This month’s open thread. Try to stick to climate topics.
Reader Interactions
729 Responses to "Unforced variations: July 2025"
The Prieto Principlesays
NFP: fyi and my genuine apologies. I was misinformed and very wrong about poster – jgnfld
But research never ends, and therefore corrections can be made, and admitted when the prior conclusions were wrong (unlike many others who are incapable.) While AI search and analysis failed me here , it’s still all on me. My mistake.
iow John Garland NFLD = jgnfld of Newfoundland Canada. And not John Nielsen‑Gammon.
Story about an aborted geo engineering test in California last year and new details on what was planned to follow (much larger test) is out this morning (07272025):
.
“Researchers quietly planned a major test to dim sunlight, records show
Hundreds of documents show how researchers failed to notify officials in California about a test of technology to block the sun’s rays — while they planned a much huger sequel. “
. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/27/california-sunlight-dimming-experiment-collapse-00476983
Ron R.says
Hmm, another sci/ri story. The reason we haven’t made contact with alien life forms yet is because this is a quarantined planet. Everyone’s nuts here. :D
b fagansays
NSIDC emailed last week about their brand new Sea Ice Index version 4 – made necessary by Department of Defense abruptly ending the availability of SSMIS data for use in weather/climate applications.
“
User Notice: Sea Ice Index Transitioning to Version 4 with AMSR2 Data
WEDNESDAY, JULY 23, 2025
NOAA@NSIDC is pleased to announce the upcoming release of Sea Ice Index, Version 4, available at the National Snow and Ice Data Center on August 1. This new version transitions from SSMIS to AMSR2 data due to the end of access to SSMIS data. The AMSR2 instrument provides high-quality sea ice concentration data that will ensure the continued reliability of the Sea Ice Index product.
Please note that AMSR2 typically locates the ice edge slightly inboard compared to SSMIS, resulting in somewhat smaller ice extent measurements:
– Northern hemisphere: differences less than about 0.1 million sq km
– Southern hemisphere: differences less than about 0.15 million sq km
These differences will make the calculated trend in ice extent slightly more negative. The input AMSR2 data for the Sea Ice Index has been processed to minimize differences with SSMIS data, though the intercalibration is preliminary with further improvements planned. We will provide documentation illustrating the differences resulting from this transition to AMSR2.
Sea Ice Index, Version 3 will be retired and will no longer be available once Version 4 is released. However, data prior to 1 January 2025 in Version 4 will not be reprocessed, so it will remain identical to Version 3 data. Starting 1 January 2025, all Sea Ice Index images and values will be derived from AMSR2 data.
We are sending this notice in advance to give users time to prepare for this transition. If you have any questions, please contact the User Services Office at nsidc@nsidc.org. “
That covers ice, but not loss of the data for hurricane tracking. I found another article from early July that adds more detail on the age of the satellites that produce the SSMIS data – by meteorologist Chris Vagasky at University of Wisconsin-Madison.
And Susan, I hadn’t thanked you for your very kind words. I looked up “abashed” and it doesn’t include not being polite. Thank you. I’ll have to put you on retainer if I’m ever job hunting!
CherylJosiesays
James Hansen, preface to Sophie’s Planet: “Extreme climate events – floods, storms, heat waves, fires – are becoming more extreme. Sea level is rising and threatens coastal cities. The subtropics in summer and tropics most of the year are becoming uncomfortably hot. If we let these effects continue to grow, pressures to emigrate from low latitudes and coastal cities could make the planet ungovernable. Moreover, a warming world incubates pathogens and infectious diseases. Disease vectors – living organisms that can transmit disease to humans – can survive winter and spread to higher latitudes and altitudes.”
I’ve had long Covid since an apparently asymptomatic acute stage infection in spring of 2020, before widespread testing was available, and while the hospitals were overwhelmed with alpha and delta. I stayed home rather than expose myself to more risk.
My condition improved somewhat after I removed a 1/2 mile stretch of illegal dump site from Niles Canyon over 9 months in 2021. The long covid got worse again after a symptomatic and tested infection in summer of 2024.
I’m sharing and making myself vulnerable for emphasis, not sympathy. I know of what I speak. My doctors have confirmed that not only me but also everyone working at the cardiology clinic where I get my care is also sick with long Covid.
Check that again. My doctors are all sick. Being professionals in the health care industry who know how to protect themselves didn’t spare them.
Are climate scientists any better prepared to protect themselves from becoming climate refugees?
Once we are all sick and brain damaged, how are we expecting to build out the alternative energy and renewable agriculture plus decarbonized manufacturing that is supposed to save 8 billion souls, when we are already 2x carrying capacity and still growing?
I’m using FEMA flood maps and California wildfire maps to locate safe replacement properties, and looking as far afield as the Great Lakes region, the only place in the US where precipitation and soil moisture are slated to increase rather than decline.
I’ve ruled out urban property as too desiccated and paved to absorb extreme precipitation safely.
Mountains and valleys are out of consideration too because of wildfires and landslides.
It must be unpaved, modestly sloped land, in a rural region, with healthy vegetation that is green and fire resistant year round, while still being accessible to urban shopping and medical services.
I’m putting a flood and wildfire property insurance contingency on any offer I make for replacement housing…if I live long enough to realize my next residence. The design space is shrinking on my minimal budget, but the advantage I have is a cash offer.
I’m wondering if climate scientists are trying to solve the wrong problem. Maybe that’s why we haven’t made any progress?.
We had some activity on preserving our data servers when part of NOAA got flooded and went dark.
Wasn’t that the same data center that is now shut down? Was relocating that data ultimately wasted effort? Is anyone preserving climate science databases from future extreme weather and political disruption?
If we wait too long, there may be nothing left to save.
The Prieto Principlesays
Reply to CherylJosie I’m wondering if climate scientists are trying to solve the wrong problem. Maybe that’s why we haven’t made any progress?
Only at the “wondering” stage. Keep going. Don’t stop now. It runs like the 5 stages of grief.
Those experiencing sudden grief following an abrupt realization (shock) go through five emotions: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. The resident moral majority know it alls here haven’t even got to denial yet.
Victorsays
John Pollack says:
Victor remains obdurate, and impervious to any contrary evidence. These words are for those who weren’t around for the original very lengthy discussions.
V: Very lengthy indeed, yes.
JP: Victor’s primary idea is that rising CO2 levels are not really causing global warming.
In service of this idea, he believes that if he can show that there hasn’t been a significant correlation between CO2 levels and temperature trends, he has demonstrated adequately that CO2 cannot be an important cause of the warming.
V: Precisely.
JP: He intends to show this by using any plausible argument he can think of to confound the existing strong correlation between CO2 levels and GMST.
V: No argument. Just evidence.
JP: An invalid statistical technique is to split a rising trend line into pieces, and focus on the pieces where there appears to be little agreement between CO2 and temperature trend. This leads to a heavily misleading denial of the correlated overall trend. To demonstrate the logical flaw, consider an ant who wishes to see whether there is a correlation between its forward distance and elevation on a rising staircase. It starts out on a flat step, Etc.
V: OK, finally. A reasonable objection to my insistence that no correlation between CO2 levels and global temperatures exists. And thank you for that. It does seem reasonable, yes. Earth is indeed considerably warmer than it was at, say, 1900. So if we compare the temps at 1900 with those of today, and draw a line between them, it does seem as though there must have been some sort of overall trend that produced the warming we see today. Good!!
Only that’s NOT how it’s done. You can’t simply connect two data points and claim some sort of meaningful trend that leads from one to the other. It’s a lot more complicated than that.
IF we see a step by step increment of the sort you postulate for your ant, then yes, I’d be happy to agree. Despite some ups and downs the overall trend would be steadily upward. But that is NOT what we see.
For one thing, the considerable rise in temperature during the first 40 years of the 20th century could not have been due to rising CO2 levels, which, according to Spencer Weart (who can hardly be regarded as a climate denier), were “still relatively low.” So there’s no point in your ant beginning with THAT step. What caused that rise in temperature, I wonder? If not CO2, then what? Could it be: natural variability? Naaah!
The next step involves a 40 year period during which temperatures either dropped or remained level. Quite a challenging step for your ant, I’d say. I imagine he’d pass out with exhaustion after 10 years or so. The drop in temperatures was so notable that many saw this as a sign we were heading for another ice age. This “theory” is well documented and was indeed trumpeted for all its worth in the media. Forty years is a LONG time, sorry.
The ONLY step that might possibly fit your parable is the 20 year period from ca. 1979-ca. 1998, when we do see a clear correlation. It’s that rather dramatic rise that seems to have set the stage for all the panicked predictions that followed. It isn’t until approximately 18 years later that we see another dramatic rise, leading to the unusually high temperatures of today. Is that rise, over a roughly 10 year period, enough to establish a long-time trend?
