2026 IPCC Global Warming Claims Not Only Wrong, But Impossible

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Climate as heat engine. A heat engine produces mechanical energy in the form of work W by absorbing an amount of heat Qin from a hot reservoir (the source) and depositing a smaller amount Qout into a cold reservoir (the sink). (a) An ideal Carnot heat engine does the job with the maximum possible efficiency. (b) Real heat engines are irreversible, and some work is lost via irreversible entropy production TδS. (c) For the climate system, the ultimate source is the Sun, with outer space acting as the sink. The work is performed internally and produces winds and ocean currents. As a result, Qin = Qout.

Update 2026

Kevin Mooney writes at Real Clear Energy Trump Is Right: Science Demands That We Overturn the ‘Endangerment Finding’ Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

Taking on the climate establishment with research that debunks the media narrative.

Science is on the side of the Trump administration’s efforts to unwind the U.S. from costly climate regulations—much to the consternation of major media platforms that peddle unfounded, politically motivated assertions.

That’s why fresh research and updated findings into the impact of carbon dioxide emissions should figure more prominently into an otherwise laudatory and audacious White House strategy to repeal the 2009 endangerment finding. In my new book, Climate Porn: How and Why Anti-Population Zealots Fabricate Science, while Targeting American Capitalism, Freedom, and Independence, I review the science and common sense that reiterates CO2 is a naturally occurring, highly beneficial compound. Indeed, it is critical to life on Earth. And yet, the Obama administration saw fit to declare CO2 a “pollutant” in its endangerment finding, which found that CO2 poses a threat to public health and welfare. This enabled the EPA to unleash a wave of costly climate regulations.

Trump, Zeldin, Wright, and crew should not just rely on legal arguments, but rather double down on the science as they take on the endangerment finding. Posterity will thank them.

Recent Research Discredits Climatists’ Fearful Claims

In light of the above context, I am posting a recent and significant rebuttal of the IPCC “consensus” science that is full of holes like swiss cheese.  Ad Huijser recently published a paper explaining why IPCC claims about global warming are contradicted by observations of our Earth thermal system including a number of internal and external subsytems. The title Global Warming and the “impossible” Radiation Imbalance links to the pdf. This post is a synopsis to present the elements of his research findings, based on the rich detail, math and references found in the document. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images. H/T Kenneth Richard and No Tricks Zone.

Abstract

Any perturbation in the radiative balance at the top of the atmosphere (TOA) that induces a net energy flux into- or out of Earth’s thermal system will result in a surface temperature response until a new equilibrium is reached. According to the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) hypothesis which attributes global warming solely to rising concentrations of Greenhouse gases (GHGs), the observed increase in Earth’s radiative imbalance is entirely driven by anthropogenic GHG-emissions.

However, a comparison of the observed TOA radiation imbalance with the assumed GHG forcing trend reveals that the latter is insufficient to account for the former. This discrepancy persists even when using the relatively high radiative forcing values for CO2 adopted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), thereby challenging the validity of attributing recent global warming exclusively to human-caused GHG emissions.

In this paper, Earth’s climate system is analyzed as a subsystem of the broader Earth Thermal System, allowing for the application of a “virtual balance” approach to distinguish between anthropogenic and other, natural contributions to global warming. Satellite-based TOA radiation data from the CERES program (since 2000), in conjunction with Ocean Heat Content (OHC) data from the ARGO float program (since 2004), indicate that natural forcings must also play a significant role. Specifically, the observed warming aligns with the net increase in incoming shortwave solar radiation (SWIN), likely due to changes in cloud cover and surface albedo. Arguments suggesting that the SWIN trend is merely a feedback response to GHG-induced warming are shown to be quantitatively insufficient.

This analysis concludes that approximately two-thirds of the observed global warming must be attributed to natural factors that increase incoming solar radiation, with only one-third attributable to rising GHG-concentrations. Taken together, these findings imply a much lower climate sensitivity than suggested by IPCC-endorsed Global Circulation Models (GCMs).

Introduction

On a global scale and over longer periods of time, the average surface temperature of our climate system reacts similarly to that of a thermal system such as a pot of water on a stove: when the incoming heat is steady and below boiling, the system stabilizes when the heat loss (via radiation and convection) equals the input. Analogously, Earth’s surface-atmosphere interface is the main absorber and emitter of heat. Reducing the “flame” (solar input) leads to cooling, regardless of the total heat already stored in the system. The system’s average temperature will drop as well, as soon as the heating stops. So, no sign of any “warming in the pipeline” for such a simple system.

The two transport mechanisms, air and ocean, operate on different timescales. Air has a low specific heat capacity, but high wind speeds make it a fast medium for heat transfer. Oceans, by contrast, have a high specific heat capacity but move more slowly. The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) with the well-known Gulf Stream carrying warm water from south to north, can reach speeds up to about 3 m/s. But its warm current remains largely confined to surface layers due to limited solar radiation penetration and gravity-induced stratification. With a path-lengths of up to 8,000 km and an average speed of 1.5 m/s, ocean heat takes approximately 2 months to travel from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic. This is comparable to the 1 to 2 months delay between solar input and temperature response in the annual cycle, suggesting that oceanic heat transport is part of the climate system’s normal operation. Climate adaptation times from anthropogenic influences are estimated at 3 to 5 years. If “warming in the pipeline” exists, it must be buried in the much colder, deeper ocean layers.

ARGO float data since 2004 show substantial annual increases in Ocean Heat Content (OHC), sometimes expressed in mind-boggling terms such as 10²² joules per year (see Fig.1). While this may sound alarming [1,2], when converted to flux, it represents less than 1 W/m², a mere 0.6% of the average 160 W/m² of absorbed solar energy at the surface. All the rest is via evaporation, convection and ultimately by radiation sent back to space after globally being redistributed by wind and currents.

Fig. 1. Ocean Heat Content (OHC) anomaly from 0–2000 meters over time, shown as 3-month and annual moving averages (CMAA), along with their time derivatives. Notable are the relatively large variations, likely reflecting the influence of El Niño events. The average radiative imbalance at the top of the atmosphere (TOA), estimated at 0.85 W/m², corresponds approximately to the midpoint of the time series (around 2015). Data: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/global-ocean-heat-content/basin_heat_data.html [7].

This raises the question: Why would extra GHGs that have only a limited effect on the 99.4% of the outgoing flux, have affected this 0.6% residue during a couple of decennia in such a way that we should be scared about all that “warming in the pipeline” as Hansen et al. [2] are warning us for? In the following sections, we examine data showing that observed trends in the radiation imbalance and OHC are better explained by the internal dynamics of the Earth’s thermal system and natural forcings such as from increasing solar radiation, rather than solely by GHG emissions.

Estimating our climate’s thermal capacity CCL

The rather fast responses of our climate indicates that the thermal capacity of our climate must be much less than the capacity of the entire Earth thermal system. This climate heat capacity CCL depends on how sunlight is being absorbed, how that heat is transferred to the atmosphere and which part of it is being stored in either land or ocean.

At continental land-area, sunlight is absorbed only at the very surface where the generated heat is also in direct contact with the atmosphere. Seasonal temperature variations don’t penetrate more than 1 to 2 meters deep in average and as a consequence, storage of heat is relatively small. Sunlight can penetrate pure water to several hundred meters deep, but in practice, penetration in the oceans is limited by scattering and absorption of organic and inorganic material. A good indication is the depth of the euphotic zone where algae and phytoplankton live, which need light to grow. In clear tropical waters where most of the sunlight hits our planet, this zone is 80 to 100 m deep [12].

Another important factor in our climate’s heat capacity is how this ocean layer of absorbed heat is in contact with the atmosphere. Tides, wind, waves and convection continuously mix the top layer of our oceans, by which heat is easily exchanged with the atmosphere. This mixed-layer is typically in the order of 25 – 100 m, dependent on season, latitude and on the definition of “well mixed” [13]. Below this ~100 m thick top-layer, where hardly any light is being absorbed and the mixing process has stopped, ocean temperatures drop quickly with depth. As the oceans’ vertical temperature gradient at that depth doesn’t support conductive nor convective heat flows going upward, climate processes at the surface will thus become isolated from the rest of the Earth’ thermal system.

Figure 4 with the Change in Ocean Heat Content vs. Depth over the period 2004 – 2020 obtained via the ARGO-floats [6,14], offers a good indication for the average climate capacity CCL. It shows the top layer with a high surface temperature change according to the observed global warming rate of about 0.015 K/year, and a steep cut off at about 100 m depth in line with the explanation above. Below the top layer, temperature effects are small and difficult to interpret, probably due to averaging over all kinds of temperature/depth profiles in the various oceans ranging from Tropical- to Polar regions.

In case of a “perfect” equilibrium (N = 0, dTS/dt = 0), all of the absorbed sunlight up to about 100 m deep, has to leave on the ocean-atmosphere interface again. However, deep oceans are still very cold with a stable, negative temperature gradient towards the bottom. This gradient will anyhow push some of the absorbed heat downwards. Therefore, even at a climate equilibrium with dTS/dt= 0, we will observe N > 0. With the large heat capacity of the total ocean volume, that situation will not change easily, as it takes about 500 years with today’s N ≈ +1 W/m2 to raise its average temperature just 1°C.

The Earth’s climate system can thus be regarded as a subset of the total Earth’s thermal system (ETS) responding to different relaxation times. The climate relaxes to a new equilibrium within 3–5 years, while the deeper oceans operate on multidecadal or even longer timescales, related to their respective thermal capacities C for the ETS, and CCL for the climate system.

The (near) “steady state” character of current climate change

Despite the ongoing changes in climate, the current state can be considered a “near” steady-state. The GHG forcing trend has been pretty constant for decades. Other forcings, primarily in the SW channel, are also likely to change slowly and can be approximated as having constant trends over decadal timescales. Similarly, despite yearly fluctuations, the surface temperature trend has remained fairly stable since 2000.

