There is a new El Niño out there and it was officially declared already on June 11 by NOAA. This is both unusually early in the year and very soon since the last El Niño in 2023-24. Another remarkable thing is the seasonal forecasts, which for a couple of months have indicated that it may well be at strengths by the end of the year that we have not seen before. All these three aspects combined seem to make this El Niño different to the previous ones.
One question is whether such El Niño events, which is a phase of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon, is changing because of global warming.
ENSO is a natural phenomenon, but so is also the greenhouse effect. We know that exploitation of fossil resources releases greenhouse gases, such as CO2 and methane, which strengthen the greenhouse effect. This is well-established knowledge.
The first time I was confronted with the question whether global warming also may affect ENSO was back in the 1990s, when I did my D.Phil. on mechanisms responsible for ENSO dynamics.
It was also the time seasonal forecasting was established at the European Centre for Medium Range Forecasting (ECMWF), and it was very much focused on ENSO. Since then, the seasonal forecasts for ENSO have made impressive progress and are now quite accurate (see the graphic above).
One indicator central for ENSO is NINO3.4 which provides a measure of how much the average sea surface temperature (SST) over the region 5°S-5°N/120°W-170°W deviates from normal conditions. The latest seasonal forecasts for NINO3.4 are shown in the graphics above.
Jacob Bjerknes was a pioneer on ENSO and the first to realise that El Niño events were coupled with changes in the atmosphere, the Southern Oscillation. Since ENSO indeed involves a coupling between the ocean and the atmosphere, there are several ways that global warming plausibly may affect how ENSO behaves.
The mechanisms that drive the ENSO dynamics include cloud formation, how winds respond to temperature changes, and how Rossby and Kelvin waves propagate in the ocean. In my D.Phil thesis from 1997, I found that the propagation Kelvin waves is affected by changes in the temperature structure. There have been many studies since then, and different global climate model studies (GCMs) have pointed in different directions.
One problem is that the GCMs may not have had detailed descriptions of small-scale parts of the system with sufficiency accuracy to give a robust result, and a quote from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, assessment report 6 by working group 1 (IPCC AR6 WG1) sums it up:
CMIP6 models are able to reproduce most aspects of the spatial structure and variance of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and Indian Ocean Basin and Dipole modes of variability (medium confidence). However, despite a slight improvement in CMIP6, some underlying processes are still poorly represented.
In this case, CMIP6 refers to the World Climate Research Programme’s (WCRP) Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 6. While the IPCC AR6 WG1 concludes that
There is no consensus from models for a systematic change in amplitude of ENSO sea surface temperature (SST) variability over the 21st century in any of the SSP scenarios assessed,
I still think that this question is not resolved, since there are also studies suggesting that the models indicate that a global warming may result in stronger El Nino events, e.g. Cai et al., (2014) and Fredriksen et al., (2020).
References
- W. Cai, S. Borlace, M. Lengaigne, P. van Rensch, M. Collins, G. Vecchi, A. Timmermann, A. Santoso, M.J. McPhaden, L. Wu, M.H. England, G. Wang, E. Guilyardi, and F. Jin, "Increasing frequency of extreme El Niño events due to greenhouse warming", Nature Climate Change, vol. 4, pp. 111-116, 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2100
- H. Fredriksen, J. Berner, A.C. Subramanian, and A. Capotondi, "How Does El Niño–Southern Oscillation Change Under Global Warming—A First Look at CMIP6", Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 47, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2020GL090640
Here’s the link to the 6 July NOAA CPC update (the ENSO Diagnostic Discussion update is scheduled to post Thursday, 9 July–the link is in the PDF document):
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf
Already, data suggest that El Nino conditions may persist “into” March, though later assessments may well show that conditions persist “through” March, if not into April or beyond.
–and here, the link to the NOAA CPC ENSO Diagnostic Discussion for 9 July 2026:
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.pdf
El Nino conditions remaining “through March 2027” (if not into or through April) now look possible or likely.
Thank you for this. I read that this El Nino was different. I was not sure exactly why, but at the summary at the top of the post, unusually short time since the last, an earlier start in the year, and predicted to be stronger than ever, answered that for me.
“I still think that this question is not resolved, since there are also studies suggesting that the models indicate that a global warming may result in stronger El Nino events” I also wondered about how global warming could change or currently is changing El Nino, but sometimes the most interesting answer is we don’t know yet.
thank you, Rasmus, for spelling out what is going on.
Mike
March 2026
https://jimehansen.substack.com/p/super-el-nino-super-warming-is-the
June 2026 Yes, 2026 is on Track to be the Hottest Year https://jimehansen.substack.com/p/yes-2026-is-on-track-to-be-the-hottest
Video https://dai.ly/xah8dwu
Hansen apparently says: “Multiple data sources now indicate that climate sensitivity is 4-5°C, which is consistent with aerosol-cloud modeling that reveals increasing aerosol cooling during the 1970-2005 period of rapid linear warming because of increased global spread of the aerosol sources.”
But scientists have said the period of flat temperatures in the middle of last century (about 1945 – 1975) ended mostly because of REDUCTIONS in total volume of aerosols after the 1970s, because coal power stations scrubbed most of these aerosols.
So we have two very inconsistent claims about the volume of aerosols after 1970. So as a layperson I ask whats going on?
Is it possible that aerosol volumes decreased enough from around 1970 to say about 1990 to allow surface warming to resume in full but around 1990 total aerosol volume increased again thus masking some warming? This would suggest Hansens claims of very high climate sensitivity might be too high. although perhaps still higher then 3.0 deg c. Alternatively, something is very wrong with the accepted wisdom about the flat period of temperatures last century and why it ended.
I’m definitely not a climate change sceptic. I think we are causing dangerous climate change even with medium climate sensitivity. Just curious about what seems like a significant inconsistency.
Nigelj,
This 2025 Zeke Hausfather Explainer ‘How human-caused aerosols are ‘masking’ global warming shows graphics of aerosol load by year peaking 2000-10. What happened back in 1970 was the rate of increase of the aerosol load peaked in the 1970s while the rate of additional GHG climate forcing continued ramping up. The graphic HERE is the source of the one in the Zeke Hausfather Explainer (which itself is too interactive to link-to).
Thanks. Good explanation. I must have misread something about aerosol trends, or it was incorrect.
Rasmus… “One question is whether such El Niño events, which is a phase of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon, is changing because of global warming. ENSO is a natural phenomenon, but so is also the greenhouse effect. We know that exploitation of fossil resources releases greenhouse gases, such as CO2 and methane, which strengthen the greenhouse effect. This is well-established knowledge.”
If one plots the monthly NINO 3.4 index against the monthly Mauna Loa CO2 going back to 1982 there is no correlation. A positive correlation exists with El-Nino and CO2 and a negative one with La Niña. But none with all three.
Ken Towe: If one plots the monthly NINO 3.4 index against the monthly Mauna Loa CO2 going back to 1982 there is no correlation.
Weather is not climate, Mr. Towe. CO2 affects global climate (timescale of DECADES) so why would you expect correlation at a local MONTHLY scale ???
In other words, garbage (wrong time-scale) in – Ken Towe’s conclusions out.
By your logic, I could disprove anything. For instance – the seasons:
– “ I found no correlation between the temperature measured twice daily and the day of spring.
Therefore, I have proven that there no such a thing as “spring”. ”
(The trick here was to drown the gradual 3-month spring warming SIGNAL – with the much wider short-term NOISE of the day-to-night differences)
As the Greeks would have said.:
“ Let the denier choose the time-scale, and he can prove ANYTHING “
Can you please clarify whether the approximately 4C. projection for the SST anomaly in the 2nd chart is global or specific to the equatorial Pacific? Many thanks.
It is for NINO3.4 which is a limited region: 120W-170W/5S-5N. Also, this is a forecast, not a projection. The nmodel starts with todays statecof the climate.
The Nino 3.4 is the most commonly used index for projections and forecasts..
Rasmus…The Nino 3.4 is the most commonly used index for ENSO projections and forecasts..
– B Tokar : “ 4C. projection for the SST”
– Rasmus: “ this is a forecast, not a projection”
Ken Towe “ The Nino 3.4 is the most commonly used index for projections and forecasts..” half a day later again: “Rasmus…The Nino 3.4 is the most commonly used index for ENSO projections and forecasts..”
And your two posts, Ken, are supposed to correct rasmuses point that the +4C is a forecast nor a projection – how exactly?
As a beginner, is this 4 c projection above normal El Nino or normal SSTs? I’m presuming the latter
What I have not seen addressed, unless I missed in, is that almost the entire North Pacific is very warm. The atmosphere will of course feel this. As such, it strikes me that “typical” el-Nino responses such as a strengthened and eastward extended subtropical jet, might not be in the offing. Other factors are at work.
But isn’t the ENSO subject to the vagaries of the Trade Winds?
Duh.
“But isn’t the ENSO subject to the vagaries of the Trade Winds?”
No. That’s a common misconception as the shift in the winds is a result of ENSO change. The ENSO dipole creates a large temperature differential across the Pacific, and that gives rise to a substantial atmospheric pressure differential. Since wind goes from high pressure to low pressure, that is the shift in winds that are being measured.
P. Pukite: “That’s a common misconception as the shift in the winds is a result of ENSO change. The ENSO dipole creates a large temperature differential across the Pacific and that gives rise to a substantial atmospheric pressure differential.” [thus driving winds – P]
Yes, but winds created by this temperature differential – weaken equatorial upwelling or even reverse it into a downwelling – which means … less cold deep water making it to the surface -> FURTHER increase in temperature in eq. East Pac. and colder water in eq. W. Pacific -> which then drives even stronger winds from W to E, and so on and on and on.
So you replaced one common misconception (“it’s the wind”) with … another misconception (*it’s the temperature”) – while in reality it is a positive feedback loop between temps and wind,
“Since wind goes from high pressure to low pressure, that is the shift in winds that are being measured.”
That is not always the case on a rotating planet. Also depends on latitude and altitude.
Dan Hughes: “That is not always the case on a rotating planet.”
Except we are discussing El Nino – which depends on what happens near the equator, where the Coriolis deflection drops to zero. So Paul Pukite’s “ from high pressure to low pressure ” is a good approximation of ENSO equatorial winds.
In more detail:
– during normal and La Nina years it blows from hot W to colder E (i.e. Walker circulation),
these practically undeflected E-> W winds – drag along warm surface water from E Pac. to West Pacific, and create eq. upwelling – bringing the cold deep water to the surface, thus further increasing the temp difference between E and W, and thus fueling even stronger E->W winds.
– during El Nino – the temp difference weakens/reverses, so the wind weakens/or reverses, the hot water blob in the West starts flow east and on to of that upwelling responsible for cold waters in the East – weakens or reverses into a downwelling (keep the cold deep water away), and with the W several deg. cooler and the E several degrees warmer the wind reversal gets reinforced.
Colder waters in the W means less evaporation which together with the shift in the direction of the winds means => less rain/weaker monsoons in the north/east Australia and South East Asia, while much warmer waters in the E and moisture-laden winds from the Pacific – brings more heavy rains, flooding, and landslides to the western coasts of S. America.
The predictable response has been given by Piotr.
Each term in the component momentum balance equations has a potential to change the mean motion. Along the line for the equator, the Coriolis effect is zero. That info is of little practical use, because we are seldom, if ever, interested in the motions of a line which contain no mass. Both North and South of the equator a Coriolis force is present and acts to change the motion in opposite directions. Generally, the focus is on regions of the atmosphere within which the Coriolis force might be both zero and non-zero.
In the present case, consideration of effects of other momentum terms on the direction of mean motion should be taken into account. It might be an improved approach to simply and explicitly state an assumption about mean motion direction, Easterlies or Westerlies, and check that assumption by data, or other methods.
Evidence of existence of potential, Easterly or Westerly mean motions, is not evidence of existence of outcome.
The default assumption, the Coriolis force can be ignored, is based on sound theoretical basis so long as the equator latitude line is of interest. The assumption implicitly contains additional assumptions about all other terms in the component momentum balance equations, and these should be stated.
A bigger issue, is to use a methodology that is based on an absence of the force in situations for which the conditions at the equator do not obtain. Application of a methodology that has absence of the force implicitly included cannot be justified.
Dan Hughes 18 Jul “ The predictable response has been given by Piotr. ”
The disappointing response has been given by Dan Hughes.
D. Hughes: “ Along the line for the equator, the Coriolis effect is zero. That info is of little practical use, because we are seldom, if ever, interested in the motions of a line which contain no mass.”
That’s your strawman, Mr. Hughes. since nobody here, other than you, was talking about
“the motions of a line which contain no mass.”
D. Hughes: “ both North and South of the equator a Coriolis force is present ”
Thank you, Captain Obvious, but you missed the point – it’s not about “presence” but about strength/significance . In the 0-2 deg. zone – the Coriolis deflection is between 0 and 3.5% of the maximum value, That’s why the trades approaching the equator do not curve as much as winds at higher latitudes, and why the resulting Walker circulation surface winds blow in approximately straight direction along the equator from high pressure toward low pressure.
So while Coriolis is very important to the winds in higher latitudes – in the area of discussion here – near the equator – its effect is at its weakest. Hence my contested by you conclusion:
P. 13 Jul: ” So Paul Pukite’s “ from high pressure to low pressure ” is a good approximation of ENSO equatorial winds.”)
Hint – the phrase “good approximation” does not demand the Coriolis deflection to be zero – it is enough that it is relatively weak (here between 0 and 3.5% of its maximum value).
Dan H. “ The default assumption, the Coriolis force can be ignored, is based on sound theoretical basis so long as the equator latitude line is of interest .”
