This month’s open thread on climate topics. Despite everything going on, please avoid generic political arguments – there are many other places on line for that. Impacts on climate science or actions from the layoffs in the US federal government are, however, very much on topic.
Reader Interactions
9 Responses to "Unforced Variations: Mar 2025"
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FYI, Trump appears to plan a lot more layoffs around March 13 — and not just probationary employees. Plan seems to be for a multiple RIFs.
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25545361/opm-omb-memo-guidance-on-agency-rif-and-reorganization-plans-requested-by-implementing-the-presidents-department-of-government-efficiency-workforce-optimization-initiative-2-26-2025.pdf
However, down in section VI (Exclusions) there are several groups that are NOT to be laid off. One of which is
“Commissioned Officer Corps of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration”
I wish I could summon a comment worthy of this moment in the history of the country I have my whole life loved and been grateful to be a citizen of.
To now watch the forces of callous shallow-minded indifference be unleashed by my Party in combination with anti-science dogma, to see these forces upend so damn many lives of dedicated public servants and their families in pursuit of satisfying the wishes of a profoundly ignorant felon breaks my heart.
The cowardice of silence by those in the House and Senate who know what is being done does not serve the best interests of the country’s citizens is equally hard to bear. I hope those of us who care will encourage everyone we know to call, write, speak out, and to both, ask the needed questions AND demand real answers from those in both Parties about what this means for public safety, economical impacts, and freedom of scientific thought both now and in the future.
It was NWS meteorologists who helped me as a young boy who was fascinated by weather and how forecasts were made. To take my first baby steps towards a better understanding of what I was reading and observing by learning how scientific “worked” for lack of a better word.. And that, I quickly discovered, in turn led to a better understanding of the world around me.
I want to say to all the regulars here, and as always, to our hosts that I have missed not being able to stop by here the last three months. Hopefully life will allow me more time again in the future.
In Re to Piotr, 28 Feb 2025 at 12:27 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/02/unforced-variations-feb-2025/comment-page-2/#comment-830747
Hallo Piotr,
Thank you very much that you went into details, I think I understand now what were you speaking about. Let me add a few explanatory comments from my side.
1) I do not think and have never assumed that Lague 2023 provides a mechanism for anthropogenic climate warming. I am happy that at least in this respect, we share a similar view.
2) The assumption that a more intensive latent heat flux from Earth surface must be accompanied by a commensurate increase in water vapour concentration in the atmosphere was not introduced in the discussion on Real Climate by me, but by Barton Paul Levenson, in his computations of the increased latent heat flux effect on global mean surface temperature from spring 2023. If you review old records of discussions from year 2023, you will find out that I doubted about this assumption from the very start.
I appreciate that Lague 2023 turned their attention to this open problem and designed first modelling experiments directed to clarifying it. I hope that further experiments using other, more sophisticated models will confirm their results and help establish a solid scientific consensus about this important relationship in Earth climate regulation.
3) Thank you for clarifying that you do not infer from available scientific evidence if (and if so how) climate sensitivity may or may not depend on water availability for evaporation from the surface. It thus appears that also in this aspect, we may in fact share the same view that the relationship between water availability for evaporation from land and climate sensitivity towards changes in atmospheric concentrations of non-condensing greenhouse gases is still an open problem.
4) I I think that even though your view that “WV change is dominated by T, and not by … water availability for evaporation from the land“ may be valid, this aspect may not be as decisive for the climate in its entirety as you appear to assume.
5) In the light of the hint provided by Lague 2023 (that Earth surface temperature may indeed depend not only on radiative power absorbed and emitted by the surface but also on water availability for evaporation), I think that what finally matters is not just “water vapour” but changes in the global mean surface temperature and/or in further important characteristics defining Earth climate, such as global annual precipitation and distribution of global mean surface precipitation between land and sea.
6) If the present climate models use fixed parameters for water availability for evaporation or assume that sensitivities of key climate characteristics towards a change in atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases do not depend on water availability for evaporation, although they in fact do, it could happen that such simplifications impair their ability to project future climates reliably.
7) I therefore believe that it may be indeed desirable to find out with a reasonable certainty if the magnitude of changes in decisive parameters characterizing global climate (such as global mean surface temperature, global annual precipitation and/or distribution of global annual precipitation between land and sea) which can be expected if atmospheric concentration of CO2 rises, indeed does not depend on water availability for evaporation from the land.
8) Oppositely, should the respective climate sensitivities in fact change when continents are drying or, oppositely, when they obtain more precipitation than they evaporate, learning more about the respective relationships and implementing the gained knowledge into climate models could help improving the quality and reliability of climate model projections significantly.
