21 Climate Change

Questions

What is causing climate change?

How much will global temperature increase?

By David A. May

Comments@myclimatequestions.com

May be reproduced.

with attribution.

I was a believer of the CO2 climate emergency thesis —

even before the crusade picked up steam. Now I am a

climate questioner. Must we overturn our lives or face

catastrophe?

Preface

I became a “climate questioner” after I wagered a costly meal with a

British climate skeptic — and lost.

It was 2016, and CO2 levels and temperatures had been rising every

year. Global warming will continue, I wagered, and within 5 years

will exceed the high temperature of 2016. However, global

temperature dropped significantly. I had to understand why.

My background: I grew up in the suburbs of St. Louis, Missouri (the

show-me state), and briefly in a small New Mexico town. Even as a

teen-ager I read original science texts. I attended liberal Harvard

College and then conservative Harvard Business School. To “help the

world” I studied population growth in Africa and India, and with help

from Harvard I published a journal article used in university teaching

for decades afterward — showing that the number of children per

family was a matter of choice, not lack of means to plan families.

Later, using “appropriate technology” I set up an ice factory in West

Africa that remarkably survives to this day, many decades later,

under African management. In the USA, I manufactured energy

conserving window treatments and with my wife brought up two fine

children.

Click here for the Executive Summary — Read my conclusions

without the data, explanation, and reasoning.

If you wish only to read parts of this exploration, the

following is a list of my questions with links:

Could the presently accepted truth be wrong? _______________________________3

My first question: How rapidly has the climate been warming? ____________4

My second question: When climate skeptics doubt the temperatures used

to calculate warming, are they correct?_______________________________________4

My third question: Is the earth warming because we are still coming out

of the Ice Age? __________________________________________________________________5

My fourth question: Could a natural fluctuation explain current world

temperature changes?__________________________________________________________6

My fifth question: Are the impacts of climate warming thus far as bad as

they have been portrayed?_____________________________________________________8

My sixth question: How large are the recent fluctuations in worldwide

temperature?____________________________________________________________________9

My seventh question: Are solar fluctuations warming the climate? ______12

My eighth question: Is the heat that comes up through the crust of the

earth (not considering plumes and volcanos) affecting the climate?______14

My ninth question: Are Land Volcanos affecting the temperature? _______14

My tenth question: Are Undersea Volcanos and magna plumes partly

responsible for present climate and climate change? ______________________16

My eleventh question: Are fluctuations in winds and ocean currents

sufficient to affect average global temperatures? __________________________18

My twelfth question: Has deforestation caused the climate to warm? ___21

My thirteenth question: What are the effects of human-caused aerosol

emissions into the air? ________________________________________________________24

Fourteenth question: Why and how do greenhouse gases affect the

earth’s temperature?__________________________________________________________28

My fifteenth question: What effect do individual greenhouse gases have

on temperature? _______________________________________________________________33

My sixteenth Question: How much are fluctuations in Ozone affecting the

climate? ________________________________________________________________________35

My seventeenth question: What about future warming from methane?__38

My eighteenth question: What has been the warming effect of carbon

dioxide (CO2)? _________________________________________________________________44

How fast has carbon dioxide (CO2) been increasing? When will it double

from the 1850 level? __________________________________________________________46

My nineteenth question: How has the IPCC predicted future

temperatures? _________________________________________________________________49

My twentieth question: Can we measure climate change forcings and

sensitivity accurately enough to prove anything? __________________________57

My twenty-first question: What will the world’s average temperature be

in 2090? ________________________________________________________________________59

What are my conclusions? ____________________________________________________60

Could the presently accepted truth be wrong?

In my lifetime, widely promoted scientific crusades have been

proven false and harmful: For example, the entire medical

profession crusaded against cholesterol and then, again, against

all fat. Many fats, however, promote health and the switch to

sugar caused diabetes to soar. Doctors crusaded to prescribe

statins to young, healthy, adults with low cardiac risk, who then

had a higher chance of muscle malfunction and of dying from all

causes.

Throughout history scientific errors have taken place, in physics,

chemistry, biology and medicine. Doubting practitioners

generally don’t raise questions against crusades, because

careers and livelihoods are involved.

At the time of this writing

those who question the climate crusade, or other present-day

crusades, are often subject to attack and inability to find

positions.

In a sphere much simpler than climate — stocks — 94 percent of

experts, after 20 years — often with their massive data and

complex models – have underperformed markets, usually

substantially. And concerning climate, previous predictions of

The definitive book on this, published originally in the 1962 and still available is “The

Structure of Scientific Revolutions” by Thomas S. Kuhn

the international climate authority, the IPCC, have been very

wrong.

On the other hand, the arguments of deniers — those who deny

that humans are causing climate change — are often based

upon selective data and false assumptions. Below is my

dispassionate look at the science.

My first question: How rapidly has the climate been

warming?

There is no doubt that global lower-atmosphere

temperatures have risen about 0.5ºC from 1850 to 1980

— 130 years — and approximately another 0.5ºC or 0.6ºC

from 1980 to 2022

— 42 years.

Temperatures have

increased about fifty percent more than the global average over

North America and Europe, but temperatures have risen less

than the average in the tropics and the southern hemisphere.

Temperatures over land rise faster than temperatures over

ocean because land absorbs heat more easily.

As I write in June 2023 averaged (last 13 months)

temperatures worldwide have fallen about 0.2ºC from

their all-time (2016) highs, especially since 2020.

This

may have been caused by an unusually long La Niña after a very

strong El Niño and a very slight downturn in solar radiation. Is

this just a temporary downward swing before another rise back

towards the levels of 2016 or even above? The evidence from

the oceans and recent trends suggest that it is.

I believe, having completed my questions as I write this,

that temperatures will continue to increase, but at a rate

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/climate-at-a-glance/global/time-

series/globe/land_ocean/ann/12/1880-2022

https://crudata.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/HadCRUT5.0Analysis_300.png This data fills

the period from 1850 to 1880.

See the graph and data since 1980 at https://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-

temperatures/ and reproduced in this paper below.

If one cherry picked the period 1979 to 2016 it rose 1ºC, but temperatures were higher before

1979 and have declined since the all-time high in 2016.

See the graph and data since 1980 at https://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-

temperatures/ and reproduced in this paper below.

far below the highly publicized, scary IPCC predictions.

Read on to see what you think.

My second question: When climate skeptics doubt the

temperatures used to calculate warming, are they correct?

Are the published land temperatures biased — as some climate

skeptics believe? Yes, published land surface

temperatures are overstating the temperature increase

of the earth’s surface by about 0.1ºC. Here’s why: Most

weather stations are located in urban heat islands that have

often doubled, tripled, or more in size in the last century

It is

common knowledge that it is warmer in a big city than in a small

town or in the countryside. Urban areas, however, contain less

than one percent of the world’s land areas. Furthermore, many

non-metropolitan weather stations are considered unreliable,

and given less weight in averages or ignored.

For this reason, in this paper, for years since 1979, I use the

satellite temperatures of the atmosphere near the ground

maintained for NASA by the University of Alabama Huntsville.

(Satellite temperatures are not direct readings but are

calculated from radiation in the atmosphere near the ground.

(Some skeptics also question the accuracy and consistency of

the instruments on the satellites, and of the conversions to

temperatures, but I have seen no evidence for this.)

For years before 1979, of necessity I will use temperatures

measured on land and at sea. This temperature record is highly

questionable but nothing better is available. Measuring

techniques have changed and climate station have moved to

hotter locations. Scientists adjust the temperatures to what

they think they think accounts for this, and these adjustments

are ongoing and non-verifiable. Prior to 1800 few weather

Surface based temperature increases are almost entirely dependent on weather stations in

cities, which are much more numerous and much more reliable. Urban areas, however, make

up only 1% of the earth’s land area. Most urban areas with reliable weather data have grown

exponentially in population and building size since 1850. Buildings are heated in winter and

air conditioned (which adds heat on balance) in summer.

Research quantifying the discrepancy in several cities has been published in the Blog by Dr.

Spencer at https://www.drroyspencer.com

Satellite-measured temperatures often lag ground and sea surface temperatures by two or three

months.

station locations existed. Temperatures before the renaissance

are based upon ice cores, tree rings, and similar evidence.

My third question: Is the earth warming because we are

still coming out of the Ice Age?

Before this research I thought that a very long thawing

explained some of current global warming. I was mostly wrong.

The last ice age maximum cooling ended about 12,000 years

ago, and the warming from that ended about 6,000 years ago.

I was not completely wrong because the Antarctic glaciers and

sometimes the Greenland glaciers have been diminishing ever

since the Ice Age, and in analogy with an ice chest almost out of

ice, this can cause somewhat accelerated warming.

Current studies indicate that changes in CO2 levels have

generally lagged the start and end of ice ages. Scientists now

think that CO2 changes followed the onset and end of ice ages.

Some think that the CO2 amplified the swings, others that it is a

symptom of them.

All agree that the ice ages were initiated

by changes in the earth’s orbit and inclination, and also ended

by these, or perhaps by geothermal events.

My fourth question: Could a natural fluctuation explain

current world temperature changes?

Milankovitch’s explanations of how changes in the earth’s orbit around the sun, its tilt, and

its precession (top like motion) cause ice ages and their opposite are now accepted by everyone,

though there are some tweaks still to be made. Global temperatures have remained within a

small range for thousands of years until recently warming.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-how-the-rise-and-fall-of-co2-levels-influenced-the-

ice-ages/ This includes a good discussion of the issues, but its conclusion is

not proven in my opinion.

The following data sources were used in constructing the main plot:

1. (dark blue) Sediment core ODP 658, interpreted sea surface temperature,

Eastern Tropical Atlantic: M. Zhao, N. A. S. Beveridge, N. J. Shackleton, M.

Sarnthein, and G. Eglinton. "Molecular stratigraphy of cores off northwest

Africa: Sea surface temperature history over the last 80

ka". Paleoceanography 10 (3): 661-675. doi:10.1029/94PA03354

2. (blue) Vostok ice core, interpreted paleotemperature, Central

Antarctica: Petit J. R., Jouzel J., Raynaud D., Barkov N. I., Barnola J. M.,

Basile I., Bender M., Chappellaz J., Davis J., Delaygue G., Delmotte M.,

Kotlyakov V. M., Legrand M., Lipenkov V., Lorius C., Pépin L., Ritz C.,

Saltzman E., Stievenard M.. "Climate and Atmospheric History of the Past

420,000 years from the Vostok Ice Core, Antarctica". Nature 399: 429-

436.doi:10.1038/20859

3. (light blue) GISP2 ice core, interpreted paleotemperature,

Greenland: Alley, R. B.. Quaternary Science Reviews. doi:10.1016/S0277-

3791(99)00062-1

4. (cyan) Kilimanjaro ice core, δ

O, Eastern Central Africa: Thompson, L. G.,

E. Mosley-Thompson, M. E. Davis, K. A. Henderson, H. H. Brecher, V. S.

Zagorodnov, T. A. Mashiotta, P.-N. Lin, V. N. Mikhalenko, D. R. Hardy, and

J. Beer. "Kilimanjaro Ice Core Records: Evidence of Holocene Climate

Change in Tropical Africa". Science 298 (5593): 589-

593. doi:10.1126/science.1073198

5. (yellow) Sediment core PL07-39PC, interpreted sea surface temperature,

North Atlantic: Lea, D. W., D. K. Pak, L. C. Peterson, and K. A. Hughen

(2003). "Synchroneity of tropical and high-latitude Atlantic temperatures

over the last glacial termination". Science 301 (5638): 1361-

1364.doi:10.1126/science.1088470

6. (orange) Pollen distributions, interpreted temperature, Europe: B. A. S.

