chubbs

22 hours ago, WolfStock1 said:

When I say "cheap labor" I'm not just talking about menial things.   Even though a lot is automated - it still takes a lot of people to run those factories, the mines, do the installation, maintain the installation, etc.   The average wage in China is still 1/3 what it is in the US.    Throw in the government overriding any NIMBYism and your average large solar installation for instance is probably 1/4 or even 1/10 the cost of what it is in the US.   (it's hard to get a true comparison because China doesn't typically publish their costs.)

If the US were to do what it takes to implement the policies that China has - the outcry from the left could be heard from Mars.   Environmental destruction, wages below minimum (or even below "living wage"), etc. etc.

Are they eating our lunch with regards to the volume of renewable energy implementation?   Yes.   Is that a good thing?   Not so much, for the above reasons, and because they are still emitting tons more carbon, with way less respect for human rights.

We really, really need to focus on nuclear.   That is the best solution.    Unfortunately it probably won't happen due to willingness of policymakers to bend to the demands of those who don't properly understand risks.

I'm open to any non-fossil energy source, let the market decide. In the case of nuclear, the US will need to lower cost to deploy significant volume. 

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/10/22/climate/china-us-nuclear-energy-race.html?unlocked_article_code=1.vk8.p953.GyoqfHxUqxEK&smid=url-share

17 hours ago, tacoman25 said:

Stereotype or not, it's just fact that China has way more cheap labor than any other country in the world. The fact that many factories have become more automated doesn't negate that.

Cheap labor is only one part of the story. 

"China has close to 50 graduate programs that focus on either battery chemistry or the closely related subject of battery metallurgy. By contrast, only a handful of professors in the United States are working on batteries."

https://www.business-standard.com/world-news/how-china-built-tech-prowess-chemistry-classes-and-research-labs-124081000019_1.html

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20251110-how-china-won-the-worlds-battery-race

50 minutes ago, WolfStock1 said:

 

You don't seem to understand that *the* key ingredient for China's growth - including the growth of their energy industry (both renewables and fossil) is an abundant supply of cheap labor.  That is something we simply do not have.   

It's not an issue of attitude, priorities, or policy - it's an issue of resources.

"cheap labor" is an outdated stereotype. The factories producing solar/battery/ev are highly automated. China is kicking our butt in a wide range of advanced technologies. 

https://itif.org/publications/2025/09/23/how-china-is-outperforming-the-united-states-in-critical-technologies/

19 hours ago, WolfStock1 said:

Looking at the bigger picture though - China still has a *long* ways go to catch up with the US in terms of their general energy mix.    E.g. the biggest source by far (unlike the US) is still coal, and fossil is still 1, 2, and 3 (coal, oil, and gas) in their energy sources.

 

 

People tend to highlight China's growth in renewables - but the fact is that all their energy sources - including fossil - are growing rapidly.

Yes, China is a good news, bad news story. China has gone from undeveloped under Chairman Mao to the dominant manufacturing country in the world. That takes energy and the main local fossil-fuel energy source is coal. In part, the developed world has outsourced their emissions to China through the import of manufactured goods.

On the flip side, China has rapidly scaled non-fossil clean-energy technology. Driving costs below fossil fuels in many applications and thereby providing a clear path forward to a non-fossil future. It was a gamble on their part and it paid off big time. Now China exports of clean energy equipment provide a large boost to their economy and are reducing emissions around the world. For better or worse we have largely ceded our climate future to China.

https://x.com/JessePeltan/status/1989006026520080519

https://bsky.app/profile/laurimyllyvirta.bsky.social/post/3m2jgeqa4es2z

3 hours ago, bluewave said:

Chinas development of renewable energy is built on coal. A true energy revolution there would replace coal and not just use renewables as an addition. The reason that fossil fuels are lingering is that the current renewables don’t have to capacity to lead to a true revolution away from fossil fuels yet. 
 

 

For now, the world isn’t performing an energy transition but an energy addition, where renewables top up oil, gas and coal. Regardless of well-intended green aspirations, that will remain the case for years, if not decades, unless governments impose significant changes.

 

https://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/the-end-of-fossil-fuel-era-it-s-nowhere-near-20250911-p5mudo.html

My point was about technology and solar, not China. Let me rephrase. The problem isn't a lack of technology, its a lack of focus or desire (agreeing with Tip). Climate change isn't high enough on humanity's priority list, China included. I think the phase-out of fossil fuels is only a matter of time though.  Unfortunately it won't come fast enough to avoid significant climate impacts.

https://bsky.app/profile/laurimyllyvirta.bsky.social/post/3m5djg6evmc2l

45 minutes ago, bluewave said:

We need to develop a clean technology that can scale up quickly enough and at a low enough cost to actually lead to declining emissions over time. So far solar and wind are just able to supplement fossil fuels and not replace them. The renewables are being used for energy addition rather than transition.

