Arctic ice area has been doing relatively well vs the 2013-24 average!

 This has quite possibly been helped by the coldest late May-early Aug on record per DMI 80+ N Arctic mean temp since records started in 1958:

Arctic ice area has been doing relatively well!

 This has quite possibly been helped by the coldest late May-early Aug on record per DMI 80+ N Arctic mean temp since records started in 1958:

 Although the -SOI streak is up to a whopping 89 days and it will reach the low 90s (2nd longest on record back to 1991 by a large margin to early 1998’s 100 days), there’s a good chance it will finally end early next week short of the 100 day record with at least one smallish +SOI as it now appears. Let’s see what actually happens.

7 hours ago, SUNYGRAD said:

Well...

 Folks believe Maue’s purposefully trying to sound overly dramatic to make fun of the doomsayers on social media. 

I know this Nino is headed toward 175 year record obliterating status. Be that as it may, is Maue being just a bit overly-dramatic for clicks/likes? It sounds so dramatic that it sounds like sarcasm:

Need I say more? 12Z 8/5/26 CFSv2 AAM:  all 4 members get to 4+ for one day on day 14 (8/18/26):

9 minutes ago, annunciated said:

We need a little more luck down here in GA, but otherwise I do agree! We have to just wait and see.

A 3rd year in a row of measurable snow down here on/near the coast of GA would be amazing since it would be unprecedented in the modern day record book (back to 1870s).

New Euro at 2m: looks good to me but I expect Dec to be mild. So, I’d take this in a heartbeat!

Jan is slightly cooler: I like

-SOI is up to 87 straight days. Record is 1998’s 100 days. I don’t know if it will make it to 100.

-1015+ Darwin streak ended at 26 days, breaking old record back to 1991 of 20 days 

18 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

 As far as sea level rise is concerned I don't even know why anyone would ever want to live at or near sea level.

 I don’t live at sea level and wouldn’t due to flooding risk, even though I live within 15 miles of the coast. I live 25-30 feet above SL.

 But those not worried about flooding/storm risk have plenty reason to live right on the coast due to the beautiful views as well as refreshingly cooling and clean sea breezes, especially in summer.

I don’t know whether or not it is clueless, but the new (8/1) Euro Atlantic seasonal forecast for Sept and beyond isn’t as inactive as what the Apr-June versions showed, which were below normal. This new one, similar to the July run, is actually pretty close to the 1993-2025 climate mean for Sept+ with 8.9 TS and 3.3 MH:

https://charts.ecmwf.int/products/seaso ... 2608010000

OHC is still rising and is now at insanely high levels (>+3), especially for early August! @snowman19

1 hour ago, bluewave said:

Latest Euro update has the Nino 3.4 ONI values peaking around +4. The Nino 1.2 ONI SSTs are now approaching +5. The longer range plumes have Nino 1+2 SSTs remaining elevated into next spring and summer. 
 

 

 Even the Euro’s 3.4 RONI peaks at ~+3.4 in Nov, which would obliterate the current record of +2.5 set Jan 1982!

Note that in switching from ERSST version 5 to 6, the record warmest has dropped at it had been +2.7 based on ERSST version 5.
 
 This prog is slightly warmer than the peaks of +3.3 on the prior run (July) and +3.2 on the June run:

8/2/26 3.4 RONI peak ~+3.4 in Nov:

 Yesterday’s 12Z CFSv2 run has the AAM at 4+ for all 4 members simultaneously for only the 2nd run I’ve ever seen! This has that on day 15 (Aug 18th) although it is just for that one day. The only other run that I’ve seen with all 4 members at 4+ at the same time on any day is the 8/1/26 12Z run and it didn’t have that til way out only 3 days from the end of the run (day 32 or 9/1/26)! @snowman19

12Z 8/4/26 CFSv2 AAM: all >4 on 8/18/26

13 minutes ago, bluewave said:

The expansion of the boreal forests into the tundra raises another set of issues.

https://www.technologynetworks.com/applied-sciences/news/boreal-trees-are-spreading-into-the-arctic-tundra-405025

 

In an increasingly warmer world, the Arctic tundra is becoming more forestlike. This process, known as borealization, is particularly widespread in Eurasia and in Arctic mountain regions, where the distance to the boreal (northern) forest is shorter. Many species of grasses and shrubs that can live in both the tundra and the forest are gaining ground in the tundra. This is shown by a new large-scale study of 1,100 sampling sites across the entire Arctic biome.

