Occasional Thoughts on Climate Change

[TheClimateChanger]

 

[Cobalt]

8 hours ago, ChescoWx said:

LOL!! but it is the only 134 years of data we have for this beautiful county of Chester....so we analyze!!!

It doesn't matter if it's 134 years of climate data from Gibson County, Indiana. It is just one of the  3143 counties in the United States that you are trying to use as the lens from which to view global climate change from. You don't get the right to say that I'm cherrypicking when that is the flimsy pedestal you're standing on. 

[ChescoWx]

17 hours ago, TheClimateChanger said:

 

Welp I guess if our climate began in 1980 there could be a story there....

[Cobalt]

6 hours ago, ChescoWx said:

Welp I guess if our climate began in 1980 there could be a story there....

but it is the only 46 years of data we have for this beautiful region of The Great Lakes....so we analyze!!!

[WolfStock1]

On 5/2/2026 at 4:53 PM, TheClimateChanger said:

 

 

Any chance you could post a link to the data and/or a full-size pic of that?    Pretty hard to read as is.

[chubbs]

A while ago I linked a report that concluded that solar+batteries were becoming cost competitive in sunny locations for 24-hour a day firm power. Here's another report with the same findings. Solar/batteries are competitive now and will only become cheaper in the future. 

https://www.irena.org/Publications/2026/May/24-7-renewables-The-economics-of-firm-solar-and-wind

[GaWx]

 The following is very interesting as regards the controversial topic of potential significant deep ocean heating from sources independent of AGW such as deep ocean seismic activity:

Apr 28, 2026

An anomaly in global sea level rise is explained by deep ocean heating

by David Appell, Phys.org

Scientists found that up until 2016 that the global mean sea level (GMSL) "budget," accounting for all the energy flows that create sea level rise, was "closed," but since then it has developed a hole in it. The budget is no longer closed, at least according to ocean heat data, down to 2,000 meters. Where was the missing cause for the latest sea level rise?

Now a new examination of sea level in the global ocean since 2016 has closed the GMSL budget and brought the sea level books back into order. The new researchappears in the journal Earth's Future. The paper is important for showing that deep ocean heating can no longer be ignored when considering sea level rise and its acceleration.

Deep ocean heat's growing role

In particular, the researchers, with lead author Anny Cazenave, an emeritus scientist at the Laboratory of Space Geophysical and Oceanographic Studies (LEGOS) at Toulouse, France, found that accounting for sea level rise from expansion due to added heat in the deep ocean, below 2,000 meters, allowed the GMSL budget to be "almost closed" since 2016.

"The next step," they write, "will be to determine whether the recent deep ocean change is due to internal climate variability, forced anthropogenic response or a combination of both."

https://phys.org/news/2026-04-anomaly-global-sea-deep-ocean.html

———————————————

 

@donsutherland1, @chubbsand others, your thoughts? Does this imply that deep ocean seismic activity MAY actually be an independent nontrivial source of ocean warming after all? Perhaps this may help explain the pockets of extreme ocean warming such as has been the case in the W PAC? Keep in mind that David Appell is not at all an AGW skeptic.

[Typhoon Tip]

https://phys.org/news/2026-05-rapidly-antarctic-ice-shelves-global.html

[donsutherland1]

10 hours ago, GaWx said:

 The following is very interesting as regards the controversial topic of potential significant deep ocean heating from sources independent of AGW such as deep ocean seismic activity:

Apr 28, 2026

An anomaly in global sea level rise is explained by deep ocean heating

by David Appell, Phys.org

Scientists found that up until 2016 that the global mean sea level (GMSL) "budget," accounting for all the energy flows that create sea level rise, was "closed," but since then it has developed a hole in it. The budget is no longer closed, at least according to ocean heat data, down to 2,000 meters. Where was the missing cause for the latest sea level rise?

Now a new examination of sea level in the global ocean since 2016 has closed the GMSL budget and brought the sea level books back into order. The new researchappears in the journal Earth's Future. The paper is important for showing that deep ocean heating can no longer be ignored when considering sea level rise and its acceleration.

Deep ocean heat's growing role

In particular, the researchers, with lead author Anny Cazenave, an emeritus scientist at the Laboratory of Space Geophysical and Oceanographic Studies (LEGOS) at Toulouse, France, found that accounting for sea level rise from expansion due to added heat in the deep ocean, below 2,000 meters, allowed the GMSL budget to be "almost closed" since 2016.

"The next step," they write, "will be to determine whether the recent deep ocean change is due to internal climate variability, forced anthropogenic response or a combination of both."

https://phys.org/news/2026-04-anomaly-global-sea-deep-ocean.html

———————————————

 

@donsutherland1, @chubbsand others, your thoughts? Does this imply that deep ocean seismic activity MAY actually be an independent nontrivial source of ocean warming after all? Perhaps this may help explain the pockets of extreme ocean warming such as has been the case in the W PAC? Keep in mind that David Appell is not at all an AGW skeptic.

