RealClimate: Unforced Variations: Sep 2026

Tomas Kalisz 31 Aug 2026 at 4:03 PM : Although I do not know what JCM exactly meant by the “atmospheric flywheel effect”
who cares what it means. Fancy moniker proves nothing.

TK “ I guess that by “unnatural surface moisture limitation”, he meant anthropogenic interferences with land hydrological regime that decrease water availability for evaporation.

That’s obvious. How about you answer the points I was making to that “unnatural surface moisture limitation”?
Maybe climate scientist not taking you up on your repeated demands that they explain things to you and/or do the research to substantiate your ideas – have a good reason – the doubts on your “research proposal” may be linked to the fact that you can’t answer the three questions I keep asking you and JCM, repeated in the post to which you are ostensibly replying:
====
JCM: “ I encourage our academic counterparts to explore [sic!] what I would label “the atmospheric flywheel effect” as a practical method to quantify unnatural surface moisture limitation”

Piotr: Maybe the reason why nobody so far has taken you and Tomas up on your continuing demands that “the academic counterparts” take their time and run their models to test your ideas- is NOT that all scientists are too dense to come with the ideas you and Tomas came up, but that some of them considered it in the past, but decided against doing it as ineffective use of their research time and resources.

In short, an academic counterpart would ask themselves:

1. Would it produce an actionable proposal for AGW mitigation? The answer is: NO, since from the paper you brought up yourself (Lague et al. ) we already know that we CAN’T change that moisture ENOUGH to mitigate AGW in any meaningful way. See also the fate of the Sahara irrigation proposal by your fellow waterboy, Tomas. Do you have a BETTER plan?

2. Would it improve our climate models? Answer again: NO. The availability of water for evaporation is already either calculated or more likely parametrized for each surface grid element in the general circulation models (GSMs) – so in these models we already account for this effect the best way we can.

3. Is there any new valuable theoretical insight to be gained? Again – I don’t see one – What new insight would we get – if from the results of a GCM that already calculates/parametrizes surface moisture – we found that out the total, say, 3C of warming in a given grid element, 1C. was due to natural surface moisture limitation, and 0.1C due to unnatural surface moisture limitation?
—– end of quote ——

And since unlike other RC deniers, you went from blowing the smoke to … actually looking for money:
Tomas: “ I have therefore launched an initiative to ensure that the next round of the European Horizon grant programme includes funds specifically earmarked for this research. I would like to achieve this by gathering advocacy for this idea from as many scientists working in climatology, hydrology and related fields as possible.
– you owe us the honest, documented, answer to these 3 questions.

I hope any scientist considering supporting your proposal to the European Horizon, an organization whose principal goal is to fight climate change – will ask you these 3 questions. And since Tomas Kalisz “proposal” is a part of “anything but CO2” denialism, I hope they would consider how this research, if funded, would be used:

Russia, Saudi Arabia and the rest of the “drill baby drill” interests would love to spread the message that a significant part of global warming were attributed NOT to CO2, but to the limitation in the evaporation from land, about which we can’t do enough to make any difference , thus getting them off the hook for CO2 emissions. While the fact that the only way to stop this feedback is to stop increasing CO2 conc. – will be missed by the general public and glossed over by the “drill, baby, drill” politicians,

“Tomas, will you be submitting also negative voices about your proposal?” he asked rhetorically…