
The ability to extract heat from rock effectively with a circulating fluid looks like a critical issue. Fourier’s heat conduction law will result in an exponential decline in the amount of heat being conducted to a fluid in contact with a hot, but solid, rock. This would have the interesting effect of making the initial test of a system look good to investors, but the amount of heat flow would decline with time. One way I can see to potentially overcome this difficulty would be to keep fracking the rock, so the fluid keeps reaching new surfaces. The other would be to use an underground system so vast that the amount of heat is little diminished over the life of the project. I suspect that neither would turn out to be practical for utility scale electric generation over the time required to pay back the infrastructure and generation costs, but I don’t know it for a fact.
Obviously, there are active volcanic areas where hot water circulates for long periods, but can this be used at utility scale, or in non-volcanic areas?
I am puzzled as to why making ultra-deep holes by any method would be whatsoever promising for geothermal generation. Fourier’s law says that you get rapidly diminishing returns out of one hole. You need a system of holes, and a way to circulate fluid between them. In addition, to get your fluid up the hole, you need to do work against gravity, losing energy along the way. Ultra-deep looks more like a scheme to extract money from investors than to extract energy.
“I am puzzled as to why making ultra-deep holes by any method would be whatsoever promising for geothermal generation. Fourier’s law says that you get rapidly diminishing returns out of one hole.”
Yes, thermal diffusion is not really controllable, one is always fighting entropy. Alas, the stochastic math is interesting and there is room for advancement. See my chapter 14 in Mathematical Geoenergy “Thermal Energy: Diffusion and Heat Content”
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781119434351.ch14
John P: your point is addressed in the article. Sadly, things like fusion, small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs), and other ‘moonshots’ are popular for a variety of reasons, most of which are unhelpful. They appeal to the broligarchy. They dilute and distract from the urgency of our current moment, and the things we can do now to address our reality in a timely fashion. This goes exponentially for terraforming Mars, let alone traveling there safely in scifi-imagined population numbers. We need to stop thinking some future genius will fix everything for us. This is particularly egregious in the work of Lomborg and quite a few others, whose names I can’t recall at this present. We can’t ‘all get rich and fix it later’ is bullshit, and in fact the world’s poor are suffering now and will suffer more as time goes on.
Susan: I agree with most of what you’ve written. In particular, the time is now to start fixing things with available technology, rather than breaking more of them. (I particularly like the term “broligarchy” to describe the techie attitude toward such moonshot projects).
Maybe it’s a difference in interpretation, but I don’t find that an important point is being addressed in the article. It states early on: “The biggest problem is drilling miles through hot rock, safely. If scientists can do that, however, next-generation geothermal power could supply clean energy for eons.” Getting the holes drilled, by whatever means, would be very challenging. However, if that can be accomplished, there is still the prospect of exponentially declining power production. With a single hole and no cracks to circulate fluid through, the exponent will be large due to fundamental laws of thermal conduction. A system of multiple holes and ongoing fracking might result in an acceptably small exponent – or not.
Your referenced article, and various others I have seen recently, focus on getting the holes drilled. There is no mention of the problem of diminishing energy returns once the holes are there. I find that a glaring omission.
JP: Thanks for your insight. I’m not sophisticated enough, or scientifically able enough, to do the numbers. But I’d add to your point that the question of maintenance. Starting with a difficult infrastructure, it seems unlikely it would be less than enormously costly to keep the channel open and functional.
In Re to John Pollack, 5 Mar 2025 at 10:24 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/03/unforced-variations-mar-2025/#comment-830899 ,
10 Mar 2025 at 2:47 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/03/unforced-variations-mar-2025/#comment-831035 ,
and MA Rodger, 6 Mar 2025 at 7:08 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/03/unforced-variations-mar-2025/#comment-830905
Dear Sirs,
Thank you both for your thoughtful contributions and for provided references.
I am afraid that John is right that a large-scale exploitation of geothermal energy may require exorbitant investments that could be hardly economically justified.
According to one estimation I have found,
https://tu-freiberg.de/sites/default/files/2023-11/49%20Geothermal%20Energy%203.pdf
the average density of geothermal energy flow through Earth crust may be between 50 and 100 mW/m2. If so, its value is three orders of magnitude lower than the average solar radiation absorption in Earth surface (which is about 160 W/m2).
This difference suggests that for collecting the same power output, the active surface of a geothermal facility has to be three orders of magnitude higher than in a solar facility. The difference in necessary investments into facilities with a comparable power output (or with a comparable annual energy production) may be roughly commensurate to the necessary investments. Moreover, as John suggested, maintenance / operation of the geothermal facility may be also significantly more difficult / expensive than for the solar facility.
That is why I have serious doubts that proposals for a large-scale geothermal energy exploitation as a possible solution of environmental issues are reasonable.
Best regards
Tomáš
Of the various renewable energy sources, geothermal energy may appear to be a promising and underdeveloped technology but disappointingly it has so-far delivered rather underwhelming results. I’m not sure increasing the depth of operation will solve the reasons for that lacklustre record.
Not far from me is/was the UK’s Southampton geothermal scheme that was often cited as an example of geothermal in action. But there has always been rather a lot of slight-of-hand at work within the presentation of this Southampton scheme. The project soon developed into a ‘conventional’ district heating scheme with the geothermal becoming a tiny contributor. Yet the geothermal continued to be presented as though it was some great success when in reality the economics meant it would soon to be shut down (which is now the case, described for some years now as “closed for repairs”). What was not said was that the geothermal potential at Southampton was all-along known to be small and short-term. It’s purpose was really to use free drill holes to kick-start a bigger district heating scheme.
The UK (where, according to a comment within this BBC account,we are “actually lagging behind in recognising the potential of geothermal”), now has a second geothermal project. Yet to me, this second scheme’s descriptions appears as tight-lipped as the Southampton coverage.
