![ChrisMartzWX's tweet photo. Good question.
Sure, I can break my stance on climate change down for you to the best of my ability.
Grab some popcorn! 🍿
First, the Earth has warmed up by ~1.2°C since 1850, though nobody knows precisely how much because of data quality issues (e.g., uneven station distribution; fragmented records, especially outside of the United States; station siting changes; and urban heat island contamination) that have not been, based on some of the evidence I have seen.
But, I have no doubt that the Earth is slightly warmer than it was 175 years ago or that 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒 warming is due to carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions.
Second, contrary to what the online army of alarmist foot soldiers have 𝑚𝑖𝑠𝑙𝑒𝑑 people to believe, there are not really any so-called “fingerprints” that distinguish human-caused global warming from warming caused by other factors.
Numerous peer-reviewed papers claim to have found a human “fingerprint,” but the only evidence that they have presented is that the anomaly of interest is 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ anthropogenic warming, but they fail to note that said anomaly would also be consistent with natural warming.
A reduction in cloud cover, for example, would allow more sunlight into the climate system, which would warm the oceans. A warmer ocean—all else being equal—increases the rate of evaporation, which raises the vapor pressure (humidity) contributing to polar amplification and faster land warming than the ocean (e.g., Compo & Sardeshmukh, 2008).
🔗https://t.co/sQurHsN80P / open-access: https://t.co/WVKvLrSV7k
All warming, natural or man-made, results in:
1⃣ The higher latitudes warming faster than the mid-latitudes and tropics.
2⃣ Land heating up faster than the oceans.
An increase in solar forcing would have essentially the same material effect, although we can probably rule that out as the cause since sunspot activity has been declining in recent decades. But the sun does affect our climate system in ways that have not really been thoroughly researched.
In any case, the 𝒃𝒆𝒔𝒕 empirical evidence that I have seen to suggest that there is probably at least some anthropogenic “fingerprint” on recent temperature increases is stratospheric cooling.
First, understand that in atmospheric physics, heat flux is measured as the power—measured in Watts (that is, Joules per second)—standardized per square meter of surface area.
Next, the average radiation flux into the atmosphere is on the order of 239 ± 3.3 W/m² of absorbed solar radiation (ASR) averaged over a year (Stephens et al., 2012). This means that in order to maintain a constant surface air temperature the Earth's surface must emit 239.7 ± 3.3 W/m² back to outer space.
🔗https://t.co/5z5iMdazRB / open-access: https://t.co/51Ys5w8BWj
Global warming theory maintains the direct radiative forcing of doubling atmospheric CO₂ concentrations (RF 2×CO₂) is 3.7 ± 0.4 W/m² (IPCC TAR, 2007). That means the net outgoing longwave radiation to space is reduced by 3.7 W/m², which creates an Earth energy imbalance (EEI) leading to a slight warming tendency in the troposphere (surface to ~13 km altitude).
🔗https://t.co/0JkXIQRGDH (p. 357)
In the stratosphere (~13-50 km altitude), this causes a cooling tendency because less infrared radiation (IR) flux is moving up from below. These relationships were first demonstrated in Manabe & Strickler (1964).
🔗https://t.co/JNaXP7nUC9
NASA satellite measurements indicate that cooling in the stratosphere has been observed since the late 1970s, although there has been very little cooling over the last 25 years, all the while the troposphere has continued to warm.
🔗https://t.co/hT0Oxwm2Io
That means that most of the warming observed since 2000 is likely natural OR perhaps caused by a reduction in stratospheric sulfate aerosol concentrations, in part an artifact of stricter pollution regulations in recent years.
But, yes, I would agree with most scientists that the cooling observed in the stratosphere, at least that from the 1970s to 2000, is most likely a result of CO₂ forcing.
So what?
What happens in the troposphere in response to CO₂ forcing is a lot more nuanced.
Why?
Because in the lower atmosphere, we have feedbacks (largely cloud-related) and precipitation processes that affect the atmospheric radiation budget far more than CO₂. And, how exactly clouds will respond to tropospheric warming, if at all, is not well understood (and by extension, not well-modeled).
What we do know, theoretically speaking, is that the direct warming effect of doubling atmospheric CO₂ (RF 2×CO₂) is actually very small; it is on the order of ~1°C (Wijngaarden & Happer, 2020).
🔗https://t.co/y5szlGBmjd
However, amplifying (or dampening) feedbacks that kick in as a response to forcing mean that the real-world value—the equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS)—will be higher (lower) than the ~1°C figure that you derive from radiative transfer calculations.
Three pieces of critical information remain unknown:
1⃣ Exactly how much warming has been man-made (since, let's say, 1950). We still don't know the answer to this because the coefficients that are used to ascribe anthropogenic versus natural forcings are all computed from computer modeling, not physical measurements.
2⃣ What the exact value of ECS is.
3⃣ Even if global warming is entirely man-made, is it really a net drawback to civilization?
To break it down:
• If ECS is <3°C, the climate system is largely insensitive to GHGs, and impacts are exaggerated.
• If ECS is ≥3°C, the climate system is very sensitive to GHGs, and the warming could be a concern.
The IPCC’s “best estimate” of Earth's ECS is 3.0°C with a range of 2-5°C.
🔗https://t.co/8Ntgszr1dC (pp. 44-45)
In 1994, using NASA's real-world bulk atmospheric temperature data, Drs. John Christy and Richard McNider from the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) calculated the climate sensitivity by removing the effects of El Niño / La Niña and volcanic aerosol injection (e.g., El Chichón, 1982; Mt. Pinatubo, 1991).
They found that the human-induced warming rate is about 0.09°C / decade (lower than observations of actual temperature increase). This, by the way, came with the stipulation that unknown mechanisms of internal variability or external forcing are assumed to remain zero.
🔗https://t.co/S2GEmUftKo
The authors validated their 1994 findings in McNider & Christy (2017). Specifically, they found a near-identical anthropogenic warming rate of only 0.096°C / decade and a transient climate response (TCR) of 1.10 ± 0.26°K.
🔗 https://t.co/zueJLn8V8w / open-access: https://t.co/eLcqeizbRh
Many other recent studies (e.g., Lewis & Curry, 2018; Scafetta, 2021; Spencer & Christy, 2023; Lewis, 2025) have all estimated ECS to be far lower than the IPCC AR6's “best estimate.”
🔗https://t.co/8G0sF8gy2p
🔗https://t.co/5TgNX7c1JN
🔗https://t.co/BxyO1XIbNP
🔗https://t.co/YNQhNajrrO
The jury is still out. 🤷♂️
What's more, in order to reliably detect anthropogenic influence on the climate system, the EEI must be known to the nearest 0.1 W/m² (e.g., Von Schuckmann et al., 2016; Gebbie, 2021).
🔗https://t.co/T7SKxidZ4N / open-access: https://t.co/GD45cbhxIT
🔗https://t.co/L6vZKVVpXg
However, the aforementioned Stephens et al. (2012) estimates the EEI to be 0.6 ± 0.4 W/m², which is eight times larger than the anthropogenic detection limits. And, the natural top-of-atmosphere (TOA) flux has a 6.6 W/m² margin of error, which is 66 times larger than the detection limits.
