NOAA, Is This Really Necessary???

Sheesh.

Via: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/climate-at-a-glance/global/time-series/globe/tavg/land_ocean/1/0/1850-2025

Musk Popularity

At least Elon Musk's popularity (in the US) is tanking. Or at least declining:

 

Imagine the richest person in the world getting to decide who gets to work in the federal government and how many benefits Americans receive. It sounds like something from a bad Ayn Rand novel. (As if all of them weren't bad.)

Fortunately Tesla sales in Europe are tanking even more. Here's even more bad news. Even cabinet members in the Trump regime are getting sick of him: 

Gizmodo: "Elon Musk Is Annoying, Unfunny, and Should Probably Take a Drug Test, Trump Officials Reportedly Say: A senior official describes the billionaire as an awkward and obnoxious asshole."

I mean, Musk's idea of being funny (or something) is throw up Nazi salutes. He should be drummed out of any public life for that alone. Somehow that no longer happens in today's America. I can't come close to explaining it.

from "The Dispossessed"

“Suffering is a misunderstanding,” Shevek said, leaning forward, his eyes wide and light. He was still lanky, with big hands, protruding ears, and angular joints, but in the perfect health and strength of eariy manhood he was very beautiful. His dun-colored hair, like the others', was fine and straight, worn at its full length and kept off the forehead with a band. Only one of them wore her hair differently, a girl with high cheekbones and a flat nose; she had cut her dark hair to a shiny cap all round. She was watching Shevek with a steady, serious gaze. Her lips were greasy from eating fried cakes, and there was a crumb on her chin.

“It exists,” Shevek said, spreading out his hands. “It's real. I can call it a misunderstanding, but I can't pretend that it doesn't exist, or will ever cease to exist. Suffering is the condition on which we live. And when it comes, you know it You know it as the truth. Of course it's right to cure diseases, to prevent hunger and injustice, as the social organism does. But no society can change the nature of existence. We can't prevent suffering. This pain and that pain, yes, but not Pain. A society can only relieve social suffering, unnecessary suffering. The rest remains. The root, the reality. All of us here are going to know grief; if we live fifty years, we'll have known pain for fifty years. And in the end we'll die. That's the condition we're born on. I'm afraid of life! There are times I — I am very frightened. Any happiness seems trivial. And yet, I wonder if it isn't all a misunderstanding — this grasping after happiness, this fear of pain . . . .  If instead of fearing it and running from it, one could . . . get through it, go beyond it. There is something beyond it. It's the self that suffers, and there's a place where the self — ceases. I don’t know how to say it. But I believe that the reality — the truth that I recognize in suffering as I don't in comfort and happiness — that the reality of pain is not pain. If you can get through it. If you can endure it all the way.'"

“'The reality of our life is in love, in solidarity,' said a tall, soft-eyed girl. 'Love is the true condition of human life.'

“Bedap shook his head. ‘No. Shev's right,’ he said. ‘Love's just one of the ways through, and it can go wrong, and miss. Pain never misses. But therefore we don't have much choice about enduring it! We will whether we want to or not.”

-- The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin

"Henry Fonda for President"

Movie trailer, from an Australian director who posits that actor Henry Fonda was the embodiment of America itself. 

"Caged and fighting the bars but timid of the light."

 

Myanmar Earthquake Waves Traveling Through Europe

Very cool:

Sick Goal

Pardon me, I try to avoid blogging about hockey, but this is an amazing goal by Brian Rust of the [my] Pittsburgh Penguins.

 

Notice how Sidney Crosby--number 87 and one of the best hockey players in the visible universe--first whacks down a pass to him that was above the ice, controls the puck, then passes the puck while lifting it over the stick/blade of the guy defending him. Then Rust (#17) stretches and hits the puck after a bounce over the goalie. I've never seen a goal like this.

 
The Penguins, legendary in the '00s and '10s, have really lost it and are now ranked #28 in the league (of 32 teams). They will miss the playoffs for the third straight year. But it's worth watching because every game Crosby does something you've never seen before.

Last game Crosby set a record of 20 seasons scoring one point a game or better. (A point is a goal or an assist.) He beat out Wayne Gretzky, who had 19. Incredible consistency, since he joined the league at 18 years old. In fact, he's never had an NHL season where he's scored less than one point per game.

