Climate Change 101
It seems simple to state that all we need to do is get from 51 billion tons[1] of greenhouse gas emissions to zero --- from the 51Gt (giga-tons) currently annually added worldwide to the atmosphere down to none (net-zero) by 2050 to avoid the worst effects of climate change.
Even with a budget to get there it's difficult. Why?
“Efforts to address climate change have been a struggle between urgency and complacency.”[2] – Mark Carney
The urgency to keep within a carbon budget is critical. For example, to keep within the 1.5°C carbon budget – that is, how much CO2 that can be released into the atmosphere before we exceed 1.5°C warming – the IPCC in its 2020 report estimated there's a 66% probability that we can keep within the 420 Gt limit with 8 years remaining at then current emissions levels. Yet, our complacency tends to leave us failing to recognize the urgency, let alone take necessary steps to address it now. That means we’re unlikely to stay within that carbon budget, and we may suffer the consequences. See CLIMATE CHANGE 102 for those potential harms.
We tend to live in the present, checking things like the weather for what to wear today, but there is no daily carbon budget indicator to tell us what to do today for climate stability. Hence, complacency sets in about the looming 'Sixth Mass Extinction' – as Carney puts it,“... of not valuing the loss of individual species and the destruction of entire habitats.’
‘The urgency to reorient the financial system to finance the trillions of dollars of investment needed over the next three decades for the transition to a sustainable economy. The complacency of many in finance not knowing their own carbon budgets, not having net-zero transition paths, not understanding their impact on an existential crisis.”
Bill Gates concurs, "This is urgent work. We are at the same point today with climate change as we were several years ago with pandemics. Health experts were telling us that a massive outbreak was virtually inevitable. Despite their warnings, the world didn't do enough to prepare--and then suddenly had to scramble to make up from lost time. We should not make the same mistake with climate change."[3] COVID-19 should have taught us how to pull resources together at once to head off the worst harms of climate change. Let's work together to keep earth hospitable for all.
Complacency with climate change can easily be reinforced with the COVID experience, for all intents and purposes resolved within 3 years on a global scale, Climate change won't be resolved in decades, let alone years, so we carry on complacently on a daily basis. - no masks or social distancing signs to remind us.
The underlying data for this chart is sourced from the Climate Action Tracker – based on policies and pledges as of May 2021.
Climate Change today is a prodigy of Science, while it is a euphamistic construct to suggest that mankind has put us in a harmful situation. Science tells us that anthropogenic climate change is very certain, yet there is debate amongst scientists about the basis upon which projections of future global harms are made. That's to be expected as science doesn't say, "That's the way it is", rather, it helps statements to be made based on rigorous study of empirical data enabling us to reach conclusions within a range of reliability. Questioning is a part of scientific rigor.
It bears repeating here, that one need not accept the certainty or uncertainty surrounding anthropogenic climate change to take independent action in a "green" effort to improve our planet Earth for the betterment of human and other life. This website, while taking the warnings of climate change science seriously, precautions the timeliness of actions likely needed to mitigate against and adapt to projected Climate Change harms.
No doubt you are aware of others who don't take it as seriously, or are skeptical for very good, or perhaps selfish reasons.
Roy Spencer is a climate scientist who has been a vocal critic of the mainstream scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming. He argues that the climate is less sensitive to greenhouse gas emissions than most climate models suggest, and that natural factors such as solar activity and ocean cycles play a larger role in driving climate change. However, Spencer's views have been challenged by numerous scientists who argue that his methods and conclusions are flawed. Here are some key rebuttals to Spencer's arguments:
1. Climate sensitivity: Spencer argues that many climate models overstate climate sensitivity to GHG emissions However, many studies have found that Spencer's estimates of climate sensitivity are too low, due to sea surface temperature (SST) records being subject to potential biases due to changing instrumentation and measurement practices. For example, a study published in the journal Science Advances in 2017 found that large cooling bias in ERSST version 3b, and smaller but significant cooling biases in HadSST3 and COBE-SST, suggest that reported rates of SST warming in recent years have been underestimated in these 3 data sets.[4][see Glossary for climate sensitivity] The suggestion of higher observerved temperatures implies a greater sensitivity to GHG (CO2) emmissions than Spencer estimates.
2. Natural factors: Spencer has argued that natural factors such as solar activity and ocean cycles are the primary drivers of climate change. However, numerous studies have shown that these factors cannot explain the observed warming trend over the past century. For example, a study published in the journal Nature in 2021
found that natural factors can explain only a small fraction of the observed warming, and that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are the primary driver.[5]
3. Cherry-picking data: Spencer has been accused of cherry-picking data to support his arguments. For example, he has often cited satellite data to argue that the atmosphere is not warming as much as surface temperature records suggest. However, a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change in 2017 found that satelite data actually supports the warming trend observed in surface temperature records, once uncertainties in the satellite data are properly accounted for.[6]
In summary, while Roy Spencer is a respected climate scientist, his views on global warming have been challenged by numerous studies that have found flaws in his methods and conclusions. The weight of the scientific evidence supports the mainstream consensus that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are the primary driver of global warming.