This range of uncertainty remains in newer estimates, such as Loeb et al. (2021), which estimates EEI to be 1.12 ± 0.48 W/m².
🔗https://t.co/ynRTFd3LWZ
This means that 𝑚𝑜𝑠𝑡 (not all!) of the observed global warming since 1950 could be natural and scientists would never know for certain. Alternatively, warming could be mostly man-made, but, even if that happens to be the case, SO WHAT? That doesn't mean it is an existential crisis.
The big unknown here are CLOUDS. ☁️
This is because (a) cloud albedo has far more impact on the atmospheric radiation budget than CO₂, and (b) how clouds change in response, if at all, to the CO₂ forcing is unknown. What's more, cloud cover can (and does) change naturally without our assistance for any number of chaotic reasons (e.g., El Niño / La Niña activity; ocean circulation changes; cosmic ray flux; etc.).
Case in point, even a small decrease in global cloud area fraction (CAF) can more than offset any temperature rise caused by CO₂. Song et al. (2016), for instance, found that,
🗨️ “[𝐴]𝑙𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑛ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑒𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑏𝑒 𝑒𝑛ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐺𝐻𝐺𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑤𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑣𝑎𝑝𝑜𝑟 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑎𝑡𝑚𝑜𝑠𝑝ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒, 𝑖𝑡 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑏𝑒 𝑤𝑒𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝑑𝑒𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑐𝑙𝑜𝑢𝑑𝑠. 𝐼𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑠𝑒 𝑡𝑤𝑜 𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑜𝑓𝑓𝑠𝑒𝑡 𝑒𝑎𝑐ℎ 𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟, 𝑎 ℎ𝑖𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑔𝑙𝑜𝑏𝑎𝑙 𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑛ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑒𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑢𝑙𝑡.”
🔗https://t.co/NHkmfOc08y
While it is politically popular for people to splinter into one of the two tribalistic camps that either (a) increasing CO₂ has zero effect on the climate, or (b) that it will lead to Al Gore's Armageddon, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle of those extremes.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HBLjfL9aIAAoDKu.png)
![ChrisMartzWX's tweet photo. Good question.
Sure, I can break my stance on climate change down for you to the best of my ability.
Grab some popcorn! 🍿
First, the Earth has warmed up by ~1.2°C since 1850, though nobody knows precisely how much because of data quality issues (e.g., uneven station distribution; fragmented records, especially outside of the United States; station siting changes; and urban heat island contamination) that have not been, based on some of the evidence I have seen.
But, I have no doubt that the Earth is slightly warmer than it was 175 years ago or that 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒 warming is due to carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions.
Second, contrary to what the online army of alarmist foot soldiers have 𝑚𝑖𝑠𝑙𝑒𝑑 people to believe, there are not really any so-called “fingerprints” that distinguish human-caused global warming from warming caused by other factors.
Numerous peer-reviewed papers claim to have found a human “fingerprint,” but the only evidence that they have presented is that the anomaly of interest is 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ anthropogenic warming, but they fail to note that said anomaly would also be consistent with natural warming.
A reduction in cloud cover, for example, would allow more sunlight into the climate system, which would warm the oceans. A warmer ocean—all else being equal—increases the rate of evaporation, which raises the vapor pressure (humidity) contributing to polar amplification and faster land warming than the ocean (e.g., Compo & Sardeshmukh, 2008).
🔗https://t.co/sQurHsN80P / open-access: https://t.co/WVKvLrSV7k
All warming, natural or man-made, results in:
1⃣ The higher latitudes warming faster than the mid-latitudes and tropics.
2⃣ Land heating up faster than the oceans.
An increase in solar forcing would have essentially the same material effect, although we can probably rule that out as the cause since sunspot activity has been declining in recent decades. But the sun does affect our climate system in ways that have not really been thoroughly researched.
In any case, the 𝒃𝒆𝒔𝒕 empirical evidence that I have seen to suggest that there is probably at least some anthropogenic “fingerprint” on recent temperature increases is stratospheric cooling.
First, understand that in atmospheric physics, heat flux is measured as the power—measured in Watts (that is, Joules per second)—standardized per square meter of surface area.
Next, the average radiation flux into the atmosphere is on the order of 239 ± 3.3 W/m² of absorbed solar radiation (ASR) averaged over a year (Stephens et al., 2012). This means that in order to maintain a constant surface air temperature the Earth's surface must emit 239.7 ± 3.3 W/m² back to outer space.
🔗https://t.co/5z5iMdazRB / open-access: https://t.co/51Ys5w8BWj
Global warming theory maintains the direct radiative forcing of doubling atmospheric CO₂ concentrations (RF 2×CO₂) is 3.7 ± 0.4 W/m² (IPCC TAR, 2007). That means the net outgoing longwave radiation to space is reduced by 3.7 W/m², which creates an Earth energy imbalance (EEI) leading to a slight warming tendency in the troposphere (surface to ~13 km altitude).
🔗https://t.co/0JkXIQRGDH (p. 357)
In the stratosphere (~13-50 km altitude), this causes a cooling tendency because less infrared radiation (IR) flux is moving up from below. These relationships were first demonstrated in Manabe & Strickler (1964).
🔗https://t.co/JNaXP7nUC9
NASA satellite measurements indicate that cooling in the stratosphere has been observed since the late 1970s, although there has been very little cooling over the last 25 years, all the while the troposphere has continued to warm.
🔗https://t.co/hT0Oxwm2Io
That means that most of the warming observed since 2000 is likely natural OR perhaps caused by a reduction in stratospheric sulfate aerosol concentrations, in part an artifact of stricter pollution regulations in recent years.
But, yes, I would agree with most scientists that the cooling observed in the stratosphere, at least that from the 1970s to 2000, is most likely a result of CO₂ forcing.
So what?
What happens in the troposphere in response to CO₂ forcing is a lot more nuanced.
Why?
Because in the lower atmosphere, we have feedbacks (largely cloud-related) and precipitation processes that affect the atmospheric radiation budget far more than CO₂. And, how exactly clouds will respond to tropospheric warming, if at all, is not well understood (and by extension, not well-modeled).
What we do know, theoretically speaking, is that the direct warming effect of doubling atmospheric CO₂ (RF 2×CO₂) is actually very small; it is on the order of ~1°C (Wijngaarden & Happer, 2020).
🔗https://t.co/y5szlGBmjd
However, amplifying (or dampening) feedbacks that kick in as a response to forcing mean that the real-world value—the equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS)—will be higher (lower) than the ~1°C figure that you derive from radiative transfer calculations.
Three pieces of critical information remain unknown:
1⃣ Exactly how much warming has been man-made (since, let's say, 1950). We still don't know the answer to this because the coefficients that are used to ascribe anthropogenic versus natural forcings are all computed from computer modeling, not physical measurements.
2⃣ What the exact value of ECS is.
3⃣ Even if global warming is entirely man-made, is it really a net drawback to civilization?
To break it down:
• If ECS is <3°C, the climate system is largely insensitive to GHGs, and impacts are exaggerated.
• If ECS is ≥3°C, the climate system is very sensitive to GHGs, and the warming could be a concern.
