Climate Change - A Reality Check

Twenty years ago most of us were skeptical about climate change and even more so about it being caused by carbon dioxide in the air. How did we come to believe atmospheric carbon dioxide is causing climate change? A few climate scientists had been advocating that for decades but were largely ignored until the data from the Greenland and Antarctic ice cores was published in the early 1990s. Many climate scientists jumped on board. Al Gore championed it with his 2006 book An Inconvenient Truth and speaking tour. The media covered it and politicians soon followed.

Still, the climate didn’t seem to be changing in a big way, many people weren’t convinced. Now the climate really does appear to be changing so we’ve accepted that carbon dioxide is the cause. Twenty years ago, there was no on-line shopping and no social media. That’s come a long way in a short time. Climate science has come a long way since the 1990s too. It’s time for a fresh look at climate change.

We assume earth’s climate has been stable for a long time, probably since the last great ice age began to melt 20,000 years ago – it’s not true.

11,500 years ago earth’s temperature shot upward after a final, frigid 1,200 year plunge to ice age temperatures. Carbon dioxide followed upward from 240 to 260 parts per million (ppm)

10,000 years ago the world was hotter than it is today and stayed hotter for the next 4,000 years. Carbon dioxide stayed at 260 ppm.

6,000 years ago the temperature dropped to the range that we have today and again stayed that way for the next 4,000 years. Carbon dioxide rose to 280 ppm.

2,000 years ago the temperature began a slow decline to the start of the Little Ice Age 550 years ago. Carbon dioxide levels didn’t change.

200 years ago the temperature and carbon dioxide began to rise. This time, carbon dioxide shot upward while temperature was crept.

Earth’s climate is always changing, usually creeping invisibly in our perspective of time, but always on the move in geological time. Accurate climate history now goes back 500 million years as shown in this graph. For most of the last 150 million years global temperatures were much hotter than today. The Arctic, Greenland and Antarctica were ice free most of the time. Temperature and carbon dioxide were completely independent from each other showing carbon dioxide does not cause temperature change

How did we come to believe carbon dioxide is causing climate change? The idea was proposed in 1895 but gained little traction until the late 1980s when graphs of the Greenland and Antarctic ice core data became available. Preliminary analysis suggested carbon dioxide and temperature usually changed together. Up to that time climate scientists couldn’t figure out what was causing climate change. The data looked suggestive, climate scientists jumped on board. Yet no one was concerned that Ice Ages are a time of extreme climate with half of the northern hemisphere, one third of earth’s total land mass, completely frozen.

There are two problems with the mathematics of that assumption. The first is that when two lines on a graph appear move together (or opposite each other) it is a correlation and a correlation is only a suggestion that there may be a relationship. Mistaking a correlation as proof of a relationship is called the Correlation Fallacy, a fundamental mistake. Unfortunately many in the scientific community made that fundamental mistake. Former United States Vice President Al Gore compounded the mistake by advocating carbon dioxide as the cause of climate change in his speaking tour and book, An Inconvenient Truth (2006). Wide spread skepticism swung to public acceptance. An internet search of Correlation Fallacy will provide the explanation by qualified presenters.

The second contradiction is that the leading (independent) variable must always cause the following (dependent) variable to change in the same direction and same proportion as the amount of change in the independent variable. For carbon dioxide to cause temperature change, it must always cause the temperature to change in the same direction and by the same proportion to the change in carbon dioxide. There are points in the book’s graph where temperature changes in the opposite direction and many times when it does not change by the same proportion as the change in carbon dioxide. Each of these contradictions is fatal to carbon dioxide causing climate change.

This snippet from An Inconvenient Truth (2006) shows an example of carbon dioxide rising proportionally more than temperature on the left and then falling while temperature is rising on the right over a 30,000 year period about 500,000 years ago.

Detailed analysis of the ice core data by climate scientists has found that it is temperature that leads carbon dioxide. Dr. Florides summarized a data analysis project saying: “Temperature rises first, followed by an increase in atmospheric CO2.” Global Warming and Carbon Dioxide Through Sciences, Research Gate: DOI: 10.1126/science.1078758

Stated more precisely, Dr. Caillon’s data analysis found that temperature lead carbon dioxide saying: “CO2 increase lagged Antarctic deglacial warming (temperature) by 800 +/- 200 years”. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12637743/

Many climate scientists no longer believe carbon dioxide causes climate change. Dr. James Lovelock, a highly respected scientist, early carbon dioxide advocate and author of The Revenge of Gaia (2006) did something in 2014 scientists rarely do. He said it was a mistake to say carbon dioxide controls temperature. “We're no longer in a position to say that just because carbon dioxide rises … the temperature will rise likewise.” How could Dr. Lovelock and so many climate scientists have gotten it wrong? Dr. Lovelock said “We were carried away by the (correlation) between the ice cores of Antarctica.”

