The Crisis Report - 51
Unclothing the Emperor : Understanding “What’s Wrong” with our Climate Paradigm. In order to understand “Why” things are happening “FASTER than Expected”.
SO.
Our world is literally “melting away” in a rising tide of HEAT.
The disconnect between what we are all seeing/feeling/experiencing “first-hand” and what the “Speakers” for Climate Science are saying has become noticeable. Global temperatures soared to a new record in September by a huge margin.
Climate Scientists, the one’s who are supposed to have an explanation. Well this is what they had to say.
Zeke Hausfather described it as “absolutely gobsmackingly bananas”.
Mika Rantanen, climate researcher at the Finnish Meteorological Institute, said: “I’m still struggling to comprehend how a single year can jump so much compared to previous years.”
Prof Ed Hawkins, at the University of Reading, UK, said the heat seen this summer was “extraordinary”.
Samantha Burgess, at the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, said: “The unprecedented temperatures for the time of year observed in September have broken records by an extraordinary amount”.
In Australia, climate scientist and author Joelle Gergis said: “Observations of Australia’s climate in September are shocking”.
THIS ISN’T SUPPOSED TO BE HAPPENING.
Just one month earlier in August, the Guardian asked 45 leading climate scientists from around the world about the record-breaking temperatures of the Summer.
As a group they said that,
“despite it certainly feeling as if events have taken an alarming turn, the broad global heating trend seen to date was entirely in line with three decades of scientific predictions”
Then we had THE HOTTEST SEPTEMBER IN RECORDED HISTORY.
Climate Scientists were, “shocked”, “struggling”, and “gobsmacked” by this.
THIS ISN’T SUPPOSED TO BE HAPPENING. The RATE of WARMING isn’t supposed to ACCELERATE.
Remember this chart, from my article of May 2022.
The UN has confirmed that we are about to get a massive temperature spike.
THEY ARE FORECASTING 0.4C OF WARMING IN JUST 4 YEARS! Almost half a degree of warming in just 4 years!
Here’s a chart by Zeke Hausfather, the climate research lead at Stripe and a research scientist at Berkeley Earth. He is a MAJOR voice among the “Climate Moderates” like Michael Mann, Hannah Ritchie, and Christiana Figueres. The “Doomism is WORSE than Denial”, Hopium Crowd.
Zeke Hausfather says, Global Warming has ACCELERATED.
Zeke Hausfather wrote this on October 13th for the NYT.
I Study Climate Change. The Data Is Telling Us Something New.
“While natural weather patterns, including a growing El Niño event, are playing an important role, the record global temperatures we have experienced this year could not have occurred without the approximately 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming to date from human sources of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions.”
“While many experts have been cautious about acknowledging it, there is increasing evidence that global warming has accelerated over the past 15 years rather than continued at a gradual, steady pace. That acceleration means that the effects of climate change we are already seeing — extreme heat waves, wildfires, rainfall and sea level rise — will only grow more severe in the coming years.”
“I don’t make this claim lightly. Among my colleagues in climate science, there are sharp divisions on this question, and some aren’t convinced it’s happening.”
“Climate scientists generally focus on longer-term changes over decades rather than year-to-year variability, and some of my peers in the field have expressed concerns about overinterpreting short-term events like the extremes we’ve seen this year.”
“In the past I doubted acceleration was happening, in part because of a long debate about whether global warming had paused from 1998 to 2012. In hindsight, that was clearly not the case.”
THE “DEBATE” IS OVER.
It’s a signal that the “Climate Paradigm” of the Moderates is “broken”.
It’s a signal that “The Alarmists”, are right.
Global Warming is Accelerating. Why? Will We Fly Blind?”
The world is getting hotter faster, say Dr. James Hansen and his team. Sept 2023
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“Extraordinary Claims” require “Extraordinary Proof”.
I am aware that many of you will reject any challenge to “the scientific consensus” as “crank analysis”. In my case, by a “non-scientist”. That’s fine, I’m not writing for you. You can stop here and “go away”.
I don’t care what you think. I’m not writing to “convince” you.
BECAUSE THE DEBATE IS OVER.
I’m writing this to explain “why” this warming is happening “faster than expected”. For those who want to know and understand what’s going on and how BAD it/s going to be.
Because, “REALITY” has caught up to us. Our “Emperor” has “no clothes”, and very soon, everyone will know it.
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ALLIGATORS IN THE ARCTIC
The narrative explaining the “hole in the heart” of our current Climate Paradigm starts with paleontology.
