Tag Archives: Greenhouse Gases

Carbon Credits Are Still Largely Fake

06 Wednesday Mar 2024

Posted by in Climate, Renewable Energy

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About a year ago I wrote about the sketchy nature of carbon credits (or “offsets”), which are purchased by people or entities whose actions generate CO2 emissions they’d like to offset. Those actions would include Taylor Swift’s private air travel, electric power generation, and many other activities whose participants wish to have “greenwashed”.

One short digression before I get started: see those black clouds of CO2 in the image above? Well, carbon dioxide doesn’t really look like that. In fact, CO2 is transparent. Trees breathe it! Visually, it’s less obvious than the greenhouse gas known as water vapor in those puffy white clouds, but virtually every image you’ll ever see on-line depicting CO2 emissions shows dark, roiling smoke. I just hate to spoil the scary effect, but there it is.

Back to carbon credits, which help fund projects that offset CO2 emissions (at least theoretically), such as planting new forest acreage (which would absorb CO2 … someday) or preventing deforestation. Other types of offset activities include investment in renewable energy projects and carbon capture technology. So, for example, if a utility’s power generation emits CO2, the creation or preservation of some amount of forested acreage can serve as a carbon sink adequate to offset the utility’s emissions. Net zero! Or so the utility might claim.

If only it were that simple! Paul Mueller explains that the incentive structure of these arrangements is perverse. What if credits are sold on the basis of supposed efforts to preserve forests that were never at risk to begin with? In fact, the promise of revenue from the sale of credits may be a powerful incentive to falsely present forested lands as targets for development. For that matter, cutting forestland for lumber makes more sense if it can be replanted immediately in exchange for revenue from the sale of carbon credits. And newly planted acreage won’t lead to absorption of much CO2 for many years, until the trees begin to mature. Then there are the risks of forest fires or disease that could compromise a forest’s ultimate value as a carbon sink.

Whether through fraud, calamity, or mismanagement, the sad truth is that projects serving as a basis for credits have done far less to reduce deforestation than promised. On top of that, another issue plaguing carbon markets for some time has been double counting of offsets, which can occur under several circumstances. Ultimately, CO2 emissions themselves may have done more to promote the growth of forests than purchases of carbon credits, because CO2 gives life to vegetation!

Obviously, the purchase of offsets raises the incremental cost of any project having CO2 emissions. The incidence of this added cost is borne to a large extent by consumers, especially because power demand is fairly inelastic. The craziness of offset logic may even dictate the purchase of offsets when a plant emitting more CO2 (e.g., coal) is replaced by a plant emitting less (natural gas), because the replacement would still emit carbon!

Some carbon offsets help pay for the construction of renewable power facilities like wind and solar farms. These renewable power facilities contribute to the power supply, of course, but wind turbines and solar farms typically operate at a small fraction of nameplate capacity due to the intermittency of wind and sunshine. Thus, these offsets are far less than complete. And from that low rate of renewable utilization we can deduct another fraction: periods of actual utilization often occur when no one wants the power, and while utilities can sell that excess power into the grid, it doesn’t replace other power at those times and it therefore doesn’t contribute to reductions in CO2 emissions.

Claims of achieving net zero are very much in vogue in the corporate world, and for a few related reasons. One is that they help keep activists and protesters away from the gates. There are, however, plenty of activists serving on corporate boards, in the executive suite, and among regulators.

The purchase of carbon offsets by “socially responsible corporations” might put stakeholder pressure on competitors who are “insufficiently green”. That would help to compensate for the higher costs imposed by offsets. After all, carbon credits are not cheap. In fact, smaller competitors might struggle to fund additional outlays for the credits.

Finally, claims of carbon neutrality also help with another constituency: “woke” investors. “Achieving” net zero boosts a firm’s so-called ESG score, presumed to reflect soundness in terms of environmental (E) and social (S) responsibility, as well as the quality of internal governance (G). With firms jockeying for ESG improvements, they help keep the offset charade going.

