Comments by "Old Scientist" (@OldScientist) on "Climate change: World's first year-long breach of key 1.5C warming limit | BBC News" video.

The UN's IPCC AR6, chapter 12 "Climate Change Information for Regional Impact and for Risk Assessment", section 12.5.2, table 12.12 confirms there is a lack of evidence or no signal that the following have changed: Air Pollution Weather (temperature inversions), Aridity, Avalanche (snow), Average precipitation, Average Wind Speed, Coastal Flood, Agricultural drought, Hydrological drought, Erosion of Coastlines, Fire Weather (hot and windy), Flooding From Heavy Rain (pluvial floods), Frost, Hail, Heavy Rain, Heavy Snowfall and Ice Storms, Landslides, Marine Heatwaves, Ocean Acidity, Radiation at the Earth’s Surface, River/Lake Floods, Sand and Dust Storms, Sea Level, Severe Wind Storms, Snow, Glacier, and Ice Sheets, Tropical Cyclones.
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Our "food systems" are doing just fine. Between 1961 and 2021 global cereal production increased 250% and cereal yield increased over 200%. Land used for cereal hardly increased (Data from World Bank, FAO/UN). This is the only time in human history that you are more likely to be overfed rather than underfed. We should be thankful we were borne into an age of such abundance. A US DoE study (Taylor & Schlenker, 2021) estimated that a 1 ppm increase in CO2 led to an increase of 0.4%, 0.6% and 1% in yield for corn, soybeans and wheat, respectively, and that CO2 increase was the main driver of the 500% yield growth in corn since 1940. Global tomato production has set a record each year for the past 10 years. All 10 of the largest sugar crops in global history occurred during the past 10 years. All 10 of the 10 largest rice crop years occurred during the past 10 years (UNFAO). 2023 is another record cereal crop. There is no global climate crisis. There is no evidence of one.
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Everything we do releases carbon dioxide, so the Carbon Cult want to control everything. There will be global starvation if fossil fuels are eliminated. At risk in coming decades will be half of the world’s 8.5 billion to 10 billion people who are fed by crops grown with fertilizers derived from fossil fuels. Getting to Net Zero by 2050 would cost $9.2 trillion a year globally (McKinsey). That's not going to be good value for money. That's nearly one-tenth of global GDP. That money would be better spent on a myriad of things including educating the fifth of humanity who are illiterate and represent a 7% annual loss to the world's economy. Any country that attempts it will be indebted or impoverished. Example: For the UK to reach net zero by electrification of its transport fleet and heating system, it will require a tripling (as a minimum) of its current electrical generation capacity among other things. This will essentially require the UK consuming all of the current global supply of copper and other rare metals for the next 25 years. The cost will be unaffordable and the skilled manpower levels unattainable
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The famine in the Horn of Africa is endemic not because of climatic factors but because of bad governance and poverty. If you compare these regions to the Gulf States, the climate of the Gulf is similar, although even drier, but the latter have a much higher standard of living due their wealth of fossil fuels and better social organisation. What the Horn of Africa needs is a good dose of reliable energy from fossil fuels to raise their living standards.
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Yes, China is the largest producer of turbines and panels. The reason is you need the cheap energy from burning coal to do that. In just 8 years (prior to 2021) China emitted more CO2 than Britain did since the start of Industrial Revolution that began over 220 years ago! And China plans to vastly increase its coal fired generating capacity. The UK is responsible for less than 1% of global CO2 emissions.