New Record Low for Arctic Sea Ice

The NSIDC says that Arctic sea ice just set a record for the lowest annual maximum. This is from their press release. I've abbreviated some of the units, which they choose to write out in their long-form, and made everything metric (because around here we don't dabble in the black arts):

On March 22, Arctic sea ice likely reached its maximum extent for the year, at 14.33 Mkm²..., the lowest in the 47-year satellite record. This year’s maximum extent is 1.31 Mkm²...below the 1981 to 2010 average maximum of 15.64 Mkm²...and 80,000 km²...below the previous lowest maximum that occurred on March 7, 2017.

But this is meaningless in the US now, because climate change doesn't officially exist. (They know it does, but practice fake denialism.) Trump recently said he thinks science don't know what's causing climate change.... NSIDC gets plenty of US federal government funding, so perhaps they won't exist for next year's annual maximum (not kidding), and maybe even the satellites will be turned off (also not kidding). After all, that's money that should properly be going to (more) tax cuts for billionaires (still not kidding). You don't know what you can't measure, and President Krasnov clearly doesn't want us to know.

Great Image of Venus

from "The COSPAR planetary protection requirements for space missions to Venus," María Paz Zorzano et al, Life Sciences in Space Research, Volume 37, May 2023, Pages 18-24.

note: orange represents a data gap. 

Is Ocean Heat Content Really Accelerating?

An article in the NY Times (free link) reports on a World Meteorological Organization report that says the 10 warmest years in the surface temperature records are the last 10 years. That's very bad. 

One sentence in the article especially caught my eye. 

This warmth is especially apparent in the oceans, where key indicators of climate change are now accelerating.

They don't say which indicators, but I assume ocean heat content (OHC) is a prominent one. 

I used to think, based on the data, that it was indeed accelerating. But from my amateurish calculations, it looks like the OHC in the 0-2000 meter range (top half) has stopped accelerating. It had a peak in the first quarter of last year, and the last three readings are below that. OK, ENSOs and whatnot. A very recent peak isn't important or interesting.

Here are the data:

The leading coefficient of the second-degree polynomial is now 0.037 ZJ/yr² (ZJ=zetajoules=10²¹ joules). But it has a 2-sigma uncertainty of 0.044 ZJ/yr², calculated by the standard linear regression (with no autocorrelation, which would only make the error bars higher (I think)).

The 0-2000 m acceleration is twice this coefficient, and in more typical units is 0.0046 ± 0.0055 (W/m²)/yr. So it's not statistically significant at the 2-sigma level.  

The 0-700 m acceleration is statistically significant at 0.0088 ± 0.0004 (W/m²)/yr.

I don't have data on the lower half of the ocean. I don't even know if it exists, though I have seen a few papers years ago that it's warming, though at a much slower rate. (Now I can't find them.)

Don't know if this means anything--the ocean heat is still increasing strongly, of course. I could calculate that, but I'm not going to right now because I'm tired. Maybe tomorrow. Likely the recent OHCs are messed up wonky because of the big El Nino than the small La Nina. 

Just wanted to put up my the little calculations, to justify the time it took to build the spreadsheet. (Really, I just like making spreadsheets & keeping track of the basic climate data).

Cheers.

How Tariffs Work

Early Blogger Kevin Drum Has Died

The blogger Kevin Drum has died. He was one of the first bloggers I ever read regularly, way back in the early-to-mid aughts. The NY Times has an obituary (free link), and there was a last post on his latest blog.

La Niña is Done

Source: Tropicaltidbits.com

Back in Charge

Roy Spencer's Comical, Sad, Desperate Arguments

Roy Spencer continues to make some very sad, desperate arguments in the name of climate denial. Arguments are that beneath him as a professional scientist. Arguments that show why he has no respect at all in the climate science community. 

In a recent post he wrote:

"The regulation of CO2 emissions (and some other chemicals) by the EPA has also mystified me. However many of the EPA’s ~185 lawyers worked on the 2009 Endangerment Finding, they must have known that regulating CO2 emissions from U.S. cars and light-duty trucks would have no measurable impact on global climate, including sea level rise (which was a major argument in Massachusetts v. EPA).

None."

Of course, by this argument no one should do ever do anything about CO2 emissions because, individually, all regulations are "too small" to solve the global problem.

But the sum over many small quantities can certainly be a big quantity.  

It's an intentionally deceitful argument that convinces no one except the hare-brained commenters on his site. And Roy knows enough to know this. Sad. It's a dumb argument and I'm wondering why he made it. This is exactly why people don't trust Roy or his "science."

He also wrote:

"Their reason for existence is to regulate pollutants (and it doesn’t matter if Nature produces far more of a “pollutant” than people produce)."

Another extremely, obviously vapid argument. Yes, Nature emits more CO2 than do humans. But Nature absorbs that amount of CO2 and even more, which is why only half (about) of anthropogenic emissions reside in the atmosphere.

