We Weren't Expecting This: What Does a Super El Niño Mean For the Climate? with Tad Patzek

**Tad Patzek** (0:00)
The planet is, let's say, one and a half degrees warmer on average than it was in the pre-industrial times. One and a half degrees doesn't sound like much. In fact, people shrug their arms. What do I care? But there are several phenomena which may justify a scientific conclusion that the rate of global warming is accelerating. The good news is that the oceans dampen the magnitude of that acceleration. The bad news is that heat will stay with us for decades, if not centuries.
So even if we stop CO2 injection today, the oceans still will be warmer.

**Nate Hagens** (0:42)
You're listening to the Great Simplification. I'm Nate Hagens. On this show, we describe how energy, the economy, the environment, and human behavior all fit together, and what it might mean for our future. By sharing insights from global thinkers, we hope to inform and inspire more humans to play emergent roles in the coming Great Simplification.
Today, I'm pleased to welcome back physicist and Earth scientist, and my friend, Tad Patzek, for an exploration of the foundational physics behind our planet's climate system, including the currently forming Super El Nino, which could be one of the strongest events of its kind in the last 140 years. Tad Patzek is a Professor Emeritus of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering and Director of the Upstream Petroleum Engineering Center at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia. Prior to that position, he was the Lois K and Richard D. Folger Leadership Professor and Chairman of the Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering Department at the University of Texas in Austin. Additionally, he was previously a Professor of Geoengineering at the University of California, Berkeley and a Researcher at Shell Development, a company managed for 20 years by M. King Hubbert. He is also a full Presidential Professor in Poland, which is the highest honor and also served as a member of the DOI, Macondo Well Advisory Committee. Tad's research focuses on the thermodynamics and ecology of human survival and the future of food and energy supply for humanity. Most recently, he has cumulated his research into his upcoming book, Thermal Power and Climate Change, A Data-Driven Analysis of Cause and Effect, 1800 to 2100 He was recently on TGS to discuss that book, primarily about energy and materials and food and implications. In this conversation, we turn the attention to physics and climate, and we do an Earth system speed round and some of the core questions around global heating. We discuss how recent research on declining reflectivity has accelerated heating in the past 10 years. We do talk about the upcoming Super El Nino and the implications, as well as various future warming scenarios. If you're following this story, this is quite a sobering conversation, but right in the fairway of the natural science discussions we have on this platform and an important one.
If you want to dig deeper into the resources and information referenced in Tad's conversation, or in any conversation on this platform, I encourage you to take a look at the show notes, which are available for every episode in our catalog by visiting thegreatsimplification.com, which is linked in the description of this episode. With that, please welcome back Tad Patzek.
Tad Patzek, welcome back to The Great Simplification.

**Tad Patzek** (4:05)
Thank you.

**Nate Hagens** (4:06)
A few months ago, you were on the show talking about energy and the thermodynamic foundations of civilization, including power flows and material fluxes and overshoot and the fossil amoeba. You're a unique guest for me because I've known you for going on 20 years, and you are one of the smartest Earth system scientists I know. I've had a lot of climate scientists on the program, but I didn't know most of them personally. So I want to address global heating, and I'll ask you, which is probably how you treat me anyways all the time, to consider me as an earnest and curious high school student in this conversation. I really want to understand these things. If you don't mind, I'm going to do a little bit of a climate basics speed round to kick off the conversation, but you don't have to give super short answers.
You ready?

**Tad Patzek** (5:15)
Yes.

**Nate Hagens** (5:18)
So first, can you explain the role of CO2 in the atmosphere? And I've heard this a dozen times, if not a hundred, why should we care about a molecule that's only 400 parts per million total part of our atmosphere?

**Tad Patzek** (5:39)
That is a very good question. So let's first start from the basics. CO2 in the atmosphere is the effect of natural emissions and human emissions, anthropogenic emissions. And right now, the anthropogenic emissions increase its concentration from roughly 280 ppm in the pre-industrial era to 435 ppm today. Doesn't look like much, but it's there and it stays there literally forever exchanging mass with the oceans, land and what have you. Half of all emitted CO2 goes into the atmosphere. So the more we inject CO2, the more CO2 we have in the atmosphere. Also, because CO2 is such a dilute gas, its concentration throughout the lower atmosphere up to the tropopause, let's say, is uniform. So you have the same 435 BPM here and there. That's very important. The atmosphere cools down very rapidly as you go up from the Earth's surface to let's say when you fly your jet. If you fly your jet and you look at the flight report, you will see that your temperature is around minus 40 degrees centigrade, because that's what it is at the elevation you fly.