The Carbon Dioxide Climate Change Hypothesis is but One Hypothesis Among Others By James Reed

Dr Stuart Harris has published a peer reviewed paper entitled, “Comparison of Recently Proposed Causes of Climate Change,” in the journal Atmosphere 2023, 14(8), 1244; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos14081244. He is in the Department of Geography, University of Calgary, so is well versed to look at all of the hypotheses, including those involving solar and cosmic effects.

While the fine details are of course technical, for us ordinary folk, the useful conclusion is that the mainstream carbon dioxide hypothesis, championed by all those from the UN to Greta Thunberg, is just one view among many others. There are other geophysical factors that impact upon climate. “Key factors are the shape of the Earth and the Milankovitch Cycles, the distribution of land and water bodies, the differences between heating land and water, ocean currents and gateways, air masses, and hurricanes. Low atmospheric carbon dioxide levels during cold events could result in too little of this gas to support photosynthesis in plants, resulting in the extermination of most life on Earth as we know it.”

That situation would really give climate change princess Greta something to complain about.

https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/14/8/1244

Abstract

This paper compares the ideas contained in the main papers published on climate change since World War II to arrive at a suggested consensus of our present knowledge regarding climatic changes and their causes. Atmospheric carbon dioxide is only suggested as a cause in one theory, which, despite its wide acceptance by Politicians, the media, and the Public, ignores the findings in other studies, including the ideas found in the Milankovitch Cycles. It also does not explain the well-known NASA map of the changes between the global 1951–1978 and the 2010–2019 mean annual temperatures. The other theories by Oceanographers, Earth scientists, and Geographers fit together to indicate that the variations in climate are the result of differential solar heating of the Earth, resulting in a series of processes redistributing the heat to produce a more uniform range of climates around the surface of the Earth. Key factors are the shape of the Earth and the Milankovitch Cycles, the distribution of land and water bodies, the differences between heating land and water, ocean currents and gateways, air masses, and hurricanes. Low atmospheric carbon dioxide levels during cold events could result in too little of this gas to support photosynthesis in plants, resulting in the extermination of most life on Earth as we know it. The 23 ka Milankovitch cycle has begun to reduce the winter insolation received at the surface of the atmosphere in the mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere starting in 2020. This results in extreme weather as the winter insolation reaching the surface of the atmosphere in the higher latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere decreases while the summer air temperatures increase. It heralds the start of the next glaciation. A brief outline is given of some of the climatic changes and consequences that may be expected in western Canada during the next 11.5 ka.

6. Conclusions

Enough theories have been tried and tested so that we now have a much better idea of how the climatic cycle works. The cycle commenced as soon as the Earth cooled down and is closely related to the main source of heating coming from the Sun and the Milankovitch cycles [5,6]. The Sun has been steadily warming since the beginning of the Earth’s history [31]. If the Astronomers are correct, this heating will continue until the Sun becomes a Red Star and swallows up the inner four planets one by one, possibly starting about 5 Ma in the future. This increase is superimposed on the 23 ka, 41 ka, and 100 ka cycles resulting from the relative positions and movements of the Sun and the Earth. Carbon dioxide is a gas that is of fundamental importance to life as we know it. If its concentration in the atmosphere becomes too low, the bulk of the living things on the surface of the Earth will die, and the surface will become as barren as the other planets in the solar system [31,43]. There seems to be no connection between carbon dioxide and the temperature of the Earth [14,19,28,29,43,44,45,46]. Accordingly, the policies used by policymakers need to be changed to eliminate the burial of carbon dioxide underground, not provide large sums of public money to foreign firms to build battery factories, and realize that we will still need the oil and gas industry in the future. It is an essential part of the economy, and in the future, any necessary pipelines should not be seriously considered. The gas tax should be eliminated.

The climate of the Earth is driven by the uneven solar heating of the surface of the Earth and the movements of the excess heat in the tropics towards the cooler polar regions, primarily by the movements of ocean currents, modified by the movements of air masses. The rotation of the Earth results in the Coriolis force causing fluids to rotate in a clockwise direction in the northern Hemisphere and in an anticlockwise direction in the southern Hemisphere. It also results in an eastward movement of the air masses around the Poles of the Earth (Figure 1). Oceans make up 70% of the surface of the Earth, and the thermal properties of water result in ocean currents being the primary method of transporting heat towards the poles, aided by hurricanes. The circular shape of Antarctica prevents the direct transport of heat to Antarctica, in contrast to the heating of adjacent land areas of the Northern Hemisphere via the North Atlantic Ocean. The excess heat in the North Atlantic Ocean causes intense evaporation of sea water, producing dense, deep-water thermohaline masses that periodically move south to the colder water circulating around Antarctica, thus causing a periodic return flow of cold Antarctic surface water to the North Atlantic.

Finally, it should be noted that the expansion of the cooling continues through four 23 ka cooling events before the warming phase of the last 23 ka cycle triggers excess pressure in the cold Arctic air mass, resulting in the resurrection of the Arctic Air escaping south along Path II, relieving the pressure from the Subtropical Air mass from the south. In this way, the excess mass of Arctic air is moved south and converted into Subtropical air, allowing deglaciation to take place and the commencement of the next short warm event (Interglacial) in the northern hemisphere.