This month’s open thread for climate topics. Please try to stay focused on climate instead of generic (and tedious) political sniping.
Reader Interactions
156 Responses to "Unforced Variations: Apr 2025"
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I stand on the shoulders of giants…. Some dude named Newton. Seems the appropriate start for me on this parcel of internet. Looking back I have missed a lot of good information but then I am not a climate scientist. I spent 43 years working as a weather observer and forecaster. First 20 in the military and last 23 in various parts of the world as a contractor. I became aware that something strange seemed to be happening during my time from 78 – 91 in Korea analyzing surface and upper air charts with pencil and pen! By the time I got to Thule Greenland in 2007 it was full on and nothing was going to stop it. So I say this as I bow humbly to your work and wish well all those who are suffering from lost jobs. If our giants could return perhaps they might strike down some of the insanity we have now in our government. Thanks!
FDA’s top tobacco official is removed from post in latest blow to health agency’s leadership
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration’s chief tobacco regulator has been removed from his post as part of sweeping cuts to the federal health workforce on Tuesday, the latest in a series of actions that have cleared out many of the nation’s top experts overseeing food, drugs, vaccines and tobacco products.
Dozens of other employees in FDA’s tobacco center also received notices of dismissal Tuesday morning, including two entire offices responsible for drafting new tobacco regulations and setting policy.
“If you make it virtually impossible to create and draft policy, then you are eviscerating the role of the center,” Mitch Zeller, the FDA’s former tobacco chief, said in an interview. “From a public health perspective it makes absolutely no sense.”
https://apnews.com/article/fda-tobacco-rfk-brian-king-cf2d5657e5d55410073aece19592be09
So… How long are you going to sit around and watch?
Scott Nudds says: “How long are you going to sit around and watch?”
What are you doing besides sitting around and watching?
I’ve commenced applauding, as I consider prohibitionism a public evil and regard prohibitionists of of all stripes, as enemies of liberty property and the life of the mind.
One of NIH’s most spectacular miscalculations was to presume a hundred million tobacco users would not notice its institutional failure to spend a dime on medical risk mitigation.
Russell, I’m not a fan of prohibition of tobacco or things like alcohol myself, but the FDA isn’t actually suggesting prohibition of tobacco is it? But governments that regulate these sorts of products, forbid sales to children and perhaps teenagers, put limits on advertising, and require warning labels on packets, that is commonsense surely? Some countries go further with tobacco taxes.
The pulmonary ATMOSPHERIC CLIMATE science is settled. Since at least 1965, warnings on cigarettes have stated that smoking will create an unhealthy ATMOSPHERIC CLIMATE in your lungs. Do we need an expensive bureaucracy to beat this dead horse every day? I think putting the warnings on the products is sufficient. The program has been fairly successful at reducing smoking among the population. They have set up rules for the warnings – they successfully completed the task they were assigned – now lay them off so tax dollars can go to places where there is a greater need. The current warnings and science are sufficient.
https://globalhealthnow.org/object/warning-label-cigarettes
Quote from article: “In 1965, the federal government mandated that cigarette packaging include a warning that smoking cigarettes may be hazardous to your health. The intent was to educate consumers about smoking and hammer home its health risks, including lung cancer, coronary disease and pulmonary disease.”
You seem to think that the tobacco industry hasn’t come up with new products and marketing schemes in 60 years, in an effort to get more people addicted to nicotine, and that there is therefore no need for oversight. Vapes just came on the market a decade or so ago, and were marketed as being “safe”. The FDA recently ruled against the industry using flavored components which appeal to teenagers in vapes, a regulation that was just upheld in a unanimous decision (a rarity these days) by SCOTUS. Advertising that appeals to youth was an earlier target. Another recent issue was the explosion in counterfeit cigarettes, which contain higher concentrations of toxic metals and other substances than genuine ones. As long as there is a tobacco industry trying to get around regulations and get more people addicted to their products, there will be a need for tobacco control units in the FDA and/or other agencies.
The FDA has over 18,000 employees.
https://www.fda.gov/about-fda
FDA Org chart:
https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/fda-organization-charts/fda-overview-organization-chart
FDA Center for Tobacco Products Org chart:
https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/fda-organization-charts/fda-overview-organization-chart
Mr. Nudds stated: “Dozens of other employees in FDA’s tobacco center also received notices of dismissal Tuesday morning, including two entire offices responsible for drafting new tobacco regulations and setting policy.”
“Dozens” of employees being let go, while no fun for them will have, according to high precision calculations, exactly 0.0000000000000% adverse affect on the functioning of the FDA Center for Tobacco Products. I have total confidence, that somehow, the FDA will manage to function just fine with a few dozen fewer employees given their $7,200,000,000 budget:
https://www.fda.gov/media/166050/download?attachment
Furthermore, unelected bureaucrats at the tobacco center do not have the authority to “set policy”. The US Constitution, gives that power to the US Congress, with approval of the President.
KIA: “Dozens” of employees being let go, while no fun for them will have, according to high precision calculations, exactly 0.0000000000000% adverse affect on the functioning of the FDA Center for Tobacco Products.”
His comment is completely evidence free bullshit. No calculations were provided in his comment or links. Organisations employ the number employees needed to do certain jobs, therefore any reductions in staff must logically compromise the job delivery. This is from KIAs own “facts sheet” “FDA’s responsibilities are ever growing and more complex due to advances in food and medical product technology, global supply chains, and artificial intelligence.” If anything this suggests the FDA need to hire MORE STAFF.
“Do we need an expensive bureaucracy to beat this dead horse every day?” – Knows nothing at all.
Does America need an expensive advertising agency to promote the consumption of alcohol, fast food, and prescription pills every day?
Our tax dollars are not confiscated to advertise private sector products. The cost of that advertising is included in the price of the products. Don’t want to pay for that advertising? Don’t buy those products.
The pulmonary ATMOSPHERIC CLIMATE science is settled. Everyone knows that inhaling anything other than clean air is probably hazardous to your health. Put the warnings on every tobacco and other inhaled products. That’s all we need to do. Ditto for chewing tobacco, etc.
A “few dozen” or “two entire offices” being let go, out of 18,000 employees, isn’t even a good start on what is needed. It will have no adverse effect on the FDA.
Imagine being so brainwashed that instead of being happy about the elimination of truly wasteful spending, you attack the person who uncovers it. You’ve entered the Twilight Zone.
KIA: Imagine being so brainwashed that instead of being happy about the elimination of truly wasteful spending, you attack the person who uncovers it.
BPL: Imagine being so brainwashed you think spending is “truly wasteful” just because an unelected immigrant placed in charge by a madman tells you so.
BPL: “Imagine being so brainwashed you think spending is “truly wasteful” just because an unelected immigrant placed in charge by a madman tells you so.”
FYI, There are between 2.3 to over 3 MILLION federal gubmint employees, depending on who you ask. 99.9999% of them are unelected.
Over 3 million?
https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-people-work-for-the-federal-government/
Only 2.3 million?
https://www.fedscope.opm.gov/ibmcognos/bi/v1/disp?b_action=powerPlayService&m_encoding=UTF-8&BZ=1AAABnsT72MN42oVOsW6DQAz9mTNph0Y_wyVhYIDjUBiANLBXlFzSqsBFcB3y9xUwpFWGvidL9vN7lp2yWJdVcVRpHIzWDDqNn4DocyNI4jZU6PncQ0%7EtfIHRZiO5UKREtAWiZ2fKqvAo94ew2gdASWN6q3sLlJxNe9IDiAg87OtOgxuvDnXzVV%7E0_Ka6a2tune7tCkQMlFyXzV%7E73QWEL0Aov4dhmTLT248p68SlXMsiz5Ws0iLPw0wF%7E_Wc6DU4IzKOiJwjYwyZQEbIJjIWXnTf3IAQ6ASEYdsC_pkZ7eMpQJ8B7YBcBNIc6B3IXwR_F9gMIHey%7EwKfOXfLO3MtTyz4AbZLbJc%3D
Found that last one here: https://www.fedscope.opm.gov/ in case that huge link doesn’t work.
Back to climate science. Has the Tanana River ice gone out yet in Nenana?
https://www.nenanaakiceclassic.com/copy-of-2022
Well, Numb Nuts, Senate just decided to defy basic arithmetic and proclaim another $5 trillion chunk of deficit tax breaks won’t add to the deficit. So much for all your DOGE related savings. Imbecile!
KIA says: “FYI, There are between 2.3 to over 3 MILLION federal gubmint employees, depending on who you ask. 99.9999% of them are unelected.”
So why is that number “wasteful”? Why not 5 million or 10 million or 1 million or 2 million? Wheres your evidence and analysis? You got nothing. Your entire world view is idiotic. Its equally possible there is a SHORTAGE of people in federal government Plenty of hard evidence has been presented of this:
https://cepr.net/publications/federal-government-is-too-small/
I deal in evidence. You deal in bullshit.
Ah, 3 million or only 2.3 million? You can find the answer right there in the first link that KIA posted.
“Of the 3.0 million people employed by the federal government, around 2.3 million of them were full-time employees.”
KIA: There are between 2.3 to over 3 MILLION federal gubmint employees, depending on who you ask. 99.9999% of them are unelected.
BPL: So are the secretaries and interns of every congressman and senator. So are the janitors. So are the law clerks. To try to elect 2.3-3.0 million functionaries would be insane. Most of those people are always and everywhere going to be hired, not elected.
Every totalitarian regime replaces the professional civil service with people appointed for party loyalty instead of competence. Why are you defending this fascist action?
Mr. KIA:
“Has the Tenana River ice gone out at Nenana yet?”
Nope:
https://www.nenanaakiceclassic.com/
(About 15 seconds to search.)
Average person will be 40% poorer if world warms by 4C, new research shows.
Trouble is, the “average person” in a hugely skewed distribution is not a very good descriptor of central tendency. The actual tendency for the bulk of the population will likely be more than that.
How many people will be left if the world warms by 4C?
If/when the world warms by 4C, we will have much bigger problems than being poorer. Meanwhile, the Guardian appears to misstate the actual datum, which is than the economy will shrink by 40% (I still think that is a serious understatement based on the chaos we are now experiencing).
The effects of climate change on the economic output will indeed be negative but theres also another insidious side to the issue. Due to climate change the economic output has an increasing component of work related to repairing things, and reinforcing things and adapting, and thus less work on producing new things, meaning even a reduced number for economic output will be worse than it looks.
Commenters should restrict themselves to climate science and mitigation issues. Seeing they cannot I think this fits perfectly.
Today’s Financial Times has a splendid feature article on those slinking away: “American academics seek exile as Trump attacks universities.” They name names
https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2025/04/01/trumps-attack-on-elite-american-universities-just-punishment-but-for-wrongly-identified-offenses/
Many words. Zero meaning.
Exactly what I thought. Awful sounding angry history professor and apologist for Putin, who doesnt like DEI. He uses lots of words but no meaningful content.
in Re to nigelj, 31 Mar 2025 at 6:35 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/03/unforced-variations-mar-2025/#comment-831735
Dear Nigel,
Of course, you may be right that Don Williams is a genuine person. I think, however, that the difference in style and in a declared political attitude may be just a difference between two different camouflages of the same troll, wherein “Don Williams” is the most advanced and, in parallel, most successful one so far.
I am not going to provide the reasons why I rather tend to this conclusion. It is not relevant. What I see as relevant is the circumstance that (exactly as Dharma and its various clones), Don Williams also ignores all my polite pleas asking him/her it to desist from attacking Ukraine, a victim of an aggressive war started by Russia, and from asserting that the responsibility for this war is in fact on the USA.
I think that continuous spreading such wilful lies alone could be a sufficient ground for stopping any direct interaction with him/her/it. I propose that we do so as a sign that we are not going to further tolerate activities of this subject on Real Climate discussion fora.