Since I already made it clear that IT IS of interest here:
P, 13 Jul: “ we are discussing El Nino – which depends on what happens near the equator, ”
– what was the reason for your patronizing tirade?
The official NOAA/Climate position seems to be that during El Nino the normally Easterly trade winds weaken but remain Easterly and during especially strong El Nino, the trade winds might sometimes reverse. The latter might occur along only a portion of the Pacific Ocean, so that both Easterly and Westerly winds can be present.
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/rise-el-niño-and-la-niña
Woods Hole also indicates Easterly winds during El Niño.
https://www.whoi.edu/ocean-learning-hub/multimedia/el-nino/
I suspect Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, GISS NASA, and Plain Google will all report the same info.
It’s the thermal and hydrodynamic coupling between the atmosphere and ocean surface that is the primary driving potential.
Dan Hughes: “The official NOAA/Climate position seems to be that during El Nino the normally Easterly trade winds weaken but remain Easterly and during especially strong El Nino, the trade winds might sometimes reverse”.
Thank you for stating … the obvious? Both Paul .and I know it. How is this supposed to save YOUR patronizing comments to others? If the memory does not serve – let me help:
– Paul Pukite, in the discussion of ENSO: “wind goes from high pressure to low pressure” [so a change in pressure during ENSO would change the winds)
– D. Hughes joins in with: “That is not always the case on a rotating planet.”
– Piotr: “Except we are discussing El Nino – which depends on what happens near the equator, where the Coriolis deflection drops to zero. So Paul Pukite’s “ from high pressure to low pressure ” is a good approximation of ENSO equatorial winds.”
– D. Hughes lectures: “The predictable response has been given by Piotr. [Piotr’s] info is of little practical use, because we are seldom, if ever, interested in the motions of a line which contain no mass.”
– P.: That’s your strawman, Mr. Hughes. since nobody here, other than you, was talking about “the motions of a line which contain no mass.”
D. Hughes: “ both North and South of the equator a Coriolis force is present ”
– P. :” Thank you, Captain Obvious, but you missed the point – it’s not about “presence” but about strength/significance . In the 0-2 deg. zone – the Coriolis deflection is between 0 and 3.5% of the maximum value, So while Coriolis is very important to the winds in higher latitudes – in the area of discussion here – near the equator – its effect is at its weakest. Hence Paul Pukite’s “ from high pressure to low pressure” that you “corrected” – is a good approximation of ENSO equatorial winds.”
So, how is your stating: “The official NOAA/Climate position” supposed to justify your patronizing tone above?
DH said:
“I suspect Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, GISS NASA, and Plain Google will all report the same info.”
How about the new on the scene KIMI.ai? https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-02281-2
When prompted, this LLM has significant issues with wind as a causal driver for ENSO:
https://geoenergymath.com/2026/07/24/discussion-of-qbo-cw-enso-w-kimi-ai/
KIMI says: “Wind is not the root cause; it is a co-response alongside SST.”
I’d be interested to see if others can get it to say something different.
A few of the primary papers that anchor the modern theory of ENSO trade-wind dynamics.Bjerknes (1969) is generally considered to have establish the grounding of understanding.
1. Matsuno, T. (1966). “Quasi-Geostrophic Motions in the Equatorial Area.” Journal of the Meteorological Society of Japan, 44(1), 25–43. https://doi.org/10.2151/jmsj1965.44.1_25
2. Bjerknes, J. (1969). “Atmospheric Teleconnections from the Equatorial Pacific.” Monthly Weather Review, 97(3), 163–172. https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/mwre/97/3/1520-0493_1969_097_0163_atftep_2_3_co_2.pdf
3. Wyrtki, K. (1975). “El Niño — The Dynamic Response of the Equatorial Pacific Ocean to Atmospheric Forcing.” Journal of Physical Oceanography, 5(4), 572–584. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0485(1975)005%3C0572:ENTDRO%3E2.0.CO;2
4. Gill, A.E. (1980). “Some Simple Solutions for Heat-Induced Tropical Circulation.” Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 106(449), 447–462. https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.49710644905
5. Cane, M.A. & Zebiak, S.E. (1985). “A Theory for El Niño and the Southern Oscillation.” Science, 228(4703), 1085–1087. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.228.4703.1085
6. Rodríguez-Fonseca, B., Calvo-Miguélez, E., Montoya-Carramolino, L. et al. ENSO impacts on marine ecosystems and fisheries in the tropical and South Atlantic. Nat Rev Earth Environ 7, 43–59 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-025-00742-2
7. Climate.gov. The Rise of El Niño and La Niña https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/rise-el-niño-and-la-niña
8. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Global map illustrating changes in sea surface temperatures, wind, and weather patterns that define an El Niño event. https://www.whoi.edu/ocean-learning-hub/multimedia/el-nino/
9. Chunzai Wang, Clara Deser, Jin-Yi Yu, Pedro DiNezio, and Amy Clement “El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO): A Review” In P.W. Glynn et al. (eds.), Coral Reefs of the Eastern Tropical Pacific, Coral Reefs of the World 8, Published 2017. https://DOI 10.1007/978-94-017-7499-4_4
DH provides some historical refs to trade-wind causality but misses all the recent info on equatorial wind sources. For example, the QBO of stratospheric winds show a reversal in direction that is directly related to the nodal forcing of the solar declination and lunar declination orbit.
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img923/7726/MRnZ6k.png
Here’s a Claude evaluation of the model
https://gist.github.com/pukpr/06a0e461d0d9b64ca573ed634b54ad8b
Dan Hughes 2 Aug 2026 “A few of the primary papers that anchor the modern theory of ENSO trade-wind dynamics.”
Anything in these primary papers that falsifies my response to you and support your claims?
Or do you just throw “a few of the primary papers” so people think that you must be right . because otherwise why you wouldn’t throw around primary papers if they didn’t support your lecturing Paul Pukite that in the equatorial zone winds do NOT move from higher pressure toward lower pressure.
Zeke Hausfather just posted “The Strongest El Nino Ever” on his and Andy Dessler’s Substack, https://www.theclimatebrink.com/. In answer to another reader’s question, Kevin Trenberth offered a lucid, concise explanation of how ENSO moves heat around the globe. I then asked him:
“Are the trade winds being altered as the excess greenhouse warming circulates around the globe?Zeke Hausfather just posted “The Strongest El Nino Ever” on his and Andy Dessler’s Substack, https://www.theclimatebrink.com/. In answer to another reader’s question, Dr. Trenberth offered a lucid, concise explanation of how ENSO moves heat around the globe. I then asked him:
“Are the trade winds being altered as the excess greenhouse warming circulates around the globe? Shifting latitudes as the Hadley cells expand poleward, perhaps?”
He blessed me with another generous response: https://www.theclimatebrink.com/p/the-strongest-el-nino-ever/comment/294670174. The short answer is, yes and yes!
Drat. Too much copy-pasta! Beware over-editing.
Kevin Trenberth – The wider expanse of subsiding air into the subtropics increases sunshine and heating and is a positive feedback. Hansen and others have blamed this on changes in aerosols, but it is much more from changes in clouds and circulation.
Why to they such basic facts wring, and how can you then trust them with anything else? Did Trenberth even read what Hansen was writing imn 2023 onwards about aerosols and the feedback and everything else driving the rapid warming? Or is it easier to just listen to what say and make it up as he goes because Hansen is deemed an radical outsider now?
The proof is here https://jimehansen.substack.com/ and https://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/ and in his published peer-reviewed research papers.
Is your Zeke the same Zeke who while drawing attention often to Hansen as if it’s an obsession of his, said this last March?
writing: “My central estimate of 1.57C is a bit lower than Hansen’s 1.7C, in part because I’m assuming a moderately strong El Nino and somewhat lower warming rates (0.27C/decade in Forster et al) then the 0.31C/decade that Hansen assumes. But his estimates remain within my (admittedly large) prediction error bars.”
https://www.theclimatebrink.com/p/my-2026-and-2027-global-temperature
As opposed that is to Hansen was saying this about the same time:
“The 300 m temperature already assures that we will have an El Nino in 2026-27. The March average of the 300 m temperature anomaly exceeds +1°C. At that point, it is consistent with either a Super El Nino (Fig. 2a) or an ordinary El Nino (Fig. 2b). However, in the first week of April, the 300 m anomaly reaches +1.6°C (Fig. 3). This increasing heat anomaly is a result of the reinforcing Kelvin wave (Fig. 4, left) traveling from west to east (see the discussion in our prior El Nino post[4]). This Kelvin wave was boosted by recent westerly wind anomalies (Fig. 4, right).
We will update these figures on our website[1] at weekly and monthly intervals until the magnitude of the El Nino is clear. ” April 15
https://jimehansen.substack.com/p/super-duper-el-nino
and before that
https://jimehansen.substack.com/p/runaway-climate-the-point-of-no-return and
https://jimehansen.substack.com/p/super-el-nino-super-warming-is-the
and here in 2025!!!
https://jimehansen.substack.com/p/global-temperature-in-2025-2026-2027
Then there is the published peer reviewed papers:
See Global Warming Has Accelerated: Are the United Nations and the Public Well-Informed?
Fingerprinting the Climate Acceleration Mechanisms and
Reconciling Our Analysis and Aerosol Models
“The main conclusion is that modern temperature change does not provide a tight constraint on climate sensitivity because aerosol forcing is not measured; however, if aerosol forcing is nonlinear (as in Aerosols A and B), IPCC (and thus most of the scientific community) has underestimated climate sensitivity.”
and
“This difficulty has led to consternation that “something is wrong.” In contrast, Aerosols A and B scenarios, with their associated climate sensitivities (∼4.5 and 6 °C for 2 × CO2), the ship aerosol forcing, and a +0.2 °C El Niño, readily reach +1.6 °C current warming.”
and
“Climate feedbacks are real; paleoclimate evidence shows that “fast” feedbacks (water vapor, clouds, and sea ice) amplify climate sensitivity from 1.2 °CFootnote91 for doubled CO2 with no feedbacks to as much as 4-5 °C, i.e., these well-known feedbacks more than triple the equilibrium climate response. ”
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00139157.2025.2434494#abstract
Then there is the Global warming in the pipeline paper which Trenberth may not have read (?)
. However, decline of aerosol emissions since 2010 should increase the 1970–2010 global warming rate of 0.18°C per decade to a post-2010 rate of at least 0.27°C per decade. Thus, under the present geopolitical approach to GHG emissions, global warming will exceed 1.5°C in the 2020s and 2°C before 2050.
The Johnny Come Lately cohort are a dime a dozen.
Like Zeke Hausfather, again showing up a day late and dollar short.
Another data point underpinning my conclusions of abject unreliability of ZH AD KT et al as credible sources on Climate trajectories, present drivers of acceleration and ongoing warming growth toward multiple tipping points of no return:
Q. So, why is it so strong? Just normal variability, or does climate change affect El Niño intensity?
Zeke Hausfather
A. Its a bit unclear if climate change is making strong El Nino events more likely (normalizing for long-term warming). It is strongly debated on the literature with no clear consensus.
For several years now this equals continually minimizing the state of the climate system, minimizing current trajectories and simultaneously not knowing what is happening nor why it is so.
Meanwhile the greater “controlling consensus cabal” have been incapable of defining the extent of and the cause of the 2023-24 massive and sudden temperature anomaly spike as another one approaches at pace.
While they continue to dismiss, ignore and minimize other findings such as F&R’s +0.33 C acceleration rate kicking the can down the road by hiding behind whatever the CMIP7 might produce.
Modelling the Map is not equate to Reality. Especially when the questionable processes and output is decade late.
What about the deep ocean warming, in models it shows distinct patterns and ENSO modulation. Looking forward to read more about this.
Deep ocean warming-induced El Niño changes
Ai: Plausible is an indirect, long-term influence through the global climate “mean state”: changes to ocean stratification/thermocline and deep-ocean heat uptake can alter how efficiently equatorial Pacific feedbacks grow, which changes ENSO characteristics. For example, modeling work shows that deep-ocean warming can intensify/alter El Niño variability via subsurface stratification and feedback changes in the Pacific.
Very interesting indeed. To me it seems obvious, that you would expect a strengthening of El Niño events – sooner or later – from a growing heat content in the upper layers of most of all oceans, but that is probably too simple. Maybe you could as well expect a kind of weakening or slowing down of this very complex oscillating system (interconnected with others) as a result of weakening temperature contrasts in different parts of the oceans? Though I would suspect this effect to be more long-term, happening after the earth climate system crossing several tipping points, some of which maybe even hitherto unknown or unnoticed by science. I wonder what paleoclimatology has to say on the subject of ENSO during warmer climates as fx. during the warmest period of the last interglacial, Eem, when the main sea level was 6-9 meters above the current, probably caused by the deglaciation of West Antarctica (since the Greenland Ice sheet was intact from N to S, even if somewhat reduced) or in earlier warmer climates?
The answers seem inconclusive: 1) “Future increase in extreme El Niño supported by past glacial changes” – https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07984-y (Eem) points to a strengthening of ENSO based on models, and a weakening during glacials: “Here we uncover a mechanism using numerical simulations that drives consistent changes in response to past and future forcings, allowing model validation against palaeoclimate data. The simulated mechanism is consistent with the dynamics of observed extreme El Niño events, which develop when western Pacific warm pool waters expand rapidly eastwards because of strongly coupled ocean currents and winds6,7. These coupled interactions weaken under glacial conditions because of a deeper mixed layer driven by a stronger Walker circulation. The resulting decrease in ENSO variability and extreme El Niño occurrence is supported by a series of tropical Pacific palaeoceanographic records showing reduced glacial temperature variability within key ENSO-sensitive oceanic regions, including new data from the central equatorial Pacific. The model–data agreement on past variability, together with the consistent mechanism across climatic states, supports the prediction of a shallower mixed layer and weaker Walker circulation driving more frequent extreme El Niño genesis under greenhouse warming.”
