California's new lawsuit against Big Oil revolves around the state's allegation that oil executives knew that the CO2 emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels caused dangerous global warming. Except when it doesn't.
NOAA's climate monitoring network updates California's temperature measurements every month. And as the end of August 2023, California's average daily maximum temperatures for each month reveals there has been no warming trend since December 2010.
Zero warming trend in spite of the injection of approximately 400 billion metric tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere since 2010.
Visually, it's obvious that maximum temperatures have been in a decline mode for an extended period.
Plus, as the bottom chart reveals, there currently exists no correlation (R2 < +0.01) between atmospheric CO2 levels and maximum temperatures.
With the lack of any recent empirical evidence that CO2 is producing a dangerous and rapid warming trend, the lawsuit would appear to be on very shaky ground in terms of scientific accuracy.
Interesting fact. NOAA reports that the month/year when California had its highest daily maximum average was way back in July 1931, well before the era of large industrial/consumer CO2 emissions.
Additional regional and global temperature charts.
Notes: Source of California maximum temperature data. Source of CO2 data. Excel used for all calculations & plots. The right axis of chart represents the monthly continuous accumulated increase of atmospheric CO2 ppm for the prior 12 months.