Greetings
Tomáš
While looking to see if Roy Spencer has posted the UAH TLT update for March, I noticed he has been playing with the model data used by the Global Carbon Project for some reason and has calculated some “alterations to the ‘official’ Global Carbon Project estimates of the sources and sinks.” These “alterations” turn out rather large, even for Roy with his not-so-small urges to tweak climatological noses. So he presents it all as “a statistical exercise, this does not constitute ‘proof'” although he goes on to say off-handedly “these are just some areas that carbon budget modelers might want to look into when tweaking their models.” He points out “such statistical results can be misleading … but regression analysis can also sometimes can reveal insights into what physics might be missing.”
His analysis begins by dismissing carbon cycle models used by GCP that are less able to “explain year-to-year changes in atmospheric CO2 content as measured at Mauna Loa” and then somehow uses Multi-Variate Linear Regression on the chosen ones to calculate the size of the various components within the Carbon Cycle. His results are certainly divergent from what folk would expect, with even Roy finding one** “hard to believe.”
♣ FF emissions** are 30% larger than ‘reported’.
♣ LUC emissions are overestimated by a factor of 2.
♣ Biosphere sink is about 25% higher.
♣ Cement as a sink is underestimated by a whopping factor of 7 too samll.
♣ Ocean sink is 20% too high.
And of course, the atmospheric increase as measured at MLO 1959-2023 is taken as given.
But here’s a thing. The NOAA provide an MLO CO2 record 1959-to-date as well as a global CO2 record 1979-to-date. And the MLO and global values have been diverging over the data entire period since 1979, the gap by 2023 grown by 2ppm. Strangely, that’s roughly the same size as the difference between Roy’s modelled atmospheric CO2 and the GCP estimates Roy graphs out.
What a coincidence!!
FYI:
“The world is on track for disastrous global heating – but this will create profits for some air conditioning companies, according to forecasts by leading Wall Street financial institutions.
“Recent reports by Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and the Institute of International Finance all make clear the finance sector considers the Paris climate agreement limiting global temperatures, signed a decade ago by nearly 200 nations, is effectively dead and investors should plan accordingly.
“‘We now expect a 3C world,’ states a March analysis by Morgan Stanley. This level of global heating above preindustrial times is well beyond the 2C limit agreed to by governments and would lead to catastrophic heatwaves, floods, economic strife and other upheavals.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/02/us-banks-climate-goals-fail-air-conditioning
FYI:
“The amount of water stored on lands across Earth’s continents has declined at such staggering levels that changes are likely irreversible while humans are alive, a study published Thursday found. The losses in soil moisture — a result of the planet’s climate conditions and prolonged droughts — already pose issues for farming, irrigation systems and critical water resources for humans. But it also affects sea-level rise and Earth’s rotation — datasets the research team used to better track water storage for decades longer than previous studies.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2025/03/27/earth-soil-moisture-drying-sea-level-study/
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adq6529
March 28 – Ad for DOGE – Ezra Klein walks John Stewart through the 14 steps of insanity required by the Biden administration to build broadband Internet in rural regions. Jon Stewart LOSES His Mind when he Realizes Elon Musk and DOGE is probably Right
Original in full
Why Can’t We Have Nice Things with Ezra Klein | The Weekly Show Jon Stewart Podcast
16:30 – Why Rural Broadband Did Not Happen (How the Biden Administration Passed Their Own Bills)
37:17 – Jon Is Speechless – OMFG @step 12!
39:20 – A Party that Wants to Make Government Fail Vs. A Party that Doesn’t Make Government Work
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcZxaFfxloo
The US Govt and American society has been a laughing stock the world over for a very long time no matter who is the President and who controls the Congress. Poor America
quick 14 point summary 5 minute original podcast extract
NYTs Ezra Klein on Jon Stewart Weekly Show – Biden’s Build Back Better Plan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkVHsrSy2Eg
New article out by Hansen April 2, 2025: Global Warming Acceleration: Impact on Sea Ice
https://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2025/SeaIce.Acceleration.02April2025.pdf
Trumps admin tariff formula has been cracked: It’s simply the nation’s trade deficit with US divided by the nation’s exports to the US. Then cut that in half. Bingo! Yes. Really.
Vietnam: Exports 136.6, Imports 13.1
Deficit = 123.5
123.5/136.6 = 90%
Generally the Discounted Reciprocal Tariff applied is half the calculated % = 46% for Vietnam
Tariff Percent Chart
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GnkLMmfXYAAEc_Z.jpg?name=orig
For Lesotho, the calculation goes like this: ($236M – $7M)/$235M = 97%. That’s the “tariff” Lesotho is deemed to charge this U.S. and half of that, i.e. roughly 50% is what the U.S. “reciprocates” with.
It’s extremely easy to see why this makes no sense at all. How embarrassing.
Crazy, indeed. It also explains how South Korea, which has bilateral free trade deal with the US, is one of the nations more harshly dealt with.
The bad faith is so transparent, and it will damage US credibility for decades to come. As it should, considering our corporate electoral choice.
Kevin: “ Crazy, indeed. It also explains how South Korea, which has bilateral free trade deal with the US, is one of the nations more harshly dealt with .”
Or take Australia: it exports to US $16.7 B and imports from the US $34.6 B.
But the Reality TV Personality in Charge of the US rewarded Australia for importing from the US 107% MORE than it exports to the US, with a … 10% tariff on these Australian exports. Don’t let the good deeds to go unpunished …. And if the self-declared Very Stable Genius applied his own formula – then the tariffs on Australian exports should have been NEGATIVE 53%.
See also earlier DJ Trump’s example on how Canada charges the 200% tariffs against the US dairy products. What he didn’t mention is that those tariffs would have kicked in ONLY if the US exports exceed the high limits, negotiated and boasted about by … the very same Trump, and being set so high that NONE of the dairy categories came even close to these limits – hnce the effective tariff on the US dairy is … 0%.
But I guess Canada slapping …0% tariffs on the US dairy exports wouldn’t be as effective in promoting the culture of victimhood in America – the story about how the most powerful country in the world has been … helpless to prevent being dominated and ruthlessly exploited by the countries …. with a fraction of the US GDP.
But MAGAts won’t let the facts get in the way of their feelings. As their Glorious Leader said “ We won with the poorly educated. I love the poorly educated! “
Piotr
“Or take Australia: it exports to US $16.7 B and imports from the US $34.6 B.But the Reality TV Personality in Charge of the US rewarded Australia for importing from the US 107% MORE than it exports to the US, with a … 10% tariff on these Australian exports. Don’t let the good deeds to go unpunished …. And if the self-declared Very Stable Genius applied his own formula – then the tariffs on Australian exports should have been NEGATIVE 53%.”
Exactly. Importing more than you export is intuitively a good thing overall, – provided your economy can finance this adequately, and Americas economy is a strong economy. I read an article by the Economist.com on this last year: Apparently America gets away with having a trade deficit, because it is financed by loans ultimately, but given the US dollar is so strong and the global reserve currency the finance rates are in Americas favour. Because Americas economy is so strong and wealthy and is growing it is able to easily service the loans. Trump clearly doesn’t get how it works, even though his own businesses borrow massively and he says “he loves debt”. Its just….. Im lost for the right words.
Kinda like the classic “Look, I didn’t WANT to hit her, but she MADE me do it!”
Saturation may be found to be one cause of recent unexpected warming increases (The Saturation Chronicles – 7).
Dear Judge Dredd,
This article contents and others on that blog are a mess, filled with misleading phrasing and fundamental misunderstandings of physics.
The statement:
“Quantum level conditions determine which one of ‘this photon or that photon’ is the one to be ejected out of the atom or molecule and into a colder one.”
…is not meaningful in physics. There’s no such selection mechanism. Photon interactions are random, statistical, and governed by well-understood laws—not mysterious, undecided events.
This kind of pseudo-scientific writing creates confusion by mixing correct physics terms (wavelength, frequency, energy) with totally incorrect interpretations. It’s a classic case of using real science words but in a way that makes no physical sense.
Please Judge Dredd, stick to being a comic book hero and avoid physics and climate science.
Not to mention that photons are indistinguishable particles–it makes no sense to talk about “this photon” or “that photon”. It is a photon..
Dredd: “That is, since the ocean is known to have absorbed 90-93% of increases in global warming induced temperature, if that percentage of atmospheric temperature absorption decreases (saturation percentage decreases), the atmospheric temperatures will thereby increase accordingly.”
JP: If the proportion of Earth Energy Imbalance being absorbed by the ocean decreases, it would probably be the result of more energy being used to melt glacial ice. The ocean and ice caps can both absorb a lot of heat. The atmosphere can store very little by comparison.
Should be a feedback there, right? I.e., the more air temps increase, the greater the differential between the ocean, land or ice surface below. And then the thermodynamics are really simply: flux from the atmosphere to whatever substrate increases.
As you imply, the phase change sink is rather a dramatic variable variable in the mix.
I promised to duplicate my earlier response here, so here goes (with apologies to Stefan Rahmstorf if he was holding this back for post-review).
This was Tamino’s response about whether emissions are accelerating, in comments here: https://tamino.wordpress.com/2025/03/26/questions-and-answers/
“Yes. If you follow the link to the pre-print of Stefan’s and my submitted paper, look at the final graph and you’ll see just that: residuals from the current “straight-line-plus-noise” model for each data source. They also show the best-fit PLF model to those residuals (red line) which indicates when they start to deviate.”
linked preprint (‘not peer reviewed by a journal’: Brief Communication):
Global Warming has Accelerated Significantly – Stefan Rahmstorf and Grant Foster – https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-6079807/v1
Don’t forget, show up for Hands Off Saturday! ~1100 locations in US, several abroad
https://www.mobilize.us/map/
Here’s some Boston stuff (including the very rowdy snarky Dropkick Murphys)!
https://www.axios.com/local/boston/2025/04/02/dropkick-murphys-boston-hands-off-protest
Fired HHS worker confronts Senator:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVt5xONeJsk
As with all Republicans, Mr. KIA, it is all about the cruelty for you, isn’t it?
…and with that entitled, “superior” smirk they so love while glorying in the pain they inflict. You know. The sort of expression a rapist gets after acting.
I remember when that smirk was a Hollywood trope for showing someone for NOT being a “red blooded ‘Murican”–usually a Nazi or commie or evil Japanese.
In deed, like cartoon villains.
Exhibit A: Trump’s mugshot.
I mean holy crap, that it has become an icon tells me that some people spend way too much time living in a fantasy world of professional wrestling; that and a culture of glamorized gangsters has handed us an actual gangster government.
Hey MAGA, check yourselves: Being a jackass =/= being a badass. So stupid it’s stupefying.
One bit of good news, the turn out for Hands Off.!
Yay! Another doubling in a single decade.
RECORD ACCELERATING LAND TEMPERATURES AGRICULTURE
FAO, 2024 >1.5 °C 5.4 billion people.
Countries >1.5 °C 73% agricultural land. Share of agricultural land >1.5°C doubling every decade almost all regions.
https://x.com/PCarterClimate/status/1908309776515424413
KIA: Yay! Another doubling in a single decade. . . . RECORD ACCELERATING LAND TEMPERATURES AGRICULTURE . . . FAO, 2024 >1.5 °C 5.4 billion people. . . . Countries >1.5 °C 73% agricultural land. Share of agricultural land >1.5°C doubling every decade almost all regions.
BPL: You’re cheering increased droughts and fires in continental interiors and storms along coastlines? I don’t think we share the same values.
BPL:
“– KIA: Yay! Another doubling in a single decade. . .
– You’ re cheering increased droughts and fires in continental interiors and storms along coastlines? I don’t think we share the same values.”
Barton, you mean ” Killian”, not “KiA” , right? Freudian slip, I’d presume. Still your conclusion, if anything, is more valid – doomer cheering climate disaster because it proves that he was right (“I have been telling you this for more than a decade, but you never listen”) i.e., the worse for the humanity the better for my ego.