Note that the eemian warming wasn’t caused by higher CO2 levels in the troposphere, they were never above 280 ppmv.. Nor any known changes in aearosols etc. Methane levels were much lower than current https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023GB007875 . This article (1) doesn’t consider these themes, since they only study the last glacial maximum, 21 kyr BP.
2) “Mid-Pliocene El Niño/Southern Oscillation suppressed by Pacific intertropical convergence zone shift” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-022-00999-y?fromPaywallRec=false . This article seems (I have only read the abstract) not to consider that a) at this time was the Panaman isthmus maybe still (partly) open and hence b) the AMOC not yet established. The Greenland ice sheet was just beginning to form, bottom layers of icecores suggest a deglaciated Greenland then.
We can still only conclude that “we are in uncharted waters” as Gavin Schmidt said in 2023 when the currently ongoing acceleration in global warming came up first. Or? Can we get beyond the rather obscure and unimportant deliberations/ditherings about less than one tenth of a degree C in global mean up or down next year? Much more fateful things are at stake for billions of people: the consequences in ten years, crossing the two-degree C limit and very fast moving further up. As prognosticized by Rahmstorf and Foster recently https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2025GL118804 .
I cenrtainly hope that the critique by James Hansen here “Our scientific papers[5],[6] evoked a strange response from several scientists who serve as public faces of the modeling community: ad hominem criticisms, but no response to the scientific issues that we raised. We have called out[7] this odd response to draw attention to failure of the media to provide quality science reporting on climate change. Given the enormous implications of climate change for the public, especially young people, it is incumbent on the media to ask questions of scientists and demand understandable scientific explanation of their conclusions”
https://jimehansen.substack.com/p/yes-2026-is-on-track-to-be-the-hottest – can soon be cleared up here on realclimate. Which “strange” and “ad hominem” responses does Hansen implicate? Can someone enlighten us? What is the real scientific issue at hand (if there is one, which to me seems to be the case)?
My main observation is this: the current man-made raising ot the tropospheric CO2 and methane levels has no known natural precursors in the whole history of about 3 billion years of life on this planet. Not even close! The CO2 emissions in the end permian 251,9 myrs ago were larger than ours for sure, but they took over 75000 years! We are going far faster than that. That’s certainly no reason to relax and think “we just need to adapt a little” which is now becomiing the mainstream political and “scientific” (bureaucratic) message from people who are adapting – but unfortunately more to fascism 2.0, model Trump and Musk, Putin etc. than to the rising resistance.
KVJ..You may have missed this?
Nature 461, 1110-1113 (22 October 2009)
Atmospheric carbon dioxide through the Eocene–Oligocene climate transition
Paul N. Pearson, Gavin L. Foster, Bridget S. Wade
Geological and geochemical evidence indicates that the Antarctic ice sheet formed during the Eocene–Oligocene transition 33.5–34.0 million years ago. Modelling studies suggest that such ice-sheet formation might have been triggered when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels fell below a critical threshold of ~750 p.p.m.v. During maximum ice-sheet growth, pCO2 was between 450 and 1,500 p.p.m.v., with a central estimate of 760 p.p.m.v.
760 ppm is much higher than today’s value. And the Eocene plant life on land was lush while the carbonate plankton thrived..
KT: 760 ppm is much higher than today’s value. And the Eocene plant life on land was lush while the carbonate plankton thrived..
BPL: But during the Eocene, there were not 8 billion people depending on a stable climate for their agriculture; nor were there trillions of dollars worth of coastal infrastructure in danger of submergence.
EarthClimate: “As reported in the previous study, the deep ocean acts as a stove, continuously supplying heat to the ocean surface”
in the high latitudes. NOT at the discussed here equator/ the ITCZ. Here, the deep ocean is much colder than the surface water. That’s why the ocean off Peru is not the best place to go for a vacation swim – despite being in the tropics, the surface water the water is typically 16-20C – because of the cold Humboldt current and the upwelling bringing very cold deep water to the surface. To swim there you have to time your visit to the El Nino, which disrupts Humboldt current and blocks the upwelling, which increases the surface water temps by 4-8C.
So for this region – deep ocean is not “a stove”, but a cooler.
Emergent climate change patterns originating from deep ocean warming in climate mitigation scenarios
“EarthClimate” 14 Jul 7.47am: “AI: The eastern Pacific refers to the eastern portion of the Pacific Ocean,”
Thank you, Captain Obvious, without you quoting AI on that we would have no idea.
Now the harder part – prove YOUR claim that the “deep ocean” in this equatorial eastern Pacific – “acts like a stove, continuously supplying heat to the ocean surface,”
Let me help you with your authority:
AI: “The deep water temperature in the eastern equatorial Pacific typically ranges from 1C to 4C”
and
AI: “Sea surface temperatures in the eastern equatorial Pacific currently range from 28C to 29C”.
And if suddenly stopped believing AI: let your own eyes be the judge – here is a vertical profile of T from NOAA. Unfortunately it is truncated at mere 500m (ocean there is typically >4km deep), but even this gives you a good idea what is hotter – “the surface waters” or the “deep ocean”:
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/monitoring-content/sotc/enso/2004/may/dep-lon-200405-eq-0-500-pg.gif
“Deep ocean there acts like a stove, continuously supplying heat to the ocean surface, you say?
Explained here, starting 7 minutes in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mqtt8Ln35t4
Notice that talk about deep ocean should also point to origin to put this in better perspective.
In Re to Piotr, 15 Jul 2026 at 7:47 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2026/07/this-new-el-nino-is-different/#comment-849797
Hello Piotr,
I parsed through the cited article and have not identified a specific part thereof that might form a basis for the conclusion in the abstract that you have objected.
It seems to be indeed unclear how the authors of the article arrived at the conclusion that the heat stored in the deep sea can warm not only polar regions and/or sea regions wherein the sea surface temperature falls below the deep sea water temperature at least during winter seasons, but also the equatorial eastern Pacific.
If “EarthClimate” found this basis, I would highly appreciate their hint thereto.
Greetings
Tomáš
Mr. E. Climate: ” Explained here, starting 7 minutes in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mqtt… ”
a link to a clip on Youtube proves nothing – I am sure that there are clips that starting x minutes in – show the the Earth is flat. Does not make it magically so. So if you have anything to say – say it in your own words. Here by:
1. proving the claim that in equatorial eastern Pacific “the deep ocean acts as a stove, continuously supplying heat to the ocean surface”
2. disproving the oceanographic knowledge from the last 100+ years that the opposite is true (the deep ocean there is much colder than the surface water and therefore can NOT act as a stove, but only as cooler)
3. disproving the vertical profiles of temperature from the literature I have referred to – that show the same as p.2 and thus challenge your stove claim) – namely: I have posted – which shows T at 500m is ~ 9C while the surface water shows at least 25C.
In case if the arithmetic wasn’t your strongest suit, 25> 9,. Thus you can’t HEAT 25C water by an upwelling of 9C water. Consequently, the deep water there can NOT “act as stove” to surface water, but only as its cooler.
Now, to maintain any pretense of your intellectual integrity – you have to succeed in all three points. But you can’t in ANY of the 3. Which means that you promote fruits of your staggering oceanographic and climatic ignorance. Ironic for somebody who chose such an ambitious handle as: “Earth Climate”. That’s as if somebody with IQ 50 – chose the handle “Genius”.
in Re to EarthClimate, 16 Jul 2026 at 8:53 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2026/07/this-new-el-nino-is-different/#comment-849800
Dear Sir or Madam,
The video you referred to does not seem to explain the claim (that heat release from the deep ocean can warm surface layer in the equatorial eastern Pacific) from the abstract of the Ji-Hoon Oh et al article
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-024-01928-0
cited by you.
I think so because the video pertains to ENSO oscillations and speaks about heat accumulated in the layer above thermocline, in depths between 50 and 250 m, while the cited article speaks about the heat accumulated in the “deep ocean” and released after hypothetical decrease of CO2 radiative forcing to the level before the spike in this forcing that caused the said heat accumulation.
Can you comment?
Best regards
Tomáš
Tomas to “Earth Climate”: Dear Sir or Madam, The video you referred to does not seem to explain the claim that [deep heat release from the deep ocean can warm surface layer in the equatorial eastern Pacific. Can you comment?
Don’t hold you breath , Tomas. Your “Dear Sir or Madam” is a troll – so it did not read and/or comprehended the original paper it quoted. The troll is of the spaghetti-school of discussion”: if you throw enough spaghetti at the wall, some it will stick
—–
* please note that “spaghetti” is an euphemism here
From this troll’s production on RC, and the tendency for the pompous handles (“Earth Climate”) – it’s probably just a new persona of the Multi-troll, but who cares (other than admins if they wanted to exercise moderation).
A typical sealioning troll, picks up a subject that has been addressed in the past (here: the very basics of ENSO known since the last century) and floods the thread with multiple, lengthy posts, jammed with the AI definitions and AI-found references taken out of context to appear relevant to the subject (akin to random Google search of a phrase like “El Nino” or “ENSO”). Since the troll does not understand what it quoted – it does not answer question how is this relevant to the subject, but escapes forward with … multiple new posts and excerpts, claiming that they answer all the criticisms, but never able to show HOW.
“Earth Climate” is a doomer – seeding apathy among the public – the sky is falling so there is no point in reducing our use of fossil fuels, i.e. doomers present our actions as perfect-or-nothing proposition – as if the world with 400 ppm was as bad as one with 800 ppm.
And being a troll, it disrupts/hijacks the discussion by flooding the thread with AI slob – irrelevant or at best tangential to the original subject. And by “owning the RC” – discourages passer-by from staying on the site and learning something new (the too high troll-to-signal ratio).
E. Climate could be a paid shill for the fossil fuel interests, or could do it for free, being what Lenin called a “useful idiot of Russia” – one who for his own ideology or the need to build up his ego (“I am owning the RC”) – ends up playing straight into the hands of Russia which economy, ability to control the society and wage war on others, depends critically on the world buying their oil and gas.
But E. Climate’s motivation does not really matter – by their fruits, not their rationalizations of their actions, you shall know them.
Karsten V. Johansen : “ Nonetheless the IPCC continues to postulate that today’s CO2 levels can be found not further back than 3 myrs BP, 20 myrs later than Cui et al.”
Since you are attacking the integrity of the IPCC – _Quote_ the IPCC words on which you based your attack. Their words, not your rendition of them. Particularly if you missed the basis of their statement:
KVJ: “but what exactly they base this result upon seems unclear”
It’s not exactly a rocket science – the most reliable high-resolution information on the past Co2 is locked in the air bubbles trapped in ice, and the age of this ice, and hence its bubbles, is limited:
“ – continuous CO2 records reach back 800,000 years,
– continuous core drilling projects reached recently 1.2 million years [no Co2 profiles yet]
– discontinuous “blue ice” snapshot samples extend to 3 million years. ”
Before “3mln years” we don’t have even these ” discontinuous “blue ice” snapshots”, and the indirect proxies of CO2 are much less reliable. And that’s why climate science often say that Co2 is the highest in at least 800,000 yrs or in at least 2-3 mln years (i.e. the age of the less reliable, with more gaps, blue ice). And sorry, you can’t assume that the uncertainty is your friend
And that’s why IPCC does not assume that, and does not want to OVERSTATE its case – because if they listened to you, i.e if they ignored the uncertainty associated with the lack of ice trapped Co2 -and stated : “the highest CO2 in the last 23 or 26 mln years” – they would hand a weapon into the hands of the deniers:
If somebody in the future found a reliable record of CO2, anytime between the 3 and 26 mln years that were HIGHER than today’s value – all the hell would break loose:
the Deniers would point to this fact as a proof that the IPCC is ideologically-motivated alarmists, and if the IPCC stated untruth once – then we can’t believe ANYTHING they say, about the past, or about the future. And therefore we can burn as much fossil fuels as we want since you can’t trust IPCC
And this is how the Doomers end up in bed with the Deniers – you BOTH try to discredit IPCC and that you do it from different motivations – DOES NOT MATTER: by the fruits, not their motivations, you shall know them.
in Re to Piotr, 22 Jul 2026 at 9:26 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2026/07/this-new-el-nino-is-different/#comment-849938
Hello Piotr,
As “EarthClimate” failed to respond, it is possible that your disdain is fully justified. It at least appears that they have cited something they have not read or understood and are reluctant to admit it.
I am, however, more interested in the Nature Climate Change article they have cited than in “EarthClimate” themselves.
The cited conclusion (“The surface ocean warming is pronounced over subpolar to polar regions and the equatorial eastern Pacific where oceans are weakly stratified to allow vigorous heat release from the deep ocean to the surface layer.”) sounds to me reasonably with respect to polar or subpolar regions, however, I have not grasped yet how the authors supported validity of this claim also for the equatorial eastern Pacific.
Greetings
Tomáš
Ken Towe, I am fully aware, that Paul N. Pearson in 2013 wrote a note about these themes, entitled “When was the CO2 last above 400 ppmv?” The conclusion in this note was, that there hasn’t been a stable CO2 level above 400 ppmv for the last 26 myrs.