There is no common standard for calculating ESG, and there is considerable variance in ESG scores across rating firms. This should be cause for great skepticism, but too many investors are vulnerable to suggestions that screening on ESGs can enable both social responsibility and better returns. Sadly, they are sometimes paying higher fees for the privilege. The ESG fad among these investors might have helped fulfill hopes of greater returns for a while, but the imagined ESG advantage may have faded.

Carbon credits or offsets are plagued by bad incentives that often lead to wasteful outlays if not outright fraud. At present, they generally fail to reduce atmospheric CO2 as promised and they contribute to higher costs, which are passed on to consumers. They also serve as an unworthy basis for higher ESG scores, which are something of a sham in any case.

There have been efforts underway to improve the quality and legitimacy of carbon offsets. Some of this is voluntary due diligence on the part of purchasers. The effort also includes various NGOs and regulators. Ultimately, the push for quality is likely to push the price of offsets upward dramatically. Perhaps offsets will become more credible, but they won’t come cheap. The cost of achieving net zero targets will largely come out of consumers’ pockets, and those net zeros will still be nominal at best.

The Oceans and Global Temperatures

18 Saturday Feb 2023

Posted by in Climate science, Ocean Temperatures

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Despite evidence to the contrary, there’s one thing climate change alarmists seem to consider a clincher. Well… their stylized account has the seas absorbing heat from our warming atmosphere as human activity forces carbon emissions into the air. That notion seems to be reinforced, at least in the popular imagination, by the fact that the sea is a “carbon sink”, but that is a matter of carbon sequestration and not a mechanism of ocean warming. While ocean temperatures have warmed slightly over the past few decades, it is almost entirely coincidental, rather than a result of slightly warmer air temperatures.

Heat and the Hydrosphere

There is no doubt that the oceans store heat very efficiently, but that heat comes primarily from solar radiation and geothermal sources underseas. In fact, water stores heat far more efficiently than the atmosphere. According to Paul Homewood, a given cross section of sea water to a depth of just 2.6 meters is capable of holding as much heat as a column of air of the same width extending from the ocean surface to the outermost layers of the atmosphere! (See here for an earlier reference.) However, that does not imply that the oceans are very effective at drawing heat from warmer air or particularly carbon back-radiation. Both the air and water draw heat from solar radiation, and how much in any given location depends on the Sun’s angle in the sky.

A solid guide is that air temperatures are heavily influenced by water temperatures, but not as much vice versa. When temperatures in the upper layers of the ocean rise from natural forces, including reduced upward circulation from greater depths, evaporation causes this heat to radiate into the atmosphere along with evaporation of water vapor. Homewood notes that El Niño patterns make the influence of the Pacific Ocean waters on climate pretty obvious. The impact of the Gulf Stream on European climates is also instructive.

The Indian Ocean accounted for about half of the sea warming that occurred within the globe’s top 700 meters of waters over the years 2000 – 2019, though the Indian Ocean represents only about 20% of the world’s sea surface. The authors of that research found that the warming was not caused by trends in surface forcing of any kind, including warmer air temperatures. They said the ocean warming:

“… has been driven by significant changes in oceanic fluxes and not by surface forcing. … the ocean has been driving a rapid increase in Indian Ocean heat content.”

This was consistent with an earlier study of global sea temperatures covering the period 1984 – 2006 that found:

“… diminished ocean cooling due to vertical ocean processes … A conclusion is that natural variability, rather than long-term climate change, dominates the SST [sea surface temperature] and heat flux changes over this 23-yr period.”

It’s a Water World

Heat released by the oceans tends to dominate variations in global temperatures. A 2018 study found that evaporative heat transfer to the atmosphere from the oceans was closely associated with variations in air temperatures:

“When the atmosphere gets extra warm it receives more heat from the ocean, when it is extra cool it receives less heat from the ocean, making it clear that the ocean is the driving force behind these variations. …

The changes in solar radiation received at the Earth’s surface are clearly a trigger for these variations in global mean temperature, but the mechanisms by which these changes occur are a bit more complex and depend on the time-scale of the changes.”