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If you took away El Niño, a record increase in Total Solar Irradiance, and the Tonga eruption (all natural events) there would have been nothing to see in 2023. The Tonga eruption injected 142 megatonnes of water vapour into the stratosphere, increasing its water content by 15%. Water vapour is a far more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2. Total solar irradiance: satellite data from 1979 onwards shows June 2023 at an all time high in over 40 years of measurements (ncei.noaa). There were lows below 1361 W/m² in 2019 to current highs over 1362 W/m² in June (using a lowess curve, which also shows the fastest rate of increase during this recent period). So we are looking at a change of around 1½ Watts over the course of 5 years (the maximum difference is 2.1W/m²). That may not sound much but it exceeds the increase in the Earth's Energy Imbalance (0.9 W/m², 2018 - 1.97 W/m², 2023) (NASA CERES EBAF TOA). Overall the current increase in solar irradiance should give a direct global heating effect of +0.1°C, with an indirect effect of +0.2°C (after Schmutz, 2021). This increase in solar irradiance is related to an earlier than expected increase in sunspot activity, which has not yet reached its zenith, and that may not happen for several years (Royal Observatory Belgium), so further heating from this cause can be expected.
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Pakistan Floods: area flooded 8%, much of this short term. 2010 floods were worse. Both associated with La Niña phase during a Northern Hemisphere summer - a natural phenomenon. There is no connection to the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. August 1961 was wetter. For Pakistan's annual rainfall totals the 7-year moving average has barely changed since the 1980s, fluctuating up and down, but with no long term trend. Pakistan has endured major floods long before any significant rise in CO2. Since 1850 Pakistan has experienced 7 major droughts and 6 major floods. Since 1880 there is no trend in excess rainfall or drought conditions over the greater Indian region. I might add the people of Pakistan are also suffering from poverty, bad governance and uncontrolled population growth. In addition in the immediate future they will suffer from the perverse environmental policies of Developed countries that have decided to stop extracting their own energy resources, but will consume the rest of the world's, outbidding poorer countries, like Pakistan, consigning them to darkness and further poverty.
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Another piece of climate propaganda from Auntie Beeb.
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When it comes to fires, Global burned area has decreased by one quarter this century! The World is burning less. For the whole of Canada, there is no trend in burn acreage for the period 1980-2021. The previous highest burn acreage was in 1989. Over that same period the trend for number of fires was slightly downwards (CNFDB). Note that 2020 had the lowest recorded burn acreage and number of fires, so can that record be attributed to man-made climate change? Burn acreage was much, much, higher in the US during the 1920's, 30's and 40's. It peaked in 1930 at well over 50,000,000 acres. The trend is downwards (1926-2020 NIFC US) eventhough CO2 has increased exponentially. For 2000 onwards the average burn acreage is much less than 10,000,000 acres. The number of fires has also declined. Remember CO2 was increasing all the time. Burn area for US in 2023 was 3rd lowest on record. It was under 3 million acres well below the ten year average of 7 million and the lowest since 1998 (NIFC). Data for Siberia seems harder to come by. However, for the period 1997-2016, the trend was highly variable (by a factor of 4) but the trend for the annual burn acreage was downwards (Global Fire Data). For the Amazon (2003-2019), 2010 was the record year for fire emissions with all subsequent years lower by at least ½. When it comes to wildfires there was nothing unusual about 2023 summer's fire season in Europe (look it up on the EFFIS website). Besides all this the forest fire record in Southern Europe is related to the previous winter rains, not summer temperatures. Wetter winters encourage more plant grow, which forms more fuel for fires when it dries out. Mediterranean summers are always hot and dry enough to allow fires to spread. Furthermore, with regard to the IPCC, they have not detected or attributed the number of fires or the burn acreage to man-made climate change. Also IPCC only has medium confidence ( that's a 50-50, so toss a coin) that weather conditions that promote wildfires (fire weather) have become more probable in southern Europe, northern Eurasia, the USA, and Australia over the last century. Note that annual Global Wildfire Carbon Emissions have been declining dramatically since 2003, with 2022 being the lowest on record (Copernicus). "With higher CO2, increased tree cover leads to reduced fire ignition and burned area, and provides a positive feedback to tree cover" (Chen et al, 2019), so burning fossil fuels actually leads to less forest fire! Global burned area has decreased by nearly by 24.2% in 20 years (Chen et al, 2023). The World is burning less! There is no climate crisis...there isn't even any evidence for it.
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There is always a drought or a fire somewhere, and always has been. These are weather events not climate.
