Prof of Atmospheric Sciences & climate scientist @ Texas A&M; AGU and AAAS Fellow; Native Texan; find out what I think at theclimatebrink.com
College Station, TX
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profile picture pupdate: strong consensus for: dog, but more professional.
Introducing my new profile pic:
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One of the things you learn as a scientist is the ability to look at a plot and think, "that just doesn't look right." That's the feeling I got when I saw this plot that Lomborg is currently pushing.
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if you're wondering why climate impacts seem to be getting much worse suddenly, let me introduce you to the concept of non-linearity. A short 🧵:
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If you don't like all of the climate disasters happening in 2020, I have some bad news for you about the rest of your life.
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I just got a copy of the embargoed IPCC Summary for Policymakers. I hate to break the embargo, but this is too important to wait. Here it is, the entire SPM. Surprisingly, it's just one paragraph long.
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one of my favorite things about eclipses: if you look at the shadow of the Sun below a tree, you can see an image of the crescent Sun. it's the same physics as a pin-hole camera.
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It's the most magical time of the year — when estimates of last year's global average temperature anomaly come out. Time to dust off my "last year was hot" auto-response.
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Please take a moment and appreciate how good the National Hurricane Center's forecasts are.
They are literally saving lives.
Then, realize that Trump's Project 2025 wants to privatize it, so that people would have to pay for this. That's a bad idea.
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Dear reporters: At this point, you should assume that every severe heat wave has been made worse by climate change — that should now be the null hypothesis.
If someone wants to argue that climate change played no role, the burden of proof is on them.
Signed,
climate science
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Quick 🧵 on wet bulb temperature and why it matters for human survivability.
To understand this, first some facts about the human body. To survive, humans need to keep their body temperature within a few degrees of 98°F.
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Senator Cornyn: I'm a climate scientist at Texas A&M. I'd be happy to explain why, even though it's summer, July's temperatures were extreme — and how we know humans are responsible. I'd be happy to put together a briefing for and/or your staff.
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My 8th grader just came to me for help with his science homework — he asked me if I knew what El Nino was. I excitedly told him to have a seat while I opened a powerpoint file with 200 slides ...
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Prediction of the future from 1982 by @exxonmobil , along with data showing how it has actually evolved. Exxon's predictions were extremely accurate. #ExxonKnew @GeoffreySupran @NaomiOreskes
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The other cherry pick is only looking at the U.S. Let's look at the plot for the entire northern hemisphere mid-latitudes (29N-60N). The occurrence of hot days explodes after about 1980.
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if you think trees are a good place to sequester carbon, I recommend you look at the Canadian wildfire map.
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So what's going on? This is what we call cherry picking. Cherry picking is when you analyze a small amount of data to reach a conclusion that the full data set does not support.
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Then, for each year, we count the number of exceedances in all grid cells in the domain. This is what the time series looks like for the U.S. Yes, the 1930s were hot, but hot days occur more frequently in the 2010s.
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Calls/emails from reporters asking for a comment on last's years temperature are coming earlier than normal this year. Time to dust off my "last year was hot" auto-response.
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I made this plot to convey how humans are changing the climate. This plot shows 35,000 years. Future projections are from a SSP2-45-like trajectory.
The pink band shows the fossil fuel era, which will last just a few centuries — just a brief spark in the history of humanity.
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tl;dr: This is classic cherry picking: the plot cherry picks an unusual metric and also cherry picks a particular region. Examining the full data set shows the opposite of what's claimed.
Temperatures and heatwaves are certainly worse today than in the 20th century.
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If you think, "solar and wind are poor energy sources because the wind doesn't always blow and the Sun goes down at night," you're thinking about it wrong. A 🧵:
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With 1.1°C of global-average warming, we are departing the climatic conditions that much of the infrastructure designed in the 20th century was designed for.
Every 0.1°C of warming is going to push us past an exponentially increasing number of thresholds in the climate system.
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I've been collecting "lessons I've learned communicating climate on Twitter" over the last 8 years and finally thought I'd write a 🧵. This is mainly aimed at younger scientists, but others might find it useful.
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There's nothing intrinsically wrong with this definition, but it sure seems arbitrary. Why 4 days? Why 1-in-10 events?
When doing science, you should always be worried that arbitrary decisions (e.g., thresholds in an index) will give you arbitrary results.
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"climate scientists are exaggerating the impacts of climate change"
[the planet Earth]: "Hold my beer"
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There's a tragic disease spreading around twitter, known by the experts as Renewable Derangement Syndrome (RDS).