Measurement

Willis Eschenbach reviewed a prominent study of ocean temperature changes and noted that the authors’ estimate of total warming of the oceans was quite small:

“… over the last sixty years, the ocean has warmed a little over a tenth of one measly degree … now you can understand why they put it in zettajoules—it’s far more alarming that way.”

Eschenbach goes on to discuss the massive uncertainty underlying measurements of ocean temperatures, particularly below a depth of 2,000 meters, but even well above that depth given the extremely wide spacing of so-called ARGO floats. However, the relative stability of the point estimates over 60 years is noteworthy, not to mention the “cold water” doused on alarmist claims about ocean overheating.

Sun Engine

Ocean warmth begins with energy from the Sun and from the deep interior of the Earth. The force of solar energy is greatest in the tropics, where sunlight is perpendicular to the surface of the Earth and is least dispersed by the thickness of the atmosphere. The sun’s radiative force is smallest in the polar regions, where the angle of its light is acute. As Anthony Watts says:

“All elements of Earth’s weather, storm fronts, hurricanes, the jet stream, and even ocean currents, are driven to redistribute energy from the tropics to the poles.”

Both land and sea absorb heat from the Sun and from volcanic activity, though the heat is moderated by the sea. That moderation is especially impactful in the Southern Hemisphere, which has far less land area, greater exposure of sea surface to the Sun, and about half of the average ocean temperature variation experienced in the North.

Ultimately, the importance of natural sunlight on air and sea temperatures can’t be overemphasized. Henrik Svensmark and some co-authors have estimated that a cosmic ray flux of 15% from a coronal mass ejection leads to a reduction in cloud cover within roughly 9 – 12 days. The ultimate increase in the Earth’s “energy budget” over about a week’s time is about the same size as a doubling of CO2, which certainly puts things in perspective. However, the oceans, and hence cloud cover, moderate the impact of the Sun, with or without the presence of additional greenhouse gases forced by human activity.

Vapors

The importance of evaporation from bodies of water also deserves great emphasis. No one doubts the massive influence of greenhouse gases (GHGs) on the climate. Water vapor accounts for about 90% of GHGs, and it originates predominantly from oceans. Meanwhile, carbon dioxide accounts for less than 4% of GHGs, and it appears that only a small part is from anthropogenic sources (and see here and below).

The impact of changing levels of water vapor dominates GHG levels. They are also a critical input to cloud formation, a phenomenon that climate models are generally ill-equipped to explain. Clouds reflect solar radiation back into space, reducing the Sun’s net contribution to the Earth’s energy budget. On the other hand, clouds can trap heat in the lower layers of the atmosphere. The globe has an average of 60 – 70% cloud cover, and most of that is over the oceans. Increased cloud cover generally leads to declines in temperature.

A 2015 study identified a process through which the sea surface has an unexpectedly large impact on climate. This was from the formation of isoprene, a film on the ocean surface, which leads to more cloud formation. In addition to biological sources, isoprene was found to originate, surprisingly, from the effect of sunlight.

The Big Sink

Man-made emissions of CO2 constitute only about 5% of naturally discharged CO2, which is roughly matched by natural removal. CO2 is absorbed, dissolved, or transformed in a variety of ways on both land and sea, but the oceans collectively represent the world’s largest carbon sink. They hold about 50 times more CO2 than the atmosphere. Carbon is stored in sea water at great depths, and it enhances undersea vegetation just as it does on land. It is sequestered in a variety of sea organisms as calcium carbonate and is locked in sediments as well. A longstanding question is whether there is some limit on the capacity of the oceans and other sinks to store carbon, but apparently the uptake over time has remained roughly constant at just under 50% of all natural and man-made CO2 emissions (also see here). So far, we don’t appear to be approaching any sort of “saturation point”.