A scientific article from 2020 points in the same direction: Cui et al.: “A 23 m.y. record of low atmospheric CO2″, Geology (2020) 48 (9): 888–892” https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article/48/9/888/586769/A-23-m-y-record-of-low-atmospheric-CO2 .
From the abstract: “Here, we present a new CO2 record across the past 23 m.y. of Earth history based on the δ13C value of terrestrial C3 plant remains, using a method applicable to the entire ∼400 m.y. history of C3 photosynthesis on land. Across the past 23 m.y., CO2 likely ranged between ∼230 ppmv and 350 ppmv (68% confidence interval: ∼170–540 ppm). CO2 was found to be highest during the early and middle Miocene and likely below present-day levels during the middle Pliocene (84th percentile: ∼400 ppmv). These data suggest present-day CO2 (412 ppmv) exceeds the highest levels that Earth experienced at least since the Miocene, further highlighting the present-day disruption of long-established CO2 trends within Earth’s atmosphere.”
Nonetheless the IPCC continues to postulate that today’s CO2 levels can be found not further back than 3 myrs BP, 20 myrs later than Cui et al., but what exactly they base this result upon seems unclear. As is often the case with the IPCC “consensus”, the exact sources of it seem a bit dodgy: how was the concensus established, when most scientific results point to much older datings of naturally high CO2-levels? This is of the utmost importance, since it implicates that the current high and fast rising CO2 level is a much more serious and dangerous matter than the impression you get from the IPCC reports.
It seens to me that you don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to sense a connection between this matter and *the fact that the IPCCs COPs still after more than forty years have never been able to agree upon the evident scientific fact that we need to cut fossil fuel use very fast to avoid very dangerous climate change.* The source of the COP/IPCCs unrealisticly optimistic conclusions are obviously very powerful fossil fuel capital lobbying groups and their denialist propaganda, not science. As concluded many years ago by James Hansen, Naomi Oreskes and many others.
Karsten V. Johansen: “ Nonetheless the IPCC continues to postulate that today’s CO2 levels can be found not further back than 3 myrs BP, 20 myrs later than Cui et al., but what exactly they base this result upon seems unclear. As is often the case with the IPCC “consensus”, the exact sources of it seem a bit dodgy: how was the concensus established, when most scientific results point to much older datings of naturally high CO2-levels?”
My answer to that claim got accidently posted _before_ your post. In short, your conspiracy theory (KVJ: “ you don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to sense […] the fact that the IPCCs COPs still after more than forty years have never been able to agree upon the evident scientific fact that we need to cut fossil fuel use very fast</i") is based on your ignorance and arrogance:
– the reason why the IPCC may have said (you never quoted the original) that the CO2 wasn't as high in at least 3mln years – has to do with the fact that we don't have any direct information on Co2 from Co2 trapped in ice bubbles older than 3 mln years: (" discontinuous “blue ice” snapshot samples extend to 3 million years ” Before 3 mln years we no longer have direct direct measurements of Co2 in ice bubbles, but merely various indirect PROXIES, much less accurate and more sparse. A good scientist does not assume, like you do – that the uncertainty and not enough data are their friend:
P: “And that’s why IPCC does not assume that, and does not want to OVERSTATE its case – because if they listened to you, i.e if they ignored the uncertainty associated with the lack of ice trapped Co2 -and stated : “the highest CO2 in the last 23 or 26 mln years” – they would hand a weapon into the hands of the deniers:
If somebody in the future found a reliable record of CO2, anytime between the 3 and 26 mln years that were HIGHER than today’s value – all the hell would break loose”
====
Update: you don’t have wait “for the future” – 3 years _after_ your Cui et al., 2020 and their 23 mln yr,, Honisch et al 2023 shows that around 15 mln yers ago for several mln. years – Co2 was higher that it is today’s.
Even more recent Judd et al 2024 seems to shows higher than today Co2 – barely SEVERAL mln years ago.
With you lecturing IPCC on scientific literature on past CO2 – you are obviously aware of these more recent papers, right?
And if IPCC listened to Karsten V. Johansen and announced that Co2 “hasn’t been that high since 23 mln yrs ago” then the Deniers would point to these newer papers as a “proof” that the IPCC is ideologically-motivated alarmists. And if the IPCC stated untruth once (“23 mln years”) – then we can’t believe ANYTHING they say, about the past, or about the future. And therefore “we can burn as much fossil fuels as we want. because we simply can’t trust anything IPCC says”.
“And this is how the Doomers end up in bed with the Deniers – you BOTH try to discredit IPCC. That you do it from different motivations – DOES NOT MATTER: by the fruits, not their motivations, you shall know them.”
In other words – If you didn’t exist – the Deniers would have to invent you.
KT: “760 ppm is much higher than today’s value.”
Not sure what point is being attempted here, but there is a property called “hysteresis” which applies to many natural and engineered systems, by which critical values for state transitions may depend on the direction from which they are approached.
It’s very possible in principle that you need 760 ppm to initiate polar ice sheet formation, but much lower values to sustain them–and potentially much lower levels to transistion to an ice-free state as well.
Update: looking at the KVJ post to which KT replied, it seems that we have a case of apples and oranges being compared: the former appears to be talking about rate of change while the latter is attempting to rebut based on absolute value.
KVJ..You may have missed this…it wasn’t posted earlier…
Nature 461, 1110-1113 (22 October 2009)
Atmospheric carbon dioxide through the Eocene–Oligocene climate transition
Paul N. Pearson, Gavin L. Foster, Bridget S. Wade
Geological and geochemical evidence indicates that the Antarctic ice sheet formed during the Eocene–Oligocene transition 33.5–34.0 million years ago. Modelling studies suggest that such ice-sheet formation might have been triggered when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels fell below a critical threshold of ~750 p.p.m.v. During maximum ice-sheet growth, pCO2 was between 450 and 1,500 p.p.m.v., with a central estimate of 760 p.p.m.v.
760 ppm is much higher than today’s value. And the Eocene plant life on land was lush while the carbonate plankton thrived..
KVJ: The CO2 emissions in the end permian 251,9 myrs ago were larger than ours for sure, but they took over 75000 years!
KT: 760 ppm is much higher than today’s value. And the Eocene plant life on land was lush while the carbonate plankton thrived..
MA: Oh, Ken, what makes you think Karsten missed that? The Eocene-Oligocene CO2 maximum took half a million years! What’s different about the globe, and the accelerating rate of increase, today? In any case, perhaps you missed “The enigma of Oligocene climate and global surface temperature evolution” (https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2003914117. From the abstract (my bolding):
In this relatively low CO2 Oligocene world (∼300 to 700 ppm), warm climates similar to those of the late Eocene continued with only brief interruptions, while the Antarctic ice sheet waxed and waned. SSTs are spatially heterogenous, but generally support late Oligocene warming coincident with declining atmospheric CO2. This Oligocene warmth, especially at high latitudes, belies a simple relationship between climate and atmospheric CO2 and/or ocean gateways, and is only partially explained by current climate models. Although the dominant climate drivers of this enigmatic Oligocene world remain unclear, our results help fill a gap in understanding past Cenozoic climates and the way long-term climate sensitivity responded to varying background climate states.
IOW, keep it as simple as you can, but no simpler: it will never convincer pseudoskeptics anyway.
KT: 760 ppm is much higher than today’s value. And the Eocene plant life on land was lush while the carbonate plankton thrived..
Except that it was a … different life. Current “lush plant life” on land is adapted to 280 ppm, not to your 760ppm. And they had 100,000s or millions of years to evolve adaptations, not a few decades or centuries. And if you haven’t noticed, 33.5–34.0 million years ago, there were no humans nor even our ancestral species.
As for the carbonate marine organisms “thriving” – those again were different than those that thrive today in lower-Co2 seawater – the higher the CO2 the much more difficult survival of the organisms making their shells from the more soluble forms of carbonates – aragonite and high-Mg calcite – this include such an unimportant taxa as pteropods and coral reef-making corals and calcareous red-algae.
Ocean acidification from increased CO2 amplifies the damage of coral reefs caused already by bleaching due to increasing frequent ocean heatwave under higher CO2. Again – if the changes were spread over geological time-scale – reef-making corals could perhaps move into colder waters, or perhaps new species evolved to replace them although most likely will be a formation of a “reef gap” – periods of millions of years without reef-making aragonite corals, replaced with the non-reef making soft corals using calcite – with the resulting loss of the single most productive and supporting the highest diversity habitat on Earth
So much for your belief that the oceanic life will be “thriving” under current Co2 increase rate.
P.S. What are you doing for living, Ken? I ask because I am trying to establish the motivation for your posting activity here: are your financially benefitting fossil fuels, or are you what Lenin called a “useful idiot of Russia” and of other petro-states, whose regimes, wealth of their oligarchs, and ability to control their population and wage wars on others – depends on convincing the world to what you, Ken, promote here – that that the world with much higher Co2 (“760 ppm of CO2”) would have a “lush plant life” and “thriving” oceans. .
I’ve seen informed comment – Michelle L’Heureux – that SST in tropical Pacific relative to extant global SST e.g. NOAA’s RONI – rather than to average (past) ENSO zone temperatures – may be a better predictor of the strength of weather effects. I’m not so informed as can offer any judgement but it seemed to make sense.
That differences in SST are a major driver of wind and weather patterns seems kinda fundamental.
This was just posted..
The Strongest El Niño Ever
A new study finds shorter ENSO frequency, and broader modulation of the climate system. Excerpts from the pre-print..
Changes in El Niño–Southern Oscillation and global frequency entrainment
“declared already on June 11 by NOAA. This is both unusually early in the year”
Of the previous 10 El Nino declarations, 4 were earlier and 6 were later.
This one does not seem particularly unusual
Useful Bookmarks
Climate Uncensored
What Path is the Real World On?
James Hansen, Pushker Kharecha, Dylan Morgan, Jasen Vest
Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions (CSAS)
DATA
https://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/Data/
El Nino & La Nina DATA
ENSO indices, upper-ocean temperature, and their relationship to global surface temperature.
Figures on this page
1. Recent ENSO and global temperature
2. Extended ENSO indices (1950–present)
3. ENSO and global temperature relationships
4. ENSO cycle comparisons: Nino3.4 SST, RONI, and upper 300 m
5. Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO)
https://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/Data/ElNino-LaNina/
“Keeping the bastards Honest” (?)
I happily accept posting this is a waste of time overall beyond a slight peace of mind benefit.
June 12
An article in the Washington Post last week reported that “climate scientists” peg the odds as 27% that 2026 will be the record warmest year. Perhaps the author was unaware of our 30 April Substack post “2026 On Track for Warmest Year” or perhaps he does not consider us to be climate scientists worth acknowledging. In any case, this year provides a chance to learn something from contrary predictions. The Washington Post article refers to a projection of Zeke Hausfather on 2 June that there is a 26.6% chance of 2026 being the warmest year.
Zeke has provided enough information to allow a contrast with our approach.
Below we describe the basis for our prediction and our principal differences with Hausfather.
Based on this scientific evidence, we expect that when the horse race comes down the stretch, in November and December of this year, we will be riding a thoroughbred, a strong young horse, and Zeke will be atop a fading old nag. In any event, we will then be able to assess whether we have learned anything that helps young people define policies to create a bright future.
1)
As we described in our recent papers,[5],[6] the most important result is that climate sensitivity is significantly higher than the long-standing best estimate of 3°C for 2×CO2, a conclusion we can state with greater than 99% certainty.
2) The albedo reduction is so large that most of it must be due to a reduction of sunlight reflected by clouds, as the contributions from reduced sea ice cover and reduced human-made atmospheric aerosols are relatively small.[6] This implies that cloud changes are a strong, amplifying, climate feedback. If cloud changes were neutral (no net warming or cooling effect), climate sensitivity would be about 2.4°C for doubled carbon dioxide because water vapor and sea ice feedbacks roughly double the no-feedback climate sensitivity of 1.2°C.
3) The fact that only a 6 percent solar irradiance change is needed to cause snowball Earth implies that climate sensitivity is high, about 4-5°C for doubled carbon dioxide, and Earth system sensitivity (including ice sheet changes neglected in Charney’s sensitivity) is even higher.[14]
4) Sulfates produced by SO2 emissions are the principal anthropogenic aerosol, but it is unlikely that global aerosol climate forcing is proportional to SO2 emissions. Aerosol scientists describe the great uncertainty in the aerosol forcing in IPCC reports. The largest uncertainty is in the effect of aerosols on cloud formation and cloud properties.
and
Independently, we show that, among the three aerosol coolings (0, 0.5, 1 W/m2), the intermediate case (implying climate sensitivity 4.5°C for 2×CO2) provides the best representation of total temperature change for 1880-present.[6]
Then — A strong El Nino is about to begin. We have shown in prior posts that the heat anomaly in the upper 300 m of the equatorial Pacific provides an El Nino diagnostic with more favorable characteristics than the common Nino3.4 SST (sea surface temperature) index. The 300 m heat provides an earlier indication of an upcoming change of tropical climate and it is less affected by human-made global warming.
For the purpose of predicting temperature in the remainder of 2026, we note in Fig. 8 that global SST in 2026 has approximately “caught” the 2024 global SST in May (upper figure) and 2026 continues to be at least 0.1°C warmer than in 2023 (the last El Nino onset year). We expect that gap to be maintained, as the upcoming El Nino is at least as strong as the one in 2023. We note also that Earth’s energy imbalance for the last 15 months of data (January 2025 through March 2026) is 1.58 W/m2, even higher than the prior decade (Fig. 4). The year 2026 should already exceed the 2024 record, with higher temperatures to come in 2027.
and
Summary: the media are gobbling up and regurgitating an interpretation of global climate change that we believe is fundamentally flawed.