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/no-longer-the-darling-of-the-green-movement-lovelock-explains-himself/article19571394 (Nelles interview, July 11, 2014)

During the Jurassic Period when dinosaurs roamed the earth, carbon dioxide levels were four to seven times higher than today. The fossil records show that dinosaurs thrived. Plants thrived. Coral, clams and shell fish also thrived. The oceans did not become acidic because of higher temperatures and the much higher levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Chemistry and the Carbon Cycle say the oceans cannot become acidic.

Carbon dioxide and the other greenhouse gases do heat the atmosphere but are only half of the atmospheric heating equation. They are what gets warmed. How they get warmed is by a process called radiative forcing. The short explanation is that some of the sun’s energy is reflected from the earth’s surface heating carbon dioxide and the other greenhouse gases. Beyond this point, the process is immensely complex and therefore subject to a wide margin of error.

It is interesting to note that there are three types of greenhouse gases: those that cool the air, those that heat the air and water which does both. As cloud, water blocks incoming solar irradiation. As humidity, water holds heat. During the polar night humidity is as low as 200 ppm. There is 20 to 80 times more humidity in the air than all of the other greenhouses put together. Without humidity, the rest of the greenhouse gases are only 500 molecules in a million molecules of air. Physics say 500 molecules can’t significantly heat the other 999,500 molecules. More about radiative forcing is available in the Reality Check version of this article.

Is runaway, catastrophic global heating really in our future? Graphs by climate scientists at Berkeley Earth show that while atmospheric temperatures have risen 2 degrees C since 1830 CE, the upper level ocean temperature has only risen 1 degree C. The vast, deeper ocean has remained a constant 4 degrees C (39 F). The United Nations (un.org) says: “The ocean … captures 90 percent of the excess heat generated by (greenhouse gas) emissions.” Dr. Lovelock said: “The ocean’s heat capacity is about 1,000 times greater than that of the land and atmosphere”.

The world has been as warmer or warmer than today for the last 10,000 years except for the 350 year long Little Ice Age which ended 200 years ago. With today’s temperatures still below earth’s 10,000 year average, why is anyone concerned about the temperature rise from the end of the Little Ice Age 200 years ago? Further gradual global warming may happen and is even likely but the evidence shows that catastrophic global warming is highly unlikely. .

Graph by Dr. B. Vinther, University of Denmark : 12,000 years of data from 6 Greenland ice cores. The low point at the right side shows the Little Ice followed by the climb to today’s temperatures.

Nature has been changing the climate since the world began without any help from mankind’s greenhouse gases. How does it do that? One way is a theory developed a century ago by ground breaking structural engineer turned astrophysicist Milutin Milankovitch.

Dr. Milankovitch formulated three theories:

Orbital Eccentricity: Earth’s orbit around the sun changes from round (warmer) to oval (cooler) in 100,000 year cycles. Earth is in the warming phase.

Axial Obliquity: How far the earth tilts toward and away from the sun between summer and winter varies in 41,000 year cycles. Earth is in the warming phase.

Axial Precession: The earth also leans like a wobbling top as it tilts toward and away from the sun in a 26,000 year circle. It’s currently warming the southern hemisphere more in its summer than the northern hemisphere in its summer. It’s about to reverse and give more summer warmth to the northern hemisphere.

Highly accurate technology and computing power have confirmed Dr. Milankovic’s theories. Climate scientists have noticed a loose correlation between cooling alignments and the ice ages of the last two and a half million years. Research is investigating how much these three factors can heat and cool earth’s climate. Yet the Milankovic Cycles have been in motion for hundreds of millions, if not billions, of years. Why has earth’s climate been so much cooler for the last two and a half million years?

Recent astrophysics research found that a star of the Cassiopeia Constellation passed close enough to our solar system 2.8 million years ago to disturb the orbits of our giant outer planets. Their orbital wobbles in turn disturbed earth’s orbit and occurred shortly before the start of the current progression of ice ages and interglacial warm periods (including the one we live in). Did earth’s orbit return to its pre-Cassiopea fly-pass pattern or has its orbit been permanently affected?

