Framing the climate and sea level crisis through heating and cooling power

[John Nissen]

Hi Herman, 

You suggest supporting the Climate Crisis presentation by Lenton, Mann, et al. in London recently, in preference to the earlier Tipping Point Declaration from the Exeter conference, in which Lenton was also involved.  I suggest supporting neither.

The current fashion they follow is for framing the crisis around emissions reduction.  In that framework SRM is at best a distraction, and at worse harmful.  We have had a suggestion trame it around adaptation, but that does not ring true when we would prefer prevention.  A nice framing idea from Paul Gambill is around stability, but then we want stability at some temperature and with sustainability. Bill Gates says the aim should be to minimise misery, but this does not provide a framework.  

So I am suggesting a framing based on physical evidence, coupled with a plan to restore a healthy planet in 50 years.  And to understand the predicament about tipping elements reaching a point of no return, I propose the framework of heating and cooling power.

Temperature rises as an accumulation of heat energy over time.  Heat energy is the accumulation of heating power over time.  If we keep net heating power constant, the temperature will rise linearly. To halt a temperature rise, the net heating power has to be zero: there has to be an exact balance between heating and cooling power.  For lowering temperature, cooling power has to exceed heating power.

This physics is relevant for the climate situation.  There is more heating power entering the system than leaving it.  So the global temperature is rising.  But worse than that, this imbalance of power is increasing, such that the rate of temperature rise is increasing.  Global heating has doubled in roughly 40 years: from 0.18C per decade to 0.36C per decade.  Hence we can expect 2C by 2040 unless either heating power is reduced, or cooling power is increased, or both.  The heating power mainly comes from greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, currently at around 520 ppm CO2e and increasing.  The cooling power of SO2 has been decreasing.  Everything is going in the wrong direction!

In the Arctic, the situation is worse because, on top of global heating, the heating power from albedo loss and atlantification has risen, without appreciable cooling power to balance this.  Since 1980 the temperature has been rising at around 4 times the global average rate, and along with global warming it has been accelerating.  Tipping processes in the Arctic are driven by temperature.  To bring the Arctic temperature down, the cooling power has to be greater than the heating power.  This demands the powerful cooling intervention of SAI.  This is the only way to halt the Arctic meltdown with its catastrophic consequences for climate and sea level.

This is hugely against what the pundits are saying: both in the tipping point declaration from the Exeter conference and in the recent Climate Crisis presentation in London.  We need to confront them with a new framework in which to view the situation: a framework which is based on physics and evidence of what is happening.  Or rather we ought to confront business leaders, as they will be more inclined to listen and act.

Cheers, John

[John Nissen]

Hi Herman, 

I would love to support a declaration of emergency if I thought the emergency was properly described and I trusted the people putting forward the declaration.  

But these people are not concerned about the reality of the crisis so much as promoting a strategy which will guarantee catastrophe from tipping processes, as they reach a point of no return.

These people claim to be the top experts on climate change yet deny the means (SRM) to prevent catastrophic climate change and sea level rise. If these people continue to be faithfully followed, we are doomed, I'm afraid.

But a new framework could challenge their position and get industry and then governments behind SRM as a necessity for future prosperity.

Cheers, John

On Sun, 7 Dec 2025, 3:55 pm Herman Gyr, <g...@enterprisedevelop.com> wrote:

Hi John,

I greatly appreciate your note and perspective. I fully agree with what you are saying about the active interventions now required.

The request for signing a letter to Starmer et al is about a televised / broadly communicated emergency declaration. To me, this is a step in the right direction and opens a path to the solutions discussed / debated in this illustrious group:

“We therefore ask the Government and all public service broadcasters to hold an urgent televised national emergency briefing for the public, and to run a comprehensive public engagement campaign so that everyone understands the profound risks this crisis poses to themselves and their families.

If delivered urgently and truthfully, with ambition matching the scale of the crisis, this will not only ensure that the public is properly informed but will also offer the protection that knowledge and preparedness bring. Such a campaign will resonate with the public, opening up the political space for the action needed.

We are not safe. This is an emergency. Now is the time for courage and to put trust in the public. The UK has a track record of uniting to face difficult challenges. Now is the time to do this again.”

https://www.nebriefing.org/open-letter-keir

Best,

H.

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 5, 2025, at 3:11 PM, John Nissen <johnnis...@gmail.com> wrote:



[Herman Gyr]

Hi John,

I greatly appreciate your note and perspective. I fully agree with what you are saying about the active interventions now required.