Greetings
Tomáš
P.S.
Sorry for my late reaction – when I tried to put my reply directly under your post, the February discussion was already closed.
@Tomas
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/02/unforced-variations-feb-2025/#comment-830765
A big “NO” to all of what you are suggesting.
1. I am not a follower of other people’s ideas, I love to think for myself.
2. That Zeller / Nikolov notion, as many have rightfully pointed out, is of course nonsense. I do not see how you could connect me to it..
3. My basic understanding of the GHE is consistent with the definition by the IPCC since AR5 (when they dropped “back radiation”), or Held & Soden 2000, or most people who are reasonably educated.
But there is a lot more stuff hidden in the details, well worth discussing. We touched a couple of examples here, like..
a) It is not just about what the GHE is, but also what it is not. Alternative, but wrong views, should be sorted out, like named “back radiation driven GHE”.
b) What is driving the (largely) adiabatic lapse rates of tropospheres?
c) Should we possibly distinguish between a gross and a net GHE, because of the considerations pointed out in my OP.
Things like that..
Fourteenth Amendment, Section 3:
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Twice a day for years, meteorologists in Kotzebue, Alaska, have launched weather balloons far into the sky to measure data like wind speed, humidity and temperature, and translated the information the balloons sent back into weather forecasts and models. It’s a ritual repeated at dozens of weather stations around the United States.
On Thursday morning, the National Weather Service, which for years has struggled with worker shortages around the country, announced that it had “indefinitely suspended” the launches from Kotzebue because of a lack of staffing.
Hours later, word of mass layoffs began to spread at the Weather Service and its parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. More than 800 people were expected to lose their jobs, the latest cuts in the Trump administration’s sweeping efforts to reshape the federal work force. As they have elsewhere, the cuts appeared to have been focused on probationary employees who are easier to dismiss.
Scott Nudds: “As they have elsewhere, the cuts appeared to have been focused on probationary employees who are easier to dismiss.
So much for Trumps and Musks assurances that they do so to weed out the “Deep State”, “corruption” and “inefficiencies” – since the people they fired had been just hired – they couldn’t have been responsible for any of these even, if they real.
That Trump’s favorite group (“I love the poorly educated”) won’t pick up on that is understandable, but what the rest of the Republican voters? Some of them must be in post-modernists – for them there is no objective truth, only conflicting self-serving narratives – so it is OK when Trump lies every day to our face – as long as he keeps me and my bros in power.
But then there are (or at least have been) people who should see this – so if you a Congressman and you support Trump’s actions knowing that they are against your values, and you do so for privilege and power – then the cognitive dissonance kicks in – we don’t want to think of ourselves as bad, so we find rationalization of the evil we do to other people – so instead of the uncomfortable admission to yourself that you have sold out your values and your soul – sure these are obvious lies and injustices, but “hey, you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs”.
And once you tolerated smaller lies that didn’t require the immediate surrender of your values, then faced with new, bigger and more outrageous lies – to reject them you would also have to admit the moral complicity in all the previous lies. So it’s easier to just rationalize them and continue.
Finally – the continuous barrage and escalation of lies and injustices , not only helps to overwhelm the media and opposition (a strategy advocated by Steve Bannon during the first Trump’s term), but also to keep down the opposition:
In totalitarian countries they would tell you the most outrageous lies, not to convince you but to break you – you know that they lie, but you can’t do anything about it. So either you join them, or I disengage – either via actual or “internal” emigration – you’d concentrate on your family and friends and stay away from politics. I.e. what the doctor (Goebbels) prescribed. And once enough people disengaged – the job of rounding with the remaining few who didn’t – became that much easier.
BTW. If you meet a Trump supporter, particularly if a person of faith – ask them is there anything Trump could do, to lose their support. Other than restoring Roe vs. Wade, of course.
Marching orders for March UV: “Impacts on climate science or actions from the layoffs in the US federal government are, however, very much on topic.”
Two leaders in the Democrat party have advice for those who lose their jobs due to layoffs, etc. Their advice was good enough for those working in fossil fuel jobs – and is applicable to those who were employed by the US federal government as well.
Hillary says get a green job – fact is that there is probably quite a bit of demand for that – for example, many people are installing PV panels on roofs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksIXqxpQNt0
Biden says just about anybody can learn to code – there’s probably some demand for that as well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDRK0MyuuIM
Simon Clark has a video about climate progress.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1jOqyjcO4g
An entertaining, colorful and informative look at the world as it was, as it is, and as it could be.