A Simple Explanation of Weather and Climate Change
The Sun, the shape of the Earth, sunlight, infrared radiation, oceans, gravity, atmospheric thermodynamics, water vapor, volcanoes, carbon dioxide and methane play a part.
John Shanahan
Civil Engineer
February 10, 2025
Introduction
Earth’s weather is beautiful, complex and unique. Many fields of science are needed to explain weather and climate in the past, present and future.
The present and future climate of the earth is analogous to other issues that have a significant impact on our society. There is seldom if ever agreement on the major factors that will contribute to the outcomes. Some including influential politically motivated individuals like Al Gore and others paint a more alarming forecast for the future. Their conclusions and predictions are based on the use of flawed models to analyze factors that contribute to our present and future climate. We will attempt to describe a more realistic model that does not predict an alarming future for the Earth.
Scientists and politicians claiming that CO2 from fossil fuels causes harmful global warming and some who see CO2 only as the molecule of life employ static values for global average temperature, sunlight energy into the atmosphere, infrared radiation, IR, leaving the atmosphere and IR’s interaction with “greenhouse.” gases. Their studies do not consider the varying weather processes from day to night, atmospheric thermodynamics, a tilted Earth axis, nor Earth’s orbiting around the Sun. These things are just factored in as averages. They do not explain ice ages and interim warm periods. This is inadequate for understanding weather and climate in the past, present and future and for making life and death decisions about use of fossil fuels and their by-products. But it is good
enough for them to decide to force everyone to abandon fossil fuels and the amenities of the modern world that are by-products of crude oil.
Only a spherical, rotating, tilted axis, solar orbiting model of the Earth with gravity, oceans and atmospheric thermodynamics with the Coriolis Effect can explain Earth’s weather and climate well.
Coal, oil and natural gas and their by-products have improved the standard of living. They enabled the population to grow beyond the limits of the last 50,000 years. Man-made global warming alarmists want to stop the use of fossil fuels. One of the worst ideas for humanity, ever.
Students, their parents and grandparents can understand enough about the weather and the hoax of man-made global warming alarmism by studying simple ideas, pictures and graphs. They can distinguish between actual weather and ridiculous climate alarmism. They don’t need lots of equations, calculations of average global temperatures “accurate” to a tenth of a degree Centigrade or college-level details of electromagnetic radiation.
Explanations of weather need to study the nearly spherical shape of the Earth, its daily rotation, tilting axis, annual orbiting with four seasons and know the importance of the vast quantities of water in the oceans. Not just study carbon dioxide, water vapor, clouds and a shallow layer of the top of the oceans. The studies need to include the effects of gravity, the Coriolis Effect and atmospheric thermodynamics. They need to explain what caused the much different weather in the distant past.
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, UN IPCC, and likeminded organizations base their conclusions on flawed simple models or complex models that need supercomputers.
Some scientists claim that studies of the Greenhouse Effect alone can determine temperature change to a tenth of a degree Centigrade!!
Other scientists conclude that the GHE is flawed or doesn’t even exist…...
Nothing about weather and life on Earth would exist on a flat, non-rotating disk with constant average temperature and average radiation in and out.
Should we make decisions about the use of fossil fuels affecting the lives of 8 billion people based on these flawed climate models?
Most people don’t know what a photon is. A photon has no dimensions, no mass and travels at the speed of light!!! It is a “package” of energy! Photons of sunshine enter Earth’s atmosphere and photons of infrared radiation leave the atmosphere occupying the same space, impossible for tangible things to do with mass and dimensions.
“It just so happens that whatever we do, there is a physical quantity that gets transferred from here to there, i.e., whose value decreases there and increases here (or vice versa). Physicists and engineers call this quantity “energy”, and a measure of what we do is given by a measure of the amount of energy transferred. Our ability to do what we like to do depends on our ability to transfer energy. Because whatever we do is done with an energy transfer. Whatever: reading this article or writing it, collecting potatoes or cooking them, walking or driving, building a toothpick or a skyscraper. Energy transfer occurs by heat transfer, by work transfer or by both. There was a time when energy was transferred by burning wood or by keeping slaves. Nowadays it is not so anymore: thanks to coal, oil, natural gas, uranium and hydropower we do not need either to burn trees or to keep slaves. It is by our ability to transfer energy that we generate electricity…”. [Professor Franco Battaglia, Physical Chemistry, Modena, Italy].