It's uncertain. "Internal climate variability" could concern long-period ocean circulation. Seismic/volcanic activity aren't the only explanation for internal variability. I welcome additional research. Overall, I suspect that anthropogenic and natural variables are contributing, though the anthropogenic one is probably growing relative to the impact of natural variables due to increasing anthropogenic forcing.

[chubbs]

11 hours ago, GaWx said:

 The following is very interesting as regards the controversial topic of potential significant deep ocean heating from sources independent of AGW such as deep ocean seismic activity:

Apr 28, 2026

An anomaly in global sea level rise is explained by deep ocean heating

by David Appell, Phys.org

Scientists found that up until 2016 that the global mean sea level (GMSL) "budget," accounting for all the energy flows that create sea level rise, was "closed," but since then it has developed a hole in it. The budget is no longer closed, at least according to ocean heat data, down to 2,000 meters. Where was the missing cause for the latest sea level rise?

Now a new examination of sea level in the global ocean since 2016 has closed the GMSL budget and brought the sea level books back into order. The new researchappears in the journal Earth's Future. The paper is important for showing that deep ocean heating can no longer be ignored when considering sea level rise and its acceleration.

Deep ocean heat's growing role

In particular, the researchers, with lead author Anny Cazenave, an emeritus scientist at the Laboratory of Space Geophysical and Oceanographic Studies (LEGOS) at Toulouse, France, found that accounting for sea level rise from expansion due to added heat in the deep ocean, below 2,000 meters, allowed the GMSL budget to be "almost closed" since 2016.

"The next step," they write, "will be to determine whether the recent deep ocean change is due to internal climate variability, forced anthropogenic response or a combination of both."

https://phys.org/news/2026-04-anomaly-global-sea-deep-ocean.html

———————————————

 

@donsutherland1, @chubbsand others, your thoughts? Does this imply that deep ocean seismic activity MAY actually be an independent nontrivial source of ocean warming after all? Perhaps this may help explain the pockets of extreme ocean warming such as has been the case in the W PAC? Keep in mind that David Appell is not at all an AGW skeptic.

Manmade warming spreading from the upper ocean is the most likely cause of deep ocean warming. As implied by the following statement in the abstract: This finding reveals that deep ocean warming is gaining importance and that ocean heat uptake has now reached several regions below 2,000 m depth, notably the Northwestern Atlantic Ocean and Southern Ocean.  Figure 7 in the paper shows where the deep warming is occurring. The warming regions are associated with ocean overturning circulations not seismic activity. The paper discussion mentions that the added heat in the deep ocean is needed to better match satellite measurements of the earth's energy imbalance. Finally the underlying paper doesn't mention seismic activity at all. 

[Typhoon Tip]

Speak of the devil...

"Oceans near record heat again as El Niño conditions begin to build"

https://phys.org/news/2026-05-oceans-el-nio-conditions.html

https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/?dm_id=world2

 

[TheClimateChanger]

 

[TheClimateChanger]

On 5/6/2026 at 5:21 PM, WolfStock1 said:

 

Any chance you could post a link to the data and/or a full-size pic of that?    Pretty hard to read as is.

NWS Buffalo.

[WolfStock1]

13 minutes ago, TheClimateChanger said:

NWS Buffalo.

Can you be more specific?    There's a ton of stuff on their site, and I'm not finding that.

https://www.weather.gov/buf/

There's a Rivers and Lakes page, but generally that just seems to have gauge data for water levels and flows - not seeing anything with regards to temperatures, including those charts.

 

[TheClimateChanger]

https://www.weather.gov/buf/LakeTemp

[Typhoon Tip]

48 minutes ago, TheClimateChanger said:

 

That's opening a Pandora's box of "sociotechnological" ramifications ... holy shit! 

In a simplified ... hugely, hugely reductive idealistic sense... yeah, data that effects/affects everyone gets to be seen by everyone, with expediency, upon its very emergence - the only restrained factor being the communication time it takes to get the information to 8+ billion eyes and ears...  Yay!

What happens when you subject the population background density, one understandably characterized by limited or narrowed intelligence scope just for shear lack of previous exposure and/or education, certainly lacking any wisdom thru common experience, to the vastness of data outside their perspective frame and natively derived belief systems? 

Let's spell it out.    F   E    A   R
The rest is academic.  Fear and histrionic triggers 'compulsion' of reactionary response at worse. At best, hasty judgement. 

Look around us...  Oh, I dunno... maybe paranoia and bad judgement..etc might say drive a society into voting into a dark triad personality convicted felon ruler, into the most powerful post known to modern humanity - and I'm not using this to make a political statement with this.. it's just a fact of circumstance we are all in - find a fucking cause for that predicament. 