Davis, S. Brewer, A. C. Stevenson, J. Guiot (2003). Quaternary Science

Reviews 22: 1701-1716. doi:10.1016/S0277-3791(03)00173-2

7. (red) EPICA ice core, δDeuterium, Central Antarctica: EPICA community

members (2004). "Eight glacial cycles from an Antarctic ice

core". Nature429 (6992): 623-628. doi:10.1038/nature02599

8. (dark red) Composite sediment cores, interpreted sea surface

temperature, Western Tropical Pacific: L. D. Stott, K. G. Cannariato, R.

Thunell, G. H. Haug, A. Koutavas, and S. Lund (2004). "Decline of surface

temperature and salinity in the western tropical Pacific Ocean in the

Holocene epoch". Nature 431: 56-59. doi:10.1038/nature02903

In the last 2000 years the world may have been slightly warmer

or as equally warm as today; notably during the Roman and

Medieval Warm Periods in Europe. Given the huge range of

variations from the different temperature reconstructions in the

graphic above, these may or may not have been regional

fluctuations and not worldwide. In the prior 6,000 years, it is

probable that temperatures did equal or exceed those of today.

The clearest examples of periods that could have been warmer

than today occurred 5000 to 8000 years ago — the period

during which farming arose and the Egyptian, Mesopotamian,

Indus and Minoan civilizations flourished.

What world temperature history does show is: 1) that

there have been regional changes of several degrees

Celsius that have lasted for centuries; and 2) that in the

pre-industrial era world temperatures have fluctuated by

at least 0.5ºC, and probably more than 1.0ºC.

Therefore, we cannot rule out natural events as cause for

some of recent temperature increases.

My fifth question: Are the impacts of climate warming thus

far as bad as they have been portrayed?

My research indicates that many misstatements and

even misleading photographs and movies have been

publicized — often, it seems, deliberately to scare people

into action. For example, hurricanes are not worse than

before. Tornadoes are not worse than before. Most coral reefs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png

that were bleached by ocean hot spots have recovered

, and

coral bleaching and recovery have occurred many times before.

Reservoirs and ground water in arid areas of the American West

have not been receiving less precipitation than during other dry

periods (but are being drained by overuse). The dust bowl era

of the 1930s was more extreme than recent heat and drought.

The western Antarctica ice shelf is melting due to warm ocean

temperatures, but the interior of Antarctica has been getting

colder.

Every climatological record or unusual climate occurrence in any

locality is publicized as proving impending disaster. However,

climate history contains many past extremes here and there.

For example, the warmest night in Paris was on June 27, 1772

(27.5ºC).

Normal or cool temperatures are not news. However,

as stated in my first question, temperatures today on average

are slightly warmer.

Hotter temperatures, of course, do have negative effects. For

example, the northern hemisphere fire season is longer now,

(though many years of fire suppression are the main reason for

mega-fires.

) The sea is now slowly becoming more acidic

and, based upon satellite data, rising at 3.9 millimeters (1/6

inch) per year compared to 2.5 mm in the 1990s and 1.5mm

earlier in the 20

century.

There are also some positive effects of climate warming in

northern regions, such as longer and more fertile growing

seasons and less dire winters.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00338-022-02271-6;

https://www.aims.gov.au/information-centre/news-and-stories/southern-reefs-recover-

bleaching?utm_source=miragenews&utm_medium=miragenews&utm_campaign=news;

https://www.washington.edu/news/2020/12/18/coral-recovery-during-a-prolonged-heatwave-

offers-new-hope/#:~:text=Warmer waters can trigger a source within a few weeks.

https://nsidc.org/data

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Paris

https://theconversation.com/how-years-of-fighting-every-wildfire-helped-fuel-the-western-

megafires-of-today-163165

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/150192/tracking-30-years-of-sea-level-

rise#:~:text=Global%20mean%20sea%20level%20has,(0.15%20inches)%20per%20year.

My sixth question: How large are the recent fluctuations in

worldwide temperature?

This is a question where I already had the answer when I started

writing. It was a look at actual temperature changes that

motivated my climate questioning.

When a year was the first, forth, or fifth, warmest, it was widely

publicized as an augury of doom, but do you know, for example,

that temperatures in 2022, worldwide and even in the northern

hemisphere, were less than they were in the year 1998? Do you

know that the annual changes in the earth’s average

temperature are much larger than the total temperature

increase since 1850?

Below is the satellite-derived chart from April 2023 of actual

worldwide temperatures, presented as anomalies (changes from

a reference period)

Yearly Temperature Change Data:

There are practical reasons that temperature changes are presented as anomalies rather than in

absolute terms. Calculating the changes from actual temperatures would be very difficult

because each weather station has a different calibration and different temperatures, but if each

station reports the anomalies, their data is presumably consistent.

We see above that global temperatures vary monthly from their

averages— sometimes by 0.4 degrees C, and that there are

wide swings over year-long and multi-year periods. What is

causing the very long-term trend will be discussed in my

following questions.

Some of the fluctuations that you see may be explained by the

contrary influences of El Niño and La Niña, and a very few by

powerful volcanic eruptions, but others are for reasons we can

only guess at. In answering my questions below I speculate on

the role of the oceans.

Global temperature has increased in 44 years at the rate of

0.125ºC per decade, but from 2002 to 2022, or over the period

from 1920 to 2022 the temperature only increased 0.1ºC per

decade. If these rates were to continue, it would take 100 years

for worldwide temperatures to increase another one degree C.

Sources for the charts above: https://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_temperature_record#/media/File:20200324_Global_average_tempera

ture_-_NASA-GISS_HadCrut_NOAA_Japan_BerkeleyE.svg

The graphic directly above, from 1850 through 2022, shows

more warming from 1980 to 2023 than does the satellite-based

chart — 0.7ºC versus 0.6ºC. As discussed in my Second

Question, this is probably an exaggeration due to the urban heat

island locations of the land thermometers. This graph reinforced

my climate questioning. CO2 rose very little between 1920 and

1940 but temperatures rose, while CO2 rose more quickly

between 1940 and 1980, but temperature declined. I take up

this matter in the question on aerosols (particulates), and I

discuss the nil correlation of temperature with CO2 s in My

eighteenth question on CO2.

Global Temperature Change by Month

Source for above graphic data: Berkley Earth.

Above we see that in an average year worldwide global

temperature varies in tune with the seasons in the northern

hemisphere, where there is 35% more land.

My seventh question: Are solar fluctuations warming the

climate?

Approximately 1360 watts per square meter of irradiance arrive

at the earth from the sun. Averaging over the earth’s spherical

surface (dayside, nightside, poles), this irradiance is 340 watts

per square meter, and of this only 200 watts per square

meter makes it through the atmosphere and heats the surface

of the earth.

This chart is calculated from the data here: https://berkeley-earth-temperature.s3.us-west-

1.amazonaws.com/Global/Land_and_Ocean_complete.txt

Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Solar_spectrum_en.svg

The sun’s irradiance typically becomes stronger as the number

of sunspots increase and diminishes as the number declines.

Sunspots usually occur in an 11-year cycle, but there have been

long periods when the sun has been warmer or colder than

normal. When irradiance decreases, not only is the earth’s

temperature directly reduced, but also more galactic cosmic

rays enter the atmosphere. This increases cloudiness, which

then reflects more of the sun’s radiation back to space.

However, this effect is minor.

Studies disagree on how much the sun’s irradiance has varied

over history; they range from 3 to 7 watts per square meter

—

roughly a 0.2% to 0.5% change. If solar radiation diminished

for a long period by 0.26% — 3.6 watts per square meter, the

earth’s temperature would fall by approximately 3/4ths

ºC and vice-versa. Hence, past changes in climate, such as in

https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2018/07/aa31199-17/aa31199-17.html

the Little Ice Age and the Minoan Warm Period, may be

explained by solar changes.

In the three most recent decades satellite measurements

indicate that irradiance changes have been minimal and have

not departed from norms, causing at most a temperature

change of 0.01ºC.

Therefore, the sun is not responsible for recent climate

warming.

My eighth question: Is the heat that comes up through the

crust of the earth (not considering plumes and volcanos)

affecting the climate?

This was an easy question to answer. No. The 0.04 to 0.1

Watt per square meter flow of heat through the earth crust from

primordial energy and from radioactivity are insignificant

compared to the sun’s average radiation of 200 watts per

square meter.

My ninth question: Are Land Volcanos affecting the

temperature?

There is widespread agreement that to affect worldwide climate,

volcanos need to have a VEI (Volcanic Explosion Index) of 5 or

more among other characteristics. (Each additional point in the

VEI equals 10 times more power.) The rare eruptions of this

magnitude put up a veil of particulates and gases that blocks

the sun and decreases worldwide temperatures. If the eruption

is super large and long-lasting, oceans will cool, and thus a

reduced worldwide temperature can persist for years. The VEI 7

eruptions, of Mount Samalas in the year 1257, of the unknown

volcano of 1452, and of Mount Tambora in 1815, each have

depressed worldwide temperatures for a decade.

A definitive discussion of irradiance variations may be found here: https://ww.swsc-

journal.org/articles/swsc/full_html/2021/01/swsc200108/swsc200108.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter#:~:text=The%20explosion%20

of%20Krakatoa%20(Krakatau,Record%20snowfalls%20were%20recorded%2

0worldwide.

A series of major eruptions during the 13th -19th century may

partially explain the 0.4º temperature drop of the Little Ice

Age.

24,25,26,27

in the northern hemisphere.

I couldn’t discern in the temperature record any changes from

the major eruptions of 1902, 1906, or 1912, but Mt. Pinatubo’s

eruption in 1991 (VEI of 6 and having the largest effect in the

stratosphere of the 20th century) is likely responsible for a large

dip in temperature that persisted through1993.

Volcanic eruptions can increase the earth’s temperature for a

short time if they inject, immediately or through diffusion, ozone

depleting compounds into the stratosphere. A warming effect

sometimes follows a minor cooling one.

Volcanos, then, have neither raised nor lowered recent

temperatures.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_temperature_record#/media/File:2000+_year_global_te

mperature_including_Medieval_Warm_Period_and_Little_Ice_Age_-_Ed_Hawkins.svg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age_volcanism#/media/File:The_Relationship_betwe

en_Natural_Factors_and_Percentage_change_of_Temperature.jpg (Greenhouse gases are also

mainly the result of vulcanism from the sulfur dioxide released to the stratosphere.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age_volcanism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_large_volcanic_eruptions

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_volcanic_eruptions_1500–1999

My tenth question: Are Undersea Volcanos and magna

plumes partly responsible for present climate and climate

change?

Distribution of hydrothermal vents. This map was created by making use of the [http://vents-data.interridge.org InterRidge

ver.3.3 database. source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrothermal_vent

We have explored less than 5% of the ocean floor, but it

comprises 70% of the earth’s crust. This means we

presently can only speculate if hot spots or volcanos there

influence climate.

The 3,600 Argo buoy transmitters that have been deployed in

the last two decades to survey the ocean under the surface

provide only a very tiny sampling of 361,000,000 square

kilometers of ocean, and only down to a depth of 2,000

meters. Yet, the average depth of the ocean floor is 3,700

meters and parts are over 10,500 meters (35,000 feet) deep.

Truly, the deep ocean floor is invisible.

Recently satellite measurements of gravity changes have

mapped 20,000 volcanic sea mounts in the shallower oceans,

but nobody knows what percentage of these are active.

More than once over the earth’s history, thousands of cubic

kilometers of flood basalts per year have poured out of hot

spots in the earth’s crust. One of these eruptions is

believed to have raised the ocean temperature

worldwide to 38ºC (100F).

Mega-plumes of hot water have been observed in shallower

waters,

but as mentioned, events in the deeper ocean are

invisible. Basalt and ejected water from mid-ocean ridges

ranges in temperature from 320 to 400ºC, while volcanic lava

is usually well over 1000ºC.

The hottest lava issued from

an extremely massive volcano in Hawaii that barely pokes above

the ocean: 2000ºC.

Under the oceans the earth’s crust averages about 5 kilometers

thick, compared to 30 kilometers thick beneath continents,

it would not be surprising if the deeper ocean floor contained

more active hot spots and volcanos than the continents.

