Another important paper taking issue with the ‘settled’ climate narrative has been cancelled following a report in the Daily Sceptic and subsequent reposts that went viral across social media. The paper discussed the atmospheric ‘saturation’ of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and argued that higher levels will not cause temperatures to rise. The work was led by the widely-published Polish scientist Dr. Jan Kubicki and appeared on Elsevier’s ScienceDirect website in December 2023. The paper has been widely discussed on social media since April 2024 when the Daily Sceptic reported on the findings. Interest is growing in the saturation hypothesis not least because it provides a coherent explanation for why life and the biosphere grew and often thrived for 600 million years despite much higher atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases. Alas for control freaks, it also destroys the science backing for the Net Zero fantasy.
Many scientists contend that above certain levels the ability of CO2 to warm within narrow bands of the infrared spectrum falls off a logarithmic cliff. Recently, eight Taiwanese scientists led by Professor Peng-Sheng Wei found that the sensitivity of the climate to a rise in CO2 atmospheric levels from 100 to 400 parts per million (ppm) was “negligibly small” at 0.3°C. Current levels of CO2 are around 420 ppm. Seven Austrian scientists recently concluded that a future doubling of CO2 showed “no increase in the IR [infrared] absorption for the 15 u-central peak”. At most, it was stated, this could lead to warming of 0.5°C. Yet in spite of this, Elsevier decided to retract Kubicki’s paper with only a few words of explanation, a decision that is likely to send shock waves through any group of scientists seeking to examine the role of saturation of gases in the atmosphere.
The retraction reads: “Subsequent to acceptance of this paper, the rigour and quality of the peer-review process for this paper was investigated and confirmed to fall beneath the high standards expected by Applications in Engineering Science. After review by additional expert referees, the Editor-in-Chief has lost confidence in the validity of the paper and has decided to retract.”
Retraction in a scientific journal is a serious matter, relatively rare and potentially damaging to the reputation of authors. According to Elsevier’s withdrawal policies, articles may be retracted “to correct errors that impact the findings reported by an article where they are too extensive in the view of the editors to publish a correction, or due to infringements of Elsevier’s journal policies, such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like”. None of these reasons for withdrawing the Kubicki paper have been given. Instead there is the pompous reference to a ”fall beneath the high standards expected”, supposedly confirmed by additional unnamed “experts”. Further details about the retraction may emerge given the important issues raised by Elsevier’s action.
Whatever the real reasons behind this retraction, it will not be the first science paper that has met this fate following publicity in the Daily Sceptic and subsequent widespread interest on social media.
In January 2022, a group of physics scientists led by Profession Gianluca Alimonti of Milan University published a paper in a Springer Nature journal that considered past weather trends. They concluded that the idea we’re in the throes of a ‘climate emergency’ was not supported by the facts. The paper attracted little attention outside academic circles until September 14th when the Daily Sceptic reported on it – and our promotion of the story on X resulted in 9,000 retweets. The story was covered by the Australian and Sky News Australia, after which attacks were launched by activist scientists and journalists such as Michael ‘Hockey Stick’ Mann and Graham Readfearn of the Guardian. After a year of lobbying, Springer Nature retracted the paper claiming it no longer had confidence in the results and conclusions. This surprised many, not least because much of the data came from the International Panel on Climate Change. Science writer Dr. Roger Pielke published a number of leaked emails surrounding the affair and concluded: “Shenanigans continue in climate science, with influential scientists teaming up with journalists to corrupt peer review.”
In September 2023, a departing academic, Dr. Patrick Brown, came clean about a paper he’d written in Nature saying that climate change was increasing the risk of wildfires in California. “I knew not to try to quantify key aspects other than climate change in my research because it would dilute the story that prestigious journals like Nature and its rival Science, want to tell,” he explained. These key aspects, of course, include considering the role of arsonists and forest management. For its part, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change can find little or no evidence of human-caused climate change affecting ‘fire weather’ to date and going forward to 2100. In Brown’s view, climate science has become less about understanding the complexities of the world “and more about serving as a kind of Cassandra, urgently warning the public about the dangers of climate change”.