This analysis strengthens the conclusion that the increase in both N(t) and N0(t) are not a direct consequence of greenhouse gas emissions, but rather of enhanced forcing in the SW-channel.

The preceding analysis highlights how the IPCC’s assumptions diverge significantly from observed reality. While the IPCC model components may collectively reproduce the observed warming trend, they fail to individually align with key observational data, in particular the Ocean Heat Content.

Figure 6 also illustrates that changes in cloudiness are more pronounced on the Northern Hemisphere, especially at mid-latitudes and over Western Europe. For example, the Dutch KNMI weather-station at Cabauw (51.87°N, 4.93oE), where all ground-level radiation components are monitored every 10 minutes, recorded an increase in solar radiation of almost +0.5 W/m²/year since 2000 [26]. Applying the 0.43 net-CRE factor (conservative for this latitude), we estimate a local forcing trend dFSW/dt ≈ 0.2 W/m²/year. This is an order of magnitude larger than the GHG forcing (0.019–0.037 W/m²/year). Even with the IPCC values, GHGs can just account for about 16% of the warming at this station. The average temperature trend for this rural station located in a polder largely covered by grassland, is with ~ +0.043 K/year almost 3x the global average. This, nor the other trends mentioned above can be adequately explained by the IPCC’s GHG-only model.

The IPCC places strong emphasis on the role of climate feedbacks in amplifying the warming effect of greenhouse gases (GHGs) [8]. These feedbacks are considered secondary consequences of Anthropogenic Global Warming, driven by the initial temperature increase from GHGs. Among them, Water-Vapor feedback is the most significant. A warmer atmosphere holds more water vapor (approximately +7%/K) and since water vapor is a potent GHG, even a small warming from CO2 can amplify itself through enhanced evaporation.

Other feedbacks recognized by the IPCC include Lapse Rate, Surface Albedo, and Cloud feedbacks [8], all of which are inherently tied to the presence and behavior of water in its various phases. Therefore, these feedbacks are natural responses to temperature changes, regardless of the original cause of warming, be it GHGs, incoming solar variability, or internal effects. They are not additive components to natural climate sensitivity, as treated by the IPCC, but rather integral parts of it [4].

This analysis reinforces a fundamental point: climate feedbacks are not external modifiers of climate sensitivity; rather, they are inherent to the system. Their combined effect is already embedded in the climate response function. The IPCC’s treatment of feedbacks as additive components used to “explain” high sensitivities in GCMs is conceptually flawed. Physically, Earth’s climate is governed by the mass balance of water in all its phases: ice, snow, liquid, vapor, and clouds. The dynamics between these phases are temperature-sensitive, and they constitute the feedback processes. Feedbacks aren’t just add-ons to the climate system, they are our climate.

Ocean Heat Content increase

In the introduction, the “heat in the pipeline” concept: the idea that heat stored in the deep, cold ocean layers could later resurface to significantly influence surface temperatures, was challenged. Without a substantial decrease in surface temperatures to reverse ocean stratification, this seems highly unlikely. Large and rapid temperature fluctuations during the pre-industrial era with rates up to plus, but also minus 0.05 K/year over several decennia as recorded in the Central England Temperature (CET) series [27], more than three times the rate observed today, further undermine the notion of a slow-release heat mechanism dominating surface temperature trends.

Ocean Heat Content must be related to solar energy. It is the prime source of energy heating the Earth thermal system. Almost 1 W/m2 of that 240 W/m2 solar flux that is in average entering the system, is presently remaining in the oceans. This is an order of magnitude larger than the estimated 0.1 W/m2 of geothermal heat upwelling from the Earth inner core [11]. Extra greenhouse gasses don’t add energy to the system, but just obstruct cooling. As shown in Section 5.3, this accounts for a radiation imbalance offset τ dFGHG/dt, or equivalent to a contribution to dOHC/dt of only about 0.08 W/m2.
.
As redistribution of “heat in the pipeline” will not change the total OHC, roughly 3/4 of the observed positive trend in OHC must at least be attributed to rising solar input. The oceans act in this way as our climate system’s thermal buffer. It will mitigate warming during periods of increased solar input and dampen cooling when solar input declines, underscoring its critical role in Earth’s climate stability.

The strong downwards slope in the OHC before 1970 confirms the observation in Section 5.4 and expressed by (12) that around the turning point t = ζ, the forcing trend in the SW-channel had to be negative. Moreover, the rather slowly increasing 700-2000m OHC data in Fig.7 indicate that most of the fluctuations have occurred relatively close to the surface. Heat from e.g. seafloor volcanism as “warming from below”, is expected to show up more pronounced in this 700-2000m OHC-profile. Although we cannot rule out geothermal influences [29], this observation makes them less likely.

ERBE measurements of radiative imbalance.

As the OHC seems to be primarily coupled to SWIN, the most plausible cause would involve rapid changes in SW-forcing. A sudden drop in cloud-cover might explain such changes, but no convincing observations could be found for the 1960-1980 period. Alternatively, changes in the latitudinal distribution of cloud-cover as illustrated by Fig.6, can result in similar radiative impacts due to the stark contrast between a positive radiation imbalance in the Tropics and a very negative imbalance at the Poles. The ENSO-oscillations in the Pacific Ocean around the equator are a typical example for such influences, as also illustrated in Fig.3 [10]. Shifts in cloud distribution are linked to changes in wind patterns and/or ocean currents, reinforcing the idea as indicated in Section 1, that even minor disruptions in horizontal heat transport can trigger major shifts in our climate’s equilibrium [29, 30]. Sharp shifts in Earth’s radiation imbalance like the one around 1970 as inferred from Fig.7, may even represent one of those alleged tipping points. But in this case, certainly not one triggered by GHGs. Ironically, some climate scientists in the early 1970s predicted an impending (Little) Ice Age [31].

While additional data (e.g. radiation measurements) are needed to draw firm conclusions, the available evidence already challenges the prevailing GHG-centric narrative again. GHG emissions, with their near constant forcing rate, cannot account for the timing nor the magnitude of historical OHC trends, as NOAA explicitly suggests [32]. Similarly, claims by KNMI that “accelerations” in radiation imbalance trends are GHG-driven [1], are not supported by data. And finally, the alarms around “heat in the pipeline” must be exaggerated if not totally misplaced. Given the similarities in radiation imbalance and GHG forcing rates around 1970 with today’s situation, we must conclude that this assumed heat manifested itself at that time apparently as “cooling in the pipeline”.

However, warnings for continued warming even if we immediately stop now with emitting GHGs are nevertheless, absolutely justified. Only, it isn’t warming then from that heat in the pipeline due to historical emissions that will boost our temperatures. Warming will continue to go on as long as natural forcings will be acting. These are already today’s dominant drivers behind global temperature trends. And unfortunately, they will not be affected by the illusion of stopping global warming as created by implementing Net-Zero policies.

Summary and conclusions

This analysis demonstrates that a global warming scenario driven solely by greenhouse gases (GHGs) is inconsistent with more than 20 years of observations from space and of Ocean Heat Content. The standard anthropogenic global warming (AGW) hypothesis, which attributes all observed warming to rising GHG concentrations, particularly CO2, cannot explain the observed trends. Instead, natural factors, especially long-term increase in incoming solar radiation, appear to play a significant and likely dominant role in global warming since the mid-1970s.

The observed increase in incoming solar radiation cannot be accounted for by the possible anthropogenic side effects of Albedo- and Cloud-feedback. All evidence points to the conclusion that this “natural” forcing with a trend of about 0.035 W/m2/year is equal to, or even exceeds the greenhouse gas related forcing of about 0.019 W/m2/year. Based on these values, only 1/3rd of the observed temperature trend can be of anthropogenic origin. The remaining 2/3rd must stem from natural changes in our climate system, or more broadly, in our entire Earth’ thermal system.

Moreover, the observed increase in Earth’s radiation imbalance appears to be largely unrelated to GHGs. Instead, it correlates strongly with natural processes driving increased incoming solar radiation. Claims of “acceleration” in the radiation imbalance due to GHG emissions are not supported by the trend in accurately measured GHG concentrations. If any acceleration in global warming is occurring, it is almost certainly driven by the increasing flux of solar energy—an inherently natural phenomenon not induced by greenhouse gases.

In summary, this analysis challenges the notion that GHGs are the primary drivers of recent climate change. It underscores the importance of accounting for natural variability, especially in solar input, when interpreting warming trends and evaluating climate models.

Note: Dr. Ad Huijser, physicist and former CTO of Philips and director of the Philips Laboratories, describes himself as “amateur climatologist”. However his approach to climate physics is quite professional, I think.

See Also: 

Our Atmospheric Heat Engine

 

 

 

 

SCOTUS Tariff Ruling Better Than It Seems

Posted on by Ron Clutz

 

Jeff Childers explains some hidden features of the ruling, overlooked by both cheerleaders and detractors, in his blog article Tariff Turnabout.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images. H/T David A.

SCOTUS struck down Trump’s IEEPA tariffs 6-3. He signed a replacement
in 90 minutes. Why this “devastating loss” was actually
a firewall, a machete, and two shields for conservatives.

Within hours of yesterday’s SCOTUS decision, the New York Times had jubilantly published no fewer than eight euphoric top-of-fold stories, and was still going strong. Democrats were sprinting (or racing their wheelchairs) to podiums to issue slaphappy praises for Justices they’ve long been complaining were Trump’s stooges. One of the Times’s tamer stories bore the gleeful headline, “The Supreme Court’s Declaration of Independence.”