With a straight out denier like KIA – it would have been a tad more complicated – yes, would fit their callous joy of inflicting harm we see here with their joy in Musk’s indiscriminate gutting of the federal programs, but would also require the denier to accept that climate change is real.
But then again, deniers holding contraditory views and being oblivious to the contradiction, is so common that it borders on psychological cliche….
Admins, please delete these two intentionally problematic posts.
Pretending you don’t know that was sarcastic is truly disgusting gaslighting. Truly disgusting you two are STILL trying to score stupid points in a game only you were ever playing and YOU started.
Serious times for serious people. We need no more Trumpian types shouting out lies and insults to boost their fragile egos while completely disregarding the depth and danger of what is happening in favor of baseless juvenile taunting.
Knock it off; the people reading this forum deserve far better than you two are delivering.
Killian: “ Pretending you don’t know that was sarcastic is truly disgusting gaslighting.”
Sarcasm is aimed at somebody – so at whom have you aimed your sarcasm at Killian? Obviously not at the politicians failing to implement the necessary changes, nor the fossil fuel interests that finance them – neither are not represented here. This leaves only … our hosts and everyone who is not a fellow doomer.
A typical internet doomer is a deeply insecure person, who haven’t achieved much in their life, tries to compensate by seeing themselves as a prophet, who despite limited knowledge, could see what top scientists in the world failed or refused to see – which makes the doomer – more intelligent or having more integrity – than the top scientists in the world. So to a doomer – the worse the news the better to their ego – “ I have been telling you that for over a decade, but you never listen“. Hence the joy in your voice, is not rhetorical (“sarcasm”), but quite real. And quite typical for the people with the fragile ego – with so much ego riding on being right in this – they are incapable of introspection, unable to look into themselves and ask oneself uncomfortable questions.
BTW, I have provided this analysis of Killian’s motives before – so knowing what’s coming – he tried to deflect by … preemptively accusing us of what I have diagnosed him in the past –
– BPL and I are “ the types shouting out lies and insults to boost their fragile egos”
Imitation is a sincerest form of flattery, so … thank you, Killian? ;-)
Modelers have also changed how they characterize the effect of anthropogenic aerosols from burning fuel, particularly in clouds. In general, the aerosols make clouds thicker and better able to shade the planet. The recent recalculation follows new estimates of aerosol emissions during the mid-20th century, a time when booming emissions from rapid industrialization caused the planet to cool for several decades, masking the warming effect of accumulating CO2.
Researchers have concluded from the new data that both the cooling effect of aerosols and the warming effect of CO2 have been greater than previously supposed, causing them to revise upward their estimates of the climate’s sensitivity to CO2. With CO2 continuing to accumulate and stricter controls on smog, the masking effect of particulate aerosols is bound to diminish in the future. So the increased climate sensitivity to CO2 is set to dominate, giving an extra kick to warming.
Real-world data from satellites suggests that the modelers’ predictions may already be coming true. Norman Loeb of NASA’s Langley Research Center has shown that a sharp rise in global average temperatures since 2013 has coincided with a decline in cloud cover over the oceans. He argues that the clearer skies may have resulted from stricter pollution controls in China and North America.
Other researchers have reported fewer low-level clouds in the tropics during warmer years. In his 2016 study, climate scientist Tapio Schneider, then at ETH Zurich, noted that climate models that incorporated this link in their calculations predicted faster global warming.
And only then came the 2020+ IMO fuel oil sulphur regulation changes further affecting aerosol forcing over oceans thus reducing global albedo even more while CO2 emissions hit record levels driving warming even higher to new record levels as well. Of course time will tell what the future holds so we will have to wait for the next years data to arrive, and the the following years data and the next. Continually kicking the can down the road. More studies and more data will always be demanded by some quarters while the earth continually warms and the impacts increase.
working on a conspiracy theory that dt is a closet climate evangelist encompassing his own “deep state”, who, recognizing that the world has utterly failed to rein-in carbon use despite all awareness, opportunity and need, and seeing the futility of the prospect of gathering sufficient political inertia behind an appropriate addressing of climate change, has taken on the task of reducing global economic activity by whatever means necessary. pedal to the metal krasnov.
Heh. Nice. The same thing occurred to me just this morning. A global economic depression is a sure-fire way to reduce emissions temporarily. Not a complete nor permanent solution to global warming, however.
Fun, but utterly implausible. DJT is owned, lock, stock, and cojones–such as they are–by Big Fossil.
Nope. Putin.
No, you say? Possibly. But, if not beholden to Pootie, I have to ask what exactly would he be doing differently?
Well, Putin and Trump are certainly a pair of oily characters simpatico.
It is common for a con man to sell the same product multiple times to different buyers and pocket the money and run. I suspect Don the Con has mortgaged his cojones many times over.
So what does a pendejo need with cojones anyway? Basically he just hates. A sucking singularity of malevolence at the center of a giant field of radioactive megalomania. Might explain all the mutants in his orbit…
Yes!
Hehe, that’s what I used to say about net zero by 2050: we’ll certainly get there, just not in a way we would like to (i.e. witth something that resembles contemporary society).
In Re to Nigelj, 5 APR 2025 AT 3:35 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/04/unforced-variations-apr-2025/#comment-831875
and Piotr, 4 APR 2025 AT 10:31 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/04/unforced-variations-apr-2025/#comment-831855
Sirs,
If the USA is going to apply tariffs to countries like South Korea, Canada or Mexico, isn’ it a violation of the respective free trade agreements that were ratified by the US Congress?
Best regards
Tomáš
No, it isn’t a violation per the link below. Also, perhaps you noticed during the Biden administration when the US Supreme Court told Biden he could not forgive student loans HE DID IT ANYWAY, which means that people who paid off their own loans, or people who did not have any loans, and maybe didn’t even attend college were expected by Biden to pay the loans of those who did! Maybe Biden was banking on the total “immunity for official acts” ruling? Anyway, Congress has given Presidents the power to levy tariffs:
https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/how-congress-delegates-its-tariff-powers-to-the-president
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/why-does-the-executive-branch-have-so-much-power-over-tariffs/
In other climate science news, article says current CC models must be “tuned” to give “realistic” outputs.
Quote:
“Even coarser models with parameterizations are expensive to run in terms of computing time and power, and the tuning process means they need to be run repeatedly until the researchers succeed in tuning them to produce reliable and realistic outputs.”
Source:
https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/artificial-intelligence-is-key-to-better-climate-models-say-researchers
AI has been shown to be biased to the left. Source:
https://news.mit.edu/2024/study-some-language-reward-models-exhibit-political-bias-1210
If AI can’t be relied on to produce unbiased “information”, why does anyone think we should rely on it for CC models? If AI has a greater role in climate modeling will this known bias result in even greater loss of confidence in climate models than we already see?
KIA, that’s not a left-wing bias.
That’s a bias towards the facts, in a world where the vast majority of science-denial, from evolution to climate change to no one “race” being superior to other, comes overwhelmingly from the right.
The old saw, that at least in Modern ‘Murica, the truth has a left-wing bias, is true.
And no, it won’t make science-deniers even more committed to science denial. You could no more do that than make a tiger more committed to meat-eating.
They argue it’s legal under the “War and ‘declared’ emergency” overrides.
Of course disagreeing with the admin apparently IS an act of war by a foreign power just as disagreeing with it by a citizen is treason, so I guess we do indeed exist in a state of war.
Re: Tomas Kalisz – Trump like Putin does not give a dam about ratified trade agreements. Even those conducted by them: The current USMCA free trade agreement between US Mexico and Canada has been pushed for and negotiated by Trump. to replace previous NAFTA free trade agreement, negotiated by the anti_American politician, called George Bush (senior). It in turn, replaced the Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement, the brain-child of Ronald Reagan.
So Donald Trump by calling NAFTA – “ the worst trade deal ever made” and wondering for 25 years: How could anybody have signed a deal like NAFTA?” he accused that George Bush (sr) and by extension Ronald Reagan before him, were either traitors or morons – since they signed “” the worst trade deal ever made“. And so was the US congress that ratified both treaties – made of traitors or morons.
Enter our Dear Leader – he scraped NAFTA and negotiated his own tremendously treaty:
DJ Trump, 2018: “ The incredible new US-Mexico-Canada Agreement, called “USMCA”
So we have negotiated this new agreement based on the principle of fairness and reciprocity. To me, it’s the most important word in trade because we’ve been treated so unfairly by so many nations all over the world. […] Once approved by Congress, this new deal will be the most modern, up-to-date, and balanced trade agreement in the history of our country, with the most advanced protections for workers ever developed
Fast forward to 2025 – and now the same <"new agreement based on the principle of fairness and reciprocity; that he signed himself IS NOW a part of ” looting, pillaging, raping and plundering” of America. What is missing is only waondering what kind of traitor/moron would have ever signed a treaty that allowed foreigners to freely “rape and pillage” the innocent US….
But neither Trump or his MAGA supporters remember that it was him who signed and it was him who called it: “ the most modern, up-to-date, and balanced trade agreement in the history of our country, with the most advanced protections for workers ever developed” (c) Donald J. Trump 2018: “Remarks by President Trump on the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement”. And nobody dares to remind it to him, not even his tarrif pusher Peter Navarro, whom DJ Trump congratulated for his hard work on that Treaty:
DJ Trump, 2018: “ Fantastic job. (Applause.) Peter Navarro, everybody. Thank you all. Thank you. Fantastic group of people. They love our country.”
So to answer your question Tomas – both Putin and Trump don’t care about treaties they signed, don’t care about their past words – for both them the might is right and the superpowers can’t be held to their words treaties and guarantees given to weaker countries – like Ukraine that in the name a securing the humanity’s safety by the non-porliferation of nuclear weapons, which disarmed itself
giving up their post-Soviet nuclear arsenal, at the time the third highest in the world, in exchange for security GUARANTEES by the five main nuclear states – first and foremost – the USA and Russsia.
Since neither US nor Russia official security GUARANTEES given in such a momentous occasion – as limiting the proliferation of the nuclear weapons worth the paper they were written on – why would they be concerned about their signed treaties in much less existential things like trade?
There is a bit that’s been overlooked, which is that the CAMUSA pact–I prefer the Canadian version of the acronym for some mysterious reason–contained an exception to allow for addressing “national security” concerns.
That’s presumably why Trump had to invent a ‘serious’ fentanyl crisis at the Canadian border, over a total of just 43 pounds–not kilos!–intercepted in 2024. This way, he can remain notionally, kinda sorta, if you squint just right, not in violation.
I think CAMUSA is a zombie pact at this point, though–it comes up for scheduled review next year, and it’s pretty hard to imagine that “review” producing anything good or useful.
If they intercepted 43 pounds, it is likely that 43 tons got through undetected, so, yes it is a national security threat. From left-leaning AI: “43 pounds (approximately 19.5 kg) of fentanyl could potentially kill a very large number of people. According to the DEA, one kilogram of fentanyl has the potential to kill 500,000 people. Therefore, 43 pounds (19.5 kg) of fentanyl could potentially kill approximately 9,750,000 people.”
In 2024 KNOWN drugs coming into the US across the northern border included:
Pot – 6,800 lb.
Meth – 185 lb
Cocaine – 2,400 lb
Fentanyl – 43 lb
Heroin – 72 lb
Khat – 263 lb
Ketamine – 377 lb
Ecstacy – 99 lb
LSD – 2 lb
Other – 1,300 lb
Source – (have to adjust the table filters to see the above):
https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/drug-seizure-statistics
So, yes, the Canadian border is a problem. Trump, and no other president, will attempt to deal with it. That’s why he is president, and SHE ain’t.
;)
And the source for your estimate that 43 tons undetected is “likely?”. Do you really think they detect 0nly 0.05%? (Which, by the way, is very roughly the percentage of fentanyl over the Canadian versus Mexican borders. Pretty amazing, isn’t it, that anybody in this country is left alive!
The northern border was never a serious election issue. As for fentanyl, less than 1% comes in over that border. You know this.