Is it possible for undersea volcanoes to affect world climate?

Certainly a VE8 eruption (the size of Yellowstone) would.

Perhaps an eruption as large as the high estimate for Tambora

would. Otherwise, it seems unlikely as the following calculation

shows.

The largest lava flow on land in the 20th century at Novarupta, Alaska was 15 cubic

kilometers.

( The largest on land in recent human history was VE7 Tambora in

1815 with up to 45 cubic kilometers of ejection; the USGS says 100 cubic

kilometers, and for Yellowstone over 1,000 cubic kilometers.)

If a 15 cubic kilometer eruption occurred under the ocean surface at 1,250ºC, how

large a patch of ocean would be warmed 0.1º C? I assume that 80% of the heat

rises in a plume to the top 10 meters of the ocean where it stays (or accumulates)

for a year. We have a temperature reduction factor of 10 x 1,250 =12,500 times

80%, =10,000 times, a volume reduction factor of a kilometer/10 meters, times 15

cubic kilometers =15,00,000 square kilometers warmed 0.1ºC. That is a box 3,000

km x 5000 km — substantial but not enough to affect world climate. The entire

Pacific Ocean occupies 165.3 million square kilometers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_basalt; see that article for its footnotes.

Two examples here: https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/pubs/outstand/bake1050/bake1050.shtml

https://tos.org/oceanography/assets/docs/25-1_kelley.pdf, among several other sources.

https://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dynamic/inside.html; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oceanic_crust

https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/what-was-largest-volcanic-eruption-20th-century

I have spent many hours looking at satellite-created maps of sea

surfaces temperatures in the Pacific Ocean

. The occasional

hotspots that appear in the western Pacific north of New Guinea

are 2ºC above the surrounding much bigger area of hot sea, but

do not persist in the same location from year to year. They

could be due to undersea hot spots and eruptions. We don’t

know, and we presently have no way of knowing.

We also have no way of knowing what has happened in

the deep ocean since the last ice age and before. Are

magna outpourings comparable to those in Oregon

responsible for the unexplained very abrupt end of the

last ice age? Are they responsible for the Egyptian and

Minoan warm periods?

I find the evidence convincing, however, that volcanic activity

under parts of Antarctica and in the Arctic are contributing to

the melting of Antarctic and Arctic ice.

The very warm

temperatures in the Arctic have no explanation in current

computer models.

By an entirely different means, and for the first time in recorded

history, the 2021-2022 VEI 6 eruption of the Tonga underwater

volcano has increased worldwide temperature — by injecting a

large plume of water into the stratosphere. Due to rarity, this

type of event cannot be expected to affect future climate

change.

My eleventh question: Are fluctuations in winds and ocean

currents sufficient to affect average global temperatures?

This question has been much studied, but, in my opinion,

still not given enough weight in climate discussions. If

you want to know my conclusions, skip most of the

following exposition.

As discussed in the twelfth question just above, we have very

little knowledge of what is happening under the ocean surface

The monthly sea surface temperature maps, for your examination, may be found here:

https://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu/maproom/Global/Ocean_Temp/Monthly_Temp.html

See the evidence for this here:

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/55315cdae4b03d5a7f6f23e1/t/5d9a1b96f4429f27c0da1d9

5/1570380698655/Plate+Climatology+Theory_Detailed+Manuscript.pdf

and almost no knowledge of what is happening in the deep

ocean, below 2,000 meters.

We do know that ocean temperatures are warmest at the

equator, that they decline with depth, especially over 100

meters, and that they are about 2.5ºC at 2,000 meters and even

lower just above the slightly warmer crust). Below is a profile of

estimated Atlantic Ocean temperatures at the equator from the

Spanish Institute of Oceanography:

Note that the very top layer, the mixing layer, is thicker as one

moves west.

Global ocean surface temperatures fall about one-half degree

Celsius between March 15 and November 15, influenced by the

Southern Hemisphere winter where there is more ocean. Ocean

surface temperatures can change rapidly from month to month

and year to year. For example, between March of 2020 and

March of 2021 the satellite measured temperatures of the air

above the oceans worldwide cooled by 0.41ºC (0.31ºC north of

20ºN, 0.61ºC in the tropics, and 0.67ºC south of 20ºS); and

worldwide changed 0.29ºC compared to monthly averages

between January and February of that year.

Since the temperature of the surface of land masses is about 9º

Celsius and the average temperature of the ocean surface is

about 20ºC, it is obvious that the under-layers of the ocean have

the potential to cool the climate on land. If the oceans suddenly

https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.0/tlt/uahncdc_lt_6.0.txt

were mixed, they would have an average temperature of about

3º or 4ºC, and the average temperature of the earth would be

well below freezing.

Thus, an increased upwelling of cold ocean waters to the

surface easily could nullify any human caused warming.

Does this happen?

The most famous upwelling

is off the coast of South America

and at its strongest it is known as La Niña. It has no name when

the upwelling is average, and when the upwelling is blocked by

warm water it is called El Niño. El Niño takes place when the

westerly trade winds that normally blow sun-heated surface

water away from the South American coast, are weak. Cold

water at the South American coast is denser and therefore

heavier than warm surface water, but when the surface water is

removed, colder water will upwell to replace it or arrive by the

cold northward current along the South American coast from the

Antarctic, where it is replaced by deeper water. The changes

from one state of this system to another is called an oscillation,

and this oscillation — El Niño Southern Oscillation or ENSO —

and all other oscillations are unpredictable — thought to be

caused by chaotic atmospheric changes. (This has not stopped

oceanographers from creating models that predict the swings;

these models fill many pages of the IPCC’s tome.)

The strongest El Niño and La Niña events are correlated with

increases and decreases of worldwide temperatures. Very

strong El Niños are followed the same and next year by 0.1º to

0.2º C increases in worldwide temperatures and very strong La

Niñas by 0.3º C decreases. The average temperature of the

tropical seas where El Niño and La Niña occur are 22-28º C

;

while the average temperature of the earth’s land is 8.6º C.

The data I have looked at (my calculations) show that land

temperatures increase more than ocean temperatures by very

roughly 2.5 times during and after strong El Niños, and that they

decrease more than ocean temperatures by about 1.8 times

during strong La Niñas.

A description of the upwelling processes is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upwelling

https://www.cen.uni-hamburg.de/en/icdc/data/ocean/hadisst1.html

https://berkeleyearth.org/data/

There are many other powerful upwelling oscillations, as

well as large fluctuations in ocean currents, all of which have a

strong effect on regional and world climate

. Many of these

occur in areas that have poor historical records and are only

being considered today.

The “reservoir” for El Niño water is the western Pacific. In

normal and La Niña years, the trade wind and the equatorial

current push warm water to the western pacific near Borneo,

where it literally “piles up” and also becomes deeper. The

mixing layer is much thicker in the western Pacific, as was

illustrated in the graphic above; it can vary from 100 to 300

meters in depth. Is this layer partly due to vulcanism? The

western Pacific mixing layer can warm the planet if it

spreads out. I have only seen this discussed very recently, but

it is in fact rather obvious. An animated graphic of sea surface

temperatures from month to month

over many years shows

than in warmer years the high temperature layer on the surface

is expanded — north and south, and sometimes west all the way

to the Indian sub-continent, sometimes at the same time as it

has spread east in El Niños.

Temperature readings are taken from the very top skin of the

ocean, and it is this layer that transfers heat to the winds. (The

tropical ocean is warmer, on average, than the air above it.) So,

it is evident that hotter temperatures worldwide can arise from

the mixing layer of the ocean — whether caused by the

movement of water by winds or by the pressure of deep ocean

currents. At the present time, I believe that science does not

have the ability to detail or predict the causes of the spreading.

Variations in upwelling, in ocean currents and surface

spreading, and in winds are plausibly — even surely—

responsible for most year-to-year fluctuations in the

earth’s temperature, and they may also alter the climate

for decades or longer.

https://www.whoi.edu/know-your-ocean/ocean-topics/how-the-ocean-works/ocean-

circulation/el-nio-other-oscillations/

https://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu/maproom/Global/Ocean_Temp/Monthly_Temp.html

My twelfth question: Has deforestation by humans and fires

caused the climate to warm?

My research on this question has changed my previously held

opinion.

Forest is a CO2 sink, as shown in the following graphic

for forests in the continental USA and costal Alaska:

The category “All Forest Pools” shows the effects within the

forest itself. The biggest contributor to the total is above ground

biomass, and almost all of this is composed of tree growth.

Forest area has increased by about 5% since 1980, mainly

regrowth from previous crop land, so this may account for most

of the tree growth, since eventually trees stop growing. Once

that is the case it is organic and mineral sequestration of carbon

in the soil that is the principal and permanent carbon sink.

In snow country, the replacement of northern forests by savanna

or fields almost always has a cooling effect, because

evergreen forests reflect only 5 to 10% of the sun’s radiation

while winter snow exposed by deforestation initially reflects over

80% of it. In non-snow country, cultivated land reflects roughly

11-23%

. (Rarely, bare land can be darker than a forest; for

example, when the mangrove forests of the Florida Everglades

gave way to black dirt.

)

Most measurements of albedo (how much solar radiation is

reflected) have been completed under clear skies, but a recent

study included clouds. The cooling advantage of open land is

reduced by clouds in temperate zones but enhanced by clouds

in the tropics.

The tropics, of course, have the highest

insolation and greatest effect on world temperatures, so it

seems that clouds, overall, multiply the cooling effect of

deforestation.

While cleared land usually cools the planet, the cutting-down or

burning-down of forests to clear land initially injects long-lasting

CO2 into the atmosphere, but this is usually insufficient to

counteract the albedo effect.

The smoke from massive forest fires does not, on bala reduce

warming by blocking the sun, as you will read in uninformed

sources. It increases it because the dark carbon particles in it

absorb solar radiation that might be reflected and thus heat the

atmosphere. The degree of this warming is in dispute and

subject to complex studies and simulations

If land becomes covered by roads or houses, the additional CO2

released by deforestation may warm more than the albedo

change cools. In wild areas where forest fires are a frequent

https://www.worldwidejournals.com/indian-journal-of-applied-research-

(IJAR)/recent_issues_pdf/2015/September/September_2015_1492582725__184.pdf

https://today.oregonstate.edu/archives/2011/oct/“albedo-effect”-forest-disturbances-can-

cause-added-warming-bonus-cooling

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-28161-7

https://theconversation.com/wildfire-smoke-may-warm-the-earth-for-

longer-than-we-thought-191643

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-20482-9

natural occurrence, a California study has found that grasslands

may be a better CO2 sink than forests.

An important “new frontier” in the tree-climate world is summed

up in this headline from YaleEnvironment360: “Scientists Zero

in on Trees as a Surprisingly Large Source of Methane”.

This is

apparently true of all trees, but especially true of trees in

tropical wetlands. Since methane is in the short run a much

more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, in my

opinion the long-run degree of climate change reduction benefit

in from forests is unclear.

History provides another way to analyze deforestation. Before

the Middle-Ages the world was relatively warm yet had much

more forest cover. Since the end of the black death and

religious wars, forests have been felled everywhere; and none

the less, until recent industrial times, global temperatures did

not significantly increase.

Unlike what I though before this research, I now

conclude that recent deforestation has not been

responsible for climate warming. The IPCC concurs,

assigning land use changes a small negative forcing in its

modeling.

My thirteenth question: What are the effects of human-

caused aerosol emissions into the air?

This answer is important. Aerosols are liquid or fine solid

particles in the atmosphere. Clouds would fit this definition but

are excluded.

Throughout the 19

and 20

centuries, the human-produced

aerosol

sulfur dioxide (the aerosol with by far the most

powerful temperature effect ) has decreased world

temperatures (and to a minor extent so have carbon particles).

https://www.earth.com/news/trees-grass-carbon-sink/

A good scientific discussion here, but it seems to ignore what crops might be planted to

replace forests: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7880589/

https://e360.yale.edu/features/scientists-probe-the-surprising-role-of-

trees-in-methane-emissions

An aerosol is defined as a suspension of fine solid particles or liquid droplets in air or another

gas.