The request for signing a letter to Starmer et al is about a televised / broadly communicated emergency declaration. To me, this is a step in the right direction and opens a path to the solutions discussed / debated in this illustrious group:

“We therefore ask the Government and all public service broadcasters to hold an urgent televised national emergency briefing for the public, and to run a comprehensive public engagement campaign so that everyone understands the profound risks this crisis poses to themselves and their families.

If delivered urgently and truthfully, with ambition matching the scale of the crisis, this will not only ensure that the public is properly informed but will also offer the protection that knowledge and preparedness bring. Such a campaign will resonate with the public, opening up the political space for the action needed.

We are not safe. This is an emergency. Now is the time for courage and to put trust in the public. The UK has a track record of uniting to face difficult challenges. Now is the time to do this again.”

https://www.nebriefing.org/open-letter-keir

Best,

H.

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 5, 2025, at 3:11 PM, John Nissen <johnnis...@gmail.com> wrote:



[Douglas Grandt]

What if …

… a group (hundreds) of us were to not only support but insist on having the “televised / broadly communicated emergency declaration” as proposed on the condition there be a proper debate protocol with a counter (rebuttal) session with follow-up iterations—all according to Oxford debate format, protocol and rules

Extended duration, greater impact?

Best regards,

Doug Grandt

Sent from my iPhone (audio texting)

On Dec 8, 2025, at 7:02 AM, Herman Gyr <g...@enterprisedevelop.com> wrote:

Hi John,

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[John Nissen]

Hi Doug,

I've only just proposed a new framework of thinking about climate change in terms of heating and cooling power.  We need to get a few critical thinkers on side before considering a debate.  And the debate may not make sense if each side is working with a different paradigm and fundamentally different assumptions.  

It would be interesting to see whether Hansen would agree to the reframing.  He accepts an acceleration of global temperature to reach 2C by 2040 and 4C by 2100 if I remember correctly.  He puts a lot of emphasis on loss of SO2 cooling whereas I don't think it's necessary.  And he's somewhat equivocal about SRM, perhaps because it remains deeply unpopular among his followers. 

BTW, did you get any response from Bill McKibben?  Can you get a response?  Does he believe in evidence-based science?  Can he appreciate that the Earth System is a system and subject to the laws of physics?

Cheers, John

[Douglas Grandt]

I get it John and hope Hansen will come around.

As for McKibben, even though I persist in email and poignant comments on his Substack “The Crucial Years” blog, he has ignored me since he requested that I send him links to articles he can link to in his blog (two years ago… we’ve been friends since 2008).

I should probably give up on him, but I have faith he is a critically thinking objective person who just needs time to find an exit ramp from the Mann dogma and protect his ego and reputation as he acknowledges the existential conundrum we face.

Cheers,

Doug

Sent from my iPhone (audio texting)

On Dec 8, 2025, at 9:39 AM, John Nissen <johnnis...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Tom Goreau]

Dear John,

 

You say:

 

I've only just proposed a new framework of thinking about climate change in terms of heating and cooling power. 

 

“New Framework”? Isn’t this just a return to basic physics that has been ignored?

 

I’d argue that Hansen and Trenberth and the rest have never deviated from basic physics, even if they don’t have all the measurements of feedbacks available that they need to fully parametrize responses.

 

Best wishes from Bali,

Tom

Thomas J. F. Goreau, PhD
President, Global Coral Reef Alliance

Chief Scientist, Biorock Technology Inc., Blue Regeneration SL

Technical Advisor, Blue Guardians Programme, SIDS DOCK

37 Pleasant Street, Cambridge, MA 02139

gor...@globalcoral.org
www.globalcoral.org
Phone: (1) 857-523-0807 (leave message)

 

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[John Nissen]

Hi Tom,

You are right that it's a return to basic physics.  But my idea is to get people thinking in engineering terms for a solution to the climate crisis.  Most scientists stop at observations and projections and ignore the possibility of deliberately applying cooling interventions.

And basic physics says that, to lower the temperature of a body being heated, you need greater cooling power than the heating power acting on that body such that the net heat flux is negative.  This applies to the Arctic in meltdown: we need a huge amount of cooling power to lower the Arctic temperature and start refreezing the Arctic.

Cheers, John

[John Nissen]

To Peter Irvine <pir...@uchicago.edu>, formerly at UCL.

