Why the climate is changing (short version) VERSION 13th June 2022
About the author Dr.-Ing. Bernd Fleischmann studied communications engineering and cybernetics at the Technical University of Munich and received his doctorate in high-frequency engineering. He is non-partisan, not dependent on any research funds or industrial companies, does not hold shares in energy companies and does not trade in CO2 certificates.
1. Table of contents 2. Introduction - to believe or to know 3. Why are there climate variations on Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Earth? 4. What components of solar radiation are changing and what is the effect? 5. Why do the solar magnetic field and solar intensity change? 6. What effect do ocean cycles have on global temperatures? 7. Where are temperatures changing and where are they not? 8. A journey into the past: Atlantic and ice ages. 9. Even further back into the past: Cenozoic and Paleoarchaic 10. How does the gardener's greenhouse work? 11. What are the flaws in the greenhouse model of the atmosphere? 12. Maxwell and every glider pilot know better that convection works in both directions. 13. The greenhouse theory contradicts the laws of physics and delivers wrong temperatures 14. With the convective-adiabatic model one can calculate the temperatures on all planets 15. First the temperature rises, then the CO2 -content of the atmosphere 16. The inversion weather situation is a consequence of missing convection 17. The fertilization effect of carbon dioxide makes the world greener 18. Global sea level change from 1880 to 2010: no acceleration of the rise! 19. "The polar ice caps are melting faster and faster" is Fake News! 20. Forest fires decrease globally 21. The flood of the century in the Ahr valley comes every hundred years 22. How many people die due to climate change? 23. The biggest mistakes of the energy transition 24. Conclusion: It's time for a paradigm shift
2. Introduction – to believe or to know 1
"Listen to the science" say the children and many politicians and journalists. They mean those scientists from the "Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change" IPCC who, in their 2013 report (AR5), predict that if CO2 levels in the atmosphere double, there is an eighty-five percent probability that global temperatures will rise by 1 to 6 °C (https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/ page 16). The range of 1 to 6 °C is clearly a sign of ignorance. To distract from this, they therefore spread horror scenarios if the warming should exceed 2 °C above the pre-industrial level - which was in the middle of the Little Ice Age - and conceal the fact that it was much warmer in the Atlantic period 5000 years ago and in past interglacials. What happened at that time? Nothing bad. On the contrary, the Sahara was green and fertile in these warm phases, because when it is warmer, more water evaporates over the oceans and it rains more. So the tipping points of the climate are also a hypothesis that is obviously wrong. Warmer is better! A frightening example of what happens when you know nothing and believe the wrong people is the scandalous ruling of the German Federal Constitutional Court of March 24, 2021 on the Climate Protection Act of 2019. As Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt and Dr. Sebastian Lüning have clearly explained in their book "Unanfechtbar?" the court did not weigh the range of scientific opinions on climate change for this far-reaching decision, but, without an oral hearing, only took as a basis the one-sided view of a few climate alarmists and their partly absurd and long since disproved assumptions. This work sheds some light on the climate apocalypse with verifiable facts so that kids won't have nightmares or have to skip school on Fridays. 3. Why are there climate variations on Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Earth? Climate warming on Mars has been reported by NASA (http://tinyurl.com/y4qgy7xr) and an increase in storms on Venus has been reported by ESA (http://tinyurl.com/lgjlcep). Interestingly, there is a 70-year climate cycle on Jupiter as well, which manifests itself in the formation of hurricanes and temperature differences between the poles and the equator of up to 10 °C - very similar to those on Earth (from Wikipedia https://tinyurl.com/y39bzurv). Man and his emissions cannot be the cause on other planets. It is the sun! This graph shows the temperature course of rural measuring stations - which are not affected by the effect of urban heat islands - of the northern hemisphere (blue curve) and the change in the intensity of solar radiation (red, from Soon et al. , 2015, https://tinyurl.com/y5nhhfnd):
The match is obviously excellent. The sun determines the temperatures. However, it is not only the visible solar radiation that changes and determines the climate, but also and especially the solar magnetic field, as we will see in a moment. 2
4. Which components of solar radiation change and what is the effect? The sun is not a constantly shining "light bulb". There are strong changes in all parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, e.g. in the solar magnetic field. This can be seen in the number of solar spots (in the left image, which shows the intensity in the X-ray region, the bright spots) and in coronal holes (dark areas).