The one piece of good news in this new IEA report is that oil demand would probably increase much more than only 13% without the deployment of renewables between now and 2050. it’s quite possible that the specific energy source and method which will completely replace fossil fuels still hasn’t been developed yet in a scalable form.

 

 

I don't think the problem is technology. Solar has outperformed expectations for decades. Same for batteries. China has shown that solar can be deployed much faster than any competing energy technology. We could easily match as our solar resource is better than China's. No its the power of the incumbent, misinformation/denial, lack of vision, and geopolitics and others, that are allowing fossil-fuels to linger.

https://x.com/JessePeltan/status/1988427201772245459

4 hours ago, tacoman25 said:

China has a major nuclear initiative in action. They have dozens of new nuclear power plants currently being built while the U.S. has none.

That being said, there is a big push from the current administration to build more (primarily to meet rapidly growing datacenter demand due to the AI frenzy), but previous projects have been very slow to get underway.

Yes, China's nuclear generation is increasing rapidly. They are also adding large amounts of hydro and wind. However their biggest source of their new non-fossil power is solar. The solar they are installing this year is roughly equivalent to the entire US nuclear fleet.

Preliminary data for this year, shows global CO2 emissions continue to plateau as clean energy technologies take most of the growth in global energy demand. However to solve climate change, need to see a drop in CO2 emissions, the faster the better. In other words progress on clean energy isn't fast enough as fossil incumbents resist change. This years data also shows a reversal in the CO2 growth trajectories of the two biggest emitters, US and China. China is embracing clean energy technologies while the US doubles down on fossil fuels.

2 hours ago, WolfStock1 said:

 

Is there land under the bottom-left tip there?   Interesting that that area remains stationary while the rest of the shelf continues moving.

Based on the movement there it does look like it could break free at any time; the connection with that non-moving section looks very weak now.

Yes, there are a couple of underwater hills that  pin the tip of the ice shelf in place (see chart) Per the article, the pinning points have transitioned from a stabilizing to a de-stabilizing force over the past 20 years.

New paper on the de-stabilization of the Thwaites ice shelf over the past 20 years. Video, linked below, provides a good overview of the changes to the ice shelf over the past 10 years. Other papers have projected the ice shelf's complete collapse by 2030.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2025JF008352

https://phys.org/news/2025-11-antarctic-doomsday-glacier-ice-shelf.html

13 hours ago, Typhoon Tip said:

It was suspicious ... These two struck me as big oil moles - they may not be linked as such, but they plied the same sort of tactic that big oil used to attempt.  Buyout intellectuals pay them to be lobbyists, sending them into public forums and/or legislative debates. et al, where raise points that are ultimately false, but brilliantly articulated, thus too difficult to adjudicate and/or be objectively critical of by the target audience - who by not fault of their own, are just not educated or experiences or capable.   

This is particularly effective when the audiences are bias to begin with, such as Rogen and his reach.  He's a CC skeptic, based upon his general history, one that is more than likely influenced by a political base - a latter aspect that is evinced via his media portrait and expose' over recent years.  So Lendzen wastes no time in smirkly nose laughing comments that discredit climate science, 'how can there be a huge consensus when there are so few climate scientists around' - or words to that affect.   It's so patently absurd when you think that climate scientists are but a fraction of the voices. What about all the alarms from oceanographers and biologist and general environment/natural scientists, et al... what about all them?  No one in his audience - for example - even knows to ask that.  It's obvious these guys are specious.  Or stupid.  ... and then he goes on to make statements to the affect of, 'you should be suspicious of any consensus'

 

This board has taught me never to underestimate the power of confirmation bias. 

The recent flip to NAO- in modeling is positive for this winters snowfall in the northeast. Below is the correlation of November NAO with total winter snow for the La Ninas since 1950. During La Nina, there's a negative correlation of November NAO with total winter snow in the northeast; i.e, negative Nov NAO tends to produce more snow. Also included a plot for Philly to illustrate. 

The Chester County COOP stations have had numerous moves and station changes over the years. Fortunately, the changes are easy to spot by comparing against other COOP stations. The 1970 West Chester move is a good example. The top plot shows the monthly temperature difference between West Chester and Coatesville.  Before the move, West Chester was roughly 1.5F warmer than Coatesville. When the station re-opened in May 1970 after the move, West Chester was roughly the same temperature as Coatesville.

The difference between West Chester and Phoenixville changed in exactly the same way as a result of the move (second plot). Before the move, West Chester and Phoenixville had similar temperatures. After the move West Chester was cooler than Phoenixville. The cooling nature of the move is easily spotted by inter-comparing the three stations. West Chester experienced a permanent change in temperature that wasn't weather related.  