Another interesting relationship is the correlation between climate change and the movement of earth’s magnetic north pole. In 200 AD (red dot upper left) earth’s magnetic north pole was located on the coast of Siberia. The middle east was referred to as The Fertile Crescent, then a green and temperate region. By 750 AD the magnetic north pole had moved to the northern tip of Canada’s Baffin Island. The middle east had become hotter and dryer. In 1,000 AD the magnetic north pole was at the geographic north pole. Europe and some other parts of the world were experiencing the Medieval Warm. By 1,500 the magnetic north pole was in the Arctic Ocean slowly migrating to Canada’s northern coast. The Little Ice Age had begun. The magnetic north pole stayed near Canada’s north shore until fifty years ago when it began to move rapidly north and west toward Siberia. Now it’s closer to Siberia than Canada again and the world is warming.

Researchgate.net, Public Domain Each dot represents a 50 yr. progression.

Is this correlation between climate change and pole movement just a coincidence or is it suggesting a real possibility ? “Analysis of the movement of the Earth's magnetic poles over the last 105 years demonstrates strong correlations between the position of the north magnetic, and geomagnetic poles, and both northern hemisphere and global temperatures. Although these correlations are surprising, a statistical analysis shows there is a less than one percent chance they are random …” (A. K. Kerton, 2009)

While it is highly likely that the movement of earth’s magnetic poles are contributing to climate change, how is that possible since air is not attracted to magnetism? Recent research found that the movement of earth’s magnetic poles is causing gravity waves which affect earth’s very high altitude magnetic radiation shield. That in turn affects air currents in the earth’s upper atmosphere. Other researchers found that changes to the magnetic radiation shield affected lower levels of the atmosphere which is where a lot of our weather happens.

Could the movement of earth’s magnetic poles be affecting air and ocean currents another way? Curiously, while water is attracted to static electricity, water is diamagnetic - repelled by magnetism. Could the higher density of water in atmospheric rivers and hurricanes be enough for them to be affected by the movement of earth’s magnetic poles? Could the differences in density due to temperature layers and salinity concentrations be enough to affect ocean currents? And if so, to what extent?

Yet if everything currently known about climate change conspired to reach its maximum cold phase at the same time, it still wouldn’t be cold enough to explain the abrupt 1,200 year long plunge back to the near ice age temperatures during the Younger Dryas (12,700 to 11,500 years ago). What caused that abrupt plunge and equally fast recovery? Could it happen again? The simplest explanation is the sun. We’ve always been told the sun’s strength doesn’t change. It might be time to rethink that.

It’s been known for centuries that the sun’s north and south poles reverse like clockwork every eleven years. When they reverse there is a sharp rise in sun spot (solar storm) activity as shown in the even march of the blue spikes. The black line shows the moving average number of sun spots. During the Maunder Minimum it flat-lined which coincided with the coldest part of the Little Ice Age. The Dalton Minimum also had significantly fewer sun spots and was the last cold phase of the Little Ice Age. Is the drop in temperature and sun spots a coincidence ?

“The correlation between the sun’s strength and temperature for 660 years indicates a 98% probability that the Little Ice Age was caused by variations in the sun’s strength. If the period is limited to 1650 to 1890, the probability increases to 99.99%.” (Dr. W.K. Schmutz)

Carbon dioxide advocates would have us believe we are approaching catastrophic levels of carbon dioxide in the air yet during the Jurassic Period carbon dioxide levels were four to seven times higher than today. The fossil records show that dinosaurs thrived. Plants thrived. Coral, clams and shell fish also thrived. The oceans did not become acidic because of higher temperatures and the much higher levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Carbon dioxide is for plants what oxygen is for us. When carbon dioxide levels during the ice ages plunged to 180 parts per million (ppm) it was starvation level for plants. The carbon dioxide Death Zone for plants is 150 ppm. Plants thrive in higher levels of carbon dioxide. Their ideal level is four times higher than today’s so-called catastrophic level of 420 ppm. Many greenhouses operate at levels carbon dioxide two to three times higher than 420 ppm. Workers do not require special breathing apparatus to work those enriched carbon dioxide environments. (OSHA’s Permissible Exposure Limit (PEL) is 5,000 ppm CO2 over an 8-hour work day.)