Ditto the third UK scheme (like the 2nd, sited in geothermal hot-spot Cornwall) is planning to generate 2MW electric power along with perhaps 10MW of heat (and also extract lithium from the well-water). The turbines have apparently been delivered on-site but eight-months-on and zero further news. This suggests the 2024 schedule for the electric is much delayed.
The main stumbling-blocks for geothermal is the cost of drilling and the gamble of what temperature the H2O it will yield. If you could guarantee super-heated steam, all would be fine. It can then power steam turbines and the electricity grid. But if it turns out to provide just lower-grade heat, it means an expensive district-heating system. Such a possibility restricts the location of drilling. Add in the potential for the drilling kicking-off earth quakes and investment becomes too risky.
Drilling deeper would reduce the risk of a low-temperature well but the geo-static pressures acting on any well-lining become massive once rocks start to lose their strength and become plastic under the high pressure.
My own thoughts for a ‘fix’ for the problems of geothermal would be to use what temperature is supplied at present depths and work out how to make electricity from the bulk of it – low-pressure turbines or heat-pumps to boost the temperature (as per Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion which is trying the same sort of trick with just ~25ºC to play with).
Would it not be better to tap into Iceland’s geothermal energy? The UK does not strike me as being in the optimal place given its distance from any active fault lines. I think the same about solar and it being better to tap into energy generation from southern European sources that have much higher annual sunshine hours (and more daylight in mid-winter) than try to generate our own in what is essentially a cloudy country, with the possible exception of local roof top solar. I would think the UK’s local renewable energy generation potential is highest from wind, hydro, wave and tidal (the UK is windy and damp).
Concerning geothermal, if it is going to make a significant contribution, surely the task should be to harvest it as an energy-source wherever feasible.
If geothermal were restricted solely to areas with “active fault lines”, it would be missing far larger areas considered by some perfectly capable of providing much-needed renewable energy and much of this would be better-placed geographically.
Beyond areas with “active fault lines,” the two bits of geology of interest appear to be surface heat flows (which are indicative of the depth of useful temperatures) and aquifer temperatures (with the aquifer allowing energy to be hoovered-up from a wider subterranian area without the use of fracking). Both measures indicate much useful geology extending far beyond the world’s “active fault lines.”
Concerning solar power for UK, I would agree UK is not a wonderful location and would suggest the whole of Europe should be thinking ‘Sahara’.
Concerning UK renewables, hydro is a tiny source and although there are a couple of tidal ‘hot spots’ (Bristol Channel & Pentland Firth), they are not really that big relative to UK energy use and projects such as a barrage across the Bristol Channel soon became too bothersome to a be considered a viable project, although the idea remains attractive enough not to be forgotten.
Wind is/was being pursued in UK but it would have helped if the two major political parties took the deployment seriously (rather than simply a PR stunt).
Solar is being deployed over fields as well as rooftops and so does provide a useful contribution. (As I type on a dullish winter’s afternoon, GridWatch is showing UK electric demand at 37GW with 1.7GW of that provided by solar. That’s not atypical. Beyond just electric, government reporting shows solar provided 1% of UK end-user energy in 2023.)
As for wave power, this WikiThing list of wave power projects suggests harnessing it is still a pipe dream.
But despite folk (very often those in denial over AGW) waving the wondrous reductions in territorial CO2 emissions achieved in UK since 1990, UK is still very-much dependent on fossil fuels for the majority of its energy supply. And in my mind, until properly-scalable renewables are planned (for instance, solar harnessed in the Sahara to fuel Europe with electric, and/or hydrogen, or ammonia), scrabbling about for a tiny-bit more renewable energy will remain the order of the day.
MAR, fyi I recall a project called Desertec the plan being solar power at huge scale in the Sahara to be transmitted to Europe and the UK with high efficiency direct current transmission grid, although it ran into finance problems. Typing this on the phone so will keep it short. Wikipedia has an article and look at desertec.org.
I stand corrected on the geothermal. I visioned it being most useful where the Earth’s interior heat comes close to the surface which I immediately think of as near fault lines and hot spots like Yellowstone. I wasn’t aware of hot subterranian aquifers although the map you link too suggests the UK doesn’t have much to tap into (Ireland maybe).
When it comes to renewables on a large scale, it appears to me that different countries have different strengths and weaknesses e.g. the UK is good for wind and poor for solar. What would be ideal is for countries to collaborate and pool their available renewable resources. In this age of increasing conflict and exceptionalism (e.g. the UK leaving the EU), it this possible?
Adam Lea,
The electricity grids across mainland Europe are well integrated while this WikiThing page shows today UK has roughly 9GW of sub-sea interconnectors with Europe and 1GW with Ireland. These make financial sense when the market prices differ. (In UK electric prices are set in 30 minute supply contracts. UK peak electric demand sits at a little over 40GW.)
There are also interconnectors between Morocco and Spain with more planned, as well as some planned at the other end of the Med with connections across to Egypt and Israel.
The most ambitious plan I’ve seen is Xlinks which plans a 2 x 1.8GW interconnector from Morocco direct to UK but has found recent UK governments not so eager with the commercial access to UK markets (Mind that situation is echoed with other more-standard renewable schemes. Note Chart 6.6 on page 41 of the “government reporting” I linked above. When the major party freed itself from an inconvenient coalition partner in 2015, the rate of added renewables stops accelerating and drops off a cliff.)
Nigelj,
A couple of decades back, I was happily relating to any who would listen the anecdote about the environmentalist and the denialist, the former pointing out (I’ve never checked if these numbers are correct) that just 10,000 sq miles of Texas given over to solar PV would power the total of the US energy requirements, replacing all coal, oil gas, nuclear use (and this not just electric-use but all end-user energy). “10,000 sq miles,” replies the denialist, “how can we build that much PV?” The environmentalist responds saying “Yes!!! It is a big area but the effort installing the PV would be much less than that which was required for the 10,000 sq miles of US open-cast coal mining already stripped of its coal. And unlike the coal mines, PV keeps delivering. The coal is now happily stripping another 10,000 sq miles to keep the lights on.”
