What Hunga Tonga teaches about climate ‘science.’
by John Klar
Many Americans who are receptive to the possibility that human activities are warming the globe may invoke the motto of the Show Me State when asking alarmists to share what is never shown – evidence. Greta Thunberg (self-appointed Lorax of the carbon molecule), AOC (grand inquisitor of cow burps), and John Kerry (Joe Biden-appointed climate envoy and nouveau regulator of American farms) are not scientists but politicians who employ histrionics in lieu of data. The recent eruption of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai (HTHH), a volcano in the South Pacific, exposes the endless stream of lies from these and other climate charlatans.
Underwater Volcanoes = Vaporized Ocean
Hunga Tonga exploded deep on the ocean floor in 2022, a once-in-a-lifetime massive geological event that spewed incomprehensible volumes of water high into the Earth’s atmosphere. Never have satellites observed such; never have layers of the atmosphere been studied for chemical and other impacts caused by the volume of atmospheric water and aerosols. Climate scientists warn that this volcano will warm the planet and disrupt rainfall patterns. Amid record temperatures and flooding in 2023, climate politicos howl about human-caused calamity while avoiding the impacts of Hunga Tonga.
This volcano is such an elephant-in-the-climate-change room that NASA seeks to ignore inconvenient truths. Of course, science instructs that volcanic sulfur, water, carbon dioxide, and organic matter can all impact climate dramatically (even unto the extinction of dinosaurs). A political ideology blindly focused on greenhouse gases has no time to set aside dogmatic blinders for critical scientific assessment. That assessment is extremely revealing.
The impacts of HTHH were so substantial that scientists were required to develop a new technique simply to measure its height. It caused “puzzling ripples” through the atmosphere that have never before been observed, “leaving experts stumped,” according to Nature. The volcano’s water plume increased stratospheric water mass by 13% and stratospheric aerosol loads five-fold.
According to Space: “[T]he Hunga Tonga cloud burst not only through the troposphere but also ascended through the entire stratosphere, only plateauing at the altitude of 35 miles (57 km), way into the freezing and dry layer known as the mesosphere. This makes the Hunga Tonga volcanic cloud the highest ever observed.”
Volcanoes, Climate Science, and NASA
Volcano and weather scientists are unsure how this blast will impact the planet, but climate ideologues have looked right past it, like snarling dogs after a rabbit. However, numerous scientific journals have hinted at Hunga Toga’s potential to warm the Earth’s surface:
- “Tonga Eruption May Temporarily Push Earth Closer to 1.5°C of Warming” (Eos)
- “Water vapor from Tonga’s volcanic eruption could warm Earth for years” (Space)
- “The 2022 Tonga Eruption May Have Caused Temporary Global Warming” (SYFY WIRE)
- “Tonga eruption increases chances of temporary surface temperature anomaly above 1.5°C” (Nature Climate Change)
- “Highest ever volcanic plume might have warmed Earth’s climate” (Space)
These are scientific publications, yet these sensible inquiries are shunted aside in favor of the end-of-the-world cult narrative. People might be happy to know that current climate disruptions may be temporary and volcano-caused. Yet NASA is completely mum about even the possibility. These people are volcano deniers!
Photo by Maxar via Getty Images
Yet NASA reported last year that Hunga Tonga could cause global warming based on assessments that underestimated its size. Luis Millán, an atmospheric scientist at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, speculated that “the water vapor could start having a warming effect on the planet’s surface temperature once the accompanying cooling particles dissipate in about three years … It’s not going to exacerbate climate change.”
Science magazine reported in September 2022: “Atmospheric water vapor absorbs solar radiation and re-emits it as heat; with tens of millions of tons of Tonga’s moisture now adrift in the stratosphere, Earth’s surface will be heating up — though it’s unclear by how much … But because the vapor is lighter than other volcanic aerosols and is less affected by gravity’s pull, it will take longer for this warming effect to dissipate, and surface warming could continue ‘over the months to come,’ the scientists said.”
Nature Climate Change noted in January 2023: “This large water vapour perturbation means that HTHH will probably increase the net radiative forcing, unusual for a large volcanic eruption, increasing the chance of the global surface temperature anomaly temporarily exceeding 1.5 °C over the coming decade.”
Heatwaves, Floods, and Climate ‘Science’
Scientists who don’t know how much Hunga Tonga has impacted current conditions are trying to learn by observation; most climate alarmists register warming by human hand through their fear prism, and so turn away from this volcano like a (real, not anthropomorphic, gain-of-function) plague. NASA connects current warming to human activity with no scientific links whatsoever. The agency should stick to polluting space recklessly with techno-detritus rather than gaslighting an epic volcano. Hunga Tonga does provide a scientific connection to support a causative explanation for both current warming and flooding trends: extraordinary amounts of water in the atmosphere, like a giant terrarium, together with a five-fold amplification of stratospheric aerosol loads.
