chubbs

The entire climate sensitivity range is the scientific consensus. By excluding most of the likely range, Spencer severely underestimates climate risk. There is low and diminishing technical support for low climate sensitivity. Spencer's views are inconsistent with the temperature rise we have already experienced. Other arguments against low sensitivity include: large and increasing earth energy imbalance and the growing consensus on positive cloud feedback. The scientific consensus is that the long list of CO2/warming debits far outweigh a couple of benefits.

Spencer is a long time critic of the scientific consensus on climate change. Its not that hard to predict the impact of adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. We have warmed pretty much as expected, much faster than Spencer acknowledged or expected. The scientific consensus does not describe the warming we have experienced as slow or beneficial. Agree politics is important as is the action of powerful interest groups. Its the reason why most people don't have an accurate picture of what climate science is saying. Don't think Spencer has been helpful in that regard.

A couple of comments: 1) Yes, Roy is a long time climate dismissive 2) His dataset misses much of the warming in the early 2000s, 3) Best to look at the globe as a whole to judge warming, 4) Global UAH is more sensitive to ENSO than surface temperatures.5) Global UAH was very warm for a La Nina in March, the first La Nina well above the linear trend. We've reached the La Nina bottom in UAH. A typical nino spike in UAH from these levels would be hard to dismiss.

Another issue: the shelters 100 years ago were not aspirated. Inadequate or poorly sited shelter ran warm. With his number of days metric easy for one or two sites with bad data to bias the result. We saw that in the Chester county, where spuriously warm data from Phoenixville in the 1930s and 1940s biased the >95F day data, by providing the overwhelming majority of the County 95F+ days in that period. Better to show the data for every station like chart below. That way a few bad apples don't skew the data. Threadx cities plotted below have the longest climate records.

Solar uptake continued to accelerate in Africa in the last month before the energy crisis.

Yes, here's a good example of cherry picking. Do you have any specific technical complaints? I'll be adding other stations; but, why would the results change?. The other stations all have much shorter record lengths. Plus the modern stations are all warming rapidly in complete agreement with the Coatesville and Phoenixville data.

a Here's another perspective on the oiSST data which shows the similarity to 2023. The last data point is March to date.

OK I took an initial stab at consolidating the data using Chester County's 3 long-term COOP stations. My consolidation doesn't look at all like your "analytics". Why? I only use periods without major station moves: 1949-2025 for Coatesville and Phoenixville and 1894-1969 for West Chester. I also use the 1949-1969 overlap period to take out the temperature difference between the 3 stations. While it doesn't look like your "analytics", my consolidation is a good match to the data collected at individual Chester County stations, posted above. That's gives my confidence in this approach and I plan to extend this method to the rest of the data.

Daily oisst has moved into record territory, continuing to track 2023; but 0.1 - 0.2C warmer. It is likely that SST will continue to set daily records until the developing nino fades sometime in 2027.

Reposting some of the charts I posted previously. Your line doesn't look anything like the raw data from individual stations. There is no significant difference in warming between individual Chester County stations and the Philadelphia Airport. Of course cooling station moves should be excluded. That's why the West Chester plot ends in 1969. Per the table below, there are big changes in the Chester County station population that you aren't accounting for. In comparison, the Philadelphia airport heat island is mature and isn't changing much from decade to decade. If heat island is important, why ignore the movement of Chester County stations out of towns after World War II?

I should have been clearer. The chart I posted is the ranking of the number of days over 80, with #1 being the highest. Below is the number of 80+ days on which the ranking is based.

Days hitting 80F, month to date.

Thanks for updating, what I posted must have caught the database at a bad time.

As explained in detail at the link below. Pielke's results have nothing to do with natural disasters. Instead they are an artifact of his analysis method. When the same database is analyzed properly. US disaster costs are increasing as percent of GDP and the number of disasters is increasing. https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/334359/1/20251026_fix_roger_pielke_jr.pdf

That's what we have seen so far this month, CONUS-wide warmth.

Here's a climate first. The Colorado snowpack is gone 15 days before the typical peak.

Animation showing the records tied or broken in the past 24-hours. Pink are March records.