And twenty-plus years later, such giant amounts of PV generation and the required interconnectors remain unplanned & unbuilt.
Europe is nowhere with such development. You mention Desertec which was begun as an idea in 2009 but yet to form any solid plans. Of actual desert schemes, in Morocco there is the 0.6GW Noor schemes although that is 90% solar thermal with the heat being stored (molten salt) to allow opportune electric generation.
Elsewhere, maybe in China the mass PV task is in hand? Its 2024 PV is listed at 880GW but some of that will be small installations, although in total this PV will be something like 5% total energy use (total is 47,000 TWh/y) assuming their grid can cope (and the Chinese grid is currently a constraint). The land area used for this PV would be an interesting number to have.
The US has 24 big PV schemes listed here with a combined total rating of 15GW (using total land area?) which would be very roughly capable of providing 0.16% of total US energy needs (26,000 TWh/y).
Meteo et Climat France stands in solidarity with and support of the meteorological and climate community in the US. Here is their press release.
https://meteoetclimat.fr/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Communique-de-Meteo-et-Climat_05-03-2025.pdf
My reaction: Scientists of the World, Unite!
Friday, March 7 there are rallies in support of science all over the US and in other countries. Be there:
https://standupforscience2025.org/
NOAA Hurricane Hunter layoffs threaten to degrade hurricane forecasts: A gap in flight director staffing could keep the planes earthbound at crucial times. – https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2025/03/noaa-hurricane-hunter-layoffs-threaten-to-degrade-hurricane-forecasts/
Article covers other aspects of science cuts. And let’s not forget to show up Friday, 12-4
https://standupforscience2025.org/local-event-information/
https://standupforscience2025.org/
FYI:
“Global sea ice fell to a record low in February, scientists have said, a symptom of an atmosphere fouled by planet-heating pollutants. The combined area of ice around the north and south poles hit a new daily minimum in early February and stayed below the previous record for the rest of the month, the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said on Thursday.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/mar/06/global-sea-ice-hit-all-time-minimum-in-february-scientists-say
Might be more convenient for all if you add this to the thread I posted further up.
Your FIRST clue should have been that our resident and fly-by deniers have ALL pretty much completely quit talking about sea ice lately!
Glaciers too, of course.
Snowpack in the NW USA is looking good right now, maybe the glacial melt will be slowed a little this year:
https://opensnow.com/news/post/january-2025-snowpack-update
Snowpack in the NW is OVER 150% of normal according to a USDA meteorologist. 46 second audio file:
https://www.usda.gov/about-usda/news/radio/daily-newsline/2025-01-03/actuality-mountain-snowpack-accumulations-pnw
Q.E.D.
A new data point for me: Claim is an estimate that +5.2C over even 500k years would still lead to a mass extinction to rival the largest mass extinctions. Makes our current trajectory an absolute certainty for extinction and on a much shorter time frame, to engage in the greatest possible understatement.
Anyone heard this, know the source?
Here’s the vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77Q07i1HSYc
One data point. I live in the Pacific Northwest, and get my power from the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA). They have lost hundreds of staff so far. This includes line workers who keep the transmission working, as well as load balancing staff who manage the multiple sources of power, a very complex job these days. And most of the trainee staff too. And all these people are paid for by rate payers like me. Not one penny from the Federal budget, and so not one penny saved for all the chaos created. BPA leadership now wonders if it can keep the power flowing, since they also aren’t allowed to hire any replacements for all these losses, and most of the trainees in line for that are gone too..
The entire process really smacks of exactly what the new OMB chief, Russell Vought, said, that the goal is to traumatize the work force so that they don’t want to work for the government any more. Rational reduction in waste appears to be more of a rhetorical point than an actual goal.
Trump said yesterday that he is shifting job loss decisions from DOGE to agency heads to make sure they only lose the lazy and wasteful staff, that they keep the good people. But for over 4 decades now, Republican ideology has been that the Federal government can’t do anything well and that government employees are all loafers who won’t be missed. So we will see if the cabinet picks do any better.
I also want to offer this analogy, maybe a metaphor. That getting rid of waste and corruption in government, or any large organization, be it a corporation or a nonprofit, is like getting rid of friction in a mechanical system. You always want to minimize it, but it is impossible to get rid of all of it. In the case of friction, I think getting rid of all of it might violate one of the laws of thermodynamics. So it is not an exact comparison, but the point is that the more you get rid of, the harder it is to find what remains. And your system can still function and do the job it was created to do despite that friction/waste. At a certain point, efforts for more efficiency can become a case of diminishing returns. I mean, a lot of the bureaucracy in government is intended to prevent and catch fraudulent activity. At a certain point, all that effort to prevent fraud costs more wasted time in valid effort than it saves in preventing fraud and waste.
Dean, fair point, but I would take it a bit further. It depends very much on the definition of “efficiency”, which depends on the goal of the enterprise.
Say 1 employee can service 10 “customers” per day.
If the service is such that failing to provide it substantially harms the customer, then it makes sense to include redundancy. If the norm is 8o customers per day, you may *choose* to have 10 employees, to cover the possibility of sick days for the employee or increase in customers on a given day.
So, “just in time”-type policies are most “efficient” if you only care about short-term profit; it doesn’t work so great for air traffic control, for example, as we saw recently.
Don Williams offers contemptuously: Laid Off NOAA employees might find refuge in DOD’s meteorological organizations and customers
Not really – Trump’s team: “ directed senior Defense Department leaders to plan for cuts that could slash the defense budget by 8 % annually“Which complements Trumps cuts to the Veteran Affairs:
– ” Trump’s VA secretary defends 80,000 layoffs”, many of them – veterans themselves (“Veterans make up a disproportionate share of federal employees in general, and at the VA, the percentage is likely to be even higher.”).