You are simply repeating talking points, not reality, as usual.
Perhaps your real problem is with those who purchase these drugs. Why not work on that?
Mr Trumpet it All: “ If they intercepted 43 pounds, it is likely that 43 tons got through undetected”
Let’s test your MAGA-arithmethics:
– seizures on the Mexican border- over 22,000 lbs, which with your Trump multiplier means 22,000 TON of fentanyl per year from Mexico alone.
Given 2mg are enough to kill a person – then according to YOUR numbers – Americans consume as much Mexican fentanyl EVERY day that can to kill .. 30 BILLION of Americans. EACH DAY.
And assuming DEA value of 1 kg of fentanyl to be just under $1 million. do you really want to claim, that the USA is financing the bloody drug cartels and American drug pushers to the tune of 22000*1000*1000000 = $22 TRILLION per year??? That’s more than 20 times more than the ENTIRE US trade deficit just going to the Mexican drug cartels and their American distributors.
And since your Tremendous President declared drug cartels – terrorist organizations – then it follows that your beloved country, USA, is FINANCING international terrorist organization, according to YOUR OWN numbers, with TRILLIONS of dollars per year, not mentioning American gun companies and American gun traders – supplying these bloody terrorist organization with weapons. The manifest destiny of the USA, eh? ;-)
And whichever MAGAt sold you on the argument that 1lb of drug seized => 1 ton of drug that went through undetected – wasn’t your friend – not only did he manipulated you, but also made you look like a fool, for promoting this claim only an idiot could swallow, on, of all things, a scientific forum, when people verify each other numbers and assumptions as the matter of course.
RC is not your MAGA circle of mutual adoration, where you could get away with your “tremendous” lies. No wonder that your God loves you: “ We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated.“
Check out a new tool for tracking online climate misinformation, created by Tortoise Media and the University of Exeter. As they persist with their ignorance and lies, so do we with competence and truth.
https://www.tortoisemedia.com/hot-air-explore-tool
Thanks! Bookmarked.
Excellent source of information to counter AGW theory. All the deniers thank you! A quick look produces excellent anti-AGW arguments. Two examples out of thousands available on that website:
The Bray and Eddy Solar Cycles:
https://x.com/_ClimateCraze/status/1800329904384553270
The COVID lockdown experiment failed to prove AGW:
https://x.com/_ClimateCraze/status/1734206497100292354
[Response: Lol. – gavin]
FYI: Trump doubles down on his campaign to destroy the Earth’s biosphere.
Trump signs orders to allow coal-fired power plants to remain open:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/08/trump-executiver-order-coal-power-plants
Trump takes aim at city and state climate laws in executive order:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/09/trump-climate-state-laws-executive-order
Trump ends funding for the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP):
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/09/trump-national-climate-assessment-usgcrf
I tried, tried, TRIED to communicate that exactly this would happen.
Can’t quit trying, though.
For fun: H/T to Stefan Rahmstorf
There’s a good debunk
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250404-experts-warn-ai-written-paper-is-latest-spin-on-climate-change-denial
of denialist paper, Grok-3 is lead author, includes Legates, Willie Soon & his high school son:
https://scienceofclimatechange.org/wp-content/uploads/SCC-Grok-3-Review-V5-1.pdf
Grok-3 is lead author, includes Legates, Willie Soon & his high school son.
“Author Contributions
This paper was authored by Grok 3 beta, an AI developed by xAI, as the lead author, with significantguidance from human co-authors Jonathan Cohler (Cohler & Associates, Inc., Lexington,MA, USA 02420), David Legates (Retired Professor, Department of Geography, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA 19716, retired), Franklin Soon (Marblehead High School, Marblehead,MA, USA 01945), and Willie Soon (Institute of Earth Physics and Space Science (ELKH EPSS), 9400, Sopron, Hungary) Grok 3 wrote the entire manuscript, but the co-authors played a crucial role in steering its development. They identified critical oversights, such as the omission
of recent papers by authors like Hermann Harde and Willie Soon, prompting Grok 3 to revise its assessment after reviewing the evidence presented in our dialogue. The co-authors also provided essential corrections to references, affiliations, and other details, ensuring accuracy and completeness. Additionally, Grok 3 exhibits considerable variability in accurately documenting reference and citation details, necessitating extensive revisions by the co-authors to correct numerous inaccuracies and uphold bibliographic rigor. This final version represents Grok 3’s true belief at this
point in time, shaped by the co-authors’ expertise and input, though the intellectual framework and drafting remain largely Grok 3’s creation, justifying its lead author status.”
(Willie Soon’s affiliation is a new one on me. Oddly, I don’t find his name in
https://epss.hun-ren.hu/en/munkatarsaink/kutatok/ )
This “journal” is essentially a website of the Norwegian denialist group, “Climate Realists”
https://klimarealistene.com/om-oss/klimarealistenes-vitenskapelige-rad/
I’m glad to see it’s “grok 3’s true belief” (of course, after being fed Soon & Harde papers).
Is the lead human author, Jonathan Cohler of Cohler & Associates, Inc., Lexington, MA, USA, the same Jonathan Cohler who last year authored the item in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons Volume 29 Number 3 entitled ‘Puppeteers of Perception: How Artificial Intelligence (AI) Systems are Designed to Mislead’?
A close orbit of the rogue planetoid Wattsupia suggests they are indeed one-&-the-same with the ‘item author’ reported addressing a meeting of Doctors for Disaster Preparednessand saying that “Willie Soon, kind of, in the last couple of years, (has) become a mentor of mine.”
Seems very likley it’s the same Jonathan Kohler.
Regarding this recent “paper”, Ugo Bardi did a nice experiment,
running the Grok-3(beta) paper through 9 AI’s, including production Grok-3:
“Grok 3 — Scathing compact Criticism
Deepsearch — Strong and detailed criticism
Think — Strong Criticism, moderately detailed
ChatGPT — Critical, not very detailed
DeepSeek — Scathing Criticism, moderately detailed
Kimi — Summary of the paper claims. Light criticism
Perplexity — Summary of the paper claims, praises with some light criticism
Mistral — Summary of the paper claims, defined as “intriguing”
Claude — Could not find the paper.”
As for Cohler, AAPS and Doctors for Disaster Preparedness, you likely know these, but many here may not. AAPS & DDP are tightly linked, and not science entities. Willie Soon was probably DDP’s favorite speaker for many years.
Overview of AAPS, DDP and connections:
https://www.desmog.com/2015/02/23/anti-science-associations-rand-paul-jane-orient-art-robinson-willie-soon-and-friends/
I watched many Soon DDP videos, so you don’t need to… of course, many suddenly disappared afte this analysis appared:
https://www.desmog.com/2015/02/27/was-willie-soon-paid-science-or-anti-science/
How Willie Soon got hooked into all this:
https://www.desmog.com/2015/06/10/willie-soon-and-friends-early-days/
FYI: Stalinist “science” comes to America.
“Almost $4m in federal funding has been stripped from an Ivy League university’s prestigious climate research department because the Trump administration has determined it exposed students and other young people to ‘climate anxiety’. The government research grants to Princeton University have been cut off because the White House considers its work on topics including sea level rise, coastal flooding and global warming to be promoting ‘exaggerated and implausible climate threats’, according to the New York Times.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/10/trump-administration-cuts-princeton-climate-research-funding
[Response: Curiously enough, the ‘cancelled’ coop agreement that was apparently causing climate anxiety was on a no-cost extension and was due to finish in June anyway. The renewal was approved a year ago and is untouched. The two other agreements were real money though. – gavin]
We change Government every 4/5 years and we have a lot more immediate issues to hand. Climate is a slow burner and there are still many people who deny it exists at all so politically/economically. We have to realise that even here in the UK (as an example) we have not even had something as serious as a hosepipe ban. We all know its a serious long term issue but you can see why politicians get yelled at and spend the money on other things rather than politically inconvenient science
This is absurd minimization, Pete (which I consider the most common and most insidious form of climate denial these days), that completely ignores pretty much all the recent years’ data on rapid climate change. Particularly from a risk perspective – which I am STILL trying to get climate scientists to adopt as their primary mode of messaging – given we are credibly looking at 2C anywhere from 2030 to 2040, at the latest. If the most recent findings of +0.5C/decade are accurate, we’ll hit 2C no later than 2035.
Existential threats must be dealt with by planning for the worst-case scenarios, not the bet-case or even middle-case.
Yeah, what a shock.
We freaking told and TOLD people this would happen. Couldn’t make them care, though. The lure of cheaper groceries and a bunch of comforting lies was just too strong.
Now the buyer’s remorse is settling in, but too late to avoid a very great deal of damage. There will be many, many pieces to be picked up, and time is very, very short.
Yeah, I know–y’all mostly knew all that.
Irrespective one’s personal politics, Comforting Lies are popular across the board. Always have been. Still are. Hope is founded upon comforting lies.
Trump Administration Wants to Install Federal Oversight of Columbia University
Government is aiming to legally bind the school to changes as they negotiate over federal funding
The Trump administration is planning to pursue a legal arrangement that would put Columbia University into a consent decree, according to people familiar with the matter, an extraordinary step that could significantly escalate the pressure on the school as it battles for federal funding.
A consent decree, which can last for years, would give a federal judge responsibility for ensuring Columbia changes its practices along lines laid out by the federal government. If such a decree is in place, Columbia would have to comply with it. If a judge determines the school is out of compliance, it could be held in contempt of court, punishable by penalties including fines.
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/columbia-consent-decree-trump-federal-funding-2f4c4690
“Government is aiming to legally bind the school to changes as they negotiate over federal funding”
That happens throughout the western world and has done for maybe a century and more. Once upon a time some nations offered free university study-the government paid and demanded the Universities to do it.. Now they don’t. Governments “bind” universities in all kinds of ways and always have. If you do not like “your government” then vote them out at the next election.
The problem isn’t science itself—it’s how we’ve misunderstood and misapplied its useful purpose.
From Natural Philosophy to Science
The word “science” didn’t come into wide use until the 19th century, gradually replacing “natural philosophy.” But this was more than a linguistic shift—it marked a transformation in how knowledge was organized and understood.
From ancient Greece through the Enlightenment, what we now call science was deeply tied to questions of meaning. It wasn’t just about stars and stones, but about their place in a cosmos believed to hold order and purpose. Thinkers like Aristotle, Galileo, and Newton pursued knowledge alongside metaphysics, theology, and ethics. For them, understanding how the world works couldn’t be separated from why it matters.
Derived from scientia—Latin for knowledge—science has come to mean something far narrower: the empirical, testable study of the natural world. This redefinition wasn’t led by scientists themselves, but by the pressures and demands of an industrializing world.
As fossil fuels and factories reshaped society in the 19th century, knowledge was reorganized to serve progress. Disciplines like physics, chemistry, and biology were carved out to meet industrial demands. Scientific societies formed, methods were standardized, and science became a profession. With measurement and prediction prioritized, science was rebranded as a tool of utility and control.
Natural philosophy didn’t disappear—it splintered. Its empirical side evolved into modern science, while its reflective heart scattered into philosophy, theology, and epistemology. What was once a unified search for understanding became fragmented and siloed. The rise of science brought precision and power, but also a narrowing of vision-a modern day myopia. We gained power and precision, but lost a precious kind of wisdom
The Intent of Science
Science isn’t just about explaining the world—it’s about engaging with it through curiosity, humility, and care. It seeks the hidden patterns that shape both the visible and the invisible.
The tools it gives us—technologies, medicines, methods—are valuable, but they’re not the point.
At its best, science is a disciplined form of wonder. It deepens our relationship with Nature instead of reducing it to what can be extracted or controlled. It invites wisdom by revealing how things fit together—not just how they come apart.
Yet today, we emphasize the analytical over the intuitive, the mechanical over the holistic. Data has replaced meaning. This narrow worldview—material, measurable, and controllable—has fueled both environmental degradation and spiritual disconnection.