People are in the process of mass-hysteria proving that aliens are walking among us based on some sort of "plausible" explanation of the last 5 to 7 years of Pentagonia released informatica on UAP's ...must just be a neuro-linguiestic preparatory course work to some big reveal that doesn't have a prayer at being either real...or if so, is not likely to be very big.   People are lusting for some sort of overarching explanation for all this information they are too challenged to effectively categorize in any objective spectrum.  Even if 90% of humanity had IQs of 120+ and en masse PHD's... the shear amount of incoming stimulus and information far, far exceeds brain capacitance at this point in evolution.  It's probably why the savior thinkers among the various walks of society are beginning to cave themselves ...

We can digress from here a lot of ways....  but if all this going to end well?  It will be on the other side of (probably) narrowly avoided end scenario.

[WolfStock1]

22 minutes ago, TheClimateChanger said:

https://www.weather.gov/buf/LakeTemp

 

OK thanks - that's the raw data at least.  Don't want to provide a link to a larger more readable version of your analysis?

 

[TheClimateChanger]

3 minutes ago, WolfStock1 said:

 

OK thanks - that's the raw data at least.  Don't want to provide a link to a larger more readable version of your analysis?

 

I'll do an expanded analysis on Substack at some point. Here's GLERL satellite data for 1995-2025 for all of the lakes. 

 

[TheClimateChanger]

7 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

That's opening a Pandora's box of "sociotechnological" ramifications ... holy shit! 

In a simplified ... hugely, hugely reductive idealistic sense... yeah, data that effects/affects everyone gets to be seen by everyone, with expediency, upon its very emergence - the only restrained factor being the communication time it takes to get the information to 8+ billion eyes and ears...  Yay!

What happens when you subject the population background density, one understandably characterized by limited or narrowed intelligence scope just for shear lack of previous exposure and/or education, certainly lacking any wisdom thru common experience, to the vastness of data outside their perspective frame and natively derived belief systems? 

Let's spell it out.    F   E    A   R
The rest is academic.  Fear and histrionic triggers 'compulsion' of reactionary response at worse. At best, hasty judgement. 

Look around us...  Oh, I dunno... maybe paranoia and bad judgement..etc might say drive a society into voting into a dark triad personality convicted felon ruler, into the most powerful post known to modern humanity - and I'm not using this to make a political statement with this.. it's just a fact of circumstance we are all in - find a fucking cause for that predicament. 

People are in the process of mass-hysteria proving that aliens are walking among us based on some sort of "plausible" explanation of the last 5 to 7 years of Pentagonia released informatica on UAP's ...must just be a neuro-linguiestic preparatory course work to some big reveal that doesn't have a prayer at being either real...or if so, is not likely to be very big.   People are lusting for some sort of overarching explanation for all this information they are too challenged to effectively categorize in any objective spectrum.  Even if 90% of humanity had IQs of 120+ and en masse PHD's... the shear amount of incoming stimulus and information far, far exceeds brain capacitance at this point in evolution. 

We can digress here a lot of ways....  but if all this going to end well?  It will be on the other side of (probably) narrowly ending period. 

What did you think of the analysis?

[Typhoon Tip]

22 minutes ago, TheClimateChanger said:

What did you think of the analysis?

LOL ... yeah, sorry... the other aspect triggered me ..

But that doesn't have much analysis. It's a brief homage or outright complaint about taking data in quadrature and perhaps over applying its significance?    heh, more in line of what I was talking about, tho.  

So I launched...  Much of my rhetoric and diatribe comes down to a simple sort of reflection.   

Vast amounts of data and access to information doesn't make someone or an institution necessarily very smart.

We live in an era where said vastness is already incomprehensible for lacking the the ability in the audience. And the "institutions" we are creating out of it are not very intelligent, most probably because of that. 

( as an aside, a glaring example of one in a few ways in which human innovation has outpaced evolutionary built-in checks and balances;  I once mused long ago but still find myself coming back this upon occasions like this conversation - the greatest natural disaster to have ever befallen this planetary history might actually turn out to be the rise of human innovation)

I mean I understand the poster's sentiment to have given a broader spectrum of it all upfront, and not after it has passed through a narrow analysis ... or possible bias lens..etc... However, I don't know if that helps. Because there's a bigger problem with humanity whence exposure/consumption of waves of assumptive crushing new information isn't being properly handled.  There are evidences abounding as to the ramifications in doing so.

[TheClimateChanger]

15 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

LOL ... yeah, sorry... the other aspect triggered me ..

But that doesn't have much analysis. It's a brief homage or outright complaint about taking data in quadrature and perhaps over applying its significance?    heh, more in line of what I was talking about, tho.  

So I launched...  Much of my rhetoric and diatribe comes down to a simple sort of reflection.   