Rising levels of carbon dioxide make plants more productive which is helping feed our ever increasing global population. We also benefit by more productive plants producing more oxygen. “From a quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands have shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide.”

https://www.nasa.gov/technology/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth-study-finds/

How likely is it that global CO2 levels will be reduced? Earth’s roughly 1,700 active volcanoes supply about 50% of the world’s annual carbon dioxide input. Of the contributions by major nations, India has said it will not be able to achieve its carbon emission targets until 2070. India needs a lot more electrical power for its billion plus people. Clean power is expensive, more coal plants and their emissions are India’s reality. Until recently, the U.S. had spoken volumes by its silence on decommissioning coal power plants. The U.S. may not build more coal plants but neither are they hurrying to decommission any either. The recently announced G7 treaty commitment to install emission scrubbers by 2034 may or may not happen in the United States.

According to the International Energy Agency, China burns over half of the world’s coal. A New York Times International article April 7th, 2024 raised that level to 66% of the coal burned in the world. China is building coal fired power plants in Afghanistan. And while China talks about going green, the reality is quite different as detailed in an article by respected journalist Eric Reguly.

The Globe and Mail (Ontario Edition), 12 Aug 2023, Eric Reguly

“China approved 10 gigawatts of new coal plants in the first quarter of this year, after approving 100 gigawatts in 2022 – the equivalent of 100 large plants. The capacity of the plants under construction last year was six times that of the rest of the world. China, building coal burners with alacrity, has yet to state credibly how it will achieve net zero 37 years from now even as its emissions keep rising. At some point, the West will ask: Why are we punishing our economies to achieve net zero when China, the biggest emitter, is not ?”

Coal burning is the leading hydro carbon contributor to air pollution. Per unit of energy, coal gives off twice the amount the carbon dioxide as oil plus a horde of other toxic gases. Coal gives off four times the amount of carbon dioxide as natural gas which gives off very few other pollutants. The United Nations says coal’s air pollution is a major contributor to the death millions of people every year and causes respiratory distress to many millions more.

We have had 450 years of very slow climate change causing generation after generation to believe the climate doesn’t change. Now we see it changing. Research since 2006 has caused many climate scientists to no longer believe carbon dioxide and the other greenhouse gases are the sole cause of climate change - if they are even involved at all. They recognize that the forces of nature are calling the shots as they always have and that the forces of nature are now in a warming phase. Glaciers will continue to melt and sea levels will gradually rise. Yet politicians and the green industry are deeply committed to the status quo. Will we continue to believe the greenhouse gases are causing climate change or will we look at the evidence and turn the trillions of dollars intended to reduce the greenhouse gases into readying the peoples of the low lying islands and every sea port in the world for rising ocean waters?

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Dr. Ed Hawkins, University of Reading, UK The grey area shows the yearly temperature variations. The black line is the moving average.

Atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide began to rise followed slowly by temperature as the planet gradually warmed out of the Little Ice Age. Greenhouse gases advocates claim that the 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F) temperature increase to today’s level along with the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide are proof carbon dioxide is causing global warming. Curiously, climate history for most of their evidence begins in 1800 when coal as fuel for the industrial revolution ramped up. If the industrial revolution and the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide started at the onset of the Little Ice Age, it would have looked like the increasing carbon dioxide was causing global cooling. Would we have stopped generating carbon dioxide to save the planet from freezing?

We live in the Holocene Epoch which began 11,500 years ago as the world finished transitioning out of the last Ice Age. The climate warmed quickly and ocean levels rose 130m (420 ft.). From 10,000 to 6,500 years ago “… average summer temperatures … climbed well into the 50s” (10-15 degrees C) in north western Greenland. Today summer temperatures average 30 degrees F (-1 degree C) with occasional snow falls. National Academy of Sciences: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1720420115

Graph of Greenland ice cores by Dr. B. Vinther, U. of Copenhagen. Zero on the vertical axis indicates the 1880-1960 average temp. The block at the far right shows the last 500 years, the dip in it shows the Little Ice Age, the far right uptick marks today’s temperatures. The block at the far left shows a cold world emerging 11,500 years age from the Younger Dryas, the last period of near ice age temperatures.

11,500 years ago earth’s temperature shot upward after a final period of ice age temperatures.
10,000 years ago the world was hotter than it is today and stayed hotter for the next 4,000 years. Carbon dioxide was about 260 parts per million (ppm) throughout this 4,000 year period.
6,000 years ago the temperature dropped to what we have today and again stayed that way for the next 4,000 years. Carbon dioxide started at 260 ppm and crept ever so slowly up to 280 ppm.
2,000 years ago the temperature began a slow decline to the start of the Little Ice Age 550 years ago. Carbon dioxide started and stayed at 280 ppm until 1800 CE with a 2 ppm bump during the Medieval Warm and 4 ppm dip during the Little Ice Age.
Temperature changed more than carbon dioxide did throughout the entire period.
Methane moved opposite to temperature change the whole time.
200 years ago the temperature and carbon dioxide began to rise. This time, carbon dioxide was leaping while temperature was creeping.