The NOAA bias adjustment captures the West Chester move perfectly.  Before 1970, the West Chester data is biased warm because the data was collected at a warmer site. This simple example shows how NOAA uses science  to get the correct information from the raw data, what the raw data really saw about our climate. Bias adjustment is critical in Chester County because all the Chesco stations operating in 1945 experienced cooling moves between 1946 and 1970: Coatesville in 1946 and 1948, Phoenixville in 1949 and West Chester in 1970. You won't get the right answer in Chester County without bias adjustment.

Article on disaster recovery industry in the US, not the growth industry that we want. No paywall.

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2025-disaster-industrial-complex-us-economy/?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc2MTUyMDQyNywiZXhwIjoxNzYyMTI1MjI3LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJUNEkyRTBHUFdDSUowMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJEQ0NGODY3Qzk2ODk0MzJDQjRBMEMwM0FENDNGNTJENyJ9.6iPDZtLjiXpOkigBvxm123_KbyMeWuSopTRZeGoG36E&leadSource=uverify wall

1 hour ago, tacoman25 said:

This is one of those graphs where the trend line is heavily affected by the starting point. Start in 1987 or 1989 instead of 1982 (which fell during a period of suppressed activity, but there were definitely busier periods prior), and it's quite different.

Here's a 1987 start.

China, India and Indonesia are shifting increasingly to solar and other renewables which should peak their CO2 emissions by 2030. These countries are the largest growth market for coal since the Paris Agreement.

https://bsky.app/profile/creacleanair.bsky.social/post/3m46yyz2dor2a

Global Cat 5 in satellite era of good detection. ( Jeff Master's blog article on Melissa)

https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2025/10/jamaica-braces-for-cat-5-hurricane-melissa-earths-strongest-storm-of-2025/

5 hours ago, roardog said:

It just seems crazy to me that a volcano can throw as much water vapor into the atmosphere as this one did and it’s pretty much shrugged off as nothing to see here.

Here are a couple of blog articles with links to scientific assessments on the volcano and an explanation for why the impact is small.

https://www.theclimatebrink.com/p/the-climate-impact-of-the-hunga-tonga

https://www.theclimatebrink.com/p/the-real-lesson-of-the-hunga-tonga

5 hours ago, GaWx said:

 Thanks Charlie,

 This tells me that they still don’t know why there was a sudden spike in the first half of 2023. Just a lot of speculation.

 

Below are monthly NINO3.4 and GISS stating in October 2022 and running through 2023. I don't see anything here to indicate that el nino wasn't the trigger. NINO3.4 started rising rapidly early in 2023 and GISS followed with a slight lag. The nino doesn't explain monthly spikes in March and September; but, Hungo Tonga doesn't explain the monthly spikes either as the eruption occurred in 2022.  

3 hours ago, GaWx said:

Didn’t the 2023 warming come in way too early to be attributed to the 2023-4 El Niño? I distinctly recall the discussions here and elsewhere about that because it started in spring (as early as March) and also the possibility that Hunga Tonga was the main factor due to the enormous amount of water vapor sent up into the stratosphere. All of this remains mysterious to me.

Per link below the 2023 warming has been attributed to El Nino. The article does say that the warming came on more suddenly and lasted longer than a typical nino. But that is probably due the increasingly positive radiation balance due to cloud feedback and air pollution control. I haven't seen the Hunga Tonga volcano linked to significant warming in a scientific paper. 

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adt7207

Satellite SST estimates show that the 23/24 nino cycle had a similar warming effect on global SST as the 2015/16 nino. Together these two nino's have triggered roughly 0.4C of global SST warming.

18 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

October 2025 has a global mean temperature of 15.29°C through October 20th (ERA-5). That ranks as the third warmest October 1-20 period on record. October 2025 remains on track to finish as the third warmest October on record (likely with a monthly mean temperature of 15.00°C or above). To miss, the October 21-31 period would need to see sustained cool readings that last occurred in 2013. That is improbable with today's greater greenhouse gas forcing.

Per gfs, the end of October is going to be warm. The highest global anomalies so far this year. 

2 hours ago, ChescoWx said:

You keep making the rookie mistake of trying to bring unrelated stations not anywhere close to the county in question. Some of those you reference are 25 to 40 miles away....that does not improve a poorly constructed argument or address the facts proven above.

A bit of a hyprocrite aren't you? You are cluttering up this thread with Chester County charts. Are you saying that your arguments are poorly constructed because the Chester County data is independent of the rest of the world? You can't have your cake and eat it too. If Chester County is relevant to the rest of the world; Philadelphia, Allentown and Newark Ag station are relevant to Chester County.