Net-zero emission “standards” are applied to cows, cars, and gas stoves but not to jet travel, ski chalets, and golf courses. Elites dictate the activities to be targeted in the nebulous name of climate change and indicate the cause for which these stoic measures are irrationally rationalized: human and no other.
Americans are told current warming and flooding are caused by working-class commuters, not a (net-zero?) war in Ukraine, (net-zero?) missions to land BIPOC people on the moon, or a never-before-seen volcanic eruption that scientists are still trying to fully fathom. Thus climate “warriors” scuttle with ragged claws to re-bury Hunga Tonga on the ocean floor of the establishment media.
The author is a Brookfield best-selling author, lawyer, farmer and pastor. Reprinted from the Small Farm Republic website.
Categories: Commentary, Environment
Please don’t burden us with logic! Get with the left wing narrative! Climate change is a religion, become a true believer and adhere to the preaching of Greta and John.
…and dont mess with John Kerry’s preferred form of transportation…the private jet.
It find it at once amazing and disturbing that people somehow are able to ignore basic science.
Perhaps they simply forgot the lessons learned in basic science classes such as biology, chemistry, and physics, all three of which were required for high school graduation when I was growing up. Perhaps these are no longer taught, but and if they still are perhaps the natural laws etc. are obfuscated with narrative based constructs that no one is ever clearly taught those principles.
One such principle implied but not directly stated in this article is that water is an excellent storage for heat. One can easily observe this is many coastal climates where large bodies of water serve to moderate the local climate. The great lakes region snow patterns are another excellent example of this phenomenon. Winter winds sweeping across the lakes reduce the pressure and water more easily escapes the effects of surface tension ( due to the unique polarity structure of water ). Then the cold air slightly warmed by the lakes moves over colder land and condenses and releases the moisture as snow. This is yet another example of water vapor which forms as clouds and then falls as precipitation depending on other factors.
One must also consider gas solubility. In general gases are more soluble in colder liquids.
One can easily observe this effect one one opens a carbonated beverage. The warmer it is when the beverage is opened, the more the gas will bubble out. Pressure does impact this, though pressure has limited effects on the gas solubility in liquids and even more so in solids since these are already compressed substances. There is also a saturation effect. Once a liquid is saturated with a gas, no more can be forced into the liquid. This is true for carbon and the ocean. There is a limit for the amount of carbon which can be forced into the ocean by atmospheric pressure so it is foolish to think that atmospheric carbon will impact the ocean negatively since there is a limit. The balance is also affected by surface temperatures. So in the colder areas more CO2 can be released back into the atmosphere. This is not a problem.
Carbon is necessary for life and plants absolutely thrive in it. Note that commercial greenhouses utilize carbon inside their greenhouses to increase the rate of plant growth.
The plants release oxygen and all is good. Young forests, grasslands etc. are known to utilize the most carbon. Carbon is not an evil and dangerous gas and besides that, no one can answer the simple question, how much carbon in the atmosphere is the optimal level? Ice core samples demonstrate that carbon levels are independent of temperature cycles that the earth has and will continue to undergo.
The carbon hysteria promulgated by the power brokers of the world is nothing but yet another plan to redistribute wealth to the investors in those technologies that are promoted to reduce carbon. The carbon tax credit system is a scheme to facilitate this transfer. Fear of carbon is nothing more than propaganda. The fear tactic in such propaganda schemes is the oldest technique in the annals of motivating people to do what the power brokers want. Don’t be afraid and do not comply with scientifically unfounded precepts. Science is usually never settled but demands open discourse and discussion. Once censorship in its many forms prevents this, then you can assume propaganda has taken its place.
Climate change is real, but even a blind squirrel finds a nut. If you don’t think this is true, check out 1815: The year without a summer. Vermont had snow in July because of an eruption on the other side of the world. It could happen again and probably will
If, I’ve got this right, John Kerry, Greta Thunberg and Alexandra Ocassio Cortez are histrionic non-scientists with a political axe to grind, but the histrionics of best-selling author, lawyer, farmer, pastor non-non-scientist John Klar, that’s a horse of a different color.
Mr. Klar writes: “NASA connects current warming to human activity, with no scientific links whatsoever.”
