Weather and Climate Science for Students and Grandparents
John Shanahan
June 10, 2025
(1) Weather, Climate and Global WarmingAlarmism
What do weather, climate, and man-made global warming alarmism mean to you?
John Shanahan is a retired civil-structural engineer who worked in nuclear power. He lived in Europe for 12 years and traveled to LatinAmerica, Nepal andTibet for hiking and mountain climbing. He has some background in meteorology, but is not an expert. He can reason like grade school students and grandparents..
This presentation gives his personal views on weather, climate and man-made global warming.
(2) Weather
Weather changes all the time, everywhere. It consists of all types of energy and work in progress at any given moment. In the atmosphere, weather includes temperature, three phases of water, cloud physics, wind, electricity, sunlight, infrared radiation and work converting these energy sources from one form to another. In the oceans, energy is temperature and currents. Man-made global warming alarmists don’t scientifically connect actual weather to their simplified climate models. How good are their analyses for determining “climate change?”
Global Weather
Global weather can be determined from a picture looking at the whole planet from a spacecraft returning from the moon. Or from many different sensors on a satellite. Or from thousands of sensors for wind, temperature, humidity and sunlight on land and sea.
The UN IPCC uses a global static average for temperature, sunlight and infrared radiation in their climate studies. How meaningful are their reports?
Regional Weather
Weather Satellite photo ofAfrica, June 3, 2025
Regional Weather covers major parts of a continent. It is determined in the atmosphere by sunlight, infrared radiation, water as ice, liquid, water vapor, and clouds and in the oceans by currents and water temperatures at different depths.
How useful is a climate study that uses a static global average temperature and barely accounts for the oceans?
Regional Weather - Snow Storms
Cattle frozen to death in a snow blizzard
Snow storms kill cattle and people.These weather patterns move across a whole continent turning everything white.
Freshwater is delivered by the sun evaporating surface water in the oceans, the water vapor rising to form clouds and wind bringing the clouds over land where they drop their moisture as snow or rain.
More about Snow Storms
John Shanahan climbed Volcano Cotopaxi on the equator in Ecuador in 1992. It snows there all year round.
Regional Weather - Hurricanes
Hurricanes are very powerful.
Hurricanes form over oceans and get energy from warm water.They are the most energetic natural phenomenon besides large earthquakes.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide from use of fossil fuels plays an unnoticeable role in heating the planet.The by-products from oil make the modern world possible. Leave oil in the ground?
Local Weather - Rain Storms
Most rain comes from sunlight evaporating oceans and wind carrying clouds to the continents. Rain and snow make plant and animal life possible. CO2 is the molecule of life, not a greenhouse gas pollutant.
Lightning
Lightning is a form of weather energy.
What scientific equations connect lightning to CO2
Greenhouse Gas Theory? None! Therefore Greenhouse Gas Theory does not control lightning or any weather.All intensities of weather are OK? No good!
Atornado is a form of weather energy. What scientific equations connect a tornado to CO2 Greenhouse GasTheory? None! Greenhouse Gas Theory does not control tornadoes or any weather. Can that be good climate theory?
Tornadoes
1932 Sioux Falls, South Dakota.Atornado completely ripped a steel bridge apart and drove a steel beam through a big tree with the beam sticking out the other side by over one foot! Few tornadoes since match this intensity. Man-made global warming alarmism and leave oil in the ground policies are bad for the world.
(3) Climate
UN IPCC determines climate using static global averages for sunlight and infrared radiation and one temperature number for the whole planet.The definition by the UN IPCC Climate Change Reports shows that they have little interest in actual weather and climate. This report defines real climate as the result of (not an average of) variable weather for 30 years or more. It uses characteristics of plant communities as evidence of climate.
You can determine world climate by comparing Earth’s climate with other planets. Climate is a lot more than an abstract number of a global average temperature.
To determine climate, we use all the physics parameters in the oceans and atmosphere including evidence of plant and animal life.
We don’t consider a single number for static long-term average of sunlight energy and a global average temperature to be good parameters for determining if man-made global warming exists and if it is a threat.
World Climate
What kind of life is present?
The Electromagnetic Spectrum
Electromagnetic radiation is an important form of energy for weather. Other forms of energy in weather are: heat, kinetic, electrical, and chemical. Water plays a special role in its changes of state and cloud physics.
The Electromagnetic Spectrum - notes
The electromagnetic spectrum on the previous slide shows how the modern world uses this energy.The left side of the spectrum is less energetic.The right side, more.
Visible light is more energetic than infrared radiation. We use solar panels to make electricity, not infrared radiation panels. X-rays are dangerous. UV causes sunburn and eye problems.AM radio is safe.
This is a simplified explanation why infrared radiation does not heat the planet as well as sunlight.
This is an explanation by a civil engineer for young students and grandparents. Physicists have a more complete scientific explanation.
Climate and infrared radiation energy
Sunlight and infrared radiation energies are the most import factors in heating and cooling the planet. See Happer and Wijngaarden, and Hayden.These explanations of visible light, the colors in a rainbow, infrared radiation and electromagnetic spectrum graphs are obviously correct. What scientific conclusions can be formed from these analyses about weather?
Top: 1st graders doing math homework, Lhasa,Tibet 1999.
Bottom: NorthAmerican student worried about man-made climate change.
Regional Climates vary by Latitude andAltitude
Regional climate changes by latitude: tropical, dry, temperate, continental, polar.These same climates also change as you gain altitude. Dramatic examples shown above are in Ecuador from theAmazon jungle (left) to the summit of Cotopaxi Volcano (right). It can snow all year round. Less striking examples of climate change occur on mountains everywhere.