-the White House’s Alina Habba told reporters that military veterans affected by the DOGE-led layoffs may not be “ fit to have a job at this moment.”
Neither Donald J. Trump, nor Elon Musk, nor Alina Habba have served a single day. Hence. your comment on the people “ who hate the military because they possess a virtue they never could have, is …spot on! ;-)
Then again you must have known that already, from …. the deep respect your Glorious Leader has shown to the war hero Senator Mc Cain:
– “Trump mocks John McCain’s [paralyzed hand from his ] war injury while on campaign trail”
– ” He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” Donald J. Trump
In the times when America was Great – mocking disability of injured war heroes would have been political suicide. Not any longer – the MAGA did NOT turn away in disgust from Trump’s mocking McCain. Quite the contrary – they stood behind Trump’s doing so and piled on. And if you can’t make yourself reject a politician mocking his opponent for his disability from a war injury – then you won’t reject him on anything he might do.
The US Coast Guard Academy is purging any mention of climate change from it’s curriculum.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07032025/coast-guard-academy-censors-climate-change-terminology/
[quote]But the academy that trains most of the officers of the nation’s sea-going law enforcement and search and rescue force has eliminated “climate change” and related terminology from its curriculum in an effort to conform to President Donald Trump’s policies.
Amy Donahue, the provost and chief academic officer of the academy, confirmed the moves in a statement posted last week on the Coast Guard Academy alumni association’s website. The association said in an online post that it had reached out to her office after receiving “several letters of concern” on how climate policy was playing out at the New London, Connecticut, institution.
Donahue wrote that the academy was required to make the changes because of the president’s executive order withdrawing past climate change policies as well as a Feb. 14 directive from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Noem had ordered department officials to “eliminate all climate change activities and the use of climate change terminology in DHS policies and programs.”[/quote]
Obama talks Risks to National Security from Climate Change at US Coast Guard Academy 2015 https://climatestate.com/2015/05/21/president-obama-talks-risks-to-national-security-from-climate-change-at-us-coast-guard-academy-2015/
If only this were being delivered today! (2015 was a more hopeful time when threat multiplication by climate change was acknowledged to be real.)
https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/international/2025/02/11/811542.htm
This was an easy conclusion to reach last year given ENs tend to raise temps about 0.2C and we were at 1.6+. Add acceleration, add lack of action, add scary cryosphere news, etc and et al., and it was pretty obvious that even if we dipped slightly below 1.5 this year, e.g., it would likely be a 1-year thing.
I have felt since 2023 the odds of being in the midst of large global tipping point are virtually 100%, and that it started nearly ten years ago. (New study says plants hit diminishing returns WRT carbon uptake in 2008!)
Anywho…. Welcome to1.5C.
Taking It to the Streets: Scientists Mobilize to Fight Trump’s ‘Unprecedented’ Anti-Science Agenda
Scientists turned out at rallies from coast to coast and in Europe to “Stand Up for Science,” revitalizing a movement to defend scientific integrity that started during Trump’s first term.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07032025/stand-up-for-science-rallies-against-trump-anti-science-agenda/?
Silence = Complicity
Complicity = Treason
US Coast Guard Academy Censors ‘Climate Change’ From Its Curriculum
The terminology will be stricken in classes for future officers in a service that confronts global warming every day, a move some say will weaken it.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07032025/coast-guard-academy-censors-climate-change-terminology/?utm_source=InsideClimate+News&utm_campaign=2e3230f9a8-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2025_03_08_02_12&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_29c928ffb5-2e3230f9a8-329698521
Silence = Complicity
Complicity = Treason
Something different:
Josef Stefan’s (that guy from the Stefan-Boltzmann law, *1835) birth house in Klagenfurt is no more. I just drove by to see it once, but it is gone and there is one pile of earth where the house once stood. They just pulled it..
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Klagenfurt_Ebentaler_Strasse_88_Geburtshaus_Josef_Stefan_%280506200%29_41.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/live/eemj-ggRdxo?si=AvjSBr_0X1USNwNi
If you missed the Stand Up for Science rally in Washington DC, you can watch it on PBS NewsHour youtube channel. Worth watching the entire event, I can attest to it, since I was there.
The UK’s gamble on solar geoengineering is like using aspirin for cancer: Injecting pollutants into the atmosphere to reflect the sun would be extremely dangerous, but the UK is funding field trials – Raymond Pierrehumbert and Michael Mann
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/12/solar-geoengineering-uk
“In one widely touted proposition, fleets of aircraft would continually inject sulphur compounds into the upper atmosphere, simulating the effects of a massive array of volcanoes erupting continuously. In essence, we have broken the climate by releasing gigatonnes of fossil-fuel carbon dioxide, and solar geoengineering proposes to “fix” it by breaking a very different part of the climate system.”
“Aria [UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency] … works in darkness. It is not subject to freedom of information requests. It gives a pot of money to each of its (often inexperienced) directors, to direct expenditure largely as they wish, with only minimal peer review. The director in charge of the solar geoengineeering project is Mark Symes, an electrochemist with no background in climate science.
“It is ironic that Aria is funding a project that is not only a waste of money but is actively harmful ….
“The Aria programme thesis document on “cooling the Earth” makes for chilling reading. The project goes all-in on the supposed need for field trials, without making a case that such trials could answer any of the really important questions about what would happen with a sustained global-scale deployment. That the trials are described as “small scale” is little comfort, because even small-scale trials risk developing the technology somebody else (think Musk, Trump or Putin) might use for a large-scale deployment.”
[We’ll do anything … anything! … to avoid cutting back on excess, consumption, and toxic waste. (This is UK specific, but it’s a global problem.)]