In the right image (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koronales_Loch), A indicates the closed magnet field lines. Where they pierce the solar surface it is a bit cooler, thus darker and visible to us as sunspots. B is a coronal hole - an open magnetic field that is not visible to the human eye. Sunspots and coronal holes are sources of solar wind. The solar wind consists mainly of hydrogen and helium ions and electrons, which flow away from the Sun at high speed and reach Earth after a few days, causing the aurora, for example. The solar wind causes a strong magnetic field which, in conjunction with the Earth's magnetic field, keeps cosmic rays away from the Earth to a large extent. The cosmic radiation also consists mainly of water substance ions (protons), this time from other solar systems and with much higher energy. In the Earth's atmosphere, these protons form condensation nuclei for the water vapor, thus leading to droplet formation and ultimately to clouds. More solar wind means less cosmic rays hitting the earth, thus less condensation nuclei and less clouds and consequently higher temperatures outside the deserts. Because cosmic rays have a direct influence on certain radioactive isotopes such as 14 C in the atmosphere, solar activity and cosmic rays can be traced back over millennia. The next image shows the change in carbon-14 content, and thus solar activity, over the last 1100 years (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_Minimum).
There is a clear correlation with the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age from 1500 to 1850, which coincided with the Spörer and Maunder minima of the sunspot number. In the 20th century, there was a sharp increase in solar activity and thus a decrease in cosmic rays, which is why the climate recovered from the pessimum (as cool phases were previously called) of the Little Ice Age. In 2006, Professors Georgieva and Kirov of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences documented that there are many geomagnetic storms that do not operate in the wavelength range visible to the human eye 3
and therefore do not appear as sunspots. They originate in coronal holes and also emit X-rays that can be converted into images by special telescopes. Adding the geomagnetic flux from coronal holes to that from sunspots (this is the geomagnetic index ak, right scale in the graph), there is an excellent correlation with global temperature trends over the last 150 years averaged over 30 years in each case - as shown in the graph above (Georgieva and Kirov, https://tinyurl.com/yy3uh96e). 5. Why do the solar magnetic field and the solar intensity change? The most convincing hypothesis is that the gravitation of the planets (especially the heavy planets Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus, which together account for more than 90 % of the mass of all planets in the solar system) causes a constant movement of the sun and the pressure conditions in its interior. Just as the Moon causes ebb and flow in our solar system, the planets’ orbits affect the processes in the Sun's interior (e.g., the release of energy through hydrogen nuclear fusion) and the solar wind. The graph from a 2014 published paper by Prof. Scafetta shows the Sun's motion around the solar system's gravity point since 1944 (https://tinyurl.com/y5mpcdbo). The planetary orbits modulate the solar wind and thus the climate on Earth. 6. What is the impact of ocean cycles on global temperatures? a. El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) The graph shows the ENSO index from 1950 to 2020 (from www.climate4you.com). El Niño (Spanish for the Christ Child, because the effect is strongest around Christmas) refers to the phenomenon of wind reversal in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, which prevents the rise of cold deep water off South America and therefore strongly raises air temperatures there - with global effects. A variant of El Niño has been known for a few years. It is called El Niño Modoki and means in a positive phase a strong warming of the temperatures near the equator in the central Pacific, see 6d. 4
The strong El Niños of 1998 and 2016 increased global temperatures by more than 0.5 °C. Since the end of 2020, we have been in a La Niña phase, which led to globally lower temperatures in the first months of 2021 and was partly responsible for the cool spring and summer temperatures here. b. Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) The graph shows the index of the PDO from 1854 to 2020 (https://meteo.plus/pdo-index.php).
The PDO affects the jet stream and therefore has consequences for the entire northern hemisphere. It was strongly positive from 2014 to 2017, increasing temperatures in North America and Europe. c. Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). The graph shows the AMO index from 1856 to 2020 (https://meteo.plus/amo-index.php).
The AMO has been strongly positive since 1998. How much longer? It influences the climate of almost the entire Northern Hemisphere and has contributed significantly to the warming of the last 30 years. Because of the cycle duration of 60 to 70 years, we must assume that the AMO will become negative within the next 5 to 10 years. An indication for the end of the positive phase of the AMO could be the reducing sea water temperatures around Greenland. Wood et al. have shown recently, that the temperature in all ocean segments around Greenland decrease since 2008 (Wood et al., Sci. Adv. 2021; 7: eaba7282, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33523831/). Temperatures in the northern hemisphere will decrease as a result.
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d. Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD)
Graphic from the JAMSTEC website: IOD is a similar phenomenon to ENSO, but takes place in the Indian Ocean. When it is strongly positive, as in 1961 or 2019/2020, there is flooding in East Africa and dry heat in Australia, increasing annual wildfires, as in 2020. The global mean temperature is then elevated. Most ocean cycles have been in a positive phase in recent years, contributing to the global temperature increase. This will pass, unfortunately - warmer is better! 7. Where do temperatures change and where don't they? There is no significant temperature increase in the deserts including the Antarctic ice desert.