 
Roy certainly knows this. So why pretend otherwise, to make such scientifically trashy arguments? Does he ever wonder why no real scientists take him seriously, and haven't for...decades? 

Maybe he give up on being a valuable scientist long ago, and is only looking for money for his opinions from conservative, denier think tanks in DC?

 
It's very sad to see a senior scientist making such shitty arguments, thinking they do any good whatsoever. They only ruin whatever respectability he had, which was very low to begin with. 

How You Like Them Odds

Musk said he believed A.I. would be smarter than any individual human in the next year or two, and predicted that A.I. would be smarter than all humans combined by 2029 or 2030. He said he thought there was an 80 percent chance that A.I. would have a “good outcome,” and that there was a 20 percent chance of “annihilation.”

- Elon Musk, interview with Joe Rogan, covered by the New York Times March 3, 2025. (free link)

Mass Firings at NOAA

If no one is researching climate, climate change doesn't exist.

Notifications of mass firings of NOAA employees were sent out Thursday afternoon, to mostly "probationary employees," recent new hires. 800 firings out of 13,000 employees (6%). New York Times (free link):

As is the case at other agencies, the Trump administration appears to be firing probationary employees at NOAA not because their work is necessarily less valuable than that of other staff members, but because they’re easier to dismiss.

More cuts are coming. This isn't about cutting the federal budget deficit or debt as federal employee salaries and benefits are only 3% of the federal budget. It gets even more ridiculous:

The General Services Administration, which manages government facilities, has begun canceling some of the contracts for buildings that NOAA uses, according to a person familiar with the matter. The agency has frozen credit cards used to pay for travel and sharply restricted the amount of money employees are able to put on those cards for other purchases.

The cuts are purely political:

NOAA has been singled out for especially deep cuts by members of the Trump administration. Project 2025, the policy blueprint published by the Heritage Foundation that is reflected in many of the actions taken by the Trump administration so far, calls the agency “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry.” The document urges that NOAA be dismantled and some of its programs be terminated.

Every billion saved is another billion for billionaires.... I can't tell if Trump is trying to destroy America or if he thinks he's saving it (and for whom). He's not much of a thinker, but the people around him know what they're doing. Disgusting.

Climate News Lately, Mostly Bad

== Oops, published this to soon. Deleted the text and will try again. == 

RESIST

By Portuguese editorial cartoonist Zez Vaz. Very clever.

 

2% Chance of Catastrophe in 2032

The asteroid 2024 YR4 -- which is different than Apophis -- has a 2% chance of impacting Earth on Dec 12, 2032. Those odds are up from the previous 1.3%. That seems large, but they say the odds will almost surely shrink as its orbital parameters are better specified. Besides it's only 40-90 m in diameter, enough to screw up your day, week and maybe month, but probably not much longer than that, unless you're underneath it or within X km. (X ~ 250 km, I'm guessing, based on nothing.)

 

I learned recently that on April 13, 2029 Apophis will swing by beneath Earth's communication satellites (which I think are at GEO, 35,786 km in altitude). It will be visible with the naked eye for some hours. When it was discovered in 2004 there was some concern it would impact Earth the next time it came around, on Easter 2036. But in 2021 that was ruled out.

The Los Angeles Fires

I haven't written anything about the fires in Los Angeles, particularly with respect to climate change, because, well, the causes and problems of the fires are highly complex and not due to any one thing. It's clear that the fires were not caused/exacerbated by (a) the mayor being abroad, (b) the state's desire to protect smelt, a fish, (c) water and reservoir shortages. The nearby reservoirs have ample water. What I've read says that there was a water shortage in places like Pacific Palisades because there was massive demand that ran the water system there dry. Not surprising when fighting a major wildfire in major suburbs. (d) it's not due to cuts in any fire department budgets, which were on the order of $20 million out of about $900 million. 2%. Fire departments don't live and die on such budget changes. They don't suddenly collapse because women have some very high positions in the department, or because of DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) programs. The right-wing in this country, who can no longer be called "conservatives," now uses trolling as a significant political weapon, without regard for the truth, and it's really ruining the country. Trump is, needless to say, useless, calling the California governor juvenile names and expressing little-to-no interest in what's happening to people and their homes. And so on. A large group in this country is far more interested in assigning blame than in understanding and empathizing with those who lost their homes and possessions and everything. It's almost unbelievable the things "they" say.