February 2025: Earth’s 3rd-warmest February on record: The El Niño-influenced temperature surge of 2023-24 may be abating, but temperatures are still significantly higher than any year prior to the mid-2010s
https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2025/03/february-2025-earths-3rd-warmest-february-on-record/
https://newrepublic.com/post/192660/trump-fbi-charge-climate-organizations
God help us all.
There seems to be no end to their despicable nonsense. What Trump’s minions don’t seem to realize is that they’re opening themselves up to criminal and civil action. While Trump can pardon their crimes, he can’t relieve them or civil judgments. If Patel goes through with this, he’s likely opening himself and the agency to claims for malicious prosecution.
Trump’s FBI Moves to Criminally Charge Major Climate Groups
The Trump administration is targeting climate organizations that received a Biden-era grant.
https://newrepublic.com/post/192660/trump-fbi-charge-climate-organizations
Is it time for scientists to act yet?
Hard to see what these climate groups have done wrong. Looks purely like intimidation to try to shut down climate groups. This is how the Mafia work.
Without a court order, Citibank didn’t have to comply. Shame on them.
Scott Nudds: 2 Mar 2025 at 12:26 AM – Quote: Fourteenth Amendment, Section 3:
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, ……..”
Wanting another 9-0 SMACKDOWN?
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/read-the-full-supreme-court-ruling-allowing-donald-trump-on-to-the-2024-presidential-ballot
Here’s the Colorado SOS on the hot seat for being caught in another election fraud scheme after that 9-0 USSC smackdown:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLi-0WI-f7M
:)
Yes you are correct. The U.S. supreme court has become incredibly corrupt due to several decades of Republican appointees.
They now openly violate the U.S. constitution.
As to your claimed “Colorado SOS” Like everything else that comes from Republican fantasy land, your conspiracy is less than a half truth. Full passwords were not exposed as you imply and as the Republicans have claimed.
So why do you feel a need to lie about it?
I said nothing about the USSC being corrupt, but thank you for admitting that THE 3 LIBERALS on the court who sided with Trump AND the Constitution are corrupt.
I did not lie about the Colorado SOS – she was caught in a scandal, and was being interviewed by a reporter who, according to what I’ve read, IS FAIRLY LIBERAL. The video speaks for itsself – let the viewer decide.
Have you done your part to stop AGW by going NET ZERO?
Yes, you did lie. There was a security breach, not a fraud scheme as you stated,.
Has the ‘search’ function disappeared? I’m currently discussing with Dr Ronan Connolly on X and would like to find comments from others about the Connolly’s ideas…
[Response: Ummm… it shouldn’t have, but it seems to have vanished. I’ll look into it tonight. Sorry! – gavin]
[Further Response: Turns out Google stopped supporting Google Custom Search in January, and so the whole widget disappeared. Thanks Google! Anyway, I’ve installed a new plugin (which searches posts, pages and comments) – let me know if works for you. – gavin]
Thanks. It’s actually a pleasure ‘debating’ with Ronan, as opposed to most other sceptics/deniers/contrarians. He seems quite gentlemanly (although almost incorrigible…)
That would be Dr Ronan Connolly of Connolly, Connolly & Soon, so best of luck with your ‘discussion’. Those muppets do tend to get short shrift here at RC (with recent posts discussing their wondrous work in 2022 ‘Serious mistakes found in recent paper by Connolly et al.’, &2023 ‘As Soon as Possible’ & 2024 ‘More solar shenanigans*’).
@MA RODGER Oh I know the Connolly’ are mavericks, but I’m interested in the ‘why’ of how types like them (such as Lindzen and Spencer too) can cling onto their hypotheses against massive criticism. I usually point out that if their ideas genuinely shot big holes in climate science, the giant fossil fuel corporations would have beaten a wide path to their doors, with truck loads of money, to find out how to protect their humongous financial bottom lines against the threat from climate policies. The Connollys, Soon et al would have been already been carried shoulder high down Wall street for saving Big Oil’s corporate bacon. Didn’t happen, did it ‘sceptics’? Still not happening…
I would recommend arguing with scientists such as Lindzen on PubPeer, where it can actually make a difference. In getting papers retracted, it’s the best route.
Example: https://pubpeer.com/publications/E27F0929E64D90C32E9358889CC80F
I have noted the same a few weeks ago. Had to resort to Google – e.g. Realclimate + Connolly yields two host articles devoted to Connolly papers and resulting discussions:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2022/11/serious-mistakes-found-in-recent-paper-by-connolly-et-al/#ITEM-24603-1
and
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/09/as-soon-as-possible/
Trump takes an ax to more than a dozen pollution rules in rapid-fire deregulation
Ella Nilsen
By Ella Nilsen, CNN
5 minute read
Updated 5:51 PM EDT, Wed March 12, 2025
Drivers sit in traffic on southbound Interstate 5 during the afternoon commute heading into downtown San Diego on May 29, in San Diego, California.
Drivers sit in traffic on southbound Interstate 5 during the afternoon commute heading into downtown San Diego on May 29, 2024, in San Diego, California. Kevin Carter/Getty Images
CNN
—
The Trump administration announced its intent to roll back major climate policies Wednesday, including rules that target pollution from vehicles and power plants, in a major blow to America’s progress on clean air, clean water and climate action.
The changes are expected to inject even more uncertainty into key industries, including manufacturing, which President Donald Trump has pledged to support.
The administration was announcing rollbacks and actions in such rapid succession — 31 in around two hours — there appeared to still be placeholders or typos in the news releases.
The Environmental Protection Agency announced it will undo rules that would have pushed power plants and carmakers toward cleaner forms of energy. It also intends to roll back rules on soot, mercury and coal ash pollution, as well as the so-called “good neighbor rule” that regulates downwind air pollution, and eliminate its programs overseeing environmental justice and diversity.