Dear Peter,

We may have met at a UCL event about the Arctic: perhaps it was on saving the sea ice.  I remember talking to a colleague of yours, Julienne Stroeve, about feedback in the Arctic, which she thought was negative.  When I said that the evidence was showing positive feedback, she turned away, saying "In that case, we've had it".  She wouldn't speak to me again.  Such is fear of the Arctic.

I was educated as a physicist but worked as a systems engineer.  I know that if a problem is well specified there is almost always a solution.  We need to specify the problem of avoiding tipping point catastrophe in the Arctic: the simplest specification is that, since the Arctic is in meltdown, its temperature has to be lowered.  For tipping points elsewhere the specification again is to lower the temperature.  Emissions reduction might be able to stabilise temperatures, but not lower them.  So inevitably we have to resort to solar geoengineering (SG).

I noticed you had posted on LinkedIn a survey of climate scientists by SZ [1]. They asked the question: "Overall, I assess solar geoengineering as a meaningful component of climate risk management."  47% were strongly against, and only 7% strongly in agreement.  63% were against Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI) even as an emergency measure.

This is depressing when the basic physics (see my email at the start of this thread) says that, without the application of the massive cooling power available from SAI, we are heading for several degrees of warming this century and continued meltdown in the Arctic.  This means that, without SAI deployment as an extremely urgent emergency measure, humanity is almost certainly committed to tipping point catastrophe.  Some catastrophes, which are almost inevitable without the prompt deployment of SAI to lower the Arctic temperature, the global temperatures or both, include:

1. Many metres of sea level from the collapse of the Greenland Ice Sheet, with a very high risk of 0.5 metres by 2050 which would alone be devastating for low-lying areas of the world, including a number of megacities and some whole countries, like Bangladesh and Vietnam. 

2. An escalation of extreme weather events from a combination of Arctic-amplification-induced polar jet stream disruption and global warming.

3. Abrupt climate change through disruption of the AMOC.

4. The loss of coral reefs from continued ocean warming.

5. The loss of the Amazon rainforest, reverting to savannah.

Together with these is a high risk of an outburst of methane from permafrost at the gigaton level, boosting the heating from GHGs enough to produce a hot-house Earth. Such outbursts have occurred in the past, e.g. triggered by earthquakes or megatsunamis.  Lowering the Arctic temperature reduces this risk.

On a positive note, SG can improve wellbeing: saving human lives and livelihoods; and saving ecosystems and biodiversity currently under stress.  And SG could go further, reversing climate change and slowing sea level rise. Together with measures to boost carbon in soils and oceans, SG could restore the planet to a safe, sustainable, biodiverse and productive state in which the young people of today would prosper.

Best wishes, John

Chair of the Planetary Restoration Action Group (PRAG)

[1] Süddeutsche Zeitung (24 November 2025)

[Quote]

Why not look at the world from a completely different perspective? Instead of tackling climate change from the ground up by shutting down combustion engines and coal-fired power stations, we could also start at the top. Mirrors in space could deflect solar radiation. Or aeroplanes could spread a sulphur blanket in the stratosphere to artificially cool the atmosphere.

The debate about these and other 'geoengineering' methods flares up time and again. However, an SZ survey of leading climate researchers now shows that most scientists do not currently consider the use of geoengineering to be advisable. At the same time, most favour more research.

The SZ surveyed around 300 researchers specialising in climate change. Ninety-six of them, roughly one in three, completed the questionnaire anonymously, meaning it is not possible to trace who holds which position. Twelve participants stated that they themselves had been involved in solar geoengineering research projects in the past five years.

[Snip]

Amidst ever-new temperature records and stagnating climate protection, calls for such symptomatic treatment have recently become louder. ‘If reflecting sunlight could save lives and protect the environment, it is at least worth discussing,’ argued US climate researchers Zeke Hausfather of Berkeley Earth and David Keith of the University of Chicago in the New York Times recently. ‘We know it can work.’ For example, when the Pinatubo volcano erupted in 1991, large amounts of sulphur dioxide were released into the atmosphere, cooling the atmosphere in the following years. 

David Keith and 100 other experts have also signed an open letter calling for more ‘climate intervention research’ in response to a study published in the journal Frontiers in Science. In it, 42 climatologists clearly reject both the use and research of geoengineering. Of the five technologies considered in the study, including stratospheric aerosol injection, none are suitable for combating climate change. ‘It is clear to us that the approaches examined are not feasible,’ and further research would only waste time and resources. Furthermore, the ideas should not distract from the necessary reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.