The Ups and Downs of So-Called Climate Change

Jason Rantz said yesterday, "The same media outlets and activist groups that spent 2023 screaming about record-breaking heat have gone conspicuously quiet. The reason is data that doesn’t fit the script, and University of Washington atmospheric scientist Cliff Mass laid it out in his blog."

The Northwest reservoirs are full, and the climate change radicals have become quiet. For the moment.

Be informed, not misled.

Rantz continued, "Satellite measurements from the University of Alabama, Huntsville, which has tracked lower atmosphere temperatures since 1979, show a dramatic cooling trend over the past two years following a spike in 2023 that climate advocates trumpeted as proof of accelerating human-caused warming. Mass, one of the Pacific Northwest’s most respected meteorologists, pushed back on that narrative in a post on the Cliff Mass Weather Blog."

“The media and climate activists made a lot of false claims that the sudden warming in 2023 was due to human-emitted greenhouse gases, but have been very silent about the recent cooling,” Mass wrote. “Clearly, the cooling is not consistent with their ‘messaging’ about global warming.'”

Hunga Tonga volcano, not carbon emissions, drove the 2023 global warming spike.

Cliff Mass explains:

One of the most effective and accurate ways to monitor the slow warming of our planet from increasing greenhouse gases is to use satellites that measure the radiation emitted by our atmosphere.  

One of the leading groups in using this technology is at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, led by Drs. Roy Spencer and John Christy.  

Below is their plot of lower atmosphere temperatures based on satellite data since 1979.

You will notice a slow rise in temperature over the past 50 years, by about 1°C.  This is probably mainly due to increasing CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

You will also notice a lot of ups and downs on shorter time scales, which are mainly due to natural variability.  Of particular note is the big spike in warming in 2023, followed by rapid COOLING during the past few years.

The media and climate activists made many false claims that the sudden warming in 2023 was due to human-emitted greenhouse gases, but have been very silent about the recent cooling.

Clearly, the cooling is not consistent with their "messaging" about global warming.

The truth was that the huge 2022 Hunga Tonga volcanic eruption ejected massive amounts of water vapor (a VERY potent greenhouse gas) into the stratosphere, which led to the spike in warming.

The rapid warming had nothing to do with human emissions, as global temperatures naturally declined as excessive water vapor was slowly removed from the system.

Recently, the media and advocacy groups have been going off the rails about the recent March heatwave over the U.S., claiming with great certainty that it is the result of human-caused global warming.

Mass says, "These claims are easily disproved:  the heat wave was highly localized, and some nearby areas were much colder than normal.

I can demonstrate this by showing you the temperature differences from normal (climatology) over the entire planet for March using the satellite observations noted above.  Red, orange, and yellow indicate warmer than normal temperatures, and blue indicates colder-than-normal temperatures (see below).

 

You can see the large area of warmer than normal temperatures centered over the western U.S.  No doubt about it.  But temperatures are even MORE extreme on the COLD side to the north, from Alaska through northern Canada. 

Global warming advocates often talk about the Arctic warming due to climate change, with sad stories about dying polar bears. But in this case, a broad swath of the Arctic was much colder than normal.

In the tropics, temperatures were near normal. 

Mass says, "It is easy to determine the real cause of the temperature anomalies:  a highly perturbed upper-level flow pattern (see 500 hPa pressure level, about 18,000 ft, below). Red indicates ridging or enhanced high pressure aloft, blue indicates troughing (enhanced low pressure)."

"The flow pattern was highly perturbed over North America.  Research is very clear that global warming does not contribute to such a pattern," he adds. 

He says, "Let me end with the Golden Rule of Climate Change. The more extreme the anomaly from climatology (the average climate), the LESS likely it is that human-forced global warming is the cause.  This was true of the warming in 2023 and is true for last month's warm event over the western U.S."

Takeaway

Let me end with some Truth from the Bible.

Genesis 8:22, "While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease."

Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Engaged. Be Prayerful.