The Editor-in-Chief of Nature Magdalena Skipper reacted furiously to Brown’s comments, accusing him of “poor research practices” that are “highly irresponsible”, according to the Daily Mail. Despite all the controversy, Brown’s paper has not been retracted.
Dr. Matthew Wielicki had a senior position in the Geological Sciences department of the University of Alabama. His parents were academics and he grew up on a Californian university campus surrounded by freely-exchanged competing ideas. He only ever wanted to be an academic but he gave it up during Covid, seemingly disgusted at the turn against free speech in American universities and the effect it has had on climate science. If you speak out against the accepted narrative “you are a pariah in this community”, he said. Climate change is a “taboo” subject in academia and there is a “disconnect between what the science says and what the narrative in mainstream media is”. It isn’t about finding the truth in open discussion – It’s about silencing those who disagree with you, he observed.
Chris Morrison is the Environment Editor of the Daily Sceptic.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Another adept piece of common sense and well investigated facts
Chris you’re an environmental tyrannosaur when it comes to socking it to ’em!
Linked to the subject is the fact that the earth didn’t even have proper ice caps, North or South until 3 million years ago, a mere blink of the eye in earth years!
For 70% of Earth’s history no ce caps – too warm. Two ice caps are a rarity, therefore Earth is in a rare cold period.
Geologists are the real climate scientists.
Exactly
Another disgrace to the good name of science perpetrated by a stooge Journal Kommissar and Komrade Editor. As Chris Morrison makes clear, scientific publications proposing the saturation effect of atmospheric carbon dioxide have been in play for years already.
Just to expand on a comment made the other day:
A Professor of Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Southern California, an expatriate from the old Soviet Union, tells it how it is…
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/29AF22D23835C74AECDA7964E55812CF/S1062798723000327a.pdf/critical-social-justice-subverts-scientific-publishing.pdf
“…The politicization of science – the infusion of ideology into the scientific enterprise – threatens the ability of science to serve humanity. Today, the greatest such threat comes from a set of ideological viewpoints collectively referred to as Critical Social Justice (CSJ). This contribution describes how CSJ has detrimentally affected scientific publishing by means of social engineering, censorship, and the suppression of scholarship.”
Further into the article the American Chemical Society’s “Inclusivity Style Guide” gets taken apart and Britain’s Royal Society of Chemistry gets a blast of the hair dryer.
Great stuff, Prof. Give that lady a leading scientific role in the incoming US administration.
Science publishers are simply shills for the establishment view..They have long since been a discredited vehicle for actual science rather than “the science”.
I am a fairly sceptical climate scientist, and author of a number of peer reviewed journal papers finding climate sensitivity to doubled CO2 to be rather lower than IPCC/mainstream consensus estimates. But even if that the IPPC much higher estimate of climate sensitivity is correct, I don’t believe it follows that we are in the throes of a ‘climate emergency’.
Nevertheless, I regard a claim that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 could lead at most to warming of 0.5°C as contrary to sound, well established scientific understanding and extensive observational evidence. So I’m afraid that the Elsevier Editor-in-Chief may well have been justified in requiring retraction of the Polish scientists’ paper.
On the detail, the statements that “Many scientists contend that above certain levels the ability of CO2 to warm within narrow bands of the infrared spectrum falls off a logarithmic cliff”, and the assertion in the Polish scientists’ paper that a future doubling of CO2 showed “no increase in the IR [infrared] absorption for the 15 u-central peak”, are both true.
Unfortunately, the logarithmic increase in infrared absorption due to broadening of the central peak’s wings as CO2 concentration increase is what matters. It results in each doubling of CO2 concentration causing approximately the same reduction in outgoing radiation, for any given climate state. Sadly, it does not at all follow that ‘the sensitivity of the climate to a rise in CO2 atmospheric levels from 100 to 400 parts per million (ppm) was “negligibly small” at 0.3°C.’ (a tenth of the IPCC best estimate of 3°C, and also a fraction of my most recent estimate of circa 2°C).
Your first up-tick from me, thanks for your comment. This is entirely as I would expect in the public response to an article such as this. You provide informed comment, on which the merits of the relevant research paper can be examined by ‘external’ peer review, rather than anonymously, as in this case. There is inevitably the underlying suspicion that a Journal’s editor’s opinion my may be biased by undisclosed factors other than science. I have always disclosed my identity to authors whose work I have been asked to review, as otherwise those authors themselves cannot be certain that my own views may not be similarly biased. This is why the Daily Sceptic’s role is so important, as every commentary by Chris Morrison here is fully attributed to its authorship. Roll on post-publication peer review!
