To the editor:

The author of ‘Denying reality doesn’t help’ (1-18-24) should re-read the first paragraph in my Dec. 20 letter. I said nothing about volcanoes causing global warming by their CO2 emissions.

I closed my letter with: “It’s a cyclic thing in which sun, volcanoes and cloud cover are the main climate drivers — not man.” The references to volcanoes in my letter are centered around their ability to block the sun’s energy by shading the ocean with massive ash clouds. And also by injecting sulfates into the atmosphere which then seed cloud formations which then reflect the sun’s rays back into space. This is not a volcano CO2 issue.

Noted the Jan. 12 issue of AAAS ‘Science’ stated 2023 was the hottest year, and not related to the El Nino event. The main contributor seems to be that we have cleaned the atmosphere of sulfates just enough to lessen the cloud cover that would normally reflect sun rays back into space. From my earlier research, it seems this was mainly accomplished by addition of scrubbers to coal power plants and going to low sulfur fuel for ocean going ships.

Man-made CO2 comprises about 4% of all atmospheric CO2; and about 0.08% of all oceanic CO2. It should be obvious that man’s micro-portion of CO2 is just not going to have enough ‘horse-power’ to jerk the global weather system around.

Sun, volcanoes and cloud cover are the main climate drivers — not man-made CO2.

Phil Drietz

Delhi