The reason progressives were more excited than a new puppy yesterday is that they correctly perceive that President Trump’s tariffs are the economic engine behind America’s booming economy. Stop the tariffs, they reckon, and then the economy will fizzle out— and Trump will become a spent force. It was a good plan. Too bad it failed.

The media’s attention span is measured in picoseconds.
On the other hand, the Supreme Court is playing a long game.

This decision was a gift to the country, wrapped in a leather binder and tied with a bow. I realize that’s a bold claim given all the media’s post-touchdown celebrating, but I will explain why they’re wrong in terms that even Portland, Oregon’s residents can understand.

Far from corporate media’s simplistic analysis, this decision was a firewall, a machete, and two shields— one for President Trump and one for the Court.

In its decision yesterday, the Nation’s Highest Court seemed to hand progressives everything they’d hoped for. It clarified a badly worded trade statute called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA— the legal engine powering most of Trump’s Tariff Dashboard.

Specifically, they noted that the word “tariff” does not appear anywhere in IEEPA. The majority mused that tariffs can’t just be intuited from the loose statutory language like a fortune teller predicting your Aunt Bethanie will soon make a love connection.

But … despite all the over-the-top rhetoric tossing around overheated phrases like “devastating blow” and “major setback,” there was a grenade in the progressive gift basket. The Supremes did not actually say Trump must shut down the Tariff Dashboard. Just the opposite. In fact, in a dissenting opinion that the President loved —Trump read parts of it aloud to reporters at an afternoon presser— Justice Kavanaugh helpfully listed four other statutes Trump could use to keep the Dashboard humming.

Before the ink was dry on the press room briefings —90 minutes after the SCOTUS order issued— Trump signed a new executive order replacing the IEEPA tariffs with Kavanaugh’s suggested alternative statutes. For good measure, Trump used one of the alternatives to impose a temporary 10% across-the-board tariff placeholder, and still had a little time left over to squeeze out a quick Truth Social post only slightly longer than The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire.

90 minutes to work up a new executive order? Come on. That was a stage wait.
They obviously had Plan B ready to go without skipping a beat.

We will focus on a key moment from November’s oral arguments that lifts the curtain, letting us see what’s really happening behind the scenes. In paraphrase, at page 69 in the transcript, Justice Gorsuch asked:

If we let THIS president use IEEPA for tariffs, what stops the NEXT president from declaring a climate emergency and taxing gas-powered pickup trucks out of existence?

Here’s the thing: don’t miss this. When Gorsuch asked him about the peril of future presidents, the DOJ’s lawyer —Trump’s lawyer— agreed. If IEEPA allows Trump tariffing, then a future Democrat president could also use it, for whatever insane progressive agenda they felt like, just by declaring a “state of emergency.” Nobody disputed that; everybody agreed.

The Firewall.

And that, as they say, was that. The ambiguously worded statute was a disaster waiting to happen, like handing a chimpanzee a live grenade, or worse, giving a toddler a permanent marker. When they stripped tariffs from IEEPA, Justices Gorsuch, Roberts, and Barrett weren’t betraying  Trump. They were protecting America from the next Democrat president —a Warren or Newsom— declaring a climate emergency and using IEEPA to impose the Green New Deal by fiat.  So they built a firewall.

And so here’s where we are: while the Court slowly considered it, it let President Trump use IEEPA for almost 8 months to get his Tariff Dashboard up and humming. Headline from Fortune, back in January.

But the firewall was just the appetizer.
Now behold the two shields and the machete.

The Shield for Trump.

The three rock-ribbed conservatives, Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh, wrote spirited dissents pre-empting Democrats from complaining that Trump’s use of IEEPA was ‘totally illegal’ and unconstitutional. In other words, three Justices made a forceful, substantive, unqualified case that the President did have tariff authority under IEEPA. Meaning, this was, at worst, a legitimate legal disagreement, and not any lawless power grab.

It neutralized the sting of the majority opinion. Instead of a weaponized decision rebuking Trump as an out-of-control dictator, Democrats got a 6-3 split with a 40-page dissent explaining exactly why the 2025-26 tariffs could have —in good faith— been considered legal. Womp womp.

The dissenters handed Trump an ironclad rhetorical shield
to deflect Democratic criticism over his first eight months of IEEPA tariffs.

The Shield for the Court.

The decision likewise provided SCOTUS cover for new political possibilities. Yesterday’s jubilant headlines praised the Supreme Court’s “independence,” “grit,” and “defiance.” According to corporate media, SCOTUS just handed Trump a “devastating loss.” And President Trump is earning an Oscar playing the wounded victim like nobody’s business. Wall Street Journal, yesterday:

The President vented rage and vexation toward the three conservative Justices who voted against him. Meanwhile, across town, unflappable Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent sang a completely different tune. “Our estimates show that the use of Section 122 authority, combined with potentially enhanced Section 232 and Section 301 tariffs,” the Secretary calmly explained, “will result in virtually unchanged tariff revenue in 2026.”

Across the oceans, foreign countries think nothing will change either. Wall Street Journal headline, this morning:

So the Court earned applause from media midwits —political capital— while not actually harming Trump’s agenda in any way.

The Machete.

The majority’s legal reason for chopping out IEEPA’s tariff power was actually another gift to conservatives— a sharpened machete. Since 2022 or so, the Court has been sharpening a legal rule called the “Major Questions Doctrine” (MQD), which basically says the Executive Branch can’t just ‘read between the lines’ or ‘fill in the gaps’ of statutes, even if they are badly written or ambiguous.

MQD is widely considered a revolutionary tool that could finally clear the ungovernable wilderness of the administrative state— a goal conservatives have longed for since the FDR days.

Even sharper after yesterday’s decision, MQD provides that if a statute doesn’t say something, executive agencies like the EPA or CDC can’t regulate into existence what are essentially new laws. For example, SCOTUS first used the muscular new version of Major Questions to strike down Biden’s OSHA mandate forcing businesses with more than 100 employees to require the jabs.

Had yesterday’s decision swung the other way, had SCOTUS let Trump extrapolate tariffs from IEEPA, it would have undermined the terrific MQD machete, which is one of the Roberts Court’s most important restrictions on future Democrat presidents. After this decision, the MQD is even stronger. Swing away, boys. Chop, chop.

Corporate media has already been calling it “Trump’s Court.” Let’s say the Court planned to rule in the President’s favor on something really big. It might need a loss on the record first, to show the Court isn’t just another rubber stamp on President Trump’s desk. Now consider what else is floating down the SCOTUS pipeline.

Over the next few months, the Court will make several seismic decisions:

  • Birthright citizenship— which could forever end birth tourism.
  • Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act— which could add up to 27 additional Republican House seats.
  • Fed Independence and Firing of Agency Heads— which could give President Trump de facto control of the Federal Reserve.

The birthright case alone could reset the political board. Restricting automatic citizenship to only children of existing citizens would create a “mess,” just like the tariff decision did. And it’s coming The Center Square, yesterday:

The Democrats’ excitement is destined to be short-lived. Soon, it will be even more obvious that Trump’s tariffs are here to stay. But the lasting effects —the firewall against future Democrat presidents, a machete to chop through the administrative state, a shield protecting the next few big Trump wins— will be paying off for generations.

Let’s Talk About Fixing World Trade

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Matthew Lynn reports on the ongoing breakup and reform of global trade practices in his article Ignore the Outrage. Trump’s Trade Revolution Is Working. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

America’s allies complain while quietly backing new U.S. policy.

It’s turning into a familiar ritual. President Trump imposes fresh tariffs, often announced on social media late at night, and within seconds the decision is condemned by officials and politicians from Brussels to Paris, Beijing, Berlin, and London.

There are dramatic warnings about how trade wars benefit no one, accompanied by solemn declarations that Europe will not be bullied, and elegies for the “rules-based order.” The financial press dutifully chronicles the “chaos” and “unpredictability” of American trade policy, while CNN books another expert to explain why it cannot possibly work and the Financial Times runs yet another column about how the United States is only damaging itself.

Then, a few weeks later, buried somewhere on page 17, a different story starts to emerge: Germany has agreed to new defense procurement commitments; France is reconsidering agricultural protections; the European Union is suddenly open to renegotiating its digital services tax. Another trade relationship is quietly restructured, and on terms remarkably favorable to Washington. The opposition, it turns out, is mainly just for show. Behind the scenes a new consensus is starting to emerge.

The Trump administration is quietly building a new global trading system
—it’s just that nobody wants to talk about it.

European leaders routinely denounce Trump’s tariffs and “America First” rhetoric with an over-the-top passion that would get them thrown out of drama school. Yet their finance ministers are simultaneously reworking trade agreements in ways that previous American administrations spent decades failing to achieve. The disconnect between the public theater and private reality has become so vast that one might reasonably conclude the confected outrage itself serves a purpose—providing political cover for concessions that would otherwise be impossible to explain to domestic audiences.

A few examples help illustrate what is actually happening. The U.S. has spent years trying to persuade Germany to increase its military spending, to little effect. But over the last 12 months, Germany has ramped up its spending by €80 billion a year. Sure, there is lots of rhetoric about how it will “Buy European” and about how the money will reboot its industrial base. But in reality about 8% of the money will be spent on American kit, including F-35 fighter jets, P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft, and Tomahawk cruise missiles. It doesn’t really matter who makes the boots. It is the high-tech equipment that really counts, and much of that will be American.

It represents a fundamental shift in German industrial policy, and one that the Obama administration campaigned for in vain, that the Bush administration couldn’t extract, and that decades of NATO summits failed to deliver. Trump got it with a few threatening tweets and warnings about auto tariffs.