Top: Antarctic temperatures from 1957 to 2020: hardly any temperature increase can be seen.
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Bottom: Temperatures in the Arctic change in step with the AMO. Greenhouse theory cannot explain the temperature constancy of Antarctica or the cyclical change in the Arctic. The graphics are from Prof. Humlum's website http://www.climate4you.com 8. A journey into the past: Atlantic and ice ages The Atlantic period 5000 to 7000 years ago was the warmest phase of the current interglacial, the Holocene. The high temperatures led to increased evaporation over the oceans and therefore higher precipitation. The Sahara was green at that time and nomads drove herds of cattle across the grasslands, which they documented in rock paintings (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pastoral_period). During the Atlantic, Iceland's ice sheet disappeared completely (https://tinyurl.com/veegls2). So the "eternal ice" is just an ecoromantic fairy tale. Today, the largest glacier on Iceland alone - Vatnajökull - at 3000 cubic kilometers, is about 40 times larger than all the Alpine glaciers put together, but 5000 years ago it was practically non-existent. Earlier interglacials were much warmer than the present one, as the graph shows for the last 450,000 years. The present is at the right edge of the graph (https://tinyurl.com/y4r7wprm). During the Eemian warm period 120,000 years ago, it was up to 5 °C warmer than today. At that time, hippos were native to the Upper Rhine (https://tinyurl.com/ydcsn597). This has nothing to do with greenhouse gases. First the temperature rose, then the CO 2 (see chapter 15). The reason for the ice ages are changes in the tilt of the earth's axis and the eccentricity of the earth's orbit around the sun, which lead to periodic climate fluctuations. These are the Milanković cycles named after a Serbian engineer who was the first to calculate them. 9. Even further back in time: Cenozoic and Paleoarchaic In the Cenozoic Era 65 million years ago, it was about 10 °C warmer than today, as this graph shows (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene; present is on the right, left is 65 million years ago).
An analysis of the air bubbles trapped in amber showed that the oxygen content of the atmosphere was about 32 % (http://www.ajsonline.org/content/318/5/590.abstract). This corresponds to an air 7
pressure 18 % higher than today and with Maxwell's equation (see chapter 14) results in a temperature 9.2 °C higher, assuming a cloud cover similar to today. This fits quite well. 3.5 billion years ago, in the Paleoarchaic era, the sun was about 25 % weaker than today. With today's composition of the Earth's atmosphere, the Earth would have been an ice ball, but it is known that temperatures were significantly warmer than today, by up to 30 °C. This phenomenon is also called the "paradox of the weak young sun". Geological investigations have shown that at that time there was almost no oxygen but about three times as much nitrogen in the atmosphere as today, which corresponds to an air pressure at the ground of about 2 bar (B. Charnay et al., Exploring the faint young Sun problem and the possible climates of the Archean Earth with a 3-D GCM. JGR Atmospheres, Vol. 118, Issue 18, 2013). With the convective-adiabatic model of Maxwell the result with an atmospheric pressure of 2 bar and today's cloud cover is a temperature of 41 °C, thus 26 °C higher than today. This fits well again and the paradox is solved! The convective-adiabatic theory of Maxwell can explain the phenomena of climate history. The greenhouse theory cannot.
10. How does the gardener’s greenhouse work? It is not the radiation from the infraredimpermeable window glass that increases the temperature - as was originally assumed by the greenhouse theorists - but the lack of air exchange (missing convection). The greenhouse theory was already disproved by Prof. Wood more than 100 years ago, but is still stuck in the heads of ill-informed climate alarmists at Greenpeace or the Federal Environment Agency (https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/service/ubafragen/wie-funktioniert-der-treibhauseffekt). Anyone can do the experiment themselves: Window glass does not work better than infrared-transmissive plastic film. The picture shows the experimental setup of Prof. Nahle (www.justproveco2.com/papers/Nahle2011GreenhouseEffect.pdf ). The greenhouse theorists' notion of "reflective glass" as the cause of heat is wrong.
11. What are the flaws in the greenhouse model of the atmosphere?
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The grossest error is that convection is only taken into account in one direction (upwards). This would result in a vacuum at the bottom. The other errors (radiation balance, back radiation and phase transitions) are discussed in detail in a separate paper, which I will gladly send to interested parties. At this point I would like to point out that all greenhouse theorists have been saying for 60 years that without the atmosphere the surface temperature of the earth would be 33 °C lower. They have also calculated this wrongly. In fact the temperature difference is about 67 °C, because the naked earth would be almost as cold as the moon (https://m.scirp.org/papers/78836).