Energy is used to generate electricity and power billions of engines in pumps, farm equipment, open pit mining, construction, cargo handling, cars, ships and planes.
What happens when photons of sunshine strike you? You smile!
Sunshine warms the Earth, supports life and makes plants grow. Over long periods, plants are converted to coal, crude oil and natural gas and
thousands of by-products: asphalt for roads and roofing, clothing, sports equipment, cosmetics, medical equipment, medicines, packaging for foodstuff and everything else. Conventional thinking is that coal, crude oil and natural gas are created when plants, algae, and other biomass materials are buried deep in the earth's crust under high heat and pressure where anaerobic microbes existing without oxygen or sunlight create hydrocarbons. Sunshine produces all weather events except those which come from energy in Earth’s core: tidal waves from earthquakes and hot ash, gases, water vapor and water droplets from volcanoes.
Infrared radiation, IR, coming from the warmed surfaces of the land and oceans has the same amount of energy as sunshine but it is in less useful form. It does one important thing. IR adds heat to water vapor and to a lesser extent carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere. This warms the atmosphere and causes most weather events. Plants grow better in sunshine than in infrared radiation coming off Earth’s surfaces. People in cities are happier with sunshine than infrared radiation off their golf courses and shopping center parking lots.
Why make a mountain out of a molehill with claims of catastrophic manmade global warming from infrared radiation from fossil fuels acting on carbon dioxide in the atmosphere? What are Al Gore, John Holdren, John Kerry and their counterparts around the world up to? NO GOOD!!
Ideologists, power mongers, the World Economic Forum and many others want people to fear carbon dioxide from fossil fuels!!!!!!! They are your leaders of the free world!!!! Who are our worst enemies?
Man-made climate change troublemakers don’t talk about actual weather. They use flat Earth models to study sunshine, infrared radiation, cloud reflection (albedo), CO2 and H2O. They don’t pay attention to the shape of the Earth, its dynamics, gravity, atmospheric thermodynamics, the work done by storms, the Coriolis Effect, etc.
Sunlight and Infrared Radiation
Sunlight is the main source of heat for the weather.
Infrared radiation is the main source of cooling the land and oceans, warming the atmosphere and sending energy back to space.
People promoting the Greenhouse Theory say that IR leaves land and ocean surfaces and travels in zig-zag paths after encountering CO2, H2O, and cow flatulence (methane) on its way back to space. They rarely explain how infrared radiation causes weather.
IR encounters CO2 and H2O within a few hundred meters of the surface, energizing these molecules that in turn energize the rest of the gases nearby. Atmospheric thermodynamics takes over. Warm moist air rises to form clouds and storms. Above the highest clouds, the thermalized energy converts back to IR which continues to outer space, cooling the planet.
There is little water vapor in deserts. The air in deserts is mostly heated by direct contact with the ground. “In the Sahara Desert, the maximum temperatures can reach up to 58°C (134°F), while the minimum temperatures can drop as low as -6°C (21°F) at night, showcasing a large diurnal temperature range due to the desert's dry conditions.” Google AI
Incoming sunlight energy must equal outgoing infrared radiation energy to space. Otherwise, the planet would get hotter or colder.
The sunlight and infrared radiation vary with the time of day and season. The sunlight energy goes to zero at night. The infrared radiation IR varies in intensity during the day, the night, the season and on cloudy days.
The actual time and location variation of weather is ignored in Greenhouse Effect studies. They use static averages of a non-rotating Earth. The weather in such models would be very different from actual weather on Earth. Can their conclusions about IR and greenhouse gases be correct?
The shape of the Earth is important for weather
Many three-dimensional bodies might exist in space and have weather. But they don’t!
Most stars, planets and moons are nearly spherical. The Earth is a slightly distorted sphere, like a lumpy potato.
Two-dimensional Earth models can’t fully explain climate.
Three-dimensional shapes besides near-spheres and two-dimensional shapes cannot have weather like on Earth. Space dust and rocks gather into stars, planets and moons by the force of gravity and form sphere-like shapes. Can you have weather on non-rotating flat surfaces? You need a sphere, gravity and oceans to have weather like on Earth.
