THE QUICK CHECK.
WEATHER or CLIMATE CHANGE?
California has had multi-year droughts for centuries. Glaciers around the world are shrinking. Mount Kilimanjaro is about to lose its ice cap. Are they weather or climate change? NASA says weather as what changes day to day and year to year. Climate change is a period of at least 30 years. California’s droughts are weather. Glaciers and Kilimanjaro are climate change.
WHY DO WE ONLY LOOK BACK 200 YEARS?
Planet earth is 5 billion years old. Yet the climate change conversation only goes back 200 years. Two hundred years isn’t even a blink in earth’s history. But it’s a perfect starting point for those who want to dramatize the temperature increase and ignore the fact that 200 years ago marked the end of The Little Ice Age, coldest period in the last 10,000 years. And we’re still below the 10,000 year average temperature.
The Sahara Desert wasn’t a desert when the pyramids were built. The light yellow area was grassland, the light green area was mixed woodland and grassland. The Fertile Crescent was green and cooler than today’s hot, arid land.
Courtesy of National Geographic, Volume 246.
A TIME LINE OF TEMPERATURE AND CARBON DIOXIDE CHANGE
10,000 years ago the world was hotter than today. It stayed hotter for the next 4,000 years. Carbon dioxide was just over half of what it is today.
6,000 years ago the temperature dropped to what we have today and stayed that way for the next 4,000 years. Carbon dioxide was still far below today’s level.
2,000 years ago the temperature began a long decent to the start of The Little Ice Age 550 years ago. The carbon dioxide levels didn’t change.
Carbon dioxide began to rise at the start of the industrial revolution 275 years ago. Temperature didn’t start to rise until the end of the Little Ice Age, 80 years later.
500 MILLION YEARS of climate history shows that global temperatures were much hotter than today - except during the ice ages shown at the far right. Carbon Dioxide was also higher. The Arctic, Greenland and Antarctica were ice free most of the time.
This graph was created for this website by overlaying carbon dioxide data by the highly regarded Dr. Robert Berner on a Smithsonian Institute graph showing temperature data from NOAA.
IS CLIMATE CHANGE REALLY CATASTROPHIC ?
Earth’s atmospheric temperature has risen 1.5 C (2.7 F) since 1830. While the atmospheric temperature has risen 1.5 C in the last 200 years, the upper level ocean temperature (200 m, 660 ft deep) has risen only 1 degree C since 1830. Most of the vast, deeper ocean has stayed about 4 C (39 F). Dr. Lovelock said: “The ocean’s heat capacity is about 1,000 times greater than that of the land and atmosphere.” And he went on to say “further gradual global warming will probably happen the ocean’s ability to absorb heat shows that catastrophic global warming is highly unlikely”.
MELTING ICE and OCEAN LEVELS Melting sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctic Oceans cannot raise the sea level because they are floating ice which is simply water in a different form. While low altitude glaciers will melt, NASA says sea level, even with heat expansion, is predicted to rise about 1/10th of an inch (2.5 mm) per year. Scientists say we are a long way from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets melting.
PLANTS Advocates say we are approaching catastrophic levels of carbon dioxide in the air. Yet carbon dioxide is for plants what oxygen is for us. When carbon dioxide levels plunged to 180 parts per million (ppm) during the ice ages it was starvation level for most plants. The carbon dioxide Death Zone for many plants is 150 ppm.
Plants thrive in higher levels of carbon dioxide. Their ideal level is four times higher than today’s level of 420 ppm. Many greenhouses operate at carbon dioxide levels two to three times higher than our 420 ppm. Workers do not require special breathing apparatus to work those enriched carbon dioxide environments. Even levels of 2,000 ppm do not harm people.
Rising levels of carbon dioxide make plants more productive which is helping feed our ever increasing global population. We also benefit by the more productive plants producing more oxygen. “From a quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands have shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide.” NASA
THE JURASSIC PERIOD when dinosaurs roamed the earth carbon dioxide levels were four to six times higher than today as shown in the 500 Million Year graph above. The fossil records show that dinosaurs thrived. Plants thrived. Coral, clams and shell fish thrived. The oceans did not become acidic because of higher temperatures and the much higher levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0016-7878(59)80068-7
WHY DO WE BELIEVE CARBON DIOXIDE IS CAUSING CLIMATE CHANGE ?