During the 90’s, paleontologists exploring the High Arctic (above 60N) found fossils of alligators and palm trees in Alaska. These fossils are clustered between 55–53mya in a period known as the PETM or “Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum”.
55 million years ago, during the PETM, the High Arctic was a lot like Miami, with an average temperature of 74F degrees. Alligator ancestors and palm trees lived in Alaska on the shores of an Arctic Ocean, that NEVER froze. Even in Winter.
How giant tortoises, alligators thrived in High Arctic 50 million years ago.
— Science News Aug, 2010
During the Early Eocene, Ellesmere Island, which is adjacent to Northern Greenland, probably was similar to swampy cypress forests in the southeastern United States today. Eocene fossil evidence collected there in recent decades by various teams indicate the lush landscape hosted giant tortoises, aquatic turtles, large snakes, alligators, flying lemurs, tapirs, and hippo-like and rhino-like mammals.
These are “indisputable” FACTS.
These facts are built on “actual” fossils dug-up out of the ground, by paleontologists, over decades of research. They are not in dispute by anyone with a shred of scientific credibility because paleontology is a “hard science”. The evidence is literally “carved in stone”.
Alligators lived around an “ice free” Arctic Ocean 55mya that had a climate like modern day Miami, that’s a “hard fact”.
This is a HUGE problem for the current Climate Paradigm. Because there is NO WAY to explain it using the current Climate Models.
“Climate Science” has known about this “problem” since 1998.
Latitudinal temperature gradients and climate change
JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 103, NO. D6, PAGES 5943–5971, MARCH 27, 1998 by David Rind NASA\GISS
Here’s WHY this is a problem for the current Climate Science “orthodoxy”.
In order for these fossils to exist, the High Arctic would have to have been about +35C warmer than our 1850 baseline.
How HOT does the Earth have to get, in order to warm up the Arctic by +35C?
How is that even possible?
In 1998, this was regarded as a “life or death” question. The VERY first sentence of this paper asks.
“How variable is the latitudinal temperature gradient with climate change?”
Then goes on to tell us that;
“This question is second in importance only to the question of overall climate sensitivity”
“Our current inability to answer it affects everything from understanding past climate variations, and paleoclimate proxies, to projections of regional effects of future greenhouse warming [Rind, 1995].”
WE ALL NEED TO BE REALLY CLEAR ABOUT THIS.
This paper is the “smoking gun” evidence that our current understanding of the Climate System is “deeply flawed” and “morally corrupt”. This paper is at the heart of “the lie” in our current Climate Paradigm.
Because, it’s REALLY about “Climate Sensitivity”.
It’s really, about how much we think the Earth will warm up if we DOUBLE the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.
The “science” of CLIMATE SENSITIVITY is a LOT less certain than most people understand.
Here’s what our best models indicated as of September 2020.
+2.3–+4.5C — 95%
+2.6–+3.9C — 66%
+2.0–+5.7C — 05%
An Assessment of Earth’s Climate Sensitivity Using Multiple Lines of Evidence
Which states: that at atmospheric CO2 levels of 560ppm, there is a;
95% chance that the GMT will increase at least +2.3C and possibly as much as +4.5C
66% chance that the GMT increase will be between +2.6C and +3.9C
>05% chance that the GMT could increase as much as +5.7C.
This is the range of answers after 60 YEARS of effort at modeling the future “near term” climate.
Narrowing the “most likely” response down to a 66% chance that it will be between +2.6C and +3.9C JUST happened in 2020. It was hailed as a HUGE advance.
“Constraining Earth’s Climate Sensitivity (ECS) has remained a holy grail in climate science ever since U.S. meteorologist Jules Charney suggested a possible range of 1.5C to 4.5C in his 1979 report.”
“His estimate was largely based on the world’s first two global climate models, which gave different estimates of 2C and 4C when they performed a simple experiment where atmospheric CO2 levels were doubled”.
“Since then, despite more than 40 years of research, much improved understanding of atmospheric processes, as well as many more detailed observations, this range has stubbornly persisted”.
‘Now, bringing together evidence from observed warming, Earth’s distant past and climate models, as well as advances in our scientific understanding of the climate. After four years of labor and detailed discussions by an international team of scientists, we are able to quantify better than ever before how the world’s surface temperature responds to increasing CO2 levels”.
“Our findings suggest that the range of ECS is “likely” (66%) to be between +2.6C and +4.1C.”
Why low-end ‘climate sensitivity’ can now be ruled out.
Only ONE of these answers implies a “Climate Sensitivity” to CO2 that’s HIGH enough to account for the PETM fossils.
It’s not in the “likely” range.
SO.