The IPCC’s “best estimate” of Earth's ECS is 3.0°C with a range of 2-5°C.
🔗https://t.co/8Ntgszr1dC (pp. 44-45)
In 1994, using NASA's real-world bulk atmospheric temperature data, Drs. John Christy and Richard McNider from the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) calculated the climate sensitivity by removing the effects of El Niño / La Niña and volcanic aerosol injection (e.g., El Chichón, 1982; Mt. Pinatubo, 1991).
They found that the human-induced warming rate is about 0.09°C / decade (lower than observations of actual temperature increase). This, by the way, came with the stipulation that unknown mechanisms of internal variability or external forcing are assumed to remain zero.
🔗https://t.co/S2GEmUftKo
The authors validated their 1994 findings in McNider & Christy (2017). Specifically, they found a near-identical anthropogenic warming rate of only 0.096°C / decade and a transient climate response (TCR) of 1.10 ± 0.26°K.
🔗 https://t.co/zueJLn8V8w / open-access: https://t.co/eLcqeizbRh
Many other recent studies (e.g., Lewis & Curry, 2018; Scafetta, 2021; Spencer & Christy, 2023; Lewis, 2025) have all estimated ECS to be far lower than the IPCC AR6's “best estimate.”
🔗https://t.co/8G0sF8gy2p
🔗https://t.co/5TgNX7c1JN
🔗https://t.co/BxyO1XIbNP
🔗https://t.co/YNQhNajrrO
The jury is still out. 🤷♂️
What's more, in order to reliably detect anthropogenic influence on the climate system, the EEI must be known to the nearest 0.1 W/m² (e.g., Von Schuckmann et al., 2016; Gebbie, 2021).
🔗https://t.co/T7SKxidZ4N / open-access: https://t.co/GD45cbhxIT
🔗https://t.co/L6vZKVVpXg
However, the aforementioned Stephens et al. (2012) estimates the EEI to be 0.6 ± 0.4 W/m², which is eight times larger than the anthropogenic detection limits. And, the natural top-of-atmosphere (TOA) flux has a 6.6 W/m² margin of error, which is 66 times larger than the detection limits.
This range of uncertainty remains in newer estimates, such as Loeb et al. (2021), which estimates EEI to be 1.12 ± 0.48 W/m².
🔗https://t.co/ynRTFd3LWZ
This means that 𝑚𝑜𝑠𝑡 (not all!) of the observed global warming since 1950 could be natural and scientists would never know for certain. Alternatively, warming could be mostly man-made, but, even if that happens to be the case, SO WHAT? That doesn't mean it is an existential crisis.
The big unknown here are CLOUDS. ☁️
This is because (a) cloud albedo has far more impact on the atmospheric radiation budget than CO₂, and (b) how clouds change in response, if at all, to the CO₂ forcing is unknown. What's more, cloud cover can (and does) change naturally without our assistance for any number of chaotic reasons (e.g., El Niño / La Niña activity; ocean circulation changes; cosmic ray flux; etc.).
Case in point, even a small decrease in global cloud area fraction (CAF) can more than offset any temperature rise caused by CO₂. Song et al. (2016), for instance, found that,
🗨️ “[𝐴]𝑙𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑛ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑒𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑏𝑒 𝑒𝑛ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐺𝐻𝐺𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑤𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑣𝑎𝑝𝑜𝑟 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑎𝑡𝑚𝑜𝑠𝑝ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒, 𝑖𝑡 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑏𝑒 𝑤𝑒𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝑑𝑒𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑐𝑙𝑜𝑢𝑑𝑠. 𝐼𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑠𝑒 𝑡𝑤𝑜 𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑜𝑓𝑓𝑠𝑒𝑡 𝑒𝑎𝑐ℎ 𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟, 𝑎 ℎ𝑖𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑔𝑙𝑜𝑏𝑎𝑙 𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑛ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑒𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑢𝑙𝑡.”
🔗https://t.co/NHkmfOc08y
While it is politically popular for people to splinter into one of the two tribalistic camps that either (a) increasing CO₂ has zero effect on the climate, or (b) that it will lead to Al Gore's Armageddon, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle of those extremes.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HBLjeGmakAIpAZX.jpg)
![ChrisMartzWX's tweet photo. Good question.
Sure, I can break my stance on climate change down for you to the best of my ability.
Grab some popcorn! 🍿
First, the Earth has warmed up by ~1.2°C since 1850, though nobody knows precisely how much because of data quality issues (e.g., uneven station distribution; fragmented records, especially outside of the United States; station siting changes; and urban heat island contamination) that have not been, based on some of the evidence I have seen.
But, I have no doubt that the Earth is slightly warmer than it was 175 years ago or that 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒 warming is due to carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions.
Second, contrary to what the online army of alarmist foot soldiers have 𝑚𝑖𝑠𝑙𝑒𝑑 people to believe, there are not really any so-called “fingerprints” that distinguish human-caused global warming from warming caused by other factors.
Numerous peer-reviewed papers claim to have found a human “fingerprint,” but the only evidence that they have presented is that the anomaly of interest is 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ anthropogenic warming, but they fail to note that said anomaly would also be consistent with natural warming.
A reduction in cloud cover, for example, would allow more sunlight into the climate system, which would warm the oceans. A warmer ocean—all else being equal—increases the rate of evaporation, which raises the vapor pressure (humidity) contributing to polar amplification and faster land warming than the ocean (e.g., Compo & Sardeshmukh, 2008).
🔗https://t.co/sQurHsN80P / open-access: https://t.co/WVKvLrSV7k
All warming, natural or man-made, results in:
1⃣ The higher latitudes warming faster than the mid-latitudes and tropics.
2⃣ Land heating up faster than the oceans.
An increase in solar forcing would have essentially the same material effect, although we can probably rule that out as the cause since sunspot activity has been declining in recent decades. But the sun does affect our climate system in ways that have not really been thoroughly researched.
In any case, the 𝒃𝒆𝒔𝒕 empirical evidence that I have seen to suggest that there is probably at least some anthropogenic “fingerprint” on recent temperature increases is stratospheric cooling.
First, understand that in atmospheric physics, heat flux is measured as the power—measured in Watts (that is, Joules per second)—standardized per square meter of surface area.
Next, the average radiation flux into the atmosphere is on the order of 239 ± 3.3 W/m² of absorbed solar radiation (ASR) averaged over a year (Stephens et al., 2012). This means that in order to maintain a constant surface air temperature the Earth's surface must emit 239.7 ± 3.3 W/m² back to outer space.
🔗https://t.co/5z5iMdazRB / open-access: https://t.co/51Ys5w8BWj
Global warming theory maintains the direct radiative forcing of doubling atmospheric CO₂ concentrations (RF 2×CO₂) is 3.7 ± 0.4 W/m² (IPCC TAR, 2007). That means the net outgoing longwave radiation to space is reduced by 3.7 W/m², which creates an Earth energy imbalance (EEI) leading to a slight warming tendency in the troposphere (surface to ~13 km altitude).
🔗https://t.co/0JkXIQRGDH (p. 357)
In the stratosphere (~13-50 km altitude), this causes a cooling tendency because less infrared radiation (IR) flux is moving up from below. These relationships were first demonstrated in Manabe & Strickler (1964).
