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How Feedbacks Amplify Global Warming

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In a previous post (see that post for the cited literature), I calculated ECS from data provided in the Indicators of Global Climate Change for 2025 (IGCC25). I made 4 calculations using ΔT from two different baselines (1850-1900 and 1790-1839) and two different means for current temperature (the last 4 years and the last 12 years). I’d like to share again the calculations using a 1850-1900 baseline so I can illustrate how feedbacks amplify a warming signal. Here are the calculations in table form: Where ΔFt is total forcings since 1850 and ΔFc is the forcing for doubling CO2. Using these values and the Energy Balance Equation and averaging the two results, we come up with an ECS of 3.4°C. Notice here that to calculate ECS we didn’t have to quantify any feedbacks. We do know that there must be positive feedbacks because Planck sensitivity (Sp) is only about 1.2°C, and we’ve already seen that much warming with just over a 50% increase in CO₂. But the Planck Feedback (λp) is important ...
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July 2026 Sets a CONUS Record for the Warmest Month

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A lot is being said about the fact that July 2026 eclipsed July 1936 as the warmest month on record for CONUS temperatures. Objections from contrarians are voluminous, but a post on X from Chris Martz seems to capture the gist of the objections I'm hearing. According to him, "That claim is misleading for two reasons:   This is due to minimum temperatures only, which skew the 'average.'   The real, measured thermometer data (area-weighted) don’t support this claim." Each of these objections are seriously uninformed and misleading, and it won't be hard to demonstrate why. After rebutting Martz's claims, though, I'll point out some ways that this record could be reported in misleading ways, and what I think might do a better job of showing what's happening in the US. Objection #1: The Record is Due to Minimum Temperatures Only This is objectively false. The record is for average temperature (Tavg), not minimum temperature (Tmin), and it should be pa...
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CO2 Coalition's Most Recent Political Tract from Happer and Lindzen

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A few years ago, I responded to a political " comment " from the CO2 Coalition in which Happer, Lindzen (and potentially ghost writers) made a series of self-contradictory claims about climate sensitivity. Recently I became aware of another political tract in which they simplified their argument tremendously. They've also hidden almost all their math, making it more difficult to check up on what they say. However, there is plenty we can say about this that shows that they are still actively changing their opinions, and this always in the direction of distancing themselves from the best scientific evidence. Much of this tract depends on the following graph: The graph above is supposed to agree with another chart in the tract, and it mostly does, except that ΔT14 = 0.054°C above but is wrongly rounded up to 0.06°C. In the description of these calculations, this tract asks, " How much warming did CO2 cause when CO2 increased from 280 ppm in 1750 to the 420 ppm in the ...
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Lucy Biggers' Speed Round on Climate

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Lucy Biggers appears to be the next up-and-coming influencer in the climate space. She presents herself as a former a climate activist suffered from extreme anxiety over climate, and so she advocated for policies and viewed other activists like Greta Thunberg as her hero. However, she says she was uninformed about the scientific evidence supporting her "doomer" anxiety. Then she read a couple books by Shellenberger and Koonin that caused her to stop being a climate activist, and now she is employed by the Free Press to share her newly found liberation from doomerism with the world. In reality she never stopped being a climate activist; she just changed her politics. Her appeal to her viewers appears to be that she (unlike many of her thought leaders) usually doesn't pretend to be an expert in science or policy. Instead, her approach appears to be that since she converted from doomerism to contrarianism, she has cured herself of her anxiety .[5] She was once filled with cl...
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Tony Heller's Dishonest Graphs

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In the past I've shared how Tony Heller lies about bias correction procedures applied to CONUS temperatures and as well as by using simple averages of station data with no gridding, meaning that he fails to accounting for station moves and closures. I've also been shown these graphs from him below (located on his blog here ) that he uses to support both of these lies. This graph is intended to show that scientists are conspiring to fabricate global warming through bias correction. In his words, "the data is being tampered with precisely to match the increase in atmospheric CO2." To make his case, Heller shows difference of USHCN final - USHCN raw "temperatures" (it's actually not temperature; see below) plotted with CO2 concentrations. Since the plot shows a roughly linear increase with CO2 concentration, Heller suggests this is evidence that scientists are just engaging in criminal fraud by manipulating USHCN final temperatures to fabricate a warming tr...
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Clintel's World Climate Declaration

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In recent years, contrarians have been promoting Clintel's World Climate Declaration over the Oregon Petition , even though it's comparatively small. The declaration is admittedly globally-focused, but it has only 2072 signatures as I'm writing this. A pdf with all the signatories is here .  Like the Oregon Petition, to qualify to sign, you don't have to have any knowledge about or expertise in climate science. In fact, you don't even have to have a BS degree. You only have to claim to be either a "scientist" or "professional." To its credit, though, this declaration at least tell you the qualifications that the signatories claim to have. Here's a sampling: Bart Vos - Msc Petroleum Engineering, Lifetime of Experience in the Geo-energy Industry Christopher J.S. Game - Retired Neurophysiologist Chris Martz - Meteorologist and policy analyst for the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), SIGNATORY 2000 OF THE DECLARATION ( correction : ...
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