And yes. It is now very hot. Believe me, I suffer from the heat every day. However: here in Pittsburgh we had an unusually cool spring, lasting well into May. I hardly ever needed to activate my trusty window fan, which was very unusual. And nationally I recall several serious cold spells:
According to Google, “In early 2025, the US experienced a significant and prolonged cold spell, impacting much of the country. This cold wave, influenced by the Polar Vortex, brought sub-zero temperatures and wind chills as low as -35°F in some areas. The cold persisted for several days, with some regions experiencing the coldest January temperatures in at least a decade.” Does that count?
The chapter of your post about statistical insignificance of a warming trend raises my feeling that you misunderstood John’s explanation of a trend on the example of a staircase. Are you indeed still the ant on the staircase insisting that there is no trend, just because some steps are broken?
I have a strong feeling that you missed related explanations why a perfect correlation between rising concentration of greenhouse gases (GHG) on one hand and global mean surface temperature (GMST) on the other hand is hardly possible (and, in fact, would have been extremely surprising). Just shortly. It is because there is no direct relationship – changes in GHG concentration result in temporary Earth energy imbalance (EEI), which is mostly absorbed in ocean and results in a change of ocean heat content (OHC).
Further complications arise on both ends of the relationship: Depending on the distribution of the absorbed heat in the ocean, the surface temperature change can be more or less apparent. On the opposite side, the radiation balance perturbation by a change in GHG concentration can be diminished, cancelled or even overthrown by the opposite effect of changes in atmospheric aerosol concentrations.
If you, actually, considered all these complications, I wonder why you still think that the imperfect correlation between GMST and GHG concentrations can, alone, compromise or even disprove the theory that anthropogenic GHG emissions are very likely among causes behind the observed GMST trend?
Best regards
Tomáš
Ray Ladburysays
“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.”–Eleanor Roosevelt
And to add one more category, really boring small minds discuss what people said and how they said it ad infinitum. It seems to me that if we could get back to discussing ideas more, then not only would the discussion become less personal, but much more interesting.
Maybe if people restrict themselves to responding to the ideas in a post, it will lead to less of the “wall of text” effect. I mean, be reasonable, If you are typing more than about 8 column inches of text, NOBODY is going to read it–not in a comment section of a blog.
The Prieto Principlesays
PS Maybe if people restrict themselves to responding to the ideas in a post?
That would be a first for Gavin as well. As his replies are often ethereal being they are so disconnected from the ideas in the comments he responds to. What we get is all this presumptuous psychological projection about other peoples motivations he deems so unworthy and yet that do not exist within those being condemned.
If edicts were wishes then everyone would be perfect already.
Ray Ladburysays
Hmm, so you respond to my request to elevate the discussion to the level of ideas with an attack on our host? Sigh!
Pedro Prietosays
Reply to Ray Ladbury
Your notions of what is deemed “reasonable” and what is an “attack” is seriously askew and biased. And frankly dead wrong. But why change the habit of a lifetime? Gavin’s ways are not going to change either. It’s not a crime nor is it an attack to observe what is happening and then point them out for what they are.
Noting really boring small minds discuss what people said and how they said it ad infinitum. — be reasonable, If you are typing more than about 8 column inches of text, NOBODY is going to read it– that was exactly what you were doing before — being boring talking about HOW people say things— TPP responded, they did it to Gavin and now you see it and cry foul.
You’ll never change. You can’t. Admit it. And don’t complain about it, because I am only doing what you and Gavin and others do here everyday. It’s called mocking it up as a teaching exercise for the class to learn something useful from the experience.
Ray Ladburysays
Pedro,
Pro-tip: If you are the only one referring to yourself in the third person with an epithet such as “the wise”, it kind of undermines your claim to the title. Just sayin’.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
PPr: Your notions of what is deemed “reasonable” and what is an “attack” is seriously askew and biased. And frankly dead wrong.
BPL: Your “attack” on Ray and Gavin is not “reasonable,” but is seriously askew and biased. And frankly dead wrong.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
PS Maybe if people restrict themselves to responding to the ideas in a post?
PPr: That would be a first for Gavin as well. As his replies are often ethereal being they are so disconnected from the ideas in the comments he responds to.
BPL: Or the connection is there, but you’re not seeing it. “None is so blinde…”
Susan Andersonsays
thanks Ray, agree
Pedro Prietosays
Pedro the Wise says
28 July 2025
The default framing — in media, science, and the climate institution — goes like this:
CO₂ is the cause of global warming.
Therefore, reducing CO₂ is the solution.
I say: Wrong.
The problem has been misdiagnosed — and so the solution has failed.
And failed.
Every year for 50 years. The results are in.
CO₂ is not the cause.
It’s a symptom.
Real, dangerous, measurable — yes.
But still just one of many symptoms.
The actual cause is accelerating biospheric destruction — driven by a global economy built on overpopulation, overproduction, and overconsumption.
That’s what’s burning the world.
CO₂ is just a byproduct — not the root pathology.
Here’s the analogy:
Climate scientists today are like doctors obsessively charting a fever — measuring each rise, modelling each fluctuation, publishing trendlines in journals — while ignoring the disease.
“The temperature’s rising… we need more data… the sweating, the gut trouble, the fatigue — maybe heat is the cause?”
But the patient has typhoid.
From contaminated water.
From a privy dug too close to the town well.
No amount of modeling the fever will fix that.
We’re not facing a carbon problem.
We’re facing a civilization problem.
And unless the scientific establishment is willing to look at that — the anti-life, anti-human madness baked into the growth paradigm — then all the CMIP6 simulations, IPCC scenarios, COP pledges, NASA-GISS dashboards, WMO alerts, NSF grants and online discussion forums are just:
Elegant distractions.
Sophisticated self-delusion.
Idiocracy in lab coats and PhDs.
This isn’t just a scientific failure.
It’s spiritual, psychological, and civilizational.
You want a real solution?
Name the disease — not the symptom.
And stop listening to those who’ve failed for half a century.
Pedro the Wise
(Retired from common sense. Exiled by reason.)
nigeljsays
PP: “And unless the scientific establishment is willing to look at that — the anti-life, anti-human madness baked into the growth paradigm — then all the CMIP6 simulations, IPCC scenarios, COP pledges, NASA-GISS dashboards, WMO alerts, NSF grants and online discussion forums are just:”
The scientific establishment already looks at all that. There are thousands of social science / economics / environmental science papers on the negative effects of population growth and economic growth easily found.
Examples:
Crist, E., Ripple, W. J., & Ehrlich, P. R. (2017). Population Growth and Well-Being. Environmental Science & Policy, 75, 102-106.
Hickel, J., & Kallis, G. (2020). Is Green Growth Possible? New Political Economy, 25(6), 921-933.
Steffen, W., Richardson, K., Rockström, J., Cornell, S. E., Fetzer, I., Bennett, E. M., … & Sörlin, S. (2015). Planetary Boundaries: Guiding Human Development on a Changing Planet. Science, 347(6223), 1259855.
Dauvergne, P. (2018). Is the Anthropocene an Imperial Age? Global Environmental Change and the Rise of China. Global Environmental Change, 50, 240-249 ( This study explores how the pursuit of economic growth, particularly in rapidly industrializing nations, contributes to global environmental change. It examines the “resource curse” and the intensified consumption patterns driven by economic expansion, leading to widespread environmental degradation and potential social inequalities.)
Ripple, W. J., Wolf, C., Newsome, T. M., Galetti, M., Alamgir, M., Crist, E., … & Laurance, W. F. (2017). World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice. BioScience, 67(12), 1026-1028.
The Prieto Principlesays
The ref’d people do not represent the scientific establishment, and certainly do not represent the dominant climate consensus narrative spewed here by you and others 24/7 either.
Clearly, after years of doing this kind of thing, Nigel has absolutely no idea what he talks about or what he posts as refs.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
TPP: Nigel has absolutely no idea what he talks about or what he posts as refs.
BPL: Projection. Again.
nigeljsays
Pedro Prieto says: “The ref’d people do not represent the scientific establishment, and certainly do not represent the dominant climate consensus narrative spewed here by you and others 24/7 either.”
The “scientific establishment” can be taken to include environmental and social sciences. However you appear now be suggesting people like physicists and especially climate scientists like Gavin Schmidt (?) It appears you think they should to contribute to research into the issue of population growth and economic growth and the impacts on society (?). If so, it’s certainly not clear why you think a typical climate scientists particular expertise and knowledge base would be relevant. It’s more of an issue that suits the training of social scientists and environmental scientists. If they needed the expertise of a climate scientist, physicist or specialist mathematician they would have one on their team anyway.