You might be a carrier! Let's look at the symptoms:
🧵
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If you hear a TV meteorologist talk about climate change & make a connection to severe weather, send them an email to them saying, "Good job!" I can assure you they get a lot of crap from nutbags when they draw the connection, so please give them some positive feedback.
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In a linear system, things change in straight line. If climate impacts are linear, then every 0.1°C of warming would give you the same amount of damage.
In a non-linear world, on the other hand, every 0.1°C of warming produces larger damage than the previous 0.1°C.
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I see a lot of people with Twitter climate Ph.D.’s saying that “there’s no evidence that extreme weather is getting more severe.” This is wrong.
THREAD. 1/
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One thing that my interview with Joe Rogan has shown me is how many people's understanding of renewables lags reality. One thing I said was that, some days, wind generates > 50% of TX power. Many called BS on that. I invite those people to explore the data with me.
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as we begin summer in a few days, I'm sure there'll be lots of stories celebrating (some) people's favorite season. To help editors out, here are some photos you can use to illustrate these articles.
"BBQ is a summertime tradition"
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When people say adaptation to climate change will be easy, watch how hard it will be for the Bahamas to recover. Now recognize that this is going to happen more and more frequently and you'll get a feel for how hard adaptation is going to be.
washingtonpost.com/world/the…
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Bonus bad news: this is what happens with 1°C of global warming. We're on track for 3°C.
Remarkable heatwave across Mexico & Texas. Temps 110+. Heat Index 120+. This map shows the upper level ridge “Heat Dome”. Maxes out at 4.5 sigma. This means in a normal “historical” climate it’s basically impossible. But climate change makes the impossible, probable.
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This just doesn't look right. The 1930s were hot in the U.S., but not that hot. And the 2010s barely show up. The first clue something is amiss was that the quantity plotted is "Heat Wave Index". That's mysteriously vague, so I decided to figure out exactly what this was.
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People who talk about the horror of wind turbine blades always forget about the 40 billion tons of CO2 we dump into the atmosphere — every year.
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We can therefore expect to see worse and worse impacts coming more and more frequently as the climate continues to warm.
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The reason for the non-linearity of climate impacts is that individuals and communities are impacted by climate when it passes thresholds.
Subway systems are my go-to example of non-linear climate impacts. If rising water stops 1" below the subway entrance, the impact is zero. If the water rises an additional 2", then you experience billions of dollars of damages.
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[Very Nordhaus voice] “Because most economic activity occurs indoors, warming of several degrees Celsius will have a minimal impact on our economy.”
ALT Man looks at the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene
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There are really two cherry picks here. First is the choice of an obscure (and frankly weird) metric. This metric almost certainly gives an answer that is opposite to what a more exhaustive set of metrics would show.
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As energy prices rise this year never forget it's due to our reliance on fossil fuels. You should blame the politicians who have stymied our transition to renewable energy. While you get poorer, they are enriched by their corporate overlords.
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I have an article out in @RollingStone about economic estimates of the costs of climate change. My conclusion: no one knows how bad climate change will be or how much it will cost to solve.
rollingstone.com/politics/po…
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Why is Texas electricity both unreliable and expensive?
Let me tell you about some new research by my grad student, Jangho Lee.
A 🧵:
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Thresholds are designed into the system when assumptions of the climate are built into a system. For example, when you build a bridge, you build in the capability for the bridge to expand/contract in response to a range of temperatures that you expect the bridge to experience.
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I strongly disagree with those who say now is not the time to talk about the impact of climate change on hurricanes (also known as tropical cyclones, TCs).
This is exactly the time to see what our actions have brought us.
Here's what the recent IPCC report says about TCs:
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There are lots of papers that correctly estimate heatwaves. E.g., check out this paper by @sarahinscience and S. Lewis. This is where I got the idea to use the Berkeley daily data.
nature.com/articles/s41467-0…
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Recursive explanation. Trying to explain to 16-year old what “cc” in gmail means:
It means carbon copy. [blank stare] OK, let’s take a step back.
It comes from the carbon paper you put between sheets in a typewriter. [another blank stare]. OK, let’s take a step back.
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fossil fuels are:
* bad for climate
* bad for air quality
* bad for economic security
* bad for national security
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[screaming into the void] NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
climate deniers deny because they don't like the policy solutions.
if you try explain the science to them, they will come up with endless objections and you will NEVER convince them.
Well since you ask^^
1) Popular science coverage of climate change is extremely weak on communicating the basics. How does the climate system even work, how do we know climate change is man-made, what are the observations, how do we make them, how do we analyse them etc.
