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Forces of Nature Which Impact Weather and Climate, Part 1 - Introduction
Version - August 20, 2025
John Shanahan
For thousands of years, weather was related to daily or weekly events in the atmosphere, the oceans, the land, and the mountains. Climate was a long-term regional average (30 years or longer) of regional weather:
- sunny, cloudy, hot, humid, cold, pleasant, no rain, rain, flooding, thunderstorms, hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, sleet, hail, breezy, windy, high pressure, low pressure, a good day to go to the ball game, soccer game, or football game, white Christmas, Indian summer, summer heat wave, winter cold spell, April showers, May flowers, weather predictions in the Farmers Almanac, etc.
The weather and temperature vary greatly with latitude, elevation, and location with relationship to large land masses, bodies of water, major ocean and air currents, and atmospheric rivers. These things control weather and climate far more than weak infrared radiation interacting with small amounts of carbon dioxide and water vapor.
Near the equator, there are or have been steamy jungles, deserts, permanent deep snow fields, and subtropical grasslands and forests.
In the mid- and upper mid-latitudes, there are lush hardwood forests, evergreen forests, prairies, and dry steppes.
Near the poles, there are or have been deserts, snow several thousand feet deep, vibrant grasses and flowers, warm seasons, and forests.
In the oceans, life is abundant where plenty of nutrients are available. Otherwise, oceans are barren volumes of water. At the bottom of the oceans, there are heat and material coming from Earth’s core.
In the 19th century, scientists proposed that small quantities of gases in the atmosphere cause a “greenhouse effect” which affects the planet’s temperature. [The Discovery of Global Warming - American Institute of Physics]
Starting about 1970, some scientists and politicians in Australia, Europe, and North America began relentless campaigns of alarmism about man-made global warming, man-made global cooling, and man-made climate change. This was supposedly caused by man-made carbon dioxide from the use of fossil fuels. They preached that the massive ice cover in Greenland and Antarctica, and the glaciers in the Alps, Alaska, and the Himalayas, were going to melt. The sea level would rise like never before. Massive coastal flooding would wipe out megacities and displace a billion people. Droughts and floods would end modern food production. Bulk transportation by barges on rivers.would shrink to a trickle.
The villain is supposed to be man-made carbon dioxide from the use of fossil fuels. Coal, oil, and natural gas enabled the blossoming of the modern world and an eightfold increase in population. Energy from coal, oil, and natural gas eliminated the need for slave labor. Slavery persists because of the evils of mankind. The 6,000 by-products of petroleum are essential to almost everything we use in homes, businesses, industries, transportation, and power plants. Without by-products from petroleum, the world would revert to the standard of living of the Middle Ages.
Climate alarmists of all stripes, not honest meteorologists and weather forecasters, claim that man-made carbon dioxide is a pollutant, while natural carbon dioxide is the molecule of life. All carbon dioxide is chemically identical. All CO2 is either a pollutant or essential for life.
Alarmists and some other scientists claim that man-made carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere for a very long time, while natural CO2 cycles every few years into the oceans. That is impossible. All CO2 molecules have the same chemical and physical properties. They stay in the atmosphere for the same amount of time. Man-made carbon dioxide is not a villain!
In 2025, man-made climate change alarmists and a few atomic, molecular, and optical physicists reported that climate change, as measured by static global average temperature, can be explained by unrealistic models of the Earth that use static global averages for the temperature of the planet. They use static global averages for sunlight and infrared radiation. Carbon dioxide and water vapor interact with IR to heat the atmosphere, similar to sunshine acting on closed greenhouses. What validity is there between these simple climate models and real, continuously changing weather and climate on a rotating and orbiting, tilted planet? These simplified climate models mostly ignore the vast oceans. They ignore the tremendous energy in circulation in the oceans and atmosphere. They ignore energy from the core of the Earth.
Do these simple climate models properly explain what the main causes of weather and climate change are?
Is the explanation of carbon dioxide and water vapor as greenhouse gases incomplete, possibly wrong?
Is there a greenhouse effect in the atmosphere? The “windows” of Earth’s atmosphere are wide open!
This series of articles, with titles beginning with “Forces of Nature Which Impact Weather and Climate, Part xx” explores real weather and climate to demonstrate that some simple climate models are inadequate for determining climate change and deciding whether we should continue to use fossil fuels.