🔗https://t.co/JNaXP7nUC9
NASA satellite measurements indicate that cooling in the stratosphere has been observed since the late 1970s, although there has been very little cooling over the last 25 years, all the while the troposphere has continued to warm.
🔗https://t.co/hT0Oxwm2Io
That means that most of the warming observed since 2000 is likely natural OR perhaps caused by a reduction in stratospheric sulfate aerosol concentrations, in part an artifact of stricter pollution regulations in recent years.
But, yes, I would agree with most scientists that the cooling observed in the stratosphere, at least that from the 1970s to 2000, is most likely a result of CO₂ forcing.
So what?
What happens in the troposphere in response to CO₂ forcing is a lot more nuanced.
Why?
Because in the lower atmosphere, we have feedbacks (largely cloud-related) and precipitation processes that affect the atmospheric radiation budget far more than CO₂. And, how exactly clouds will respond to tropospheric warming, if at all, is not well understood (and by extension, not well-modeled).
What we do know, theoretically speaking, is that the direct warming effect of doubling atmospheric CO₂ (RF 2×CO₂) is actually very small; it is on the order of ~1°C (Wijngaarden & Happer, 2020).
🔗https://t.co/y5szlGBmjd
However, amplifying (or dampening) feedbacks that kick in as a response to forcing mean that the real-world value—the equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS)—will be higher (lower) than the ~1°C figure that you derive from radiative transfer calculations.
Three pieces of critical information remain unknown:
1⃣ Exactly how much warming has been man-made (since, let's say, 1950). We still don't know the answer to this because the coefficients that are used to ascribe anthropogenic versus natural forcings are all computed from computer modeling, not physical measurements.
2⃣ What the exact value of ECS is.
3⃣ Even if global warming is entirely man-made, is it really a net drawback to civilization?
To break it down:
• If ECS is <3°C, the climate system is largely insensitive to GHGs, and impacts are exaggerated.
• If ECS is ≥3°C, the climate system is very sensitive to GHGs, and the warming could be a concern.
The IPCC’s “best estimate” of Earth's ECS is 3.0°C with a range of 2-5°C.
🔗https://t.co/8Ntgszr1dC (pp. 44-45)
In 1994, using NASA's real-world bulk atmospheric temperature data, Drs. John Christy and Richard McNider from the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) calculated the climate sensitivity by removing the effects of El Niño / La Niña and volcanic aerosol injection (e.g., El Chichón, 1982; Mt. Pinatubo, 1991).
They found that the human-induced warming rate is about 0.09°C / decade (lower than observations of actual temperature increase). This, by the way, came with the stipulation that unknown mechanisms of internal variability or external forcing are assumed to remain zero.
🔗https://t.co/S2GEmUftKo
The authors validated their 1994 findings in McNider & Christy (2017). Specifically, they found a near-identical anthropogenic warming rate of only 0.096°C / decade and a transient climate response (TCR) of 1.10 ± 0.26°K.
🔗 https://t.co/zueJLn8V8w / open-access: https://t.co/eLcqeizbRh
Many other recent studies (e.g., Lewis & Curry, 2018; Scafetta, 2021; Spencer & Christy, 2023; Lewis, 2025) have all estimated ECS to be far lower than the IPCC AR6's “best estimate.”
🔗https://t.co/8G0sF8gy2p
🔗https://t.co/5TgNX7c1JN
🔗https://t.co/BxyO1XIbNP
🔗https://t.co/YNQhNajrrO
The jury is still out. 🤷♂️
What's more, in order to reliably detect anthropogenic influence on the climate system, the EEI must be known to the nearest 0.1 W/m² (e.g., Von Schuckmann et al., 2016; Gebbie, 2021).
🔗https://t.co/T7SKxidZ4N / open-access: https://t.co/GD45cbhxIT
🔗https://t.co/L6vZKVVpXg
However, the aforementioned Stephens et al. (2012) estimates the EEI to be 0.6 ± 0.4 W/m², which is eight times larger than the anthropogenic detection limits. And, the natural top-of-atmosphere (TOA) flux has a 6.6 W/m² margin of error, which is 66 times larger than the detection limits.
This range of uncertainty remains in newer estimates, such as Loeb et al. (2021), which estimates EEI to be 1.12 ± 0.48 W/m².
🔗https://t.co/ynRTFd3LWZ
This means that 𝑚𝑜𝑠𝑡 (not all!) of the observed global warming since 1950 could be natural and scientists would never know for certain. Alternatively, warming could be mostly man-made, but, even if that happens to be the case, SO WHAT? That doesn't mean it is an existential crisis.
The big unknown here are CLOUDS. ☁️
This is because (a) cloud albedo has far more impact on the atmospheric radiation budget than CO₂, and (b) how clouds change in response, if at all, to the CO₂ forcing is unknown. What's more, cloud cover can (and does) change naturally without our assistance for any number of chaotic reasons (e.g., El Niño / La Niña activity; ocean circulation changes; cosmic ray flux; etc.).
Case in point, even a small decrease in global cloud area fraction (CAF) can more than offset any temperature rise caused by CO₂. Song et al. (2016), for instance, found that,
🗨️ “[𝐴]𝑙𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑛ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑒𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑏𝑒 𝑒𝑛ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐺𝐻𝐺𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑤𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑣𝑎𝑝𝑜𝑟 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑎𝑡𝑚𝑜𝑠𝑝ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒, 𝑖𝑡 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑏𝑒 𝑤𝑒𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝑑𝑒𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑐𝑙𝑜𝑢𝑑𝑠. 𝐼𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑠𝑒 𝑡𝑤𝑜 𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑜𝑓𝑓𝑠𝑒𝑡 𝑒𝑎𝑐ℎ 𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟, 𝑎 ℎ𝑖𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑔𝑙𝑜𝑏𝑎𝑙 𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑛ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑒𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑢𝑙𝑡.”
🔗https://t.co/NHkmfOc08y
While it is politically popular for people to splinter into one of the two tribalistic camps that either (a) increasing CO₂ has zero effect on the climate, or (b) that it will lead to Al Gore's Armageddon, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle of those extremes.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HBLjc3iXAAAuTqc.png)
Olivia
Online
Juuso Nissilä
@juusti
Army Capt.,Summa,Valkee co-founder, MannaInsect founder& executive.Neurobiology, preventive medicine & sports physiology. Wearables, ex-Polar senior researcher.
Joined August 2009
2.5K Following
1K Followers
3.1K Posts
@SarasvuoJari Prosenttilaskussa ois todella hiomista. Trumpin matikka prosenteissa on ennenkin mennyt noin.
En silti lähde ylistämään meikäläistenkään poliitikkojen matemaattis-luonnontieteellistä osaamista.
LIGHT CAN PENETRATE THE BRAIN
When used therapeutically this is known as transcranial photobiomodulation
It turns out light in the red/infrared wavelength particularly can reach through the skull and up to 4cm into brain tissue!
This has a various benefits to brain function
@photobiogenesis Light penetrating (easily) bone without marrow was a fact that was very difficult to deliver once I was running my transcranial light therapy startup, VALKEE.