Yeah, sounds boring. But I believe (and you may call me naive, but I believe it anyway) that many people who end up denying that climate change is man-made just don't understand the science. And as someone who has tried to understand it from what I've found online, I can't blame them.
It took several textbooks and a handful of patient climate scientists for me to wrap my head around the basics, and I have a PhD in physics to build on, so at least I know what a black body spectrum is and stuff.
In comparison to climate science, quantum mechanics is child's play.
2) Not entirely unrelated to the first, popular science coverage of climate science is often downplaying the uncertainties. Problem is, the uncertainties are often substantial. You'll find this acknowledged in the scientific literature. Not so much in the press.
It's possible that some of us will be lucky and things don't get as bad as expected. It's also very possible that the situation will get worse considerably faster than the IPCC projections make you suspect. (And indeed if you look at recent trends, well, have a look yourself.)
A good example of this are extreme weather attributions that will give you a probability for how much more likely this or that event was made by climate change. If you look at the papers, you'll find that these are almost always lower estimates for the increase. Ie, if they say an event was made 5 times more likely, it could be that it's become 5000 times more likely. You'd think that this could be communicated a bit more clearly, no?
3) Both of those taken together raise the unfortunate impression that the media is trying to hide something, which is fuel to the fire of those who are sceptical about the information they're being presented already.
Conclusion: Personally I think we need more apolitical coverage of climate science.
nitter.app/SackTheHack/stat…
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That's a weak response. If you know anything about climate then you know the plot looks off and you owe your audience a minimal amount of due diligence before tweeting it out.
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Remember: we've only had about 1.1°C of warming and are on track for 2.5 times that much. The impacts of the next 1.1°C of warming will be much, much worse.
Colorado River Reservoirs Are So Low, Government Will Delay Releases nytimes.com/2022/05/03/clima…
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It's clear that Lomborg's defense will be "I was just using a plot off the EPA website." But there are lots of plots on that page and he picked the *one* that presented the message he likes.
Wow
so you're literally saying it is not okay to use EPA data — specifically on heatwaves — to discuss heatwaves
if the data doesn't conform to what you think "looks right"
*That* is an illegitimate argument, and I think you realize
epa.gov/climate-indicators/c…
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I've gotten some requests asking for my reaction to Ryan Maue being hired as chief scientist of NOAA. Here it is:
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Are you tired of 💩 arguments that "renewables are more expensive because they're unreliable" or "you have to pay for backup when you install renewables". Let me explain why renewables lower the cost of energy & don't require additional backup.
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So the question is: if you change your definition of "heat wave", would you get a different answer?
Let's find out. The most obvious thing to do is to just count the number of hot days.
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If the climate varies outside that range, the bridge may have to be closed.
mypanhandle.com/news/local-n…
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This, by the way, is what adaptation will look like in practice.
Cape Hatteras National Seashore (Seashore) has confirmed that an unoccupied house at 24265 Ocean Drive, Rodanthe, N.C. collapsed this afternoon. This is the second unoccupied house collapse of the day at the Seashore. Read more: nps.gov/caha/learn/news/seco…
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This is a perfect example of the kinds of adaptation to the climate of yesterday that's built into today's world. This cable was not designed to experience the temps we had today and will need to be fixed. The costs will be imposed on society, making us poorer.
In case you're wondering why we're canceling service for the day, here's what the heat is doing to our power cables.
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Re: #HurricaneBeryl. Here's what I think is the most important thing to remember:
For *literally* months, the scientific community has been saying, "Look out everyone, the sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic are really hot. Hurricane season could be intense."
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People throw around warming of 2°C or 3°C this century as if it's nothing. The last ice age was about 5°C (10°F) colder than today & it was a completely different planet, w/ ice sheets covering much of N. American & sea level 300 ft lower.
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There is no result that disqualifies climate economics more than this one. 8°C warming = loss of ~10% of GDP???? As a reminder, the last ice age was about 6°C cooler than today. Now imagine changes as big as those occurring over the next century or two. This result is absurd.
Three main models estimating costs of climate (these are the ones used by Obama Admin): DICE, PAGE + FUND
Global warming has real cost, but even strong temp rises cost ~4% of GDP — not end-of-world.
Read my 2020 peer-reviewed article: sciencedirect.com/science/ar…
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JFC, are we still talking about this? THE ANSWER IS NO.
Can Planting a Trillion New Trees Save the World? nytimes.com/2022/07/13/magaz…
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Lots of people talking about air capture of CO2. Even Prez candidates. It's a great idea, but it takes a lot of energy. To understand this, let's work out the thermodynamics. [note: nerd twitter thread] 1/
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I’m not your programmer.
