Nate Hagens interviews Tad Patzek about climate physics, El Niño, and Patzek’s recent work on accelerating warming. Patzek argues that human CO2 emissions are the main driver of warming, that the oceans and oceans/land feedbacks moderate but do not stop it, and that a decline in Earth’s albedo may be helping accelerate recent warming. He also warns that a coming Super El Niño could amplify heat, drought, floods, and storm impacts on top of an already warmer baseline.
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This is a climate-science interview, not a market-call transcript in the usual asset-pricing sense. Nate Hagens frames the conversation around global heating, a forming Super El Niño, and Tad Patzek’s preprint on accelerating warming. Patzek’s core thesis is straightforward: human emissions of CO2 have shifted the climate system, the planet is already about 1.5°C warmer than pre-industrial levels, and recent evidence suggests the rate of warming may be accelerating rather than merely continuing at a constant pace. He walks through the basic physics in teacherly fashion. CO2 is described as the key driver because it is long-lived, uniformly mixed in the lower atmosphere, and its added concentration forces the climate system while water vapor acts as a feedback. …
Immediate risk is that a possible Super El Niño adds a seasonal heat and storm impulse on top of an already elevated baseline. The setup is more about surprise amplification in weather and regional extremes than about any tradable market call.
Over the next few months, the base case is continued manifestation of warmer-than-normal conditions, with ENSO-driven volatility layered onto a hotter climate background. The key validation is whether ocean heat, albedo decline, and extreme-weather frequency keep aligning in the same direction.
Structurally, the transcript argues that climate volatility is becoming a durable regime feature rather than a temporary deviation. If Patzek is right, the long-run thesis is not just higher average temperature but a persistent shift toward more frequent extremes and larger adaptation burdens.
The planet's temperature responds to cumulative CO2 emissions, not the annual emission rate, and the relationship is nearly linear.
The speaker explains that plotting temperature vs cumulative emissions straightens the curve, showing a linear relationship for all temperature metrics including extremes.
The decline in Earth's albedo (reflectivity) is causing an acceleration of global warming that is not fully captured in climate models.
The speaker argues that measured albedo decline, though small in percentage terms, adds substantial solar radiation absorbed by Earth, driving faster warming.
Human CO2 emissions of 2.3 to 2.6 trillion tons over 140 years are a geological force that is the driver of climate change, and without them the climate would have remained as it was over the last 800,000 years.
Speaker argues the sheer magnitude of anthropogenic emissions overwhelms natural fluxes and is causing current warming rather than natural variability.
Can you explain the role of CO2 in the atmosphere and why we should care about a molecule that's only 400 parts per million of our atmosphere?
Tad explains that CO2 is a dilute gas uniformly distributed in the atmosphere. While water vapor is the main greenhouse gas and is far more abundant, its concentration declines rapidly with altitude. At the elevation where Earth emits radiation, water vapor is nearly absent, so CO2 dominates emissions there. CO2 drives climate change while water vapor follows — more CO2 warms the planet which increases water vapor. He notes anthropogenic emissions have increased CO2 from ~280 ppm pre-industrial to 435 ppm today, and half of all emitted CO2 stays in the atmosphere.
Why is 435 parts per million of CO2 so unbelievably civilization and biosphere changing compared to 280 parts per million?
Tad explains that CO2 has a pronounced greenhouse effect and is the key controller of climate on the planet by regulating water and adjusting planetary temperature. The planet is about one and a half degrees warmer on average than pre-industrial times, and that average is even higher on land (about two degrees centigrade).
How do we know that CO2 emissions are leading warming and not the other way around?
Tad explains that humans have released between 2.3 and 2.6 trillion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere in 140 years, which is a geological force. The Earth's natural CO2 fluxes (absorption and emission by oceans and land) generally cancel out in equilibrium. The differential caused by human emissions accumulates in the atmosphere, oceans, and land, driving climate change. Without human emissions, the climate would have remained similar to the last 800,000 years.
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