Or take a look at France. It has long positioned itself as the defender of European agricultural interests against the marauding Americans with their genetically modified crops and chlorinated chicken. Yet the Common Agricultural Policy, that monument to protectionism and subsidy that has distorted global food markets for generations, is suddenly open for discussion. The reason? It isn’t because France’s politicians have realized that laissez-faire economics originated in their own country. It’s because the alternative—restricted access to the American market—is simply too painful to contemplate.

As another example, the European Union’s digital services tax, a key instrument for extracting revenue from American tech giants, is finally being reconsidered. For years, European politicians treated taxing Apple, Google, and Facebook as both economically sensible and morally righteous. Apparently the firms were “not paying their fair share.” National sovereignty required it and consumers had to be protected. It was simply a coincidence that all the companies that were fined happened to be American. But now, faced with credible retaliation from Washington, the whole scheme is back on the table. The rhetoric about tax justice has been dropped, and the policy has changed.

Across the Channel, the British are now open to paying fairer prices for American pharmaceuticals. It turns out the UK’s state-funded health care system, where prescriptions are either free or bear a fixed price, can afford it after all. Over in the Pacific, Japan has agreed to import more American rice, after insisting for years that it was not to their taste, while the government in Tokyo will underwrite $500 billion of investment in the U.S. Even China, the most protected major economy in the world, has loosened  restrictions. Piece by piece, the tectonic plates of trade are shifting.

These aren’t minor tweaks to existing arrangements. They are fundamental shifts in trading relationships, the kind of structural changes that represent genuine victories for American economic interests. Previous administrations, with all their diplomatic finesse and multilateral commitment, couldn’t secure them, while global institutions, with their emphasis on alliance management and consensus building, got nowhere. Trump’s blunt approach has extracted concessions that diplomatic nuance never could.

That has created an uncomfortable situation for the mainstream commentariat. How can you explain that Trump’s crude, bombastic negotiating style might be getting results when you have insisted it can’t possibly work? And how can you explain how the new tariff regime is working when you have insisted that it will backfire spectacularly? The answer, mostly, has been to not explain it at all—to simply to ignore what is actually happening and continue focusing on the rhetoric.

Europe’s Perfect Storm

The basic logic of realigning global trade has always been sound, even if the tactics and Trump’s style make diplomats wince, because the American market remains indispensable to European and Asian economies. America’s economy isn’t just large; it’s uniquely large in ways that genuinely matter. American consumers spend. They buy imported goods in vast quantities. They don’t save like the Germans or the Chinese. The U.S. market is the ultimate destination for any manufacturer who wants to achieve real scale.

European economies, meanwhile, are facing a perfect storm of challenges. Growth has been anemic for over a decade. The long-term demographic outlook is disastrous, with aging populations creating fiscal pressures that make Greek debt levels look quaint. The regulatory environment has become so stifling that European tech entrepreneurship is essentially a global non-factor. And now the EU faces Chinese competition across virtually every industrial sector, from automobiles to renewable energy to advanced manufacturing.

In this context, the idea of being excluded from American markets—
or even facing significant new barriers—is simply unacceptable.

German car manufacturers cannot survive on European sales alone. French agricultural exporters need American buyers. Italian luxury goods have to be in Miami and Los Angeles malls. Likewise, Vietnamese toys and Korean TVs need to be in Walmart. The leverage is all on one side, and it’s not the European or Asian one.

Trump instinctively understands what the Davos set
refused to acknowledge for the last 20 years:
trade imbalances on the scale of the 2010s are unsustainable.

You cannot run perpetual surpluses against a trading partner while simultaneously demanding that partner provide your security guarantee, subsidize your defense, and accept restricted access to your own markets. Eventually, the situation will be reset. And when it does, the party with leverage wins.

This is not a particularly sophisticated insight. It’s basic economics and elementary logic. But it’s an insight that decades of trade policy specialists somehow failed to grasp. They convinced themselves that the existing system was stable because it was familiar, that the American willingness to run massive trade deficits while defending global security could somehow last indefinitely. They mistook a temporary arrangement for a permanent equilibrium.

The old consensus rested on several assumptions, none of which could survive serious scrutiny.

First, that trade imbalances don’t really matter because they’re offset by capital flows. Tell that to the workers in Ohio and Michigan who watched their factories close.
Second, that global peace requires accepting unfavorable economic terms. Tell that to the American taxpayers who fund European defense while European governments spend their money on welfare systems Americans can only dream about.
Third, that only multilateral negotiations can produce legitimate trade agreements. Tell that to the countries that have been perfectly happy to negotiate bilateral deals when it suits their interests.

The mock outrage will continue. European politicians will continue denouncing American unilateralism. The editorial pages will continue lamenting the death of the liberal international order. Think tanks will produce papers explaining why Trump’s approach damages American interests.

None of this changes the underlying truth: European and Asian
governments are restructuring trade relationships on American terms.

The irony is that Trump’s supposedly “chaotic” approach may be producing a more balanced and ultimately more durable global trading system than the old consensus ever delivered. Trade relationships that are obviously unbalanced won’t last. They create political pressures that eventually explode. It is better to address those imbalances directly, even if the process is uncomfortable, than to pretend they don’t exist.

Footnote: About SCOTUS Ruling on Trump Tariffs

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, speaking in Dallas, echoed Trump in saying that the administration is going to rework the administration’s sweeping import taxes under other legal authorities after the Supreme Court’s ruling earlier today.

“This administration will invoke alternative legal authorities to replace the IEEPA tariffs,” he said. “We will be leveraging Section 232 and Section 301 tariff authorities that have been validated through thousands of legal challenges.”

Bessent added that an estimate calculated by the Treasury Department found that using these other authorities will “result in virtually unchanged tariff revenue in 2026.”

States Claiming Climate Crisis Can’t Prove It

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Andrew Weiss explains the cascading effects upon climate obsessed politicians in his Real Clear Energy article After the Endangerment Finding, States Must Prove CO2 Harms. Wisconsin Can’t..  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

The EPA’s revocation of the 2009 endangerment finding shifts the burden of proof from federal agencies to state capitals. Governors who declared climate emergencies must now demonstrate with regional data that rising carbon dioxide (CO2) endangers their residents. Wisconsin cannot meet that burden.

In 2019, Wisconsin declared climate change a crisis requiring the state’s electricity to be carbon-free by 2050, citing worsening extreme weather as justification. Since then, the state has spent $6 billion on renewable infrastructure while residents pay 15% more for electricity than the Midwest average.

A new report by the Weiss Energy Policy Institute analyzed 130 years of Wisconsin climate data and found that as atmospheric CO2 rose 45%, Wisconsin experienced 63% fewer days over 90°F, heatwaves 71% shorter in duration, powerful tornadoes down 70%, and significant drought decline since 1894.

This isn’t just absence of evidence, it’s negative correlation.
As CO2 increased, climate extremes decreased.

In addition to the improving climate, the report also notably found that rural Wisconsin’s average temperature has not changed since 1894. Urban areas, on the other hand, have warmed about 2.2°F since the late nineteenth century. The report finds that this urban warming is nearly entirely due to the Urban Heat Island effect from concrete and development, not CO2. In many measurable ways, Wisconsin’s climate has become more conducive to human flourishing over the past century.

Even if CO2 were causing harm, Wisconsin’s ability to adapt
to climate change far surpasses its ability to influence it.

The Badger State’s 2023 carbon emissions were 22% below its peak of 110 million metric tons in 2005. Despite its reduction, annual global emissions have increased by over 100 times Wisconsin’s entire annual emissions over the same period. In fact, in 2023, Wisconsin’s carbon emissions made up less than 0.25% of the global total.

While CO2 has not endangered residents of Wisconsin,
the climate-based policies have.

Residential electricity prices continue climbing even as household consumption falls. In fact, Xcel Energy and Alliant Energy have requested cumulative rate hikes approaching 19% over the next two years. Some in Waukesha County are already facing “dramatically higher” energy bills, double from just months earlier. Under Wisconsin’s current policies, this is sure to continue. In fact, Wisconsin is hurtling toward an energy crisis. The latest long term reliability assessment projects the state will enter “high-risk” territory for blackouts by 2028.

This economic burden stems from poor energy policies. Current leadership has forced coal plants into early retirement, blocked critical natural gas infrastructure, mandated carbon targets over grid reliability, vetoed consumer protections against appliance bans, and weaponized the permitting process to strangle traditional energy development.

For example, the state’s climate policies prevented a gas-fired plant that would have brought $1 million in annual tax revenue and 350 construction jobs to northern Wisconsin last year. Its initial permits expired while waiting for more permits.

In the face of unprecedented new energy demand, Wisconsin’s grid might have been able to absorb the new data centers and industrial growth if it weren’t already stressed by climate policy. But solar cannot replace coal megawatt-for-megawatt. In order to replace reliable coal with solar, while maintaining the same reliability, nearly  twenty times the capacity must be installed. That means ratepayers pay to build and maintain thousands of acres of solar panels and pay to keep backup plants on standby for when those panels underperform.

Even overturning the carbon mandate won’t be enough to save the grid, because the current regulatory system was not built to accommodate surging industrial demand without punishing ratepayers. Wisconsin lawmakers need to save residents from footing the bill for data center infrastructure by utilizing free markets and private capital rather than heavy-handed subsidies.

This market-oriented solution for Wisconsin is called Consumer-Regulated Electricity (CRE). It allows privately financed utilities to generate and sell power directly to large customers through voluntary contracts, operating independent of the regulated grid. This creates a parallel pathway for new industrial demand, protecting residential ratepayers while giving Wisconsin a competitive advantage over other Midwest states. It attracts industrial capital without subsidies or forcing costs onto families.

The revoked endangerment finding forces a reckoning: will Wisconsin continue its expensive and dangerous energy transition, or will it examine the actual data? New evidence suggests the state should:

♦  rescind its zero-carbon mandate,
♦  restore reliable baseload power to the legacy grid, and
♦  pass Consumer-Regulated Electricity legislation to let private capital serve new industrial demand without burdening ratepayers.