Did YOU look at 2 and 3 day events? Did you look at nighttime minimum temperatures?
Did you do any additional research or did you just look at the plot and think that it agrees with your message so you’ll go with it?
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Here we find that the "heat wave index" counts the occurrence of 4-day heatwaves of temperatures exceeding a 1-in-10 year recurrence.
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Economists estimate that, if this happened to the Earth, GDP could drop several percent.
Star devours planet!
For the first time, researchers spotted a star swallowing another planet in our galaxy. The discovery offers clues for what could happen when Earth meets its end.
By @KashaPatel: bit.ly/3NB6jcP
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About 2/3rds of global warming comes not from direct heating by CO2, but from feedbacks. The most powerful feedback is water vapor. As CO2 warms the climate, the mass of water vapor in the atmosphere increases. WV is itself a greenhouse gas, so this creates more warming.
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It's time we admitted that the 97% consensus number is wrong. There is no way that 3% of climate scientists disagree with the conclusions that the Earth is presently warming, humans are mainly responsible, and future risks are serious.
Dissenters well below 1% IMHO.
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Let's take Berkeley Earth's gridded daily maximum land temperature over the (approx.) continental US.
For each grid cell, find the 95th-percentile temperature from the entire time series (1880-2020) and then count the number of days each year that exceed that.
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I was at a meeting the other day and made the argument that the US cannot drill our way to energy security. Someone in the audience responded that the problem was Joe Biden and the fact that he's hampering oil drilling in the U.S.
That's wrong. A 🧵 explaining why:
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fossil fuels are driving increases in the price of electricity. more evidence that fossil fuels are an economic disaster in addition to being an environmental disaster.
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You're probably wondering what's irritating me these days. Today it's people who confidently contend that it's going to be very very very hard to reduce emissions by rebuilding our energy infrastructure with renewable energy. A 🧵:
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You often hear that "CO2 is plant food." Let's look at what adding CO2 to the atmosphere is actually doing. These are almond trees in CA that the farmer had to cut down. The extra CO2 sure isn't helping them.
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Conspiracy alert: if power goes out in TX today, the fossil-fuel propagandists are going to try to set wind up as the patsy.
Don't let them. 🧵
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In the last few years, I've noticed that students in my class often become fearful for their future when they see the scientific evidence for climate change. They are particularly worried that there's no hope.
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If you’re knowledge of renewable energy is a year or two old, it’s completely out of date.
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Also, sorry for switching from degrees F to C in the middle of the thread. I think in degrees C, but can force myself to write in F for general US consumption. But it's hard to consistently write F. So that was a mistake. Just remember: this website is free.
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Compare this to the last solar energy spill. We all went outside and played in it.
Breaking News: Dead fish and birds are washing up on the coast of Orange County, California, after a pipeline failure on Saturday caused at least 126,000 gallons of oil to spill into the Pacific Ocean, creating a 13-square-mile slick that’s still growing. nyti.ms/3l3Rb8Z
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Your occasional reminder that economists have no idea what the impact of climate change on our economy will be. They don't even agree on the shape of the function.
From En-ROADS:
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Important additional info by the expert, @RARohde:
You missed a technical but very important problem with that analysis.
That analysis of heatwaves uses the raw US measurements. Prior to the 1960s the recommended observation "day" for volunteers was 6PM to 6PM.
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I remember the days before Harvey hit Houston and looking at the rain forecasts and thinking, "that can't possibly be right, the model is broken." In reality, the model was *underpredicting* rainfall.
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mid-term comments on my course this semester.
"Don't don't push climate change on students if students do not believe in it."
title of course: "climate change"
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Look how much hotter it is today than it was in 1998.
I remember 1998. Scientists were looking at the temperature and saying, "whoa, it's really hot."
Now '98 looks downright cool.
In 20 years, we'll be looking at 2023-24 and saying "Man, I wish it were that cool again."
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My views on nuclear have officially evolved. I do expect that we will need some fraction of our energy (~20%) to come from nuclear to reach a 100%-clean grid.
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for too long, climate deniers have appropriated the word "alarmist" when describing mainstream science.
it's time to take the word back.
the true alarmists are economists who invent scare stories about how expensive solving the climate problem will be.
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If you go the EPA website, it references a 2008 CCSP report, which references a 1999 BAMS paper: journals.ametsoc.org/view/jo…
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This is not the new normal. This is a preview of the new normal. The new normal is going to be much worse than this.
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"Physics is mostly guesswork," said the dude plummeting to his death after he jumped off a building. Truly, the depths of stupidity this column reveals is staggering.
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