Statistics requires consistency. The amount of change by dominant element (the independent variable) must always produce the same percentage (ratio) of change in the subordinate element (the dependent variable). For carbon dioxide to cause climate change, every change in carbon dioxide must always cause the same relative amount of change in temperature. Failure to meet this test shows that carbon dioxide does not cause climate change.

The broader picture of climate history now goes back 500 million years. For most of the last 150 million years global temperatures were at least 10 degrees C (18 degrees F) higher than today. The Arctic, Greenland and Antarctica were ice free most of the time. The graph below shows carbon dioxide levels and global average temperatures over 500 million years moving in different directions and at different times. They were completely independent of each other making it abundantly clear that carbon dioxide does not cause temperature change. Small wonder that few if any of the advocates, media and publications proclaiming carbon dioxide as the cause of global warming want to look back more than a few hundred years.

Combined Smithsonian and Berner graph concept by R. Cushing,

Dr. Wrightstone added the epoch names to Dr. Berner’s carbon dioxide time line. During the Jurassic Period, the age of the dinosaurs, carbon dioxide levels were four to seven times higher than today. The fossil records show that dinosaurs thrived. Plants thrived. Coral, clams and shell fish also thrived. The oceans did not become acidic because of warmer temperatures and the much higher levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Chemistry and the Carbon Cycle say the oceans cannot become acidic. They can only become less basic than they are today.

The dotted blue line shows today’s historically low carbon dioxide level.

How did we come to believe carbon dioxide is causing climate change? The idea was proposed in 1895 but gained little traction until 1956 when Dr. Roger Revelle, a leading American oceanographer in the mid 20th century, speculated that future research should be able to determine .. “the effects, if any, of changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide on weather and climate throughout the earth”. The concept caught fire in the late 1980s when graphs of the Greenland and Antarctic ice core data became available showing carbon dioxide and temperature usually changed together.

Dr. Revelle’s Article: Tellus 9, Issue 1, Pages 18-27, (Page 27) (emphasis added)

Two lines moving together on a graph is a correlation which is only a suggestion that there is a relationship. Mistaking a correlation as proof of anything is called the Correlation Fallacy, a fundamental mistake. Unfortunately many in the scientific community made that fundamental mistake. Former United States Vice President Al Gore compounded the mistake by presenting the data as a graph in his speaking tour and book, An Inconvenient Truth (2006), advocating carbon dioxide as the cause of climate change. The Revenge of Gaia by Dr. James Lovelock (2006) made the same mistake. Wide spread scepticism before the publication of those books and speaking tour swung public opinion to the point where climate change due to carbon dioxide is widely accepted as fact today. An internet search of Correlation Fallacy will provide authoritative explanations.

Many climate scientists no longer believe carbon dioxide causes climate change. Dr. Lovelock was a highly respected chemist and climate scientist whose career included two decades as head of scientific research at MI5 (portrayed as Q at MI6 in the James Bond series) and later worked for NASA. After decades as a leading advocate of carbon dioxide causing climate change, Dr. Lovelock did something in 2014 scientists rarely do, he said it was mistake carbon dioxide does not control temperature.

“We're no longer in a position to say that just because carbon dioxide rises … the temperature will rise likewise.”

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/no-longer-the-darling-of-the-green-movement-lovelock-explains-himself/article19571394 (Nelles interview)

Other climate scientists who have published statistical research about the Antarctic ice cores agree.

“Temperature rises first, followed by an increase in atmospheric CO2.”

Global Warming and Carbon Dioxide Through Sciences, Florides et al.

“CO2 increase lagged Antarctic deglacial warming by 800 +/- 200 years”.

Caillon: Science 2003;299(5613):1728–31

How could Dr. Lovelock and so many climate scientists have gotten it wrong? As Dr. Lovelock went on to say: “We were carried away by the (correlation) between the ice cores of Antarctica and the climate going back as long as a million years ago. It … made all of us feel that, at long last, we could predict the future with a fair degree of confidence.” (Nelles interview)

Carbon dioxide and the other greenhouse gases are only half of the heating equation. They are what gets warmed. How they get warmed is by a process called radiative forcing. The short explanation is that the sun’s energy reaches earth‘s surface as short wave energy. Some of that energy is absorbed by the earth’s surface and some is reflected, now as long wave energy. The majority of that energy leaves our planet at the speed of light. Part of that long wave energy is absorbed by greenhouse gas molecules which in turn radiate that energy as heat in every direction.