12. Maxwell and every glider pilot know better that convection works in both directions From the site of glider pilot Gerd Pfeffer (http://www.gerd-pfeffer.de/atm_konvektion.html). Convection and adiabatic compression are the keys to solving the question of how the atmosphere "warms". From "Theory of Heat" by James Clerk Maxwell (that's right, this is the physicist whose theory on electrodynamics was a basis for the work of Albert Einstein): There is convective equilibrium in the atmosphere, which means molecules that rise lose kinetic energy and gain potential energy. Molecules that sink lose potential energy and gain kinetic energy (= heat), the temperature increases.
13. The greenhouse theory contradicts the laws of physics and provides incorrect temperatures The greenhouse theory is based on the radiation equilibrium, which results in temperature gradients (temperature as a function of pressure or altitude) that are unphysical. This has been known since 1964, the year of Manabe and Strickler's publication. The lower curve represents the dependence of temperature on pressure according to the radiation model of the greenhouse theory (from https://tinyurl.com/ybr3j64q).
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The temperature gradient is much higher than is physically possible and the temperature reaches 332.3 K at ground level, more than 59 °C instead of the measured 15 °C. The other two curves are obtained for the convective-adiabatic model in dry air (dry adiabatic) and in humid air (6.5 °C/km with condensation taken into account). They correspond to the measured values. The greenhouse theory, on the other hand, contradicts the measurements. 14. With the convective-adiabatic model one can calculate the temperatures on all planets The graph from a NASA publication shows the temperature profile of all planets and moons with dense atmospheres as a function of pressure (Robinson and Catling, https://arxiv.org/pdf/1312.6859). Mars with its thin atmosphere is not one of them. Below the tropopause (that is the dashed line with a pressure of 0.1 bar) the temperature becomes higher with increasing pressure, independent of whether the atmosphere consists of nitrogen and oxygen (Earth), carbon dioxide (Venus) or hydrogen and helium (Jupiter). This relation can be calculated with the following formula, which is valid for the temperatures on all planets with dense atmosphere:
T ̴ p(γ-1)/γ This means: The temperature T is proportional to the pressure p to the power of an exponent that depends on the heat capacity ratio γ of the atmospheric gases. For air (nitrogen, oxygen and 1 % argon), γ has a value of 1.402. The formula comes from the book "Theory of Heat" by James Clerk Maxwell (book version by Lord Rayleigh, https://archive.org/details/theoryofheat00maxwrich/page/n349/mode/2up/search/, page 331) and is based on the adiabatic equations of Siméon Poisson from 1822. It is used for temperature calculations in mines for more than 100 years and by NASA for all planets, also outside the solar system. With Maxwell's formula and the radiative equilibrium at the top of the clouds, one can calculate absolute temperatures on all planets with dense atmospheres. The greenhouse theory cannot do that. Taking the example of the calculation of the surface temperature of Venus it becomes clear (at least to those who have enjoyed a sound physical and mathematical education; to the others I apologize at this point for the many formulas). According to NASA, the intensity of solar radiation on Venus has a value of has a value of Smax = 2601 W/m² (https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/venusfact.html). The closed cloud cover, the dense atmosphere and the high cloud speeds of more than 350 km/h ensure that the surface temperatures are very balanced. The variation is only a few percent, compared 10
to ±22 % on Earth. One can therefore use the simplification for Venus that temperatures are equal horizontally (in degrees of latitude and longitude) to get a good approximation for the surface temperature. So we distribute the incoming solar radiation evenly over Venus (that means we have to divide - ratio of disk area to sphere surface - by 4) and subtract the part that is reflected or absorbed over the clouds. The albedo (reflection) is - according to NASA factsheet - 77 %. The absorption above the clouds is dominated by sulfur dioxide and by the absorption band of carbon dioxide at 2.8 µm. For this I have assumed a value of 1 %. This is half as much as has been measured for Earth, where ozone is the dominant absorber, which is absent on Venus. 98% of the radiation is absorbed in the clouds (http://clivebest.com/blog/?p=4048). This gives us an effective absorbed intensity Ieff of Ieff = Smax (1 - 0.77) ∙ (1 – 0.01) ∙ 0.98 / 4 = 145 W/m² With the radiation law by Stefan and Boltzmann, I = ε σ T4 the simplification for the emissivity ε = 1 and the radiation constant σ = 5,67 ∙ 108 W/(m²K4 ) we obtain T1 = (Ieff / ¿))1/4 = 225 K What temperature is that now? Of course not the one on the ground, because the solar radiation does not reach there due to the closed cloud cover. T 1 is the temperature at the top of the clouds, where the solar radiation is absorbed. The clouds emit infrared radiation according to their temperature. Absorbed and emitted energy are in long-term equilibrium, otherwise Venus would be constantly heating up or cooling down. The effective cloud top is at an altitude of about 65 km and the atmospherical pressure, which depends somewhat on latitude (distance from Venus' equator), at this altitude is p1 = 0.15 bar (https://tinyurl.com/y9bjgmyz). The pressure at the surface of Venus is p0 = 92 bar, almost 100 times higher than on Earth. At the temperature of 225 K (-48 °C), the sulfuric acid that makes up the clouds is frozen, we have sulfuric acid crystals, at least in the upper 5 km of the clouds. Deeper in the atmosphere we are then dealing with droplets and with sulfuric acid rain. To apply Maxwell's equation, we still need the heat capacity ratio of Venus' atmospheric gases. With 96.5 % CO2 and 3.5 % N2 we get a value of γ = 1.3. To consider phase transitions in the atmosphere (condensation, evaporation, freezing, melting) we use a correction factor k with the value 0.8 for the exponent, because NASA has been doing it this way for 60 years (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236842439_An_Analytic_RadiativeConvective_Model_for_Planetary_Atmospheres).