In 1998, David Rind of NASA/GISS understood the implications of the fossil evidence. Alligators had lived in an “ice free” High Arctic 55mya and palm trees had grown in Northern Alaska. The fossil evidence was clear, and it cast serious doubts on the “Paradigm” of the Climate Science Moderates.
Because there was NO WAY that was possible using their models.
Those fossils indicated that the Arctic had been over +30C warmer during this period, and that the Arctic Ocean was “ice free” all year round.
The world wasn’t different enough 55 million years ago to make that kind of warming possible.
Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Europe, Siberia were all in their current locations and the Arctic Ocean basin had formed. The Solar constant, which gradually increases over time, was actually slightly LOWER then. So, LESS ENERGY would have been powering the Climate System during this period.
The High Arctic, should not have been able to WARM UP that much, based on our understanding of the Climate System in 1998.
So, either our understanding of the paleoclimate history had to be incomplete. Or, our understanding of the Climate System had to be deeply flawed.
That’s what led to this paper.
Latitudinal temperature gradients and climate change.
JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 103, NO. D6, PAGES 5943–5971, MARCH 27, 1998 by David Rind NASA\GISS
Which, despite it’s innocuous title, represents a MAJOR effort in terms of Global Climate Model (GCM) computer runs and pulling together the available “science” at that time. This is NOT a trivial paper.
This paper is Rind, articulating the “Climate Science Orthodoxy” response to the “Arctic Fossil” problem.
Here are Rind’s thoughts from 1998 after using the best Climate Models of the time to simulate a variety of paleoclimate conditions.
“What do these (climate model) results imply about potential impacts of future climate change?”
“Again, one would have to overlay the climate change itself on any latitudinal temperature gradient change, recognizing that some of the latitudinal gradient effects may be overwhelmed”.
“The doubled CO2 simulation reported here (280ppm to 560ppm) showed little gradient change on the annual average at most latitudes”.
Rind then asks,
“Can we use the results from the paleoclimate analysis to suggest what is likely with increasing CO2?”
“The precise relevance of past to future climates has been extensively discussed [e.g., Webb and Wigley,1985; Mitchell, 1990; Crowley, 1990; Rind, 1993]; difficulties include the rapid nature of the projected future climate change, the different current climate background (land ice, continental configuration, ocean circulation), and questions concerning appropriate paleoclimate forcing.r
Given these ambiguities, any conclusion as to the effects of increased CO2 on the future latitudinal temperature gradient based on paleoclimates must be highly speculative.
This is an EXTREMELY important statement and it’s easy to miss the significance of it.
This is a statement by NASA/GISS to the Climate Modeling “community”, that the use of paleoclimate data in assessing “the effects of increased CO2 on future” warming, would be regarded as “highly speculative”.
Rind is basically saying that paleoclimate and fossil evidence should not be considered in the Climate Models and even as part of Climate Science itself.
His argument is involved and has some merit. Because of plate tectonics the surface of the earth has changed greatly over time. These changes make it difficult to assess how much the temperature of the planet was affected by the CO2 level and how much it was affected by these other influences.
However, in the case of the PETM fossils this argument doesn’t really hold up. The earth wasn’t that different 55mya.
Rind is choosing to disregard the fossil evidence and HOPE that “future studies” will resolve the problem.
An obvious goal (of future studies) would be to clarify gradient changes by improving the quality and geographic distribution of paleoclimate observations and the representation of physical processes, particularly convection, sea ice, and ocean circulation, in GCMs for future prediction.
“If we knew what to expect, it might be possible to infer changes in the latitudinal temperature gradient from observations already available.”
WHAT WAS THE PROBLEM WITH THESE FOSSILS?
What do they imply about “Climate Sensitivity” that was so harmful to the Moderate Climate Paradigm, that “paleoclimate” research was “cast out” of the “Scientific Consensus” aka “Climate Science Orthodoxy”.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
UNDERSTANDING CLIMATE SENSITIVITY
Climate sensitivity is a measure of how much Earth’s surface will cool or warm after a specified factor causes a change in its climate system, such as how much it will warm from a doubling in the atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration.
— Wikipedia
Climate sensitivity is typically defined as the global temperature rise following a doubling of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere compared to pre-industrial levels. Pre-industrial CO2 was about 260 parts per million (ppm), so a doubling would be at roughly 520 ppm.
— MET Office UK
Now, to review, what do our “best” models say about this?