Many scientific papers explaining Earth’s climate use a static average temperature for the whole planet, average sunshine and average infrared radiation energy leaving Earth back to space! These models always face the sun, do not discuss gravity, do not have oceans or Earth’s weather. Why do we use them to determine the use of fossil fuels and the fate of humanity?
The graphic shows how the Sun’s rays strike different surfaces of the Earth.
The Earth’s surface is perpendicular to rays of sunlight near the equator. The Earth’s surface is tilted away from the sunlight at higher latitudes. Solar energy is strongest near the Equator. At the poles, the average solar energy just glances off the surface and has a very weak effect.
More thunderstorms occur near the equator than elsewhere. Sun-heated air parcels move to higher elevations along radial lines and from the equator to the poles along meridional and latitudinal lines. The atmosphere and weather are rarely discussed by Greenhouse Effect theorists.
Students, the public and political leaders can understand that nonspherical three-dimensional and two-dimensional shapes have different weather than Earth. We shouldn’t use them for decision making about weather on Earth.
Gravity is important for the weather
The shapes of the stars, planets and moons are determined by gravity acting everywhere there are two or more bodies. Gravity acts continuously and forever. Its force is dependent on the inverse square of the distance between two masses. The shape of the Earth governs the weather.
Evaporated water rises to form clouds and snow and rain on the land. Gravity holds the atmosphere and oceans in place. Otherwise, they would float away to space.
Gravity has many important roles in actual weather but people who think that everything depends only on the Greenhouse Effect give gravity little attention. See John Kerry, John Holdren, Michael Mann, Jim Hansen, etc.
The Coriolis Effect plays an important role
The Coriolis Effect is caused by the near-spherical shape of the Earth and its daily rotation. The smaller radius of cross-sections at different latitudes causes the rotating Coriolis Effect. Low-pressure weather systems of all sizes (several hundred miles/km down to a hundred feet/30 meters radius) rotate counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere.
The photo above shows a hurricane in the Northern Hemisphere rotating counterclockwise due to the Coriolis Effect. The rotating weather effect doesn’t happen if the planet has flat surfaces and doesn’t rotate!
How can studies of the weather and climate be accurate if they don’t include the Coriolis Effect? On flat surfaces, storms wouldn’t rotate. They would distribute their energy differently or wouldn’t form at all. Man-made global warming theorists insist that their predictions of climate change are
valid if they only study the Greenhouse Effect of CO2, H2O and methane on non-rotating models with flat surfaces!
Atmospheric thermodynamics is important
Thermodynamics is the study of the relationship between temperature (thermo) and changing volume of gases. The warmer humid air is lighter and rises to form clouds and storms. Colder air is denser and sinks.
Here is a 2009 textbook on Atmospheric Thermodynamics.
Here is a 2024 paper by Tom Shula, On The Dynamics of Thermalization in The Atmosphere.
Here is a 2024 paper by Douglas Lightfoot and Gerald Ratzer, Factors affecting Earth’s temperature.
Here is a 2024 paper by Terigi Ciccone. How the Sun warms the Earth and How the Earth cools.
Here is a 2024 climate science discussion group report CDG2024.
Heat is energy in gas, liquid and solid molecules. Heat flows from hot to cold areas by fluid flow in the oceans and atmosphere and by conduction in solids. Without new energy input, heat is distributed uniformly throughout a medium and is less useful to do work. Think of a white-water river or a calm lake, a stormy day in March or a calm summer day.
Ocean circulation patterns
Atmospheric circulation patterns.
Weather includes atmosphere and ocean circulation patterns on near spherical planets. Climate predictions based on flat surface, non-rotating
Earth models have many flaws.
Oceans are important
Many climate studies ignore the tremendous amount of water in the oceans. Planets without oceans have different climates. The tremendous influence of the oceans is not mentioned by people focusing on the Greenhouse Effect of man-made global warming. Are they right?
A simple summary of Earth’s weather
Earth’s shape is a nearly spherical lumpy potato. It has gravity, atmosphere and vast oceans. Weather is determined by sunshine and these things. Water vapor is one of several forms of water. Their molecules interact with infrared radiation coming off the heated surfaces of the land and oceans, capturing energy from photons and passing that energy on to other molecules in the atmosphere. The same thing happens with carbon dioxide and methane but to a barely measurable degree. That heat (weather) circulates to higher elevations and from the equator to the poles where it is converted back to infrared radiation that escapes to space. Weather is not just about infrared radiation, water vapor and carbon dioxide.