Suht mielenkiintoinen osoitus tekoälyn prosessointikyvystä:
- Saksan liittokansleri Mertz esittää jokaisen lainsäädäntösektorin deregulaatiota. Säädöksiä on liikaa, tarvittaisiin uusi alku puhtaalta pöydältä.
- Ohjelnointikykyinen tavis Christian Dean rakentaa ohjelmiston jonka avulla Grok-AI käy läpi KAIKEN EU:n kymmenien vuosien aikana rakentaman regulaation. Säädöksiä on kymmeniätuhansia.
- Grok sorttaa kunkin säädöksen Säilytä tai Poista -koreihin.
- Kun urakka valmis, AI on päätynyt suositukseen: 89 prosenttia EU:n tuottamasta lainsäädäntömassasta kannattaisi poistaa tarpeettomana.
Who to follow
𝙻𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚞 
@Lastucase
https://t.co/EaH9dxfvxt: Authentic materials, fully customizable phone cases. Designed by you in Finland, since 2011. 📱 #CustomMade
Seppo Mustonen
@seppomustonen
Oman elämäni päähenkilö. Elämäni perustuu tositarinaan. Rakastan tulevaisuutta, koska aion viettää siellä loppuelämäni. Minä suostun näkemään vaivaa. Kaikessa.
@pbyrokraatti @JohannaLeino3 Niinpä. Miksi ehdoin tahdoin virittää samankaltainen jännite joka Balkanilla oikosulki 90’s
Konekäännös:
"Kommunistien harjoittamat omistuksen toimet ovat alkaneet Alankomaissa. Maassa keskustellaan aktiivisesti:
- perintöjen takavarikoinnista jopa 50–100 %:iin asti
- viljelysmaan takavarikoinnista (maahanmuuttajien asuntoja varten)
- realisoimattomien sijoitusten verottamisesta 36 %:lla
Mitä seuraavaksi voisi tapahtua?
- kotisi arvonnousun verottaminen (jolloin sinut pakotettaisiin muuttamaan pois ja elämään pienemmässä asunnossa)?"
Sitä saa mitä äänestää. Mutta tätähän ei tarvitse Suomessa pelätä, vai mitä?
Väärin. Suomessa on menossa aivan samanlainen 'kehitys' järjestelmäpuolueen taholta. Minua jaksaa edelleen ihmetyttää, miten suomalaiset eivät laajalti tajua, missä mennään.
@quukkeli @OsakeKeisari Rahaa se joutuu yliopistokin ottamaan. Tutkijat ovat palkattuja ammattilaisia, molemmissa paikoissa.
The math on this project should mass-humble every AI lab on the planet.
1 cubic millimeter. One-millionth of a human brain. Harvard and Google spent 10 years mapping it. The imaging alone took 326 days. They sliced the tissue into 5,000 wafers each 30 nanometers thick, ran them through a $6 million electron microscope, then needed Google’s ML models to stitch the 3D reconstruction because no human team could process the output.
The result: 57,000 cells, 150 million synapses, 230 millimeters of blood vessels, compressed into 1.4 petabytes of raw data. For context, 1.4 petabytes is roughly 1.4 million gigabytes. From a speck smaller than a grain of rice.
Now scale that. The full human brain is one million times larger. Mapping the whole thing at this resolution would produce approximately 1.4 zettabytes of data. That’s roughly equal to all the data generated on Earth in a single year. The storage alone would cost an estimated $50 billion and require a 140-acre data center, which would make it the largest on the planet.
And they found things textbooks don’t contain. One neuron had over 5,000 connection points. Some axons had coiled themselves into tight whorls for completely unknown reasons. Pairs of cell clusters grew in mirror images of each other. Jeff Lichtman, the Harvard lead, said there’s “a chasm between what we already know and what we need to know.”
This is why the next step isn’t a human brain. It’s a mouse hippocampus, 10 cubic millimeters, over the next five years. Because even a mouse brain is 1,000x larger than what they just mapped, and the full mouse connectome is the proof of concept before anyone attempts the human one.
We’re building AI systems that loosely mimic neural networks while still unable to fully read the wiring diagram of a single cubic millimeter of the thing we’re trying to imitate. The original is 1.4 petabytes per millionth of its volume. Every AI model on Earth fits in a fraction of that.
The brain runs on 20 watts and fits in your skull. The data center required to merely describe one-millionth of it would span 140 acres.
@earlightswindle @BudjettiBroidi Valkee ei ollut huijausta. Pidettiin kovaa kiirettä markkinoille, kun suomalainen startti ei ui kehitysrahassa. Näyttöä kertyi koko ajan, mutta oli paha strateginen haitta ettei sitä oltu ehditty kerryttää runsaasti ennakkoon. Terv. Perustaja.
@PullNews Thank you! Definitely a needed list! I have all my links to relevant papers in different domainia a no easy way to find a certain once it is needed.
Let’s break down each burner:
• Family = connection, marriage, kids
• Work = career, business, ambition
• Health = sleep, fitness, energy
• Friends = social life, joy, belonging
Each takes gas.
Each needs time.
But you only have so much fuel.
Good question.
Sure, I can break my stance on climate change down for you to the best of my ability.
Grab some popcorn! 🍿
First, the Earth has warmed up by ~1.2°C since 1850, though nobody knows precisely how much because of data quality issues (e.g., uneven station distribution; fragmented records, especially outside of the United States; station siting changes; and urban heat island contamination) that have not been, based on some of the evidence I have seen.
But, I have no doubt that the Earth is slightly warmer than it was 175 years ago or that 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒 warming is due to carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions.
Second, contrary to what the online army of alarmist foot soldiers have 𝑚𝑖𝑠𝑙𝑒𝑑 people to believe, there are not really any so-called “fingerprints” that distinguish human-caused global warming from warming caused by other factors.
Numerous peer-reviewed papers claim to have found a human “fingerprint,” but the only evidence that they have presented is that the anomaly of interest is 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ anthropogenic warming, but they fail to note that said anomaly would also be consistent with natural warming.
A reduction in cloud cover, for example, would allow more sunlight into the climate system, which would warm the oceans. A warmer ocean—all else being equal—increases the rate of evaporation, which raises the vapor pressure (humidity) contributing to polar amplification and faster land warming than the ocean (e.g., Compo & Sardeshmukh, 2008).
🔗https://t.co/sQurHsN80P / open-access: https://t.co/WVKvLrSV7k
All warming, natural or man-made, results in:
1⃣ The higher latitudes warming faster than the mid-latitudes and tropics.
2⃣ Land heating up faster than the oceans.
An increase in solar forcing would have essentially the same material effect, although we can probably rule that out as the cause since sunspot activity has been declining in recent decades. But the sun does affect our climate system in ways that have not really been thoroughly researched.
In any case, the 𝒃𝒆𝒔𝒕 empirical evidence that I have seen to suggest that there is probably at least some anthropogenic “fingerprint” on recent temperature increases is stratospheric cooling.
First, understand that in atmospheric physics, heat flux is measured as the power—measured in Watts (that is, Joules per second)—standardized per square meter of surface area.