I’m not a scientist and do not have expertise in this field, however I would like to examine your final paragraph:
“Unfortunately, the logarithmic increase in infrared absorption due to broadening of the central peak’s wings as CO2 concentration increase is what matters. It results in each doubling of CO2 concentration causing approximately the same reduction in outgoing radiation, for any given climate state. Sadly, it does not at all follow that ‘the sensitivity of the climate to a rise in CO2 atmospheric levels from 100 to 400 parts per million (ppm) was “negligibly small” at 0.3°C.’ (a tenth of the IPCC best estimate of 3°C, and also a fraction of my most recent estimate of circa 2°C).”
Within this, the critical claim is:
“It results in each doubling of CO2 concentration causing approximately the same reduction in outgoing radiation”
Is this not a mixture of theory and observational evidence assumed to corroborate the theory (since it’s difficult to conduct a scientific experiment to replicate an entire atmosphere full of gas and confirm the theory)? How is the theory backed up by experiment? How clear is it the math derived from lab experiments applies and there are no other relevant factors affecting when we are talking about miles of actual atmosphere)? How sure are you, you aren’t playing a game of mine sweeper, and the mines are simply not where you think they are? Now you might have data that makes you think “this guys simply an idiot if he thinks on any reading that might be true.” So do please elucidate this.
I don’t stand to be corrected, as I don’t actually have a view on this particular claim. My view relates to my belief that scientific certainties are far more challengeable than many scientists often think. This could either be a case of that, or not, I don’t know.
It seems to me the scientists involved might have their own view on the retraction claims. At the very least they should there not be a retraction process where they are able to officially reply to such claims?
I’ll add to your critique. There is a fundamental inaccuracy in:
“It results in each doubling of CO2 concentration causing approximately the same reduction in outgoing radiation”
C02 does not “reduce” outgoing radiation, it “delays“ some of it. The heat delayed will in time move to the edge of the atmosphere and radiate back into Space as heat always moves from warm to cold along a temperature gradient.
The reason why the Earth is warm enough to sustain life is because there is a lag between rate of incoming radiation and the rate of outgoing radiation, with the balance towards heat leaving at a slightly lower rate than it arrives, and this lag has varied over time because of multiple, changing phenomena. But all the heat arriving from the Sun is eventually re-emitted otherwise Earth would be a boiling mass of gas by now.
The term “greenhouse effect” is (deliberately) misleading because it implies an accumulation of heat – except unlike a greenhouse, Earth has no roof to stop heat leaving.
The attenuation effect of C02 is logarithmic, and therefore the suggested maximum increase for doubling is about 1C.
That means current levels of 420pm would have to double to around 800ppm for a 1C rise, then from 800ppm to 1600ppm for another 1C rise. A doubling and 1C rise would take centuries, another doubling and 1C rise (2C overall) would take millennia. And this rise would make little difference to climates around the planet.
The actual global warming nonsense relies on the unprovable claim of “feedback mechanisms” which asserts that there is a multiplier effect from water vapour trapping the attenuated I/R from the CO2, and assuming no other factors are involved such as cloud cover, solar activity and so on.
This multiplier – derived from hard working computer models – started out at x6, later revised to x4, then x2 to x3 because “observation” over the last 30+ years indicated these multipliers were not giving the predicted in erase d temperature results.
Then came “The Pause” where the rate of warming stopped and then declined slightly which has lasted nearly 30 years.
The multiplier is currently “guessed” to be less than x2, maybe x1.5 which is where the magic 1.5C limit to global warming comes from.
However if it is x1, it will not increase any CO2 warming effect, if it is less than x1 it will have a cooling effect.
Bottom line (as our American cousins say) – nobody actually knows what the multiplier effect is, which is why the Climatistas never mention it – because they fear it may be x1 or less – but they’re propaganda concentrates instead on CO2 level (lying) about its direct, exponential effect on increasing global warming.