Scientists and politicians claiming that CO2 causes serious global warming focus mainly on infrared radiation acting on carbon dioxide, water vapor and methane molecules. They ignore the roles of gravity, atmospheric thermodynamics, the vast oceans and the Coriolis Effect. And variations in time and location. Their model of the Earth is a surface that constantly faces the sun. The weather in this model is vastly different from the real world. Probably the weather on this model wouldn’t even exist. They calculate temperature change to a tenth of a degree Celsius from additional carbon dioxide using static global average temperature, average sunshine energy and average infrared energy. It is hard to believe that their calculations and conclusions are worth a photon!
Their demands to abandon the use of fossil fuels are some of the worst things ever imposed on humanity. Al Gore, John Kerry, John Holdren, Jim Hansen and people like them everywhere must stop their climate alarmism.
Conclusions
1. Climate research using flat-surface, non-rotating models of Earth, static global average temperature, average sunlight and infrared radiation is inadequate to understand past, present and future weather and climate that varies all over the globe. The UN IPCC and all climate alarmists are wrong.
2. The Greenhouse Man-Made Global Warming Effect Theory doesn't explain weather or climate varying all over the world all the time.
3. People sounding the man-made global warming alarm want to stop the use of fossil fuels and destroy the modern world.
4. Scientists and engineers accurately studying weather and climate are heroes for all of us.
Advances in 2025 in understanding weather and climate. Explained for the public and their leaders
This section will follow scientists like those below to continuously update their research with simplified summaries explaining weather and climate that go beyond the Greenhouse Effect Theory.
- Guss Berkhout et al. (watch for research updates)
Why did the EU invite Greta Thunberg and not Nobel Prize winner William Nordhaus?
What was the first: temperature or CO2?
Wake up call
There is no climate emergency
The CO2-system from an imaging point of view
CLINTEL message for all Climate Realist scientists and advocates
- Terigi Ciccone (watch for research updates)
Why are there such differences of opinion among scientists about the topic of climate
Why all the fuss with CO2 and the Greenhouse effect?
Where is the additional atmospheric carbon dioxide coming from?
What percentage of atmospheric CO2 is man-made?
The benefits of increased CO2 and warmer temperatures - Part 1
The benefits of increased CO2 and warmer temperatures - Part 2
How does the sun heat the Earth? - How does the Earth cool?
- Douglas Lightfoot (watch for research updates)
Back radiation versus CO2
How Energy Makes a Difference
Nobody’s Fuel
- Sebastian Luening (watch for research updates)
Who erased the medieval warm period
Helfen Weltuntergangs-Szenarien dem Klimaschutz?
Mann’s hockey stick temperature graph
Greenpeace sucht vergeblich nach dem Klimawandel
- Sebastian Luening and Fritz Vahrenholt (watch for research updates)
The Neglected Sun
- Andy May (watch for research updates)
Climate Catastrophe! Science or Science Fiction?
- Andy May and Tom Shula (watch for research updates)
Energy and Matter
- Ned Nikolov et al. (watch for research updates)
Demystifying the Atmospheric Greenhouse Effect
A New Paradigm for Climate Science - CO2 Is Innocent
- Markus Ott and Tom Shula (watch for research updates)
The Missing Link in the Greenhouse Effect
- Gerald Ratzer (watch for research updates)
Discussion with Perplexity AI on Greenhouse Gases
RTC, Radiative Transfer Concept - HTC, Heat Transport ConceptWhy We Need Both
- Gerald Ratzer and Douglas Lightfoot (watch for research updates)
Total Heat (enthalpy) versus the infrared measurements
The Sun Versus CO2 as the Cause of Climate Change Projected to 2050
The Story of the Current Weather
- Tom Shula (watch for research updates)
Why Radiative Transfer is the Wrong Model for Earth’s Atmosphere
Photons and Photonic Confusion
On Spectral Radiance And Its Meaning
- Fritz Vahrenholt (watch for research updates)
The biggest mistakes of the Energy Transition
- Uli Weber (watch for research updates)
Hemispheric Stefan Boltzmann Model
References
Studying real weather
Here is a list of scientists, engineers, teachers, writers, and reporters who study weather based on atmospheric events that we are familiar with. Most authors do not offer complete explanations of weather and climate. They do not necessarily agree with each other. Many outstanding individuals are doing this science. We apologize for not being able to include everyone.