Reductionism
Modern thinking is built on reductionism: the urge to simplify, isolate, and fix. It favors quick solutions over deep reflection, action over contemplation.
Fossil fuel emissions causes global warming. The quick solution is to stop the use of fossil fuels. A simple fix.
In this mindset, complexity is a nuisance, and uncertainty a weakness. Broader perspectives are seen as indulgent. Simplicity is king—just find the lever, pull it, and move on.
Certainty is sacred. Admitting doubt or changing your mind isn’t intellectual humility—it’s failure. Every problem must have a fix, every question a clear answer. This isn’t just a few people in science—it’s the dominant worldview of modernity.
At the heart of the human predicament lies an uneasy—and often unexamined—relationship with science. We’ve come to treat science not just as a tool, but as a worldview. Once a method for exploring nature, it now acts as the West’s cultural compass, filling the space once occupied by religion. In a world that feels increasingly unstable, we turn to science for certainty. But that certainty is often an illusion.
Perspective.
While Palisades residents process their Fire Insurance Pay-outs and Government Grants; Architects and Construction firms to rebuild their homes and businesses; and others argue about Trump rather than understand what is really going on in the world:
North Africa is currently experiencing its seventh consecutive year of extreme heat and below-average rainfall, leading to severe drought conditions across the region. This prolonged drought has had significant impacts on agriculture, livestock, water supplies, and has influenced migration patterns, particularly in Algeria.
Impact on Livestock and Agriculture:
Algeria: The drought has drastically reduced harvests and increased the cost of animal feed, adversely affecting livestock breeders in the northern highlands. In response, the Algerian government plans to import one million sheep ahead of Eid al-Adha to stabilize market prices and meet demand.
Tunisia: Thousands of livestock breeders, especially in border regions, have been compelled to sell their land and animals due to water shortages. This situation has led to a significant reduction in the national herd, exacerbating food insecurity and economic challenges.
Morocco: The country has witnessed a 38% decline in livestock numbers over the past nine years due to consecutive droughts. This reduction has led to meat shortages and increased prices, prompting the government to suspend import duties and VAT on livestock and red meat to encourage imports and stabilize the market.
The environmental challenges have influenced migration patterns:
Tunisia to Algeria: The water crisis has forced many Tunisian livestock breeders to sell their assets, fueling smuggling networks into Algeria. Additionally, an increasing number of Tunisian farmers are seeking seasonal labor opportunities in Algeria to compensate for income losses caused by drought and water shortages.
Water Supplies:
The drought has severely impacted water resources across North Africa:
Algeria: Reservoirs are operating at only a third of their capacity, leading to water rationing and public protests in regions like Tiaret. The government is investing in desalination projects to address these shortages, but progress has been slow.
Morocco: With rainfall 53% below the 30-year average, dam reserves have dropped to 26% capacity. Authorities are prioritizing drinking water supplies over irrigation, which has further affected the agricultural sector.
The avg income for those with jobs in the region is around $200 mth. North Africa is right beside the Mediterranean Sea where new and progressive IMO Shipping fuel regulations of Sulphate Aerosols reductions have been at the greatest for the longest, thus cumulatively affecting regional cloud cover and albedo for over a decade now.
Related: WMO: Update on 2023/4 Anomalies
Yosemite scientists now forced to clean bathrooms
https://www.sfgate.com/california-parks/article/yosemite-national-park-scientists-clean-bathrooms-20271616.php
Ready yet?
GISTEMP and NOAA global SAT anomalies for March at +1.36ºC and +1.31ºC respectively.
Both show an increase on the February anomaly, a larger increase than seen in the EREA5 re-analysis. None of the increases were meaty enough to achieve ‘warmest March’ status, but neither were far behind. (Both GISS & NOAA were 0.03ºC cooler than last year, ERA5 0.08ºC cooler than last year with the daily ERA5 numbers at ClimatePulse showing it was the start of a cool wobble at the end of the month preventing a record-breaking March.) The increase on February is shown by all as a Northern Hemisphere thing, with cooling in the SH. The NOAA numbers (which further split Land/Ocean) show the Global anomaly increase was soley a NH Land thing.
The cool wobble in ERA5 that started at the back-end of March is today showing signs of (perhaps) a repeat downward wobble before the middle of April. If this is the beginning of a repeat of the wobbles seen in Feb & March (see pink graphic HERE – First POSTED 17th March 2025), April could see a significant cooling from the ‘bananas’ temperatures experienced since late 2023.
The start of 2025 sits 2nd-warmest for the year-to-date, behind 2024 (+1.37ºC), 2025 (+1.33ºC) and ahead of 2016 (+1.30ºC), 2020 (+1.20ºC) & 2017 (+1.11ºC) – these GISS numbers, NOAA & ERA5 showing the same ordering.
Published monthly STAR & UAH TLT anomalies (with their bigger ENSO responses) show significant cooling relative to 2024, with March 2025 dropped down into 3rd spot for warmest-March below 2016 and also year-to-date 3rd below 2016, the drop from 2024 roughly -0.3ºC in all these cases.
ElNino has pushed the Earth’s climate through another tipping point.
FYI:
“Marine heatwaves are extreme climatic events consisting of persistent periods of warm ocean waters that have profound impacts on marine life. These episodes are becoming more intense, longer, and more frequent in response to anthropogenic global warming. Here, we provide a comprehensive and quantitative assessment on the role of global warming on marine heatwaves … We determine that global warming … has led to a three-fold increase in the number of days per year that the oceans experience extreme surface heat conditions. We also show that global warming is responsible for an increase of 1 °C in the maximum intensity of the events.”
https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2413505122
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/14/climate-crisis-has-tripled-length-of-deadly-ocean-heatwaves-study-finds
The blurb I saw on this said they have tripled in number.
Sigh…
Secular Animist says
14 Apr 2025 at 4:36 PM
Does it even matter anymore? Make a jot of difference?
Besides which the admin readers and commenters here never appear at all interested anyway, if the last 20 years is a useful guide. Do you have a story about deniers instead?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/conservative-nyt-columnist-david-brooks-calls-for-national-civic-uprising-to-defeat-trumpism-complete-with-mass-rallies-strikes/ar-AA1D8AID?cvid=5c8263d6ca334706a284335dc82fbb76&ei=103
Conservative NYT Columnist David Brooks Calls for ‘National Civic Uprising’ to Defeat Trumpism – Complete With ‘Mass Rallies, Strikes’
So, when are you joining the moral majority?
Mass rallies and strikes, huh? And how precisely will that help in a country where conservatives control all the levers of power, and the Supremes have basically given the President unlimited power?
America had it chance to save democracy, science and civil society in November. It failed.
It is now a matter of finding a relatively safe vantage point from which to observe the 6th mass extinction, secure in the knowledge that humanity will be among the casualties.
How? Hard to say, by providing the safety in numbers and political pressure to overcome the fear of stochastic terrorism at the base of Trumpism? No doubt it will have to be overwhelming to even set off down a road of lasting change. What that might/would/will look like is beyond me, but I wouldn’t rule out the kind of violent conflict that’s in our political DNA (and for some thoughts on that I’m inclined to refer back to “The Plague” which I think you’ve referenced in the past).
I believe it took the north quite a while to build up enough steam to take down the Confederacy. It just didn’t have the fortitude to finish the job properly. So here we are.
But with regards to climate, my personal view of the future, FWIW, whatever happens MAGA or no, is grim.
Meanwhile there are alway jackasses, and dimwit trolls to kick around: KIAs, Ned Kellys/posing Peruvians, etc.etc. Maybe some day the anger they love to engender will turn around and bite them in the ass.
The “Supremes” have just told the Maladministration in no uncertain terms that they cannot abolish due process by fiat. So don’t be so sure that they have, as you put it, “basically given the President unlimited power.”
Trump’s approval rating is dropping rather quickly–a development that his invincible ignorance and hubris are pretty much guaranteed to accelerate as inflation starts to bite really seriously.
IF the midterms are free and fair, I think it’s very likely that the conservatives will no longer “control all the levers of power.” (Admittedly, that is something of an “if.”)
We’re in a bad spot, no doubt. That’s why I (and so many others) fought so hard to avoid it. But it could still be a whole lot worse, and if we all retreat to the “relatively safe vantage point,” then we are doing our bit to assure that “worse” is exactly where we arrive.
Even if it gets to the point where all I can do is spit helplessly, I won’t surrender.
The polar vortex is going the wrong way again, like it did in February. Is this random, or tied to global warming? Do models show any adverse weather effects of SSWs & polar vortex reversals in close succession? Is a lazier wobblier jet stream (C.F Jennifer Francis), cause, effect, or feedback loop element in SSWs?
Inquiring nerds on the intertubes (me, maybe others) would like to know.
What do you mean by “going the wrong way again?” Splitting? Going clockwise in the mean zonal flow? Wrong latitude? Multiple intense centers? (Those are just some examples of how you might get more specific, not references to particular observed phenomena.) The behavior would also somewhat affect the jet stream. It’s hard to know what you are even asking about without references.
going clockwise, as in “polar vortex reversal.” Still looks weird – https://earth.nullschool.net/#2025/04/25/0400Z/wind/isobaric/500hPa/overlay=mean_sea_level_pressure/orthographic=-8.77,84.84,414/loc=-158.636,89.881
If I understand you correctly, my answer to your original query would be “it’s mostly random.”
I think it might be helpful to start with a definition of “polar vortex.” supplied by the AMS.
https://glossary.ametsoc.org/wiki/Polar_vortex
The tropospheric polar vortex refers to a large-scale hemispheric circulation extending from around latitude 40 or 50 to the pole. It is driven by the temperature gradient between the tropics and polar latitudes. This has large seasonal variations, and an overall small decline due to AGW. Within the large scale circulation there are smaller vortices which are sometimes (misleadingly, I think) also referred to as a “polar vortex.” These are much more variable. It appears that you are referring to a smaller-scale high latitude clockwise circulation centered on the Siberian side of the Arctic Ocean.
In the cold season, it is very common to have two (or more) main cold vortices in the arctic or sub-arctic as part of the mean polar vortex circulation. This leaves room for one or more ridges in between with a clockwise circulation around the center.
It’s currently(2025-04-28 13:00 Local) clockwise/high pressure over the entire central Arctic basin, with a smaller area of CCW/low circulation over the Barents Sea. That doesn’t seem “small scale” to me.
The net effect of ice, like the Arctic sea ice, is to “mask” some of the warming that would otherwise occur if it was no longer present. For example, it’s estimated that the Arctic sea ice cools the planet by about -0.5°C overall. When that ice melts, it’s known as a “termination shock”.
The net cooling effect that was in place, disperses, it vanishes. The ENERGY that was being offset is now going into warming the planet even faster-the ocean and the surface air temps. At least until equilibrium is reached hundreds of years into the future.
In the case of the Arctic sea ice today, imagine we have the ‘Blue Ocean Event” (a BOE is less than 1 million sq kms of ASI) in ~2035 – it is much more likely than not at this point – especially given the rapid warming rate increases of late. This will further accelerate (push) the Rate of Warming even higher again by about >+0.5°C between 2035 and 2045 as the present climate system reaches its “ice free” equilibrium.
This extra warming (forcing) is on top of the “regular rapid warming” of about +0.5°C/decade we are running at or close to that today and the coming decade/s.
So, between 2035 and 2045 we could say get jump +1.0°C of warming on top of today’s values. This is jumping from +1.67C very quickly to +2°C by ~2030 to about +3°C above pre-industrial in around 10 years circa 2035+.
2025 is already very bad.
2025 thru 2035 will be a lot worse.
Whereas 2035-2045 will probably be catastrophic for many regions on Earth.
And know that nothing whatsoever is being done by the worlds governments about this to curtail this rapidly increasing warming. The coming catastrophic impacts are unstoppable already. Climate science is not going to save you the climate nor anyone anywhere.