One claim about the rising carbon stored undersea is that it will drive down the oceans’ pH levels. In other words, it will lead to “ocean acidification” and harm a variety of marine life. Rud István has ridiculed that term (quite rightly) because slightly less alkaline sea water does not make it “acidic”. More substantively, he notes the huge natural variations in ocean pH levels across different marine environments, the exaggeration inherent in some estimates of pH changes that do not account for physical buffering, and the fact that the impact on many organisms is inconsistent with the presumed harms of reduced pH. In fact, errors in some of the research pointing to those harms has been acknowledged. In addition, the much feared “coral crisis” seems to have been a myth.

Conclusion

The upper layers of the oceans have warmed somewhat over the past 60 years, but the warming had natural causes. Heat transfer from the atmosphere to the hydrosphere is relatively minor compared to the absorption of heat by oceans via solar forcings. It is also minor compared to the transfer of temperature from oceans to surface air. As Jim Steele has explained it:

“Greenhouse longwave energy penetrates only a few microns into the ocean surface and even less into most soils, but the sun’s shortwave energy passes much more deeply into the ocean.”

It’s reasonable to concede that warmer air temperatures via man-made GHGs might be a minor reinforcement to natural sources of ocean warming, or it might slightly moderate ocean cooling. However, measuring that contribution would be difficult against the massive background of natural forcings on ocean temperatures.

Oceans are dominant in terms of heat storage from natural forcings and in terms of carbon sequestration. In fact, the oceans have thoroughly outperformed alarmist projections as a carbon sink. Dire prognostications of the effect of carbon dioxide on marine life have been drastically over-emphasized as well.

Hurricane—Warming Link Is All Model, No Data

18 Tuesday Oct 2022

Posted by in Climate science, Hurricanes, Uncategorized

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There was deep disappointment among political opponents of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis at their inability to pin blame on him for Hurricane Ian’s destruction. It was a terrible hurricane, but they so wanted it to be “Hurricane Hitler”, as Glenn Reynolds noted with tongue in cheek. That just didn’t work out for them, given DeSantis’ competent performance in marshaling resources for aid and cleanup from the storm. Their last ditch refuge was to condemn DeSantis for dismissing the connection they presume to exist between climate change and hurricane frequency and intensity. That criticism didn’t seem to stick, however, and it shouldn’t.

There is no linkage to climate change in actual data on tropical cyclones. It is a myth. Yes, models of hurricane activity have been constructed that embed assumptions leading to predictions of more hurricanes, and more intense hurricanes, as temperatures rise. But these are models constructed as simplified representations of hurricane development. The following quote from the climate modelers at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) (a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)) is straightforward on this point (emphases are mine):

“Through research, GFDL scientists have concluded that it is premature to attribute past changes in hurricane activity to greenhouse warming, although simulated hurricanes tend to be more intense in a warmer climate. Other climate changes related to greenhouse warming, such as increases in vertical wind shear over the Caribbean, lead to fewer yet more intense hurricanes in the GFDL model projections for the late 21st century.

Models typically are said to be “calibrated” to historical data, but no one should take much comfort in that. As a long-time econometric modeler myself, I can say without reservation that such assurances are flimsy, especially with respect to “toy models” containing parameters that aren’t directly observable in the available data. In such a context, a modeler can take advantage of tremendous latitude in choosing parameters to include, sensitivities to assume for unknowns or unmeasured relationships, and historical samples for use in “calibration”. Sad to say, modelers can make these models do just about anything they want. The cautious approach to claims about model implications is a credit to GFDL.

Before I get to the evidence on hurricanes, it’s worth remembering that the entire edifice of climate alarmism relies not just on the temperature record, but on models based on other assumptions about the sensitivity of temperatures to CO2 concentration. The models relied upon to generate catastrophic warming assume very high sensitivity, and those models have a very poor track record of prediction. Estimates of sensitivity are highly uncertain, and this article cites research indicating that the IPCC’s assumptions about sensitivity are about 50% too high. And this article reviews recent findings that carbon sensitivity is even lower, about one-third of what many climate models assume. In addition, this research finds that sensitivities are nearly impossible to estimate from historical data with any precision because the record is plagued by different sources and types of atmospheric forcings, accompanying aerosol effects on climate, and differing half-lives of various greenhouse gases. If sensitivities are as low as discussed at the links above, it means that predictions of warming have been grossly exaggerated.