More about radiative forcing is available at this NASA & University of Southern Florida website.

https://www.ces.fau.edu/nasa/module-2/how-greenhouse-effect-works.php

Beyond this point, the process of how radiative forcing and greenhouse gases turn the sun’s reflected energy into heat is immensely complex. To start with, there are three types of greenhouse gases: those that cool the air, those that heat the air, and water which does both. Water cools as fog, clouds snow, glaciers and sea ice. Water absorbs and holds heat in oceans and lakes. Water also absorbs and holds heat as humidity. Except for deserts and polar regions in winter, humidity typically ranges from 1% to 4% of the air which is 10,000 to 40,000 parts molecules per million molecules of air. The radiative forcing of all of the other greenhouse gases makes up the equivalent of just 500 molecules, .05 of 1%. Without humidity, those 500 molecules can’t significantly heat the other 999,500 molecules. The complexity increases with the interaction of the many, many factors influencing how and to what degree radiative forcing heats the greenhouse gases.

If radiative forcing of greenhouse gases did matter, it would be based not how much heat accumulated by radiative forcing each day, it would be based on how much of that heat was left at dawn the next day. When the sun sets most, if not all of it, dissipates into outer space during the night. No matter how scorching the summer, winter dissipates the residual heat. If radiative forcing was a factor, the median temperatures of summer would enable the prediction of the fall temperatures, and fall the coming winter, and ever onward. The concept of radiative forcing being a factor in climate change is its cumulative nature. For it to be a true factor, the cumulative process must continue ever onward until earth becomes a fire ball or an ice cube.

The irrefutable failure of radiative forcing being a factor in climate change is shown in the five hundred million year graph of temperature and carbon dioxide above. During the exceptional conditions of the ice ages when they did appear to move together, it was a correlation, a suggestion that there might be a relationship, not proof of causation. How exceptional is the climate during an ice age? Two thirds of earth’s landmass lies in the northern hemisphere. During an ice age, the one third of earth’s landmass that lies above the 45th degree of latitude is either under vast sheets of ice or frozen desert. Palm trees don’t grow at the foot of a glacier. The Dryas flower, a sub-arctic, alpine species, flourished in Barcelona, Spain. When temperatures plunged, carbon dioxide levels had to plunge with it.

Is runaway, catastrophic global heating really in our future? Graphs by climate scientists at Berkeley Earth show that while land and atmosphere temperatures have risen 2 degrees C (3.8 F), the upper level ocean temperatures above 200m (660 ft.) have only risen 1 degree C. The vast, deeper ocean has remained a constant 4 degrees C (39 F). The United Nations (un.org) says: “The ocean … captures 90 percent of the excess heat generated by (greenhouse gas) emissions. Dr. Lovelock said: “The ocean’s heat capacity is about 1,000 times greater than that of the land and atmosphere”. History shows us that the climate is always changing. Further gradual global warming may happen and is even likely but the evidence shows that catastrophic global warming is highly unlikely.

Dr. Lovelock: The Nelles interview as noted above.

https://berkeleyearth.org/global-temperature-report-for-2023/

Nature has been changing the climate since the world began without any help from mankind’s greenhouse gases. How does it do that? One way is a theory developed in the 1920s by innovative structural engineer turned pioneering astro physicist Milutin Milankovic (Milankovitch).

Dr. Milankovic formulated three theories:

• Orbital Eccentricity: Earth’s orbit around the sun changes from round (warmer) to oval (cooler) in 100,000 year cycles. Earth is in the warming phase.

• Axial Obliquity: How far the earth tilts toward and away from the sun between summer and winter varies in 41,000 year cycles. Earth is in the warming phase.

• Axial Precession: The earth also leans like a wobbling top as it tilts toward and away from the sun in a 26,000 year circle. It’s currently warming the southern hemisphere more in its summer than the northern hemisphere in its summer. It’s about to reverse and give more summer warmth to the northern hemisphere.