Significantly, Trump’s EPA is also preparing to reconsider and strike down a consequential scientific finding on the dangers of climate pollution that has served as the basis behind federal regulations to curb them. Dismissing the precedent would strip the EPA’s authority to manage the pollution that causes global warming.
The Union of Concerned Scientists said the Trump administration’s actions Wednesday would sacrifice human health for the benefit of private industry.
The rollbacks “will leave the nation sicker and our air, water and soil dangerously contaminated,” said Rachel Cleetus, a senior policy director for the group, said in a statement. “The Trump administration is attempting to subvert the EPA’s mission from one of protecting public health and the environment to that of boosting the interests of polluters and billionaires.”
Cleetus called it “a horrific day” for people suffering from the burden of air and water pollution.
Speaking at a major energy conference in Houston this week, Trump officials questioned climate science and made clear they intend to put Biden’s major climate rules through the shredder.
“The Trump administration will end the Biden administration’s irrational, quasi-religious policies on climate change that imposed endless sacrifices on our citizens,” Energy Sec. Chris Wright said at CERAWeek on Monday.
The Trump administration “will treat climate change for what it is — a global physical phenomenon that is a side effect of building the modern world,” he said.
Is it time for scientists to act yet?
If you intended to provide a link, it didn’t work.
What EPA policies specifically are being rolled back? Are they being rolled back to a particular date? Car emissions have been quite clean for many years. I suspect recent rules have not made them a great deal cleaner. Get some details of the changes – details matter.
Is the EPA still allowed to make rules we must follow outside of Congress even after the Chevron doctrine was axed? Show us in the US Constitution where it says unelected bureaucrats have the authority to make rules that affect our lives and cost us money.
And before y’all whine about unelected DOGE employees having access to your personal information, I will remind you that 99.999%+ of government employees who have access to that information are not elected, and same for the many people in the private sector who have access to it as well.
“And before y’all whine about unelected DOGE employees having access to your personal information, I will remind you that 99.999%+ of government employees who have access to that information are not elected, and same for the many people in the private sector who have access to it as well.”
Since maintenance of privacy in the handling of private information is so important, we’re sure that you would agree that any DOGE personnel
https://projects.propublica.org/elon-musk-doge-tracker/
( just like government and private sector personnel ) that violate the law by disclosing personal information should be stopped from doing so and arrested if in violation of law, as well as any governmental or private sector personnel that directed those actions?
I mean, you would still be concerned if your own records were exploited, even if you got the satisfaction of knowing the people you resent ALSO had their records exploited, or is that part of the shtick?
KIA: What EPA policies specifically are being rolled back?
BPL: Rules prohibiting dumping raw sewage into rivers, and rules setting a maximum amount of mercury to emit into the air, to name two. Check the news for more.
Look, Mr. Know It All — WE GET IT.
You are an OBEDIENT MAGA STOOGE.
You are REGURGITATING LIES LIKE A BABY DROOLING PABULUM.
You have amply and repeatedly made this clear.
There is no need to belabor the point.
I do wish the mods, especially given the subject matter, would cut these dishonest arguments off at source. It is counterproductive to fact check and contextualize arguments we’ve seen for decades, which are not advanced in good faith.
On Wednesday, news broke that UMass Chan Medical School—a public school in the University of Massachusetts system—has rescinded all offers of admission to biomedical graduate students for the 2025–2026 school year. That means an entire class of future scientists has been wiped out. Those who were initially accepted to the program can try to join again in a future cycle under a priority consideration that won’t require them to reapply, according to a letter sent to a previously admitted student that was shared on social media.
In a statement provided to NBC10 Boston, a spokesperson for the school confirmed that several dozen applicants had their acceptance offers rescinded. “With uncertainties related to the funding of biomedical research in this country, this difficult decision was made to ensure that our current students’ progress is not disrupted by the funding cuts and that we avoid matriculating students who may not have robust opportunities for dissertation research,” the statement reads.
Back in the Nixon era this happened as well. I had an offer to a very high level research program at Utah but the repubs cut all sorts of soft money positions across the country, the position disappeared there and at my lesser choices in that area, and I ended up taking a fellowship at a different university in a related, but somewhat different area..
God help us all.
He may be; by warming the planet. Some folks say we are going to run out of fossil fuels. Maybe he doesn’t want us to turn into popsicles?
Speaking of helping us all, WHO HERE has done their part to save the planet by going NET ZERO? Tell us how you did it and how much it cost.
Warm the planet to achieve warmer winters for when we run out of fossil fuels? Bad plan. We have alternative energy sources with renewables and nuclear. Won’t cut need for winter heating all that much. Makes the problem of hotter summers and heatwaves worse, thus increasing energy requirements in Summer. Makes other climate problems worse. It’s just stupid. Plan score 0/ 10.
12 solar panels that cost $12000 in 2012. Of course new ones now are cheaper and even more efficient. When I produce more power than I use it goes back to the grid.
I’ve been net zero on electricity for 18 years. It costs me AUD0.06/kWh (or about USD0.04/kWh). In the meantime, the jurisdiction where I live has become entirely net zero for electricity. That cost me ~AUD100 (about USD65) for the last 4 quarters of supply.. I’m not net zero for heating or cooking – gas heating, hot water and cooktop, but where I live, new gas supply connections have already been discontinued, and the gas distribution network is due to be shut down in 2035. I drive a car that gets about 4.8l/100km (or 49 miles/US gallon for those who prefer antiquated British units). My next car will almost certainly be electric, and as our gas appliances need to be replaced, they will be replaced by electric ones.
Some reasons given here:
https://theshoestring.org/2025/03/13/umass-system-on-high-alert-amid-federal-scrutiny/
“protect Jewish students on campus.” – Know It all (link)
Many of the protesters were Jewish students on Campus.
Why are you echoing the ZIONIST lies told by the ADL?
SN: Why are you echoing the ZIONIST lies told by the ADL?