The idea was proposed in 1895 but gained little traction until the late 1980s when preliminary data of the Greenland and Antarctic ice core data became available. The graphs appeared to show the carbon dioxide and temperature lines moving together. Lines on a graph only suggests a possible relationship, never proof of anything. It’s called the Correlation Fallacy. An unfortunate number of scientists could not resist the allure of the graphs. The graphs looked like the answer to those who wanted them to be the answer.
Former United States Vice President Al Gore compounded the mistake by presenting a graph as proof that carbon dioxide leads temperature in his speaking tour and book, An Inconvenient Truth (2006), advocating carbon dioxide as the cause of climate change. The media jumped on it. Wide spread skepticism turned toward to public acceptance.
WHAT ARE CLIMATE SCIENTISTS SAYING NOW ?
In April, 2003 a research team led by Dr. Caillon investigating Antarctic ice core data found that carbon dioxide did not lead temperature, it was temperature that led carbon dioxide.
“CO2 increase lagged Antarctic deglacial warming by 800 +/- 200 years”.
In August, 2008 a research team led by Dr. Florides published an examination of climate science. Among the many important findings:
“Temperature rises first, followed by an increase in atmospheric CO2.”
Dr. Lovelock, a highly respected scientist and a leader of the early carbon dioxide advocates, did something in 2014 scientists rarely do. He reversed his position and said it was a mistake to say carbon dioxide controls temperature. “We're no longer in a position to say that just because carbon dioxide rises … the temperature will rise likewise.” How could Dr. Lovelock and so many climate scientists have gotten it wrong in the 1990s? As Dr. Lovelock went on to say in that interview:
“We were carried away by the (correlation) between the ice cores of Antarctica.”
Dr. James Lovelock, chief scientist at MI5 for two decades, Q at MI6 in the James Bond series.
THE GREENHOUSE GASES
There are three types of greenhouse gases: those that heat, those that cool and water which does both. Subtracting those that cool from those that heat leaves only carbon dioxide and methane. Carbon dioxide is the standard against which all other gases are compared.
As of January, 2026 carbon dioxide stands at 425 ppm and methane at 2 ppm. Methane is currently rated thirty times greater than carbon dioxide equating it’s 2 ppm to 60 ppm of carbon dioxide. Rounding them up to 500 ppm means 1 molecule has to heat 2000 molecules of air around it and then maintain that temperature increase. They can’t warm the planet alone.
This is where water takes center stage. As a solid, snow and ice reflect the sun’s heat back into space. As a liquid, water droplets form clouds which block solar energy. Water as vapor (aka humidity) absorbs energy. There are 80 times more water vapour molecules in tropical air than the carbon dioxide plus methane duo. NASA and the IPCC concur that humidity is far and away the dominant greenhouse gas.
Clearly, humidity belongs in the greenhouse conversation. Why isn’t it ? The MIT Climate Portal says it’s because a water vapor molecule’s time in the atmosphere is only days or weeks. True, but it’s constant daily volume puts its presence in the atmosphere as an equal to the long lasting gases - volume instead of duration. Another view is that it’s nature and can’t be regulated. A third possibility is that humidity’s dominance diminishes the importance of the carbon dioxide - methane narrative.
The Greenhouse Gases Are What Gets Heated
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Radiative Forcing Is How They Get Heated
Humidity, carbon dioxide and methane are only half of the heating equation. They are what gets heated. How they get heated is by a complex process called Radiative Forcing. Short wave solar energy heats the land and sea. Everything heated gives off long wave energy. That’s what heats the greenhouse gases. Dominated by humidity, the gases are a secondary planet warmer. Some of the heat energy is absorbed by plants while the rest works its way up and out of the atmosphere.
Graph by Frank van Mierlo : PW is a petawatt, one billion million watts of energy
ARE THE GREENHOUSE GASES THE SOLE CAUSE CLIMATE CHANGE?
The sun‘s power is constant and the greenhouse gases are increasing slightly every year. Logic says that constant solar energy plus increasing greenhouse gases must cause constant temperature increase. But it doesn’t. Temperature graphs going back hundreds of years to hundreds of millions of years show that temperature does not carry forward consistently. Without that consistency, radiative forcing of greenhouse gases cannot be the sole cause of climate change, they can only be one of the causes of climate change.