​
Here is an example of Roy Spencer's writing"
"42 years of satellite observations shows that warming is occurring much more slowly than the average climate model has predicted.
The claim by the Biden Administration that climate change has placed us in a moment of 'profound crisis" ignores the fact that the energy policy changes being promoted are based upon computer model simulations which have produced average warming rates at least DOUBLE those observed in the last 40+ years.
Just about every climate claim made by politicians, and even many vocal scientists, has been either an exaggeration or a lie.
While it is easy for detractors of what I will show to claim I am in the scientific minority (true), or that I am a climate denier (not true; I do not deny some level of human-caused warming), the fact is that the “official” observations in recent decades are in disagreement with the “official” climate models being promoted for the purposes of implementing expensive, economically-damaging, and poverty-worsening energy policies.
Global Ocean Temperatures are Warming at Only ~50% the Rate of Climate Model Projections
Today’s example comes from global-average sea surface temperatures. The oceans provide our best gauge of how fast extra energy is accumulating in the climate system. Since John Christy and I are working on a project that explains global ocean temperatures since the late 1800s with a 1D climate model, I thought I would show you just how the observations are comparing to climate models simulations.
The plot below (Fig. 1) shows the monthly global (60N-60S) average ocean surface temperature variations since 1979 for 68 model simulations from 13 different climate models. The 42 years of observations we now have since 1979 (bold black line) shows that warming is occurring much more slowly than the average climate model says it should have.'
Fig. 1. 68 CMIP6 climate model simulations of global average sea surface temperature (relative to the
5 year average,
1979-1983), and compared to observations from the ERSSTv5 dataset.
Spencer continued:
"Deep Ocean Warming Could Be Mostly Natural
A related issue is how much the deep oceans are warming. As I have mentioned before, the (inarguable) energy imbalance associated with deep-ocean warming in recent decades is only about 1 part (less than 1 Watt per sq. m) in 300 of the natural energy flows in the climate system.
This is a very tiny energy imbalance in the climate system. We know NONE of the natural energy flows to that level of accuracy.
What that means is that global warming could be mostly natural, and we would not even know it. I’m not claiming that is the case. I am merely pointing out the level of faith that is involved in the adjustments made to climate models, which necessarily produce warming due to increasing CO2
because those models simply assume that there is no other source of warming.
Yes, more CO2 must produce some warming. But the amount of warming makes all the difference to global energy policies.
Seldom is the public ever informed of these glaring discrepancies between basic science and what politicians and pop-scientists tell us.
Why does it matter?
It matters because there is no Climate Crisis. There is no Climate Emergency.
Yes, irregular warming is occurring. Yes, it is at least partly due to human greenhouse gas emissions. But seldom are the benefits of a somewhat warmer climate system mentioned, or the benefits of more CO2 in the atmosphere (which is required for life on Earth to exist)."[7]
Next - Go to Climate Change 102
Footnotes
1. One ton of CO2 occupies 556.2m³ of volume. Every year the United States emits a 33.14cm high blanket of carbon dioxide over its land area. The combustion of each gallon of conventional gasoline produces 4.867m³ or 171.88ft3 of CO2. That's about the size of a bedroom closet 8 feet wide.
2. Mark Carney, Value(s): Building a Better World for All (McClelland & Stewart, 2021)
3. Bill Gates, How to avoid a Climate Disaster (Alfred A. Knopf, Toronto 2021)
4. Zeke Hausfather, Kevin Cowtan, David C. Clarke, Peter Jacobs, Mark Richardson, and Robert Rohde; "Assessing recent warming using instrumentally homogeneous sea surface temperature records"; J Science Advances Vol 3, Issue 1 (2017) DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1601207
5. Hong, C., Burney, J.A., Pongratz, J. et al. Global and regional drivers of land-use emissions in 1961–2017. Nature 589, 554–561 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-03138-y
6. Carl A. Mears and Frank J. Wentz. A Satellite-Derived Lower-Tropospheric Atmospheric Temperature Dataset Using an Optimized Adjustment for Diurnal Effects. Vol. 30, Issue 19. 7695–7718 (2017) https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0768.1
7, Spencer, Roy, https://www.thegwpf.com/happy-earth-day-warming-trend-is-only-half-of-what-climate-modellers-have-predicted/