Microclimates
Plants and Grass
Emerald Mountain in Steamboat, Colorado, USAhas four microclimates
We define a Microclimate as a considerable change of plant habitat in an area of 50 km diameter and 500 m elevation change or less
Small
Scrub Oak
Microclimates
Emerald Mountain in Steamboat, Colorado, USAhas four microclimates
These microclimates occur at different elevations, orientations of terrain and soil moisture content. Other factors in defining microclimates are the number of hours of sun each day and whether prolonged freezing happens.
PureAspen Forest Mixed Spruce andAspen Forest
Climate - Canada
Northern Canada: Extremely cold winters and short, cool summers. Areas with year-round snow and ice.
Southern Canada: Temperate climates, especially along the west coast, influenced by the Pacific Ocean.
Interior, summers are warm and winters are cold.
Continental Climate: Parts of Canada have a continental climate with large temperature differences, cold winters and warm summers.
Coastal British Columbia: A milder, climate with rainy, cloudy winters and relatively mild summers.
Prairie Provinces: In the central western portion of Canada, cold winters and warm summers.
Climate - Brazil
Since Brazil is close to the equator, it has a very tropical climate. In the picture to the left, it shows that the states closer to the equator have a more tropical climate. It has a very high humidity and has different seasons than the United States. It's warmest month is January and the coldest is July
(4) Global WarmingAlarmism
From Mother Nature
From burning of fossil fuels
- Two molecules of carbon dioxide.They are identical. One is from nature. The other from burning fossil fuels.There is no difference. But the United Nations tells us that CO2 from fossil fuels is a pollutant! Why?
(4) Weather and climate vary with time and location.The UN IPCC model uses global static average parameters!
1) How well does the UN IPCC climate model describe reality of weather and climate?
2) Can a static global average of sunlight and infrared radiation be used to determine Earth’s average temperature to a fraction of a degree when carbon dioxide increases from 180 ppmv to 430 ppmv?
3) CO2 and water vapor are labeled “greenhouse” gases. But there is no structure like a closed greenhouse in the atmosphere! Don’t you think that understanding weather and climate needs further research without man-made global warming alarmism and demands to abandon fossil fuels?
(4) Global WarmingAlarmism
- The Club of Rome, the United Nations - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, UN IPCC, World Economic Forum, WEF, Greenpeace, Sierra Club, GretaThunberg and other organizations in Europe,Australia, Europe and the United States tell people inAfrica and LatinAmerica that carbon dioxide from use of fossil fuels is a serious pollutant that causes catastrophic global warming, floods, droughts, etc.
- It is impossible for the same CO2 molecule to be essential for life and a serious pollutant. We know what the alarmists are doing!They want everyone to abandon the modern world and reduce the population.
Student Learning Sources
1) The CO2 Coalition - CO2 Learning Center. Staff of the CO2 Coalition is dedicated to explaining climate science to students. Included are lesson plans for each of the books and videos. Sharon Camp, Email camp@co2coalition.org
2) The EnergyAdvocate by Emeritus Physics Professor, Howard Cork Hayden. Email corkhayden@comcast.net
3) Website: allaboutenergy.net has a section YOUTH. Participants write articles about energy, climate and environment. John ShanahanEmail acorncreek2006@gmail.com College students teaching kangaroos inAustralia
(5) What do you think?
- Section (2) explains that weather is different forms of energy: sunlight, infrared radiation, heat in oceans, land, atmosphere, and heat in ice, water, water vapor, clouds, rain, snowAND WIND.
- Weather is also conversion of energy from one form to another by doing work. Converting sunlight energy to heat in the oceans and on land. Converting this heat to infrared radiation and kinetic energy of global wind and ocean currents, hurricanes, tornadoes and blizzards. Converting water from oceans to water vapor and clouds. Wind transporting clouds to land for rain and snow.
Generating electricity in clouds which is discharged as lightning.
- Do these weather events influence the characteristics of infrared radiation escaping to space?
(5) What do you think?
- Section (3) explains that climate is a lot more than just a global static average temperature.
- Climate varies with latitude and elevation.
- Microclimates depend on small changes in elevation, orientation of terrain and drainage.
- Are these details of climate explained satisfactorily by the UN IPCC climate models?
(5) What do you think?
- The debate about man-made global warming has been raging since the 1960s.
- Is all carbon dioxide an essential molecule of life and beneficial or is man-made CO2 a terrible pollutant?
- Does man-made carbon dioxide from use of fossil fuels cause catastrophic global warming, climate change, stronger hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, floods, heat waves, and blizzards? How?
CLOSING NOTES
- Did you know?
1) Gravity plays a very important role in Earth’s climate. It is far more important than CO2. Carbon dioxide is most important for life.
- Gravity determines the shape of the Sun and Earth. Our weather only works on a near spherical shape, not on cubes or pyramids, etc. The sun only shines as a sphere, not a flat plate, rod or pyramid!
- Gravity holds the atmosphere in place, otherwise it would float away.
2) The Coriolis Effect controls circular movements in hurricanes and tornadoes. Does water whirl going down a drain? Happen on cubes?
3) John Holdren,Al Gore and John Kerry don’t mention the tremendous influence oceans have on climate. For them, man-made CO2 is THE VILLIAN. They want humanity to abandon the modern world and go back to the 1700s!