Let us assume Mr. Klar to be 100% correct on this, and let us go even further and assume that natural causes outweigh human causes of climate change. Whether the fire burning your house was caused by you forgetting to turn off the stove, or caused by a lightning bolt, don’t you still do what you can to put out the fire?
Water vapor of course is a greenhouse gas. But what gets water vapor, even water vapor from volcanoes, to come out of the sky? Cold weather. Instead, we’ll keep putting other greenhouse gasses into the air, gasses that we know will increase warming?
When the great cities of the world start to go under water, we’ll have the self-satisfaction of knowing that not ALL of the rise in sea level can be attributed to human activity? We shouldn’t do ANYTHING to reduce the greenhouse gasses that ARE emitted because of human activity? Brilliant.
Ok, Dr. Klar.
NASA is not mum on the subject. You should stop making things up if you want to be taken seriously.
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/3204/tonga-eruption-blasted-unprecedented-amount-of-water-into-stratosphere/
https://www.npr.org/2022/08/03/1115378385/tonga-volcano-stratosphere-water-warming
“Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai “may be the first volcanic eruption observed to impact climate not through surface cooling caused by volcanic sulfate aerosols, but rather through surface warming,” the researchers said in their paper.”
:”The power brokers of the world” . Not BIG OIL. “The industry’s operations account for 9 percent of all human-made greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions. In addition, it produces the fuels that create another 33 percent of global emissions”.
“Redistribute wealth”. Over the past 47 years, according to the Rand Corporation, $50tn in wealth has been redistributed from the bottom 90% of American society to the top 1%, primarily because a growing percentage of corporate profits has been flowing into the stock portfolios of the wealthy and the powerful.
What industry has the biggest impact on climate change?
“Transportation (28% of 2021 greenhouse gas emissions) – The transportation sector generates the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse gas emissions from transportation primarily come from burning fossil fuel for our cars, trucks, ships, trains, and planes.” No power brokers here either. No sir.
Read any other good conspiracy nonsense lately? More “let’s do nothing” but spread unfounded nonsense but do not teach science or history. because – grand kids- who cares.
Sad how some commenters still cling to the totally unscientific claim that CO2 is the main contributing/triggering factor to a runaway global warming future that never transpires, even in the wake of 50 years of failed predictions and deadlines.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/02/global_warmings_50_years_of_fraud.html
Apart from CO2’s minute proportion to all other atmospheric gasses, the cult omits historical and empirical geological data and other logical climate contributing factors such as solar activity, undersea volcanoes, planetary orbits and their gravitational influence, and an unknown number of other factors that affect our global weather patterns. Even they admit their computer models are based on assumptions and are incomplete, and deny the fraud perpetrated and documented in their emails scheming to manipulate temperature data (Cimategate I and II, East Anglia University). Notice how MSM has been totally silent on the more than 1600 scientists who refute the climate cult “consensus”. https://www.climatedepot.com/2023/08/30/more-than-1600-scientists-including-two-nobel-laureates-declare-climate-emergency-a-myth/
Complaining about the 1% corporate elites sucking up the wealth of the bottom 90%? That’s news? Why just pick on big oil? What about the mega media empire (https://the-pipeline.org/greenwashing-the-news-for-fun-and-profit/), owned by and parroting the marching orders of the global banking and political elites running the UN, WEF, WHO, and the myriad non-profits funded by that same 1%; the last sector being responsible for laundering money through numerous radical activist and eco-terrorist community organizers, rioting and destroying commerce and infrastructure, setting forest fires, promoting racism, pedophilia and gender disphoria instead of proper education, etc.,…all top-down collectivist training.
Do you not notice how your climate gurus never practice what they preach? In a real existential crisis, such hypocrisy demonstrates tyrannical intent. For us 90%, we get our travel banned, central bank digital currency and its associated social credit ID system, etc…. But, hey, you can ride your bike around your 15-minute city. You can feel proud virtue signaling while your boondoggle windmills kill birds and wildlife, child labor mined and toxic polluting solar panels, EV’s and their batteries pollute our farmland and turn landfills into EPA brownfields. Everything electrified! — subject to blackouts and lockdowns, of course (upon some aparatchik’s declaration of emergency). Depopulate! they say, but of course none of that applies to them.
Your failure to recognize that the players in the climate scam are the same ones in the plannedemic, the fiat money banking system, the military industrial complex and more, indicates an unwillingness to research outside your bias bubble. Your high priests of science constantly preaching apocolypse now are no better than the Jim Jones of a previous generation, only with the genocidal power of Mao, Stalin and Hitler.
Thank you John, very interesting and informative article.