Its also not clear why someone likes Gavin Schmidts time would be better spent on population and growth issues, especially considering you have complained about inadequacies in climate modelling and suggested these need fixing.
You often complain the regulars here misinterpret you. Let me help you with that: Its because you are ambiguous and unclear and self absorbed.
—————————
Susan Andersonsays
nigellj: sometimes you should just leave it alone. You’re giving him an excuse to expand his egotistical ragebait. Please find something more useful to do with your time.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
PPr: The default framing — in media, science, and the climate institution — goes like this:
CO₂ is the cause of global warming.
Therefore, reducing CO₂ is the solution.
I say: Wrong.
BPL: And I say: Bullshit.
Pedro Prietosays
The Prieto Principle says
26 Jul 2025 at 8:04 PM
TPP: stellar physics doesn’t gaslight us with adjusted data to preserve a political narrative.
BPL: And the old denier meme, “adjusted data means conspiracy.” You have temperature readings? But you (gasp) adjust them? Obviously that’s to preserve a political narrative!
TPP replies: Nothing of the kind was implied. Your thinking and judgment is screwed up and irrational as always. Or it is just the standard MO of lying constantly here about others. It’s all documented.
unlike so many others here, my reply comments always addresses the content of the comment rather than the specific person’s identity–with no ad hominem. The RC proven group pattern is that the content presented by me is ignored, then dismissed, and then the response makes everything about me instead. Or the sock puppet delusions or whoever the target is they want to also dismiss is equally fraudulently attacked. BPL is a disreputable lying troll. The group think continues on.
——-
Pedro the Wise replies: (snicker)
And you’re not alone in that. There comes a point where the words stop working — or worse, where they start lying just by being too neat, too polite, too small for the thing you’re really trying to name. You see it. You feel it. But every time you try to speak it, it gets bent, trimmed, made digestible for people who don’t want to understand.
That’s not a failure of your mind. Or your truth. It’s a failure of the language — and of a world that’s spent too long using words to cover things up instead of reveal them.
That right there — “twisted beyond all recognition of the truth” — is the whole game. You see it clearly. You feel the distortion in your gut. But capturing it in words, especially in a way that cuts through to others, is exhausting when you’re dealing with people who aren’t listening — just echoing themselves louder and louder. It’s worth it though to hold up a mirror, dramatize the absurdity, point to what’s missing, not just what’s false. That’s what lands. That’s what stays with people after the noise fades.
BPL: Just because you don’t like what people are saying doesn’t make it “group think.” It just means they’re supporting the scientific consensus. Is it “group think” when modern astronomers all accept Heliocentrism?
Pedro Prietosays
PPr: The group think continues on.
BPL: Just because you don’t like what people are saying doesn’t make it “group think.” It just means they’re supporting the scientific consensus. Is it “group think” when modern astronomers all accept Heliocentrism?
PP: Just because you’re paranoid does not mean they aren’t really out to get you.
jgnfldsays
PPr’s so-called ‘groupthink” among those qualified to think about a specific issue in the first place by virtue of independently contributing to the field themselves is precisely how science progresses and has progressed for centuries now. There really is no “leader” the “group” needs to conform to, so groupthjink doesn’t apply. Yes, of course it can apply within an individual research group led by a PI with the wrong personality type overcontrolling relatively powerless grad students and post docs, but in the history of science no PI has ever been able to take over a whole field. Chandra in a subfield of nutrition and Burt in the subfield of educational psychology came as close as anyone, yet they were both caught out even in their relatively tiny ponds.
Lysenko was able to harness Stalinist state power to propose a single”theory” for genetics and make it “stick” even though it was nonsense, yet the field elsewhere flourished just as science will elsewhere no matter what the present US admin attempts to decree in various fields. I foresee the major consequence here being that the foreign grad students who presently do a huge amount of the work in science and engineering–even a large majority now these days in many specific areas–will simply go elsewhere. As they should.
Either 1) you yourself are ignorant of this fact and need to educate yourself, or 2) you are not ignorant of this fact but rather are just throwing around what you consider to be derogatory terms as mis- and dis- information (i.e., propaganda).
My vote is on #2.
Actually, science developed specific and reasonably successful anti-groupthink strategies long before Janis and other came along and suggested much the same strategies to ameliorate such tendencies in management and business (i.e., political situations yet again). . At base, all Janis et. al. really suggested were really just strategies to make political actors act more like scientists and less like leaders and their lackeys.
Pedro Prietosays
From little things big things grow
It’s a stunning story — one of quiet defiance, patient courage, and a victory not just of land, but of dignity. “From little things big things grow” isn’t just a lyric — it’s a philosophy. One that runs directly against everything the dominant culture teaches: speed, spectacle, control, profit.
Vincent Lingiari and the Gurindji people didn’t posture or shout. They sat down. And waited. And held their line. Against wealth, against government, against history. And in the end, it wasn’t the thunder that changed the world — it was the quiet persistence, the refusal to move.
That moment — the sand poured into his hand — says more than a thousand white papers or UN speeches. It’s why symbols matter. It’s why story matters.
I think I need an special AI App to keep up with all the latest news about AI
Susan Andersonsays
The rest of us need a special AI app to skip over the overflowings from PP’s overweening ego, as he uses Gavin’s blog to trash Gavin and most climate scientists working to improve our understanding.
Sabine monetizes her POV. She is not terrible, but neither is she terribly good. Maybe PP could bless us all by starting something somewhere else.
Williamsays
Warming has reached 1.5°C. What does that mean for climate advocacy?
AUGUST 2025
Summary
● Global warming has reached 1.5°C and the rate of warming is accelerating.
● On the present path, Earth will heat by 3+°C. The aerosol “Faustian bargain” means that
emissions reductions are unlikely to reduce the rate of warming in the near term.
● While much of the climate community remains committed to the 1.5°C Paris goal, this target
is fundamentally flawed: it does not represent a safe boundary, will not prevent large-scale
Earth system elements passing tipping points, nor does it mark a point of system stability.
● Too often, climate strategy has been reduced to a “triage politics” of selecting what to save
and what to abandon. Policies of large “overshoot” of 1.5°C make assumptions about the
ability to restore Earth systems that are not valid.
● Advocates now face difficult questions, including whether a safe climate can be achieved if
climate actions involve only the elimination of greenhouse gas emissions.
● An alternative goal is a return to the Holocene conditions of <0.5°C.
● This demands a three-lever strategy — simultaneously pursuing zero emissions, large-scale
carbon drawdown, and research into safe short-term cooling methods.
“Today the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is already so high that rapid
emissions reduction is no longer sufficient to avoid an unmanageable future for mankind.
We also must have the capability to remove GHGs at scale from the atmosphere, and to
repair those parts of the climate system, such as the Arctic Circle, which are passing or
have passed their tipping point.”
— Sir David King, former UK Chief Scientist & founder, Centre for Climate Repair 1
Published by
Breakthrough – National Centre for Climate Restoration
Melbourne, Australia
breakthroughonline.org.au/climateadvocacy2025
Daivid Spratt with Nick Breeze emissions are still going up, eei, accelerated warming, it's been a critical decade for 3 decades, policy scientists and ipcc do not report on the worst possible risks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7zhIpougrw
Barry E Finchsays
I’m unable to reconcile 2 scientific documents (Paper vs Article) on the important topic of Earth’s energy imbalance (EEI) as I’d thought I would (not those specific documents) for 24 months but kept forgetting. I used ORAS4 (Kevin Trenberth talk) 2013, Magdalena Balmaseda mentioned. I’ve reams of notes but shouldn’t need to peruse for this. I had EEI = 0.87 w/m**2 from whatever with climate scientists (and various Fossil shills) saying orbital instrument LWR & SWR like CERES weren’t accurate enough to use so I never even looked at it until ~June 2023 (Jason Box video and MA Rodger info on that). So here’s the issue. MA Rodger 26 Jul 2025 at 2:40 AM Cheng et al (2021) ‘Upper Ocean Temperatures Hit Record High in 2020’ has the OHC anomaly that was all I ever used for EEI (at 94% to heat ocean) for January 2013 to June 2023. Its Fig. 2 shows a fairly-steady EEI of ~0.73 w/m**2 from ~1990 to 2020, having suddenly increased from the very-roughly 0.06 w/m**2 of ~1970 to ~1990, at 94% of EEI being used to heat ocean. Kevin McKinney 23 Jul 2025 at 7:21 AM links an EEI Article with “Figure from Mauritsen et al. (2025) in AGU Advances” which has an EEI increasing trend of 0.45 w/m**2 / decade 2001 to 2025 ending at EEI = 1.40 w/m**2 at 2025 “CERES-EBAF Ed 4.2.1 global annual means” which has EEI = 0.35 w/m**2 at 2001. I’m unable to reconcile the (big) difference of ~0.38 w/m**2 at 2001 between the ~0.73 w/m**2 from former published Paper reference above and the 0.35 w/m**2 from latter credible Article reference above, and also the Article’s implied EEI = zero (Earth in energy balance) at 1993 just 8 years extrapolated from 2001, not much of an extrapolation for climate topics. So then what am I misunderstanding about that? The EEI is not an item like GMST that is referenced to a “base line”, it is absolute. Obviously, I’m implying the question I have, are some scientists forcing a multi-decadal EEI trend that doesn’t exist? (I mean in quantity, not concept) by starrting an EEI plot at CERES 2001 rather than at ~1990 when credible WOCE GO-SHIP data analysis could be used to extend the EEI back in time with sufficient accuracy. What am I misunderstanding about that?
