Why Climate Changes

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“What gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know.

It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.”

Mark Twain

Most climate scientists “know for sure” that observed increases in greenhouse-gas emissions are the primary cause of observed global warming. They are so convinced that they refuse to even consider the possibility that there could be the slightest error with greenhouse-warming theory. They summarily dismiss any questioning of greenhouse-warming theory as spam.

Click here to read a 3000-word summary of direct observations of radiation in the world around us explaining why Earth’s atmosphere is clearly warmed daily by conduction and by dissociation but not by greenhouse gases.

Meanwhile, a scientific revolution in the physics of heat shows unequivocally that greenhouse-warming theory is not only mistaken, it is physically impossible. It “just ain’t so.” This stark dichotomy frames the 2019 Crisis in Climate Science at a time when climate scientists are saying we must make important, difficult, and expensive decisions to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, world leaders, convinced by a very broad consensus among climate scientists, are planning to spend tens of trillions of dollars under the 2015 Paris Agreement to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions—something we now understand will be a monumental waste of money because it will have no significant effect lowering global temperatures now or in the future.

Greenhouse-warming theory is rapidly becoming the most expensive mistake ever made in the history of science, economically, politically, and environmentally.

Science is not done by popular vote. Science is not done by consensus. As Michael Crichton, MD and author, put it:

“The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.”

We need to bring genuine scientific debate back to climate science before we waste trillions of dollars. We need to triage this crisis in climate science right now. Time is of the essence. The longer we delay, the greater the ultimate cost of this major mistake will become.

This website is the result of more than thirteen years of careful, detailed, full-time work re-examining the evidence throughout Earth history for climate change, re-examining the physics of global warming for the first time since 1900, and systematically re-examining all the assumptions that form the foundation of greenhouse-warming theory. I started simply trying to understand how the major warming at the end of the last ice age was precisely contemporaneous with the greatest volcanism recorded in Greenland ice. Large explosive volcanoes are well observed throughout history to cause global cooling for a few years. How could volcanoes also cause warming? As I worked my way through more than 2,000 scientific papers and shelves of books, clear scientific evidence led me to these most unexpected conclusions.

Primary Conclusions Documented On This Website

The globe has warmed, on average, approximately one degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) since 1970. Greenhouse-warming theory, however, turns out to be physically impossible. Heat cannot and does not physically flow in the ways assumed. Contrary to widespread belief, greenhouse gases cannot and do not affect global temperatures significantly. Major warming in future decades predicted by climate models based on greenhouse-warming theory cannot and will not happen. We can burn fossil fuels safely provided we aggressively minimize pollution. Currently, 91% of world population lives in places where air quality is worse than safe guidelines issued by the World Health Organization There is now no scientific basis for the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit global warming by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. There is now no scientific basis for the EPA’s 2009 Endangerment Finding that greenhouse gases are air pollutants. Observed warming, throughout Earth history, is explained clearly and in detail by depletion of the ozone layer, allowing more than usual, extra-hot, ultraviolet-B, solar radiation to reach Earth’s surface. Warming is greatest in polar regions at the locations and times when ozone depletion is greatest. Warming from 1975 to 1998 was caused by ozone depletion due to manufacture of CFC gases . Warming stopped increasing in 1998 because the Montreal Protocol drastically limited production of these CFC gases. Had it not been for the Montreal Protocol , average global temperatures would currently be warmer by at least one-half degree Celsius, 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit. Three-times more rapid warming from 2014 to 2016 was caused by ozone depletion due to chlorine and bromine gases emitted by the most voluminous basaltic lava flows to form since 1783. These flows, from Bárðarbunga volcano in central Iceland, covered 85 square kilometers, 33 square miles, of land within six months beginning on August 29, 2014. Major periods of rapid warming throughout Earth history are contemporaneous with major basaltic lava flows covering areas of hundreds to millions of square kilometers. The larger the flows, the greater the warming. Major explosive volcanic eruptions eject water vapor and sulfur dioxide into the lower stratosphere where they form aerosols or mists that reflect and scatter sunlight. Each major eruption causes cooling of approximately one-half degree Celsius, 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit, for two to four years. This short-term global cooling lowers ocean temperatures for up to a century. This is why several major explosive eruptions per century, continuing over tens of thousands of years, are observed to cool Earth incrementally down into ice-age conditions. Throughout much of Earth history, climate warms suddenly within years and cools over millennia in highly erratic sequences that average only a few thousand years in duration. Global climate throughout Earth history is determined by a delicate balance between the number of major explosive volcanic events per century typically occurring above subduction zones, such as those observed around the Pacific Ocean, and the extent of major effusive, basaltic lava flows typically occurring in continental rift zones such as Iceland and East Africa.

A Most Unexpected Revolution in the Physics of Heat

This revolution in our thinking about greenhouse gases and global warming is the result of a revolution in our thinking about the physics of heat explained in this video (13:35 minutes).

Where To Get More Information

THE BEST PLACE TO START: Click here to access sixteen short videos explaining the 2019 Crisis in Climate Science and why greenhouse-warming theory is rapidly becoming the most expensive mistake ever made in the history of science.

An Introduction to this website (2:39 minutes)

About Dr. Peter Langdon Ward, geophysicist and author of this website

Why it is physically impossible for greenhouse gases to cause observed global warming.

A brief overview of the key science

Scientific details of the science of ozone depletion, greenhouse gases, and climate change

Talks by Dr. Peter L. Ward about climate

Briefing Sheet: Greenhouse-warming theory is rapidly becoming the most expensive mistake ever made in the history of science [PDF]

Scientific Paper: The Photochemistry of Gas Molecules in Earth’s Atmosphere Determines the Structure of the Atmosphere and the Average Temperature at Earth’s Surface [PDF]

Scientific Paper: Heat Does Not Physically Flow in The Ways Assumed by Greenhouse-Warming Theory [PDF]

Scientific Paper: A Most Inconvenient Reality: Greenhouse Gases Cannot Explain Observed Global Warming [PDF]

Scientific Paper: Ozone Depletion Explains Global Warming [PDF]

Scientific Paper: On the Planck-Einstein Relation [PDF]

Summary of a new book: What Really Causes Global Warming? Greenhouse Gases or Ozone Depletion [PDF]

Science Is Never Settled

Since 1988, thousands of scientists have worked very hard, through the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), to demonstrate broad consensus on the greenhouse warming theory of climate change in order to convince world leaders to spend the major amounts of money required to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. This strategy was successful with the Paris Agreement of 12 December 2015.

Some even say “The science is settled. Let’s get on with the solution.”

Consensus, however, is the stuff of politics, while debate is the stuff of science. This drive for consensus ended up derailing the scientific method. When scientists discovered potentially problematic data, they became more likely to try to rationalize the discrepancy, rather than to question the theory.

Become informed. Help put the debate back into climate science. Science is never “settled.” We still have a lot to learn.