BPL: Who says they’re lies? You?
Please enlighten us. What specific lies are you referring to?
FYI:
“Oceans last year reached their highest levels in three decades — with the rate of global sea level rise increasing around 35 percent higher than expected, according to a NASA-led analysis published Thursday … Last year’s rate of average global sea level rise was 0.23 inches (0.59 centimeters) per year, higher than the expected 0.17 inches (0.43 centimeters) per year … The rate of global sea level rise follows a trend of rapidly increasing rates over the past 30 years. From 1993 to 2023, the rate of global sea level rise doubled, increasing from 0.08 inches per year to 0.18 inches … Overall, the global sea level has climbed by 4 inches (10 centimeters) since 1993.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2025/03/14/sea-level-rise-unexpected-increase-2024-nasa/
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/jason-cs-sentinel-6/sentinel-6-michael-freilich/nasa-analysis-shows-unexpected-amount-of-sea-level-rise-in-2024/
FYI:
1, The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere measured by the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii increased by 3.58 parts per million in 2024 – the biggest jump since records began there in 1958.
2, On March 7, 2025 the Mauna Loa Observatory recorded the highest ever daily average CO2 level, 430.60 ppm, which is a 5.24 ppm increase over 3/7/2024.
3. On March 11, 2025 the Trump administration announced its intention to close NOAA’s support office for the Mauna Loa Observatory.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2464408-air-monitoring-station-records-biggest-ever-jump-in-atmospheric-co2/
https://www.co2.earth/daily-co2
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/trump-cuts-target-world-leading-greenhouse-gas-observatory-hawaii-2025-03-11/
Apparently the CO2.earth website is giving raw, uncorrected data or something, because right now, 10 days later at 12:13 AM Pacific on March 17 2025, the numbers are:
Mar. 15, 2025 427.56 ppm
Mar. 15, 2024 427.93 ppm
1 Year Change -0.37 ppm (-0.09%)
Last CO2 Earth update: 2:35:02 AM on Mar. 16, 2025, Hawaii local time (UTC -10)
Based on those numbers, CO2 was higher in 2024!
Maybe they have not adjusted their 2024 data for when the wind was blowing from the direction of a CO2 vent on the mountain? Skeptical science says they stop measurements when that happens, but it appears something is off in the data. Or perhaps spring is coming early this year and the awakening plants are taking in CO2 faster than normal? I doubt that is the explanation.
From skepticalscience: “CO2 levels are measured by hundreds of stations across the globe, all reporting the same trend.”
Source: https://skepticalscience.com/co2-measurements-uncertainty.htm
So, if we don’t get one reading from Mauna Loa, we’ll suffer, but we’re ‘Muricans, and we’ll persevere! (That means we’ll get on another website and look at their data.)
From the CO2.earth website Q & A:
“Why did a CO2 reading change at CO2.Earth?
CO2 Earth publishes the latest data that scientific institutions (including NOAA and Scripps) have made public. On occasion, this means that a reading changes because the source institution has updated it.
Scientific institutions refer to measurements within the past year as preliminary as they are subject to quality checks. Adjustments are not uncommon but usually small.”
So, we can’t draw any conclusions from the data that’s less than a year old, and I’d say probably older, and even that is not going to be really precise – it’ll give you a trend – that’s about it. Asia has so many coal-fired power plants that even those could cause erroneous CO2 levels on Mauna Loa under the right conditions.
In other climate science news, we get the latest fearmongering report. This is hilarious. The comments NAILED IT:
https://scitechdaily.com/the-surprising-link-between-co2-levels-and-satellite-collisions/
Well, I can see why you like the commenters on that site–they’re as stupid as you. First, some basic arithmetic–greenhouse gas emissions did not decline 20% during COVID, but rather by about 10%. Second, we know that the residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere is years rather than months.
Now to the main point of the article–Orbital debris is an increasingly serious problem. Most of the satellites in very low orbits like this are smallsats. They are intended to have a very short mission life and then quickly burn up on re-entry. The number of cubesats being launched has risen exponentially, If they are going to stay up there for years rather than months, then we got a problem. every launch has to pass through this low-orbit region. That endangers astronauts as well as satellites. Here’s a hint: your inability to understand a problem does not obviate the problem!
Your entire comment is nothing but bullshit. Just like all the other bullshit that you post here.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bullshit
So the numbers and other information posted by CO2.earth are BS? I just copied them – I didn’t make them up.
Both sides are guilty of cherry-picking here, selecting a single day for comparison purposes when we should be evaluating a decadal trend.
It’s a bit like the constant refrain, which I’m old enough to remember going on for years, of ‘no statistically significant warming since 1998’.
(And note how that argument simply ceased once the warming did become statistically significant.)
I have grown to expect disingenuous arguments from the denialist side, since that’s all they’ve got, but the majority side should probably refrain. After all, they have increasingly obvious real trends to point to.
Oh, KIA was all in on the “Great Hiatus That Wasn’t”, ascwell.
Mr. KIA: “Based on those numbers, CO2 was higher in 2024!”
I expect CO2 concentrations to drop, or at least not rise as quickly. CO2 concentrations lag temperature by six months (not referring to seasonal variations). The temperature spike is almost over and sea-surface temperatures have been dropping.
https://localartist.org/media/UAH_LowerTrop3.png
The drop seen in UAH data is not reflected in either NOAA or MET data. I’ve used NOAA data here because the MET data for January didn’t come out until a few days ago. Here’s the latest comparison between the post HT and Askja volcano spikes.
https://localartist.org/media/HTvAkjsaENSO2502.png
I haven’t yet found any research into the interaction between increased solar activity and increased stratospheric WV concentrations. It seems like some credible climate scientist would take an interest.
https://youtu.be/vDsjeKo3u3o
Anyone care to comment on Sabine’s take down of herd climate change video in relation to some study linking the California wildfires to climate budget when it wasn’t statistically significant .