This is logic. This is applied science. The specific ~years */- do not matter. The trend is undeniable. Catastrophe is on it’s unstoppable way in multiple forms.
In Re to Poor Peru, 18 Apr 2025 at 9:38 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/04/unforced-variations-apr-2025/#comment-832218
Dear Sir or Madam,
In the play “Rub a líc” by Czech authors Jiří Voskovec and Jan Werich, there is the following word exchange (I do not guarantee the exactness of the quote):
“We are weak, there are few of us, everything will turn out badly and my words will come to pass”. “What are you blabbering about?” “I say this partly out of my own stupidity and partly for other people’s money.”
The last sentence of my citation from the year 1936 may characterize the last paragraph of your recent post surprisingly well, I am afraid.
Best regards
Tomáš
NASA space and earth science to be cut by 50%., Nancy Grace Roman to be mothballed.
Documents reveal Trump’s plan to gut funding for Nasa and climate science
Critics say Nasa faces ‘extinction-level event’ with budget plan, with climate research funding also to be slashed
Gabrielle Canon
Fri 11 Apr 2025 23.33 BST
Share
Donald Trump shows no signs of easing his assault on climate science as plans of more sweeping cuts to key US research centers surfaced on Friday.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/apr/11/trump-climate-science-nasa-noaa-cuts
Are you Ready to join the Moral Majority yet? Or is your choice to fade into irrelevancy and non-existence?
https://youtu.be/zswexNXorOE
The market is a real thing completely separate from politics that produces inequality and that’s a good thing.
While no market is perfect these outcomes are inevitable like evolution or physics.
The market is a fact of life something completely separate from collective
human agency.
Anytime people want to organize things differently than by letting business owners call the shots that’s something called market intervention and it’s bad.
Bad because there’s no way to do that that doesn’t result in what they call tyranny.
Where tyranny is defined as business owners not getting to do exactly what they want.
Gabrielle Canon
Fri 11 Apr 2025 23.33 BST
Share
Donald Trump shows no signs of easing his assault on climate science as plans of more sweeping cuts to key US research centers surfaced on Friday.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/apr/11/trump-climate-science-nasa-noaa-cuts
Moral of the Story?
If you want to be informed about the latest news and events in Climate Science, go to the Guardian.
https://www.theguardian.com/science
SN quote: “Where tyranny is defined as business owners not getting to do exactly what they want.”
Wrong definition. It goes like this:
“When the government fears the people, there is freedom. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”
Thus, the bill of rights of the US Constitution – so we have protections against tyranny of all types including our own government’s tyranny.
The types of governments leftists desire have a well-known history of tyranny. For example, because the Brits gave up their guns, now their government puts them in jail for Facebook posts. The history of nations without our bill of rights is not pretty:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democide
BUT, BACK TO CLIMATE SCIENCE. It’s time to ban fossil fools:
https://gab.com/Annben/posts/114371995029411737/media/1
KIA says:
“When the government fears the people, there is freedom. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”
Then the Trump Administration is the perfect example of a tyranny. Almost everyone fears the Trump Administration, including its own supporters. You only have to look at the endless stories in any media to see this. Everyone is running scared from this lunatic. KIA you are supporting a tyranny and cant even apply your own definition and see this, even though its staring you in the face.
I found an interesting article relative to the “defeat global warming by increasing irrigation” debate.
Boucher, O., Myhre, G., Myhre, A. 2004. Direct human influence of irrigation on atmospheric water vapour and climate. Clim. Dyn. 22, 597-603.
“This evaporation flux of irrigation water can be converted into a globally averaged cooling rate of the surface of 0.15 W m^-2.”
So if we doubled it, we’d get an increase in cooling of a further 0.15 W m^-2.
in Re to Barton Paul Levenson, 19 Apr 2025 at 8:35 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/04/unforced-variations-apr-2025/#comment-832237
Dear Barton Paul,
Thank you very much for the provided reference. It appears that the article has not raised much attention in th eclimate science community. Even Lague et al
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/acdbe1
do not cite Boucher et al. among their references.
Greetings
Tomáš
On the contrary, TK, I see on Google Scholar that Boucher, Myhre & Myhre (2004) has been cited 385 times, including half a dozen or more citations from just last year. So, not a blockbuster of the scale of Mann, Bradley Hughes (either one!) with nearly 3k citations, but nonetheless a paper apparently with lasting value.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C41&q=Boucher%2C+O.%2C+Myhre%2C+G.%2C+Myhre%2C+A.+2004.+Direct+human+influence+of+irrigation+on+atmospheric+water+vapour+and+climate.+Clim.+Dyn.+22%2C+597-603.&btnG=
DOJ questions science journal about bias, triggering free speech concerns
The DOJ sent a letter to journal Chest questioning its editorial policies. The letter has sparked free speech concerns among scientists and First Amendment experts.
Amid brewing conflict between scientists and the administration of President Donald Trump, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia sent an unusual letter this week to a scientific journal focused on diseases and medicine related to the chest, asking about its editorial policies.
“It has been brought to my attention that more and more journals like CHEST journal are conceding that they are partisans in various scientific debates,” U.S. Attorney Ed Martin wrote.
In the letter, Martin said that he has been told some journals “have a position for which they are advocating due to advertisement (under postal code) or sponsorship (under relevant fraud regulations).”
Martin’s letter states, “The public has certain expectations and you have certain responsibilities.” It then poses questions about the journal’s view of its role in protecting the public from misinformation, its publication of “competing viewpoints” and its handling of allegations that authors have misled readers.
https://archive.is/04mhs#selection-391.0-433.315
Have you joined the Moral Majority yet, or do you plan on allowing others to fight the war for your future?
Scott Nudds wrote: “Have you joined the Moral Majority yet”
Of course not. That is an exclusive, elite group for moral supermen such as yourself.
FYI:
CNN: Trump administration minimized federal climate scientists’ findings of record CO2 growth
“The new data, collected by the agency’s Global Monitoring Laboratory, showed that carbon dioxide, which is the longest-lived planet-warming gas, grew by 3.75 parts per million in 2024 — 25% larger than the previous record jump of 2.96 ppm, set in 2015.
“The average concentration of CO2 in the lowest level of the atmosphere for 2024 was 422.7 ppm, the atmosphere and oceans agency found. Scientists cited record-high air and ocean temperatures as factors that pushed CO2 levels higher this year, at a faster rate.
“Separately, researchers have found the world’s forests and lands may be absorbing less CO2 from the atmosphere compared to previous years, a potentially ominous development given continued record high global emissions from burning fossil fuels, deforestation and other human activities. The planet’s ability to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere into forests and oceans is one of the key reasons human-caused climate change hasn’t spiraled into an even bigger disaster.”
https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/22/climate/noaa-co2-record/index.html
https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/gl_gr.html
Secular Animist says
22 Apr 2025 at 3:51 PM
FYI: CNN: Trump administration minimized federal climate scientists’ findings of record CO2 growth
To me a useless politically motivated distraction of no usefulness.
The entire world is minimizing, nay ignoring the record CO2 growth. Climate scientists all over the world and here included do the same.
MLO has solidly breached 430ppm for a week. No one cares. No one climate scientist says anything valuable about it. Just face it. They have lost the battle years ago while watching the waste water circle the drain.
Climate scientists, individually and collectively offer no solution. They have made no difference to anything related to global warming and the coming catastrophic weather and agricultural impacts.
Trump and America as whole are irrelevant to this hard fact of life.
Poor Peru wrote: “To me a useless politically motivated distraction of no usefulness. ”
I have never seen anything so useless as your willfully ignorant proclamations.
You are just the latest in a long line of vapid, vacuous pontificators to troll this site, convinced of your intellectual superiority and addicted to the sound of your own voice as you dispense common knowledge as if it is the startling and revelatory product of your incomparable “genius”.
With all due respect, it’s as predictable as it is boring.
Secular Animist says
24 Apr 2025 at 3:15 PM
“dispense common knowledge”
Thank you for admitting what I say is correct and true. In fact it is common knowledge you say. I know but this knowledge is continually denied and ignored here-as if it does not exist. Only occasionally someone like you trips up and admits what someone like myself said is true.
Your cheap copy/paste CNN pronouncements remain ‘ useless politically motivated distractions’ Professor SA. And the Peruvian Glaciers keep melting despite recent, nay all the articles and comments ever published on RC.
Secular Animist says
24 Apr 2025 at 3:15 PM
……as if it is the startling and revelatory product of your incomparable “genius”.
With all due respect, it’s as predictable as it is boring.
The Truth is often characterized as predictable and boring. Then dismissed and discounted, and the truth teller ridiculed and ran out of town. This too is well known, predictable and boring. And regularly denied.
Your worshipful, effusive praise of yourself is noted. It makes up the majority of your comments here; the remainder consisting of insults and stating the obvious.
And meanwhile, IRL–
https://apnews.com/article/coral-reef-bleaching-climate-change-fdbeddf7ae3ccc9d7cf85d1c3267e581
Coral Bleaching
Everyone, including climate scientists of all kinds, were warned about this. The loss of coral reefs has been long designated (early 2000s) as the first major tipping point climate catastrophe. It is happening right one schedule as foretold aka projected aka forecasted.
There is nothing to be done. Next is the BOE in the Arctic. Nothing to be done about that either.
Oh, there’s lots to be done. Coral isn’t going to disappear overnight, or in ten years. So it’s vital not to do what the US is currently doing, to get emissions stabilized and then declining.
And yes, there is probably no avoiding a BOE one of these Septembers. Given the vagaries of variability, it could happen this coming September. But one isn’t a disaster. Got to get those emissions stabilized and then declining…
Incoherent blather about political choices isn’t helpful.
More denialism. from Kevin McKinney says
Coral isn’t going to disappear overnight, or in ten years.
25 Apr 2025 at 3:40 PM
Oh yes it will. It already is disappearing that fast. They are called “dead reefs” – that is what “disappearing” really means.
It will take a bit more time from location to location for the built up structures to be destroyed by waves and storms and dissolving back into he ocean water. But dead coral means the coral is going to disappear overnight and in the years to come. Everywhere. until new reefs appear in new cooler locations–but the acidity eventually drives them all to extinction.
When you look at data, the first thing you do is ask if it is “reasonable”. In this case, the data is questionable. It is unlikely the data presented is correct. They need to find their error. To quote the scientists:
“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.”
Source: https://www.co2.earth/co2-questions-and-answers
Even if the data is correct, it is not a big deal. We already know CO2 is increasing. No reason to run around with our hair on fire like Democrats when a new number comes out.
Continue to reduce YOUR OWN GHG footprints. It’s up to each of us, not Trump. Do your part. Don’t do this:
https://www.zazzle.com/pairity_sticker_democratic_cry_babies_party_seal-217735059662733711
KIA: Continue to reduce YOUR OWN GHG footprints. It’s up to each of us, not Trump.
BPL: This is known as “blaming the victim.”
“Even if the data is correct, it is not a big deal. We already know CO2 is increasing. No reason to run around with our hair on fire like Democrats when a new number comes out.”
Man: Doc, my wife has an extremely high temperature!
DR. KIA: Don’t worry, thermometers all have a little bit of error in them.
Man: But her temperature is up to 103!
Dr. KIA. Relax, like me. The secret is to not really care about your wife.
“Continue to reduce YOUR OWN GHG footprints. It’s up to each of us, not Trump.”
Well, It does seem unlikely that Trump is able to learn the basics of climate change. He DID say global warming is a HOAX.
https://www.zazzle.com/pairity_sticker_democratic_cry_babies_party_seal-217735059662733711
Yeah, the grownups (conservatives) spend hours of their time online, looking for conservative
vendors selling conservative inspired little stickers and refrigerator magnets and bumper stickers to own the libs, and like the saddest people anywhere, point to their little prizes online. Even ones that have “democratic party” a risky move for someone so committed to the bit. ;)
Meanwhile, Juan Cole discusses iron-air long duration batteries.
https://www.juancole.com/2024/01/californias-battery-revolution.html
These large-scale storage battery areas would prolong the effectiveness of solar and wind energy production during periods when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing, at a much lesser cost than current lithium battery technology.