In any case the science is clear on this point, weather data is correlated for hundreds of miles. Chester County doesn't cool when the surrounding stations don't. In fact, as I showed in the Chester County thread, there is a very good match in the warming rate at the airport and individual Chesco stations.

Finally we don't need any data outside of Chester County to know that Coatesville cooled significantly after the war. The tables posted above show that Coatesville cooled relative to Phoenixville and West Chester after 1945 and Phoenixville cooled relative to West Chester and Coatesville between 1948 and 1949. The data from outside Chester County merely confirms what the Chester County data is already showing.

22 hours ago, ChescoWx said:

The mistake you made in the chart is the actual 1st full year at the new location in Coatesville was 1949. A full one-third of 1948 was actually at the old location. When we look at the actual data for that first full year following the move which was 1949 - you can clearly see that temperatures far from cooling as you keep saying in reality actually warmed by 2.2 degrees - no cooling at all. You would think moving from what you called a "UHI" location would have resulted in cooling - it of course did not!  Also of importance all 3 stations warmed that year!  And look at those altered NOAA temperatures for the county....what station in 1945, 1946, 1947 was as cold as that ghost station they used? Answer of course absolutey none - it's a ghost for Halloween!!

The mistake you are making, is thinking that the move date is important. Coatesville cooled by roughly 2F relative to the other local stations after World War II, indicating a major station change. 

I substituted 1949 for 1948 in the Coatesville move table. The change increased the move-related cooling at Coatesville to 2.5F. The Coatesville move is complex: a big move in 1946 and a smaller one in early 1948. You only see a small part of the move by comparing 1948 to 1949. Note that Phoenixville also moved to a cooler location in 1949. So can't be used to estimate Coatesville station changes between 1945 and 1949.

Since you have provided your “True Actual Average “ for the 1945 to 1950 period. Lets see how well you and NOAA match the station data for that period. I have separated stations into two groups, stations with moves and the stable stations without moves. The stations without moves show that there wasn't any significant local temperature change between 1945 and 1950. Those stations are only 0.1F cooler on average in 1950. In contrast, the 2 stations with moves, Phoenixville and Coatesville, cooled by 2F on average. Cooling at these stations is spurious, caused by station changes not weather.

NOAA captures our local weather well, matching the stable stations, with a modest 0.3F cooling between 1945 and 1950. In contrast your “True Actual Average” cooled by 1.4F, much larger than the weather-related temperature change captured the stations without moves. Station changes at 2 of the 3 Chesco stations active in this period contaminate your results. For all your complaints about NOAA, you are the guy who is altering our past weather. Introducing a phantom, move-related, "cooling cycle" to the 1945-50 period. The difference between your results and NOAA's highlights the importance of bias adjustments in Chester County. Our COOPs experienced one change after the other.

Finally why is NOAA warmer than the 1940s coop station population? Easy, the 1940s stations are warmer than the county as a whole due to their location in built up towns. When they moved out of towns they cooled. Your "True Actual Average" is almost as warm as Philadelphia in 1945. Notice that Coatesville matches NOAA exactly in 1950. Makes sense, unlike Coatesville City,  the new rural Coatesville location is representative of the county as a whole. NOAA isn't fooled by station moves, that's a rookie mistake.

35 minutes ago, donsutherland1 said:

Your claim misses the larger point of my examples. It does not matter whether the sea rises or the land subsides. The result is the same. The water line advances relative to human settlements and ecosystems. 

At Delos, the submerged temples and quays bear witness to centuries of the intertwined forces of subsidence compounded by accelerating global sea-level rise from thermal expansion and melting ice. These processes do not cancel each other. They reinforce one another. Delos, like Doggerland, stands as a warning of what coastal cities around the world may face as relative sea level climbs ever faster through the 21st century under humanity's choice to continue to inject massive amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Sea-level rise is incremental in pace but cumulative in consequence. It undermines foundations, salinizes water tables, and devours shorelines. The crisis is not measured in centimeters per year, but in the permanence of its trajectory. The seas will continue rising for centuries, long after the emissions that drive them have ceased, because the response of the ice caps to the warming is a slow feedback.

Calling it “ludicrous” to treat Delos as a cautionary crisis misunderstands the lesson. The near one-meter rise projected by the end of the 21st century and several meters by 2300, will erase vast stretches of today’s coastal infrastructure. Miami, New York, Jakarta, Shanghai, and Bangkok are among vulnerable cities. To apply the dismissal of Delos' lessons and accordingly view the eventual partial inundation of the major cities I listed, among others, as a “non-crisis” is the kind of short-sighted thinking that is produced by the limits of human nature that Tip and I had been discussing. 

Here's sea level data for the Battery, in New York. Sea-level rise has accelerated this century along the US east and gulf coast. 

https://psmsl.org/data/obtaining/