Left-of-center public officials along with corporate media outlets and pundits have used the heat wave to breathlessly push the narrative that climate change is to blame. United Nations Secretary General António Guterres recently re-worked a common trope among those who allege human activity is driving climate change, stating that the era of global warming has ended, and the “era of global boiling has arrived.” Yet, as climate hawks and environmental activists continue to advance the unproven theory that man-made activity and carbon emissions are fueling the surge in temperatures, new analysis suggests that our hotter-than-usual summer may be attributed to volcanic activity. “It turns out that levels of water vapor in the atmosphere have dramatically increased over the last year-and-a-half, and water vapor is well recognized as a greenhouse gas, whose heightened presence leads to higher temperatures, a mechanism that dwarfs any effect CO2 may have,” Thomas Lifson, founder of American Thinker, wrote in a July 31 op-ed. “So, why has atmospheric water vapor increased so dramatically? Because of a historic, gigantic volcanic eruption last year that I — probably along with you — had never heard of,” he added. “The mass media ignored it because it took place 490 feet underwater in the South Pacific.” According to NASA, when the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano erupted last year, along with producing a sonic boom that circled the globe twice and a tsunami, it “blasted an enormous plume of water vapor into Earth’s stratosphere — enough to fill more than 58,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.” NASA cited a study published in Geophysical Research Letters showing that an estimated 146 teragrams (one teragram equals a trillion grams) of water vapor was sent into the atmosphere, which is equal to 10 percent of the water already present in that atmospheric layer. Other data published in the journal Nature estimate the rise in global stratospheric water mass following the volcanic event at 13 percent. As the space agency, which also tracks global temperatures, readily admitted on its own webpage, “The sheer amount of water vapor could be enough to temporarily affect Earth’s global average temperature.” NASA says that it is rare that a volcanic eruption would inject so much water into the stratosphere, but the huge amounts of water vapor can increase global temperatures, “since water vapor traps heat.” Lifson says he was first made aware of this scientific data by a man named Jeff Childers, who told him, “Here’s why corporate media is ignoring the most dramatic climate even[t] in modern history: because you can’t legislate underwater volcanoes. You can try, but they won’t listen.” Childers added, “So what’s the fun in that? Corporate media only exists to further political ends. Since volcanoes aren’t subject to politics, why bother?”Summer 2023 has been warmer than in previous years, with record high temperatures seen in some cities throughout the U.S.