We have presented extensive independent evidence that climate sensitivity is 4-5°C for doubled CO2. The implications of our interpretation are great.
A secondary issue is the climate forcing caused by decreasing emissions from ships. We have presented evidence that ships are responsible for an increase of at least a few tenths of 1 W/m2 in the past decade. At least in this case, we can make a quantitative comparison with the IPCC estimate as Forster and Hausfather calculate 0.079 W/m2.[20] Observational data, in combination with improving aerosol-cloud modeling, should be able to resolve this difference. We believe that the larger effect that we estimate for ship aerosols is at least partially responsible for the sharp uptick in Earth’s energy imbalance and temperature shown in Figs. 4, 6 and 7.
[ ie. secondary issue, partially responsible, and NOT BLAMED FOR …. as incorrectly framed by Trenberth then concluding ]
It is hard to resolve the differences of opinion on the more important issue of climate sensitivity and global warming on the century timescale because the IPCC modeling approach and how it is used by Hausfather and others for their climate projections is foggy, i.e., not well defined. It seems to be based on the fog of model results produced by all climate models.
However, the projections produced are continually changing; such is the case for 2026 global temperature. How are these determined? If we are to gain knowledge from real-world climate “experiments,” such as that occurring this year, we need to understand the basis for the predictions.
https://jimehansen.substack.com/p/yes-2026-is-on-track-to-be-the-hottest
Therefore, Trenberth’s critique is a simplification. Hansen frames the 2023-24 temperature anomaly and the prediction for 2027 as the result of a synergistic effect: an El Niño event releasing heat, amplified by the recent global reduction in aerosol cooling (especially from shipping), the overall amplification of cloud feedbacks with all operating under a higher-than-expected climate sensitivity.
Hansen notes that changes in clouds act as a powerful amplifying feedback. The reduction in global aerosols not only removes direct cooling but also alters cloud properties. Increased background global warming too alters cloud properties. Resulting in a substantial darkening of the planet (reduced albedo) since 2015 simultaneously being amplified by the higher ECS above that accepted by the IPCC. .
The projection for a record +1.7°C in 2027 is based on this integrated framework, not aerosols nor IMO reductions alone.
The ‘Acid Test’ was Hansen’s expectation that temperatures would not fall much below +1.5°C following the 2023-24 El Niño . It was a deliberate ‘acid test’ of his theory now shown to be accurate. This prediction hinged on the persistent warming from both the loss of aerosol cooling and high climate sensitivity, amplified by cloud feedbacks, which he argued would prevent the typical post-El Niño cooling, coupled with the underlying growth of warming from total global emissions and ongoing land use changes.
Kevin Trenberth’s statement that Hansen “and others have blamed this on changes in aerosols” misrepresents Hansen’s position. In both his public communications and peer-reviewed work, Hansen presents global reductions in aerosols, the more recent IMO shipping changes, as only one critical aspect of a multi-factor explanation for recent warming, for the post 2010/2015 rapid acceleration and the looming super-el nino with predicted record 2026 and 2027 global temperatures and not the sole cause.
A lot of text above, sorry, but I wanted to empathize this particular section as well.
Hansen
2) The albedo reduction is so large that most of it must be due to a reduction of sunlight reflected by clouds, as the contributions from reduced sea ice cover and reduced human-made atmospheric aerosols are relatively small.[6] This implies that cloud changes are a strong, amplifying, climate feedback.
Whereas Trenberth, courtesy of Mal Adapted above says :
Kevin Trenberth – “The wider expanse of subsiding air into the subtropics increases sunshine and heating and is a positive feedback. Hansen and others have blamed this on changes in aerosols, but it is much more from changes in clouds and circulation.”
Hansen adds:
4) Sulfates produced by SO2 emissions are the principal anthropogenic aerosol, but it is unlikely that global aerosol climate forcing is proportional to SO2 emissions. Aerosol scientists describe the great uncertainty in the aerosol forcing in IPCC reports. The largest uncertainty is in the effect of aerosols on cloud formation and cloud properties.
That analysis has nothing at all to do with the recent IMO emissions reductions of SO2 emissions. Hansen has always been addressing the larger picture and the total lack of credible data supporting the modelling communities unfounded unproven assumptions of global aerosol forcing, cloud albedo forcing and the additional amplifying climate feedbacks.
I seriously question how well informed Trenberth and Hausfather are about the research analysis by Hansen’s team and the many other independent climate scientists.
Furthermore, in Trenberth’s reply to a commenter he offers a media article reference authored by himself dated July 2023. At the beginning of the rapid warming period 2023-2024-2025 when he and everyone else barely knew anything about it or how bad it would become. Let alone the coming El Nino responses or how much higher the long term warming rate had accelerated by 2025 — overriding prior assumed “step changes”..
source https://www.theclimatebrink.com/p/the-strongest-el-nino-ever/comment/293971896
Which for me, begs the question–has Trenberth learned anything new about El Ninos, the rapid spike in warming acceleration or what may have caused the massive unexpected Bananas of 2023-2024 El Nino period since his article of July 2023?
Hansen stating shipping emission changes is partially responsible does not suddenly make them totally responsible nor blamed for all recent warming acceleration or higher anomalies. And it is not what his papers contain either.
Reading Hansen’s output accurately, understanding it fully, and the peer-reviewed papers and recent articles by others since then, might help Trenberth update his knowledge? Hausfather and others too. Reader’s are advised to recognize the difference between fading reputations and quality science.
Hansen is not acting alone. There is a small army supporting his scientific work and funding it.
Apologies for any scientific semantic errors in my phrasing above, I completely defer to Hansen and his team for accuracy. Excuse the length, my small effort at trying to correct a small part of the ongoing disinformation on this topic which I find frustrating. .
KM: I happily accept posting this is a waste of time overall beyond a slight peace of mind benefit.
MS: It was useful for me. Thank you.
KM, a lot of interesting points, but I fail to find your references, fx. [6] etc. Where are they?
I think the strength of your approach is that you try to use the paleoclimatic data as calibration for climate models. On the other hand, as I often has pointed out here: the fundamental problem is that *we don’t find any example in our whole knowledge-base of global paleoclimate development of any rise in global tropospheric CO2, CH4 etc. content happening anywhere nearly as fast as that which has been going on – and even accelerating – in the last about 50 years. Not even close!
The main problem here is of course, that it’s only for the last around 200000 years or so (maybe more, maybe less? At least the last ice age) that we are able to rather precisely discern changes in CO2 etc. in such short timespans as a human lifetime, due to compressed airbubbles in the year-layered glacier ice in Greenland and Antarctica. Anyway we can probably conclude from what we know about the possible natural sources of CO2 etc. emissions in our modern and newer world, that it’s very unlikely that such extremely fast emissions as the industrial burning of fossil fuels in the last 50-100 years could ever have happened before, but we can’t be absolutely sure when we are tens or hundreds of millions of years back in time – the further back, the less sure we can be of course. What do we know for sure about exploding volcanoes, incoming meteorites etc. and their effects in the eocene, the cretaceous, the jurassic or even the permian, in such short timespans?
Anyway, we can only act based upon what we know. And as far as we know, there aren’t any periods in pre-industrial times with greenhouse gas emissions happening nearly as fast as in the last 100 years.
But how can we then be sure, that this shock of ours to the climate system won’t produce effects never seen before in paleoclimatic times? Of course we can’t. Here I think all the modelling discussions are overconfident, bording on hubris. I find it simply ridiculous to see predictions of sealevel rise in fifty years given in numbers down to one centimeter – plus/minus tens of centimeters. Anyone with the slightest knowledge of deglaciation processes since the last glacial maximum knows that this is nonsense, so why on Earth is this being done by the IPCC? Is it because someone want to give us all the impression of a certainty in our knowledge that doesn’t exist? To tell us to calm down? Why? Not very wise, history ought to tell us that much.
I think this is in many ways a result of the lingering “optimism of the will” from the early industrial age (unconsciously stemming from the by then, far before the scientific results of modern geology as condensed by Jeffrey S. Dukes in his paper “Burning buried sunshine. Human consumption of ancient solar energy”, (2003), were known, *seemingly* magical power of fossil fuels, which mankind since believed to be solely it’s own “productive force”.. In “Capital” Marx cites from Shakespeare a rich man travelling with six horses: “I feel as had I twentyfour legs”) – and a result of Bacon’s four idols https://sirbacon.org/4-idols/ –
All this has now been “developed” ad absurdum in the age of Hitler, Stalin, Trump, Putin, Musk, artificial “intelligence” (!) etc. … as discussed extensively by among others Pannekoek, Wittgenstein, Adorno, Bohr, Popper, Peter W. Zapffe, Arne Naess, McLuhan, Guenther Anders (“The Outdatedness of Human Beings” !! For Anders, the modern consumer has become ashamed of his own products. Never has this been more visible than with A”I”…), Jean Baudrillard (“This is not to say that the world becomes unreal, but rather that the faster and more comprehensively societies begin to bring reality together into one supposedly coherent picture, the more insecure and unstable it looks and the more fearful societies become” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Baudrillard – Baudrillard critizises a worldview – the postmodern “hyperreality” – where our models tend to exterminate the reality. I think Baudrillard underestimated the degree to which mankind is bound to become awakened by the reality, sooner or later, but his main observations are very relevant. He writes that the postmodern consumer is “freely” ordered “to say yes to yes”, to be hyperpositive, Trump is a very clear example: everything he says is coming from a kind of totally unconscious and totally flat or even one-dimensional “landscape” of ever the same stupid commercial exaggerations, he speaks as if he has no sense whatsoever of any difference between his words/mind and the world outside his ego. The political tragedy of impotence and cowardy today is that no politician really seems to have the courage to be the little child in Andersen’s tale of the naked emperor. Maybe it has been made impossible by the media for any politician to take that role. This is the *spontaneous consumerist totalitarianism* represented by all politicians – the force behind all climate denialism, especially the “greenwashed”/”lukewarming” types, the most effective and “political” ones! Hidden in plain sight) etc.
KM, a lot of interesting points, but I fail to find your references, fx. [6] etc. Where are they?
You need to go to Hansen article via the link provided.
RE the strength of your approach is that you try to use the paleoclimatic data as calibration for climate models.
Not me, Hansen and others are doing the work, not me. You can address these question to Jim on his substack, he does reply at times,
Or dig into his papers articles then run the queries past a decent Ai APP – it might help.
You could them to compare x paper with y paper in a specific subject issue – or dump your whole comment into one.
these AI systems won’t be around for long KVJ , or be free for the advanced options, so take advantage while they’re there and you can still get the info you need. .
how to build a self-sufficient homestead is a good prompt … start with a tippi or yurt ?
What is unusual is that El Nino events tend to slightly bias wetter summers in the UK, but so far, summer 2026 has been very dry. Here in SE England, we have not had a drop of rain for the whole of July to-date, and 1 mm since the 22nd June. There is very little rain forecast through to the end of this month, it has been closer to a Mediterranean summer than a NW European one here.
I appreciate what James Hansen continues to contribute to the global warming dialogue. The IPCC seems to always err on the conservative side (understandably given its makeup and need for consensus). Hansen’s “voice in the wilderness” is a well-explained and thought-stimulating counterpoint. He deserves more recognition.
I don’t think comparing Hansen to the IPCC is fair. The IPCC is inherently a consensus effort–it cannot be more extreme than the most conservative elements it requires to agree. Hansen is performing a valuable counterpoint–more of an engineering judgment 80% WC. Both are needed, but what is needed even more is a public and an electorate that is educated enough to understand the critical role of both.
A Nuanced Rebuttal: The IPCC is a Process, Not the Arbiter of Scientific Truth
S.B. Ripman & Ray Ladbury,
With respect, I believe you have, like most people, bought into a “narrative” as if it were both scientifically and logically unassailable. The framing of Hansen versus the IPCC as a battle between an “extremist” and a “conservative” consensus fundamentally misses the core epistemological crisis at play.
As the great physicist Richard Feynman warned:
“It is a great deal easier to say that the other guy is wrong… than to find out what the real answer is. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.”
Applying Feynman’s axiom to this debate reveals several critical logical fallacies in the standard defense of the IPCC:
The “Extreme” Fallacy: A non-conservative conclusion published in peer-reviewed literature does not, of itself, make that scientific conclusion “extreme” simply because it differs from a pre-existing baseline. Labeling scientific output as “extreme” is a subjective human judgment, not a scientifically derived metric. In physics, the truth is often non-intuitive; it is never determined by a vote.
The Bias of “Conservatism”: Always “erring on the conservative side” is not a scientific virtue; it is a systemic bias. Who decided scientifically that “conservatism” is more valid than the aggregate of the entire accumulated scientific output? Basic scientific principles—rooted in the philosophy of science—teach us that we must actively avoid subjective bias at all steps of the process. Injecting deliberate conservatism into a physical model is a policy choice, not a scientific one.
The Exclusionary “Consensus”: What is fundamentally unfair—and profoundly unscientific—is framing Hansen’s work and the many whose work supports his astute analysis and physics theories as unacceptable because it does not fit the subjective conclusions of a small cohort of public facing activist scientists who benefit reputationally and professionally from the IPCC and CMIP modelling process.
The Illusion of a Vote: This brings me to the fatal flaw in your characterization: you refer to the IPCC as a “consensus.” However, that is a misnomer. A true consensus requires a vote from the entire body of relevant scientists. Instead, we have a curated process where a small cohort of scientists subjectively decides that Hansen’s output—and the research of many others whose conclusions mirror his team’s—is summarily dismissed from consideration.