Vast amounts of data and access to information doesn't make someone or an institution necessarily very smart.

We live in an era where said vastness is already incomprehensible for lacking the the ability in the audience. And the "institutions" we are creating out of it are not very intelligent, most probably because of that - as it stands now. 

I mean I understand the poster's sentiment to have given a broader spectrum of it all upfront, and not after it has passed through a narrow analysis ... or possible bias lens..etc... However, I don't know if that helps. Because there's a bigger problem with humanity whence exposure/consumption of waves of assumptive crushing new information isn't being properly handled.  There are evidences abounding as to the ramifications in doing so.

I think I follow. I agree that access to more data does not automatically produce better analysis — people and institutions can still overread, cherry-pick, or filter evidence through assumptions.

But that is exactly why I wanted to start with a narrow, checkable example. I’m not claiming one CET reanalysis settles the whole medieval climate debate. I’m saying Lamb’s specific annual estimate is often treated with more authority than it deserves, and when you test the seasonal assumptions behind it, the result changes substantially.

So the point is not “everyone with data is right.” It is almost the opposite: even influential reconstructions should be broken down, tested, and made transparent enough that non-specialists can see where the assumptions enter.

[TheClimateChanger]

16 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

LOL ... yeah, sorry... the other aspect triggered me ..

But that doesn't have much analysis. It's a brief homage or outright complaint about taking data in quadrature and perhaps over applying its significance?    heh, more in line of what I was talking about, tho.  

So I launched...  Much of my rhetoric and diatribe comes down to a simple sort of reflection.   

Vast amounts of data and access to information doesn't make someone or an institution necessarily very smart.

We live in an era where said vastness is already incomprehensible for lacking the the ability in the audience. And the "institutions" we are creating out of it are not very intelligent, most probably because of that - as it stands now. 

I mean I understand the poster's sentiment to have given a broader spectrum of it all upfront, and not after it has passed through a narrow analysis ... or possible bias lens..etc... However, I don't know if that helps. Because there's a bigger problem with humanity whence exposure/consumption of waves of assumptive crushing new information isn't being properly handled.  There are evidences abounding as to the ramifications in doing so.

I also think we need to recover the polymath instinct. Historically, a lot of important thinkers crossed boundaries between business, politics, science, history, law, and the arts. We’ve moved toward extreme specialization, which has benefits, but also creates blind spots.

AI makes it possible for more people to responsibly cross those boundaries again — not by replacing expertise, but by helping them read, calculate, compare, and test assumptions across fields.

That’s the spirit of the piece: not “I’m the final authority,” but “let’s make the assumptions visible enough that more people can examine them.”

[Typhoon Tip]

56 minutes ago, TheClimateChanger said:

I also think we need to recover the polymath instinct. Historically, a lot of important thinkers crossed boundaries between business, politics, science, history, law, and the arts. We’ve moved toward extreme specialization, which has benefits, but also creates blind spots.

AI makes it possible for more people to responsibly cross those boundaries again — not by replacing expertise, but by helping them read, calculate, compare, and test assumptions across fields.

That’s the spirit of the piece: not “I’m the final authority,” but “let’s make the assumptions visible enough that more people can examine them.”

Yeah...don't disagree.  

I'm tempted to summarize your thoughts here by saying that real intelligence isn't being exceptionally good in a narrow discipline.  It's quite intuitive that the "relational database" is perhaps hugely more intelligent than the sophistication in the data tables.  

Just quick metaphor.  Point being the relational aspect stops the over application specific finding..etc

But in my discourse here I'm also venturing into the ramification of providing information to those that don't know how to objectively consume it - that's a problem with just giving data out.   January 6 is an example of a segments of population gaining access to information, not judging in propriety, than working en masse.  We could tire of writing specific examples that point out the risks of giving information to basically .... idiots.   Lets not mince words.  The lovable Idiocracy of civility at large!

[TheClimateChanger]

 

[TheClimateChanger]

 

[TheClimateChanger]

 

[TheClimateChanger]

6 minutes ago, TheClimateChanger said:

 

El Niño may end up being the saving grace for the current drought situation.

The April contiguous U.S. PDSI came in at -7.56 — the lowest April value on record and the 4th lowest monthly value of any month, behind only July 1934, August 1934, and March 2026. So while there was a slight improvement from March’s -7.85, the national drought signal remains historically extreme.

The scary counterfactual is: what if this pattern carried into summer and then paired with a 1934-type heat regime — or something even hotter in today’s warmer baseline climate?

PDSI is not a linear “temperature gauge,” so I would not casually forecast -10. But entering the warm season already near -8 leaves very little margin. A major summer heat dome, high evaporative demand, and continued precipitation deficits could push national drought severity into territory that is difficult to contextualize historically.

In other words: even modest improvement matters here. Without a pattern change, this is the kind of setup you really do not want to stress-test.