Next, the average radiation flux into the atmosphere is on the order of 239 ± 3.3 W/m² of absorbed solar radiation (ASR) averaged over a year (Stephens et al., 2012). This means that in order to maintain a constant surface air temperature the Earth's surface must emit 239.7 ± 3.3 W/m² back to outer space.
🔗https://t.co/5z5iMdazRB / open-access: https://t.co/51Ys5w8BWj
Global warming theory maintains the direct radiative forcing of doubling atmospheric CO₂ concentrations (RF 2×CO₂) is 3.7 ± 0.4 W/m² (IPCC TAR, 2007). That means the net outgoing longwave radiation to space is reduced by 3.7 W/m², which creates an Earth energy imbalance (EEI) leading to a slight warming tendency in the troposphere (surface to ~13 km altitude).
🔗https://t.co/0JkXIQRGDH (p. 357)
In the stratosphere (~13-50 km altitude), this causes a cooling tendency because less infrared radiation (IR) flux is moving up from below. These relationships were first demonstrated in Manabe & Strickler (1964).
🔗https://t.co/JNaXP7nUC9
NASA satellite measurements indicate that cooling in the stratosphere has been observed since the late 1970s, although there has been very little cooling over the last 25 years, all the while the troposphere has continued to warm.
🔗https://t.co/hT0Oxwm2Io
That means that most of the warming observed since 2000 is likely natural OR perhaps caused by a reduction in stratospheric sulfate aerosol concentrations, in part an artifact of stricter pollution regulations in recent years.
But, yes, I would agree with most scientists that the cooling observed in the stratosphere, at least that from the 1970s to 2000, is most likely a result of CO₂ forcing.
So what?
What happens in the troposphere in response to CO₂ forcing is a lot more nuanced.
Why?
Because in the lower atmosphere, we have feedbacks (largely cloud-related) and precipitation processes that affect the atmospheric radiation budget far more than CO₂. And, how exactly clouds will respond to tropospheric warming, if at all, is not well understood (and by extension, not well-modeled).
What we do know, theoretically speaking, is that the direct warming effect of doubling atmospheric CO₂ (RF 2×CO₂) is actually very small; it is on the order of ~1°C (Wijngaarden & Happer, 2020).
🔗https://t.co/y5szlGBmjd
However, amplifying (or dampening) feedbacks that kick in as a response to forcing mean that the real-world value—the equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS)—will be higher (lower) than the ~1°C figure that you derive from radiative transfer calculations.
Three pieces of critical information remain unknown:
1⃣ Exactly how much warming has been man-made (since, let's say, 1950). We still don't know the answer to this because the coefficients that are used to ascribe anthropogenic versus natural forcings are all computed from computer modeling, not physical measurements.
2⃣ What the exact value of ECS is.
3⃣ Even if global warming is entirely man-made, is it really a net drawback to civilization?
To break it down:
• If ECS is <3°C, the climate system is largely insensitive to GHGs, and impacts are exaggerated.
• If ECS is ≥3°C, the climate system is very sensitive to GHGs, and the warming could be a concern.
The IPCC’s “best estimate” of Earth's ECS is 3.0°C with a range of 2-5°C.
🔗https://t.co/8Ntgszr1dC (pp. 44-45)
In 1994, using NASA's real-world bulk atmospheric temperature data, Drs. John Christy and Richard McNider from the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) calculated the climate sensitivity by removing the effects of El Niño / La Niña and volcanic aerosol injection (e.g., El Chichón, 1982; Mt. Pinatubo, 1991).
They found that the human-induced warming rate is about 0.09°C / decade (lower than observations of actual temperature increase). This, by the way, came with the stipulation that unknown mechanisms of internal variability or external forcing are assumed to remain zero.
🔗https://t.co/S2GEmUftKo
The authors validated their 1994 findings in McNider & Christy (2017). Specifically, they found a near-identical anthropogenic warming rate of only 0.096°C / decade and a transient climate response (TCR) of 1.10 ± 0.26°K.
🔗 https://t.co/zueJLn8V8w / open-access: https://t.co/eLcqeizbRh
Many other recent studies (e.g., Lewis & Curry, 2018; Scafetta, 2021; Spencer & Christy, 2023; Lewis, 2025) have all estimated ECS to be far lower than the IPCC AR6's “best estimate.”
🔗https://t.co/8G0sF8gy2p
🔗https://t.co/5TgNX7c1JN
🔗https://t.co/BxyO1XIbNP
🔗https://t.co/YNQhNajrrO
The jury is still out. 🤷♂️
What's more, in order to reliably detect anthropogenic influence on the climate system, the EEI must be known to the nearest 0.1 W/m² (e.g., Von Schuckmann et al., 2016; Gebbie, 2021).
🔗https://t.co/T7SKxidZ4N / open-access: https://t.co/GD45cbhxIT
🔗https://t.co/L6vZKVVpXg
However, the aforementioned Stephens et al. (2012) estimates the EEI to be 0.6 ± 0.4 W/m², which is eight times larger than the anthropogenic detection limits. And, the natural top-of-atmosphere (TOA) flux has a 6.6 W/m² margin of error, which is 66 times larger than the detection limits.
This range of uncertainty remains in newer estimates, such as Loeb et al. (2021), which estimates EEI to be 1.12 ± 0.48 W/m².
🔗https://t.co/ynRTFd3LWZ
This means that 𝑚𝑜𝑠𝑡 (not all!) of the observed global warming since 1950 could be natural and scientists would never know for certain. Alternatively, warming could be mostly man-made, but, even if that happens to be the case, SO WHAT? That doesn't mean it is an existential crisis.
The big unknown here are CLOUDS. ☁️
This is because (a) cloud albedo has far more impact on the atmospheric radiation budget than CO₂, and (b) how clouds change in response, if at all, to the CO₂ forcing is unknown. What's more, cloud cover can (and does) change naturally without our assistance for any number of chaotic reasons (e.g., El Niño / La Niña activity; ocean circulation changes; cosmic ray flux; etc.).
Case in point, even a small decrease in global cloud area fraction (CAF) can more than offset any temperature rise caused by CO₂. Song et al. (2016), for instance, found that,
🗨️ “[𝐴]𝑙𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑛ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑒𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑏𝑒 𝑒𝑛ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐺𝐻𝐺𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑤𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑣𝑎𝑝𝑜𝑟 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑎𝑡𝑚𝑜𝑠𝑝ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒, 𝑖𝑡 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑏𝑒 𝑤𝑒𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝑑𝑒𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑐𝑙𝑜𝑢𝑑𝑠. 𝐼𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑠𝑒 𝑡𝑤𝑜 𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑜𝑓𝑓𝑠𝑒𝑡 𝑒𝑎𝑐ℎ 𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟, 𝑎 ℎ𝑖𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑔𝑙𝑜𝑏𝑎𝑙 𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑛ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑒𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑢𝑙𝑡.”
🔗https://t.co/NHkmfOc08y
While it is politically popular for people to splinter into one of the two tribalistic camps that either (a) increasing CO₂ has zero effect on the climate, or (b) that it will lead to Al Gore's Armageddon, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle of those extremes.
![ChrisMartzWX's tweet photo. Good question.
Sure, I can break my stance on climate change down for you to the best of my ability.