A couple of points to add to Don's. The absorption bands of CO2 and H2O are different. There's overlap in some regions, but CO2 also absorbs in regions where H2O doesn't. More importantly H20 has a much higher boiling point than CO2 and is a liquid at atmospheric temperatures while CO2 is a gas. Because of the higher boiling point, the amount of H2O in the atmosphere is controlled by temperature. As Don points out, CO2 is more important relative to H2O in the upper atmosphere where heat is radiated to space and it is too cold to hold much water vapor. Per paper below, CO2 is the earth's thermostat. CO2 controls the amount of H2O in the atmosphere. If there was less CO2 there would be less water vapor and vice versa. As the paper states: Without the radiative forcing supplied by CO2 and the other noncondensing greenhouse gases, the terrestrial greenhouse would collapse, plunging the global climate into an icebound Earth state. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1190653

Funny people can take the same data and come to different conclusions. The point you are missing is that energy technologies: solar, wind, batteries, EV etc., are getting better and cheaper on well established technology improvement curves. Until recently these technologies weren't competitive with fossil fuels. However, going forward they are going to have an increasing cost advantage and subsidies will be less and less important. As an example, China is ending their subsidies of electric cars. Yes, China is still building coal plants, but renewable share of electricity generation is still growing rapidly, and coal use in China dropped last year.

No the big difference in my EV chart and yours, is the US vs global. The final numbers aren't in yet, but global EV sales grew by roughly 20% last year, held down by slowing sales in the US. The US is a laggard in both EVs and solar with costs higher than the rest of the world due to tariffs and other factors. Expect the global EV ramp to continue in 2026 spurred by the current oil crisis. https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/international-issues/ev-sales-grew-20-globally-in-2025/

Most of the misleading information I see comes from fossil fuel and utility incumbents. For instance, per top link below, the "expense" of additional baseline power to backstop renewables is a fossil fuel fallacy. Renewables are becoming cheaper. Not everywhere and in every application; but, the long term trend is clear. In the future fossil fuels will be less competitive than they are today. Its not only renewables. A number of key energy technologies are on long-term improvement curves: batteries, EV, heat pumps etc. They work together to make energy generation, storage, transmission and use cheaper and more efficient. Meanwhile fossil fuel use is a mature technology; that uses a diminishing resource; and, that carries geopolitical and climate risk that isn't baked into the price. https://www.electrotech-revolution.com/p/renewables-allow-us-to-pay-less-not https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth https://www.electrotech-revolution.com/p/what-is-electrotech-and-what-will

The other problem for nuclear has been CO2 accounting. We'd have much more nuclear with stronger climate policy. I am bullish on nuclear long term reflecting ongoing technical progress; but, it isn't going to contribute much in the US in the next decade or two. We should be on a build everything path, with a cost penalty for CO2.

Yes the grid is a big problem in the US. Link below is a long thread on the US vs China grid. We aren't competitive, as an illustration per chart below, China gets 25x the payback from grid investment dollars. The thread doesn't mention batteries, which can mitigate grid investment somewhat. The developing global south, with abundant local solar, may avoid heavy grid investment. https://x.com/NiyerEnergy/status/2032265048723259781

Yes fossil fuels are energy dense, but that is only one aspect of the comparison and its not very important; i.e. renewables are cheaper despite lower energy density. The energy density of solar is higher than the energy density of civilization; i.e., roofs, parking lots, etc could power our cities. Your chart of India and China reflects the past not the present, yes CO2 use grew rapidly as both countries industrialized. However, coal use has peaked in both countries. Oil has peaked in China; and, China's CO emissions decreased last year. India is only beginning to use EVs; but, EV use is ramping.

Not sure what "physics" you are referring to. Sure fossil fuels easily beat all comers for a long time; but, the day of clear advantage has passed, and fossil fuels continue to slip relative to competition. The combustion of fossil fuels is: inefficient, technically mature, and uses a diminishing natural resource. Meanwhile renewable energy and batteries continue on steady cost improvement curves. The current crisis only makes fossil fuels more costly and highlights the geopolitical risk. It isn't easy to replace fossil infrastructure; but, long-term costs are lower without the disruption risk. This will become more apparent as some countries move away from fossil fuels and flourish. Even the US with pro-fossil and anti-renewable policies isn't ramping fossil fuel use, only slowing the transition away. Linked a blog article that discusses India. Climate change is only the cherry on the non-fossil cake. https://www.electrotech-revolution.com/p/indias-electrotech-fast-track