Combined with removing carbon mandates from the legacy grid,
these reforms position Wisconsin a bright energy future.

In the 21st century, affordable and reliable power separates flourishing societies from struggling ones. Wisconsin cannot prove CO2 harms, but its climate policies are already bringing on an energy crisis. Other states that built climate mandates on the endangerment finding should audit their climate data. The burden of proof has shifted to state capitals, and the evidence may not support the mandates.

See also:

No Climate Crisis in Texas

World of Hurt from Climate Policies-Part 1

 

Lawfare Begins Against Repealing Endangerment Finding–Legalities Outlook

Posted on by Ron Clutz

The expected blowback from invested climatists is underway, as reported by legacy media whose bias is with the alarmists.  Examples:

EPA faces lawsuit over scrapping the ‘endangerment finding,’ a pillar of climate regulation, Scientific American

E.P.A. Faces First Lawsuit Over Its Killing of Major Climate Rule, NY Times

Lawsuit: EPA revoking greenhouse gas finding risks “thousands of avoidable deaths”, arstechnica

Public health and green groups sue EPA over repeal of rule supporting climate protections, AP News

The legal battle over EPA finding is underway, Axios

U.S. environment agency sued over scrapping scientific rule behind climate protections, CBC

Etc., Etc.

Outlook for the legal proceedings is provided by David Wojick in his CFACT article EPA’s elegant arguments for endangerment repeal.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.  H/T Climate- Science.press

EPA’s arguments for repealing the Obama endangerment finding are simple, clear, and strong. So, they have a likely chance of winning in the Supreme Court (SCOTUS), which is where the final decision will be made.

I am working from the lengthy EPA press release which contains what amounts to a summary legal brief of the arguments.

The primary argument is legal and aimed directly at SCOTUS. The release even cites several relevant prior decisions. The gist of these decisions is that agencies cannot find new meaning in old statutes that suddenly gives them enormous new regulatory powers. Such recklessness is called regulatory overreach.

EPA’s argument is that massive overreach is precisely what the endangerment finding did, and it sure looks that way. It was not mission creep, more like mission explosion.

Gas stoves only the thin edge of the wedge.

The statute in question is Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act which lets
EPA regulate harmful tailpipe emissions from motor vehicles.
The Obama endangerment finding is entirely based on this narrow rule.

Here is how EPA puts it:

“The agency concludes that Section 202(a) of the CAA does not provide statutory authority for EPA to prescribe motor vehicle and engine emission standards in the manner previously utilized, including for the purpose of addressing global climate change, and therefore has no legal basis for the Endangerment Finding and resulting regulations. EPA firmly believes the 2009 Endangerment Finding made by the Obama Administration exceeded the agency’s authority to combat “air pollution” that harms public health and welfare, and that a policy decision of this magnitude, which carries sweeping economic and policy consequences, lies solely with Congress. Unlike our predecessors, the Trump EPA is committed to following the law exactly as it is written and as Congress intended—not as others might wish it to be.”

This is just the sort of statutory issue the Supreme Court usually deals with.

There is an element of the endangerment finding that is so blatantly wrong that it is hilarious. I would start with it because it certainly makes EPA’s case for repeal, at least in part. EPA mentions it in passing saying this:

“In an unprecedented move, the Obama EPA found that carbon dioxide emissions emitted from automobiles – in combination with five other gases, some of which vehicles don’t even emit – contribute an unknown amount to greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere….”

So they used the tailpipe statute to assess (and then regulate)
gases that tailpipes do not emit. There is clearly no
statutory basis for these endangerment findings.

These are not scientific issues, and SCOTUS does not normally adjudicate science. There are, however, one and a half scientific arguments in case the science comes up. That is, one argument is fully stated in the release while the other is merely alluded to.

Here is the fully stated argument:

“Using the same types of models utilized by the previous administrations and climate change zealots, EPA now finds that even if the U.S. were to eliminate all GHG emissions from all vehicles, there would be no material impact on global climate indicators through 2100.”

This is actually an endangerment finding, namely that there is none.

Here is the alluded to argument:

“….the Obama EPA found that carbon dioxide emissions emitted from automobiles – in combination with five other gases, some of which vehicles don’t even emit – contribute an unknown amount to greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere that, in turn, play a role through varied causal chains that may endanger human health and welfare.”

Lancet: A 2015 study by 22 scientists from around the world found that cold kills over 17 times more people than heat.

The several scientific issues here are the reality of the “varied causal chains” claimed in the Obama endangerment finding. These causal issues include a great deal of alarmism.

As science, the endangerment finding is a complex attribution claim, and these are highly speculative and contentious. These causal chain issues may be elaborated in the technical support documents for the repeal. But if they are at least mentioned, as in the release, it creates a placeholder for them, in case they come up during the SCOTUS arguments.

Since 1920, deaths each year from natural disasters have decreased by over 90 percent, not only as the planet has warmed, but as world population has quadrupled.

EPA has mounted some elegant arguments for repeal of the endangerment finding. Stay tuned to CFACT as this drama unfolds.

Footnote on Bjorn Lomborg’s estimates of Climate impact from reducing GHG emissions 

Governments have publicly outlined their post-2020 climate commitments in the build-up to the December’s meeting. These promises are known as “Intended Nationally Determined Contributions” (INDCs).

♦  The climate impact of all Paris INDC promises is minuscule: if we measure the impact of every nation fulfilling every promise by 2030, the total temperature reduction will be 0.048°C (0.086°F) by 2100.

♦  Even if we assume that these promises would be extended for another 70 years, there is still little impact: if every nation fulfills every promise by 2030, and continues to fulfill these promises faithfully until the end of the century, and there is no ‘CO₂ leakage’ to non-committed nations, the entirety of the Paris promises will reduce temperature rises by just 0.17°C (0.306°F) by 2100.

♦  US climate policies, in the most optimistic circumstances, fully achieved and adhered to throughout the century, will reduce global temperatures by 0.031°C (0.057°F) by 2100.

♦  EU climate policies, in the most optimistic circumstances, fully achieved and adhered to throughout the century, will reduce global temperatures by 0.053°C (0.096°F) by 2100.

♦  China climate policies, in the most optimistic circumstances, fully achieved and adhered to throughout the century, will reduce global temperatures by 0.048°C (0.086°F) by 2100.

♦  The rest of the world’s climate policies, in the most optimistic circumstances, fully achieved and adhered to throughout the century, will reduce global temperatures by 0.036°C (0.064°F) by 2100.

Overview in Celsius and Fahrenheit by the year 2100

January 2026 Ocean SSTs Warm Slightly

Posted on by Ron Clutz

The best context for understanding decadal temperature changes comes from the world’s sea surface temperatures (SST), for several reasons:

  • The ocean covers 71% of the globe and drives average temperatures;
  • SSTs have a constant water content, (unlike air temperatures), so give a better reading of heat content variations;
  • A major El Nino was the dominant climate feature in recent years.

Previously I used HadSST3 for these reports, but Hadley Centre has made HadSST4 the priority, and v.3 will no longer be updated.  This January report is based on HadSST 4, but with a twist. The data is slightly different in the new version, 4.2.0.0 replacing 4.1.1.0. Product page is here.

The Current Context

The chart below shows SST monthly anomalies as reported in HadSST 4.2 starting in 2015 through January 2026. A global cooling pattern is seen clearly in the Tropics since its peak in 2016, joined by NH and SH cycling downward since 2016, followed by rising temperatures in 2023 and 2024 and cooling in 2025, now with a small bump upward.

Note that in 2015-2016 the Tropics and SH peaked in between two summer NH spikes.  That pattern repeated in 2019-2020 with a lesser Tropics peak and SH bump, but with higher NH spikes. By end of 2020, cooler SSTs in all regions took the Global anomaly well below the mean for this period.  A small warming was driven by NH summer peaks in 2021-22, but offset by cooling in SH and the tropics, By January 2023 the global anomaly was again below the mean.

Then in 2023-24 came an event resembling 2015-16 with a Tropical spike and two NH spikes alongside, all higher than 2015-16. There was also a coinciding rise in SH, and the Global anomaly was pulled up to 1.1°C in 2023, ~0.3° higher than the 2015 peak.  Then NH started down autumn 2023, followed by Tropics and SH descending 2024 to the present. During 2 years of cooling in SH and the Tropics, the Global anomaly came back down, led by Tropics cooling from its 1.3°C peak 2024/01, down to 0.6C in September this year. Note the smaller peak in NH in July 2025 now declining along with SH and the Global anomaly cooler as well. In December the Global anomaly exactly matched the mean for this period, with all regions converging on that value, led by a 6 month drop in NH.  Essentially, all the warming since 2015 was gone, with a slight warming starting 2026.

Comment:

The climatists have seized on this unusual warming as proof their Zero Carbon agenda is needed, without addressing how impossible it would be for CO2 warming the air to raise ocean temperatures.  It is the ocean that warms the air, not the other way around.  Recently Steven Koonin had this to say about the phonomenon confirmed in the graph above:

El Nino is a phenomenon in the climate system that happens once every four or five years.  Heat builds up in the equatorial Pacific to the west of Indonesia and so on.  Then when enough of it builds up it surges across the Pacific and changes the currents and the winds.  As it surges toward South America it was discovered and named in the 19th century  It iswell understood at this point that the phenomenon has nothing to do with CO2.

Now people talk about changes in that phenomena as a result of CO2 but it’s there in the climate system already and when it happens it influences weather all over the world.   We feel it when it gets rainier in Southern California for example.  So for the last 3 years we have been in the opposite of an El Nino, a La Nina, part of the reason people think the West Coast has been in drought.

