I first wrote about “The Best Kept Secret in Climate Science”, in my 2016 article titled: “Global Dimming Keeping the Planet Habitable”. That blog has many more relevant links in the comments section for the inquisitive. The embedded video on “Global Dimming” is a “must watch!”
That article refers to the phenomena of the planet warming after 911 when all the planes were grounded in the USA, with the subsequent decline in aerosols, followed by immediate warming.
The warming spike was directly linked to the decrease of aerosols, additional to our crack like addiction to emitting CO2, CH4, the most prolific greenhouse gas H2O and other greenhouse gases.
Lion Simons mentioned in the video below that a warmer climate holds 7% more water vapour for every 1C we broil the planet. In mountainous regions it can be as much as 15%! Each 1 Degree C We Warm the Planet adds an additional 7% Increase in Moisture into the Atmosphere.
“On this episode, Nate is joined by climate researcher Leon Simons to unpack recent trends in global heating during 2023 and potential explanations and subsequent projections for the coming year. While the connection between human emitted greenhouse gasses and global warming is scientifically agreed upon, the other complexities and feedbacks of our climate system are still just beginning to be understood. Today, Leon theorizes on the intensity of aerosol masking from particulates such as sulfur, based on the connection between recent changes in marine fuel sulfur requirements and corresponding climate data. How will the global trend towards aerosol reductions affect near and long term global heating? What does this catch-22 mean for potential future climate action and policy? How should we be thinking about creating a more simplified global system in response to the unknown unknowns of our potential future climate?”
More great work above from Leon Simons explaining the warming suppressed by the “Aerosol Masking Effect,” what Dr James E Hansen calls “Our Faustian Bargain”, what my friend and colleague Guy McPherson termed, “The Best Kept Secret in Climate Science”. Leon refers to Michael E Manns recent nonsense as a “Straw Mans Argument”, how refreshing and courageous of him. I’ve called out Michael E Manns “Strawman’s Argument” in my blog post titled: Scientific Mal-Practice from the Mann Himself
The corelation between the reduction of sulphates and increased sea surface temperatures is stark. Sea Surface temperatures off the coast of Florida hit 38C !!! Possibly a world record:
Professor Guy McPherson was previously interviewed by Nate Polson “Canadian Prepper”: “Canadian Prepper” Interview, 30 August 2022
Leon briefly mentioned the consequences of record sea surface temperatures were having on coral reefs.
Embedded following is an article titled: ‘An Underwater Bushfire’: Major Coral Bleaching Event in Northern Parts of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef
Additionally: Record Ocean Temperatures Push Coral Reefs to Brink of Fourth Mass Bleaching Event
In October 2023 Guy and I discussed the catastrophe we are inflicting on our coral reefs from warming and the additional insult of pouring radioactive wastewater into my beloved Pacific Ocean: Fukushima Daiichi adds Insult to Injury for the Pacific’s Coral Reefs.
I’ve been studying “Collapse” since I visited Mayan Ruins in Central America and similar ruins in Southeast Asia in the early 1980’s.
None of those civilisations expected to fail yet fail they did.
The collapse of industrial civilisation will trigger the loss of aerosols, we’ll also see the melt down of 450+ nuclear power stations, 1200 spent fuel pool fires and tens of thousands of leaking chemical plants and oil wells. Perhaps the aerosols from that scenario will be more than the AME today.
We’ve never carried out this experiment before, so all bets are off.
As with all my blog posts as new data comes in, I add it to the comments section. Feel free to leave a comment so when I add more information you’ll get a notification.
Good luck everyone, we sure are going to need it.
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I'm an anti-imperialist, environmental activist and blue ocean sailor, who is passionate about the earth and all it's inhabitants without favour. Brace for imminent impact as we bare witness to the non-linear unraveling of the biosphere and habitability disappearing for most if not all complex life on the only habitable planet we know of. To quote President Niinistö in North Russia: ‘If We Lose the Arctic, We Lose the World’. Folks we have lost the Arctic.
Kevin Hester 
Why Is the Sea So Hot?
“A startling rise in sea-surface temperatures suggests that we may not understand how fast the climate is changing.”
“It’s not like we’re breaking records by a little bit now and then,” Brian McNoldy, a hurricane researcher at the University of Miami, said. “It’s like the whole climate just fast-forwarded by fifty or a hundred years.”
“Yet another is a change in the composition of shipping fuel. Regulations that went into effect in 2020 reduced the amount of sulfur in the fuel used by supertankers. This reduction, in turn, has led to a decline in a type of air pollution that, through direct and indirect effects, reflects sunlight back to space.”
Everyone is catching on, slowly:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/why-is-the-sea-so-hot
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“For example, our useful efforts to reduce sulfur emissions may have actually increased warming, because sulfate particles reflect sunlight, bouncing it back into space. And, finally, no one can say with any certainty what constitutes a dangerous level of warming, and therefore what level must be avoided.”