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@scottekoontz Have you been using Wikipedia as your data source again? Can I recommend you try the National Solar Observatory? The NSO data shows TSI has been above 1361W/m² (22 year smoothed trend) since the 1950s (at which point of course all warming was supposed to have become man-made). The value is the highest since at least 1500 and the trend line has continued upwards since 1900. Hang on! Is that when the climate was warming as well? Interestingly, the lowest TSI values were centred around 1700 - Little Ice Age, anybody? 2023 saw the highest total solar irradiance of any year this century, using data from Solcast and ECMWF ERA5, and it can be estimated to be the third highest in the entire record. By contrast, ENSO shows no trend or pattern. I refer you to The Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) – 1882 to Present.
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The UN's IPCC AR6 report, chapter 11 'Weather and Climate Extreme Events in a Changing Climate' summarises the fact that certain severe weather events cannot be detected as increasing, nor attributed to human caused climate change: Pages 1761 - 1765, Table 11.A.2 Synthesis table summarising assessments Heavy Precipitation: 24 out of 45 global regions low confidence in observed trend (12 medium confidence), 43 out 45 low confidence in human attribution. Agricultural Drought: 31 out of 45 global regions low confidence in observed trend (14 medium confidence. No high confidence assessment). 42 out 45 low confidence in human attribution (3 medium, no high confidence). Ecological Drought as above. Hydrological Drought: 38 out of 45 global regions low confidence in observed trend. 43 out 45 low confidence in human attribution (2 medium confidence, no high confidence).
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@scottekoontz Ignorance is Strength.
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@eat_ze_bugs And neither has the statement in the video made by the climate justice changeling that there is a problem with our food systems when there isn't. The whole thing is a series of assertions unsupported by any observational evidence, or events that are irrelevant to the premise of the video.
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@eat_ze_bugs So we've got ten years of record food production. For the first time in the history of humanity you are more likely to be overfed than underfed. And climate change is a non-problem. The UN's IPCC AR6, chapter 12 "Climate Change Information for Regional Impact and for Risk Assessment", section 12.5.2, table 12.12 confirms there is a lack of evidence or no signal that the following have changed: Air Pollution Weather (temperature inversions), Aridity, Avalanche (snow), Average precipitation, Average Wind Speed, Coastal Flood, Agricultural drought, Hydrological drought, Erosion of Coastlines, Fire Weather (hot and windy), Flooding From Heavy Rain (pluvial floods), Frost, Hail, Heavy Rain, Heavy Snowfall and Ice Storms, Landslides, Marine Heatwaves, Ocean Acidity, Radiation at the Earth’s Surface, River/Lake Floods, Sand and Dust Storms, Sea Level, Severe Wind Storms, Snow, Glacier, and Ice Sheets, Tropical Cyclones. There is no climate crisis.
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@eat_ze_bugs I understand the report. Notice when it is predicted what will emerge in the future they use RCP8.5 - The most extreme of modelling. Truly laughable. And even then very little emerges. Maybe a little more rain in some places, maybe a little less in others. Still no change in droughts. When it comes to the heat, one of the relevant papers referenced by the IPCC in support - Perkins-Kirkpatrick and Lewis, 2020 - has the number and length of heatwaves increasing globally (1951-2017) as you would expect in a slowly warming world, but there is no trend for average intensity. However, I dug a little deeper. The data that these heatwave assumptions are built upon are largely non-existent or fabricated. There are two data sources used: GHCN and Berkeley Earth. At least with the one data source GHCN it shows there is no reliable data going back to the 1950s across almost the whole of Indonesia, India, Arabia, Africa, plus Central and South America. The other data source Berkeley Earth "observational" dataset - now that's a misrepresentation! - just makes it up. It's supposed to be high resolution (1° lat, 1° long 69x54.6miles grid) and go back to 1850. So I thought, hmm, Somalia, the Ogaden and Arabia are looking a bit toasty and red on the maps. Let's check out the data. I found Berkeley Earth’s data sources. I reviewed WMO, GSOD, and NCAR. For the period reviewed in the paper (1950-2014) in the Horn of Africa there were no meteorological station that cover that period. That's right - zero. In the whole of Arabia there were three, just three. Just like Arabia, the whole thing is built on sand. There will be huge parts of the globe where no measurements will have been taken until the advent of satellite technology in the 70s. Very interestingly, if you look at the charts on Fig. 1 on the paper, the US, especially the eastern half looks distinctly unaffected by any increase in heatwaves. Bit of a blue tinge there, I think you'll agree. It's much more difficult to fudge that one because of the huge number of long-term meteorological stations in the US. There is no climate crisis. There is no objective observational evidence that we are living in a global climate crisis. None.