COOLING THE PLANET WITH THERMALS
Thermals are rising columns of warm air move heat energy high in the sky, visible when used by birds and gliders to gain altitude. Air becomes less dense as it rises helping heat energy to escape from earth. Humid air columns form clouds releasing energy at high altitude in the process.
RADIATIVE COOLING
While our average global temperature is 59 F (14 C). The dinosaur era’s average global temperature of 86 F (30 C) degrees. Their summer temperatures would have soared into the 50s C (140 F). We know they weren’t exposed to deadly temperatures because proteins then and now start to break down when body temperature reaches 106 F (41 C). Thermal vent creatures excepted, nothing survives extreme temperatures. The fossil record proves life was abundant which means temperature maximums were close to ours despite their far higher global average temperatures. Our planet must have mechanisms that limit high temperatures.
That mechanism is Radiative Cooling. It counters Radiative Forcing’s ability to turn the planet into a furnace. “If the temperature of the Earth rises, the planet rapidly emits an increasing amount of heat to space”. It’s like a governor on an engine, cruise control in a car. As Dr. Lovelock said: “catastrophic global warming is highly unlikely.” The physics are explained in The Deep Check version of this website and at this NASA site, keyword search proportional.
A SUMMARY OF TODAY’S CLIMATE SCIENCE
6,000 to 10,000 years ago our planet was a full degree Celsius (1.8 F) hotter than it is today (2020 - 2025). People were not creating greenhouse gases. The gases were just over half of what they are now.
Advances in ice core analysis show that temperature leads carbon dioxide by 800 years, +/- 200 years.
Radiative Forcing heats the atmosphere and is a major factor of weather.
Radiative Cooling moderates Radiative Forcing’s climate warming ability.
RECENT CLIMATE CHANGE DISCOVERIES
Nature has been changing the climate since the world began without any help from mankind’s greenhouse gases.
EARTH’S ORBIT Dr. Milankovitch proposed a ground breaking theory in three parts:
Orbital Eccentricity: Earth’s orbit around the sun changes from round (milder summers and winters) to oval (more extreme seasonal variations) in 100,000 year cycles.
Axial Obliquity: How far the earth tilts toward and away from the sun between summer and winter varies in 41,000 year cycles.
Axial Precession: The earth also leans like a wobbling top as it tilts toward and away from the sun in a 26,000 year circle. It’s currently warming the southern hemisphere more in its summer than the northern hemisphere in its summer.
They are believed to have a major impact on earth’s climate but are of little relevance now because their gradual changes take many thousands of years.
Images courtesy of NASA in collaboration with Florida Atlantic University.
Highly accurate technology and computing power have confirmed Dr. Milankovic’s theories. Climate scientists have noticed a loose correlation between cooling alignments and the ice ages of the last two and a half million years. Research is investigating how much these three factors can heat and cool earth’s climate. Yet the Milankovic Cycles have been in motion for hundreds of millions, if not billions, of years. They don’t help explain why earth’s climate has been so much cooler for the last two and a half million years.
CASSIOPEIA’S Wandering Star
Recent astrophysics research found a star (HD 7977) of the Cassiopeia Constellation passed close enough to our solar system 2.8 million years ago to disturb the orbits of our giant outer planets. Their orbital wobbles in turn disturbed earth’s orbit and occurred shortly before the start of the current progression of ice ages and interglacial warm periods (including the one we live in). Has earth return to its pre-Cassiopea fly-pass orbit or has our orbit been permanently affected?
EARTH’S MAGNETIC POLES
Another interesting relationship is the correlation between climate change and the movement of earth’s magnetic north pole. In 200 AD (red dot upper left) earth’s magnetic north pole was located on the coast of Siberia. The middle east was referred to as The Fertile Crescent, then a green and temperate region. By 750 AD the magnetic north pole had moved to the northern tip of Canada’s Baffin Island. The middle east had become hotter and dryer. In 1,000 AD the magnetic north pole was at the geographic north pole. Europe and some other parts of the world were experiencing the Medieval Warm. By 1,500 the magnetic north pole was in the Arctic Ocean slowly migrating to Canada’s northern coast. The Little Ice Age began. The magnetic north pole stayed near Canada’s north shore until fifty years ago when it began to move rapidly north and west toward Siberia. Now it’s closer to Siberia than Canada again and the world is warming.