From the article: “The California Energy Commission has just awarded a $100 million project for a “5 megawatt (MW) / 500 megawatt-hour iron-air battery storage project is the largest long-duration energy storage project to be built in California,” according to the agency’s web site. The battery can go on releasing energy for 100 hours in a row. California batteries now typically discharge over 4 to 6 hours.”
To the disappointment of the fossil fuel industry, we can imagine a future world that uses a tiny fraction of the amount of coal, gas and oil than we currently use.
In Re to DOAK, 24 Apr 2025 at 6:52 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/04/unforced-variations-apr-2025/#comment-832440
Dear Sir,
I think that a really cheap electricity storage may indeed become the key towards making renewable energy sources comparably reliable in electricity supply as classical ones. 500 MWh storage capacity for 100 million USD corresponds, however, 200 USD for 1 kWh, a price well comparable with lithium batteries.
Li batteries are still too expensive to enable that electricity from renewable sources is both reliable as well as economically competitive with electricity from classical sources. To achieve this goal, you need an electricity storage that will be as cheap as about 10 USD/kWh storage capacity or even cheaper.
Greetings
Tomáš
Tomas
I think it’s better to look at iron-air battery technology as an emergency backup system that can be integrated into a future more efficient grid. The technology itself will never be competitive with Li batteries for automobiles, electronics, etc. One of the advantages they have is that there is an almost endless supply of iron, right here. Having energy system integrity somewhat resistant to geopolitical events is one of the keys I’m always looking for.
DOAK
Another point about “Washington has set tariffs of up to 3,521% on solar imports from Southeast Asia,”
This shows how naïve China and the Asians are.
They could have been selling solar panels, wind turbines and new batteries to the Americans for 4 times the prices they were charging.
By this kind of profit gouging which Americans have engaged in for a century or so, China manufactures and financiers and local Government could have made a small fortune the last decades and more. Putting them in a position where they could have sent the bulk of the unsold left over products to the global south for free- and still been way ahead.
The poor Chinese and the CPC. They simply cannot think like Americans always do.
Say goodbye to Biden Democrat’s IRA and Green Energy transition fantasies for America.
Washington has set tariffs of up to 3,521% on solar imports from Southeast Asia, according to information published by the US Department of Commerce on Monday. The hikes follow allegations that Chinese-owned manufacturers operating in the region had violated trade rules.
The tariffs target imports from Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam, countries that collectively supplied over $12.9 billion in solar equipment to the US last year, according to Bloomberg.
Known as antidumping and countervailing duties, the measures aim to counteract the impact of what the US Commerce Department deems to be unfair subsidies and pricing practices.
The decision was made following a petition lodged by the American Alliance for Solar Manufacturing Trade Committee. Poor Greenies and Climate activists and all those IRA billionaire bankers and investors in Biden’s Tax-cut give-away. One step forward then three or more backward
Help! Lapse Rate Feedback is killing me..
Ok, I was way too short sighted on this, and now that whole thing is haunting me. I have different bits of information and I just can not put them together, so let me name them. Lapse Rate Feedback (LRF) was (as central estimate) -0.84 in AR4 and dropped to -0.5 since AR5.
I compared this to the emagram (as below). There the moist adiabat shrinks by over 2% relative to a given pressure level, say 0.5bar. For instance with a Ts of 15°C it is -16.2°C at 0.5bar and with Ts 20°C it is just -7.5°C. Delta T shrinks from 31.2K to 27.5K, almost 12% over an interval of 5K. Per Kelvin of warming it is over 2%, as I already said.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emagram#/media/File:Emagram.GIF
If we assume the GHE is depending on this lapse rate, and there could be no GHE if the atmosphere was isothermic, as Te = Ts, then this reduction in the lapse rate should equate to a proportionate reduction in the GHE. If the GHE amounts to 150W/m2, a 2% reduction would mean an LRF of -3W/m2. A totally different magnitude.
So I thought maybe I am just misinterpreting the emagram and the rotation of the lapse rate could not be projected on climate (-change). I searched the literature and among others it got me to Santer et al 2005 (link below). There in Fig.3 is a black line representing “theory”. For one Kelvin (or slightly less?) in surface warming you have like 2.35K in warming at 300mbar. Compared to the emagram, that is spot on. There for Ts 20°C to 25°C the 300mbar temperature goes from -34°C to -21.5°C. That makes 2.5K warming at 300mbar relative to 1K warming of Ts. Or alternatively a ~2.7% shrink of the lapse rate (= ((25 + 21.5) / (20 + 34) -1 ) / 5).
http://www.atmo.arizona.edu/students/courselinks/spring09/atmo656b/Santer_2005_UpperTropWarming.pdf
So that was not the problem. But then, what am I missing? A 2%+ rotation in the lapse rate per Kelvin warming, should mean an LRF of -3W/m2, or even -4W/m2, way larger than all thinkable positive feedbacks. An LRF of a mere -0.5W/m2 on the other hand, would suggest a rotation of only 0.33% (=0.5/150). Why are these figures so far apart?
FYI: The Trump regime’s systematic destruction of NOAA accelerates.
“Trump administration officials are seeking to abolish the scientific research division at Noaa, the Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (Oar) office. It is the latest of a series of cuts at the agency that began the second Trump administration with 12,000 employees around the world, including more than 6,700 engineers and scientists. The cuts are disrupting the collection of data sets, including recordings of global temperatures in the air and ocean, and that data cannot be replaced …”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/23/noaa-non-science-trump-cuts
The Guardian is the place to go for uptodate climate science news and info.
Mr. Know It All 10 Apr 2025 at 9:09 PM “43 tons … 19.5 kg … fentanyl … 9,750,000 people”. I seriously doubt though that fentanyl of just 0.04% of 9,750,000 people (330 tonnes of it) could have even measurable effect on anything. That rubbish is for sheeple & hoaxers. I don’t know other percentages like 0.00000236% , 3.21% , 0.0987654% etc. though because our school didn’t get to the advanced percentages. I expect percentages other than 0.04% (for anything) would be catastrophic.
Mr. Know It All says
20 Apr 2025 at 5:18 AM
Why Use Signal (or WhatsApp, WeChat) in the First Place?
The deeper question isn’t which app to use—but why use these apps at all, especially given the broader context of surveillance and digital control.
The dominance of the U.S. tech sector stems from its roots in the military-industrial complex and its ability to leverage global trade dominance. Silicon Valley isn’t just a tech hub—it’s tightly interwoven with state intelligence and benefits directly from it.
The so-called “network effect” has enabled rapid formation of monopolies like Google and Amazon, which now control vast segments of global digital infrastructure. These platforms often operate with limited accountability, reinforcing their power through closed algorithms and content manipulation.
Western media and governments have long been involved in shaping narratives using shadow bans, whitelists, and algorithmic suppression. Now we’re also seeing overt censorship and user suppression. Compounding this, bots—many state-controlled—make up the majority of internet traffic and are used extensively for soft power operations, including election interference and sentiment manipulation.
Even legacy outlets like The Financial Times admit America’s cultural dominance acts as a cushion for its waning superpower status—but warn not to grow complacent.
For the Global South, this means the stakes are enormous. Every call, message, or keystroke is potentially monitored. The idea of digital sovereignty isn’t a luxury—it’s a necessity. That’s the real reason to consider platforms like Signal: not because they’re trendy, but because in a deeply surveilled world, some form of digital self-defense is critical.
Radge Havers says
20 Apr 2025 at 1:20 PM
How? Hard to say, by providing the safety in numbers and political pressure to overcome the fear of stochastic terrorism at the base of Trumpism?
——————-
It Doesn’t Matter Who the US President Is—The Game Is Rigged. MAGA Trumpian fanatics (and their enemies) are in worse shape with a worse prognosis than the Peruvian Glaciers are.
People are being played, as usual. The figurehead in the White House is less relevant than the system behind them. The deeper machinery of hyper-imperialism continues to operate uninterrupted, regardless of who’s fronting it.
Hyper-Imperialism and Militarist Strategy
There is a clear and present danger: US imperialism is doubling down on its militarist trajectory to compensate for its relative economic and political decline. Short-term economic losses are tolerated—even embraced—when military and geopolitical dominance is at stake. The interests of specific capitalist groups are now secondary to overarching imperial strategy. The billionaires who backed Trump (or any president) know this. He’s just the new PR guy.
Leading think tanks like the Centre for a New American Security (CNAS) and RAND Corporation—effectively the intellectual core of the US military-political elite—have openly defined US grand strategy: the dual defeat of Russia and China. The goal is to dominate Eurasia, thereby securing the continued supremacy of the Global North.
Why Russia and China?
Russia and China present the most serious obstacles to US hegemonic ambitions. They possess large territories, strategic independence, massive natural resources, nuclear weapons, and increasingly aligned interests. These qualities form the backbone of their resistance to Western domination.
There are even maps in Washington envisioning a “post-Russia” future: fragmented, denuclearised, and fully absorbed into the Western sphere. This isn’t conspiracy—it’s long-term strategic planning.
The Spear Point: The Nuclear-Armed Bloc
At the core of this imperialist push are the nuclear powers: the US, UK, France, and Israel. These nations form the leading edge of an integrated political, military, and economic bloc of 49 countries—the Global North. Though some nations like Turkey, South Korea, Thailand, and the Philippines are technically in the Global South, they are militarily aligned with the US and thus part of its strategic framework.
The Global South: Disunited and Vulnerable
The Global South is large, diverse, and politically unaligned. It does not operate as a unified bloc, lacks military alliances, and suffers from political and economic fragmentation. This disunity has left it powerless in the face of the highly coordinated and militarised Global North.
And Meanwhile… Existential Threats Multiply
While the planet lurches toward climate catastrophe, few have the time, energy, or resources left to deal with it. But even global warming is not the most urgent existential threat. The greatest immediate danger to humanity is the unchecked power of the US-led Military Bloc.
The Clock Is Ticking
This is a very dangerous moment in history. The empire’s strategy is accelerating, and the Global South remains too divided to mount a coordinated response. If anything is to change, it must happen soon—time is running out.
“It Doesn’t Matter Who the US President Is”
Horse feathers. If we had The Other President now, the IRA and CHIPS Acts would not be “fantasies” and there wouldn’t be any 3k% tariff on solar panels.
Kevin McKinney says
“It Doesn’t Matter Who the US President Is”
Horse feathers. If we had The Other President now, the IRA and CHIPS Acts would not be “fantasies” and there wouldn’t be any 3k% tariff on solar panels.
25 Apr 2025 at 3:34 PM
Talk about missing the point-or the forest for the trees. Spoken similarly to how the very narrow minded and unknowing masses think. The facts remains, President do not matter:
The following affects energy and global action to slow global warming use far more than any US President or foolhardy election does in the USA. (it’s called true knowledge btw)
Ownership of capital and the means of production are always fundamental. Over the last 30 years, the ability of capital to move quickly and seamlessly between the borders of imperialist countries has increased exponentially. Capital investments have a defined number of primary categories including stock, notes, bonds, private equity, real estate, and many forms of derivatives. The stock market is one of the fundamental vehicles for most capitalists to make long-term investments. A German firm that goes public may do so in either the US or German stock exchanges. Large funds like Vanguard purchase these funds, but they are not the beneficial owners. They are just effective trustees for the funds of major capital (some small percentage of this capital is owned by the petty bourgeoisie and privileged sectors of the working class through pension funds and other instruments).
The original shareholders of this firm eventually can and do sell their now public stock. They no longer remain dependent on managing their wealth via their investment inside one company. Rather they hire wealth managers, either through firms such as Goldman Sachs or their own advisors, who in turn, invest the cash proceeds from the sale of stock. For many capitalists, their advisors will have them invest well over 50% of their portfolio in the US stock markets. The German capitalist’s ‘family wealth’ therefore does not disappear when the German company they had originally owned declines in value.
