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Approximately 30 years ago, climate scientists stated the world needs to avoid a 1.5 degrees Celsius global temperature increase, relative to 150 years ago, or “bad things” will happen. Their warning was based on climate models.
However, most climate models do not match today’s observations. Therefore, they are probably wrong, to some extent. This also means the “avoid 1.5 degrees Celsius” recommendation is probably wrong too, since it is based on those models.
Global warming rate
The global warming rate is the increase in average global temperature over a 10-year period. It was measured at 0.18 degrees Celsius increase per decade between 1970 and 2010, and this roughly agreed with climate models. In other words, for over 40 years, climate scientists and their models seemed OK.
However, over the last 10 years, monitoring equipment tells us the warming rate increased 50% to 100%, to between 0.27 degrees Celsius/decade and 0.36 degrees Celsius/decade.
By MRPeasy 05.01.2024
By Global Unichip Corp. 04.18.2024
This increase is not explained by more carbon dioxide, more methane, tipping points, or El Nino, nor is it explained by most climate models.
One possible explanation is the world reduced air pollution over the last 10 years to improve health, and this reduced global cooling since sunlight reflects off air pollution and back into outer space. More about this theory in a moment.
The situation is too difficult to describe
The disconnect between the observed and the predicted warming rate is so crazy, journalists find it difficult to describe. Subsequently, the public does not understand the following:
- Most climate models do not match observations
- Most climate models are probably wrong to some extent
- The climate problem is probably worse than we thought
- Reducing carbon dioxide emissions will probably not fix this
- We need to look at increasing the reflectivity of the atmosphere to avoid significant pain over the next 30 years
Who understands this?
One of the most respected climate scientists in the world is James Hansen. He was the director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) for 32 years, and he is the author of one of the most important climate papers published in 2023. The book is titled “Global Warming in the Pipeline” and the remainder of this article is a summary of this paper.
Warming rate measurements
The warming rate is measured directly using temperature sensors throughout the world and is measured using satellites. The warming rate is roughly proportional to the earth’s energy imbalance (EEI), which is the amount of energy that enters the Earth’s atmosphere from the sun, minus the amount of energy that leaves the planet due to outgoing heat radiation.
EEI is often referred to in units of Watts per square meter of Earth surface area, on average over a 24-hour period (i.e. W/m2). The energy from the sun is approximately 340W/m2, and the outgoing radiation is approximately 337W/m2. Therefore, the difference (i.e. EEI) is approximately 3W/m2. As noted previously, EEI (W/m2) is roughly proportional to the warming rate (e.g. degrees increase in average global temperature per decade).
Warming rate components
The warming rate is made up of multiple components that add together. These are roughly illustrated below.
As one can see, some components increase global warming (red), whereas others decrease global warming (blue). These combine to get total warming (green), which is the same as observed warming.
Global cooling, shown above in blue, is caused by sunlight reflecting off of particles and droplets in the atmosphere. These are referred to as “aerosols,” and in some cases they are caused by air pollution.
Global cooling uncertainty
What is fascinating about global cooling is the error bars. These tell us climate scientists do not know if this is a little, or a lot.
What is more fascinating about the error bars is the impact this uncertainty has on climate models. If planet cooling is large, then climate models say significant changes will occur to our planet over the next 30 years. Otherwise, models suggest we have more time.
The folly of 1.5 degrees Celsius
When climate scientists warned “avoid 1.5 degrees Celsius global warming,” they ignored the above error bars. If they included them, they would have stated something more like “avoid 1.5±1 degrees Celsius.” Also, the observed increase in warming rate over the last 10 years suggests a lower value is more accurate, such as “avoid <1.0 degrees Celsius.”
The average global temperature in 2023 was 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than the average global temperature 150 years ago. In other words, we have already breached the threshold.
What to do?
One strategy to address global warming is to identify people who know the most about the problem, as well as the solution, and get behind them with financial support. There are two people that come to mind: James Hansen, and airplane executive Wake Smith.
We need better instrumentation that directly measures global cooling from sunlight reflecting off of particles and droplets. This would produce data that enables us to reduce the size of the error bars noted previously, improve accuracy of climate models, and more accurately quantify the degree of urgency for national leaders. Hansen is familiar with the needed instrumentation, having studied it for 32 years as the director of GISS.
Smith is also an important part of the climate solution. He is the author of “Pandora’s Toolbox,” a book on how to increase the reflectivity of the atmosphere. He served as the President of Pemco World Air Services, a leader in aircraft modifications, as well as the President of a Boeing division. Both are invaluable experience for what is needed.
To fix this, scientists and engineers need to figure out how to increase the reflectivity of the atmosphere, at reasonable cost (Smith), and without inflicting harm (Hansen).
