Occasional Thoughts on Climate Change

[TheClimateChanger]

Morning thoughts:

 

[TheClimateChanger]

 

[TheClimateChanger]

Extreme volcanic venting in the north Pacific and all over the oceans! This is wild, you guys! 

[Typhoon Tip]

 

MHT 100R

BOS 99R

PVD 97R

CON 97R

BDL 96TR

 

[donsutherland1]

Glacial boulders at Franconia Notch State Park. The last boulder was split by the melting and refreezing of the ice. The boulders were deposited around 25,000 years ago as the ice sheet advanced south. 

[TheClimateChanger]

23 minutes ago, donsutherland1 said:

Glacial boulders at Franconia Notch State Park. The last boulder was split by the melting and refreezing of the ice. The boulders were deposited around 25,000 years ago as the ice sheet advanced south. 

Nice pics, and a good reminder that the climate is always changing... just usually a little slower than these days. I remarked recently on the irony of having the Great Lakes exist in a future hothouse earth, carved from that same ice just 14,000 years ago. 

[csnavywx]

On 7/29/2025 at 8:46 AM, nflwxman said:

Work in renewables and can confirm that this is the case. The 2025 numbers are even more compelling. For example, the average cost of an energy storage system dropped about 27% in the past year due to technology improvements (and a reduction in EV demand, unfortunately). Currently, battery systems are competitive with LNG Peaker plans in MISO (Midwest) where fossils were heavy entrenched incumbents. The reality is that PV + BESS make so much sense. The technology pair has no long-term extraction costs, can be recycled, and of course, no long-term combustion impacts. BESS is also the "swiss army knife" of grid technology and can respond to grid disturbances in milliseconds. Peaker plants, or even nuclear, can't do that.

The problem is adoption still isn't happening fast enough. This should have been 10 years ago.

 

Full disclosure as I'm long FSLR stock and ICLN etf shares as of a couple of months ago, but it's suffered on an important metric that doesn't ever seem to be discussed: profitability. For better or worse live and breathe in a market system, where component cost is only one part of the equation and the considerable firming costs get downplayed (esp. at high penetration, at low pen. they're negligible). There is no OPEC for RE and the oft cited negative power prices are a symptom of high volatility, something that's never good for bottom lines in a commodity space. If you rushed to buy in '21 during the initial wave of optimism without careful consideration of the downsides, you got rinsed for 70%+ of your investment.

The recent growth in PV+BESS is encouraging and I think the equity side has been pounded enough that it's a decent buy for LT positions, but we're going to have to spend a lot of cash upgrading the grid to handle this as well and that cost isn't going to be cheap, esp. at today's interest rates. If we're not honest about that up front, then well... the political backlash will be even worse than we've seen so far.

I agree this should have been 10 years ago -- I think rebound and network effects along with struggling profitability are going to result in it the transition moving slower than it otherwise could have. It still needs subsidies to fill the gap. Some companies are better than others, ofc.

[csnavywx]

A more in depth look at the issue available here (as a review of the book "The Price is Wrong"): https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=14174&context=mlr

The book itself is a good read.

[WEATHER53]

Can I ask?  If poles have moved 3 feet; that seems  seems insignificant?   But  do we  know that?  

 

 

[chubbs]

12 hours ago, csnavywx said:

Full disclosure as I'm long FSLR stock and ICLN etf shares as of a couple of months ago, but it's suffered on an important metric that doesn't ever seem to be discussed: profitability. For better or worse live and breathe in a market system, where component cost is only one part of the equation and the considerable firming costs get downplayed (esp. at high penetration, at low pen. they're negligible). There is no OPEC for RE and the oft cited negative power prices are a symptom of high volatility, something that's never good for bottom lines in a commodity space. If you rushed to buy in '21 during the initial wave of optimism without careful consideration of the downsides, you got rinsed for 70%+ of your investment.