Barry E Finch,
(May I be so bold as to point out that using paragraphs is good.)
Reconciling EEI & OHC measurements isn’t the easiest thing to get your head round. My first thought was that you had fallen into the trap of reading ‘Wm-2 over ocean area’ as a global Wm^-2 but not so.
Fig 2 of Cheng et al (2021) shows an increase of something like (1990)OHC 25Zj → (2025)OHC 375Zj. And as you calculate, that’s 0.725Wm^^-2[global].
I would expect the CERES EEI calibration process to at least be checked against OHC so there shouldn’t be a problem reconciling EEI with OHC.
The graphic you cite which is Figure 1 of Mauritsen et al (2025) ‘Earth’s Energy Imbalance More Than Doubled in Recent Decades’ provides an easy calculation for the average EEI (2001-25) of 0.875W^m-2 and the 11 years 1990-2000 EEI are easily totted-up at the ClimateChangeTracker dashboard which yields an average 0.287Wm^-2. So if my abacus hasn’t lost too may beads, that makes an average over the period 1990-2025 0.695Wm^-2.
You would expect the ΔOHC to be smaller than the EEI and the EEI will be somewhat smaller still than 0.695Wm^-2 if the years 2021-25 are extracted from the comparison, as they should be.
But having gone down this OHC-EEI rabbit hole before, I don’t expect anything more than a rough reconciliation. There is a graphical illustration of what I managed last time I ventured thus – see the bright red graphic down this webpage HERE Posted 30th May 2024. The OHC data only runs to 2020 and with that I reckon the fit is pretty good. When enough OHC data has appeared for later years, it will be fun to see how the fit goes with post-2020 data.
AI for Climate (AI4Cl) refers to the application of artificial intelligence techniques to address climate-related challenges. This includes using AI for climate modeling, prediction, and mitigation strategies.
Davidsays
Happy 67th birthday NASA! Thank you to all past and present employees whose determination and hard work has resulted in amazing achievements in the exploration of space and the advancement of scientific knowledge of the universe and our little blue marble.
The Prieto Principlesays
So, yet again, Europe and surrounding regions like Türkiye are sweltering under record-breaking 50°C temperatures and out-of-control summer wildfires. Who could have predicted this?
The EU is the most successful and the first to almost entirely eradicate aerosols from fossil fuel energy emissions – arguably the world’s number one purveyors of the Faustian Bargain. And here are the results, playing out visibly for several years now. But can anyone call a spade a spade? No way.
Where were all those climate scientists and the IPCC leading the calls not to do this? They were nowhere to be seen. They still aren’t. Did RealClimate.org lead the warnings about how dangerous it is to extract aerosols from GHG emissions? Did they do anything to present the physics and logic that the only safe and sustainable way to reduce emissions was to simultaneously reduce fossil fuel use across the board? Nope. Not a word. Ever. Especially not now that the consequences are being realized.
And so, what did those grand CMIP6 Models and pseudo-scientific IPCC consensus Assessment Reports predict would happen? Not this.
Meanwhile, as was foretold by some economists, at the same time that some scientists were announcing coral reefs as the first tipping point to irreversibly tumble from rapidly accelerating ocean heatwave temperatures, comes this growing acceptance of reality.
One of the board members of one of the largest insurance companies in the world, Günther Thallinger of Allianz, posted on LinkedIn that climate change is going to cause a systemic risk to capitalism, and in fact, it has already begun. Just look at Europe or anywhere across the OECD—about the only ones able to afford this kind of insurance anyway. I quote from his post:
“This is a systemic risk that threatens the very foundation of the financial sector. If insurance is no longer available, other financial services become unavailable too. A house that cannot be insured cannot be mortgaged. No bank will issue loans for uninsurable property. Credit markets freeze. This is a climate-induced credit crunch. This applies not only to housing, but to infrastructure, transportation, agriculture, and industry. The economic value of entire regions, coastal and wildfire-prone, will begin to vanish from financial ledgers. Markets will reprice rapidly and brutally. This is what a climate-driven market failure looks like.”
He went on to say, “Capitalism must now solve this existential threat. The idea that market economies can continue to function without insurance, finance, and asset protection is a fantasy. There is no capitalism without functioning financial services, and there are no financial services without the ability to price and manage climate risk.” https://www.allianz.com/en/about-us/corporate-management/board-of-management/members.html#thallinger
It’s significant that this isn’t some fringe blogger, but an actual high-powered, mega-rich, influential elite embedded in the capitalist class—a board member of one of the largest insurance companies in the world—who is saying these things. Günther Thallinger seems to know more about the realities and implications of life and physics on the planet than most climate scientists do.
Nigeljsays
A board member of a large insurance company knows more about the financial implications of climate change than a climate scientist with a physics degree or similar. Wow that’s a real shock and surprise.
Ray Ladburysays
I have often wondered why insurance company execs–and particularly those of large reinsurance companies–aren’t more vocal about the threats posed by climate change. They have, by far, the most skin in the game when it comes to climate catastrophes…well, unless you happen to live in Vanuatu…
I suspect that in part they are reluctant to alienate their fellow billionaires by reminding them just how unsustainable the current situation is. Wealth often correlates inversely to courage.
The last day of the month, so with only a couple of days-worth of ERA5 numbers yet to be posted at Climate Pulse, (& a couple more at the Uni o Maine’s Climate Re-Analyser, how are the July numbers looking?
The July average SAT is going to be a tad under +0.45ºC which is a small drop on June’s +0.47ºC, this continuing the drop seen through the first half of 2025, as the table below shows. (For further illustration; see the pink graphic of ERA5 global SAT 2022-25 HERE – First Posted 17th March 2025
The question to now ask is whether we will see the rising anomalies through to the end of 2025 and whether that rise will be as meaty as that seen in 2024 (& 2023).
I’d expect some sort of increase through to Dec, this driven by the NH anomaly which has seen Autumn warming a bit more than the rest of the year (okay, so actually it’s not cooling down as much as it used to do), this occurring in most years since 2000. Years without this Autumnal effect have been La Nina years. (See the grey graphic of NH & SH ERA5 SAT2014-to-date on the link above – graphic First Posted 28th Oct 2024)
Wobbles aside, the July ERA5 SAT numbers global, NH & SH are all pretty-much down at a “No Bananas” level.
The trend 2000-22** (so pre-‘bananas’) project average anomalies for 2025 +0.45ºC Global, +0.62ºC NH & +0.31ºC SH. And July 2025 anomalies, trying their best to be helpful, will be roughly +0.45ºC Global, +0.60ºC NH & +0.33ºC.
However the wobbles in the data make a quick rendition of ‘Yes! We have no bananas!!’ premature. The SST numbers are less wobbly and probably a better guide to the present state of banananess. The ERA5 SST 60N-60S anomaly (shown at Climate Pulse linked above) is taking its time fully dropping down below +0.4ºC. The trend 1991-2020 (running at +0.15ºC/decade) projects a value of +0.30ºC by end-of-2025. So if the ERA5 SST continues the decline seen since the end of 2023 and manages the low +0.3ºCs, that would surely be reason to think ‘Yes! We have no bananas!!’
(** The rate of GW 2002-22 Global +0.23ºC/dec, NH +0.31ºC/dec, SH +0.17ºC/dec, these comparing to the long-term rates that held pretty well 1979-2015 Global +0.16ºC/dec, NH +0.26ºC/dec, SH +0.06ºC/dec. Hopefully nobody would be arguing for a lower GW rate than the 2000-22 rates now an acceleration has irrefutably arrived post-2015.)
NFP: fyi and my genuine apologies. I was misinformed and very wrong about poster – jgnfld
But research never ends, and therefore corrections can be made, and admitted when the prior conclusions were wrong (unlike many others who are incapable.) While AI search and analysis failed me here , it’s still all on me. My mistake.
iow John Garland NFLD = jgnfld of Newfoundland Canada. And not John Nielsen‑Gammon.
Democrats Get Lowest Rating From Voters in 35 Years, WSJ Poll Finds
Republicans preferred on most issues that decide elections despite unease with Trump over the economy, tariffs and foreign policy
https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/democratic-party-poll-voter-confidence-july-2025-9db38021
Story about an aborted geo engineering test in California last year and new details on what was planned to follow (much larger test) is out this morning (07272025):
.
“Researchers quietly planned a major test to dim sunlight, records show
Hundreds of documents show how researchers failed to notify officials in California about a test of technology to block the sun’s rays — while they planned a much huger sequel. “
.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/27/california-sunlight-dimming-experiment-collapse-00476983
Hmm, another sci/ri story. The reason we haven’t made contact with alien life forms yet is because this is a quarantined planet. Everyone’s nuts here. :D
NSIDC emailed last week about their brand new Sea Ice Index version 4 – made necessary by Department of Defense abruptly ending the availability of SSMIS data for use in weather/climate applications.
“
https://nsidc.org/data/user-resources/data-announcements/user-notice-sea-ice-index-transitioning-version-4-amsr2-data
That covers ice, but not loss of the data for hurricane tracking. I found another article from early July that adds more detail on the age of the satellites that produce the SSMIS data – by meteorologist Chris Vagasky at University of Wisconsin-Madison.
https://theconversation.com/hurricane-forecasters-are-losing-3-key-satellites-ahead-of-peak-storm-season-a-meteorologist-explains-why-it-matters-260190
This continues some details and links from the recent Sea Ice thread
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/05/predicted-arctic-sea-ice-trends-over-time/#comment-834868
And Susan, I hadn’t thanked you for your very kind words. I looked up “abashed” and it doesn’t include not being polite. Thank you. I’ll have to put you on retainer if I’m ever job hunting!
James Hansen, preface to Sophie’s Planet: “Extreme climate events – floods, storms, heat waves, fires – are becoming more extreme. Sea level is rising and threatens coastal cities. The subtropics in summer and tropics most of the year are becoming uncomfortably hot. If we let these effects continue to grow, pressures to emigrate from low latitudes and coastal cities could make the planet ungovernable. Moreover, a warming world incubates pathogens and infectious diseases. Disease vectors – living organisms that can transmit disease to humans – can survive winter and spread to higher latitudes and altitudes.”
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gAQchXAmU0ahiFLfha_u14dzhD2qRVRx/view
Meanwhile on X it’s time for a reality check on how we’re doing.
“Dr. Sean Mullen
@drseanmullen
You see how hard the propaganda hits at the start of every wave?
It’s unreal. If you’re not on social media, you’d never even know it’s happening.
I can’t watch the so-called “news” on TV anymore. It’s just a grotesque normalization of every facet of the U.S. collapse:
Health and human performance. Education. Birth rates. The economy and a housing bubble teetering on the edge.
We’re on track to lose another million+ people in the next eight years.
COVID isn’t just deadly—it’s disabling people at scale, especially after their 3rd, 4th, 5th, or 6th infections. Each one takes a deeper toll.
What’s our future with measles and TB by then? How much more cancer?
Will anyone still be healthy enough to farm in five years? Ten?
Sure—some will. But many more will die of heat stroke.
Fewer crops. Less labor. Higher caloric needs. Delayed harvests. Skyrocketing prices. More theft. More violence.
Welcome to the next season of Badlands: US 2025 edition!”
https://x.com/drseanmullen/status/1949663282194743683
It’s already happening, right now.
I’ve had long Covid since an apparently asymptomatic acute stage infection in spring of 2020, before widespread testing was available, and while the hospitals were overwhelmed with alpha and delta. I stayed home rather than expose myself to more risk.
My condition improved somewhat after I removed a 1/2 mile stretch of illegal dump site from Niles Canyon over 9 months in 2021. The long covid got worse again after a symptomatic and tested infection in summer of 2024.
I’m sharing and making myself vulnerable for emphasis, not sympathy. I know of what I speak. My doctors have confirmed that not only me but also everyone working at the cardiology clinic where I get my care is also sick with long Covid.
Check that again. My doctors are all sick. Being professionals in the health care industry who know how to protect themselves didn’t spare them.
Are climate scientists any better prepared to protect themselves from becoming climate refugees?
Once we are all sick and brain damaged, how are we expecting to build out the alternative energy and renewable agriculture plus decarbonized manufacturing that is supposed to save 8 billion souls, when we are already 2x carrying capacity and still growing?
I’m using FEMA flood maps and California wildfire maps to locate safe replacement properties, and looking as far afield as the Great Lakes region, the only place in the US where precipitation and soil moisture are slated to increase rather than decline.
I’ve ruled out urban property as too desiccated and paved to absorb extreme precipitation safely.
Mountains and valleys are out of consideration too because of wildfires and landslides.
It must be unpaved, modestly sloped land, in a rural region, with healthy vegetation that is green and fire resistant year round, while still being accessible to urban shopping and medical services.
I’m putting a flood and wildfire property insurance contingency on any offer I make for replacement housing…if I live long enough to realize my next residence. The design space is shrinking on my minimal budget, but the advantage I have is a cash offer.
I’m wondering if climate scientists are trying to solve the wrong problem. Maybe that’s why we haven’t made any progress?.
We had some activity on preserving our data servers when part of NOAA got flooded and went dark.
https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/news/some-noaa-ncei-websites-systems-down-due-helene-devastation-asheville-nc
Wasn’t that the same data center that is now shut down? Was relocating that data ultimately wasted effort? Is anyone preserving climate science databases from future extreme weather and political disruption?
If we wait too long, there may be nothing left to save.
Reply to CherylJosie
I’m wondering if climate scientists are trying to solve the wrong problem. Maybe that’s why we haven’t made any progress?
Only at the “wondering” stage. Keep going. Don’t stop now. It runs like the 5 stages of grief.
Those experiencing sudden grief following an abrupt realization (shock) go through five emotions: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. The resident moral majority know it alls here haven’t even got to denial yet.
John Pollack says:
Victor remains obdurate, and impervious to any contrary evidence. These words are for those who weren’t around for the original very lengthy discussions.
V: Very lengthy indeed, yes.
JP: Victor’s primary idea is that rising CO2 levels are not really causing global warming.
In service of this idea, he believes that if he can show that there hasn’t been a significant correlation between CO2 levels and temperature trends, he has demonstrated adequately that CO2 cannot be an important cause of the warming.
V: Precisely.
JP: He intends to show this by using any plausible argument he can think of to confound the existing strong correlation between CO2 levels and GMST.
V: No argument. Just evidence.
JP: An invalid statistical technique is to split a rising trend line into pieces, and focus on the pieces where there appears to be little agreement between CO2 and temperature trend. This leads to a heavily misleading denial of the correlated overall trend. To demonstrate the logical flaw, consider an ant who wishes to see whether there is a correlation between its forward distance and elevation on a rising staircase. It starts out on a flat step, Etc.
V: OK, finally. A reasonable objection to my insistence that no correlation between CO2 levels and global temperatures exists. And thank you for that. It does seem reasonable, yes. Earth is indeed considerably warmer than it was at, say, 1900. So if we compare the temps at 1900 with those of today, and draw a line between them, it does seem as though there must have been some sort of overall trend that produced the warming we see today. Good!!
Only that’s NOT how it’s done. You can’t simply connect two data points and claim some sort of meaningful trend that leads from one to the other. It’s a lot more complicated than that.
IF we see a step by step increment of the sort you postulate for your ant, then yes, I’d be happy to agree. Despite some ups and downs the overall trend would be steadily upward. But that is NOT what we see.
For one thing, the considerable rise in temperature during the first 40 years of the 20th century could not have been due to rising CO2 levels, which, according to Spencer Weart (who can hardly be regarded as a climate denier), were “still relatively low.” So there’s no point in your ant beginning with THAT step. What caused that rise in temperature, I wonder? If not CO2, then what? Could it be: natural variability? Naaah!
The next step involves a 40 year period during which temperatures either dropped or remained level. Quite a challenging step for your ant, I’d say. I imagine he’d pass out with exhaustion after 10 years or so. The drop in temperatures was so notable that many saw this as a sign we were heading for another ice age. This “theory” is well documented and was indeed trumpeted for all its worth in the media. Forty years is a LONG time, sorry.
The ONLY step that might possibly fit your parable is the 20 year period from ca. 1979-ca. 1998, when we do see a clear correlation. It’s that rather dramatic rise that seems to have set the stage for all the panicked predictions that followed. It isn’t until approximately 18 years later that we see another dramatic rise, leading to the unusually high temperatures of today. Is that rise, over a roughly 10 year period, enough to establish a long-time trend?