Consequences

“If this trend continues, it could have a number of consequences. For example, it could accelerate the melting of the permafrost or change the seasonal migration of reindeer. It could also affect the traditional livelihoods of the indigenous peoples of the Arctic, who rely on hunting, reindeer herding, and gathering plants as a part of their subsistence and cultural practice,” says Robert Björk, a researcher on Arctic ecosystems at the University of Gothenburg.

When shrubs and other tree-like species expand, they trap more snow in winter and cover the ground in summer. This changes the ground temperature and can accelerate the thawing of the permafrost. As a result, large amounts of carbon that have been frozen for thousands of years could be released, contributing to global warming. 

 

 Thanks for posting about this perspective about borealization, which presents it as a net negative. Modeling the potential myriad of effects of continued GW for the globe as a whole remains a highly complex and thus difficult endeavor. Thus having good discussions on these topics is beneficial.

4 minutes ago, bluewave said:

The issue at hand is the expansion of wildfires in the boreal and other forests. Places like Canada  have seen both national and regional record fire activity increase due to the warmer and drier conditions. The recent record fire in Ontario produced the record smoke from the Great Lakes to the Northeast. I don’t count that as a positive. 

I’m referring to the increase in boreal forests and the overall increased green areas of the globe as being a positive spect of CC, not the increased fires themselves.

13 hours ago, bluewave said:

https://thetradeoff.substack.com/p/the-wildfire-climate-change-burn?r=1q3cpv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true

 

The Wildfire-Climate Change Burn Area Paradox

Climate Change is making wildfires worse, but global wildfire burn area is declining

 

RYAN KATZ-ROSENE

AUG 03, 2026

 

Consider the following two statements about global wildfires from two high-level scientific reviews on the matter:

“Overall, climate change is exerting a pervasive upwards pressure on fire globally by increasing the frequency and intensity of fire weather, and this upwards pressure will escalate with each increment of global warming.” (From Jones et al. 2022)

AND 

“Since the early 2000s, global burn area has declined by roughly one-quarter, driven mainly by reductions in the area burned by fires in African savannahs linked to landscape fragmentation and changes in the distribution of rainfall” (From Kelley et al. 2025).

What?! Are wildfires getting worse, or is the situation getting better? What can we expect going forward - more burn area globally as a result of a warming planet, or lessin concert with the present trend? This post wades into this apparent paradox and reasserts the idea that both the present and the future of wildfire burn area is highly linked to anthropogenic climate change.

 

Yes, global burn area is declining, but it’s uneven regionally

 

Globally, burn area from fires is indeed showing a robust declining trend over the last two decades. Some regions, however, have seen a pronounced increase over this period (especially boreal forest ecosystems). The longer term trends, as shown in the figure below, vary substantially from one model and dataset to the next, but generally speaking the story is that northern remote areas (especially boreal forest ecosystems and northern peatlands) are seeing an increase in recent decades, and tropical areas - especially in Africa’s savannah areas - have seen a decrease.

Why is this happening? The specifics are complex, but the general explanation can be found in major expansions in agricultural development in Africa, which have helped drive “significant declines [in burn area] in African savannahs… despite significant increases in fire weather, and especially extreme fire weather, in the region.” This is, after all, savannah-grasslands account for more than half of global burn area, and so a significant reduction in that biome has a pronounced effect on the global totals.

 

“Satellite data tracking shows that Earth's boreal forests have expanded in total area by about 12% (roughly 0.844 million square kilometers) and shifted northward as a result of warming temperatures.”

https://science.nasa.gov/missions/landsat/boreal-forests-are-shifting-north/

 This is a positive result from CC. Not all results of CC are bad. The overall greening of the globe is obviously a good thing even though it can also lead to increased wildfires due to increased potential fuel. And this being a carbon sink is helpful.