T1 / T0 = (p1 / p0 )
k(γ-1)/γ
Now we have everything to calculate T0, the temperature on the surface of Venus. The result is T0 = 736 K = 463 °C NASA has measured an average of 464 °C for the surface temperature of Venus, only 1 °C more. (https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/venusfact.html). This was a rather simple calculation with the convective-adiabatic model and also quite correct, even if the result benefits from the fact that a few simplifications compensate each other. In the atmosphere of Venus there is convective equilibrium and the temperature changes adiabatically with altitude. If there were an additional greenhouse effect due to back-radiation of carbon dioxide molecules, the temperature gradient and the temperature at the surface would be much higher than the measured values. 11
The NASA physicist and Pulitzer Prize winner Carl Sagan also attempted in 1960 to determine the temperature of Venus using the adiabatic equations of Poisson and Maxwell. Because the thickness of Venus' atmosphere and the pressure on the surface were estimated incorrectly at that time, he obtained a temperature that was too low. That's why he postulated a "runaway greenhouse effect" by carbon dioxide (NASA Technical Report No. 32-34, The Radiation Balance of Venus, 1960) to explain the discrepancy between the adiabatic calculation and the observed temperature. If Sagan had had knowledge about the actual temperature and pressure conditions of Venus at that time, the postulate of the "runaway greenhouse effect" would not exist, which Prof. Schellnhuber, Prof. Rahmstorf and many more believe in until today. It is also informative to calculate the temperature of Venus with a composition of the atmosphere as we have it on Earth, i.e. essentially nitrogen and oxygen plus 1 % argon, resulting in an effective γ EA (EA = Earth's atmosphere) of 1.402. We take the same correction factor k = 0.8 (which means the atmosphere is slightly drier than on Earth on average). Because nitrogen and oxygen molecules are much lighter than carbon dioxide molecules we take this into account (mean molar mass of Earth's atmosphere: 28.79 g/mol, Venus: 43.45 g/mol). This results in a pressure at the ground of p 0EA = 61 bar instead of 92 bar before. We leave the albedo and the solar intensity the same and insert the values into the known formula:
T1 / T0EA = (p1 / p0EA ) Result:
k(γ -1)/γ EA
EA
T0EA = 892 K = 619 °C
If the Venusian atmosphere was composed like the Earth's atmosphere, i.e. nitrogen and oxygen instead of carbon dioxide, its surface temperature would be even higher by more than 150 °C! And which temperature do the greenhouse theorists calculate for Venus? I don't know of any plausible and halfway correct calculation by means of greenhouse theory. One reads only the usual climate hysterical phrases, e.g. from the professors Schellnhuber and Rahmstorf (quotation from https://tinyurl.com/y78b3ovs): "On Venus there are boiling hot 460 degrees. The reason for this is an extreme greenhouse effect: the atmosphere of Venus consists of 96 percent carbon dioxide." Yep, that's all. They don't even attempt a calculation. Or they tried, failed, and are covering it up. The same mistake of the runaway greenhouse effect is spread by Prof. Lesch (ZDF, minute 11:20). Thus the professors Schellnhuber, Rahmstorf and Lesch, the figureheads of the German climate research, have proved they do not know the current literature or they deny it. 15. First the temperature rises, then the CO2 content of the atmosphere.