And yes. It is now very hot. Believe me, I suffer from the heat every day. However: here in Pittsburgh we had an unusually cool spring, lasting well into May. I hardly ever needed to activate my trusty window fan, which was very unusual. And nationally I recall several serious cold spells:
According to Google, “In early 2025, the US experienced a significant and prolonged cold spell, impacting much of the country. This cold wave, influenced by the Polar Vortex, brought sub-zero temperatures and wind chills as low as -35°F in some areas. The cold persisted for several days, with some regions experiencing the coldest January temperatures in at least a decade.” Does that count?
in Re to Victor, 27 Jul 2025 at 11:42 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/07/unforced-variations-july-2025/comment-page-3/#comment-836508
Dear Victor,
The chapter of your post about statistical insignificance of a warming trend raises my feeling that you misunderstood John’s explanation of a trend on the example of a staircase. Are you indeed still the ant on the staircase insisting that there is no trend, just because some steps are broken?
I have a strong feeling that you missed related explanations why a perfect correlation between rising concentration of greenhouse gases (GHG) on one hand and global mean surface temperature (GMST) on the other hand is hardly possible (and, in fact, would have been extremely surprising). Just shortly. It is because there is no direct relationship – changes in GHG concentration result in temporary Earth energy imbalance (EEI), which is mostly absorbed in ocean and results in a change of ocean heat content (OHC).
Further complications arise on both ends of the relationship: Depending on the distribution of the absorbed heat in the ocean, the surface temperature change can be more or less apparent. On the opposite side, the radiation balance perturbation by a change in GHG concentration can be diminished, cancelled or even overthrown by the opposite effect of changes in atmospheric aerosol concentrations.
If you, actually, considered all these complications, I wonder why you still think that the imperfect correlation between GMST and GHG concentrations can, alone, compromise or even disprove the theory that anthropogenic GHG emissions are very likely among causes behind the observed GMST trend?
Best regards
Tomáš
“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.”–Eleanor Roosevelt
And to add one more category, really boring small minds discuss what people said and how they said it ad infinitum. It seems to me that if we could get back to discussing ideas more, then not only would the discussion become less personal, but much more interesting.
Maybe if people restrict themselves to responding to the ideas in a post, it will lead to less of the “wall of text” effect. I mean, be reasonable, If you are typing more than about 8 column inches of text, NOBODY is going to read it–not in a comment section of a blog.
PS Maybe if people restrict themselves to responding to the ideas in a post?
That would be a first for Gavin as well. As his replies are often ethereal being they are so disconnected from the ideas in the comments he responds to. What we get is all this presumptuous psychological projection about other peoples motivations he deems so unworthy and yet that do not exist within those being condemned.
If edicts were wishes then everyone would be perfect already.
Hmm, so you respond to my request to elevate the discussion to the level of ideas with an attack on our host? Sigh!
Reply to Ray Ladbury
Your notions of what is deemed “reasonable” and what is an “attack” is seriously askew and biased. And frankly dead wrong. But why change the habit of a lifetime? Gavin’s ways are not going to change either. It’s not a crime nor is it an attack to observe what is happening and then point them out for what they are.
Noting really boring small minds discuss what people said and how they said it ad infinitum. — be reasonable, If you are typing more than about 8 column inches of text, NOBODY is going to read it– that was exactly what you were doing before — being boring talking about HOW people say things— TPP responded, they did it to Gavin and now you see it and cry foul.
You’ll never change. You can’t. Admit it. And don’t complain about it, because I am only doing what you and Gavin and others do here everyday. It’s called mocking it up as a teaching exercise for the class to learn something useful from the experience.
Pedro,
Pro-tip: If you are the only one referring to yourself in the third person with an epithet such as “the wise”, it kind of undermines your claim to the title. Just sayin’.
PPr: Your notions of what is deemed “reasonable” and what is an “attack” is seriously askew and biased. And frankly dead wrong.
BPL: Your “attack” on Ray and Gavin is not “reasonable,” but is seriously askew and biased. And frankly dead wrong.
PS Maybe if people restrict themselves to responding to the ideas in a post?
PPr: That would be a first for Gavin as well. As his replies are often ethereal being they are so disconnected from the ideas in the comments he responds to.
BPL: Or the connection is there, but you’re not seeing it. “None is so blinde…”
thanks Ray, agree
Pedro the Wise says
28 July 2025
The default framing — in media, science, and the climate institution — goes like this:
CO₂ is the cause of global warming.
Therefore, reducing CO₂ is the solution.
I say: Wrong.
The problem has been misdiagnosed — and so the solution has failed.
And failed.
Every year for 50 years. The results are in.
CO₂ is not the cause.
It’s a symptom.
Real, dangerous, measurable — yes.
But still just one of many symptoms.
The actual cause is accelerating biospheric destruction — driven by a global economy built on overpopulation, overproduction, and overconsumption.
That’s what’s burning the world.
CO₂ is just a byproduct — not the root pathology.
Here’s the analogy:
Climate scientists today are like doctors obsessively charting a fever — measuring each rise, modelling each fluctuation, publishing trendlines in journals — while ignoring the disease.
“The temperature’s rising… we need more data… the sweating, the gut trouble, the fatigue — maybe heat is the cause?”
But the patient has typhoid.
From contaminated water.
From a privy dug too close to the town well.
No amount of modeling the fever will fix that.
We’re not facing a carbon problem.
We’re facing a civilization problem.
And unless the scientific establishment is willing to look at that — the anti-life, anti-human madness baked into the growth paradigm — then all the CMIP6 simulations, IPCC scenarios, COP pledges, NASA-GISS dashboards, WMO alerts, NSF grants and online discussion forums are just:
Elegant distractions.
Sophisticated self-delusion.
Idiocracy in lab coats and PhDs.
This isn’t just a scientific failure.
It’s spiritual, psychological, and civilizational.
You want a real solution?
Name the disease — not the symptom.
And stop listening to those who’ve failed for half a century.
Pedro the Wise
(Retired from common sense. Exiled by reason.)
PP: “And unless the scientific establishment is willing to look at that — the anti-life, anti-human madness baked into the growth paradigm — then all the CMIP6 simulations, IPCC scenarios, COP pledges, NASA-GISS dashboards, WMO alerts, NSF grants and online discussion forums are just:”
The scientific establishment already looks at all that. There are thousands of social science / economics / environmental science papers on the negative effects of population growth and economic growth easily found.
Examples:
Crist, E., Ripple, W. J., & Ehrlich, P. R. (2017). Population Growth and Well-Being. Environmental Science & Policy, 75, 102-106.
Hickel, J., & Kallis, G. (2020). Is Green Growth Possible? New Political Economy, 25(6), 921-933.
Steffen, W., Richardson, K., Rockström, J., Cornell, S. E., Fetzer, I., Bennett, E. M., … & Sörlin, S. (2015). Planetary Boundaries: Guiding Human Development on a Changing Planet. Science, 347(6223), 1259855.
Dauvergne, P. (2018). Is the Anthropocene an Imperial Age? Global Environmental Change and the Rise of China. Global Environmental Change, 50, 240-249 ( This study explores how the pursuit of economic growth, particularly in rapidly industrializing nations, contributes to global environmental change. It examines the “resource curse” and the intensified consumption patterns driven by economic expansion, leading to widespread environmental degradation and potential social inequalities.)
Ripple, W. J., Wolf, C., Newsome, T. M., Galetti, M., Alamgir, M., Crist, E., … & Laurance, W. F. (2017). World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice. BioScience, 67(12), 1026-1028.
The ref’d people do not represent the scientific establishment, and certainly do not represent the dominant climate consensus narrative spewed here by you and others 24/7 either.
Clearly, after years of doing this kind of thing, Nigel has absolutely no idea what he talks about or what he posts as refs.
TPP: Nigel has absolutely no idea what he talks about or what he posts as refs.
BPL: Projection. Again.
Pedro Prieto says: “The ref’d people do not represent the scientific establishment, and certainly do not represent the dominant climate consensus narrative spewed here by you and others 24/7 either.”
The “scientific establishment” can be taken to include environmental and social sciences. However you appear now be suggesting people like physicists and especially climate scientists like Gavin Schmidt (?) It appears you think they should to contribute to research into the issue of population growth and economic growth and the impacts on society (?). If so, it’s certainly not clear why you think a typical climate scientists particular expertise and knowledge base would be relevant. It’s more of an issue that suits the training of social scientists and environmental scientists. If they needed the expertise of a climate scientist, physicist or specialist mathematician they would have one on their team anyway.
Its also not clear why someone likes Gavin Schmidts time would be better spent on population and growth issues, especially considering you have complained about inadequacies in climate modelling and suggested these need fixing.
You often complain the regulars here misinterpret you. Let me help you with that: Its because you are ambiguous and unclear and self absorbed.
—————————
nigellj: sometimes you should just leave it alone. You’re giving him an excuse to expand his egotistical ragebait. Please find something more useful to do with your time.