“There are only two ways to stabilize concentration of greenhouse gases. One is to avoid emitting them in the first place; the other is to try to capture them after they’re created. And there are problems with both approaches. We’re making great progress through technology, but have not yet developed cost-effective ways to capture carbon emissions at their source; although there is some promising work that is being done.”
He said that in 2001 and CCS technology has failed miserably:
https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/06/20010611-2.html?fbclid=IwAR3e5ui32Aw0wpw4-VaQQsIqR1bTXx-HlR_gfA-clxy2g8D1BjnUu5S0Uqw
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[…] recently covered that issue in depth quoting both Professor McPherson and Leon Simons:The Aerosol Masking Effect, a Deep Dive into Our “Faustian Bargain” We have destabilised the atmosphere and the ocean currents, we are rapidly spiralling into a […]
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Scientists fear planetary shift as record ocean heat enters second year
Warming trend could represent a major change to Earth systems that cannot be reversed on any human time scale.
Global ocean heat sets record for 12 straight months, alarming scientists – The Washington Post
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“Theories for the increase include a 2020 change in aerosol shipping regulations designed to help improve air quality around ports and coastal areas, which may have had the unintended consequence of enabling more sunlight to reach the planet.”
Gavin Schmidt has been downplaying the crisis for years, he’s a highly paid gatekeeper.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/humbling-bit-worrying-scientists-fail-100016771.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cDovL20uZmFjZWJvb2suY29tLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAHJ8OEB6JHGhIVUthoZxwECyuYIxeVI0cF9bcAbbKooPjAh6-qF3x6P2wX5H78jM7R03oGgek_vSopZGqjlHko2M7tohj1XOQJnbIX-Af9py47CZeGGGpHIdamexbGVEL9frvJL52VXYuayNXFqBcWr3m8pYRFxVUjXhbyaVGBdQ
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Hansen calling out Mann for Scientific reticence and then showing it himself with nonsense that it’s not too late and feedback loops can be uncoupled if we reduce anthropogenic forcing.
He lets it slip that his latest book is aimed at the youth so it must have hope!
The mental gymnastics would be hilarious if the consequences weren’t so dire.
Global Warming Acceleration: Hope vs Hopium (mailchi.mp)
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[…] atmosphere in as short a time as a week. No flora can adapt to those sorts of global perturbations. The Aerosol Masking Effect, a Deep Dive into Our “Faustian Bargain”I accept and expect this post will be incredibly triggering for readers.Here’s the deal. Leave […]
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Science Snippets: AME Update – Nature Bats Last (guymcpherson.com)
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Thanks for this blog; I could not resist posting it on Youtube; if you object let me know. https://youtu.be/JZ7zaYd8jt4
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Well done, many thanks.
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(6) How Changing Ocean Temperatures Could Upend Life on Earth – YouTube
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James Hansen’s Update On Global Warming Acceleration with Guest Leon Simons (youtube.com)
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Leon Simons latest interview:
James Hansen’s Update On Global Warming Acceleration with Guest Leon Simons (youtube.com)
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Paul’s latest on the AME
How Massive Reduction in China’s Aerosols Have Increased Global Warming and Changed Precipitation (youtube.com)
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There are so many facets that are combining to be heat can anybody even keep up with all of it? That it is continuing to accelerate…
What’s behind recent extreme heat events and record high temperatures
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sealintheSelkirks
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENAZM-caquI
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This is a remarkably good article from the corporate media on the AME
Research is clear — as smog recedes, the oceans get hotter | Canada’s National Observer: Climate News
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[…] issue of the Aerosol Masking Effect, what Dr James E Hansen called “Our Faustian Bargain” was discussed and how the reduction of aerosols is having an effect on both Sea Surface Temperatures […]
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Dr. James E. Hansen
4h ·
Why a complement to IPCC and its cottage industry is needed. See – Feb 12 Global Warming Has Accelerated. Why? What Are the Consequences?
https://mailchi.mp/…/global-warming-has-accelerated-why…
Watch our video: https://drive.google.com/…/1dfFcauJBL3ejI…/view…
Read our paper: https://www.tandfonline.com/…/10…/00139157.2025.2434494
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Watching the corporate media dancing around the reality of non-linearity in the climate system is like watching a worm on a fishhook.
They pretend to cover the poly-crisis but only ever give us the edited highlights.
The fact that the Aerosol Masking Effect was alluded to but not given its scientific description is another example of editorial failure. I’m more inclined to believe it’s a conscious decision to not tell the whole story, not an oversight!
Science Snippets: WaPo Continues Misleading Its Readership – Nature Bats Last
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Shortly we in the US aren’t going to have to worry about any of this because there won’t be any scientists left in the US reporting on the problem. Or any problems because Trump the Moron King says there ain’t no such boogieman so why are we spending all this beautiful tax money that could be given to the wealth in gi-fucking-gantic tax cuts AGAIN just like his last term of office?