 The positive effects of CC are often minimized and thus there should be a more balanced presentation of its overall effects even if the net overall effect isn’t positive, which is where I’ve been leaning largely because of my concern about rising sea levels. Of course the future rate of sea level rise is a huge unknown and nobody knows how bad it actually will get.

5 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

This is the one that I use, as I have found that the other reading hasn't accurately depicted the severity of this Pacific cold phase throughout the 2020's.

 

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/pdo/

 

That’s the link I’ve been going to also. That’s because whenever I google NOAA PDO or PDO NOAA, it takes me there. (I don’t have it saved as a bookmark.) But the server has been N/A much of the time since yesterday for some reason.

 What’s weird is that NOAA July PDO of -1.29 isn’t as negative as NOAA June of -1.32 despite the big plunge on WCS in July!!

2 hours ago, PhiEaglesfan712 said:

July 2026 PDO: -2.03

I just saw -1.29 rather than -2.03 for NOAA July 2026 PDO here:

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/ersst/v5/v6/index/ersst.v6.pdo.dat

 That’s almost exactly what the WCS dailies in July average at. The vast majority of the time NOAA has been significantly more negative like had been the case since Feb.

A second straight day with a dousing on the way? It just started at 12:30PM and is picking up in intensity as radar confirms.

Edit 4PM: That turned out to be only ~0.1”.
But there’s more storms nearby that may add to this.

Edit: I ended up with a total of ~0.25” on 8/3.

 From that same pro-met, the strong support for a solid La Niña by next fall is there. This is just for ASO:

 If you look at RONI values that exceeded 1.0 in ASO, the higher end events almost always resulted in La Nina by the next year's ASO:
1957: 1.2 -> 0.2
1963: 1.0 -> -0.6
1965: 1.9 -> 0.0
1972: 1.7 -> -1.5
1982: 1.8 -> -0.6
1987: 1.5 -> -1.4
1994: 1.0 -> -0.7
1997: 2.3 -> -1.5
2002: 1.3 -> 0.2
2015: 1.9 -> -1.1
2023: 1.1 -> -0.8

8 minutes ago, OSUmetstud said:

The main difference is that NOAAs RONI reduction is larger. The raw weekly anomaly is 2.3. They subtracted 0.8. 

 But why are they subtracting so much for the RONI deduction? It was only 0.44 for June ONI minus RONI. A sudden sharp increase from 0.44 to 0.8 is inconsistent with the size of month to month changes of the difference in the past.

4 hours ago, snowman19 said:

I have no explanation. It makes no sense whatsoever when compared to the OISST RONI. The BOM and NOAA are and have been in complete disagreement. The BOM has the official weekly readings consistently much higher than NOAA’s

Hot off the press posted by a pro-met!

“It does seem strange/off, comparing the CRW and OISST products on cyclonicwx doesn't show that discrepancy.”

 He then copied this from a NOAA website:

“In the afternoon on Aug. 3rd, the ERSSTv5 will switch to ERSSTv6 because NCEI is discontinuing ERSSTv5. RONI values will change slightly. The weekly OISSTv2.1 data will remain unaffected.”

15 hours ago, GaWx said:

The amazing runs keep coming! The 12Z 8/2/26 CFSv2 has the strongest AAM for forecast days ~12-23 that I’ve seen/saved! The mean hits 3 on day 12, 3.5 on day 16, and 4 on day 17 or 18! There are 3 of 4 members at 4+ on day 19 or 20 through day 22! Afterward, it isn’t quite as impressive as the last run and the far right isn’t as impressive as the last 2 although it’s still very impressive:@snowman19

 Here’s still another amazingly strong CFS AAM run (about as strong as any overall), the 0Z August 3rd run (I’ve seen/posted 4 amazing runs in a row). Check out the complete agreement of members exceeding a very strong amp of 3 on Aug 13th/day 11 and an even stronger 3.5 on Aug 14th/day 12, as early as I’ve seen in any run! It being early is very important since these quickly become increasingly unreliable due largely to an increasing + bias once much past day 14. The key days for me to watch are in and near Aug 11-14 as of now:  @snowman19