Natural aerosols include sea salt and dust. These substantially

exceed human-caused aerosols, but are not considered to be

increasing significantly, and therefore have been mainly ignored

in climate science. Sulfur dioxide cools by reflecting sunlight

and by seeding clouds that reflect sunlight.

I have found, and will attempt to show below, that the

IPCC has mistreated aerosols, and that proper treatment

reduces the importance they give to carbon dioxide. The

IPCC believes that since 1850 aerosols have cancelled out about

one-half of the effect of CO2 increases, about 0.5ºC.

Aerosols have decreased global temperature since industrial

times,

and somewhat in in cities before then, because of

cooking and heating. Between 1940 and 1960 the great

increase in aerosols was partly or fully responsible for a

decrease in world temperatures.

Since 1980, aerosols, both sulfates and carbon particles, have

been decreasing as shown in the chart below. Ironically, this

decrease to improve the environment has been adding to

global warming. From what I have read, at least one

third, and probably one-half of all global warming since

1980 is due to the reduction of pollution. Reductions of

aerosols started with the Clean Air Act in the USA and

comparable acts in Europe, in 1975. It has continued with

improvements in the efficiency of combustion in transportation,

furnaces and boilers, and power generation, the use of low-

sulfur coal, the use of filters and so on. The chart illustrates

these trends.

https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/22/12221/2022/acp-22-12221-2022.pdf and articles in its

footnotes

https://www.pnnl.gov/main/publications/external/technical_reports/PNNL-

14537.pdf

The image shown below from a study for the 2000-2020 period,

shows that aerosols have continued to decline.

The IPCC, however, has statedt that aerosols continued

to add to cooling since 1980, as depicted in the chart

below!

These images come from the outstanding acp.copernicus.org article referenced above, which was published afer

the most recent IPCC report was written; they show from left to right changes since 2000 in anthropogenic

emissions of sulfur dioxide, organic carbon and black carbon. The changes in Africa and South Asia start on a

much lower base, so have much less effect.

Source of above chart: https://cbhighcharts.s3.eu-west-

1.amazonaws.com/100%+Human/berkeley_global_all.html

Because the discrepancy between the reality and the IPCC

seems obvious, I carefully examined the latest IPCC report

based upon scientific work up to 2020-2021,

because perhaps

the IPCC had other evidence. Remarkably, all the IPCC text

points to the declines I have mentioned above, but the summary

sentence states that the writers had “high confidence” that

sulfate concentrations were increasing to about 2005. No

opinion was offered for after 2005, and the rate of increase was

unaltered. Even though cited studies found that carbon

particles and sulfates declined in many countries, the IPCC also

decided not to incorporate this in their summary for policy

makers.

In 2020 the International Maritime Organization reduced the

allowed sulfur content of marine fuels by 85%. Subsequent

https://report.ipcc.ch/ar6/wg1/IPCC_AR6_WGI_FullReport.pdf 6.3.5.1 and6.3.5.3 pages 845-

6, 847.

studies have found that this reduction has caused another 10%

reduction in global SO2.

The IPCC data for the black carbon aerosol is equally suspect.

Unlike SO2, black carbon has a slight warming effect on the

atmosphere but makes surface temperatures cooler by reducing

sunlight. Massive black carbon emissions are IMO the only

reasonable explanation for the gradual dimming of the sunlight

reaching the ground by 20% during the mid to late 20

century.

Black carbon did this by absorbing 90% of incoming solar

radiation (and reflecting 10%), cooling the surface but heating

the upper troposphere. That heat was eventually transferred to

the air above the ground. The result was cooler days and

warmer nights, particularly near the summer solstice.

Black carbon emissions, like SO2 have been greatly reduced

since 1980, as is obvious if you are old enough to have visited

New York City, London, Paris, or other large cities in the 1960s -

1980s and walked in the pollution. The result of the reduction is

higher daytime temperatures when the sun shines.

Since most 2020-vintage climate models have been

showing that aerosols since 1980 have cooled the

climate by 0.2C (as depicted in the above chart) when, in

reality, decreasing SO2 has warmed it in 2020 by about

0.2ºC, there is a mis-estimation by total of 0. 4ºC.

Therefore, the warming attributed to greenhouse gases

and other causes in the last 42 years is 0.4ºC too high.

Since the total warming of the period is perhaps 0.4 ºC

to 0.6ºC according to satellites, this is a 66% percent

error. I’ll discuss the implications of this in my

eighteenth question, about CO2.

Fourteenth question: Why and how do greenhouse gases

affect the earth’s temperature?

A person could take an entire college course to understand all

the interrelationships between atmospheric gases. The basics,

however, are not that complicated. I learned early in my

research that to understand greenhouse gases I should

understand the nature of the atmosphere.

THE ATMOSPHERE

Because air temperatures may fall or rise with increasing

altitude, the atmosphere has well-defined layers.

The troposphere begins at the surface of the earth, where the

average temperature is 15ºC (59ºF). As altitude is gained,

temperature decreases— because the air has less molecules to

vibrate — until the -60º C (-76ºF junction with the stratosphere,

4 km up at the poles, 12 at the equator.

In the troposphere, warm air rises, because hotter air is lighter

than colder air, transmitting heat rapidly by convection. Water

vapor contained in the rising air condenses into clouds and

precipitates, giving off additional heat (the opposite of the heat

it took to evaporate it).

When the stratosphere begins, temperatures rise with

increasing altitude. This temperature inversion stops

transmission of heat by convection. Gases normally only cross

the tropopause by the slow process of diffusion (that distributes

stable gases throughout the atmosphere). Heat, therefore,

continues to space from this altitude almost entirely by

radiation.

The temperature is about -15ºC (-5ºF) at the top of the

stratosphere. Why does the stratosphere get hotter with

altitude? It is because the sun’s ultraviolet radiation first

encounters large numbers of oxygen molecules (O2) at the top

of this layer. The UV converts many of these oxygen molecules)

to ozone (O3). Both O2 and O3 absorb the UV, and the process

creates heat. At lower altitudes there is less conversion, so

temperature decreases.

At still higher altitudes, the temperature again begins to drop as

there are now very, very few oxygen and ozone molecules.

This region of declining temperature is called the mesosphere.

The mesosphere, and thermosphere above it, have no effect on

climate.

WHAT ARE GREENHOUSE GASES?

Greenhouse gases are those gases whose molecules absorb

outgoing infrared radiation from the earth (and, by some

definitions, incoming radiation from the sun).

This occurs because a greenhouse gas molecule may absorb a

photon of radiation heading toward space; then either re-emit it

in any direction — only occasionally towards space — or convert

the energy to motion (heat).

Thus, the photon is thus usually diverted from continuing to

space, and if it is not, but it encounters another such molecule,

again it will probably be diverted.

The additional molecule is analogous to adding more insulation

to a building. (Note that for a building one must double the

insulation to decrease heat transfer by a comparable amount

and this is also true for the greenhouse gas CO2 that has

already saturated the atmosphere.)

I continually find it astonishing how few of these greenhouse gas

molecules (except for plentiful water vapor molecules) there are

Source and further discussion here: https://sciencing.com/earths-atmosphere-composition-

temperature-19463.html https://sciencing.com/earths-atmosphere-composition-temperature-

19463.html

in the atmosphere. Their prevalence is measured in molecules

per million or billion molecules of air.

The greenhouse effect is shown in many publications as back

radiation. This is the radiation that doesn’t escape to space

and instead either heats the atmosphere or comes back to the

earth’s surface. Although this radiation adds heat to the earth,

that heat is less than the radiant heat that the earth is emitting,

so you cannot directly feel or measure it. Its net effect is less

cooling of the earth’s surface than would otherwise occur.

The graphic below depicts averages for the entire earth. At any

given time, some parts of the earth will receive much more solar

radiation and/or emit more infrared radiation, for example day

versus night, summer versus winter, the tropics versus the

poles.

Photons have different energies, which are equivalent to

different wavelengths. Each greenhouse gases only absorbs

photons in certain narrow bands of the wavelength spectrum.

Scientists experiment in laboratories to determine precisely the

amount of radiation absorbed by various bands. They use

Data for the most important gases is in a chart in My fifteenth question.

different temperatures and concentrations of gas. Their results

are used to make computer models of the atmosphere.

There are many unknowns: At any one location and elevation

what is the actual temperature? How much of each greenhouse

gas is at that location and do the absorption bands of one gas

cancel out the effect of the same bands in another? What

processes remove the gas at that location? How long will the gas

last? Do additional units of gas have the same effect as

previous ones?

Satellites have recently helped answer these questions for some

gases, but for other important gases the amounts emitted have

been compiled from frequently inaccurate reports on earth.

Many matters remain imprecise or are calculated by thousands

or millions of lines of computer code. So, in my opinion, the

published numbers for the effect of each gas must be taken with

a grain of salt.

The following graphic roughly indicates how greenhouse gases

cover the spectrum of the sun’s and earth’s radiation.

The big blue area around 8-15 microns is known as the

atmospheric window because that is where the earth’s

radiation is strongest and yet none of today’s common

greenhouse gases block escaping radiation. However,

unfortunately, many recently-created chlorocarbon and

fluorocarbon gases do — very effectively — and they often have

very long lifetimes. That is why these gasses are the most

powerful forcing gases, and why almost universally steps are

being taken to ban them.

Having answered my question about why and how

greenhouse gases affect global warming, I am ready to

look at the effect of greenhouse gas increases.

My fifteenth question: What effect do individual

greenhouse gases have on temperature?

To illustrate this Question, I use “official” IPCC data.

Heating Influence is a year-by-year measure of the warming

effect of greenhouse emissions.

The Heating Influence shows where we have come from in

emissions and where we are now. But what worries many

people is the future.

Once greenhouse gases are emitted, their quantities decline

geometrically — by (roughly) the same percentage each year –

the amounts remaining become very small, but never

completely disappear. The lifetime of each greenhouse gas is

widely publicized, but never defined. I learned it is not like a

human or animal lifetime; nor is it the number of years when

half the gas is gone (the half-life). Rather it is when the

concentration of gas is 37% (roughly) of its original value. (I

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas (from IPCC 2021; N2O radiative efficiency

must be somewhat higher for data to make sense.

https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/overview-greenhouse-gases

spent hours digging for a definition, before thankfully finding a

young man’s blog. He took six months to find the answer.

)

Global Warming Potential (GWP) is a widely published

number that is the long-term effect of a weight of gas emitted.

Traditionally this is shown compared to CO2. To calculate the

global warming potential of a pulse of gas you add together the

amount of gas that exists in each year of the gas’s total life,

then multiply that by the gas’s absorbing power.

Almost all publications use the 100-year Global Warming

Potential. However, to study what has happened in the past 20

years, or what happened between 1980 and 2000, or what will

happen in the next twenty years, we need to use the 20-year

Global Warming Potential.

molecule

s parts

per

billion

molecule

s in

atmosph

ere

~2022

Lifetime

(when

about

35% of

the gas

remains.

Immediate

Radiative

Efficiency

in watts

per square

meter

(equal

number of

molecules)

Relative

weight

of a

molecul

e of the

gas

compar

ed to a

molecul

e of CO2

Comparati

Immediate

Radiative

Efficiency

in watts

per square

meter by

equal

weight =

immediate

warming

potential

20 Year

Global

Warming

Potential

(by

weight)

100 Year

Global

Warming

Potential

(by

weight)

CO2

411,000

very

long 100

- 1000

1.37

Methane

1893

330 - 420

2.74

120 -156

Nitrous

Oxide

334

114

300

273

Ozone

337

short

300

The IPCC numbers for the immediate radiative efficiency of

methane by weight are the lower of the numbers above. The 20

year and 100 year Greenhouse Warming Potentials are the

IPCC’s. Published statistics of greenhouse gas emissions are by

weight.

https://climateer.substack.com/p/methane-lifetime. The number e is the base of natural

logarithms; 1/e = 36.8

This laborious calculation can be replaced by the calculus formula for an area under a

geometrically declining curve.