The graph shows in green the seasonally adjusted changes in atmospheric CO 2 from 1982 to 2012. The 12
curve follows the annual temperature changes (blue) at an average interval of 11 months (Humlum et al., 2013, https://tinyurl.com/y77nqj8y). For large temperature changes, it takes correspondingly longer. Antarctic ice cores show that at the end of the last ice age, the temperature rise occurred 150 to 200 years before the rise in carbon dioxide that escaped from the heated oceans, like a bottle of Coke sitting in the sun (Pedro et al., 2012, https://tinyurl.com/y4c5mrjn).
16. The inversion weather situation is a result of lack of convection When convection (vertical air exchange) occurs, air temperature decreases with altitude, by 6-7 °C/km for moist air and by 910 °C/km for dry air. When convection is interrupted, the air near the ground may cool considerably due to infrared emissions and an inverted temperature gradient, an inversion, occurs. In Antarctica, there is an almost permanent temperature inversion in winter (April to September), with temperatures at 150 m about 20 °C above those at ground level. The graph shows measured temperatures in Antarctica for one year for the height range from 5 m to 205 m. Above about 200 m, the temperature drops at just under 10 °C/km and returns to ground level temperatures at about 2000 m altitude. (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260973451_One_Year_of_SurfaceBased_Temperature_Inversions_at_Dome_C_Antarctica). So even the "back-radiation" from a 2 km thick warm air layer cannot heat up the ground. The lack of convection is the reason why the ground remains cold.
17. The fertilization effect of carbon dioxide makes the world greener
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Carbon dioxide is not a "climate killer" but the basis of all life. It has been known for more than 100 years that plants grow faster when there is more CO 2 in the air. This positive effect has been documented in several publications. NASA and the Australian national research agency CSIRO have found that the fertilization effect and increased precipitation as a result of rising temperatures have made the earth greener in recent decades. The next image shows the change in vegetation density from 1982 to 2010 in percent (green indicates growth in vegetation; deserts and icy areas are gray, © Copyright CSIRO Australia). Specifically arid regions such as the Sahel, the Indian subcontinent, and most of Australia benefit from higher temperatures and fertilization by CO2 , clearly seen in the large green areas.
18. Global sea level change from 1880 to 2010: no acceleration of rise! The evaluation of globally distributed measuring stations since 1880 results in the left figure, in which the sea level curves of three research groups are superimposed (IPCC AR5, https://tinyurl.com/y3k3dnd5, Figure 3.13a). Over the past 140 years, ocean levels have risen at an average rate of about 1.8 mm per year. From the mid-1950s to about 1990, the rise was reduced primarily by the many dam projects. These held back much of the rainwater (NASA, https://tinyurl.com/yxvg994b). Since 1990, the rise has been as steep again as it was from 1880 to 1905, when CO2 levels increased by only 7 ppm in 25 years. Now, however, CO2 levels are rising seven times as fast. There is no acceleration of sea level rise and thus no correlation with the CO2 content of the atmosphere. On the contrary, for the years 2005 to 2012, an analysis of satellite data (Altimeter, GRACE) and buoys (ARGO) shows an increase of only 1 mm per year (also from the IPCC report of 2013, Figure 3.13d, GMSL = Global Mean Sea Level). It is easy to see the influence of the El Niño of 2010 and the La Niñas (with reduced sea level) of 2008 and 2011.
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And why do we always read and hear in the media about a 3 mm per year rise? Because the NASA satellites Topex, Jason-1 and Jason-2 delivered this result. Okay, that was worded incorrectly. Of course, the measuring instruments on board these satellites do not deliver such a result. One must filter quite a lot, select values and interpret until a halfway useful value results. In the end, the satellites flew at 1340 km altitude and were able to measure the distance from the sea surface with an alleged accuracy of about 2 cm, which I think is optimistic, considering that the radar altimeters had a wavelength of 6 cm (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_Surface_Topography_Mission#Ocean_altimetry). This is like using a meter rule to measure the thickness of a hair. Again, the annual change is -4 mm to +6 mm and each year the winds, currents, temperatures, waves, humidity, sea ice cover, etc. are different. The Europeans also had a satellite for such measurements. It was called Envisat, cost 2.3 billion Euro and originally "delivered" a result of 0.48 mm per year. Because the ESA apparently does not have as much confidence in its algorithms as NASA, an "adjustment" (increase) of 2 mm per year was made after the end of the mission so that it "fits" with the NASA data (https://tinyurl.com/y8scdf2d). The "data reprocessing" is unfortunately not explained. This raises the question of whether the result has anything to do with science or rather with politics. 