The evidence that hurricanes have become more frequent or severe, or that they now intensify more rapidly, is basically nonexistent. Ryan Maue and Roger Pielke Jr. of the University of Colorado have both researched hurricanes extensively for many years. They described their compilation of data on land-falling hurricanes in this Forbes piece in 2020. They point out that hurricane activity in older data is much more likely to be missing and undercounted, especially storms that never make landfall. That’s one of the reasons for the focus on landfalling hurricanes to begin with. With the advent of satellite data, storms are highly unlikely to be missed, but even landfalls have sometimes gone unreported historically. The farther back one goes, the less is known about the extent of hurricane activity, but Pielke and Maue feel that post-1970 data is fairly comprehensive.

The chart at the top of this post is a summery of the data that Pielke and Maue have compiled. There are no obvious trends in terms of the number of storms or their strength. The 1970s were quiet while the 90s were more turbulent. The absence of trends also characterizes NOAA’s data on U.S. landfalling hurricanes since 1851, as noted by Pail Driessen. Here is Driessen on Florida hurricane history:

“Using pressure, Ian was not the fourth-strongest hurricane in Florida history but the tenth. The strongest hurricane in U.S. history moved through the Florida Keys in 1935. Among other Florida hurricanes stronger than Ian was another Florida Keys storm in 1919. This was followed by the hurricanes in 1926 in Miami, the Palm Beach/Lake Okeechobee storm in 1928, the Keys in 1948, and Donna in 1960. We do not know how strong the hurricane in 1873 was, but it destroyed Punta Rassa with a 14-foot storm surge. Punta Rassa is located at the mouth of the river leading up to Ft. Myers, where Ian made landfall.”

Neil L. Frank, veteran meteorologist and former head of the National Hurricane Center, bemoans the changed conventions for assigning names to storms in the satellite era. A typical clash of warm and cold air will often produce thunderstorms and wind, but few of these types of systems were assigned names under older conventions. They are not typical of systems that usually produce tropical cyclones, although they can. Many of those kinds of storms are named today. Right or wrong, that gives the false impression of a trend in the number of named storms. Not only is it easier to identify storms today, given the advent of satellite data, but storms are assigned names more readily, even if they don’t strictly meet the definition of a tropical cyclone. It’s a wonder that certain policy advocates get away with saying the outcome of all this is a legitimate trend!

As Frank insists, there is no evidence of a trend toward more frequent and powerful hurricanes during the last several decades, and there is no evidence of rapid intensification. More importantly, there is no evidence that climate change is leading to more hurricane activity. It’s also worth noting that today we suffer far fewer casualties from hurricanes owing to much earlier warnings, better precautions, and better construction.

Relax: Natural Variability Causes Heatwaves

30 Saturday Jul 2022

Posted by in Global Warming

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Lately almost any passing weather phenomenon is said to have been rooted in climate change and higher carbon concentrations. The recent heatwaves that seared parts of Europe and the U.S. are no exception, and climate change activists always find heat spells ripe for rhetorical exploitation. But while these would-be Cassandras and Gretas push their fearful narrative, there are strong reasons to doubt that these weather events are any cause for alarm. This summer’s heat waves, like all others, were of limited geographic scope, and they certainly weren’t the most severe heat waves on record in terms of either duration or magnitude. More on that below.

Data Problems

Temperature measurements tend to be exaggerated these days because so many “official” temperature records come from local airports or other urban sites rich in impervious cover and heat absorbing building materials. This gives rise to the so-called “urban heat island effect”, which refers to the elevated temperatures measured in urban versus rural areas. It’s even worse than that, however, as the vast majority of active weather stations in the U.S. are sited at “hot spots”, and many of them are poorly maintained. Data problems plague European temperature records as well.