I found Sabine Hossenfelder’s approach in this video arrogant and disingenuous. Climate attribution is difficult but some courageous scientists made the effort. Her self-certainty dismisses the reality we all face.
This is not the first time she has tried to blind us with her technical capabilities while failing to apply them with real rigor. It sounds clever, but imnsho it is not.
She runs a profitable YouTube channel, and curates her responses carefully. She does not acknowledge the possibility that she might be wrong on smaller and larger issues. Her wholesale attack on science at large as well as attribution science in particular is comprehensive enough to be actively harmful.
If she really cares about people planning, she should note that there has been a massive acceleration of the size and destructive capability of wildfires which exceeds the careful measurements of those trying to provide real scientific information to the public. While the press is always eager for simplifications and definite answers, these scientists are providing a public service, and deserve our support and respect for putting themselves in the line of fire. Sabine Hossenfelder should not be trying to undermine their efforts.
I was a little fiercer than I quite meant to be here, fwiw; sorry I got so hot under the collar. Many of her videos are informative. I generally prefer those under the moniker “Just Have a Think” when it comes to popular presentation of scientific and related detail. Some of her work explaining climate change and its related scientific disciplines appear to me to be unexceptionable.
ClimateCentral and descriptive efforts like James Hansen’s metaphor of ‘loading the dice, or the military’s use of the wording ‘threat multiplier’ have been of value to laypeople. Everyone has to deal with weather, and extreme weather matters to all of us. Over time, these extremes have become noticeably worse. Working to claim reality is not real and observations are not ‘scientific’ does not help the cause of humanity’s future in its decreasingly hospitable earthly environment (and the idea of ‘escape’ to Mars etc. is doolally in this present).
This was another presentation of the material under discussion: https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2025/01/climate-change-made-deadly-los-angeles-wildfires-35-more-likely-new-attribution-study/ – Masters and Henson have made regular compilations of weather data in this context.
I have absorbed the content of both Sabine’s videos. What she states is clear and correct. Her scientific criticisms of the published science paper (and subsequent media reports) are valid.
It is a disservice to distort and misrepresent to others what Sabine actually stated. Buyer beware.
Buyer beware indeed. There is an extended discussion of the pros and cons with specifics here (I’ve linked to the most useful response (DikranM), not the whole back and forth): https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2025/03/16/reaping-the-whirlwind/#comment-223122
There is more than one kind of distortion, and she has, in this instance, been selective and generalized from particulars to support her argument. She is accurate on the specifics she cites, but inaccurate on the larger picture, and inexpert in the field of climate science and attribution at large.
To say that we are not experiencing warning and increased weather extremes is nonsense: reality is ahead of the science here.
Anyone who wishes to follow through on a wider discussion with a range of views about the argument and related problems may find them at the link above.
FYI:
“Beef is more resource intensive per gram of edible protein than most other food items. Yet, grass-fed beef is sometimes promoted as environmentally desirable based on the expectation that cattle grazing may enhance soil carbon sequestration, thus offsetting production emissions. We quantitatively examine this view by integrating empirical observations with a beef herd model that uses standard animal science equations. We find that even under optimistic rangeland sequestration, grass-fed beef is not less carbon intensive than industrial beef and 3 to 40 times as carbon intensive as most plant and animal alternatives.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2025/03/17/grass-fed-beef-health-emissions
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2404329122
FYI:
“Greenhouse gas accounting conventions were first devised in the 1990’s to assess and compare emissions. Several assumptions were made when framing conventions that remain in practice, however recent advances offer potentially more consistent and inclusive accounting of greenhouse gases. We apply these advances, namely: consistent gross accounting of CO2 sources; linking land use emissions with sectors; using emissions-based effective radiative forcing (ERF) rather than global warming potentials to compare emissions; including both warming and cooling emissions, and including loss of additional sink capacity. We compare these results with conventional accounting and find that this approach boosts perceived carbon emissions from deforestation, and finds agriculture, the most extensive land user, to be the leading emissions sector and to have caused 60% (32%–87%) of ERF change since 1750. We also find that fossil fuels are responsible for 18% of ERF, a reduced contribution due to masking from cooling co-emissions. We test the validity of this accounting and find it useful for determining sector responsibility for present-day warming and for framing policy responses, while recognising the dangers of assigning value to cooling emissions, due to health impacts and future warming.”
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/adb7f2
https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/animal-agriculture-climate-change-greenhouse-gas-emissions-meat/
Historic review of Biden and Obama on cutting waste and abuse from government in Obama’s term:
13 years ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulZ-dIj0tkA
13 years ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hpd61WfMvk
14 years ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSb9os5GG8U
Obama – 15 years ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j024AGIIu9g
Joe Biden – May 21, 2023:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/kZ2ghfZ59_k
They sound like Elon Musk and Trump!
Nobody cares about your crude, clumsy, clownish, laughably dishonest MAGA bullshit, Mr. Stooge.
Please find some other venue in which to perform your public self-humiliation.
FYI:
“The devastating impacts of the climate crisis reached new heights in 2024, with scores of unprecedented heatwaves, floods and storms across the globe, according to the UN’s World Meteorological Organization. The WMO’s report on 2024, the hottest year on record, sets out a trail of destruction from extreme weather that took lives, demolished buildings and ravaged vital crops. More than 800,000 people were displaced and made homeless, the highest yearly number since records began in 2008.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/mar/19/unprecedented-climate-disasters-extreme-weather-un-report
https://wmo.int/publication-series/state-of-global-climate-2024
French scientist denied US entry after phone messages critical of Trump found
France’s research minister said the scientist was traveling to Houston for a conference when his phone was searched
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/19/trump-musk-french-scientist-detained
When do you plan on joining the revolution?
For sure no respected scientific conference will occur in the US in the future unless this is immediately addressed.