The latest number of deaths I've seen is 24. The fires are still raging. Sometimes it looks like all of Los Angeles is going to burn down completely. As of this morning the Palisades fire was only 17% contained. Police are arresting drone pilots. It's now possible (!!!) to place bets on Polymarket on parameters of the fires--how many acres will the Palisades fire burn in total, when will the Palisades fire be contained, etc. There is something really sick about that. Only in America (I suppose. I hope.).

As for how climate change is affecting the fires, I trust this blog post by Andrew Dessler on The Climate Brink. The whole thing is worth reading. Here's part:

Climate change does not “cause” extreme events, but it can amplify them. In fact, it is certain that climate change affects every weather event by altering the baseline conditions in which they occur.

Thus, the real scientific question is not whether climate change influenced the fire — of course it did. Rather, the real question is quantifying the impact: how much did climate change increase this specific event’s intensity or likelihood? We don’t know the answer yet, but I’m sure scientists are already working on it.

The entire post is well worth reading.

Meanwhile, the true heroes are those fighting the fire on the ground and in airplanes and helicopters, especially when put to rebellious music. Wish I had a job that made a difference in people's lives.

https://youtube.com/shorts/jSNy8nYg8yw

Sorry, not embeddable. 

There is more than I expected I had to say about the fires. Comments welcome.

The Execrable Patrick Moore

Perhaps you remember this vomitous piece of feculence.

 
In an article published two days ago by the Western Standard (whoever they are) titled "Guilbeault, CTV publish fake news about 2024 'hottest year ever' as LA burns," they quote Patrick Moore:

According to Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore, supported by multiple data sets, the overall trend in Earth's temperature is actually decreasing — debunking a claim by CTV, posted to social media by federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault — that 2024 was the "hottest year ever."

"Here is the record of global temperatures going back 5 million years, as the Earth sank into the Pleistocene Ice Age which began 2.6 million years ago," said Moore in a statement.

"Note that it is still getting colder over the long term."

That's what this hypocrite denier has been reduced to: a deceiver by any means possible, a clown, a fool, a mummer. The worst of the worst. 

Remember, in a 2006 op-ed in the Washington Post, Moore warned of "catastrophic climate change." Somebody different was paying him then. It's warmed 0.6°C since then. 1/10th of an ice age.

Dirac on Oppenheimer's Poetry

Paul Dirac's comment on Robert Oppenheimer's interest in poetry:

"The aim of science is to make difficult things understandable in a simpler way; the aim of poetry is to state simple things in an incomprehensible way. The two are incompatible."

P.A.M Dirac developed an equation that made quantum mechanics compatible with special relativity (at least for spin ½ particles like the electron).

While a superlative physicist, Dirac was a bit of an oddball; more stories here.

Dolphin Stampede

Here's a "dolphin stampede" off the coast of Dana Point in Southern California, posted two weeks ago on YouTube.

 
I don't know what it is about dolphins, but they seem to exude the very idea of freedom. Also here.

    

Rankings of 2024 Climate Variables

I had higher ambitions, but this started to become tedious. As always, click the image for a clearer view.

Is Global Warming Speeding Up?

From Nature magazine. (Might be paywalled, I get free access so I'm not sure what permissions are set for me.)

"Earth shattered heat records in 2023 and 2024, with temperatures rising further than expected on the basis of previous trends and modelling. A mysterious reduction in cloud cover, combined with an El Niño weather pattern, could be responsible for temperature increases in 2023. However, scientists expected temperatures would decrease again in June 2024 when the El Niño subsided, which didn’t happen. Now they are racing to work out whether this sudden spike is just a blip in the climate data, or an early indicator that the planet is heating up at a faster pace than they thought.

"...Some scientists argue that the spike can be mostly explained by two factors. One is the El Niño event that began in mid-2023 — a natural weather pattern in which warm water pools in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, often leading to hotter temperatures and more-turbulent weather. The other is a reduction over the past few years in air pollution, which can cool the planet by reflecting sunlight back into space and seeding low-lying clouds. Yet neither explanation fully accounts for the temperature surge, other researchers say.

"Clouds clearly played a part, according to a study published in Science in December, just before the AGU meeting1. A research team identified a reduction in low-lying cloud cover across parts of the Northern Hemisphere and the tropics that, combined with El Niño, was large enough to explain the temperature spike in 2023. But the cause of this decrease — and whether it can be chalked up to normal climate variations — remains a mystery, the authors say. Decreased air pollution alone doesn’t seem to explain it. They suggest that global warming itself could be causing some reduction in cloud coverage, creating a feedback loop that could accelerate the rate of climate change for decades to come.

"'I would be very careful about saying this is clear evidence [of acceleration], but there might be something going on,' says co-author Helge Goessling, a climate physicist at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, Germany.