The IPCC is not a God; it is a habitual process on railroad tracks, repeating the same assumptions despite the outputs of CMIP6 and flawed theories regarding Net Zero. The science that gets excluded on an individual IPCC scientist’s whim is not genuinely included in an across-the-board consensus because scientists like Hansen never actually get a vote. Modelling is a Map; not the Reality.
The above are the core issues that should be addressed but are not. Instead, the narratives presented by the “IPCC Bandwagon” are accepted typically like here without thought, assumed to be scientifically based, when they are patently the result of subjective, biased human filtering. The question is not whether Hansen is right or the IPCC is conservative and therefore must be “more right”; the question is whether we are fooling ourselves about the integrity of the process itself.
What you were discussing without naming it was not the science or the scientific process, nor about any genuine consensus outcome by all concerned—but how people go about providing biased subjective opinions and judgments about things their institutional reputation and careers depend on—and then how it’s weaponized through public-facing rhetoric.
Do you think I am wrong about this? If so, how have I erred against the basic philosophy of science and it’s long held best practices?
Maru: As the great physicist Richard Feynman warned: “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.”
Your lecturing others and attempt to bask in the authority of Richard Feynman, would have been more convincing, if you applied it yourself too. Otherwise it is “ do as I tell you, not as I do“.
I’ll pass. I’ve been advised not to engage with trolling comments. Besides my rule to never dialogue with someone who is committed to misunderstanding me and lacks basic respect for others.
A consensus does not require a vote–if it did, then there would be no scientific consensus. Indeed, scientific consensus represents a distinctly different kind of consensus than that of democratic consensus.
Science is NOT democratic. As Luis Alvarez said: Luis Alvarez famously stated: “There is no democracy in physics. We can’t say that some second-rate guy has as much right to opinion as Fermi”. This merely illustrates that there are some practitioners in every field of science who possess such deep insight that they tend to carry the day, even if some in the community privately favor a slightly different conclusion.
The type of consensus in the IPCC is neither democratic nor scientific. It represents the fact that unless its conclusions are above reproach, it will be attacked mercilessly. It is a policy-making consensus, driven by the need for very broad agreement–and that always produces a conservative viewpoint. (See for example the debate around the linear/zero-threshold debate in radiation safety).
RL: Your playing semantics about the meaning of the word “vote” and are running a political argument based on a narrative you believe in. Like others do.
Obviously climate scientists at the IPCCC do not run referendums and cast ballots on each Paper that is accepted, or what “theories/principles” are acceptable or not.
But they do have meetings, they do have different degrees of institutional power within the organization and among themselves. There is a hierarchy. Judgments are made, weighted and decided, be that within a small group, among a large group interacting or a single approved Author or a Coordinating Lead Author.
The word Vote was used metaphorically and that fact should be respected if you wish to interact. The meaning should have been clear to anyone up on the topic of how these judgments and decisions are made within the IPCC. Which you claim to be.
At some point Hansen’s work is rejected by a collective judgment where everyone authorized gets a sat, a right to Vote and have a say.
It does not ocurr from happenstance by a group of angles are dancing on a pin. People make decisions. Supposedly by agreement but also through seniority — inside a Black Box little different than a behind the curtain in Polling Booth,
People make real decisions, essentially they make a personal Vote on whether that science work and idea is acceptable or not — for a Consensus to be arrived at. One Scientist at a time.
However, believe whatever you wish. I am not going to argue about what you appear do not even want to understand. But if my explanation is helpful, maybe try again?
KM, regarding your responses to Ray Ladbury. So what? The IPCC hierarchical decision making process is conventional and typical of various organizations. If they had a vote on everything it would take forever with no guarantee you would get a more accurate outcome and a fair chance you would get a less accurate outcome. Being a critic is easy. Youre not articulating a convincing better alternative.
As many people have pointed out the difference between Hansens views and his opponents isnt that huge anyway. It may not be possible to fully resolve the differences. Because you cant put the planet in a lab and do a controlled experiment. We are all frustrated with the situation, but we have to be a bit accepting and philosophical about the situation. Regardless of who’s right the the warming situation is a bad environmental situation.
KM,
The scientific consensus is not any kind of vote or discussion. It is a consensus of EVIDENCE. When several lines of evidence all point to a specific conclusion, THAT is a scientific consensus. So your whole long post about the IPCC is irrelevant.
Barton Paul Levenson says
The scientific consensus is not any kind of vote or discussion. It is a consensus of EVIDENCE. When several lines of evidence all point to a specific conclusion, THAT is a scientific consensus. So your whole long post about the IPCC is irrelevant.
So you’re happy to just outright lie about the process? Or are you truly this naive and ignorant of the other side of the IPCC?
Allow me to show you how illogical (and ludicrous) your comment is. The evidence does not choose itself.
People arrive at judgments about the scientific output, about the science principles at work, about the data and what it means. The scientists discuss it at the IPCC and other fora — discuss it among people.
So why is that you saying the IPCC Consensus is not a discussion and doesn’t involve people making Judgments on the science output, on the Evidence? Those same people decide to “cast a ballot” (in their own mind) and they discuss it among themselves.
Eventually hey must arrive at a collective judgment one way or another. Is this good enough to include in this assessment? Yes or No. Which mirrors the basic function of a Vote.
It is a Vote — they simply don’t paper ballots or voting machines as part of this internal process of decision making. So, try to stop playing semantic games and hiding behind them. People make choices. Each person in the IPCC system who plays such a role chooses what is in or out. They argue about that. They arrive at a final “pseudo-consensus” where a hierarchy of preponderance makes final decisions.
That evidence in the research doesn’t do that. People do that. The people who are excluded from that system play no role. You and me. James Hansen and his team, do not get a say, do not get to argue their case, do not get a Vote at all.
Their opinion and judgments do not COUNT in this very selective isolated Black Box Voting Process.
Now, next comes where you again reply and you pretend you don’t understand what I was just stating about the practical reality of the IPCCC Consensus and how such a NON-Scientific-Consensus is arrived at.
By exclusion, and human selectivity, and who wields the greatest influence on others within the hierarchy black box system called IPCC Assessment Authors and Lead Authors. It has become not about the “veracity of the research” it’s has become who can argue more forcefully, and who has the institutional power to override others or browbeat them if necessary until they submit to “authority.”
Go read the 3 decades commentary of the whistle-blowers and complainants of this mislabeled “scientific process”. It’s not science it’s politics where no one gets an equal Vote, but “a Vote” is taken anyway.
iow dear fellow, there actually is no such a thing as a IPCC Consensus. It’s a myth and political tool to silence others in the public domain. A consensus to protect the consensus – or rather those who arrived at it. Oddly, it avoids all scrutiny, and exposure..
So far it has worked well, despite over 3 decades of pushback and minor exposures (rapidly shut down) by highly qualified climate scientists and physicists and statistical mathematicians, the mythology and flaws have persisted.
And here you are now defending this long term “manipulation” of the public by the “dysfunctional system.” You must be proud as a “scientist” doing that. So, well done, good job. We’ll put that on your gravestone as an epitaph. I can to emotive hyperbole content too.
Please don’t ever read the output of James Hansen and his team the cognitive dissonance will be crushing. :0)
James Hansen too presents a Consensus! You and a few others here simply choose to ignore it then dismiss it out of hand without ever understanding it. . You guys prefer Trolling instead.
If you ever do read Hansen’s output—really read it—you’ll find a consensus of evidence there too. The difference is, his consensus is built on physics, not on institutional gatekeeping. The fact that you dismiss it without engagement says everything about what kind of consensus you’re actually defending, and it’s not a scientific one.
KM: So you’re happy to just outright lie about the process?
BPL: So you’re happy you committed a string of murders?
Kobayashi Maru–or multi-troll or whoever. I have been doing science for over 40 years, So, actually, I do know what sorts of discussions and consensus building occur in different scientific forums. Voting does occur in some scientific venues–for example if a governing body is adopting a new standard. But that is not scientific consensus, as such.
Then there are the discussions, where, for example, panels of experts decide what is to be discussed in a text book or a report. The IPCC is closer to this–except that the panel of experts is much broader, and the pressure is to keep as many “critical representatives” as possible on board with the consensus. It is fine to criticize the result. However, there are no consensus documents out there that deviate significantly from the IPCC conclusions. These include statements by over 100 professional and honor societies of scientists–from the American Physical Society to the National Academy of Sciences to the Royal Society… Ultimately, the strength of these position papers and reports is that they represent broad consensus, making it harder to pit one set of experts against the others. The cost of that agreement is that the conclusions will not be as strong as the more strident members want.
Don’t like the result–persuade people you are right…because that is the type of document these are.
James Hansen’s output does not represent a consensus. It is original scientific work. It may be reflected in the consensus, but it is NOT any sort of consensus.
And then there is the question of scientific consensus. Scientific consensus is driven by the evidence. The evidence dictates what we can say is known and to what degree. It is a political process. That is inevitable when dealing with humans–it is human knowledge we are dealing with after all. So, some individuals with especially deep insight into the evidence may have outsized influence on the final product. The scientific consensus represents the most reliable summary of the state of our knowledge of a subject.
Unless you have actively participated in these processes, I rather doubt you have the insight to tell professional scientists what to think.
in Re to “Kobayashi Maru”, 24 Jul 2026 at 9:14 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2026/07/this-new-el-nino-is-different/#comment-850013
Dear Sir or Madam,
I think that the novel Arrowsmith
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrowsmith_(novel)
can be understood as a warning that people can very easily overestimate their results and/or ideas in view of perceived societal importance thereof.
I think that perceiving a discovery or another new idea as a potential salvation for mankind may act as a powerful impulse to become rather an advocate for a quick practical exploitation or implementation of that discovery or idea than to continue with its further and deeper critical exploration until the scope of its validity and/or the effects of its practical implementation become clear. It is a temptation that may be hard to resist.
For this reason, taking recommendations from “public facing activist scientists” with a caution may not be a bad idea. I am, however, afraid that Dr. James Hansen falls exactly into this “activist scientist” category.
Best regards
Tomáš
TK — Being a Pulitzer Prize winning author I’m sure Lewis must have been talented. I fail to recognize the relevance tgo the issues I was raising about Hansen and how the consensus is framed and generally accepted. Maybe there is a specific point you think is important?
Dr. James Hansen and his teams’ output can be read, reviewed and tested and analyzed. Their conclusions can be compared to others. He does not argue a consensus nor a seek a vote on his work, he argues for the physics and the data and his analysis. Public Criticisms of that by people who clearly — through their own words — do not understand the material and or have not in fact read it carefully, is not credible, nor a valid scientific criticism or argument against it.
Until they can honestly and fully address the actual science arguments the team are making then their hasty opinions are worthless. Surely?
It appears you have come in late and missed the critical points about the errors I addressed in the very beginning. James Hansen is nor running a popularity contest. If you are unaware of this, may I humbly direct you read what he has written and said in lectures and podcasts the last decade and more.
Otherwise you’re as guilty of misrepresentation (or worse) as Hausfather and Trenberth and now Nigel Jones are given your concluding comments. I suggest you revaluate your knowledge and thinking.
KM: “Public Criticisms of that by people who clearly — through their own words — do not understand the material and or have not in fact read it carefully, is not credible, nor a valid scientific criticism or argument against it.”
Who exactly has said they do not understand what Hansens material says, and have said they didnt read it carefully. Provide names, dates, sources and quotes of exactly what they said. Assertions made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Hitchens razor.
Even if you dig up a couple of people, maybe they dont understand his work because it doesnt make sense. Who knows.
Hansen has many critics. Show us in precise detail where their criticisms are wrong. Everything else is just mud slinging.
I quite like Hansens form of reasoning about the climate issues, but hes retracted or modified some of his earlier claims on sea level rise so hes made mistakes. So some scepticism of his current views is healthy.
KM: Dr. James Hansen and his teams’ output can be read, reviewed and tested and analyzed. Their conclusions can be compared to others. He does not argue a consensus nor a seek a vote on his work
BPL: Neither does anybody else. BTW, Hansen does support the scientific consensus on global warming and has argued for it. Again, your understanding of “scientific consensus” is flawed.
in Re to “Kobayashi Maru”, 27 Jul 2026 at 2:06 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2026/07/this-new-el-nino-is-different/#comment-850079
Dear Sir or Madam,
I can be, of course, wrong, however, the parallel I see between Dr. Hansen and Martin Arrowsmith is the desperate feeling of utmost urgency of an action that ultimately compromises their scientific output.
Less could be sometimes more. Let us imagine that the goal of IPCC were a consensus about uncertainties and limitations of the present knowledge in climate science and its output were restricted to recommendations for further research, with the aim to fill the recognised gaps. This approach could perhaps look less ambitious on the first sight, but I think that it might be in fact more productive and helpful than their policy recommendations.
I think that especially with respect to policy recommendations, Dr. Hansen’s criticism of IPCC is often justified. Nevertheless, I am afraid that his own activities in this direction, like his advocacy for nuclear energy exploitation, may deserve a comparably harsh criticism.
Greetings
Tomáš
KM: “The Exclusionary “Consensus”: What is fundamentally unfair—and profoundly unscientific—is framing Hansen’s work and the many whose work supports his astute analysis and physics theories as unacceptable because it does not fit the subjective conclusions of a small cohort of public facing activist scientists who benefit reputationally and professionally from the IPCC and CMIP modelling process.”
The same accusations could be made that Hansen benefits professionally and reputationally from his own climate modelling that concludes climate sensitivity and SLR must be higher than the more conservative leaning scientists like Mann or Hausfather. Hansen might gain a certain cult following from people and a certain respect and notoriety he might relish.