The IPCC “best estimate” of 3 C dates all the way back to a calculation by Arrhenius who assumed a column of air at constant temperature, no clouds, no evaporation at the surface. Every subsequent estimate has to agree or it is deemed to be “inconsistent”.
“0.5°C as contrary to sound, well established scientific understanding and extensive observational evidence”
Established understanding = religion. Extensive observational evidence = computer modelling.
I’m a sceptical physical scientist by training, and author of a number of peer-reviewed journal papers and review articles.
I’d be interested to hear you opinion on:
Thanks in advance of any reply you are able to give.
while not a climate scientist, I used to be a chemist (test tube shaker) and have a deep interest in any and all aspects of science. The most depressing thing is the way scientific investigation has undoubtedly been corrupted and we can no longer rely on practising scientists to search for the truth, let alone tell it. Here’s my take on the absorption band effect. There is undoubtedly a saturation effect and there may well be a broadening of the band as CO2 increases, though by how much is unknown. The arbitrary baseline for “natural” CO2 levels seems to have been set at around 1850 when CO2 was 280ppm. It is now 420ppm, so an approximate 50% increase.
Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that all this is due to human output (though I don’t think it is) and it has resulted in a global temperature increase of about 1.2 degrees C (again assuming that there is no other cause- and again not something I think is true).
This appears to indicate that the value for equilibrium climate sensitivity is, in the worst case, about 2 degrees (not 2.4, thanks to the saturation effect). If we allow for some natural variation in temperature (the sun, ocean currents, etc) it is likely to be 1.5 degrees or so. Something humans can cope with.
Yes, because everything was peachy at around that time.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy?country=~OWID_WRL
As a further point, surely the correct procedure is not to retract the paper but let it stand and invite a rebuttal. That’s how science should work.
Are these ‘expert peer reviewers’ who were brought in to take down the paper part of the climate science fiction mafia? I am sure they would having been champing at the bit. In addition to your point, how about offering them the opportunity to respond to the alleged deficiencies.
Agreed. And presumably the paper was peer reviewed the first time around prior to being published. So have the original reviewers changed their minds as well, or just been sat on?
The whole CO2 causes warming idea is contrary to the Second law of Thermodynamics, it is not about wavelength or anything else. Even if a CO2 molecule absorbs some heat, it can only pass it on to a lower temperature, ie. space. This whole idea says that the atmosphere is warmer than the surface, which is not true above about 1000 feet or so at best. I have noticed that at 30,000 feet the temperature is about -40C, so nothing can happen except to space. Someone may wish to explain how the bottom 1000 feet or less of the atmosphere significantly warms the surface, because actual science says it cannot! None of this has anything whatsoever to do with greenhouses, but it suits some fools.
Is it significant that the article was published in 2023 and has only just been withrdrawn? Why didn’t they just publish an addendum or explanatory note?
When a scientific paper is published after peer review, recognized as being of high quality by Members of the science community, and then retracted without full explanation, the author’s professional reputation is impugned by inference. Shouldn’t this be classed as an act of defamation, subject to action for libel? Or am I wrong to assume that there still exists that same ‘scientific community’, of which I have counted myself a member for the past sixty years?
Never mind. The “damage” has been done as the paper got widespread publicity and most people won’t know or care it has been withdrawn and many will conclude – rightly – it is censorship by the Green Blob, making the paper more credible. If it were not, the Green Blob wouldn’t care and could challenge its conclusions with empirical evidence, except the Green Blob only knows assertion, claims, hyperbole, bullying, deception and lies – proper scientific process is anathema to them.
It’s like lifting a stone, and watching the insects scuttle for the dark. Sooner or later the light will prevail.
Cutting to the chase, the coming massive reduction in U.S. government funding for climate science will dramatically reduce CO2 levels emanating from Academia.
But that will have shag all effect on the fecking climate.
‘The greenhouse gas effect of CO2 is pretty-well irrelevant to these arguments.
Although measuring CO2 past levels is more difficult than measuring past Ts, there is a clear tendency for there to be more CO2 in the atmosphere when Earth is warm, and less when Earth is cold.
The climate activists argue therefore that the warm periods are due to the high greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.
But there are three problems with this.