This website does not require peer-reviewed academic publications that frequently go along with the consensus. People are included because they make good contributions to public education about real weather and sound energy in the opinion of John Shanahan, host of allaboutenergy.net.
Habibulla Abdussamatov, Ralph Alexamder, Martin Armstrong, Earl Ault, Russ Babcock, Ronald Barmby, Joe Bast, Charles Battig, Calvin Beisner, Larry Bell, Guus Berkhout, Ed Berry, Roger Bezdek, Paul Bledsoe, Christopher Booker, Bruce Bower, Sterling Burnett, David Burton-1, David Burton-2, John Christy, Terigi Ciccone, John Clauser, Ron Clutz, Michael and Ronan Connolly, John Constable, Marty Cornell, Douglas Cotton, Susan Crockford, Judith Curry, Rupert Darwall, Fernando del Pino Calvo Sotelo, Ray DiLorenzo, Brian Dingwall, Terry Donze, Tilak Doshi, Frank Dreves, Paul Driessen, John Droz, John Dunn, John Eidson, Ferdinand Engelbeen, Alex Epstein, Duggan Flanakin, Bernd Fleischmann, Gordon Fulks, Samuel Furfari, Michel Gay, Gerhard Gerlich, Indur Goklany, Steve Goreham, Pierre Gosselin, Gerhard Grasruck, Bill Gray, Ken Haapala, Kip Hansen, William Happer, Hermann Harde, Howard Cork Hayden, Tony Heller, Roger Higgs, Paul Homewood, Heinz Hug, Ole Humlum, Craig Idso, Zbigniew Jaworowski, Vijay Jayaraj, Eric Jelinski, Michael Kelly, William Kininmonth, Albert Koehler, Steve Koonin, Joel Kotkin, Demetris Koutsoyiannis, Josef Kowatsch, Martin Krohn, Donna Laframboise, David Legates, Jim Le Maistre, Kees le Pair,
Douglas Lightfoot, Richard Lindzen, Bjorn Lomborg, Oddvar Lundseng, Sebastian Luening, Anthony Lupo, Wallace Manheimer, Andy May, Ross McKitrick, Euan Mearns. Francis Menton, Steve Milloy, Mark Mills, Christopher Monckton, Andrew Montford – 1, Andrew Montford – 2, Patrick Moore, Daniel Nebert, Ludwig Neidhart, Ned Nikolov, Gerald North, JoNova, Marcus Ott, Benny Peiser, Roger Pielke Jr, Roger Pielke Sr, Alex Pope, M Ragheb, Gerald Ratzer, Peter Ridd, Matt Ridley, John Robson, Norman Rogers, Craig Rucker, Anthony Sadar, Nicola Scafetta, Lars Schernikau, Nir Shaviv, Michael Shellenberger, John Shewchuk, Tom Shula, David Siegel, Fred Singer, Irina Slav, William Hayden Smith, Willie Soon, Roy Spencer, Siegfried Stark, Ronald Stein, Jim Steele, Reinhard Storz, Colin Summerhayes, Henrik Svensmark, Peter Temple, Tomar Tamarkin, Anastasios Tsonis, Fritz Vahrenholt, Georg von Petersdorff, Greg Walcher, Peter Ward, Thorpe Watson, Anthony Watts, Uli Weber, David Wojick, Gregory Wrightstone, Gary Young, Karl Zeller, Valentina Zharkova and Aleksandr Zhitomirskiy
Studying the Greenhouse Effect, GHE
The scientists in this section have written articles focusing on static averages of temperature, sunlight, infrared radiation and interpretation of electromagnetic spectrum at the Top of the Atmosphere. They have had outstanding careers. Their static presentations of the Greenhouse Effect for explaining Earth’s real weather that varies with time and location have limitations. You can not reason backwards from a change of averages to predict the behavior of any individual contributing parameter. They hardly mention the role of the large volume of the oceans. Water has three phases: ice, liquid and water vapor. Energy is required or given off for each change of phase. Clouds have many roles. They don’t discuss these issues in detail.
William Happer, William van Wijngaarden
Howard Cork Hayden
Weather and life on their static Earth models would not be the same as weather and life in the real dynamic world of planet Earth.