It has now shifted in the last months to an El Nino condition that warms the globe and is thought to contribute to this Spike we have seen. But there are other contributions as well.  One of the most surprising ones is that back in January of 2022 an enormous underwater volcano went off in Tonga and it put up a lot of water vapor into the upper atmosphere. It increased the upper atmosphere of water vapor by about 10 percent, and that’s a warming effect, and it may be that is contributing to why the spike is so high.

A longer view of SSTs

To enlarge, open image in new tab.

The graph above is noisy, but the density is needed to see the seasonal patterns in the oceanic fluctuations.  Previous posts focused on the rise and fall of the last El Nino starting in 2015.  This post adds a longer view, encompassing the significant 1998 El Nino and since.  The color schemes are retained for Global, Tropics, NH and SH anomalies.  Despite the longer time frame, I have kept the monthly data (rather than yearly averages) because of interesting shifts between January and July. 1995 is a reasonable (ENSO neutral) starting point prior to the first El Nino.

The sharp Tropical rise peaking in 1998 was dominant in the record, starting Jan. ’97 to pull up SSTs uniformly before returning to the same level Jan. ’99. There were strong cool periods before and after the 1998 El Nino event. Then SSTs in all regions returned to the mean in 2001-2.

SSTS fluctuate around the mean until 2007, when another, smaller ENSO event occurs. There is cooling 2007-8,  a lower peak warming in 2009-10, following by cooling in 2011-12.  Again SSTs are average 2013-14.

Now a different pattern appears.  The Tropics cooled sharply to Jan 11, then rise steadily for 4 years to Jan 15, at which point the most recent major El Nino takes off.  But this time in contrast to ’97-’99, the Northern Hemisphere produces peaks every summer pulling up the Global average.  In fact, these NH peaks appear every July starting in 2003, growing stronger to produce 3 massive highs in 2014, 15 and 16.  NH July 2017 was only slightly lower, and a fifth NH peak still lower in Sept. 2018.

The highest summer NH peaks came in 2019 and 2020, only this time the Tropics and SH were offsetting rather adding to the warming. (Note: these are high anomalies on top of the highest absolute temps in the NH.)  Since 2014 SH has played a moderating role, offsetting the NH warming pulses. After September 2020 temps dropped off down until February 2021.  In 2021-22 there were again summer NH spikes, but in 2022 moderated first by cooling Tropics and SH SSTs, then in October to January 2023 by deeper cooling in NH and Tropics.

Then in 2023 the Tropics flipped from below to well above average, while NH produced a summer peak extending into September higher than any previous year.  Despite El Nino driving the Tropics January 2024 anomaly higher than 1998 and 2016 peaks, following months cooled in all regions, and the Tropics continued cooling in April, May and June along with SH dropping.  After July and August NH warming again pulled the global anomaly higher, September through January 2025 resumed cooling in all regions, continuing February through April 2025, with little change in May,June and July despite upward bumps in NH. Now temps in all regions have cooled led by NH from August through December 2025.

What to make of all this? The patterns suggest that in addition to El Ninos in the Pacific driving the Tropic SSTs, something else is going on in the NH.  The obvious culprit is the North Atlantic, since I have seen this sort of pulsing before.  After reading some papers by David Dilley, I confirmed his observation of Atlantic pulses into the Arctic every 8 to 10 years.

Contemporary AMO Observations

Through January 2023 I depended on the Kaplan AMO Index (not smoothed, not detrended) for N. Atlantic observations. But it is no longer being updated, and NOAA says they don’t know its future.  So I find that ERSSTv5 AMO dataset has current data.  It differs from Kaplan, which reported average absolute temps measured in N. Atlantic.  “ERSST5 AMO  follows Trenberth and Shea (2006) proposal to use the NA region EQ-60°N, 0°-80°W and subtract the global rise of SST 60°S-60°N to obtain a measure of the internal variability, arguing that the effect of external forcing on the North Atlantic should be similar to the effect on the other oceans.”  So the values represent SST anomaly differences between the N. Atlantic and the Global ocean.

The chart above confirms what Kaplan also showed.  As August is the hottest month for the N. Atlantic, its variability, high and low, drives the annual results for this basin.  Note also the peaks in 2010, lows after 2014, and a rise in 2021. Then in 2023 the peak reached 1.4C before declining to 0.9 last month.  An annual chart below is informative:

Note the difference between blue/green years, beige/brown, and purple/red years.  2010, 2021, 2022 all peaked strongly in August or September.  1998 and 2007 were mildly warm.  2016 and 2018 were matching or cooler than the global average.  2023 started out slightly warm, then rose steadily to an  extraordinary peak in July.  August to October were only slightly lower, but by December cooled by ~0.4C.

Then in 2024 the AMO anomaly started higher than any previous year, then leveled off for two months declining slightly into April.  Remarkably, May showed an upward leap putting this on a higher track than 2023, and rising slightly higher in June.  In July, August and September 2024 the anomaly declined, and despite a small rise in October, ended close to where it began.  Note 2025 started much lower than the previous year and headed sharply downward, well below the previous two years, then since April through September aligning with 2010. In October there was an unusual upward spike, now reversed down to match 2022 and 2016.  An orange dot on the left axis represents the value of 0.71C for January 2026

The pattern suggests the ocean may be demonstrating a stairstep pattern like that we have also seen in HadCRUT4.

The rose line is the average anomaly 1982-1996 inclusive, value 0.18.  The orange line the average 1982-2025, value 0.41 also for the period 1997-2012. The red line is 2015-2025, value 0.74. As noted above, these rising stages are driven by the combined warming in the Tropics and NH, including both Pacific and Atlantic basins.

Curiosity:  Solar Coincidence?

The news about our current solar cycle 25 is that the solar activity is hitting peak numbers now and higher  than expected 1-2 years in the future.  As livescience put it:  Solar maximum could hit us harder and sooner than we thought. How dangerous will the sun’s chaotic peak be?  Some charts from spaceweatherlive look familar to these sea surface temperature charts.

Summary

The oceans are driving the warming this century.  SSTs took a step up with the 1998 El Nino and have stayed there with help from the North Atlantic, and more recently the Pacific northern “Blob.”  The ocean surfaces are releasing a lot of energy, warming the air, but eventually will have a cooling effect.  The decline after 1937 was rapid by comparison, so one wonders: How long can the oceans keep this up? And is the sun adding forcing to this process?

uss-pearl-harbor-deploys-global-drifter-buoys-in-pacific-ocean

USS Pearl Harbor deploys Global Drifter Buoys in Pacific Ocean

The Smothering Green Contagion

Posted on by Ron Clutz

The brilliant Colin Brazier returns for a second short film on the cult of Net Zero and how it protects ‘green’ policies from being questioned by stifling debate and cracking down on free speech.  For those preferring to read, below is a transcript with my bolds and added images. H/T Not a Lot of People Know That.

The net zero project didn’t arise from nothing. It was the result of a seismic cultural change in our civilisation. This change reshaped our universities, our media, and even seeks to police our very thoughts.

As a result, what should be a technical debate about emissions and energy has become a moral crusade, one that cannot be questioned. The question is no longer what’s true, but who is allowed to speak.

And when a civilisation can no longer question its beliefs,
it loses its grip on reality, and soon after, its freedom.

The university, home to the most brilliant minds in our country, pursuing the great questions of culture and science courageously, with only one concern, the truth. You could propose any theory you like, provided you did one thing, namely, you defended it, advancing knowledge, not in spite of disagreements, but because of it. Not anymore.

Today, academia has been captured by a new dogma, and one of its most important pillars is climate alarmism. The science, they say, is settled. Franklin Delano Roosevelt once spoke of four freedoms, of speech, of belief, from want, from fear.

The quote is updated with one additional word. Unfortunately, until recently we have had no statesman who is so truthful.

But in the climate era, two of those have quietly been removed. The new orthodoxy says even questioning climate policy isn’t just wrong, it’s immoral, it’s denial, it’s disinformation. Dissenters aren’t just thinkers, they are now considered to be heretics.

Remember Climategate? Emails showing top scientists boasting about how to keep sceptical papers out of the scientific literature. The scandal should have shocked academia. Instead, it became a footnote, buried.

Scientists who question the climate narrative pay the price. Careers end, quietly. Offices disappear.

Grants vanish. Roger Pilkey Jr, Judith Currie, Lennart Bengtsson, all punished or othered, not for fraud or failure, but for asking the wrong questions. Search climate sceptic today and you’ll find words like denier, crank, fossil funded.

It’s the oldest trick in politics, delegitimize the opponent, pretend their motives are corrupt. Then you never have to engage with their arguments. Even the great academies have fallen.  A Royal Society fellow recently proposed a meeting on the engineering downsides of net zero. It was blocked, replaced by something less uncomfortable.

The IPCC, supposedly gold standard, is no different. Its reports are political documents presented by diplomats. Their models run hot, their scenarios absurd, their assumptions never tested. But their conclusions are gospel.

One absurd scenario, RCP 8.5, imagines we’ll burn twice the world’s coal reserves. Every alarmist headline you’ve seen is built on it. It’s fantasy, yet it’s still the foundation of climate policy.

This isn’t science anymore. It’s ideology, a movement built on fear, not evidence. And it’s high priests from the universities, the media and the corporations that fund them.

At the Cannes Lyon Festival, once a celebration of selling soap and cars, executives now preach the gospel of net zero. They call themselves the conscience of capitalism. In truth, they’re its new thought police, railroading the world’s advanced economies to immiseration.

At their demand, platforms like YouTube and Pinterest now delete what they call climate misinformation, which means anything that questions the approved line. The internet, once the free marketplace of ideas, has been harnessed to the service of a cult. Think about that.