Images courtesy of FSU & NASA, Module 3, page 16

https://www.ces.fau.edu/nasa/module-2/how-greenhouse-effect-works.php

Highly accurate technology and computing power have confirmed Dr. Milankovic’s theories. Climate scientists have noticed a loose correlation between cooling alignments and the ice ages of the last two and a half million years. Research is investigating how much these three factors can heat and cool earth’s climate. Yet the Milankovic Cycles have been in motion for hundreds of millions, if not billions, of years. Why has earth’s climate been so much cooler for the last two and a half million years?

Recent astrophysics research found that a star of the Cassiopeia Constellation passed close enough to our solar system 2.8 million years ago to disturb the orbits of our solar system’s giant outer planets. Their orbital wobbles in turn disturbed earth’s orbit and occurred just before the start of the current succession of ice ages and interglacial warm periods (including the one we live in). Did earth’s orbit return to its pre-Cassiopea pattern or has its orbit been permanently affected? The discovery of the Cassiopea star’s fly-by has changed a long held belief by astrophysicists that our solar system was not influenced by other stars. More climate related astronomical discoveries are likely.

Astrophysical Journal Letters, Kaib, et al. https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ad24fb

Another interesting relationship is the correlation between climate change and the movement of earth’s magnetic north pole. In 200 AD (red dot upper left) earth’s magnetic north pole was located on the coast of Siberia. The middle east was referred to as The Fertile Crescent, then a green and temperate region. By 750 AD the magnetic north pole had moved to the northern tip of Canada’s Baffin Island. The middle east had become hotter and dryer. In 1,000 AD the magnetic north pole was at the geographic north pole. Europe and some other parts of the world were experiencing the Medieval Warm. By 1,500 the magnetic north pole was in the Arctic Ocean slowly migrating to Canada’s northern coast. The Little Ice Age had begun. The magnetic north pole stayed near Canada’s north shore until fifty years ago when it began to move rapidly north and west toward Siberia. Now it’s closer to Siberia than Canada again and the world is warming.

Fertile Crescent Reference: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abg4044

Researchgate.net, Public Domain Each dot represents a 50 yr. progression.

Is this correlation between climate change and pole movement just a coincidence or a real possibility ?

“Analysis of the movement of the Earth's magnetic poles over the last 105 years demonstrates strong correlations between the position of the north magnetic, and geomagnetic poles, and both northern hemisphere and global temperatures. Although these correlations are surprising, a statistical analysis shows there is a less than one percent chance they are random …”

A. K. Kerton, 2009 : Climate Change and the Earth’s Magnetic Poles, a Possible Connection

While it is highly likely that the movement of earth’s magnetic poles are contributing to climate change, how is that possible since air is not attracted to magnetism? Research published in 2022 found that the movement of earth’s magnetic poles causes gravity waves which affect earth’s very high altitude magnetic radiation shield. That in turn affects air currents in the earth’s upper atmosphere.

Vlasov, D.I., et al.. Seasonal Features of the Spatial Distribution of Atmospheric Gravity Waves

in the Earth’s Polar Thermosphere. https://doi.org/10.3103/S0884591322020076

Other researchers found that changes to the magnetic radiation shield affected lower levels of the atmosphere which is where a lot of our weather happens.

“Magnetic field changes directly affect the temperature and wind in the upper atmosphere … we also find significant responses in (the lower atmosphere).”

Cnossen I., H. Liu, and H. Lu (2016),The whole atmosphere response to changes in the earth's

magnetic field from 1900 to 2000. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres

Solar radiation hitting earth’s magnetic radiation shield (not to scale).

Jing Liu, et al. Solar flare effects in the Earth's magnetosphere, Nature Physics (2021)

Could the movement of earth’s magnetic poles be affecting air and ocean currents another way? Curiously, while water is attracted to static electricity, water is repelled by magnetism which includes the earth’s magnetic poles. Could the high density of water in atmospheric rivers and hurricanes be enough for them to be affected by the movement of earth’s magnetic poles? Could the differences in density due to temperature layers and salinity concentrations be enough to affect ocean currents?

Yet if everything currently known to cause climate change conspired to reach its maximum cold phase at the same time, it still wouldn’t be cold enough to explain the abrupt 1,200 year long plunge from temperatures similar to what we have today back to the ice age temperatures of the Younger Dryas period (12,700 to 11,500 years ago). What caused that abrupt plunge and equally fast recovery? Could it happen again? The simplest explanation is the sun. We’ve always been told the sun’s strength doesn’t vary. It might be time to rethink that.

“The sun is the ultimate factor in causing change of the terrestrial climate.

