Is CO2 Really the Primary Climate Driver?

CSS-27 A very basic and important question of “climate science”. To start with there is no empirical Temperature/CO₂ dataset that shows CO₂ driving the climate on any statistically significant historical time scale. That empirical data (a basic Scientific Method requirement) does not exist, and the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) alarmist narrative remains unproven. But to be fair, we should look at some of the global temperature data. We start in Antarctica, where according to “endless studies based on computer models that run too hot”, the ice is going to melt and flood every major coastal city. But that is not what the temperatures say. Antarctic temperatures have declined over the last 40 years, culminating last winter in the coldest six-month period ever recorded. East Antarctica temperatures (82.2% of the land mass) are declining at 7.0 °C/century, West Antarctica at 4.2 °C/century. The Antarctica Peninsula (3.7% of the land mass) was increasing at 1.8 °C/century. Antarctica is not playing along with the CAGW alarmist narrative, and its ice sheet is not melting anytime soon. CSS-13 – A Look at Homogenization.

#climatechange #delaythegreen #globalwarming #showusthedata

Things do not fair any better for CO₂ in Greenland/Iceland. In Antarctica, temperatures are declining (significantly) while CO₂ levels steadily rise. In Greenland/Iceland, the temperatures are rising, but at a rather anemic rate of ±1.0 °C/century. But as you can easily see in the temperature data, that 1.0 °C/century consists of more than just CO₂ warming. In fact, almost all the warming pre-1950 is due to natural forcings. The two major contributors during that period are the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO) and solar activity (Total Solar Irradiance, TSI as a proxy). The CAGW alarmists would have you believe solar activity is a non-factor. That is an arbitrary assumption on their part and not backed up by the empirical data. Post 1950, you could argue for some anthropogenic CO₂ contribution since 86%+ of human emissions occurred over that period. But, as the data shows, the AMO was still dominant in the post-1950 era, overpowering CO₂ forcings from 1945 to 1975 and contributing significantly to the 1975 to 2005 warming.

If you believe the CAGW alarmist science (solar contribution is essentially zero), then CO₂’s contribution would amount to just 16% of the 1975 to 2005 warming (where the AMO is the only significant contributor from 1915 to 1945). If you add in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), CO₂’s contribution would rise to roughly 53% of the 1975 to 2005 warming. Those calculations are laid out in my last post (CSS-26 – Greenland/Iceland – AMO/PDO/CO₂ Distribution). Let us not forget solar activity which has been declining slightly since the turn of the century and correlates to the “PAUSE”. Something was overpowering the CO₂ warming during that period. The step jump in temperatures in 2015 is due to a very strong El Nino. Since that time, global temperatures have been declining (UAH Lower Troposphere Satellite Temperature). So, CO₂ has not faired so well in Greenland/Iceland and is looking dicey globally.

More to follow on the global picture, but we need to look at the Central England Temperatures first (dating back to 1659). This gives us our only measured ties back to the very cold Maunder Minimum (the depths of the Little Ice Age (LIA), the last Grand Solar Minimum (GSM)). The historical temperature trend here is a paltry (already used anemic) 0.28 °C/century increase. There are a whole lot of temperature fluctuations happening here and they have very little to do with CO₂ (at least prior to 1950). So, what is causing these fluctuations? The AMO/PDO/ENSO, etc. will all be active, but their longer-term contributions will generally cancel over full cycles. That pretty much leaves solar activity (pre-1900) to carry the load. Despite the IPCC’s decree that CO₂ is the only significant climate driver, the natural forcings (primarily solar (directly and indirectly)) were active throughout this period and will continue to be active in the future. Just not in the virtual reality world created by the IPCC computer simulations. Ignoring the GSM (forecasted by many Astro/solar physicists from around the world (including NASA and NOAA)) is one of the stupidest mistakes (or potential misdirection) that our academic/media/political “leaders” have ever made. I know there are many others.

So, England temperatures (and a chunk of Western Europe affected by the same ocean currents) are not very CAGW alarmist friendly either. I have laid out a rather significant area of the globe that does not support the CAGW narrative, but you can still suggest that these areas are “localized”. So, for something to do I plotted the CET against the most up to date HadCRUT5 surface temperature dataset. Lo and behold, they lay over top of one another quite well. The only significant deviation occurs back in the early 1880s where Krakatoa blew its lid. The CET does represent the Modern Temperature Record (MTR, 1850 to the present) quite well. Modelling the CET requires a strong solar activity response. The simple model I included used a 50/25/25 split between TSI (as a proxy), AMO and CO₂, respectively. Definitive, no but a better fit than CO₂ alone. PDO/ENSO data does not go back far enough to be included in the model (but they would be contributing).

A while back I showed that CO₂ was a FECKLESS Greenhouse Gas (CSS-7). This post and a few others have shown some additional examples of its general ineffectiveness. I will at some point consolidate those points into a new post. However, to finish off, I have included a variety of temperature profiles over the Holocene plotted against an “almost” properly scaled CO₂ concentration (1.07 °C (from the IPCC AR6 report) ≡ 135 ppm, the CAGW alarmist narrative). What does that plot show us? The temperatures (on all profiles) fluctuate significantly despite a virtually flat pre-MTR Holocene CO₂ concentration. Those pesky natural forcings have been very active over the pre-MTR Holocene, were active during the MTR and will continue to be active in the future, regardless of what the IPCC decrees. The recent CO₂ rise is not that scary when taken in context. I included “almost” properly scaled, because that CO₂ curve gets even more compressed when all the natural forcings are taken into consideration (as they should be).

The links discussed above, and a few other key posts are included below (CSS-16 – Central England Temperature – Model, OPS-8 – Basic Climate Model, OPS-55 – The State of Climate Science, Open Letter Addendum, UAH Satellite Data, Antarctic Temperatures (ERA5 Study, Zhu et al 2021)). I am adding another Tony Heller video below (he just posted today (08-13-22)). The video sums up the absurdity of the alarmist community’s current religious focus on every drought/fire/hurricane, etc. that happens in the world today. The video’s focus was on the year 1935, but there are many other years where the same summary could be put forward. CO₂ levels were lower then. So, how could extreme weather be worse in the past? Maybe, just maybe, the simplistic, unscientific viewpoint that CO₂ is the primary climate driver, is wrong.