The same corporations that made billions selling sugar, plastic and petrol now lecture you about morality and decide what you can say online. Unilever sells ice cream. Mars sells chocolate.  Pepsi sells fizzy sugar water. And yet these are the people who claim to be saving the planet by banning your opinions. When Elon Musk took over Twitter, they tried to starve it.

The Global Alliance for Responsible Media, GARM, G-A-R-M, coordinated an ad boycott, driving revenue down 80%. Not because of hate speech, because he let people talk freely. Congress later found GARM guilty of collusion, a cartel of corporations using brand safety as cover to censor the public square.

They called it responsibility. In truth, it was repression.
And the universities applauded.

They’d already surrendered. In the name of climate virtue, they abandoned the scientific method, which depends on doubt. Science advances by asking awkward questions, by tolerating error, by being wrong.

But in the age of net zero, being wrong is a moral crime. The academy has become a church, and the creed is net zero. Meanwhile, outside, a generation raised on the fear of apocalypse acts out the faith.

They glue themselves to paintings, block ambulances, shout, just stop oil. They call it conscience, but it’s a performance art, fully sanctioned by their teachers.

Every civilization needs dissenters. Heretics keep us honest. But in the new moral order, heresy is hate and questioning is denial. A science which can no longer be questioned isn’t really a science anymore, it’s a superstition.

Real people pay the price. While elites moralise, workers lose jobs,
families face blackouts, industries move abroad.
The creed of net zero has turned prosperity into sin.

We are the heirs of the Enlightenment, not the Inquisition. If freedom means anything, it means the right to question, to doubt, to debate. Net zero began as a policy, but it’s become a belief system enforced by bureaucrats, advertisers and academics who’ve forgotten what free thought looks like.

The question is, will we let them decide what we can say, what we can think, even what we can imagine?

 

 

Germany Impaled by Climate Virtue

Posted on by Ron Clutz

“Imagine an argument so airtight about science so settled
over technology so reliable that you have to use censorship
to make sure nobody gives a dissenting opinion.”  @ProctorZ

Thomas Kolbe diagnoses what ails Germany in his article Germany’s Climate Policy Has Moved From Politics To The Courts… And The Economy Is Paying The Price.  H/T Tyler Durden

Germany is the political engine of the Green Deal, yet it continues to fall short of its own CO₂ reduction targets. Now Germany’s Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig has ordered the federal government to tighten its climate targets by the end of March. The ruling follows a lawsuit filed by the German Environmental Aid (Deutsche Umwelthilfe), aimed explicitly at increasing political pressure. Germany is tightening the screws on its own catastrophe.

Germany in 2026: the economy has entered its eighth consecutive year of industrial decline. Companies are shutting down, and hundreds of thousands of jobs have already been lost in the core sectors of the country’s former prosperity—chemicals, mechanical engineering, and above all the automotive industry.

Climate change has struck—or rather, the ideologically skewed and
socially unprecedented self-destructive frenzy of German politics has begun
to shred any remaining hope of a return to normal economic conditions.

The attempt to free the country from conventional energy sources such as oil, gas, and coal through a rapid transition to CO₂-free energy—politically and psychologically inflated into a moral crusade to “save the planet”—has failed.

Given the devastating competitive position of the German economy, which now pays energy prices roughly three times higher than competitors in reference locations such as France or the United States, any rational observer would urgently recommend consigning the entire transformation agenda to the dustbin of failed political hubris and collective delusion.

What remains is damage control:

♦  a rapid return to a market-based energy system,
♦  an end to destructive environmental and social experiments, and
♦  an unavoidable restructuring of the welfare state to reflect new economic realities.

Germany is getting poorer, productivity is falling, and GDP per capita
is declining—realities that even the federal government’s massive
debt-financed spending programs can no longer conceal.

Yet Germany in 2026 is no ordinary country. Its political elite, supported by an affirming media ecosystem, has entrenched itself in a self-referential system of emissions-centered economic control—a system now reinforced by judicial authority.

In its ruling, the court mandated that the government sharpen its environmental targets. Under current conditions, a gap of at least 200 million tons of CO₂ would remain by 2045, which must now be eliminated across Germany’s entire economic structure.

Judges who effectively substitute political objectives for democratic
deliberation are now setting the framework for Germany’s continued decline.

The lawsuit was brought by the German Environmental Aid—an organization already known for launching the first serious legal assault on Germany’s automotive industry during earlier battles over particulate emissions in city centers. The pressure on Germany is now coming from within: from a taxpayer-funded NGO complex that appears determined to politically delegitimize key industries, with the state apparatus firmly on its side.

According to Deutschlandfunk, a leaked draft from the SPD-led Environment Ministry outlines a new climate program aimed at achieving climate neutrality by 2045. Spanning more than 330 pages, it appears the government anticipated judicial escalation and preemptively prepared the groundwork for a revised climate law. Political conflict has been outsourced to the courts, to the relief of Berlin’s climate hardliners amid worsening economic conditions.

Among the core measures is the intensified “heat transition” in the building sector. The ministry proposes increasing subsidies for low-income households—up to 40 percent of costs—for heating replacements and heat pump installations. A generous solution for the climate-policy establishment, conveniently rolled out during an election season.

The leaked strategy signals a general increase in transformation pressure. No fundamentally new instruments are introduced; instead, property owners are placed under tighter time constraints to replace heating systems.

Climate policy and financial affordability are colliding ever more sharply. Amid a prolonged recession, the government is deliberately provoking social conflict while attempting to pacify it through ever-expanding subsidies.

Germany’s public debt, at roughly 65 percent of GDP, still appears moderate by European standards. In Berlin, this is interpreted as ample room to finance the transformation through rising debt while simultaneously increasing pressure on the private sector.

Environment Minister Carsten Schneider speaks optimistically of new “climate jobs.” The overall picture, however, increasingly resembles political farce. A state that secures public consent for its transformation agenda through debt, subsidies, and higher taxes acts obscenely and invites long-term economic damage.

Plans even include methane measurement programs for livestock, modeled after New Zealand—yet another blow to farmers. German emissions policy is entering a manic phase, blurring the line between real policy and political satire.

The subsidy machine continues to spin. The government plans to support 800,000 electric vehicles in the coming years. Credit resources remain abundant after Chancellor Friedrich Merz effectively neutralized the constitutional debt brake with the previous parliament. By 2040, electric vehicles are supposed to account for 70 percent of Germany’s car fleet—despite the absence of any credible plan for supplying the required electricity.

Artificial, technocratic necessity has replaced political debate. From the outset, it was clear that the supposed softening of the combustion-engine ban was mere political theater—a sedative for citizens gradually awakening to the scale of the green ideological disaster.

The energy sector faces further tightening. Dozens of reserve gas power plants are to be added, while existing plants are to be converted to hydrogen capability. Offshore wind projects abroad are being accelerated. These measures amount to desperate rescue attempts for a failed energy transition—an assessment implicitly acknowledged even by the Environment Ministry itself. Model-driven hope has replaced rational judgment.

Technocrats Deliver Catastrophes

Germany’s climate policy, entangled in a feedback loop with Brussels, has ossified into an auto-referential system marked by a narrow temporal vision and growing argumentative poverty. Looming over it all is the threat of further litigation by the German Environmental Aid should the final legislation fail to meet its standards.

Germany now finds itself in the grip of green ideologues who have subordinated all parties behind an ideological firewall. The environmental lobby’s greatest success came when it elevated the Net Zero target to constitutional status.

How much greater must the economic pressure become before a majority forms
—even in front of this firewall—to dismantle this manifest political folly?

World is Better Off Dispelling Al Gore Climate Fears

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Miranda Devine reports in NY Post article Trump debunking Al Gore’s climate fears has made the world a better place.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Ding dong, the climate hoax is dead.

Twenty years after Al Gore’s apocalyptic movie “An Inconvenient Truth,” the Trump administration has put the final nail in the coffin of the lie that scared a generation into believing the planet was about to explode in flames if they kept using fossil fuels.

In what the White House calls “the largest deregulatory action in American history,” the EPA on Thursday will repeal an Obama-era proclamation that has mandated greenhouse-gas regulations for 17 years,

The 2009 “endangerment finding” has been the primary climate handbrake on American industry, forming the legal justification for increasingly punitive greenhouse-gas regulations.

Rescinding it would “save the American people $1.3 trillion in crushing regulations,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said this week, with the EPA projecting an average saving of $2,400 per vehicle and further savings on farm machinery, soon to be freed from the complex extra circuitry required to restrict emissions.

It will also end Joe Biden’s enforced transition to electric vehicles by 2030.

Yay!  It’s about time that common sense returned to energy policy.

During the recent bone-chilling winter storm that hit 200 million Americans across more than 35 states, it wasn’t wind and solar that kept the lights on but fossil fuels.

Fueling US prosperity

According to the Florida Municipal Power Agency, 90% of power generation in the country at the height of the storm was natural gas, coal, nuclear or oil.

Cheap, abundant energy fueled America’s prosperity, but charlatans citing pseudoscience have conspired to send us back to the dark ages with hyperbolic predictions that keep falling apart.

As we keep sailing past the various doomsday deadlines set by climate shucksters from Gore to Greta Thunberg, the public has been waking up to the hoax.

A Gallup poll found in 2024 only 2 percent of Americans cite climate change or the environment as their main concern. 

It’s telling that green activists have been relatively silent in the face of a full-scale assault by Trump and his Cabinet on climate shibboleths the past year.  He lauded EPA administrator Lee Zeldin and his rapid fire deregulation moves as the administration’s “secret weapon” in his war against the “war on coal.” 

“Biden and the radical left wanted to abolish coal,” Trump told the assembled group of coal miners in hard hats and hi-vis vests in the East Room. 