19. "The polar ice caps are melting faster and faster" is Fake News! "All the glaciers in East Greenland are melting rapidly... It can be said without exaggeration that the glaciers, like those in Norway, face the possibility of catastrophic collapse" said Prof. Hans Ahlmann, Swedish geologist (https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/89276088/). He said this in 1939, at the last peak of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (see above). A 2012 paper that evaluated all of Greenland's long-term weather stations concludes that Greenland's winter/spring/summer/fall temperatures have increased by only about 1.6/0.1/0.8/0.5 °C since 1940 (https://tinyurl.com/uaqr8h8). The temperature increase in more than 70 years was only about 0.5 °C for the months when ice melts. Greenland's ice cap has a north-south extension of 2400 km and extends from sea level to almost 3700 m above zero. The fact that weather and climate are not the same everywhere and that the glaciers melt in summer in Greenland's green south - when solar insolation is stronger than at the equator - is logical. That is why it is called Greenland (grøn = green) and not Greyland or Pinkland. So what do calving glaciers and meltwater streams on the ice mean for Greenland's ice mass? A model calculation gives an average of 700 gigatons (GT) per year of ice accretion from snowfall. Here is the graphic (https://tinyurl.com/yd65bmw2): The blue curve (SMB = Surface Mass Balance) is the result of increase due to snowfall (red) and ice loss due to melting (runoff, yellow). The increase in surface ice over the last 20 years has averaged 400 GT per year. For the total balance, the ice loss due to glacier calving is missing. Overall, Greenland's ice cap has been losing an average of 100 GT of mass annually since the end of the Little Ice Age
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(https://www.nature.com/articles/nature16183), intensified in the years 1998 to 2012 (see Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation). In 2017 and 2018, Greenland gained ice mass (http://polarportal.dk/en/news/2018-season-report/), and in the summer of 2021, ice melt was even lower than in 2018. A NASA study from 2015 shows that Antarctica is gaining ice mass, even though the glaciers are calving - which they have always done. Radar altimeters aboard the European ERS satellite and the laser altimeter aboard ICES at (https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasa-study-mass-gains-ofantarctic-ice-sheet-greater-than-losses) were evaluated. In the area of the German Neumayer Station on the edge of Antarctica, the snow and ice cover is growing by up to 2 m per year (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neumayer-Station_III). The reason for the ice growth: At the end of the last ice age, the air became warmer and therefore brought more moisture over the Antarctic continent and the amount of snowfall doubled. Antarctic ice gain over the last 25 years has averaged as much as Greenland's long-term mean ice loss: 100 GT per year. The sea level rise due to the "melting of the polar caps" is therefore in total: 0 mm per year. 20. Forest fires are decreasing globally Each year has its forest fire "hotspots" and other regions are spared. The EU's Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) reported on Dec. 14: "2020 was a year of extremes when it comes to forest fires. The Arctic and the U.S. saw record levels of activity during the summer, while Canada and tropical Africa saw record lows. These lows have contributed to 2020 so far being one of the least active years since records began in 2003. " The report is supported by the adjacent graph, which shows annual emissions of carbon from forest fires from 2003 to 2020. Emissions, and thus the extent of the fires, are declining. Regarding the California fires, the CAMS report says they were more severe than other years since 2003, but for the U.S. as a whole, the total was quite average. "Average" doesn't interest any media group or any publicityhungry climate alarmist, so the usual suspects focused on California. The most hysterical, i.e. stupid, headline was invented by the German newspapter "taz" for the forest fires in Australia: The "Chernobyl of the Climate Crisis". The year 2021 again has focal points for forest fires. Often enough, they are caused by arson. In Greece, at least 19 suspects of ar son were arrested on the weekend of August 7 and 8 alone. And once there's a fire, it's more intense than it used to be, because for a few decades now the fallen, dry undergrowth in Western countries has been worth nothing, so it just stays put. It looks like this picture in many forests of my Upper Bavarian homeland: Fallen branches and withered undergrowth accumulated over many years. In the past, people collected the wood for the wood stoves. I'm already waiting for lightning to strike soon and ignite a forest fire of 16
"unprecedented proportions", which climate hysterics and our quality media will again identify as a consequence of the "climate crisis". 21.