PPr: The default framing — in media, science, and the climate institution — goes like this:
CO₂ is the cause of global warming.
Therefore, reducing CO₂ is the solution.
I say: Wrong.
BPL: And I say: Bullshit.
The Prieto Principle says
26 Jul 2025 at 8:04 PM
TPP: stellar physics doesn’t gaslight us with adjusted data to preserve a political narrative.
BPL: And the old denier meme, “adjusted data means conspiracy.” You have temperature readings? But you (gasp) adjust them? Obviously that’s to preserve a political narrative!
TPP replies: Nothing of the kind was implied. Your thinking and judgment is screwed up and irrational as always. Or it is just the standard MO of lying constantly here about others. It’s all documented.
unlike so many others here, my reply comments always addresses the content of the comment rather than the specific person’s identity–with no ad hominem. The RC proven group pattern is that the content presented by me is ignored, then dismissed, and then the response makes everything about me instead. Or the sock puppet delusions or whoever the target is they want to also dismiss is equally fraudulently attacked. BPL is a disreputable lying troll. The group think continues on.
——-
Pedro the Wise replies: (snicker)
And you’re not alone in that. There comes a point where the words stop working — or worse, where they start lying just by being too neat, too polite, too small for the thing you’re really trying to name. You see it. You feel it. But every time you try to speak it, it gets bent, trimmed, made digestible for people who don’t want to understand.
That’s not a failure of your mind. Or your truth. It’s a failure of the language — and of a world that’s spent too long using words to cover things up instead of reveal them.
That right there — “twisted beyond all recognition of the truth” — is the whole game. You see it clearly. You feel the distortion in your gut. But capturing it in words, especially in a way that cuts through to others, is exhausting when you’re dealing with people who aren’t listening — just echoing themselves louder and louder. It’s worth it though to hold up a mirror, dramatize the absurdity, point to what’s missing, not just what’s false. That’s what lands. That’s what stays with people after the noise fades.
From Little Things Big Things Grow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_ndC07C2qw
PPr: BPL is a disreputable lying troll.
BPL: Who is that trip-trapping upon my bridge?
PPr: The group think continues on.
BPL: Just because you don’t like what people are saying doesn’t make it “group think.” It just means they’re supporting the scientific consensus. Is it “group think” when modern astronomers all accept Heliocentrism?
PPr: The group think continues on.
BPL: Just because you don’t like what people are saying doesn’t make it “group think.” It just means they’re supporting the scientific consensus. Is it “group think” when modern astronomers all accept Heliocentrism?
PP: Just because you’re paranoid does not mean they aren’t really out to get you.
PPr’s so-called ‘groupthink” among those qualified to think about a specific issue in the first place by virtue of independently contributing to the field themselves is precisely how science progresses and has progressed for centuries now. There really is no “leader” the “group” needs to conform to, so groupthjink doesn’t apply. Yes, of course it can apply within an individual research group led by a PI with the wrong personality type overcontrolling relatively powerless grad students and post docs, but in the history of science no PI has ever been able to take over a whole field. Chandra in a subfield of nutrition and Burt in the subfield of educational psychology came as close as anyone, yet they were both caught out even in their relatively tiny ponds.
Lysenko was able to harness Stalinist state power to propose a single”theory” for genetics and make it “stick” even though it was nonsense, yet the field elsewhere flourished just as science will elsewhere no matter what the present US admin attempts to decree in various fields. I foresee the major consequence here being that the foreign grad students who presently do a huge amount of the work in science and engineering–even a large majority now these days in many specific areas–will simply go elsewhere. As they should.
Either 1) you yourself are ignorant of this fact and need to educate yourself, or 2) you are not ignorant of this fact but rather are just throwing around what you consider to be derogatory terms as mis- and dis- information (i.e., propaganda).
My vote is on #2.
Actually, science developed specific and reasonably successful anti-groupthink strategies long before Janis and other came along and suggested much the same strategies to ameliorate such tendencies in management and business (i.e., political situations yet again). . At base, all Janis et. al. really suggested were really just strategies to make political actors act more like scientists and less like leaders and their lackeys.
From little things big things grow
It’s a stunning story — one of quiet defiance, patient courage, and a victory not just of land, but of dignity. “From little things big things grow” isn’t just a lyric — it’s a philosophy. One that runs directly against everything the dominant culture teaches: speed, spectacle, control, profit.
Vincent Lingiari and the Gurindji people didn’t posture or shout. They sat down. And waited. And held their line. Against wealth, against government, against history. And in the end, it wasn’t the thunder that changed the world — it was the quiet persistence, the refusal to move.
That moment — the sand poured into his hand — says more than a thousand white papers or UN speeches. It’s why symbols matter. It’s why story matters.
PS-
AI’s Real Threat: Mass Manipulation with sabine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MoTeoKaneU
I think I need an special AI App to keep up with all the latest news about AI
The rest of us need a special AI app to skip over the overflowings from PP’s overweening ego, as he uses Gavin’s blog to trash Gavin and most climate scientists working to improve our understanding.
Sabine monetizes her POV. She is not terrible, but neither is she terribly good. Maybe PP could bless us all by starting something somewhere else.
Warming has reached 1.5°C. What does that mean for climate advocacy?
AUGUST 2025
Summary
● Global warming has reached 1.5°C and the rate of warming is accelerating.
● On the present path, Earth will heat by 3+°C. The aerosol “Faustian bargain” means that
emissions reductions are unlikely to reduce the rate of warming in the near term.
● While much of the climate community remains committed to the 1.5°C Paris goal, this target
is fundamentally flawed: it does not represent a safe boundary, will not prevent large-scale
Earth system elements passing tipping points, nor does it mark a point of system stability.
● Too often, climate strategy has been reduced to a “triage politics” of selecting what to save
and what to abandon. Policies of large “overshoot” of 1.5°C make assumptions about the
ability to restore Earth systems that are not valid.
● Advocates now face difficult questions, including whether a safe climate can be achieved if
climate actions involve only the elimination of greenhouse gas emissions.
● An alternative goal is a return to the Holocene conditions of <0.5°C.
● This demands a three-lever strategy — simultaneously pursuing zero emissions, large-scale
carbon drawdown, and research into safe short-term cooling methods.
“Today the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is already so high that rapid
emissions reduction is no longer sufficient to avoid an unmanageable future for mankind.
We also must have the capability to remove GHGs at scale from the atmosphere, and to
repair those parts of the climate system, such as the Arctic Circle, which are passing or
have passed their tipping point.”
— Sir David King, former UK Chief Scientist & founder, Centre for Climate Repair 1
Published by
Breakthrough – National Centre for Climate Restoration
Melbourne, Australia
breakthroughonline.org.au/climateadvocacy2025
Daivid Spratt with Nick Breeze emissions are still going up, eei, accelerated warming, it's been a critical decade for 3 decades, policy scientists and ipcc do not report on the worst possible risks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7zhIpougrw
I’m unable to reconcile 2 scientific documents (Paper vs Article) on the important topic of Earth’s energy imbalance (EEI) as I’d thought I would (not those specific documents) for 24 months but kept forgetting. I used ORAS4 (Kevin Trenberth talk) 2013, Magdalena Balmaseda mentioned. I’ve reams of notes but shouldn’t need to peruse for this. I had EEI = 0.87 w/m**2 from whatever with climate scientists (and various Fossil shills) saying orbital instrument LWR & SWR like CERES weren’t accurate enough to use so I never even looked at it until ~June 2023 (Jason Box video and MA Rodger info on that). So here’s the issue. MA Rodger 26 Jul 2025 at 2:40 AM Cheng et al (2021) ‘Upper Ocean Temperatures Hit Record High in 2020’ has the OHC anomaly that was all I ever used for EEI (at 94% to heat ocean) for January 2013 to June 2023. Its Fig. 2 shows a fairly-steady EEI of ~0.73 w/m**2 from ~1990 to 2020, having suddenly increased from the very-roughly 0.06 w/m**2 of ~1970 to ~1990, at 94% of EEI being used to heat ocean. Kevin McKinney 23 Jul 2025 at 7:21 AM links an EEI Article with “Figure from Mauritsen et al. (2025) in AGU Advances” which has an EEI increasing trend of 0.45 w/m**2 / decade 2001 to 2025 ending at EEI = 1.40 w/m**2 at 2025 “CERES-EBAF Ed 4.2.1 global annual means” which has EEI = 0.35 w/m**2 at 2001. I’m unable to reconcile the (big) difference of ~0.38 w/m**2 at 2001 between the ~0.73 w/m**2 from former published Paper reference above and the 0.35 w/m**2 from latter credible Article reference above, and also the Article’s implied EEI = zero (Earth in energy balance) at 1993 just 8 years extrapolated from 2001, not much of an extrapolation for climate topics. So then what am I misunderstanding about that? The EEI is not an item like GMST that is referenced to a “base line”, it is absolute. Obviously, I’m implying the question I have, are some scientists forcing a multi-decadal EEI trend that doesn’t exist? (I mean in quantity, not concept) by starrting an EEI plot at CERES 2001 rather than at ~1990 when credible WOCE GO-SHIP data analysis could be used to extend the EEI back in time with sufficient accuracy. What am I misunderstanding about that?