"Another reason is that last year was also much warmer than expected. Scientists projected that early 2024 would be hot owing to El Niño. But they also anticipated that temperatures would fall after the weather pattern subsided and conditions in the equatorial Pacific returned to normal last June.

"'That didn’t happen,' says Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at Berkeley Earth, a non-profit organization in California that tracks global temperatures. Instead, global temperatures remained elevated, shattering more records and probably making last year the warmest on record by a sizeable margin. “All of us who made projections at the start of the year underestimated just how warm 2024 would be.'"There's more, including about a possible decrease in shipping aerosol emissions."

2025 will be interesting. But then all years are interesting now.

 

The Trump Dystopia Begins

Note added: Oh, yeah--Trump says he want to ban all construction of new wind turbines, because they're "ugly" and something about whales.

Temperatures vs ENSO Category

 Here's NOAA's 12-month average temperature as a function of the ENSO category of that season:

El Nino seasons keep getting hotter, La Nina seasons keep getting hotter, and neutral seasons keep getting hotter.

The trends for each category, since 1950-1951, are almost equal:

El Ninos:  +0.15°C/decade

La Ninas:  +0.17°C/decade

neutral:     +0.16°C/decade

Data sources:

NOAA monthly temperature anomalies
ONI (Oceanic Nino Index)

Messi's Florida Residence is in Danger from Land Subsidence

Land subsidence in Florida has been in the news lately, as a study from the University of Miami came out last month. From El Futbolero:

The southern coast of Florida, a paradise of sunny beaches and imposing skyscrapers, hides a secret that worries engineers and geologists: subsidence. This phenomenon, a slow but constant sinking of the land, is affecting numerous buildings along the coast, from Miami Beach to Sunny Isles Beach. A recent study by the University of Miami has revealed that at least 35 buildings are experiencing this gradual settling, raising questions about the long-term safety of these structures and, in particular about the well-being of their most famous residents.

"Drama": Lionel Messi's Florida residence may be in danger!

Among the celebrities who reside in these buildings is Lionel Messi, the star of Argentinian football, along with his family. The news that his home could be affected by subsidence has generated a wave of concern among his fans and the community in general. The idea that such a beloved figure could be living in a building with structural problems raises serious questions about the safety measures and construction control in the area.

I guess if worry about Messi's building gets the message across a little bit better, that's a good thing. 

The concern for the Messi family and the rest of the residents affected by subsidence should serve as a catalyst for action. It is crucial that concrete measures are taken to protect people and preserve the future of the Miami coast. The safety and well-being of everyone must be the top priority.

Here is Messi's residence in Florida; he bought it 2023 for $10.75 M. (Note: that's about when he started playing for a Florida team in the US Major Soccer League, where all global superstars are put out to pasture.)

 

PS: I have nothing against Messi. Just the excessive concern about someone who can surely get his house directly studied and retooled if he and his family need it.

Where Are The....

Seems Musk is mostly a narcissistic drug addict.

Maybe he thinks he's doing his part by impregnating any woman who will put up with him (put up with his billions).

Stuff I've Read or Heard (in some cases, both)

Last month was the lowest Arctic sea ice extent (among Decembers) in the record. [it's an Excel file]

For the year, Arctic SIE ranked at 7th lowest, according to the NOAA data. Antarctica SIE ranked as 2nd lowest, above only last year (but 5.5% above).

Two-thirds of the world’s food comes today from just nine plants: sugar cane, maize (corn), rice, wheat, potatoes, soybeans, oil-palm fruit, sugar beet, and cassava. (Atlas Obscura)

Finland has more saunas than cars. (Between the Benches, YouTube 8:50)

Never knew this: the Mediterranean Sea was dry when the Strait of Gibraltar closed off 6 million years ago due to tectonic activity. It stayed dry for about 500,000 years until the Strait opened back up again.

Today I heard on a podcast that the EU allows 300 additives to its foods, while the US allows 10,000.

On this same podcast the name Nicholas Scarfetta Scafetta came up, the well-known climate denier (by every means possible). It was about a paper he wrote, I don't know when, showing that, while the income distribution by percentile follows a power law (something like this), it's apparently not true at the lowest percentiles. I think. I haven't found the paper yet. But the economist who mentioned it seemed to think it was good and important work. (It may have been a physics-like paper using a model of people, somehow like Brownian motion or an Ising model, I'm still not sure, but want to look it up.

How cats say Happy New Year:

https://www.facebook.com/reel/2241518019552267

"They haven't started, and we're almost done."