Grab some popcorn! 🍿
First, the Earth has warmed up by ~1.2°C since 1850, though nobody knows precisely how much because of data quality issues (e.g., uneven station distribution; fragmented records, especially outside of the United States; station siting changes; and urban heat island contamination) that have not been, based on some of the evidence I have seen.
But, I have no doubt that the Earth is slightly warmer than it was 175 years ago or that 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒 warming is due to carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions.
Second, contrary to what the online army of alarmist foot soldiers have 𝑚𝑖𝑠𝑙𝑒𝑑 people to believe, there are not really any so-called “fingerprints” that distinguish human-caused global warming from warming caused by other factors.
Numerous peer-reviewed papers claim to have found a human “fingerprint,” but the only evidence that they have presented is that the anomaly of interest is 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ anthropogenic warming, but they fail to note that said anomaly would also be consistent with natural warming.
A reduction in cloud cover, for example, would allow more sunlight into the climate system, which would warm the oceans. A warmer ocean—all else being equal—increases the rate of evaporation, which raises the vapor pressure (humidity) contributing to polar amplification and faster land warming than the ocean (e.g., Compo & Sardeshmukh, 2008).
🔗https://t.co/sQurHsN80P / open-access: https://t.co/WVKvLrSV7k
All warming, natural or man-made, results in:
1⃣ The higher latitudes warming faster than the mid-latitudes and tropics.
2⃣ Land heating up faster than the oceans.
An increase in solar forcing would have essentially the same material effect, although we can probably rule that out as the cause since sunspot activity has been declining in recent decades. But the sun does affect our climate system in ways that have not really been thoroughly researched.
In any case, the 𝒃𝒆𝒔𝒕 empirical evidence that I have seen to suggest that there is probably at least some anthropogenic “fingerprint” on recent temperature increases is stratospheric cooling.
First, understand that in atmospheric physics, heat flux is measured as the power—measured in Watts (that is, Joules per second)—standardized per square meter of surface area.
Next, the average radiation flux into the atmosphere is on the order of 239 ± 3.3 W/m² of absorbed solar radiation (ASR) averaged over a year (Stephens et al., 2012). This means that in order to maintain a constant surface air temperature the Earth's surface must emit 239.7 ± 3.3 W/m² back to outer space.
🔗https://t.co/5z5iMdazRB / open-access: https://t.co/51Ys5w8BWj
Global warming theory maintains the direct radiative forcing of doubling atmospheric CO₂ concentrations (RF 2×CO₂) is 3.7 ± 0.4 W/m² (IPCC TAR, 2007). That means the net outgoing longwave radiation to space is reduced by 3.7 W/m², which creates an Earth energy imbalance (EEI) leading to a slight warming tendency in the troposphere (surface to ~13 km altitude).
🔗https://t.co/0JkXIQRGDH (p. 357)
In the stratosphere (~13-50 km altitude), this causes a cooling tendency because less infrared radiation (IR) flux is moving up from below. These relationships were first demonstrated in Manabe & Strickler (1964).
🔗https://t.co/JNaXP7nUC9
NASA satellite measurements indicate that cooling in the stratosphere has been observed since the late 1970s, although there has been very little cooling over the last 25 years, all the while the troposphere has continued to warm.
🔗https://t.co/hT0Oxwm2Io
That means that most of the warming observed since 2000 is likely natural OR perhaps caused by a reduction in stratospheric sulfate aerosol concentrations, in part an artifact of stricter pollution regulations in recent years.
But, yes, I would agree with most scientists that the cooling observed in the stratosphere, at least that from the 1970s to 2000, is most likely a result of CO₂ forcing.
So what?
What happens in the troposphere in response to CO₂ forcing is a lot more nuanced.
Why?
Because in the lower atmosphere, we have feedbacks (largely cloud-related) and precipitation processes that affect the atmospheric radiation budget far more than CO₂. And, how exactly clouds will respond to tropospheric warming, if at all, is not well understood (and by extension, not well-modeled).
What we do know, theoretically speaking, is that the direct warming effect of doubling atmospheric CO₂ (RF 2×CO₂) is actually very small; it is on the order of ~1°C (Wijngaarden & Happer, 2020).
🔗https://t.co/y5szlGBmjd
However, amplifying (or dampening) feedbacks that kick in as a response to forcing mean that the real-world value—the equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS)—will be higher (lower) than the ~1°C figure that you derive from radiative transfer calculations.
Three pieces of critical information remain unknown:
1⃣ Exactly how much warming has been man-made (since, let's say, 1950). We still don't know the answer to this because the coefficients that are used to ascribe anthropogenic versus natural forcings are all computed from computer modeling, not physical measurements.
2⃣ What the exact value of ECS is.
3⃣ Even if global warming is entirely man-made, is it really a net drawback to civilization?
To break it down:
• If ECS is <3°C, the climate system is largely insensitive to GHGs, and impacts are exaggerated.
• If ECS is ≥3°C, the climate system is very sensitive to GHGs, and the warming could be a concern.
The IPCC’s “best estimate” of Earth's ECS is 3.0°C with a range of 2-5°C.
🔗https://t.co/8Ntgszr1dC (pp. 44-45)
In 1994, using NASA's real-world bulk atmospheric temperature data, Drs. John Christy and Richard McNider from the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) calculated the climate sensitivity by removing the effects of El Niño / La Niña and volcanic aerosol injection (e.g., El Chichón, 1982; Mt. Pinatubo, 1991).
They found that the human-induced warming rate is about 0.09°C / decade (lower than observations of actual temperature increase). This, by the way, came with the stipulation that unknown mechanisms of internal variability or external forcing are assumed to remain zero.
🔗https://t.co/S2GEmUftKo
The authors validated their 1994 findings in McNider & Christy (2017). Specifically, they found a near-identical anthropogenic warming rate of only 0.096°C / decade and a transient climate response (TCR) of 1.10 ± 0.26°K.
🔗 https://t.co/zueJLn8V8w / open-access: https://t.co/eLcqeizbRh
Many other recent studies (e.g., Lewis & Curry, 2018; Scafetta, 2021; Spencer & Christy, 2023; Lewis, 2025) have all estimated ECS to be far lower than the IPCC AR6's “best estimate.”
🔗https://t.co/8G0sF8gy2p
🔗https://t.co/5TgNX7c1JN
🔗https://t.co/BxyO1XIbNP
🔗https://t.co/YNQhNajrrO
The jury is still out. 🤷♂️
What's more, in order to reliably detect anthropogenic influence on the climate system, the EEI must be known to the nearest 0.1 W/m² (e.g., Von Schuckmann et al., 2016; Gebbie, 2021).
🔗https://t.co/T7SKxidZ4N / open-access: https://t.co/GD45cbhxIT
🔗https://t.co/L6vZKVVpXg
However, the aforementioned Stephens et al. (2012) estimates the EEI to be 0.6 ± 0.4 W/m², which is eight times larger than the anthropogenic detection limits. And, the natural top-of-atmosphere (TOA) flux has a 6.6 W/m² margin of error, which is 66 times larger than the detection limits.