I haven’t included the multitude of halogens (chlorine

containing) gases in the chart; they often have extremely high

warming potentials and very long lives; today they have very

low concentrations, and many are banned. It is obvious that if

these are emitted in quantity, we will have run-away global

warming. For that reason, all countries have taken steps to

switch to halogens of lower global warming potentials, and to

limit all halogen emissions. One must hope that rogue

production and use will be eliminated.

Nitrous Oxide (laughing gas) will be especially hard to limit,

because there are many natural sources and because there is

no easy and economical way to reduce nitrogen fertilizer use or

limit its growth in a world short of food. An excellent description

of the problem is found here:

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210603-nitrous-oxide-the-

worlds-forgotten-greenhouse-gas.

I will consider ozone (O3), methane (CH4)), and carbon dioxide

(CO2), in separate questions.

My sixteenth Question: How much are fluctuations in

Ozone affecting the climate?

I believed, prior to my research on ozone, that ozone layer

depletion was heating the planet. However, it seems that

depletion of the ozone layer has little effect on temperature

because ozone’s cooling effects are balance by its heating

effects.

The ozone layer should not be confused with ground level ozone,

which is about 10% of the total ozone column. Combustion of

fuels and chemical breakdown often produce ground level ozone

— harmful to health, and a significant greenhouse forcer,

about 3/4 as powerful methane.

The formation, distribution, and effect of the ozone

layer:

The ozone layer is mainly formed in the stratosphere by solar UV

radiation when it dissociates oxygen molecules.

The initial impetus to protect the ozone layer of the atmosphere

was to shield plants and animals from UV damage. When the

“ozone hole” was discovered over the Antarctic, almost every

nation banned many uses of long-lasting chlorine and bromine

chemicals that destroy ozone.

The chlorine containing chemicals are stable in the troposphere,

but when they reach the stratosphere, UV slowly breaks them

down. The free chlorine atoms that are produced destroy ozone.

This process is vastly accelerated in the Antarctic by very cold (-

90ºC) polar winter temperatures that create unusual

stratospheric clouds that catalyze chlorine chemical breakdown.

The ozone layer began a recovery, but that recovery has slowed,

even stalled, due to rogue production of banned chlorine-

containing gases and a warmer climate, as well as unknown

causes.

The latest UN report (2022) says the recovery is on

track to recover in four decades, but going behind the headlines

this is due to a planned continued reduction in chlorine-gas

emissions, and not due to present observations.

Twenty percent of the sun irradiance is ultraviolet radiation.

Oxygen, high in the stratosphere, absorbs most of the very

harmful UV-C (of very short wavelength), while most of less

harmless UV-A (near visible light radiation) makes it through the

https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/18/1379/2018/

https://research.noaa.gov/article/ArtMID/587/ArticleID/2843/Two-additional-regions-of-

Asia-were-sources-of-banned-ozone-destroying-chemicals

Ozone: https://www.science.org/content/article/ozone-destroying-chemical-rise-despite-

crackdown#:~:text=It%20is%20already%20being%20replaced,to%202020%2C%20the%20rese

archers%20estimate

atmosphere to the surface. The ozone in the ozone layer

absorbs the great majority of the harmful UV-B that is almost

10% of the sun’s irradiant power.

For reasons that will become clear in the later discussion of

methane, it is important to understand that the ozone layer has

always been somewhat thinner in the tropics, even though

ultraviolet radiation is strongest there and the most ozone forms

there. This is due to the so-called Brewer-Dobson circulation

which rapidly moves gases into the stratosphere at the equator,

and then pushes them poleward. These winds have recently

increased by a few percent, presumably because of warmer

temperatures, consequently moving more ozone in the ozone

layer away from the equator. Because more UV radiation now

enters the tropical troposphere, more ozone forms there at

lower levels.

The graphic below shows recent worldwide increases in

ultraviolet radiation at ground level due to depletion of the

ozone layer; this averages, including feedback effects, about 3%

worldwide — about 4% in the latitudes of Europe, Canada, the

northern USA and New Zealand.

(Erythermal means causing sunburn.)

https://csl.noaa.gov/assessments/ozone/2014/twentyquestions/Q17.pdf

Changes in ozone levels have little effect on global

temperature:

Of the solar radiation reaching the earth’s surface, UV is only

and of that UV-B radiation makes up only 5%. The sun’s

total irradiance, about 200 watts per square meter.

Therefore, an average depletion of the ozone layer of 3% has a

miniscule effect on radiation reaching the earth, about 0.01

watts per square meter.

Countering the warming effect of a thinner ozone layer is the

cooling effect of less of a greenhouse gas of about 0.015 watts

per square meter. Thus, depletion of the ozone layer, neither

significantly heats nor cools the planet.

My seventeenth question: What about future warming from

methane?

This is important. Methane has the second largest influence of

a greenhouse gas, because although there is only a small

amount in the atmosphere, the initial forcing per ton of methane

emitted is perhaps 156 times that of CO2. Its 20-year GWP

(greenhouse warming potential) is around 83 and the 100-year

GWP is about 30. My bottom line of this question is that

methane is a much more important greenhouse gas than is

usually thought, and deserves much more emphasis in

controlling climate warming.

I’ve learned that I disagree with most of what I’ve read

about methane emissions. Data from before 1980 comes

primarily from Antarctic ice cores and or from Greenland. This

data is valuable to show changes from methane concentrations

since the preindustrial era. However, we know now that the

troposphere in the tropics contains a 20% higher methane

concentration than in Antarctica (or likely more), and that

methane rises high in the troposphere and stratosphere so in

my opinion this data cannot be used to calculate the historical

methane worldwide burden. Another problem: in Greenland at

least, results have been found to vary by gas-extraction

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet

https://www.livescience.com/50326-what-is-ultraviolet-light.html#

methods and by the nature of the dust particles that may have

been in the air with the methane.

Data after 1980 mainly comes from air sampling stations

often at locations in the ocean, with poor coverage of the tropics

and interior Asia, and no coverage of the upper troposphere and

lower stratosphere where methane concentrations are high.

The high atmosphere has been sampled by aircraft and

balloons, but with very poor worldwide coverage.

I especially noted the lack of any methane ground sampling

stations in or near India, Pakistan, or Bangladesh or the amazon

(and the lack of satellite data from there as well). I now believe

that much more methane has been emitted there than in the

official numbers, and with a longer lifetime, as explained below.

India contained 285 million ruminants (bovines, sheep and goats) in 1962, 469

million in1992, and 525 million in 2019.

This is 50% larger than Brazil for bovines

and three or four times that any of China, the USA or the European Union

. India’s

sheep population is second in the world after China.

The Indian subcontinent has

the largest goat population. Pakistan and Bangladeshi have approximately another

250 million ruminants.

In the Indian subcontinent (and parts of Africa) ruminant dung is used for fuel —

heating and cooking. The stoves there are very inefficient, and the fuel has a high

remaining moisture content and a low carbon content. The result is a high output of

carbon monoxide and other aromatic carbohydrates, which act as drains of OH

radical.

See the discussion below as to why this probably results in a longer

lifetime for the substantial sources of methane on the Indian Subcontinent. Dung

cooking may have the same effect in other parts of the world, and result in more

methane diffusing into the stratosphere. I do not find this taken into consideration

in the IPCC discussion.

https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/22/6899/2022/

https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends_ch4/

https://agage.mit.edu/global-network

https://www.nddb.coop/information/stats/pop

https://beef2live.com/story-world-cattle-inventory-ranking-countries-0-106905

https://iwto.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/IWTO-Market-Information-Sample-Edition-

17.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_husbandry_in_Pakistan#:~:text=As%20of%202020%2C

%20there%20were,30.9%20million%20sheep%20in%20Pakistan.

https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/21/2383/2021/acp-21-2383-2021-f09.png

https://energypedia.info/wiki/Cooking_with_Dung#:~:text=Burning%20dung%20emits%20far

%20greater,mass%20when%20converted%20into%20biogas.

The concentration of stratospheric methane over Africa and India is

confirmed in the graphic here: https://www.caribic-

atmospheric.com/downloads/vanweele_etal_extended_abstract_ncgg6_final_

doc.pdf

Scientists have used atomic isotope variations and companion

gases (such as butane) to distinguish between different

methane sources, but the ratios of these gases compared this

way doesn’t agree with the totals measured on the ground.

Scientists have given up explaining the pause in the growth rate

of methane emissions that took place between 2000 and 2007.

I had a brief look at the methane/butane ratios for some Chinese

oilfields.

The fields that were 15 years older showed one-third

the butane emissions of the newest ones. A study of European

production finds a ration of almost 1 to 7 from old to new

fields.

Without a worldwide inventory of these ratios,

calculated data is worthless. So, I reiterate, earlier data on

methane emissions, likely, is substantially too low.

Satellites are just beginning to monitor methane emissions

(2020’s), and they are finding much great emissions than

expected from oil and gas and from landfills. The three greatest

petroleum emitting nations are Turkmenistan, Russia and the

United States. If the leaks declared by the gas industry of 1%

turn out to be nearly 3% or more, which is probable, natural gas

may in fact have nearly as much climate warming potential as

coal.

A satellite with high resolution designed specifically to

detect methane emissions launched in 2022. It should make it

easier to limit gas industry methane emissions. It seems,

however, that many of the emissions are from old, diffuse

sources —pipelines and abandoned wells rather than current

drilling.

For what it is worth, here is a now outdated graphic from NASA

(2005) of methane distributions at the earth’s surface and in the

stratosphere (in parts per billion by volume):

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1814297116

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Cross-plot-of-d-13-C-methane-d-13-C-ethane-versus-d-

13-C-ethane-d-13-C-propane-showing_fig8_329410219

https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/21/2383/2021/acp-21-2383-2021-f09.png

https://www.space.com/satellites-discover-huge-undeclared-methane-emissions

See comparable graphics also here: https://www.caribic-

atmospheric.com/downloads/vanweele_etal_extended_abstract_ncgg6_final_

doc.pdf

Comparison of the troposphere and stratosphere graphics above

shows that in the tropics stratospheric methane is 12% higher,

while in the mid-latitudes it is 25% lower.

Here is a more recent (April 2018) depiction of the total

methane column taken by satellite using a retrieval algorithm:

https://climate.esa.int/en/projects/ghgs/Data/

Please note that the first graphic uses parts per million by

volume (i.e., molecules), the second parts per billion. Note that

the satellite cannot read the methane volumes near the

equator, where there is the highest concentration. The two

data sets are in conflict, the first showing about double

the methane of the second.

The Methane Budget graphic below is copied from the IPCC

Climate Change 2021 The Physical Science Basis,

and is based

upon old data. The accompanying IPCC text points to a conflict

between “top-down” methods of using isotopes and tracer gases

and “bottom up” measures of actual emissions which are higher.

Note that these measurements are by weight. Current data

suggests that the fossil fuels bar of the chart and the wetlands

bar should be much higher.

As shown above, major sources of methane are natural gas,

petroleum and coal, cattle, sheep, goats, termites, bacterial

action in landfills, agricultural waste, wetlands, volcanos,

undersea vents, and forest fires. Not shown is the methane

https://report.ipcc.ch/ar6/wg1/IPCC_AR6_WGI_FullReport.pdf Section 5.2.25 page705

emitted by forests. Huge amounts of methane are trapped in

polar methane-ice and frozen peat.

Scientists are concerned because the growth rate of

methane is accelerating. The acceleration has been

attributed to various sources, for example increased use of fossil

fuels, more agriculture, more outgassing from wetlands and

polar reservoirs due to higher temperatures, and/or a

diminishing amount of methane sinks per unit of methane

emitted.