Ergo, fire the science staffs and there isn’t a problem, yes?
NASA eliminates chief scientist role, other offices
https://www.axios.com/2025/03/10/nasa-eliminates-chief-scientist-role-offices
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NOAA, NASA brace for major job cuts
https://www.axios.com/2025/02/18/federal-workers-layoffs-noaa-nasa
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Kevin, this is utterly insane. Nobody will track hurricanes anymore, no tornado watches, or atmospheric rivers. NOTHING will be watched and nobody will be there to give warnings.
I really hope that Trump is sitting in his pink palace golf resort in Florida when a Cat 6 hurricane blows in with 40 foot storm surge.
We are now officially a Shit-hole 3rd world country, dude.
sealintheSelkirks
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[…] 2025 Paper: “The large role of declining atmospheric sulfate deposition and rising CO2 concentrations in stimulating future wetland CH4 emissions”:Follow Vincent on X/Twitter: @gaucigauci and Blusesky: @gaucigauci.bsky.socialI have previously on this blog delved into the Aerosol Masking Effect, what Dr James E Hansen calls “Our Faustian Bargain”. The embedded link below includes further research from our respected colleague Leon Simons: The Aerosol Masking Effect, a Deep Dive into Our “Faustian Bargain” […]
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I’ve written extensively about the Aerosol Masking Effect and its atmospheric dynamics; this new analysis concludes that the changes to the shipping fuels Sulphur emissions have reduced the amount of lightning.
The world regulated sulfur in ship fuels − and the lightning stopped
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Thomas Reis
@peakaustria
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simulations from eight Earth System Models, how a time evolving 75% reduction in Chinese sulfate emissions partially unmasks greenhouse driven warming and influences the pattern of surface temperature change. We find a rapidly evolving global, annual-mean warming of 0.07 ± 0.05 ºC, sufficient to explain a majority of the uptick in global warming rate since 2010 https://researchsquare.com/article/rs-6005409/v1
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Our predicament is always worse than we knew yesterday.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-025-01662-y?fbclid=IwY2xjawJhYvhleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHpb37WVUQp5ATb9Xojd2JECz4yrZrfuau3YD20TY39ieGBlxWsusNGBJ0yop_aem_1NU-6zlI_UiNigZnxQTEPQ
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjW6_rgtJxM
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There is no hiding from what Dr James E Hansen dubbed “Our Faustian Bargain” or what Guy termed “The greatest Secret in Climate Science.”
Ironically, on June 11/2001 President Bush said in a White House briefing “Our useful efforts to reduce sulfur emissions may have actually increased warming, because sulphate particles reflect sunlight”
It’s a classic predicament!
Science Snippets: World Oceans Are a Simmering Cauldron
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A controversial new paper challenges established emissions accounting criteria.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9f16OTL1Lg
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A 77% reduction in shipping emissions is central, along with other feedback loops, in the marine heat waves we’ve been experiencing globally, but the reduction in aerosols, that act as cloud nuclei, also alter the amount of lightning strikes.
What Dr James E Hansen described as our “Faustian Bargain” is even more complex than we knew before this recent analysis.
Another day another variable pops up, the new abnormal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6hwOC25UVA&t=13s
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Via David Badagnani on FB.
India eases sulphur norms for coal plants, reversing decade-old mandate | Industry News – Business Standard
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China’s fight against smog has actually sped up global warming – Earth.com
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Isabel Ebert
“Fierce marine heatwaves were recorded globally in 2023 and 2024, and some researchers now believe they mark the start of a fundamental change with devastating consequences for life on Earth”
“Zeng says he is “very scared” by this potential regime shift in the oceans. “I think almost all of the Earth system model projections are wrong,” he says.”
Professor Zeng admitting he is scared is a courageous admission.
What many scientists say in public is often more tepid that they will admit in private discourse.
Record marine heatwaves may signal a permanent shift in the oceans | New Scientist
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“A retired atmospheric physicist at the University of Washington in Seattle is then quoted: “the Arctic basically didn’t have lightning at all. Now it’s got a lot more. It’s easy to see that.”
As we melt the Arctic Sea Ice, commerce is looking to use the Arctic waters to ship more freight, we’ll get more dark ice from the aerosols accelerating the melt and now more lightning.
For the record, methane ignites when in a 5% to 15% mixture with air.
Determination of the explosion parameters of methane-air mixtures as function of the ignition source and the volume and shape of the explosion chambers – ScienceDirect
Science Snippets: More Thunderstorms in Our Warming World
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Guy’s latest on our ‘Faustian Bargain’
Science Snippets: The Disadvantage of Reducing Air Pollution – Nature Bats Last
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Science Snippets: Localized Aerosol Masking Effect Identified
Science Snippets: Localized Aerosol Masking Effect Identified
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