The recent growth in PV+BESS is encouraging and I think the equity side has been pounded enough that it's a decent buy for LT positions, but we're going to have to spend a lot of cash upgrading the grid to handle this as well and that cost isn't going to be cheap, esp. at today's interest rates. If we're not honest about that up front, then well... the political backlash will be even worse than we've seen so far.

I agree this should have been 10 years ago -- I think rebound and network effects along with struggling profitability are going to result in it the transition moving slower than it otherwise could have. It still needs subsidies to fill the gap. Some companies are better than others, ofc.

Yes, renewables and fossil fuel are completely different industries: extractive vs tech manufacturing. Fossil fuels are very profitable if you control a cheap resource. In renewables China is the low cost-supplier, with an ever widening lead. Making it difficult for the rest of the world to compete. We are a laggard in renewables from a cost standpoint due to tariffs, permitting costs and other factors. With the current administration we aren't going to catch-up either. Another factor is natural gas prices, which are well below global levels in the US due to our local production. Which also hurts the competitiveness of renewables. In the future as US LNG exports continue to increase, the difference between our gas prices and the rest of the world could shrink. We could easily end up with high cost power, vs the rest of the world, particularly China. 

Batteries and solar are becoming increasingly important to energy economics supplanting oil and other fossil fuels. We are way behind China and falling further behind. Hitching our wagon to the wrong energy horse.  

https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/solar/us-solar-manufacturers-lag-skyrocketing-market-demand/

https://about.bnef.com/insights/clean-energy/global-cost-of-renewables-to-continue-falling-in-2025-as-china-extends-manufacturing-lead-bloombergnef/

[ChescoWx]

For those searching for UHI adjustments at the PHL Airport....we found them - but in 26 of the last 29 years NCEI has actually made warming adjustments....green is raw.

[TheClimateChanger]

In a stunning departure from the conditions of the summer to date, August has started off on a very cool note nationwide. The PRISM data below is only for the first two days of the month, but yesterday saw similarly impressive cold with a number of record low max temperatures in the south and a few isolated record lows in the eastern US. While I still expect August to finish out above normal for CONUS, this is going to make a new summer national record quite difficult. Will probably take a few days just to return to 1991-2020 means nationally, which means we are likely looking at one of the coolest first weeks of August in a long while. Probably would need an epic heat wave to keep pace with 2021 & 1936, at this point.

[TheClimateChanger]

Today's thread:

 

[LibertyBell]

10 hours ago, TheClimateChanger said:

In a stunning departure from the conditions of the summer to date, August has started off on a very cool note nationwide. The PRISM data below is only for the first two days of the month, but yesterday saw similarly impressive cold with a number of record low max temperatures in the south and a few isolated record lows in the eastern US. While I still expect August to finish out above normal for CONUS, this is going to make a new summer national record quite difficult. Will probably take a few days just to return to 1991-2020 means nationally, which means we are likely looking at one of the coolest first weeks of August in a long while. Probably would need an epic heat wave to keep pace with 2021 & 1936, at this point.

this is normal climo, when June 20 to the end of July is very hot, August tends to be less hot.

 

[ChescoWx]

I suspect many on this very forum are members of this "climate church" and if you fail to kneel at this "altar" you are a "denier" So great to see common sense and real science and true dialog coming back into the public debate!

[TheClimateChanger]

Evening notes:

 

[TheClimateChanger]

BTW, NCEI data release is set for tomorrow morning at 11 am. July should come in among the top ten hottest, IMO. Looks like a number of eastern states had should finish around or in top five hottest. I didn't see any record-breaking values, but I didn't check every state.  I think the June/July pairing will be somewhere in the top 8 or so... within striking distance of the record hot summers (JJA) of 1936 & 2021. August, however, has gotten off to a cool start nationally.

Given where I suspect we are at for June & July, August would need to be record or near record warm for a new record high summer (JJA) for the CONUS (the current record holders of 2021 & 1936 both had hot Augusts). With the first week coming in decidedly below the 1991-2020 mean, it looks unlikely at this point. While heat is building now and the next couple of weeks look generally hot, it would take a pretty big inferno to completely wipe out the first week AND propel us to near record heat for the month as a whole. Still, August should come in above (perhaps well above) normal when all is said and done, with a top 5 hot summer probable.