Some individuals fear a runaway increase of methane, often

called a “methane bomb”. These increases might occur if

increased methane or carbon monoxide or other hydrocarbons

decrease the amount of OH available to destroy the methane in

the atmosphere, or from the melting of the permafrost, or from

increased temperature’s vastly accelerating emissions from

wetlands. Scientists presently consider these scenarios

unlikely.

The major sink (95%) of methane is OH — the very reactive

radical that occurs when H2O (water vapor) loses a hydrogen

atom. OH has been called “the detergent of the atmosphere”.

It destroys most carbon-containing molecules. Due to chemical

reaction times, the OH radical first removes carbon monoxide

(CO) from the atmosphere (40% of reactions), then

miscellaneous organic molecules (often from plants and

pollution) (30%), then methane (15%) and then ozone and

hydrogen-oxygen compounds (15%).

Analysis of CO

availability for methane gets complicated rapidly. For instance,

burning in the tropics is a major source of carbon monoxide

which can vary in amount depending on how wet the vegetation

is.

In my opinion the emissions derived by calculations are

too low while observed methane emissions, which are

much higher, are more accurate but still too low because

of insufficient sampling. The sink that is calculated and

measured CO for methane has not increased, so what happens

to the additional methane? It moves into the stratosphere

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/150967/why-methane-surged-in-2020

https://courses.seas.harvard.edu/climate/eli/Courses/EPS281r/Sources/OH-

reactivity/www.atmosphere.mpg.de-oxidation-and-OH-radicals.pdf

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/global-maps/MOP_CO_M

where it is broken down by ozone and OH. Recently the Brewer-

Dobson circulation has been found to drive more tropical air into

the stratosphere than previously calculated or thought, while

the amount of the OH found in the stratosphere is somewhat

higher than in the models.

Methane also makes a greater contribution to global

warming than the 100-year GWP of 30 that has been

widely disseminated, due to its breakdown gases. The

IPCC is aware of this but does not publicize the effects of

methane’s breakdown products. When methane reacts with OH

a chemical chain reaction usually leads to 1 molecule of carbon

dioxide (CO2) molecule and 2 molecules of water (H2O). The

CO2 molecule will increase methane’s 100 year GWP by about

2.5%.

The two H2O molecules created will not affect the troposphere,

since atmospheric temperature controls the troposphere’s

humidity, but they will affect the stratosphere. Methane

entering the stratosphere is responsible for one-half of the water

vapor there.

This is hugely important, as increases in

stratospheric water vapor have large greenhouse effects and

also deplete the ozone layer. Conversely, according to one

article in Science

a one-year decrease of 10% in stratospheric

water vapor decreased climate warming that year by 25%.

To repeat, then my bottom line is that methane makes

and has made a much bigger contribution to global

warming than it is credited for. More has been and is

emitted, and its warming effect is greater than has been

estimated. Therefore, CO2 has made less of a

contribution. If methane’s contribution is increased by

40%, then CO2’s calculated contribution is decreased by

more than 10%.

https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/18/4463/2018/

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1227004

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1182488

My eighteenth question: What has been the warming effect

of carbon dioxide (CO2)?

You can read endlessly about carbon dioxide sources, sinks and

interrelationships in the IPCCs Science report, Chapter 5,

but

here I am concerned only with total emissions. The following

graphic gives an overview of the “fast carbon cycle”:

(The slow

carbon cycle takes millions of years.)

This diagram of the fast carbon cycle shows the movement of carbon

between land, atmosphere, and oceans. Yellow numbers are natural

fluxes, and red are human contributions in gigatons of carbon per year.

White numbers indicate stored carbon. (Diagram adapted from U.S.

DOE, Biological and Environmental Research Information System.)

https://report.ipcc.ch/ar6/wg1/IPCC_AR6_WGI_FullReport.pdf

Graphic from: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/CarbonCycle

Note that the above diagram is representative and probably not

accurate in detail. For instance, phytoplankton are recently

considered to have a bigger role than previously thought.

Plant and microbial fluxes are mainly in balance (because the

earth’s temperature adjusted long ago to create the balance),

while almost one-half of the human contribution in the industrial

age causes a net atmospheric increase of CO2 of about 1/2

percent per year (and the rest is slowly acidifying the ocean).

As far back as 1896 a Swedish scientist calculated that doubling

CO2 levels in the atmosphere would cause world temperatures

to rise 5ºC. But scientists generally believed that other

influences were stronger such as the sun, and that the ocean

was a sufficient sink for CO2 gas. Worldwide temperatures

began rising rapidly after 1980, and measurements at altitude,

(at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, for example) documented rapidly

increasing atmospheric CO2 gas. Absent any other credible

explanation, and also considering the centuries-long life of the

CO2 being added to the atmosphere, most scientists bought into

the CO2 hypothesis

, but there are dissenters.

For a more detailed account of the history see https://www.lenntech.com/greenhouse-

effect/global-warming-history.htm

How fast has carbon dioxide (CO2) been increasing? When

will it double from the 1850 level?

1850 CO2 levels were 280 parts per million. So, a doubling

would be 560 ppm, as illustrated in the above graph. (Please

note that each additional unit of CO2 adds slightly less forcing.)

Levels are now (January 2023) roughly 419.5 ppm. Thus, we are

140 PPM away from a doubling of pre-industrial CO2 levels.

The Washington Post in 2021 ran an article stating that the

doubling would take place by 2060,

— in 37 years. However,

the data for January 2023, as compiled on the big island of

Hawaii, shows an even linear trend in the last four years of 2.25

parts per year.

(That’s slightly higher than the graphic of the

carbon cycle.) Assuming that this rate continues, CO will

double from preindustrial times in 2085, 62 years away.

What effect has increasing CO2 had on temperature?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/04/05/atmospheric-co2-concentration-record/

https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/

MULTI-DECADE CHANGES IN CO2 AND TEMPERATURE

(ºC)

CO2

LEVEL

IN YEAR

CO2

increase

from

period in

units

CO2 percent

increase in

period

(more valid

measure

since all

agree CO2

effect

declines per

unit)

Temperatur

e Anomaly

TEMPERATUR

E CHANGE ºC

DURING

PERIOD

Temperature

change

adjusted by

me to account

fo influence of

aerosols (see

My thirteenth

question)

1860

280

-0.4

1880

291

-0.3

1900

296

-0.4

1920

303

8.2

-0.3

0.1

1940

310

2.3

0.1

0.4

1960

317

2.2

-0.1

-0.2

0.0

1980

339

6.9

0.2

0.3

2000

369

8.5

0.5

0.3

0.2

2022

419

13.7

0.6

0.1

0.0

TOTALS

131

1.0

Correlati

on of CO2

percent

change with

temperature

change:

0.10

-.37

From the second to last column of this chart, we see that

the correspondence between CO2 increases and

temperature increases has been very, very weak (a

correlation of .10 — virtually nil).

In the last column, I increase the temperatures for the 1940 to

1960 period and decrease those from 1980 to 2022, to account

for aerosol increases and decreases, but now the correlation

turns negative (that is, when the percent increase of CO2

increases temperature change decreases).

Arguably, all the temperature increase from 2000 to

2022 has been caused by the reductions in aerosols.

The data above is enough to confirm anyone as a “climate

questioner”, as it did for me when I first looked at it. CO2 must

have an effect, but that effect is entirely overwhelmed by

changes in aerosols and in the ocean.

My adjustments to the warming caused by CO2:

I believe the following: A) The instantaneous forcing of every

other gas and aerosol is known with much greater certainty than

for CO2, both because the amount of forcing per molecule is

many times larger and because the other greenhouse gases are

not saturated in the atmosphere or in conflict with water vapor.

In other words, the forcing from CO2 is almost impossible to

measure.

B) If the amount of another gas such as methane must be

increased or if an allowance for undersea magma heating must

be made, or if the amount of aerosol has decreased from the

level posited by the IPCC authorities, then the adjustment must

be balanced by corresponding decreases in CO2 forcing.

C) The amount of CO2 forcing estimated by the IPCC

since 1850 should be reduced by at least 40%.

The chart below from the ICC gives their interpretation of the

human caused historical causes of increasing temperatures.

Based upon my findings in my questions above, the aerosol bar

(.51), should be cut in half and the other well-mixed greenhouse

gases bar (.57 increased by about a third). These changes

reduce the CO2 bar from 1.01ºC to 0.57ºC.

My nineteenth question: How has the IPCC predicted future

temperatures?

I have spent many hours trying to understand the answer to this

question. I do not think the method of the IPCC, or any similar

method is reliable, as I discuss in detail in My twentieth

question, but since it is the method used in most climate

science, it is worth understanding.

However, even after you understand the method in general —

even if you spend hours and hours studying the IPCC’s

assumptions and doing your own math — the complexity of the

IPCC inputs and their use of computer simulations means that

you must take the IPCC result on faith, as most people do, or

ignore it.

(My twenty-first question provides my own calculation by

an easily understandable method.)

To estimate future global warming using the IPCC method, the

first step is to calculate a future forcing from each gas or other

element, measured in Watts per square meter of the earth’s

surface. Next, one adds these forcings together. Third, one

adjusts the result by all the physical feedbacks. Finally, one

multiplies the result by the climate sensitivity to convert the

Watts per square meter to a temperature change. All the

modelers adjust their equations so that the model will

give the present temperature and the estimated change

from 1850 to the present.

Forcing:

Generally, you will not find published data for an

instantaneous forcing, the first day’s impact of an

additional unit of a gas or aerosol, unless you read

scientific journal articles. The IPCC in its two-thousand-page

volume publicizes forcing since the beginning of the

industrial age, or forcing projected over the next 100

years, or forcing until CO2 doubles; and the IPCC expressly

encourages scientists to use temperature changes over these

time frames — to promote its agenda with the public.

Forcing for each element is determined in whole-earth

complicated computer models of present conditions or

sometimes in simple overall models. All scientists agree that

individual forcings can be added together.

Physical Feedbacks

Physical feedbacks are the changes in the climate

system that occur due to forcings.

Water vapor is the biggest positive physical feedback. Water

vapor is not only a very powerful greenhouse gas with a wide

absorption spectrum of the earth’s radiation, but also is also

widely distributed throughout the atmosphere — far more so

than other greenhouse gas. Water vapor is mainly responsible

for making our planet’s average temperature tolerable:

approximately 15ºC (59ºF) (depending upon the month), rather

than roughly -13ºC (9ºF).

Water vapor is not considered a forcing because we cannot

directly affect the amount of it by our actions. How much water

vapor is in the atmosphere is determined by the temperature of

the air. If forcings causes the air and ocean temperature to rise,

more water vapor will be evaporated.

Other important physical feedbacks are warming-induced

changes in albedo (the amount of sunlight reflected by snow,

for example) and in clouds.

Please note in the following graphic the very important Planck

negative feedback. This is the increase of radiation to space

occurring because of warmer earth temperatures. It causes

the sum of all physical feedbacks to be negative.

The Planck feedback is based upon a general law of physics:

the radiation emitted by a surface increases with the fourth

power of its absolute temperature. This means (subject to small

adjustments) that if the earth were black and its temperature

increased by 1/3% (1ºC), ((276ºK>277ºK), radiation to space

would increase by 1.5%. The actual percentage is very

approximately 1% because the earth is not black.

Climate Sensitivity:

Climate sensitivity is the amount you must multiply a

future forcing-feedback total by to arrive at a future

temperature. Climate Sensitivity is calculated using various

definitions, sometimes after full adjustment by the oceans,

which take years to catch up with changes on land, sometimes

the temperature that will exist when CO2 doubles, and

sometimes just the multiplier one must use to convert Watts per

square meter changes to temperature changes. Confusion

often arises — because the definition being used is not made

explicit.

Models estimate climate sensitivity (equilibrium climate

sensitivity, or perhaps effective climate sensitivity) from less

than 2 to more than 7. The IPCC presently likes 3. I am not sure

what “Future projections” means – most likely when CO2

quadruples as this is often calculated.

Besides current models and their own model, the IPPC considers

complex paleolithic models. These rely on ice cores, boron

isotopes, species, and other proxies to determine temperature

and CO2 concentration changes over periods in the past,

particularly the Cretaceous, which had conditions similar to

those of today. It is easy to be biased in choice of data because

in some thousand-year periods higher CO2 has preceded higher

temperatures, in others have it has followed temperature

changes,

and in still others it has been inversely

correlated.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-020-00680-2

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-08234-0#ref-CR14

The above graphic

illustrates several undersea ongoing

volcanic events in the Mesozoic Era that caused global

temperatures to rise. These events have been the basis for CO2

claims in many studies. As the volcanism was ongoing, how

much weight should have been given to direct injection of

methane to the atmosphere? How much to direct warming of

the oceans by lava? How much to reverse causation – the warm

ocean expelling CO2? Models of paleolithic events suffer from

the same over-sensitivity as models of the modern climate, and

wider error ranges and other uncertainties as well.

The IPCC’s synthesis of the first two methods is shown in the

graphic below for policy makers, copied from page 13 of the

IPCC report. It shows that with continued additions of CO2 at

the same rate (scenario SSP3-7.0), warming of the earth by

2081-2100 will be 3.5ºC above the pre-industrial level — 2.5 C

greater than today’s. Since warming on land will be much

higher, this is enough warming to scare everyone!

https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?&title=Calcareous%20nannofos

sils%20and%20Mesozoic%20oceanic%20anoxic%20events&journal=Mar.%2

0Micropaleontol.&doi=10.1016%2Fj.marmicro.2004.04.007&volume=52&pa

ges=85-106&publication_year=2004&author=Erba%2CE

Based on my studies in this paper, I believe this

projection is far too high: The allocation to CO2 forcing

is probably 40% too high, and the climate sensitivity is

far too high as well.

My twentieth question: Can we measure climate change

forcings and sensitivity accurately enough to prove

anything?

I am afraid the answer is no.

These days, all atmospheric science is done using computer

models. Scientists input into their computer models their best

estimates of physical, chemical, meteorological and

oceanographic processes, worldwide. There are dozens of

complex climate models, some with millions of lines of code,

with the earth divided up into thousands of squares or cubes.

But these come up with very discrepant predictions.

No lay person can critique a model. Who knows if important

factors have been left out? Climate scientists outside the model

group, rather than critiquing an existing model, will create a new

one.

Most of the data used in climate science is uncertain. The

satellite measuring the earth’s incoming and outgoing radiation

budgets and gases are subject to adjustments

. How clouds

affect the earth’s reflectivity (albedo) remains highly uncertain

despite much research and is very important in models. What

goes on geothermically under the ocean surface is mainly

unknown (see discussion in My tenth question), the fixation of

carbon by phytoplankton could be much higher or lower, and

there is uncertainty in ocean surface temperature

measurements. The effects of aerosols and of methane are

uncertain. While the temperatures in 1850 and 2022 are known

with some accuracy, the amount of each forcing in these years

is not, including, in my opinion, that for CO2. The effect of a unit

of CO2 is particularly uncertain.

https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/31/2/jcli-d-17-0208.1.xml

Different models of future climate have a huge range of

predicted outcomes, and almost all past models have greatly

overestimated the amount of present global warming.

To exaggerate an effect, one does not put the base of a

chart at zero. If temperature charts were put at base

zero Kelvin (-276ºC), or close to it, you wouldn’t see the

tiny changes.

Average world temperature is about 290 Kelvin, so a one-degree

change in world temperature is roughly a one-third of a percent

change.

This is very important, because many climate

skeptics argue that a one-third percent change in total incoming

or outgoing radiation or any other any other factor cannot cause

climate change, but a one-third percent change in present

temperature equals about 1ºC.

All of the discussion of climate warming to date is about

an eventual possible one or one and one-half percent

change in the earth’s temperature. Global warming since

1920 has been 0.1C per decade or about 1/30 of a percent

per decade.

The small percentage change of 1/3% per degree C

makes temperature hypersensitive to forcing, and model

predictions unreliable.

A change of only 2% in a model’s total forcing for 2085

would impact temperature by 6ºC.

To confirm that small percentage changes of forcing cause large

temperature changes, I have considered known forcing changes

and their results. The most obvious is the winter summer

change in the earth’s temperature, discussed in My question six

above, which about 4ºC, simply because of more land to absorb

sunlight in the northern hemisphere. Next, consider

Milankovitch cycles, which are based upon a solar forcing

change of 10% more or less than average over 65º North at the

. Calculations in physics are done from the base of 0 Kelvin = -276º C. The earth’s average

temperature is about 15ºC, a difference of about 291º C, so 1 percent is 2.9º C and one-third

percent = 0.96º C

summer solstice

, where there is the most land — which is only

a tiny percent change worldwide over the year; and yet these

cycles are thought to have triggered ice ages.

Climate models are in effect equations with hundreds (or

thousands) of variables. It is well known that there are many,

many ways to adjust the inputs to such an equation to make it

fit a curve, especially a simple curve with only a beginning data

point in 1850 and an ending one in 2020 (and nothing reliable in

between because of ocean cycles). Thousands of divergent

climate models could easily be hind-cast to fit past climate data.

I reiterate, then, that climate models cannot make

reliable predictions.

My twenty-first question: What will the world’s average

temperature be in 2090?

In analyzing business investments, one of the world’s most

successful investors, Warren Buffet, eschews the use of

spreadsheets and complex projections which he finds

untrustworthy, relying instead upon past results and back of the

envelope calculations.

In that tradition, I offer my own back of the envelope projection

based upon past “results”, a projection so simple that anyone

can understand it. This projection is for worldwide temperature,

including the oceans. Land temperatures have been rising and

will continue to rise more rapidly.

I do believe in the adage: “I distrust all projections, especially

about the future.” A major unknown is how the ocean sink of

CO2 and ocean currents will react. Another is whether there will

be a VE7 or greater terrestrial volcanic eruption or a VE8

underwater one (with opposite effects). Another is whether

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles#/media/File:MilankovitchC

yclesOrbitandCores.png

there will be a “methane bomb” (see My seventeenth question).

Another is that phytoplankton remain active.

THE PROJECTION

I assume that human behavior doesn’t change — as in SPCC

scenario SPP 3 – 7.0 that I analyzed in a previous question.

Therefore, CO2, methane and nitrous oxide emissions are

assumed to continue at current levels.

The following should slow the temperature increase compared to

the past:

a) additional units of CO2 will have slightly less warming

effect (see the graph in the nineteenth question);

b) aerosols will not diminish further and will increase again

due to South Asian, Southeast Asian and African countries;

c) human-caused methane emissions will not continually

increase and add to its present warming impact.

The following should speed up the temperature increase

compared to the past:

a) sea ice and glaciers will melt faster, increasing albedo

more rapidly;

b) natural methane emissions will increase faster with

rising temperatures.

Therefore, on balance, temperatures will rise at the same

rate as in the past.

It impossible to use of temperature changes over a few decades,

due to fluctuations in the oceans and aerosols, so I will use the

warming over the last ~100 years, from 1920 until 2022. That

is 1ºC in total or just under 0.1ºC per decade.

It is 67 years from 2023, when I am writing this, until

2090, so temperatures will increase by about 0.7ºC.

What are my conclusions?

About global warming:

It is likely to continue, but much slower than crusaders fear.

Therefore, there will be more time to adapt and to find solutions

that are economically sound.

We should immediately give priority to controlling methane

emissions.

We should continue efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

About Nature:

I’ve always believed that even in our time we human beings are

ultimately insignificant before the forces of nature. I now add

under-ocean magma to to the extremely rare but possible

catastrophic dangers humanity faces.

About Science:

It seems that individual scientific creation, embodied by the

stars such as Newton, Einstein, the Curies and Pasteur, is

obsolete, Scientists no longer imagine or derive answers

themselves. They program. And computers give the answers.

Almost every conclusion, even those derived from “toy models”

needs computer computation.

Humans cannot readily check the appropriateness or accuracy

of computer computations or understand the inputs. Rather,

another computer is programmed by another scientist to see if

the same results emerge. If not, the results of all the models

are shown as bars on a chart. Somebody decides which

computation, or which average of them, to use. Must we accept

science on trust?

In a few years will artificial intelligence make the final decisions?

About environmental and Energy policy:

The following thoughts have entered my head while writing this

paper:

Most people will continue to ignore most of the environmental

damage they cause, even when they are aware of it.

Most people will not cut their lifestyles unless forced to, and

most people worldwide will continue to want more physical

goods and experiences. Regulations, therefore, will be possible

and effective only if they have a minimum impact on lifestyle.

In the future people will need more energy to provide for still-

increasing populations, to continue lifestyle improvements

worldwide and to repair or alleviate the damage already done to

the earth — for example to provide more water by desalinization

and above-ground distribution; to make more fertilizer and

alleviate the environmental damage from it; to cool hotter

homes; to replace or possibly to sequester carbon.

To my knowledge, there are only three sources of non-carbon

energy: energy conservation, the sun and the atom.

Energy is conserved by electric cars (and they have other

benefits); by insulation and reflective glass; by heat pumps; by

more efficient electrical generation, transmission and use; and

by other improved technology.

The sun’s energy can be harvested in many ways: by panels, by

wind turbines, by waves, by tides, by falling water, by biofuel.

The choice is a matter of lifecycle environmental impact,

economy and efficiency. The advantages and limitations of

each means are well known. The need for energy storage and

improved transmission to balance load is well known.

Green energy, in my opinion, cannot be sufficient to provide the

needed energy to replace, or even to limit carbon-based fuels.

In my opinion nuclear power has the necessary capacity and is

safe enough. I also believe that new nuclear technology will be

safer still, have less disposal issues, and eventually will be made

available at a reasonable cost.

The Executive Summary begins below.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

21 Climate Change

Questions

What is causing climate change?

How much will global temperature increase?

By David A. May

Comments@myclimatequestions.com

May be reproduced

with attribution.

Link to the full paper with data, explanation, and reasoning.

Could the presently accepted truth be wrong?

Yes, in my lifetime and throughout history generally

accepted scientific truth has proven wrong.

1. How rapidly has the climate been warming?

No doubt it has warmed about 1.0º or 1.1º C since 1850.

Temperatures have risen most over land in the Northern

Hemisphere and least in the tropics. As I write worldwide

temperatures have fallen 0.2ºC from their 1916 highs, but

an El Niño is pending. Temperatures will likely continue to

increase, but at a rate far less than the IPCC climate

authority predicts.

2. When climate skeptics doubt the temperatures used to

calculate warming, are they correct?

Yes. Recently measured land temperatures are too high by

0.1ºC due principally to the urban heat island effect.

Satellite near surface temperatures are accurate.

Temperatures measured before the satellite era began in

1979, are subject to many adjustments that are likely not

accurate, but they are the only temperatures we have.

3. Is the earth warming because we are still coming out of

the Ice Age?

No, although there is some cooling from remaining ice age

glaciers and sea ice.

4. Could a natural fluctuation explain current world

temperature changes?

Yes. World temperatures have fluctuated in preindustrial

times by at least 0.5ºC and probably more than 1.0ºC. The

temperature may or may not have been warmer than today

during the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods, but almost

surely was warmer in the Mesopotamian - Minoan period

5,000 to 8,000 years ago.

5. Are the impacts of climate warming thus far as bad as

they have been portrayed?

No, they are not as bad. There have been misleading or

false statements, photographs and movies. Hurricanes,

Tornadoes, coral reef bleaching, and western droughts are

not worse than before.

There are negative effects of rising temperatures, including

longer fire seasons, sea acidification, and faster sea level

rise. Positive effects have been longer and more fertile

growing seasons and less dire winters in northern regions.

6. How large are the recent fluctuations in worldwide

temperature?

They are huge. Global temperatures sometimes vary from

their monthly averages by 0.4ºC and sometimes from year

to year by 1C. Temperatures rose between 1920 and 1940,

declined between 1940 and 1980, and rose again through

1916. The average global temperature is almost 4ºC

higher in July than in January.

