ExxonMobil-caused-global-warming-cum-climate-change, we hardly knew ye.
Though we have become accustomed to any and every change in the weather being blamed on the much-dreaded ExxonMobil-caused-global warming-cum-climate-change, we now have a sentinel indicator — yes, the proverbial canary in a coal burning power plant — that the days of wanton media attribution of weather change to manmade carbon dioxide emissions may be nearing an end.
In the Daily Mail (UK) article “How a freak diversion of the jet stream is paralysing the globe with freezing conditions,” Niall Firth reports,
Experts are still unsure why [the jet stream has been diverted] but suspect it may be related to the EL Nino weather system as well as changes in sea temperatures and solar activity.
‘Tis the season of miracles, indeed.
The perfect irony is that Jim Hansen may have had it right the first time in 1971 when he claimed we were going into an ice age. He was still likely wrong about the cause, but CO2 contributes to temperature decline three ways: (1) Particulate carbon is formed during combustion, (2) CO2 is 1/7th the absorber of IR as is water vapor and (3) the Le Chatelier Principle says increased CO2 will cause water vapor to precipitate and reduce air’s capacity to carry it.
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