At a small but measurable level, the sun varies, just like most of the stars do.”

W. W. Soon, Astrophysics (Harvard) Climate Change : The Facts, chapter 4, page 57.

It’s been known for centuries that the sun’s north and south poles reverse like clockwork every eleven years. And when they reverse there is a sharp rise in sun spot (solar storm) activity as shown in the even march of the blue spikes. The black line shows the moving average number of sun spots varies between 50 and 100 per year. During the Maunder Minimum it flat-lined which coincided with the coldest part of the Little Ice Age. The area of short blue spikes during the Dalton Minimum from 1800 to 1830 also had significantly fewer sun spots. This was the last cold phase of the Little Ice Age. Is the drop in temperature and sun spots a coincidence ?

Graph : Maunder Minimum : Author Unknown, graph widely available on the internet

Little Ice Age : paragraph 2 of this Article. Also see Little Ice Age at Wikipedia.org

Paraphrasing a research paper by Dr. Schmutz:

“The correlation between the sun’s strength and temperature for 660 years indicates a 98% probability that the Little Ice Age was caused by variations in the sun’s strength. If the period is limited to 1650 to 1890, the probability increases to 99.99%.”

Schmutz, W.K : https://doi.org/10.1051/swsc/2021016

Carbon dioxide advocates would have us believe we are approaching catastrophic levels of carbon dioxide in the air yet carbon dioxide is for plants what oxygen is for us. When carbon dioxide levels during the ice ages plunged to 180 parts per million (ppm) it was starvation level for plants. The carbon dioxide Death Zone for plants is 150 ppm. Plants thrive in higher levels of carbon dioxide. Their ideal level is four times higher than today’s so-called catastrophic level of 420 ppm. Many greenhouses operate at levels two to three times higher than 420 ppm. Workers do not require special breathing apparatus to work those enriched carbon dioxide environments.

Dr. Patrick Moore (Greenpeace Co-founder) Should We Celebrate CARBON DIOXIDE

The Global Warming Policy Foundation https://www.thegwpf.org

Anran Wang, et al., Zhejiang University, China,

CO2 enrichment in greenhouse production: Towards a sustainable approach.

OSHA’s Permissible Exposure Limit (PEL) is 5,000 ppm CO2 over an 8-hour work day.

Rising levels of carbon dioxide make plants more productive which is helping feed our ever increasing global population. We also benefit by more productive plants producing more oxygen.

“From a quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change on April 25.”

https://www.nasa.gov/technology/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth-study-finds/

How likely is it that global CO2 levels will be reduced? India has said it will not be able to achieve its carbon emission targets until 2070. India needs a lot more electrical power for its billion plus people. Clean power is expensive, more coal plants and their emissions are India’s reality. Until recently, the U.S. had spoken volumes by its silence on decommissioning coal power plants. The U.S. may not build more coal plants but neither are they hurring to decommission any either. The recently announced G7 treaty commitment to install emission scrubbers by 2034 may or may not happen in the U.S..

According to the International Energy Agency, China burns over half of the world’s coal. A NYTimes International article April 7th, 2024 raised that level to 66% of the coal burned in the world. China is building coal fired power plants in Afghanistan. And while China talks about going green, the reality is quite different as detailed in an article by respected journalist Eric Reguly.

“China approved 10 gigawatts of new coal plants in the first quarter of this year, after approving 100 gigawatts in 2022 – the equivalent of 100 large plants. The capacity of the plants under construction last year was six times that of the rest of the world. China, building coal burners with alacrity, has yet to state credibly how it will achieve net zero 37 years from now even as its emissions keep rising. At some point, the West will ask: Why are we punishing our economies to achieve net zero when China, the biggest emitter, is not ?”

The Globe and Mail, 12 Aug 2023, China’s net-zero pledges are starting to look like a fantasy as its emissions keep rising.

We have had 450 years of very slow climate change causing generation after generation to believe the climate doesn’t change. Now we know it changes. Many climate scientists no longer believe carbon dioxide and the other greenhouse gases are the sole cause of climate change - if they are even involved at all. They recognize that the forces of nature are calling the shots as they always have and that the forces of nature are now in a warming phase. Glaciers will continue to melt and sea levels will gradually rise. Yet politicians and the green industry are deeply committed to the status quo. Will we continue to believe the greenhouse gases are causing climate change or will we look at the evidence and turn the trillions of dollars intended to reduce the greenhouse gases into readying the peoples of the low lying islands and every sea port in the world for rising ocean waters?

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