An Assessment of Earth’s Climate Sensitivity Using Multiple Lines of Evidence
+2.3 — +4.5C — 95%
+2.6 — +3.9C — 66%
+2.0 — +5.7C — 05%
Which states: that at atmospheric CO2 levels of 560ppm, there is a;
95% chance that the GMT will increase at least +2.3C and possibly as much as +4.5C
66% chance that the GMT increase will be between +2.6C and +3.9C
05% chance that the GMT could increase as much as +5.7C.
This is the range of answers after 60 YEARS of effort at modeling the future “near term” climate.
Narrowing the “most likely” response down to 66% chance that it will be between +2.6C and +3.9C just happened in 2020. It was hailed as a HUGE advance.
“Constraining ECS has remained a holy grail in climate science ever since U.S. meteorologist Jules Charney suggested a possible range of 1.5C to 4.5C in his 1979 report.
“Since then, despite more than 40 years of research, much improved understanding of atmospheric processes, as well as many more detailed observations, this range has stubbornly persisted”.
“Our findings suggest that the range of ECS is “likely” (66%) to be between +2.6C and +4.1C.”
Why low-end ‘climate sensitivity’ can now be ruled out.
Can you see what’s WRONG here?
If doubling the CO2 level from 280ppm to 560ppm warms the Earth by only +2C, the amount that the Moderates proposed for the Climate Sensitivity in 1998.
Then warming the Earth another +14C would require, AT A MINIMUM, another +1,960ppm of atmospheric CO2. Or, a CO2 level of about 2,520ppm. Which is already 520ppm OVER the 2,000ppm the paleoclimate research indicates is the HIGHEST the CO2 level has gotten in the last 500my.
It gets worse for the Moderates. Because the Climate System Response to increasing CO2 levels is believed to “fall off sharply” as those levels increase.
Going from 180ppm to 280ppm caused +6C of warming.
The Moderates argued that going from 280ppm to 560ppm would only cause +2C of further warming. IE, that the Climate System Response to increasing levels of CO2, RAPIDLY DECLINES as CO2 levels increase.
Using the Moderate estimates for Climate Sensitivity and Climate System Response meant that to warm the Earth by the +16C Rind estimated it would take to warm the High Arctic by +30C, would require a CO2 level of around 20,000ppm.
A number that still comes up among Deniers and Resistors as the “highest CO2 levels have gotten”. With the implied idea that current levels are so low, we have nothing to worry about.
In 1998, this wasn’t a problem for Rind and the Moderates. Other than the ice cores, we didn’t KNOW much about the paleoclimate record in terms of temperature and CO2 levels.
We didn’t know “the HIGHEST” level the CO2 concentration had ever reached in the last 500my. (About 2,000ppm)
We had just mapped out the CO2 concentrations over time in the ice cores. For the first time we could see that CO2 levels for the past 800,000 years had fluctuated between 180ppm and 280ppm. But, we didn’t know if this was the bottom of the range for CO2 or somewhere in the middle of possible values.
In 1998 we didn’t know what “the lowest” level of CO2 in the Earth’s climate history for the last 500my was. (About 180ppm)
NOW WE KNOW.
For the last 500my the atmospheric CO2 level has NEVER gone:
Below 180ppm.
Above 2,000ppm.
When alligators lived in the Arctic, the atmospheric CO2 level was about 1,600ppm and the Earth’s temperature was +15C to +20C hotter than our 1850 baseline.
Rind was right to want to toss out the fossil data, he understood its implications.
Because there is NO WAY that the Climate Sensitivity estimates our BEST models are using, can produce those results.
In the paleoclimate record a CO2 level of 560ppm indicates +6C of warming from the 1850 baseline.
Our current “worst case” model, says “>05% chance of +5.7C of warming at 560ppm”
It was added to the pool of models for the 1st time in the 2020 report and only after a BIG fight.
It’s seen as “unrealistically Alarmist”.
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End: PART ONE
We need to be REALLY CLEAR about what’s happening now. You are going to hear a LOT of propaganda, disinformation, and misinformation about what’s happening with the Climate System.
NO ONE wants to admit “we were wrong”.
NO ONE wants to admit COLLAPSE has started.
NO ONE wants to admit we are about to have a Climate Apocalypse.
SOON, they will have to. REALITY is coming for us, FAST.
This is my analysis.
This is what I see.
This is my “Crisis Report”.
-rc 11052023
So very glad to see you back. I and my husband have missed reading your analyses.
Glad to see that the Crisis Report has returned. Regarding the graph showing that the rate of warming is accelerating reminded me that many people think that acceleration of climate measurements is linear. This graph from Berkeley is exponential - and much scarier than linear acceleration. And more and more climate measurements seem to be exponential rather than linear.