So KMs comments are vacuous and his comments are also lacking in hard evidence that anyone has gained professional advancement presumably meaning pay rises or promotions.
Personally I doubt anyone is holding their views to seek or get a reputational or professional advantage and instead Hansen and his critics just disagree about things. Its the simplest explanation so anything like what KM proposes needs detailed proof. And there is none.
Subjective opinions and assertions someone’s comments are “vacuous” does not make it so.
I think it is a mistake to view the work of Hansen as antagonistic to the output of the IPCC. They are different beasts. The IPCC is NOT original science. It is a consensus document that allows conclusions to be stretched only to the point where one is just short of losing a critical constituent/constituency. Hansen’s work serves as a caveat–illustrating just how bad things could get if the uncertainties didn’t align perfectly. And it really doesn’t matter, as the policy makers are unwilling to accept even the watered-down version of climate science found in the IPCC summaries. THAT is where the breakdown is occurring, not with the good-faith efforts of the scientists working seriously on the problem.
RL – I think it is a mistake to view the work of Hansen as antagonistic to the output of the IPCC.
This must be from someone who has read Hansen’s commentary about his work compared to the IPCC. Hansen is clearly antagonistic about the IPCC the CMIP and their failures to address the the evidence, the known data, the actual physics, and the science correctly.
This is beyond obvious even by a casual reader who doesn’t comprehend the detailed physics involved. He is criticizing the IPCC in almost every article he presents for several years.
And WHY would Policy Makers act on the watered-down version of climate science found in the IPCC summaries?. When not acting would be the most rational thing to do, if it isn’t so bad after all. THat is a ludicrous illogical defense of the IPCC – and in fact supports Hansen’s criticisms to the Hilt – which permeates all his work — the IPCC the scientists in it are NOT telling the truth about climate change and how dangerously out of control the impacts already are
From their substack: https://jimehansen.substack.com/
One example, extracts: Warning! This “Colorful Chart” is Censored by IPCC
How effective is IPCC? Is IPCC expected to be a source of scientific advice for the United Nations? If so, how is it that the Secretary General continues to assert that it is still feasible to keep global warming from exceeding the 1.5°C limit?
Does IPCC operate under the rules of science? Our paper – because of its strong conclusions – faced and passed extensive peer-review. IPCC seems to believe that it has been granted special powers and does not need to follow the scientific method.
Does IPCC explain the core issues in a transparent fashion, understandable to policymakers? However, IPCC’s method for projecting future GHG forcing – “integrated assessment models (IAMs)” that produce the RCP scenarios – are dark boxes. We must, and will, produce more transparent projections that are more clearly related to feasible policy choices.
https://jimehansen.substack.com/p/warning-this-colorful-chart-is-censored
2nd example: Runaway Climate: The Point of No Return
It was my own fault, a self-inflicted error, which I did not recognize until I began to question conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), specifically IPCC’s downplaying of the threat of sea level rise and shutdown of the overturning ocean circulation.
The danger of passing the point of no return is taboo with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the organization that we should expect to be most protective of the future of young people. This reticence of IPCC is a cause for concern, which deserves to be pointed out and vigorously debated. IPCC relies on models with millennial response times, even when driven by forcings that dwarf any experienced in Earth’s history.
The climate system’s delayed response provides time to take preventive actions, if the science is understood well enough to define effective policy actions.
https://jimehansen.substack.com/p/runaway-climate-the-point-of-no-return
3rd example July 23 – Beware Media Hype. It’s Not the El Nino!
James Hansen, Pushker Kharecha, Dylan Morgan and Jasen Vest
Beware the “surprise” record high being blamed on an extreme El Nino on top of global warming otherwise consistent with IPCC estimates. Instead, record warmth provides additional evidence of high climate sensitivity and increased net climate forcing in the past decade.
That result was almost foreordained by the IPCC approach to climate analysis, which places overwhelming emphasis on GCM (global climate model) simulations and interpretation of climate change in the past two centuries. IPCC reports implicitly involve GCM beauty contests, in which model simulations are compared with observed global temperature in the past 1-2 centuries.
Unfortunately, there was a fly in the ointment. IPCC’s overwhelming focus on GCMs and global warming of the past century resulted in one dominant constraint on the models: the need to obtain global warming of about the observed magnitude. However, there were two uncertain parameters: climate sensitivity and the unmeasured aerosol forcing.
several independent evaluations supporting climate sensitivity in the range 4-5°C for doubled CO2.[13] With such high climate sensitivity, the observed post-1970 warming rate implies the existence of a negative forcing stronger than assumed by IPCC et al.
https://jimehansen.substack.com/p/beware-media-hype-its-not-the-el
Conclusion: I think people who are now aware of the details, or who never read Hansen’s material, should be commenting about these matters until they have. Even then there’s no guarantee they have handle on what the issues are he raises and why. Or the ongoing ad hominem push back he and his team keep receiving from well known established climate scientists in the public domain who don’t know what he say either. Like Trenberth and Hausfather clearly do not by what they write.
KM, my comments are not subjective opinions. They are facts, as follows. Your assertions that Hansens critics gain professional and reputational advantage from IPCC climate modelling and the middle range projections, are evidence free and thus empty of value. Simply put they are mud slinging.
And I simply pointed out the fact that its possible to make the same assertions about Hanson. Whether he does or not doesnt interest me, that much. I look at the quality of scientific argument. You sling mud.
[ I’m unsure if my prior comment was processed correctly, the website locked up – apologies if this is a dbl up ]
RayL – I think it is a mistake to view the work of Hansen as antagonistic to the output of the IPCC.
This must be from someone who has NOT read Hansen’s commentary about his work compared to the IPCC. Hansen is clearly antagonistic about the IPCC the CMIP and what he considers their failures to address the evidence [ ie the published research papers and the Data] objectively, the known data, the actual physics, and the science correctly.
This is surely already beyond obvious even by a casual reader who doesn’t comprehend the detailed physics involved. He is criticizing the IPCC in almost every article he presents for several years.
And WHY would Policy Makers act on the watered-down version of climate science found in the IPCC summaries?. When not acting would be the most rational thing to do, if it isn’t so bad after all. THat is a ludicrous illogical defense of the IPCC – and in fact supports Hansen’s criticisms to the Hilt – which permeates all his work — the IPCC the scientists in it are NOT telling the truth about climate change and how dangerously out of control the impacts already are
From their substack: https://jimehansen.substack.com/
One example, extracts: Warning! This “Colorful Chart” is Censored by IPCC
How effective is IPCC? Is IPCC expected to be a source of scientific advice for the United Nations? If so, how is it that the Secretary General continues to assert that it is still feasible to keep global warming from exceeding the 1.5°C limit?
Does IPCC operate under the rules of science? Our paper – because of its strong conclusions – faced and passed extensive peer-review. IPCC seems to believe that it has been granted special powers and does not need to follow the scientific method.
Does IPCC explain the core issues in a transparent fashion, understandable to policymakers? However, IPCC’s method for projecting future GHG forcing – “integrated assessment models (IAMs)” that produce the RCP scenarios – are dark boxes. We must, and will, produce more transparent projections that are more clearly related to feasible policy choices.
https://jimehansen.substack.com/p/warning-this-colorful-chart-is-censored
2nd example: Runaway Climate: The Point of No Return
It was my own fault, a self-inflicted error, which I did not recognize until I began to question conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), specifically IPCC’s downplaying of the threat of sea level rise and shutdown of the overturning ocean circulation.
The danger of passing the point of no return is taboo with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the organization that we should expect to be most protective of the future of young people. This reticence of IPCC is a cause for concern, which deserves to be pointed out and vigorously debated. IPCC relies on models with millennial response times, even when driven by forcings that dwarf any experienced in Earth’s history.
The climate system’s delayed response provides time to take preventive actions, if the science is understood well enough to define effective policy actions.
https://jimehansen.substack.com/p/runaway-climate-the-point-of-no-return
3rd example July 23 – Beware Media Hype. It’s Not the El Nino!
James Hansen, Pushker Kharecha, Dylan Morgan and Jasen Vest
Beware the “surprise” record high being blamed on an extreme El Nino on top of global warming otherwise consistent with IPCC estimates. Instead, record warmth provides additional evidence of high climate sensitivity and increased net climate forcing in the past decade.
That result was almost foreordained by the IPCC approach to climate analysis, which places overwhelming emphasis on GCM (global climate model) simulations and interpretation of climate change in the past two centuries. IPCC reports implicitly involve GCM beauty contests, in which model simulations are compared with observed global temperature in the past 1-2 centuries.
Unfortunately, there was a fly in the ointment. IPCC’s overwhelming focus on GCMs and global warming of the past century resulted in one dominant constraint on the models: the need to obtain global warming of about the observed magnitude. However, there were two uncertain parameters: climate sensitivity and the unmeasured aerosol forcing.
several independent evaluations supporting climate sensitivity in the range 4-5°C for doubled CO2.[13] With such high climate sensitivity, the observed post-1970 warming rate implies the existence of a negative forcing stronger than assumed by IPCC et al.
https://jimehansen.substack.com/p/beware-media-hype-its-not-the-el
Conclusion: I think people who are now aware of the details, or who never read Hansen’s material, should be commenting about these matters until they have. Even then there’s no guarantee they have handle on what the issues are he raises and why. Or the ongoing ad hominem push back he and his team keep receiving from well known established climate scientists in the public domain who don’t know what he say either. Like Trenberth and Hausfather clearly do not by what they write.
People will hold to their positions of course. I can’t see me adding anything more is worth the effort. Apply your best judgment.
Nigelj, again you provided no facts only subjective opinion. Which I dismiss out of hand. The #1 comment is irrational. You have not provided one useful accurate fact. The rest is arrogant trolling laden with subjective opinionated judgments absent any factual basis or usefulness. You are a six gun mudslinger. That’s my scientific opinion. An everyday emotional troll on the internet, and not a very good one at that. I’ve zero interest in your and others inflammatory nonsense.
So, you disagree. That’s no big deal, it’s nothing. Most people either shout or surrender. I do neither. If you think my information is wrong, do better. By all means launch a logical argument!
KM: “And WHY would Policy Makers act on the watered-down version of climate science found in the IPCC summaries?. When not acting would be the most rational thing to do, if it isn’t so bad after all. THat is a ludicrous illogical defense of the IPCC – and in fact supports Hansen’s criticisms to the Hilt – which permeates all his work — the IPCC the scientists in it are NOT telling the truth about climate change and how dangerously out of control the impacts already are”
The IPCC worst case for sea level rise is 2 metres per century while Hansens is 3 metres per century. Given that governments and many of the peoples arent hugely alarmed by 2 metres enough to take rapid action, its hard to see why that would change at 3 metres. Its the same story for other projections.
I would have thought 2 or 3 metres is deeply concerning and demands action and obviously you are the same but clearly not everyone is.
And while the IPPCs views are frustratingly conservative they are also grounded in solid science and widely backed. Hansens projections push the limits of what’s feasible and make a lot of assumptions. You need people like that but if the IPPC adopted his projections it would be way easier for the denialists to attack his views, and that would also erode motivation for more robust mitigation. You are not taking that sufficiently into account. Science is conservative for some good reasons.
Rather than worrying too much how bad climate change could get or the precise value of climate sensitivity it may be better to acknowledge they are all bad and encourage solutions, such as renewables on the wider benefits so not just climate related, but sustainability, low cost., a solution to peak oil etc, etc. The same would apply to degrowth solutions.
Perhaps the forest fires in Europe will be a wake up call. They are very present as opposed to theoretical projections.
KM: the IPCC the scientists in it are NOT telling the truth about climate change
BPL: Says who? You?
The imputation of deliberate lying on the part of the IPCC is itself a lie. Stop bearing false witness, KM.
” … what is needed even more is a public and an electorate that is educated enough to understand the critical role of both.”
AGREED.
“It is a great deal easier to say that the other guy is wrong… than to find out what the real answer is. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.”
AGREED.
” … the fatal flaw in your characterization: you refer to the IPCC as a “consensus.”
AGREED.
S.B. Ripman to a Doomer troll: : “AGREED”. “AGREED”. “AGREED.”
Emphatically agreeing with the points of a troll, who wrote to …. agree with you, is kind of circular, don’t you think?
Wouldn’t it be intellectually more productive if you instead addressed the reply to you by somebody who helds a different viewpoint than you (here: Ray Ladbury), to see whose argument holds better – Ray’s or yours/doomer troll’s ?
That of course assuming that you are a real person asking questions to get other people perspective and test your opinions against those of others, and NOT just another puppet of the doomer troll, created to provide illusion of a support for his doomer’s production on this website.
I guess, the proof will be in the pudding – in your future posts.
S.B. Ripman
Thanks.
Best option is to ignore the Piotr. He’s always like this. Biased subjective thoughtless and raging all over the place. The loudest voices in this thread are the ones most afraid of silence. Because silence is where real questions live — and questions are the only thing that threaten their narratives.
We have nothing to learn from people who already ‘know with certainty’ I’m wrong about everything an have to rage about it. They aren’t real scientists. They’re political activists.
KM: “The loudest voices in this thread are the ones most afraid of silence. ”
That would have to include KM himself, given the huge volume of words KM has posted on this thread. And hes posted huge volumes of words on other threads, and also going back years using different names. And many of them are inflammatory. So very loud by any definition. The irony is priceless.
– S.B. Ripman to the troll “Kobayashi Maru” : “AGREED”. “AGREED”. “AGREED.”