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@eat_ze_bugs For the predictions in RCP8.5 to be realised the rate of warming would have to quadruple tomorrow and stay that way for 75 years. Really? There's no empirical evidence to suggest the Earth’s climate is that sensitive to CO2, only models, and they all run too hot. I've come across over 100 peer-reviewed papers that demonstrate the ECS is less than 2°C. Please be aware that the IPCC's (Scenario A) modelled predictions were junk. Back in 1990 the IPCC predicted a warming of 0.30-0.34°C per decade. Of course we've only had about 0.1°C per decade, which is well below the IPCC's lower bound of 0.20°C. IPCC’s business-as-usual scenario was founded on the assumption that CO2 emissions would increase by 10-20% by 2025. The truth, however, is that global CO2 emissions are not 20% above their 1990 level but 60% above it! But there is still no crisis just an unexciting set of observations. All the climate models run too hot, 100% of them. The attribution of all warming to human activity by the IPCC is junk science as well. Take AR5: that said all observed warming (0.66°C) since 1950 is due solely to combined anthropogenic forcing (Fig. 10.5, IPCC core writing team, page 6). This relies upon modelling, or rather multi-modelling. In fact when you lift the curtain it relies on 15 models (Fig. 10.4, page 882). These models are all over the place. The models' results are not consistent with the assumption that there is a clear connection between GHGs and warming. GISS-EH-2 was particularly 'not well constrained' as the terminology goes. "Scaling factors" then have to be applied so things fit with the HadCRUT dataset. Some of the scaling factors are even negative!!! The problem is you believe these climate models to be Truth Machines. They are not.
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@eat_ze_bugs There will be huge parts of the globe where no measurements will have been taken until the advent of satellite technology towards the end of the 70s, even in 1979 there were still large parts of the globe - especially, but not exclusively, the Arctic and the Southern Hemisphere - where no readings were taken at all. During the latter half of the nineteenth century reliable records are only really available from parts of Europe, USA and eastern Australia, with a very small number of reliable stations outside of that. Before 1950 there are essentially no GHCN-Daily stations in South America, India, S. E. Asia, China, Africa, or around the Poles. A thermometer on a ship is sufficient for a historical dataset! And what of calibration and standardisation? You seem like an intelligent individual, so how can people like you (with a straight face) tell average citizens, how the temperature of the entire globe has change from 150 years ago, and do it to a tenth or a hundredth of a degree? With such paucity of data you must know it's impossible.
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@eat_ze_bugs America has by far the best instrumental data, and it shows overall the South East cooled in the last 120 years. Though that sentence doesn't do justice to the climate's variability. Data from NOAA (2021) shows uneven warming in the twentieth century focused on the South East through until it peaks in the 1930s. Where it should be noted the highest average maxima temperature records remain to this day. Some areas of the West US showed negligible warming. There then followed a general continent-wide cooling into the 1970s. Then the West began to warm, but the South East continued to cool, so that by the end of the century some SE areas were cooler than they had been a century before. This pattern of uneven warming continues up to the present day.
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@eat_ze_bugs For the predictions in RCP8.5 to be realised the rate of warming would have to quadruple tomorrow and stay that way for 75 years. Really? There's no empirical evidence to suggest the Earth’s climate is that sensitive to CO2, only models, and they all run too hot. I've come across over 100 peer-reviewed papers that demonstrate the ECS is less than 2°C.
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