Researchgate.net, Public Domain Each dot represents a 50 yr. progression.
Is the correlation between climate change and pole movement just a coincidence or is it suggesting a real possibility? “Analysis of the movement of the Earth's magnetic poles over the last 105 years demonstrates strong correlations between the position of the north magnetic, and geomagnetic poles …. Although these correlations are surprising, a statistical analysis shows there is a less than one percent chance they are random …” (A. K. Kerton, 2009)
While it appears highly likely that the movement of earth’s magnetic poles are contributing to climate change, how is that possible since air is not attracted to magnetism? One possibility is that while water is attracted to static electricity, it is repelled by magnetism. Could the higher density of water in atmospheric rivers and hurricanes be enough for them to be affected, even slightly, by the movement of earth’s magnetic poles? Could the differences in density due to temperature layers and salinity concentrations be enough, even slightly, to affect ocean currents? The possibility is being studied.
GRAVITY WAVES
Recent research found that the movement of earth’s magnetic poles is causing gravity waves that affect earth’s very high altitude magnetic radiation shield. This in turn affects air currents in the earth’s upper atmosphere. Other researchers found that changes to the upper atmosphere affected lower levels of the atmosphere, the stratosphere and the troposphere, which is where our weather happens.
THE SUN
Yet if everything currently known about climate change conspired to reach its maximum cold phase at the same time, it still wouldn’t be cold enough to explain the abrupt 1,200 year long plunge back to the near ice age temperatures during the Younger Dryas (12,700 to 11,500 years ago). What caused that abrupt plunge and equally fast recovery? Could it happen again? The simplest explanation is the sun. We’ve always been told the sun’s strength doesn’t change.
It might be time to rethink that. It’s been known for centuries that the sun’s north and south poles reverse like clockwork every eleven years. When they reverse there is a sharp rise in sun spot (solar storm) activity as shown in the even march of the blue spikes. The black line shows the moving average number of sun spots. During the Maunder Minimum it flat-lined which coincided with the coldest part of the Little Ice Age. The Dalton Minimum also had significantly fewer sun spots and was the last cold phase of the Little Ice Age.
“The correlation between the sun’s strength and temperature for 660 years indicates a 98% probability that the Little Ice Age was caused by variations in the sun’s strength. If the period is limited to 1650 to 1890, the probability increases to 99.99%.” (Dr. W.K. Schmutz)
QUICK EMISSION FACTS
Total Global Carbon Dioxide Emissions in 2022: 889 Gigatons
Natural Sources 848 Gt. Human Sources 41 Gt. Fossil Fuels 37.8 Gt.
Fossil Fuel Emissions were only 4.3% of the total global carbon dioxide emissions total. Gasoline combustion emissions were 1% of that total.
Springer, 2022 Data (shown here); IEA, Global Energy Review 2025, p.31
GLOBAL POPULATION GROWTH
1 billion in 1800 1.6 billion in 1900 5.4 billion in 1950 6.1 billion in 2000 8.1 billion in 2024
The global population is expected to reach 10 billion in 25 years.
The carbon dioxide (red line) and population (blue line) are similar to the carbon dioxide - temperature curve seen in many online graphs.
Graph created by Gemini in 2025 for this website.
The global population is expected to grow from 8 to 10 billion by 2050, a 25% increase. Will that increase cause a 25% increase atmospheric carbon dioxide?
LOOKING AHEAD
We have had 450 years of very slow climate change causing generation after generation to believe the climate doesn’t change. Now it appears to be changing. Research since 2003 has led many climate scientists to believe carbon dioxide and the other greenhouse gases are neither the sole cause nor the dominant cause of climate change. They recognize that the forces of nature are calling the shots as they always have.
Yet politicians and the green industry are fixated on limiting carbon dioxide which is wishful thinking in the face of a huge population surge. Wouldn’t it be better to turn the trillions of dollars intended to limit the greenhouse gases increases into readying the world for the gradual inch per decade rise in sea level predicted by NASA?
More detail about each topic is available in THE DEEP DIVE version.
Email comments to: climate.reality.123@gmail.com