First, one has to ask where did the CO2 come from (a question seldom answered convincingly),
Secondly, we must remind ourselves that we don’t know if CO2 is a potent greenhouse gas,
And thirdly, there is the much simpler explanation that plate tectonics controls climate, and that when Earth warms up CO2 levels in the atmosphere rise because it is expelled from the oceans, in accordance with Henry’s Law.’
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/11/02/the-geological-record-of-climate-change-and-why-todays-increase-in-atmospheric-co2-is-the-result-of-global-warming-not-the-cause/
Three problems always crop up for the ecofascists and their climate science fictionists.
Leading climate crook Mann’s dodgy hockey stick was created to erase the Medieval Warm Period when the Vikings were able to farm on Greenland and also colonised Iceland.
Hopefully things will improve under Trump, at least in the US.
We’ve already had people claiming that the fires in Los Angeles were some percentage more likely because ‘Climate Change’.
If the authorities in California and Los Angeles in particular were already convinced of this why had they not prepared for such a thing? If something bad is becoming more likely, surely it is negligent to fail to try to prevent it? What had they done to prepare? Last I heard it was reducing the funding for the Fire Department.
An analogy I like to use for the saturation of CO2 effect:
Wearing a pair of sunglasses reduces the amount of light reaching your eyes.
Wearing another pair over the first reduces the light further.
By the time you’re wearing four pairs you can’t see anything very much.
Adding a fifth pair makes no difference
It would appear that scientific journals have become the mouthpieces of the net zero lobby and are not to be trusted. What other papers have never got to publication as a result of their bias, not just in this area
There does appear to be a major procedural problem here in the publishing house.
If I understand correctly this paper went through peer-review and was subsequently published.
It is possible it contained mistakes, but I then would expect a letter to the Editor, stating the errors in the paper, followed by a missive from the authors of the paper stating either a rebuttal of this or an acknowledgment that they got it wrong.
For a journal to just retract without giving the authors a right to respond seems odd to say the least.
I am not a climate scientist, but I gather a lot of it is based on models.
And all models are wrong, some are useful….
Furthermore we should not underestimate the number of unknowns in any science. That is why healthy scepticism is essential for science to thrive.
Saturation of CO2 at the current level 420 ppm (0.042%) of the earth’s atmosphere is not a good descriptive word and could be misleading. CO2 has been at much higher levels during the period of life on earth. The experiment with CO2 levels starting from 0.01% may be of little value as at that starting level plants and consequently animal life cannot survive as indicated by some scientists and If as I think they are right, it may be good if this was commonly known. I presume by saturation they mean sturation of the greenhouse effect of CO2 which is not yet proven, but from scientific calculations derived from tests and light wavelenths in relation to CO2 in the atmosphere, it has been found that the doubling of CO2 to 0.08% in our atmosphere creates a very small temperature increase of less than half a degree Celsius. Nothing like those claimed by the nett zero nutters which include both our current and previous government leaders,that imbecile Ed Miliband and many dihonest journalists. Perhaps minor changes to wording in the paper would restore its correct space in our information on the subject
Yes. ‘saturated’ is an unfortunate term.
Most people probably think ‘very wet’ when they hear it.
Many people may remember school science lessons where we grew crystals out of a ‘saturated’ solution. In that context ‘saturated’ meant we couldn’t dissolve any more of whatever it was we were crystallising into the solvent (usually water).
In terms of infra-red spectroscopy (I used to be a chemistry technician doing many of these measurements a day) ‘saturated’ means that you’ve made the sample so thick or concentrated that none of the infra-red gets through to be measured. Adding more won’t make any difference if your sample is already blocking all the IR there is.
‘Saturated’ in terms of the greenhouse effect is similar to the last meaning – adding more CO2 won’t block any more energy from leaving the earth because the amount there is is already blocking everything that can be blocked by CO2.
Incidentally I think the ‘greenhouse’ effect is a misleading misnomer. Sure a greenhouse heats up because light gets in and gets absorbed and re-emitted as infra-red (heat). But that happens outside a greenhouse too. it gets warmer inside because the air isn’t allowed to rise freely (unless you open the vents). Greenhouses mostly work by blocking convection – not so much by trapping IR.
William Happer has been talking about the saturation of CO2 for years