Furthermore, official temperature records are extremely short on climatological scales, going back only about 150 years in the U.S. And these records have been “adjusted” by weather authorities like the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), usually with the early records “cooled” relative to more recent readings. That means the long-term trend in temperatures is biased upward.

Climate Catastrophists

Nevertheless, Joe Biden has been threatening to declare a wholly unjustified “climate emergency“, perhaps thinking these dog days are the perfect time to assume a host of new emergency powers. It’s unclear whether the new “Build Back” bill making its way through Congress will be enough to satisfy the appetite of Biden’s handlers for costly and ultimately ineffective climate measures.

It’s tempting to think delirium from the heat waves is what prompted Al Gore to compare climate change skeptics to the dithering police officers in Uvalde, TX, but Gore’s fever is nothing new. We’re still waiting for the world to end, which he once predicted would occur by 2016.

Even weather reporters on TV are breathless in their descriptions of the heatwaves. They’ve certainly become dramatists for the climate-change cause. And people love good scare stories. It gives them an excuse to polish up their pitchforks! Or to be lazy and stay inside. It’s telling that so many people now quote heat index values (which combine heat and humidity), rather than actual temperatures, in the warm summer months. After all, it’s more thrilling to say it’s 105 outside than it is to say 95.

Anyway, compare the paired maps in each of the graphics below (here are links to sources for the first and second):

The temperatures are comparable, but the use of RED colors on the 2022 maps is so much more frightening! This post from Anthony Watts provides a list of links to news sources taking alarmist perspectives on the heatwaves in the U.S. and Europe, and falsely attributing the heatwaves to CO2.

Same Old High Pressure Domes

Cliff Mass offers a bone to the climate change community. He thinks perhaps 5% – 10% of the recent temperature anomaly in the UK is attributable to greenhouse gases. An effect of that magnitude is hardly worthy of government action, let alone panic. Mass says:

“Natural variability of the atmosphere was the proximate cause of the warmth and does not represent an existential threat to the population of Europe.”

The heat wave phenomenon is typical of slow-moving high-pressure systems that often develop during the summer months. These domes of high pressure vary in temperature and geographic breadth, and they are sandwiched between or adjacent to low-pressure systems with cooler temperatures. That’s been the case in both Europe and the U.S. during this summer’s heat waves, as illustrated by the following graphics, The northern hemisphere is not entirely enveloped in a heat wave.

And the rest of the globe? In the tropics (below 20 degrees latitude), June 2022 was the coolest June in 22 years, according to satellite temperature readings! Furthermore, the monthly anomaly in June was the coolest in 10 years. In the Southern Hemisphere, Australia and South America have had extremely cold winters. Antarctica had its coldest winter on record in 2021. Yet Joe Biden is under the misapprehension that we’re experiencing “a climate emergency”.

These are not the worst heat waves on record. Both the U.S. and Europe experienced higher temperatures and prolonged heat waves during the 1930s. For example, St.Louis, Missouri matched or exceeded 110 degrees four times in the 1930s, and twice in 1954, whereas the city topped out at 102 so far this year, and that was after a cool spring. There was an extreme European heat wave in 1976 that was drier and much lengthier, and others occurred in 1911 and 1906. Of course, available temperature comparisons are distorted because the early readings weren’t as impacted by urban heat islands. There are historical accounts of drastic heat waves much earlier, such as the 1500s and 1700s. Here is more heatwave history, in case you’re interested.

We’ll Be Fine

Heat isn’t the only story, of course. A wide range of other disastrous events are blamed on climate change. Wildfires are a prime example, but as we know, wildfires are not new, and the worst wildfires have more to do with poor forest management than anything else. Likewise, there is little if any association between extreme weather events and climate change. In that context, it’s also worth noting that cold weather is much deadlier than hot weather. The climate today, and going forward, presents far fewer dangers to humanity than in the past.

I did a lot of dirty, outdoor work in my youth, and it was hot! There were times just as hot as this summer, if not worse, I’d venture to say. Anyone old enough to have lived through the 1970s or even the 1950s should recognize the heatwave Chicken Littles as such.