This range of uncertainty remains in newer estimates, such as Loeb et al. (2021), which estimates EEI to be 1.12 ± 0.48 W/m².
🔗https://t.co/ynRTFd3LWZ
This means that 𝑚𝑜𝑠𝑡 (not all!) of the observed global warming since 1950 could be natural and scientists would never know for certain. Alternatively, warming could be mostly man-made, but, even if that happens to be the case, SO WHAT? That doesn't mean it is an existential crisis.
The big unknown here are CLOUDS. ☁️
This is because (a) cloud albedo has far more impact on the atmospheric radiation budget than CO₂, and (b) how clouds change in response, if at all, to the CO₂ forcing is unknown. What's more, cloud cover can (and does) change naturally without our assistance for any number of chaotic reasons (e.g., El Niño / La Niña activity; ocean circulation changes; cosmic ray flux; etc.).
Case in point, even a small decrease in global cloud area fraction (CAF) can more than offset any temperature rise caused by CO₂. Song et al. (2016), for instance, found that,
🗨️ “[𝐴]𝑙𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑛ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑒𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑏𝑒 𝑒𝑛ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐺𝐻𝐺𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑤𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑣𝑎𝑝𝑜𝑟 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑎𝑡𝑚𝑜𝑠𝑝ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒, 𝑖𝑡 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑏𝑒 𝑤𝑒𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝑑𝑒𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑐𝑙𝑜𝑢𝑑𝑠. 𝐼𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑠𝑒 𝑡𝑤𝑜 𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑜𝑓𝑓𝑠𝑒𝑡 𝑒𝑎𝑐ℎ 𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟, 𝑎 ℎ𝑖𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑔𝑙𝑜𝑏𝑎𝑙 𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑛ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑒𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑢𝑙𝑡.”
🔗https://t.co/NHkmfOc08y
While it is politically popular for people to splinter into one of the two tribalistic camps that either (a) increasing CO₂ has zero effect on the climate, or (b) that it will lead to Al Gore's Armageddon, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle of those extremes.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HBLjgGpWcAEwFV8.png)
A new study shows a thick ice cap in Greenland was completely ice-free just 7,000 years ago.
The cap is Prudhoe Dome, which today is some 1,600 feet thick.
The researchers drilled through the ice and dated the sediments below it. It turns out those sediments were once exposed to sunlight, meaning there was no ice.
7,000 years ago, summer temperatures were 3 to 5C warmer than today.
This study shows, once again, that large ice losses have occurred in the recent past, caused entirely by natural climate variability - no CO2 forcing required.
A Brazilian scientist worked in silence for 25 years on something medicine said was impossible: regenerating the spinal cord.
Dr. Tatiana Sampaio extracted a protein from placentas that acts as "biological glue" — recreating the conditions that let embryonic neurons connect.
Six patients with complete spinal cord injuries regained movement.
Bruno Drummond was tetraplegic after a car accident. Two weeks after treatment, he moved his toe. Today he walks, climbs stairs, dances.
Her quote when asked why she finally went public:
"I no longer have the right to be conservative."
25 years. No social media. No self-promotion. Just the work.
This is what real science looks like.
EU haluaa Suomen
Suomi – se pieni, sinnikäs, pakkastalvien ja sisu- iskulauseiden pohjoinen koettelemusten maa, jota vielä toistaiseksi uskalletaan kutsua isänmaaksi – on hiljalleen, lähes huomaamatta, menettämässä kaiken sen, mikä siitä joskus teki Suomen.
Ei mikään yllätys kuin kansa nukkuu, ei vastarintaa mihinkään – pelkkää hiljaista liukumista kohti ”väistämätöntä”.
Globalistien pitkään haaveilema EU-liittovaltio on vihdoin toteutumassa, ja Suomi liimataan siihen kiinni yhtä elegantisti kuin vanha kalakauppiaan tarramerkki pakastepussiin.
Kyseessä ei ole enää mikään löyhä yhteistyö, vaan täysiverinen liittovaltio, jota monet jo nyt hellästi – ja täysin vakavissaan – kutsuvat ”tämän vuosisadan super-Neuvostoliitoksi”.
Samat keskitetyt käskyt Brysselistä, sama ideologinen yhdenmukaisuusvaatimus, samat suunnitelmatalouden piirteet naamioituna ”vihreäksi siirtymäksi” ja ”digitaaliseksi resilienssiksi”, sama kyky määritellä totuus ylhäältä alas ja sama tapa katsoa epäluuloisesti kansallisia etuja puolustavia kansalaisia.
Vain punaiset liput on vaihdettu sinikeltaisiin, ja gulagien tilalla on nyt hiljaisia some-varjoja sekä sakkoja väärästä sanamuodosta.
Tervetuloa siis uuteen todellisuuteen, jossa itsenäinen Suomi jää historiaan samalla tavalla kuin itsenäinen DDR tai itsenäinen Neuvosto-Viro: ensin muodollisesti olemassa, sitten käytännössä paperilla, ja lopulta senioritalojen puheissa.
Jäljelle jää enää muisto itsenäisestä päätöksenteosta – ja sekin alkaa jo muistuttaa vanhan valokuvan haaleaa sävyä.
Lopulta jäljelle jää vain nostalginen nimike Suomesta:
”entinen itsenäinen tasavalta, nykyinen pohjoinen hallintoalue nro 14”.
Kannattaisiko vihdoinkin – pikkuhiljaa, ennen kuin on myöhäistä – herättää se kuuluisa ”massa” tähän päivään ja mennä sanomaan päättäjille suoraan, että tämä saiba riittää jo ?
Tämä loputon Brysselin nuoleminen, itsenäisyyden tiputtaminen tippa kerrallaan EU:n yhteiseen laariin, kansallisten etujen uhraaminen ”yhteisen hyvän” alttarille (joka käytännössä tarkoittaa Saksan ja Ranskan etujen ajamista), ja se ikuinen mantra ”meillä ei ole vaihtoehtoa” – se riittää jo.
Herätkää siihen, että Suomi ei ole enää itsenäinen toimija, vaan pelkkä pohjoinen provinssi liittovaltiokehityksessä, jota edelleen kutsutaan ”yhteistyöksi”, vaikka se on jo pitkään ollut pelkkää alistumista.
Päättäjät eivät kuule, ellei kansa karju yhteen ääneen.
Taitaa olla viimeiset ajat heräillä muumilaaksossa.
Onnea matkaan
Kuuntele klippi
UAH satellite data show global temperatures dropped to just 0.3C above baseline in Dec 2025.
Satellites measure the atmosphere directly. There is no surface station bias, no urban heat contamination, no agency homogenization 'adjustments'.
These satellites show the expected cooling following the 2022 Hunga-Tonga volcanic eruption - a massive submarine explosion that injected an unprecedented volume of water vapor into the atmosphere.
Water vapor being by far the strongest greenhouse gas, what followed was a strong warming influence, but one that is now fading.
December's anomaly actually sits within the long-term range, with similar values occurring in the 2010s, 2000s & 1990s (despite steadily rising CO2).
We're even on par with Dec 1987.
Global temps have returned to pre-eruption levels just as Solar Cycle 25 slides toward its minimum.
All eyes on what follows.
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