[TheClimateChanger]

A couple of thoughts for today:

 

[Typhoon Tip]

https://www.instagram.com/p/DNDngQCTCg4/?igsh=MTF4N3lpa2ozdDdxcw==

[TheClimateChanger]

 

[TheClimateChanger]

3 minutes ago, TheClimateChanger said:

 

Something to ponder that may go against the general narrative. Not only are the PRISM estimates routinely coming in higher, but nClimDiv continues to demonstrate a cooling bias relative to USCRN and it's really becoming rather significant in recent months. The July anomaly was +.21F higher for USCRN, which makes a big difference in the rankings when each hundredth of a degree matters.

 

[TheClimateChanger]

 

[ChescoWx]

From Dr. Wielicki on the Phoenix Sky Harbor UHI heat "record" When do we stop using airports for climate records?

• The 118 °F reading lasted no more than five minutes.
• It occurred at 3:40 pm, 3:50 pm, 3:55 pm, and 4:00 pm, smack in the afternoon departure rush.
• Winds blew west at 7–9 kts, gusting past 17 kts, steering engine exhaust directly onto the sensor, which sits just 80 m east of Runway 25.
• The moment departures thinned, the temperature slipped back to 117 °F, matching the previous mark.

"That single, exhaust-driven blip will now live forever in national climate datasets, nudging trendlines upward and gifting climate alarmists another talking point. This is not science, this is taxpayer-funded fraud that siphons wealth and freedom under a veneer of “records.”"

[donsutherland1]

2 hours ago, ChescoWx said:

From Dr. Wielicki on the Phoenix Sky Harbor UHI heat "record" When do we stop using airports for climate records?

• The 118 °F reading lasted no more than five minutes.
• It occurred at 3:40 pm, 3:50 pm, 3:55 pm, and 4:00 pm, smack in the afternoon departure rush.
• Winds blew west at 7–9 kts, gusting past 17 kts, steering engine exhaust directly onto the sensor, which sits just 80 m east of Runway 25.
• The moment departures thinned, the temperature slipped back to 117 °F, matching the previous mark.

"That single, exhaust-driven blip will now live forever in national climate datasets, nudging trendlines upward and gifting climate alarmists another talking point. This is not science, this is taxpayer-funded fraud that siphons wealth and freedom under a veneer of “records.”"

Maybe he shouldn't weigh in when he doesn't have the data. There were numerous stretches where Phoenix was at 118°, some of which were five or more minutes long, which precludes his "gust hypothesis." One example from the minute-by-minute readings:

Also, NWS Phoenix is one of the few sites with a backup sensor. If the numbers are off, the NWS looks into issue. 

Finally, from the NWS Phoenix Weather Area: El Centro (118°) missed its monthly mark by 1°; Blythe (120°) missed its monthly mark by 1°; East Mesa (117°) tied its monthly mark, Scottsdale (116°) broke its monthly mark by 1°, and Tacna NE (120°) missed its monthly mark by 1°. Some of these are small communities. Outside of the Phoenix area, Tucson (112°) tied its monthly record. 

[donsutherland1]

Apparently, it seems that there is a concerted effort underway to discredit Phoenix's monthly temperature record from yesterday.

Apparently, the individual is unaware that Phoenix's ASOS was commissioned, which means it meets federal siting requirements.  Therefore, there's no need to throw out its readings. Second, and more importantly, the heat was real as nearby data from East Mesa, Tempe ASU, Scottsdale, etc., show. That additional data reveals that Phoenix was not an isolated hot spot.  The individual's statement is unserious and ill-informed. 

[donsutherland1]

This essentially captures the X-based campaign to discredit Phoenix's August monthly high temperature record from August 7. It was a good test of GPT-5: