A quick overview of my recent works on climate

My Christmas gift for readers—or non-Christmas gift for those who don’t celebrate Christmas

[There is also a Greek version of the post—Υπάρχει και ελληνική έκδοση της ανάρτησης]

I am starting my brief post of today with some facts:

• The atmospheric CO₂ currently represents 4% of 1% of the total number of molecules in the atmosphere. (The rest 99.96% are molecules of other substances: Nitrogen 77.8%, Oxygen 20.9%, Argon 0.9%, Water (vapour) 0.4%, and all trace gases <0.03% altogether.)¹

• Humans currently contribute 4% to the total CO₂ emissions. (The rest 96% is by natural causes.)

• Atmospheric CO₂ contributes 4% to the atmospheric greenhouse effect, as measured by the downwelling longwave radiation. (The rest is from water and clouds, 95%, and other trace gases, 1%.)

• Both atmospheric concentration of CO₂ and globally averaged atmospheric temperature have been increasing in the recent decades.

• Changes in the atmospheric concentration of CO₂ lag changes in temperature. (First we observe changes in temperature and then in CO₂ concentration.)

Ergo (according to the official climate narrative):

1. Human CO₂ emissions (which are 4% of the total, and contribute 4% of 4% = 0.16% to the greenhouse effect), cause increase of temperature, which occurs before the increase of CO₂ concentration.

2. Human CO₂ emissions are responsible for every evil in the world, including floods, droughts, wars, immigration, kidney stones and every disease imaginable.²

Schematically, this is shown in the upper row of the following figure, reproduced from my brand new paper:

D. Koutsoyiannis, The relationship between atmospheric temperature and carbon dioxide concentration, Science of Climate Change, 4 (3), 39–59, doi:10.53234/scc202412/15, 2024.

Figure 1 of the paper: Graphical depiction of the subject of the paper, with the upper row of arrows showing the mainstream causal chain that is popular among climate zealots and mainstream climate sceptics, and the lower row showing the proposed alternative based on my recent publications. The smaller arrow for the human CO₂ emissions in the lower row corresponds to the fact that they only contribute 17% to the increase of [CO₂] (causal link “a΄”), while natural emissions by the expanded biosphere due to increased T contribute 83% (causal link “β”). The footnotes are included for illustration and are documented as follows: A Google Scholar search for the terms “climate impacts” and “hydrology” yields 34 200 publications and a search for the terms “climate change” and “kidney stones” yields 3710 publications

The lower row in the figure depicts the results of my recent research on climate.³ As the paper per se is short—a little more than 3000 words—I attach it here. You can download and read it if interested to see how the causal chain is inverted and how the proposed chain is supported by all available data.

The Relationship between Atmospheric Temperature and Carbon Dioxide Concentration

798KB ∙ PDF file

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For those who do not have the time to see the paper, here is the abstract and the Conclusions.

Abstract

Human-produced CO₂ by fossil fuel combustion, combined with the rising atmospheric CO₂ concentration and the observed temperature increase, enabled a compelling narrative to be constructed, in which these three facts, in that order, formed a chain of causality. The narrative has been embraced by global political elites to promote their interests. It has also become dominant in public perception, by means of issuing threats for all aspects of life due to alleged climate impacts. My recent work has challenged the alleged causal relationships that form the narrative. A stochastic method for detecting causality showed that temperature change can potentially cause changes in CO₂ concentration, but not vice versa. Temperature increase causes the biosphere to expand and, in turn, produce more naturally emitted CO₂, which accounts for 96% of total emissions. All relevant data sets confirm these findings. In particular, instrumental and proxy data support the natural origin of the change in the isotopic composition of atmospheric CO₂, and century-long longwave radiation data show no discernible effect of increased CO₂ concentration on the greenhouse effect.

Concluding remarks

• The foundation of the modern climate edifice is afflicted by erroneous assumptions and speculations.

• The causal chain promoted by mainstream science is naïve and wrong.

• In scientific terms, the case of the magnified importance of CO₂, the focus on human emissions thereof, and the neglect of the ~25 times greater natural CO₂ emissions constitute a historical accident.

• This accident was exploited in non-scientific (politico-economic) terms.

• For complex systems, observational data are the only scientific test bed for making hypotheses and assessing their validity.

• The real-world data do not agree with the “mainstream science” (a euphemism for sophistry).

• The results I have presented are scientific and therefore may not be relevant to the climate narrative, which has a non-scientific aim.

The increase of atmospheric concentration of CO₂ is a fact, as already noted. But is this increase evil? In my view, the significant effect it has is the greening of the Earth. For those who prefer browning to greening, this may indeed be very bad…

Update 2025-09-07: See also my newer paper, discussed in a later post:

1. My figures differ from those commonly used because I include water vapour to find the percentages, whereas those commonly used are for dry air.

2. In the paper I am presenting here I refer to kidney stones as I found this link most amusing. In the meantime, there may have been even more entertaining developments. For example, according to the recent COP29, “Climate change is the defining health challenge of our times”. In response, the UK’s Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health immediately specialized this climate threat to children’s health. But, I’m afraid, this is not a manifestation of the British humour. So it is fair to assume that climate change has taken a heavy toll on the once-famous British sense of humour.…

3. In the last five years alone I have produced the following climate-related works (in collaboration with the coauthors mentioned or alone), in chronological order (including my book):

1. D. Koutsoyiannis, Revisiting the global hydrological cycle: is it intensifying?, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 24, 3899–3932, doi:10.5194/hess-24-3899-2020, 2020.

2. T. Iliopoulou and D. Koutsoyiannis, Projecting the future of rainfall extremes: better classic than trendy, Journal of Hydrology, 588, doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2020.125005, 2020.

3. Z.W. Kundzewicz, I. Pińskwar and D. Koutsoyiannis, Variability of global mean annual temperature is significantly influenced by the rhythm of ocean-atmosphere oscillations, Science of the Total Environment, 747, 141256, doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.141256, 2020.

4. D. Koutsoyiannis and Z.W. Kundzewicz, Atmospheric temperature and CO₂: Hen-or-egg causality?, Sci, 2 (4), 83, doi:10.3390/sci2040083, 2020.

5. D. Koutsoyiannis, Rethinking climate, climate change,and their relationship with water, Water, 13 (6), 849, doi:10.3390/w13060849, 2021.

6. D. Koutsoyiannis, C. Onof, A. Christofides and Z.W. Kundzewicz, Revisiting causality using stochastics: 1.Theory, Proceedings of The Royal Society A, 478 (2261), 20210835, doi:10.1098/rspa.2021.0835, 2022.

7. D. Koutsoyiannis, C. Onof, A. Christofides and Z.W. Kundzewicz, Revisiting causality using stochastics: 2. Applications, Proceedings of The Royal Society A, 478 (2261), 20210836, doi:10.1098/rspa.2021.0836, 2022.

8. D. Koutsoyiannis and A. Montanari, Climate extrapolations in hydrology: The expanded Bluecat methodology, Hydrology, 9, 86, doi:10.3390/hydrology9050086, 2022.

9. D. Koutsoyiannis, T. Iliopoulou, A. Koukouvinos, N. Malamos, N. Mamassis, P. Dimitriadis, N. Tepetidis and D. Markantonis, In search of climate crisis in Greece using hydrological data: 404 Not Found, Water, 15 (9), 1711, doi:10.3390/w15091711, 2023.

10. D. Koutsoyiannis, C. Onof, Z.W. Kundzewicz and A. Christofides, On hens, eggs, temperatures and CO₂: Causal links in Earth’s atmosphere, Sci, 5 (3), 35, doi:10.3390/sci5030035, 2023.

11. D. Koutsoyiannis and C. Vournas, Revisiting the greenhouse effect—a hydrological perspective, Hydrological Sciences Journal, 69 (2), 151–164, doi:10.1080/02626667.2023.2287047, 2024.

12. D. Koutsoyiannis, Net isotopic signature of atmospheric CO₂ sources and sinks: No change since the Little Ice Age, Sci, 6 (1), 17, doi:10.3390/sci6010017, 2024.

13. D. Koutsoyiannis, Stochastic assessment of temperature – CO₂ causal relationship in climate from the Phanerozoic through modern times, Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering, 21 (7), 6560–6602, doi:10.3934/mbe.2024287, 2024.

14. D. Koutsoyiannis, Refined reservoir routing (RRR) and its application to atmospheric carbon dioxide balance, Water, 16 (17), 2402, doi:10.3390/w16172402, 2024.

15. D. Koutsoyiannis, Definite change since the formation of the Earth [Reply to Kleber, A. Comment on “Koutsoyiannis, D. Net isotopic signature of atmospheric CO2 sources and sinks: No change since the Little Ice Age. Sci 2024, 6, 17”], Sci, 6 (4), 63, doi:10.3390/sci6040063, 2024.

16. D. Koutsoyiannis, Relative importance of carbon dioxide and water in the greenhouse effect: Does the tail wag the dog?, Science of Climate Change, 4 (2), 36–78, doi:10.53234/scc202411/01, 2024.

17. D. Koutsoyiannis, The relationship between atmospheric temperature and carbon dioxide concentration, Science of Climate Change, 4 (3), 39–59, doi:10.53234/scc202412/15, 2024.

18. D. Koutsoyiannis and T. Iliopoulou, Understanding Climate: Gifts from the Nile, 60 pages, SR 301, The Heritage Foundation, Washington, DC, USA, 2024.

19. T. Iliopoulou and D. Koutsoyiannis, Have rainfall patterns changed? A global analysis of long-term rainfall records and re-analysis data, 46 pages, SR 306, The Heritage Foundation, Washington, DC, USA, 2024 (in press).

20. D. Koutsoyiannis, Stochastics of Hydroclimatic Extremes - A Cool Look at Risk, Edition 4, ISBN: 978-618-85370-0-2, 391 pages, doi:10.57713/kallipos-1, Kallipos Open Academic Editions, Athens, 2024.

I note that my research on climate that is summarized in the paper is unfunded. Not even “big oil” was moved to sponsor me... But I understand their preference to fund the climate orthodoxy…