The flood of the century in the Ahr valley comes every hundred years The terrible storm in the Ahr valley in mid-July 2021 was a catastrophe for all concerned. A weather situation that only occurs about once every hundred years led to days of heavy rain and flooding that cost the lives of many residents of the Ahr Valley. One can only hope that it will take another hundred years and that by then people will have learned something from this catastrophe, or from the flood in June 1910, which cost 52 lives. There were other bad floods in 1719 and 1601. The strongest flood was in July 1804 - thus before the industrialization and still during the Little Ice Age - which claimed 63 lives and brought bigger flash floods than the storm of 2021. "Emperor Napoleon gave from his private treasury 30,000 francs, the empress another 4,800 francs to alleviate the distress" (from Die Ahr und ihre Hochwässer in alten Quellen). At that time, autocrats still had a heart.... One can definitely speak of a pattern here, because the flood disasters occur about every hundred years, but it definitely has nothing to do with global warming! The interval between the catastrophes is unfortunately longer than a human lifetime, which is why the third or fourth generation after such an event has not yet heard of it or has suppressed it and is completely surprised. Another pattern can be seen in politicians and climatologists, who use the storm for their alarmist propaganda and speak, for example, of an "incredible wake-up call from nature." "The climate is changing and that has consequences. Severe weather events are increasing." Of course the climate is changing, it always has, but there is no robust evidence that heavy rain would increase. Here's a graph from the German Weather Service for the period 1951 to 2013. "Not significantly increased" means that the small increase is well within the annual variations. One can only hope that the flood of the year 2021 was really a wake-up call for those responsible! To blame the catastrophe on the CO2 rise is in any case election campaign nononsense or shows a lack of understanding of the difference between climate and extreme weather and a lack of historical knowledge. The latter, at least, cannot be blamed on insurance companies who do not insure houses threatened by regular flooding.
22. How many people die due to climate change? The truth is that, contrary to the fears of Greta and many other opinion makers, the number of people dying from climate- or weather-related disasters (floods, droughts, extreme temperatures, and severe 17
weather) has steadily declined since the 1930s, as the following graph shows (https://ourworldindata.org/natural-disasters). The deadliest floods were in 1931 (up to 4 million deaths), 1887 (up to 2 million), 1938 (more than 500 thousand), 1975 (229,000), and 1935 (145,000). The last prominent peak in the graph of natural disasters in 1983 represents the approximately 450,000 deaths caused by the drought in the Sahel region, caused by the drop in temperature in the North Atlantic region from the 1950s to the early 1980s. An even greater catastrophe threatens if temperatures in the North Atlantic region decline again in the next 10 to 20 years, because the population in the Sahel has now more than tripled. And what is the situation in Europe or North America? Many more people die every winter than in summer, even in years without a strong wave of influenza. Warmer is better! Fortunately, there are also positive things to report. The average life expectancy has increased globally from 28 to 73 years since 1798, when Thomas Malthus wrote his essay about overpopulation (left graph on next page, from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy? time=earliest..latest&country=~OWID_WRL. What does this graph remind us of? Exactly. Of the increase in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere (right graph, https://structureoftheearthscience.weebly.com/most-affected-sphere.html):
This is not by chance, because the increased life expectancy is due to medical progress and the mechanization of agriculture. Both are based on industrialization and this was the cause of the increased energy consumption. Those who wish back the time before industrialization should think about this. 23. The biggest mistakes of the energy transition
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Germany has the highest electricity prices in the world thanks to the bureaucratic monster that was set in motion against all economic and ecological reason as part of the "great transformation" and which, under the euphemistic cover name of "Energiewende" (energy transition) means loss of prosperity for everyone and destroys the security of the power supply. One fifth of the agricultural land is used for energy crops, which is an area larger than Hesse and about as much as is needed to grow food (https://tinyurl.com/y5w5mg98). Thousands more square kilometers are to be sacrificed for wind turbines and photovoltaic parks. Due to the lack of storage capabilities, this will not change the blackout danger. Nature parks would be better for the environment! Even more irresponsible is the production of fuels from palm and soybean oil. "Over an area the size of New Zealand, rainforests, humans and animals have already had to give way to "green deserts."" (https://www.regenwald.org/themen/palmoel#start). Only one-third of the palm oil imported by the EU is used for food and animal feed, two-thirds is wasted on biodiesel and energy production, in the name of "renewable energy" policies. Because Green politicians have once again failed to think it through, they are probably contributing more to environmental destruction with their propagation of "renewable" biofuels than all motorists combined. (Image: www.regenwald.org/news/7351/stoppt-palmoel-und-staudaemme-orang-utans-sterben-sonst-aus) 24. Conclusion Making decisions based on greenhouse models that cannot explain a single climate phenomenon in the history of the earth is absurd. Climate change and its alleged effects are exaggerated and partly freely invented by politicians with an eco-socialist program and compliant media with religious zeal. The hundreds of billions of dollars that are spent globally every year on CO 2 avoidance are missing in education, research, infrastructure, and health care. And clearing the rainforests for so-called regenerative fuels and cultivating energy crop monocultures on huge areas in many countries is irresponsible overexploitation of nature.
It's time for a paradigm shift! In the words of former Czech President Vaclav Klaus: "The greatest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity ... is no longer socialism or communism. It is instead the ambitious, arrogant, unscrupulous ideology of environmentalism.
What's at stake is not the environment. It's our freedom."
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