“They did everything they could . . . but on Day 1 of this administration I ended the war on coal. We terminated the green new scam and we withdrew from the unfair, one-sided Paris climate deal.”

He also boasted that he has saved 74 coal fired power plants from extinction and announced that the Tennessee Valley Authority has just taken two coal plants off the chopping board. 

Meanwhile, buoyed by falling electricity prices, the first American aluminum smelter in 50 years is now slated to be built in Oklahoma.

Net-zero policies adopted by in Europe, Canada and Australia, with their blind reliance on wind and solar, have failed.  Add the huge new demand for power by data processing centers underpinning artificial intelligence, and the climate fiction has become impossible to sustain. 

Now, policymakers and powerful influencers are hoping they can sidle away from the disastrous decisions they forced on us with false pretenses. 

Climate activism out 

Billionaire activist Bill Gates has renounced climate alarm, declaring quietly last October that climate change “will not lead to humanity’s demise” and “the global temperature doesn’t tell us anything about the quality of people’s lives.”   

Thank you, Captain Obvious.  Maybe there are more pressing problems in the world that we could more usefully spend his money to solve. 

What Worries the World – January 2026

On Wall Street, ESG (environment, social and government) stocks have fallen out of favor. 

Public disillusionment is happening as the underpinnings of the climate hoax have collapsed. 

In congressional testimony last week Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pointed to the “monumental retraction” of Nature magazine’s infamous paper on “The Economic Commitment of Climate Change” which claimed the cost of global warming would be $38 trillion per year by 2049.   It was retracted two months ago because, Nature admitted, the errors were “too substantial for a correction.” 

Bessent declared that the repudiation of the influential economic modeling “laid bare the radical left’s apocalyptic hyperbole on climate change . . . 

“This fatally fraught paper, with errors far too substantial for correction, has been frequently used and abused to justify bad policymaking around the world, undermining both energy abundance and better living standards.”

These days, when Energy Secretary Chris Wright meets his European and Australian counterparts behind closed doors, they confide to him that he “may be right on the data,” but the public still “feels” climate alarm is real. 

As he points out, that’s because they’ve been lied to for a quarter of a century.
The truth hurts, but it’s better than the alternative.

 

 

 

Why Rethinking Climate Change–Nicola Scafetta

Posted on by Ron Clutz

[Top] Comparison of the harmonic empirical global climate model under the SSP2-4.5 scenario with the HadCRUT4.6 record (1850–2021) alongside the burning ember diagrams representing the five primary global Reasons for Concern (RFCs) under low-to-no adaptation scenarios, as reported by the IPCC (2023) AR6. [Bottom] Summary and analysis of the projected impacts and risks of global warming for the 2080–2100 period compared to the climate “thermometer” projections from Climate Action Tracker (2024). Credit: Gondwana Research (2026). DOI: 10.1016/j.gr.2025.05.001

Nicola Scafetta writes at  phys.org (site not known for skeptical thinking) Rethinking climate change: Natural variability, solar forcing, model uncertainties, and policy implications.  Exceprts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Current global climate models (GCMs) support with high confidence the view that rising greenhouse gases and other anthropogenic forcings account for nearly all observed global surface warming—slightly above 1 °C—since the pre-industrial period (1850–1900). This is the conclusion presented in the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) published in 2021.

Figure 3: CMIP6 GCM ensemble mean simulations spanning from 1850 to 2100, employing historical effective radiative forcing functions from 1850 to 2014 (see Figure 1C) and the forcing functions based on the SSP scenarios 1-2.6, 2-4.5, 3-7.0, and 5-8.5. Curve colors are scaled according to the equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) of the models. The right panels depict the risks and impacts of climate change in relation to various global Reasons for Concern (RFCs) (IPCC, 2023). (Adapted from Scafetta, 2024).

Moreover, the GCM projections for the 21st century, produced under different socioeconomic pathways (SSPs), underpin estimates of future climate impacts and guide net-zero mitigation strategies worldwide.

The prevailing interpretation is that only net-zero climate policies can keep future climate change-related damages within acceptable limits. Yet such policies carry extremely high economic and societal costs, making it essential to assess whether these certain and immediate costs are fully justified by the current state of climate science.

On the other hand, a closer examination of observational datasets, paleoclimate evidence, and model performance reveals a more intricate picture—one that merits open discussion among students, researchers, and anyone interested in how climate science is evolving.

My study “Detection, attribution, and modeling of climate change: Key open issues,” published in Gondwana Research, examines several unresolved questions in climate detection, attribution, and modeling. These issues concern the foundations of how past climate changes are interpreted and how future ones are projected, and they matter because climate projections influence decisions that will shape economies and societies for decades. [My synopsis: Scafetta: Climate Models Have Issues. ]

A central theme is natural climate variability. Across the Holocene—the last 11,700 years—the climate system exhibited a Climate Optimum (6,000–8,000 years ago) and repeated oscillations: multidecadal cycles, centennial fluctuations, and millennial-scale reorganizations.

Some longer cycles are well known, such as the quasi-millennial Eddy cycle, associated with the Medieval and Roman warm periods, and the 2,000–2,500-year Hallstatt–Bray cycle. These patterns appear in ice cores, marine sediments, tree rings, historical documents, and in both climate and solar proxy records.

Current GCMs, however, struggle to reproduce the Holocene Optimum and these rhythms. They generate internal variability, but not with the correct timing, amplitude, or persistence. When a model cannot capture the natural “heartbeat” of the climate system, distinguishing human-driven warming from background variability becomes challenging. This is particularly relevant for interpreting the warming observed since 1850–1900, because both the Eddy and Hallstatt–Bray cycles have been in rising phases since roughly the 1600s.

Figure 1. Anthropgenic and natural contributions. (a) Locked scaling factors, weak Pre Industrial Climate Anomalies (PCA). (b) Free scaling, strong PCA Source: Larminat, P. de (2023)

A portion of the post-industrial warming could therefore stem from these long natural oscillations, which are expected to peak in the 21st century and in the second half of the third millennium, respectively.

Another key issue concerns the global surface temperature datasets that serve as the backbone of global warming assessment. These datasets are essential but not perfect.

Urbanization, land-use changes, station relocations, and instrumentation shifts can introduce non-climatic biases. Many corrections exist, yet uncertainties persist. Even small unresolved biases can influence long-term trends.

The study highlights well-known discrepancies: satellite-based estimates of lower-troposphere temperatures since 1980 show about 20–30% less warming than surface-based records, particularly over Northern Hemisphere land areas.

Recent reconstructions based on confirmed rural stations also show significantly weaker secular warming. These differences underscore the need for continued scrutiny of observational records.

Solar and astronomical influences represent another area where science is still evolving. The sun varies in ways not fully captured by the simplified irradiance reconstructions used in many models. Multiple lines of evidence indicate that the climate system responds not only to total solar irradiance but also to spectral variations, magnetic modulation, and indirect effects on atmospheric circulation.

These mechanisms are still under investigation, and their representation in models remains incomplete, even though empirical evidence suggests that they may play a dominant role—potentially more influential than the simple total-solar-irradiance forcing currently implemented.

Moreover, despite ongoing controversy surrounding long-term solar variability, current GCMs are typically forced with solar reconstructions that exhibit extremely low secular variability. This helps explain why these models attribute nearly 0 °C of the observed post 1850–1900 warming to solar changes and simultaneously fail to reproduce the millennial-scale oscillations evident in paleoclimate records.

Direct comparisons between GCM global surface temperature simulations and observations also show that the models do not reproduce the quasi-60-year climatic oscillation associated with the 1940s warming period, and they tend to overestimate the warming observed since 1980. This “hot model” problem has been documented in several studies and appears to affect a substantial fraction of current GCMs.

All of this connects to a key parameter in climate science: equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS). The canonical estimate—around 3 °C for a doubling of CO₂, with a likely range of 2.5–4.0 °C according to the IPCC—derives largely from model-based assessments.

Empirical studies, including those that account more explicitly for natural variability, often suggest lower values, sometimes around 2.2 ± 0.5 °C, or even as low as 1.1 ± 0.4 °C if long-term solar luminosity varies significantly and if additional solar-related mechanisms influence the climate system—mechanisms not included in current models. If ECS is lower than commonly assumed, projected 21st-century warming would be substantially reduced under all SSP scenarios.

These graphs use Hadcrut4 and include the 2016 El Nino warming event. The exhibit shows since 1947 GMT warmed by 0.8 C, from 13.9 to 14.7, as estimated by Hadcrut4. This resulted from three natural warming events involving ocean cycles. The most recent rise 2013-16 lifted temperatures by 0.2C. Previously the 1997-98 El Nino produced a plateau increase of 0.4C. Before that, a rise from 1977-81 added 0.2C to start the warming since 1947.

The interplay between natural and anthropogenic factors is definitely more nuanced than often portrayed. When empirical models that include natural oscillations are used to project future temperatures, the result is typically moderate future warming rather than extreme trajectories. This raises important questions about the scientific basis for the most aggressive mitigation pathways.

The figure compares the warming expected from GCMs, as assessed by the IPCC, with the associated relative risks, alongside the expectations derived from the empirical modeling proposed in the paper. While net-zero pathways such as SSP1 are considered necessary to meet the Paris Agreement target of limiting global warming to below 2 °C by 2100, empirical considerations suggest that the same target could also be achieved under the far more moderate SSP2 scenario.

This distinction has major global economic implications, because the
prevailing climate-crisis narrative does not appear to be fully supported
by the evidence, and far less costly adaptation strategies could be
more appropriate than highly aggressive mitigation policies.

The study stresses the importance of addressing the key open questions of climate science. Climate policy should be informed by the full spectrum of scientific evidence, including uncertainties and alternative interpretations.