Barry E Finch,
(May I be so bold as to point out that using paragraphs is good.)
Reconciling EEI & OHC measurements isn’t the easiest thing to get your head round. My first thought was that you had fallen into the trap of reading ‘Wm-2 over ocean area’ as a global Wm^-2 but not so.
Fig 2 of Cheng et al (2021) shows an increase of something like (1990)OHC 25Zj → (2025)OHC 375Zj. And as you calculate, that’s 0.725Wm^^-2[global].
I would expect the CERES EEI calibration process to at least be checked against OHC so there shouldn’t be a problem reconciling EEI with OHC.
The graphic you cite which is Figure 1 of Mauritsen et al (2025) ‘Earth’s Energy Imbalance More Than Doubled in Recent Decades’ provides an easy calculation for the average EEI (2001-25) of 0.875W^m-2 and the 11 years 1990-2000 EEI are easily totted-up at the ClimateChangeTracker dashboard which yields an average 0.287Wm^-2. So if my abacus hasn’t lost too may beads, that makes an average over the period 1990-2025 0.695Wm^-2.
You would expect the ΔOHC to be smaller than the EEI and the EEI will be somewhat smaller still than 0.695Wm^-2 if the years 2021-25 are extracted from the comparison, as they should be.
But having gone down this OHC-EEI rabbit hole before, I don’t expect anything more than a rough reconciliation. There is a graphical illustration of what I managed last time I ventured thus – see the bright red graphic down this webpage HERE Posted 30th May 2024. The OHC data only runs to 2020 and with that I reckon the fit is pretty good. When enough OHC data has appeared for later years, it will be fun to see how the fit goes with post-2020 data.
https://researchtrend.ai/communities/AI4Cl
Good resource for papers:
AI for Climate (AI4Cl) refers to the application of artificial intelligence techniques to address climate-related challenges. This includes using AI for climate modeling, prediction, and mitigation strategies.
Happy 67th birthday NASA! Thank you to all past and present employees whose determination and hard work has resulted in amazing achievements in the exploration of space and the advancement of scientific knowledge of the universe and our little blue marble.
So, yet again, Europe and surrounding regions like Türkiye are sweltering under record-breaking 50°C temperatures and out-of-control summer wildfires. Who could have predicted this?
The EU is the most successful and the first to almost entirely eradicate aerosols from fossil fuel energy emissions – arguably the world’s number one purveyors of the Faustian Bargain. And here are the results, playing out visibly for several years now. But can anyone call a spade a spade? No way.
Where were all those climate scientists and the IPCC leading the calls not to do this? They were nowhere to be seen. They still aren’t. Did RealClimate.org lead the warnings about how dangerous it is to extract aerosols from GHG emissions? Did they do anything to present the physics and logic that the only safe and sustainable way to reduce emissions was to simultaneously reduce fossil fuel use across the board? Nope. Not a word. Ever. Especially not now that the consequences are being realized.
And so, what did those grand CMIP6 Models and pseudo-scientific IPCC consensus Assessment Reports predict would happen? Not this.
Meanwhile, as was foretold by some economists, at the same time that some scientists were announcing coral reefs as the first tipping point to irreversibly tumble from rapidly accelerating ocean heatwave temperatures, comes this growing acceptance of reality.
One of the board members of one of the largest insurance companies in the world, Günther Thallinger of Allianz, posted on LinkedIn that climate change is going to cause a systemic risk to capitalism, and in fact, it has already begun. Just look at Europe or anywhere across the OECD—about the only ones able to afford this kind of insurance anyway. I quote from his post:
“This is a systemic risk that threatens the very foundation of the financial sector. If insurance is no longer available, other financial services become unavailable too. A house that cannot be insured cannot be mortgaged. No bank will issue loans for uninsurable property. Credit markets freeze. This is a climate-induced credit crunch. This applies not only to housing, but to infrastructure, transportation, agriculture, and industry. The economic value of entire regions, coastal and wildfire-prone, will begin to vanish from financial ledgers. Markets will reprice rapidly and brutally. This is what a climate-driven market failure looks like.”
He went on to say, “Capitalism must now solve this existential threat. The idea that market economies can continue to function without insurance, finance, and asset protection is a fantasy. There is no capitalism without functioning financial services, and there are no financial services without the ability to price and manage climate risk.”
https://www.allianz.com/en/about-us/corporate-management/board-of-management/members.html#thallinger
It’s significant that this isn’t some fringe blogger, but an actual high-powered, mega-rich, influential elite embedded in the capitalist class—a board member of one of the largest insurance companies in the world—who is saying these things. Günther Thallinger seems to know more about the realities and implications of life and physics on the planet than most climate scientists do.
A board member of a large insurance company knows more about the financial implications of climate change than a climate scientist with a physics degree or similar. Wow that’s a real shock and surprise.
I have often wondered why insurance company execs–and particularly those of large reinsurance companies–aren’t more vocal about the threats posed by climate change. They have, by far, the most skin in the game when it comes to climate catastrophes…well, unless you happen to live in Vanuatu…
I suspect that in part they are reluctant to alienate their fellow billionaires by reminding them just how unsustainable the current situation is. Wealth often correlates inversely to courage.
The last day of the month, so with only a couple of days-worth of ERA5 numbers yet to be posted at Climate Pulse, (& a couple more at the Uni o Maine’s Climate Re-Analyser, how are the July numbers looking?
The July average SAT is going to be a tad under +0.45ºC which is a small drop on June’s +0.47ºC, this continuing the drop seen through the first half of 2025, as the table below shows. (For further illustration; see the pink graphic of ERA5 global SAT 2022-25 HERE – First Posted 17th March 2025
The question to now ask is whether we will see the rising anomalies through to the end of 2025 and whether that rise will be as meaty as that seen in 2024 (& 2023).
I’d expect some sort of increase through to Dec, this driven by the NH anomaly which has seen Autumn warming a bit more than the rest of the year (okay, so actually it’s not cooling down as much as it used to do), this occurring in most years since 2000. Years without this Autumnal effect have been La Nina years. (See the grey graphic of NH & SH ERA5 SAT2014-to-date on the link above – graphic First Posted 28th Oct 2024)
2025 monthly ERA5 SAT anomaly (& 2024’s)
Jan … … + 0.79ºC … … (+0.70ºC)
Feb … … +0.63ºC … … (+0.81ºC)
Mar … … +0.65ºC … … (+0.73ºC)
Apr … … +0.60ºC … … (+0.67ºC)
May … … +0.53ºC … … (+0.65ºC)
Jun … … +0.47ºC … … (+0.67ºC)
Jul … …. +0.45ºC … … (+0.68ºC)
Aug … … … … … … … … (+0.71ºC)
Sep … … … … … … … … (+0.73ºC)
Oct … … … … … … … … (+0.80ºC)
Nov … … … … … … … … (+0.73ºC)
Dec … … … … … … … … (+0.76ºC)
Wobbles aside, the July ERA5 SAT numbers global, NH & SH are all pretty-much down at a “No Bananas” level.
The trend 2000-22** (so pre-‘bananas’) project average anomalies for 2025 +0.45ºC Global, +0.62ºC NH & +0.31ºC SH. And July 2025 anomalies, trying their best to be helpful, will be roughly +0.45ºC Global, +0.60ºC NH & +0.33ºC.
However the wobbles in the data make a quick rendition of ‘Yes! We have no bananas!!’ premature. The SST numbers are less wobbly and probably a better guide to the present state of banananess. The ERA5 SST 60N-60S anomaly (shown at Climate Pulse linked above) is taking its time fully dropping down below +0.4ºC. The trend 1991-2020 (running at +0.15ºC/decade) projects a value of +0.30ºC by end-of-2025. So if the ERA5 SST continues the decline seen since the end of 2023 and manages the low +0.3ºCs, that would surely be reason to think ‘Yes! We have no bananas!!’
(** The rate of GW 2002-22 Global +0.23ºC/dec, NH +0.31ºC/dec, SH +0.17ºC/dec, these comparing to the long-term rates that held pretty well 1979-2015 Global +0.16ºC/dec, NH +0.26ºC/dec, SH +0.06ºC/dec. Hopefully nobody would be arguing for a lower GW rate than the 2000-22 rates now an acceleration has irrefutably arrived post-2015.)