7. Are solar fluctuations warming the climate?

Solar fluctuations can warm or cool the planet by a degree

C or more and may be partly responsible for the Little Ice

Age. However, in the 20th and 21st centuries they have

had little effect.

8. Is the heat that comes up through the crust of the earth

(not considering plumes and volcanos) affecting the

climate?

No. It has almost no effect.

9. Are Land Volcanos affecting the temperature?

Land Volcanos of VEI 6 or more have affected the climate in

the past by veiling the sun or injecting gases into the

stratosphere. Very rarely VEI 7 volcanoes they have cooled

the climate for years. In recent years volcanoes have had

little long-term effect.

10. Are Undersea Volcanos and magna plumes partly

responsible for present climate and climate change?

There is more than twice as much ocean as land. Only 5%

of the ocean floor has been and presently can be explored.

Tectonic plate separations mainly take place in the deep

ocean where the earth’s crust is much thinner than on

continents.

During the earth’s history there have been huge

outpourings of magna, one of which warmed the oceans to

38ºC (100F). Only a very large VEI 7 undersea eruption or a

highly unlikely VEI 8 eruption could warm the planet. There

are likely active volcanoes under the Arctic Ocean,

contributing to unexplained warming there, and off the

Antarctic coast. The 2021-22 Tonga eruption injected

water into the stratosphere and thereby warmed the earth;

this is the first recorded event of this nature.

11. Are fluctuations in winds and ocean currents sufficient

to affect average global temperatures?

Yes. Upwelling such as from La Niña and the Antarctic

upwelling can cool the climate, and the Pacific mixing (top)

layer can heat it — including by El Niño, but not limited to

it. Many ocean oscillations exist; some persist for decades.

Currents and winds fluctuate over short and long periods.

Scientists try to model the fluctuations, but most of them

consider the changes chaotic. The fluctuations make it

impossible to rely upon one- or two- decade changes to

predict future climate.

12. Has deforestation caused the climate to warm?

No, it is the opposite. Deforestation has cooled the climate

because forests absorb more heat from the sun than does

open land or crops, and because trees, it has recently been

confirmed, give off methane. These two effects outweigh

the CO2 sequestration of old forests.

13. What are the effects of human-caused aerosol emissions

into the air?

Human-caused aerosols (microscopic liquid drops or

particles in the air) — particularly the aerosol sulfur dioxide

— on balance substantially cool the climate by reflecting

sunlight and by seeding clouds. The worldwide

temperature decline between 1940 and 1980 is due to large

increases in aerosols, and half of the warming from 1980

until present is arguably due to the aerosol decreases since

Clean Air Acts in the United States and Europe. Reducing

black carbon emissions have allowed increasing amounts of

sunlight to reach the earth’s surface, rather than heating

the upper troposphere.

The global climate authority, the IPCC, mistakenly has

aerosols substantially increasing from 1980 to the present,

which causes at least 35% overestimate of CO2’s effect.

14. Why and how do greenhouse gases affect the earth’s

temperature?

From the top of the troposphere heat can only proceed to

space by radiation. The earth’s infrared radiation photons

heading towards space are interrupted and absorbed by

greenhouse gas molecules and emitted in all directions —

only a fraction towards space. Different greenhouse gasses

absorb and emit different wavelengths of the earth’s IR

radiation. Many infrared photons head back to the surface

of the earth, where they are absorbed. This is not felt

because the returning radiation is less than the radiation

being emitted by the earth.

15. What effect do individual greenhouse gases have on

temperature?

CO2, the most prevalent human-affected greenhouse gas

by far, has a very weak effect, designated 1, but a very long

life of many hundreds of years. Consequently, excess

human-caused emissions cumulate in the atmosphere.

Global warming potentials, shown in the chart below,

measure the relative effect of other greenhouse gases by

weight compared to over a 20 or 100 year time period.

molecule

s parts

per

billion

molecule

s in

atmosph

ere

~2022

Lifetime

(when

about

35% of

the gas

remains.

Immediate

Radiative

Efficiency

in watts

per square

meter

(equal

number of

molecules)

Relative

weight

of a

molecul

e of the

gas

compar

ed to a

molecul

e of CO2

Comparati

Immediate

Radiative

Efficiency

in watts

per square

meter by

equal

weight =

immediate

warming

potential

20 Year

Global

Warming

Potential

(by

weight)

100 Year

Global

Warming

Potential

(by

weight)

CO2

411,000

very

long 100

- 1000

1.37

Methane

1893

330 - 420

2.74

120 -156

Nitrous

Oxide

334

114

300

273

Ozone

337

short

300

16. How much are fluctuations in Ozone affecting the

climate?

Ozone pollution at ground level is a significant greenhouse

gas, about 10% of all atmospheric ozone. The ozone layer

has partially recovered, but the recovery has stalled.

The ozone layer, which is mainly in the stratosphere, and

which is created by UV from the sun modifying oxygen,

filters out most UV-B. Oxygen molecules themselves filter

out almost all UV-C. UV-A, near visible light, makes it to the

earth’s surface. The ozone layer has little effect on world

temperature because it filters incoming UV on the one hand

and acts a greenhouse gas on the other.

17. What about future warming from methane?

Methane emissions have been estimated by ground

monitoring. My research indicates that the amount of

methane emitted has been greatly underestimated. A

methane spotting satellite set to launch in 2024 will provide

better data. My research also suggests that the warming

effect of methane breakdown has been underestimated.

Therefore, because methane has made a greater

contribution to climate warming, the contribution of CO2

must have been less, by perhaps 10%. Methane emissions

from natural sources are increasing rapidly, probably due to

increased land temperatures.

18. What has been the warming effect of carbon dioxide

(CO2)?

Excess CO2 is entering the atmosphere each year because

the carbon cycle balance has been disturbed, primarily by

emissions from fossil fuels production and use. The oceans

have absorbed one-half of the excess CO2. At the present

rate of emissions, CO2 will double from the pre-industrial

levels of 1850 in about 2065.

There is only a 10% correlation — virtually nil — between

two-decade CO2 levels and the corresponding temperature

changes. If the temperatures are adjusted to account for

aerosol fluctuations, the correlation turns negative. One

must conclude that events in the ocean have a far

greater effect over two decades on temperatures

than CO2.

Given what I have learned in previous questions, the

IPCC’s attribution of historic global warming to CO2

should be reduced by at least 40%.

19. How has the IPCC predicted future temperatures?

I don’t believe the results published by the IPCC, or of any

comparable modelling method, are reliable. However,

since this is the method the climatology world uses, it is

worth understanding it: First, one calculates a forcing in

Watts per square meter for each greenhouse gas and other

human forcing elements. Then one adjusts the total by the

positive and negative feedbacks of the climate system, and

finally one multiplies this by a “sensitivity of temperature to

Watts per square meter.

The period from 1850 to the present, or some Paleolithic

period is then used, to calibrate the sensitivity. Next. one

projects forward using the sensitivity and future projected

emissions under various scenarios.

Under the scenario where emission rates of CO2 don’t

change the IPCC projects a a warming of 2.5ºC (4.5ºF)

from today for the 2080 to 2100 period. Since land

warming would be higher, this is a scary projection. For the

reasons discussed in previous questions and others, I

believe the projection is far too high.

20. Can we measure climate change forcings and sensitivity

accurately enough to prove anything?

No. All climate science today uses computer models of all

physical, chemical, meteorological. and oceanographic

influences worldwide. There are dozens of these models by

different scientific groups — some with millions of lines of

code — and no outsider can analyze all the inputs or

calculations. The models have a very large range of

temperature outcomes and climate sensitivities. Almost all

the input data is uncertain.

Celsius temperatures exaggerate temperature changes.

The base of zero for a graph without exaggeration is 0

Kelvin, -276C or thereabouts. A change of 1ºC is a 1/3%

change in the earth’s temperature. On the one hand, then,

small changes in forcing can affect temperature, contrary to

what some climates skeptics have argued; and on the other

hand, temperature is hyper-sensitive to changes in overall

forcing — such that a 2% change in total forcing would

cause a 6ºC change in temperature. This hyper-sensitivity

and the uncertainty of inputs makes the output of all

models unreliable.

21. What will the world’s average temperature be in 2090?

In analyzing business investments, one of the world’s most

successful investors, Warren Buffet, eschews the use of

spreadsheets and complex projections which he finds

untrustworthy, relying instead upon past results and back of the

envelope calculations.

In that tradition, I offer my own back of the envelope projection

based upon past “results”, a projection so simple that anyone

can understand it. This projection is for worldwide temperature,

including the oceans. Land temperatures have been rising

faster and will continue to rise more rapidly.

However, I do believe in the adage: “I distrust all projections,

especially about the future.” I list some of the known unknowns

in the main paper).

THE PROJECTION:

I assume that human behavior doesn’t change — as in SPCC

scenario SPP 3 – 7.0 that I described in a previous question.

Therefore, CO2, methane and aerosol emissions are assumed to

continue at current levels.

The following should slow the temperature increase compared to

the past:

1. additional units of CO2 will have slightly less warming

effect (see the graph in the nineteenth question);

2. aerosols will not diminish further and will increase again

due to South Asian, Southeast Asian and African emissions.

3. human-caused methane emissions will not continually

increase and add to its present warming impact.

The following should speed up the temperature increase

compared to the past:

a) sea ice and glaciers will melt faster, increasing albedo

more rapidly;

b) natural methane emissions will increase faster with rising

temperatures.

Therefore, on balance, temperatures will rise at the same

rate as in the past.

It impossible to use of temperature changes over a few decades,

due to fluctuations in the oceans and aerosols, so I will use the

warming over the last ~100 years, from 1920 until 2022. That

is 1ºC in total or just under 0.1ºC per decade.

It is 68 years from 2022 until 2090, so temperatures will

increase about 0.7ºC.

What are my conclusions?

About global warming:

It is likely to continue, but much slower than crusaders fear.

Therefore, there will be more time to adapt and to find solutions

that are economically sound.

We should immediately give priority to controlling methane

emissions.

We should continue efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

About Nature:

I’ve always believed that even in our time we human beings are

ultimately insignificant before the forces of nature. I now add

under-ocean magma to the extremely rare but possible

catastrophic dangers that humanity faces.

About Science:

It seems that individual scientific creation, embodied by the

stars such as Newton, Einstein, the Curies and Pasteur, is

obsolete, Scientists no longer imagine or derive answers

themselves. They program. And computers give the answers.

Almost every conclusion, even those derived from “toy models”

needs computer computation.

Humans cannot readily check the accuracy of computer

computations or understand the inputs. Rather, another

computer is programmed by another scientist to see if the same

results emerge. If not, the results of all the models are shown

as bars on a chart. Somebody decides which computation, or

which average of them, to use. Must we accept science on

trust?

About environmental and Energy policy:

The following thoughts have entered my head while writing this

paper:

Most people will continue to ignore most of the environmental

damage they cause, even when they are aware of it.

Most people will not cut their lifestyles unless forced to, and

most people worldwide will continue to want more physical

goods and experiences. Regulations, therefore, will be possible

and effective only if they have a minimum impact on lifestyle.

In the future people will need more energy to provide for still-

increasing populations, to continue lifestyle improvements

worldwide and to repair or alleviate the damage already done to

the earth — for example to provide more water by desalinization

and above-ground distribution; to make more fertilizer and

alleviate the environmental damage from it; to cool hotter

homes; to replace or possibly to sequester carbon.

To my knowledge, there are only three sources of non-carbon

energy: energy conservation, the sun and the atom. Green

energy and conservation, in my opinion, cannot be sufficient to

provide the necessary world energy needed to replace, or even

to limit carbon-based fuels. In my opinion nuclear power has the

necessary capacity and is safe enough. I also believe that new

nuclear technology will be safer still, have less disposal issues,

and eventually will be made available at a reasonable cost.