– Piotr: Emphatically agreeing with the points of a troll, who wrote to …. agree with you, is kind of circular, don’t you think? Wouldn’t it be intellectually more productive if you instead you replied to somebody who holds a different viewpoint than you (here: Ray Ladbury) ?
– Maru: to S.B. Ripman “ Thanks. Best option is to ignore the Piotr.”
Grooming another supporter, Mr. Maru?
KM: Best option is to ignore the Piotr. He’s always like this.
BPL: He doesn’t suffer fools gladly, that’s for sure.
Most people either shout or surrender. I do neither. If you think my information is wrong, do better. By all means launch a logical argument! But it is obvious you have nothing substantive to say here. Another only here for tribal trolling and inflammatory nonsense.
Well have at it. It’s nothing to do with me, so I’ll just ignore you instead. How easy is that?
BPL: He doesn’t suffer fools gladly, that’s for sure.
Thanks, Barton. So were the people I admire – anti-totalitarian intellectuals, like Bulgakov or Polish poet, Zbigniew Herbert; or the fierce, unyielding intellects like Hitchens (toutes proportions gardées …).
And while I enjoying letting hot air out of the overinflated egos, there is also a more serious purpose to it – climate fools can be more consequential than ramblings of a garden variety ones – they help tyrannies like Russia, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iran to finance wars, terrorism and oppression of own people, and help them to promote apathy toward the existential threat to our civilization and 1000s of species posed by AGW:
– deniers by: “nothing to worry about”, “anything but carbon”
– doomers by: “too late, nothing can be done now, because its “all or nothing” (as if the world with 450ppm was as bad as one with 900 ppm).
So – a bit of fun and the public service at the same time
“the Piotr” ( thank you, Multi-troll, for “the” ;-) )
My recently published paper (in Discover Atmosphere, Springer Nature) reveals that El Nino events are expected to be more frequent. This also means that climatic extremes are expected be more intense and frequent as well
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s44292-026-00077-7
Nabil,
I’m getting a lot out of your paper. Very interesting. Looks significant assuming everything adds up cn be confirmed. I’ll ask a few questions in good time. Thanks for sharing it.
Hi Kobayashi Maru,
Thanks so much for the note! I’m glad you’re finding the paper interesting. Yes, the work does answer pressing questions. I’d welcome any questions or feedback whenever you’re ready.
Almost zero content from the Nabil Swedan paper. Like Willis Eschenbach’s recent “peer-reviewed” paper, it is a tunable back-solved analysis that uses data that is not independent from the measurement being interpreted. This is a troubling trend in this class of papers. May do a PubPeer takedown here.
PP: May do a PubPeer takedown here.
Please don’t. Do it on PubPeer and leave it there. Your regular commentary is painful enough Paul.
Especially when 1) you cannot explain your outlier theory 2) have zero data or analysis to support it. 3) are incapable of submitting a research paper for the first step of a peer-review process, let alone managing to get your “work” Published in either a tier-1 or a tier-10 pub.
The fact is Paul. If anyone was seeking insights into ENSO, you are the last port of call. Enough of your waffle which is equivalent to Piotr and a Tomas trolling / sea loin commentary here.
I’m interested in what Nabil Swedan says about his published research paper — not your handwaving. I have a number of questions to put when I can get around to it. Meanwhile, please do the world of science forums a favor through your silence. And have a lovely day.
Kobayashi Maru demands:
“Please don’t”
Too late anyways, but you aren’t the one to tell me what I can or cannot do with respect to PubPeer.
So if you are up to it and not a coward, take your support of the Nabil Swedan paper here:
https://pubpeer.com/publications/398D8BF9028B5861D1340E02AB7911
CFMIP participation is rapidly closing. Perhaps mid August if I read the home page. Perhaps early September if I read the registration page. Either way, soon.
The attribution of the recent energy imbalance trend is unsettled and I expect the panel blocks, open-floor question periods, and any attached workshops may teach a great deal. The first CMIP7 DECK diagnostics should be circulating by then (October.) It is the floor debates that instruct. Not settled outputs or summaries, which teach little or nothing at all. Hearing the objections and the resulting informed arguments is another matter entirely.
I can’t travel to Taipei but could follow some of CFMIP 2026 remotely, either by live stream or by recordings made available afterward. Either would serve equally; I’ve no need for promptness. Months of delay is fine. (I’m also willing to pay a full registration fee, if needed, and I’m hoping for venue mixer output and not the laptop microphone at the podium for audio.)
I am retired now but these kinds of arguments have been among my more valued experiences over my own working life. And I’m still trying to maintain a modest learning pace.
Anyone here know how this goal may be approached for the upcoming CFMIP 2026 in Taipai?
Just a follow-up on my comment about CFMIP 2026 in Taipei. Reading it back I feel it may have left the impression I’m looking more towards venues than is true. (That venue holds promise. Don’t get me wrong on that!) I’m less about venues per se and more about debate formats I sorely miss in retirement: sustained adversarial exchange on proposed hypotheses.
A good model example, if it helps, was a session at the 2014 AAAS annual meeting where Dr. Jennifer Francis presented on her ideas about the jet stream. But I can no longer travel, so I’m looking for long format; 90+ minutes and even hours, if it comes to that. And positions put into the fire of debate. That heat is where I learn. Fifteen-minute talks with three minutes of questions do not get me there.
An example from this site (makes me wistful) is Ringberg15. A week at Schloss Ringberg with folks from different lines of thought — presentations and moderated discussions. Nic Lewis and James Annan with Dessler, Forster, Gregory, Sherwood, Mauritsen, & Zelinka. The discussions are long gone, so far as I can tell, and are sorely missed. Slides, board photographs, and a report is available. But that isn’t how I learn from others. I learn by seeing *how* my betters think about the world. Not how they conclude.
(Gavin Schmidt ran Climate Sensitivity Week here while the workshop was underway [1]. And I believe there may have been a suggestion from Annan at the time that video conferencing may enable wider access without the travel.)
What had sparked my earlier comment was thinking about CFMIP 2026 and the first CMIP7 DECK diagnostics circulating around this autumn. I saw that CFMIP asked, during the Fast Track consultation, that the abrupt CO2 runs go to a minimum of 300 years rather than 150, reasoning past ECS quantification into the pattern effect and the temperature dependence of feedbacks. That request is now the DECK text in Dunne et al. I wrote immediately. But perhaps a little too quickly.
To add, then:
Has anything moved this last decade on Annan’s suggestion in 2015 to make wider video access happen? For example, Stevens convened a group at the same castle this March on hypotheses for the growing TOA imbalance. And I just can’t find anything exposing engaged debates that I believe took place.
That is the kind of thing to watch unfolding, hearing active minds engaged and thinking about the world, than left merely to read about it later as “conclusions sans process-getting-there.”
So, to broaden the earlier comment, is there anything between now and mid-2027 that is both long-form adversarial on climate sensitivity and open in some form I may reach as a viewer-only?
—
[1] G. Schmidt, “Climate Sensitivity Week,” RealClimate, 23 March 2015.
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2015/03/climate-sensitivity-week/
JK : It is the floor debates that instruct.
aka how consensus is arrived at. among small isolated pockets of players who get inside the room talk and decide – ie Vote on what is acceptable and what is not. Then the sausage factory does it’s work. A couple of years later the CMIP7 informs what’s included in the AR7 another consensus boondoggle of a few elite invitees.
Rinse repeat.
This is only one way to “spin it”. There are others. Zeke spins it very well. He’s one of the elite invitees. A professional corporatist with real “skin” in the game. ie owns a share of the corporation doing “paid work” in the field of “climate science marketing and projects”. call it what you will. Anyone can look this up for confirmation of what it is, or isn’t. Don’t believe me or dismiss me without looking first hand. Google / AI may well be “evil” but it still works, for now.
JK : It is the floor debates that instruct.
KM: aka how consensus is arrived at. among small isolated pockets of players who get inside the room talk and decide – ie Vote on what is acceptable and what is not. Then the sausage factory does it’s work. A couple of years later the CMIP7 informs what’s included in the AR7 another consensus boondoggle of a few elite invitees.
BPL: No, that is not how the scientific consensus works. It is NOT a vote. The scientific consensus arises when many lines of evidence all point to the same conclusion. No one ever took a vote on the heliocentric model, or the theory of evolution, or quantum mechanics.
Stop spreading misinformation.
So according to KM, Zeke has skin in the game. So does James Hansen, according to an AI:
“Although James Hansen does not hold any personal commercial stakes or equity investments in companies that profit from climate technologies, he does earn income from academic employment, book royalties, legal consulting, and speaking engagements tied directly to his work as a climate scientist. ”
So Hansen has skin in the game as well. Although its not on level of holding shares in a company, its definitely skin in the game. But people generally have to divulge financial interests if they become a conflict of interest. So I wouldn’t be worried too much about ether person.
Decisions in our society are often make by small groups experts, and this appears to trouble you (?).
Decisions are made by small groups of experts because they are the most qualified and it is efficient. You seem to propose wide public involvement in decision making processes, by having a vote on everything. That would make the whole IPPC process incredibly time consuming. It would grind to a halt. And with numerous unqualified people involved outcomes may be worse.
The problem with decisions made by small groups of experts is potential group think and dismissal of valid public concerns. We counter this with the democratic political system which means the most important decisions in society are made by governments and we can choose what parties are in government. There are sometimes public referendums for key issues. But you cant do that for everything, because you would need hundreds of referendums every day so its not practical. Our society would grind to a halt.
You appear to be concerned that Hansen isnt involved in the consensus decision making (?). But presumably theres nothing stopping him volunteering his time to be involved in the IPCC process. And his studies will be scrutinsed by the IPCC anyway.
You seem to be suggesting that small cabal of scientists like ZH and MM meet to decide “important things” (?) Wheres your evidence for that?
I think you may be reading too much into things. In any group of experts there will be like minded people and others on the fringes. It doesn’t necessarily mean those on the fringes are being deliberately excluded. or badly treated. I don’t see that you have shown Hansen is being deliberately excluded. The mainstream just don’t accept all of his views. And they are not obliged to. They may ultimately be proven wrong, and Hansen proven right, but people will disagree and you cant change that. Disagreement is not corruption of process.
A real world comparison of human and AI online support
Yesterday I signed up for an AI-Pro subscription to Google’s Gemini LLM. The cost in Norway is 259 NOK per month, which is also what I pay for my ChatGPT subscription.. 259 NOK is about $25. ChatGPT has been very useful, and now I want to compare the two systems.
Like ChatGPT, Gemini can run as a web app in my Safari or Chrome browser, or as a standalone native app in macOS. I downloaded and installed the native macOS app, started the app, and logged in. I had already bought the subscription at google.com. I wanted to be sure I was getting the AI-Pro subscription I had paid for, so I searched through all the settings of the app to find account details. It wasn’t there.
I then asked Gemini how I could find my account details, but I didn’t explain why. Gemini told me how I could do it in the web Gemini in my browser.. Gemini said that the native macOS app had been stripped of all nonessential functionality to make it as efficient as possible.
So I logged in to Gemini in my browser and found the account details using the instructions that the native Gemini had provided. In the browser, Gemini was indeed giving me the service I had paid for. But that didn’t prove the native Gemini app was providing the same level of service. They are separate processes.
So, since I was already logged in to Google in the browser, I opened a realtime help chat with the Gemini support team. It appeared at first that I was connected with a real person. By then I had used the native Gemini app for about an hour, and I had the suspicion that it was using the free Google AI level of Gemini, which I had been using quite a lot. I explained to the help guy that I wanted to verify that my native Gemini app running on magOS was giving me the AI-Pro level of service that I had just paid for. I explained that the account details are nowhere to be found in the native Gemini app.
The help guy said “Thank you for using Google products. How can I help you?” So I cut and paste the explanation I had already entered. He said, “Let’s see if we can figure this out. Can you send me a screenshot of the issue?”
I said, “I can’t send you a screenshot of the issue, because the issue is it is not on the screen.”
He said, “I understand, but I really need you to send me a screenshot of the issue.”
I said, “No, you don’t understand. I can’t send a screenshot of the issue because the issue is not on the screen.”
He asked for a screenshot again. I said, “Are you a real person, or are you AI?”
There was a long pause. Then he said, “I am a real person.”
So I made a screenshot of the Gemini app window and sent it to him. After another pause, he said, “Thank you for sending that screenshot.” I knew that he knew that the screenshot was useless. He then read me the exact same instructions the Gemini app had given me earlier for viewing my account details in the Gemini web app. I explained I had already done that, and the web app is indeed using the correct subscription level, but that gives me little confidence that the native app is using the same level of service because it appears that the native app is NOT giving me that level of service.
The pause went on too long, so I terminated the help session and di what I should have done in the first place. I went back to the native Gemini app and explained to Gemini why I wanted to see my account details in the app. Gemini said, almost without hesitation, “There are two ways you can verify that the app is giving you the correct level of service…”
Long story short, it instructed me to look at the right end of the box where I enter the text. There I would find the name of the AI model being used. I was to click on that name and see the list of all the models that were available to me. I did that and saw that it was currently using the version 3.5 of the Flash model, which is a step above the free service model, but way below the Pro model. I also saw that version 3.1 of the Pro model was available to me.
I reported this to Gemini and Gemini said, “That proves you are getting the AI-Pro service you paid for.”
It took all of 30 seconds to get my answer. I asked Gemini why the support guy didn’t tell me to look there. Gemini explained that the support guys are trained to follow a script and to stick with the script no matter what.
I told Gemini I had asked the support guy if he was a real person or AI. Gemini sympathized and said, “It’s ironic, isn’t it?”