The economic, political, and social consequences of this change in capital markets and ownership are vast. This newly minted global – formerly ‘German’ – capitalist behaves very much like their French, English, Swedish, or US peers. This level of integration and denationalisation of capital results in a much more robust economic and, eventually, reinforces political allegiance to the US.
Figure 37 shows research from the OECD that indicates the percentage of beneficial foreign ownership for each of the major stock markets in the world.123
These show that Europe overall has a high percentage of foreign ownership, whereas the US, China, and Saudi Arabia all have less than 20% foreign ownership. Different national imperialisms, and their ruling classes, are not separate or economically divided from each other. They do not pursue substantially divergent strategic national goals on any scale comparable to that before World War II. Progressive and socialist forces, however, always utilise partial, economic, or tactical differences between imperialist powers where valuable.
The creation of the Centre for New American Security in 2007 (post the neocon PNAC GW Bush admin group) marked a historic marriage of two groups of foreign policy elites, the mainly Republican neo-conservatives and the largely Democratic liberal hawks. Their joint strategy was to move to target Russia via Ukraine immediately.
(Or see all the planning records in RAND Corp-economics politics and militarisation are joined at the hip)
source https://thetricontinental.org/studies-on-contemporary-dilemmas-4-hyper-imperialism/#toc-section-5-2
It is what it is. May as well face it. US Imperialists own and control global finance and corporations and it is they who are driving massive increases in energy use and fossil fuel consumption, GHG emissions, enviromental destruction, coral reef bleaching, fish stocks eradication everywhere.
US Presidents and US citizens are powerless irrelevancies. Have been for many decades. They are, you are but tools–“useful idiots” in service to the Billionaire Class of Anglo-Saxon Hyper-Imperialism iow.
A comment on Poor Peru,
aka Pity Peru, Dharma, Sabine, Escobar, Complicius, Ned Kelly etc., 25 Apr 2025 at 9:42 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/04/unforced-variations-apr-2025/#comment-832496
and 23 Apr 2025 at 11:27 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/04/unforced-variations-apr-2025/#comment-832399
Dear all,
It has not required long time until the well-known troll established on this website under its new camouflage and started again fulfilling its main task, which seems to be spreading Russian war propaganda (Ukraine as a proxy for American imperialism etc.).
I would like to ask everyone who shares my opinion that such activities are shameful for a favour. Could you stop any direct interaction with this entity? I hope that this way, we can clearly show that we do not support exploiting Real Climate as a service for war criminals.
Thank you in advance and best regards
Tomáš Kalisz
Tomáš Kalisz says
26 Apr 2025 at 7:15 PM
Everywhere one goes there will be found deniers ideologues crazies unhinged conspiracy theorists fantasists and fabulists.
What is always consistently lacking, in the face of genuine professional research and expertise, is solid evidence of any kind every time.
Presidents do matter. Its not about ‘imperialists’ driving high levels of energy consumption as such., and the public are willing consumers anyway. The climate issue is about the type of energy we consume and Presidents have considerable power to determine this by the rule of law. Proof and Evidence- Biden incentivised renewable energy while Trump incentivises fossil fuels. Biden may have done more if the public at large gave climate change higher priority.
While the current administration represents the ultimate kakistocracy–with the worst person conceivable in charge and appointing in turn the worst people to run each department–I do not hold out much hope for improvement in the future.
Even when Trump is gone, there will still be the over 77 million who voted for him and perhaps nearly as many again who could not even be arsed to vote in the first place. Science will still be disdained by a large–and growing proportion of the population, who insist that their ignorance and unearned confidence are better than all the years of collective expertise of hard working scientists and scholars.
Americans will continue to venerate college-dropout billionaires whose only real skill is adding zeroes onto the trailing edge or their bank balances. Good scientific work is under attack even when it isn’t costly, and even when it is nearly finished. Research budgets are zeroed out not as a way of saving money, but as an act of anti-intellectual vandalism. A recent study showed that over 75% of scientists in the US are considering emigrating to a less hostile country–and if my own discussions are representative, that is an undercount. America will have all of these problems whether it is Trump or some other anti-intellectual, insecure and overconfident rube.
RL,
I’d like to disagree with you, but I can’t exactly.
FWIW, I think this is a pretty good assessment, though I do have some quibbles:
Harvard professor offers a grim assessment of American democracy under Trump
36 min. NPR interview
https://www.npr.org/2025/04/22/nx-s1-5372334/harvard-professor-offers-a-grim-assessment-of-american-democracy-under-trump
Depends on how the pendulum swings, I guess.
Short clip telling it like it is. iow the Truth of it, about Trump and everyone else.
The Tik Tok Guy
https://www.youtube.com/live/_1EtbtbK-Sw?si=qa6sNpCGhFKAtRrD&t=911
E. Schaffer 23 Apr 2025 at 10:02 AM For a Forcing of 3.7 w/m**2 the climate scientists’ assessment of Lapse Rate change -ve Feedback is -4.1 w/m**2 from a plot I saw presented on UTube either by Jennifer Francis or (more likely) by Mark Zelinka, not https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE1VBCt8GLc evidently, but a video by only Mark Zelinka I watched. Following is just cut’n’paste of mine from 2024-08-28 because I’m not studying or addressing the comment because I’m right now assigning 2 minutes daily to darting in & out where it interests me as clearly shown by my science contribution last night.
Suppose for example these are the +ve feedbacks:
w/m**2
100% 1.10 LWR Out LWR Out decreased due to CO2, CH4 etc. increased the last 30 years (just a Quick Estimate).
220% 2.42 LWR Out LWR Out decreased due to H2O GHG increase caused by +0.6 degrees in 30 years.
-110% -1.21 LWR Out Lapse rate change, a NEGATIVE feedback.
25% 0.28 SWR In Arctic Ocean sea ice reduction albedo reduction
25% 0.28 SWR In Arctic land snow albedo reduction
25% 0.28 SWR In Antarctic Ocean sea ice reduction albedo reduction **
70% 0.77 SWR In Cloud changes feedback (the cloud changes caused by +0.6 degrees in 30 years) **
——— ——-
355% 3.92 total without Planck feedback which is simply Earth cooling itself faster because it got hotter
-177% -1.95 LWR Out Planck feedback caused by +0.6 degrees in 30 years, a NEGATIVE feedback.
===== ==========
178% 1.97 Increase over 30 years in Earth’s energy budget imbalance (EEI)
146% 1.61 Increase over 30 years in EEI due to increased solar SWR absorbed
33% 0.36 Increase over 30 years in EEI due to decreased Earth’s LWR to space (the 30-year “greenhouse effect”)
The above is JUST AN EXAMPLE WITH REASONABLE SORT OF APPROXIMATIONS NOT THE ACCURATE QUANTITIES
FYI (with apologies if this has already been posted):
Carbon majors and the scientific case for climate liability
Abstract
Will it ever be possible to sue anyone for damaging the climate? Twenty years after this question was first posed, we argue that the scientific case for climate liability is closed. Here we detail the scientific and legal implications of an ‘end-to-end’ attribution that links fossil fuel producers to specific damages from warming. Using scope 1 and 3 emissions data from major fossil fuel companies, peer-reviewed attribution methods and advances in empirical climate economics, we illustrate the trillions in economic losses attributable to the extreme heat caused by emissions from individual companies. Emissions linked to Chevron, the highest-emitting investor-owned company in our data, for example, very likely caused between US $791 billion and $3.6 trillion in heat-related losses over the period 1991–2020, disproportionately harming the tropical regions least culpable for warming. More broadly, we outline a transparent, reproducible and flexible framework that formalizes how end-to-end attribution could inform litigation by assessing whose emissions are responsible and for which harms. Drawing quantitative linkages between individual emitters and particularized harms is now feasible, making science no longer an obstacle to the justiciability of climate liability claims.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2025/04/23/climate-attribution-damages-lawsuit/
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08751-3
National Snow and Ice Data Center
https://nsidc.org/sea-ice-today/sea-ice-tools/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph
What happened on April 1 in both the north and southern arctic?
The answer is obvious.
Have you joined the Moral Majority yet?
The days remaining for you to do so are limited. Your time is almost up.
FYI:
“Scientists on Wednesday released yet another study warning that humankind is at risk of triggering various climate ‘tipping points’ absent urgent action to dramatically reduce planet-heating emissions from fossil fuels … Lenton’s team calculated the probabilities of triggering 16 tipping points … the researchers focused on a scenario in which median warming of 2.8°C takes place by the end of the century. On that pathway, the study says, ‘our most conservative estimate of triggering probabilities averaged over all tipping points is 62%… and nine tipping points have a more than 50% probability of getting triggered’ … Under scenarios with lower temperature rise, ‘the risk of triggering climate tipping points is reduced significantly,’ the study continues.”
https://www.commondreams.org/news/climate-tipping-point
https://esd.copernicus.org/articles/16/565/2025/esd-16-565-2025.html
The 16 parameter outcome range for individual probabilities between 50 and 62 % spans rather more than two orders of magnitude,
Could you please explain where in the range from 0.002 to 0.000015 your expectation of disaster lies?
FYI:
“Using modeling techniques that have been utilized for more than a decade to explain how climate change is fueling weather disasters, researchers at Dartmouth College estimated that 111 of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies have caused $28 trillion in heat-related climate damages so far—slightly less than the value of all goods and services produced in the United States last year … The study, published in Nature, found that more than half of that amount—which doesn’t include damages from hurricanes and other extreme climate events—could be attributed to just 10 oil, coal, and gas companies including Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, Russia’s state-owned Gazprom, and Saudi Aramco.”
https://www.commondreams.org/news/polluter-pays-principle
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08751-3
FYI:
“The latest anomaly in the climate system that can’t be fully explained by researchers is a record annual jump in the global mean concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere measured in 2024 … .
“In recent decades, the increase has often been in annual increments of 1 to 2 ppm. But last year, the increase measured by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Global Monitoring Laboratory was 3.75 ppm, according to the lab’s early April update of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations.
“That brings the annual mean global concentration close to 430 ppm, about 40 percent more than the pre-industrial level, and enough to heat the planet by about 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius). Climate researchers have noted that the continuing increase of global CO2 emissions means the world will probably not be able to reach the Paris Agreement target of limiting warming to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit above the pre-industrial level.”
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/24042025/global-carbon-dioxide-concentration-in-atmosphere-soared-2024/
https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/gl_gr.html
insideclimatenews.org is the place to go for the latest in critically important climate news.
And the Guardian.
Secular Animist,
The NOAA data being reported in the article you cite does seem to have some problems. The graphic of Annual Global Increase of CO2 is that displayed on the NOAA webpage and it apparently does use the numbers also shown. But note the same graphic displayed for the MLO data. Again the graphic and MLO numbers match but something is evidently badly wrong with them. Likely this is “Trumped” data.
NOAA have their own way of calculating Annual Growth (using just the normalised Dec-Jan aves for global, Nov-Feb aves for MLO). When I have a go at calculating Annual Growths using those methods (or simple 12-month rolling aves) I don’t get 2024 as some exceptionally massive Annual Increase. It matches the 2016 Increase which showed the usual El Niño spike. CO2 emissions are estimated to be a bit up on 2023, according to preliminary GCP 2024 numbers published last Nov. (GCP also comment on the atmospheric increase.)
Further, using the NOAA monthly data, 2023 shows a small CO2 increase and a preceding year with a small increase will set the scene for a big follow-on increase.
So is the 2024 spike simply the El Niño spike?
Note the article quotes one of our hosts Michael Mann who says
Dr. Schmidt, or anyone,
Where can I find a table of absorption line half-widths? The only one I’ve been able to find in the literature is 0.064 cm^-1 for the principle 15-micron CO2 line. Other sources just say “generally between 0.01 and 0.1 cm^-1.”