Occasional Thoughts on Climate Change

[gallopinggertie]

Hong Kong recently broke its all-time high, during Typhoon Dolphin. Here is an excerpt from an environmental newsletter I receive, describing the day:

“

Dear Reader,

On Sunday, August 9th, the Hong Kong Observatory recorded a temperature of 36.9 C (98.4 F), the highest since records began in 1884.

I’ve often told my friends stateside to imagine Hong Kong’s normal summer climate as “Houston on steroids.” This past Sunday was something else: I was breaking into a sweat just standing in the shade waiting for the bus. There was no breeze, and you could feel the heat radiating into your body, as if you stepped into a sauna. In fact, the “feels like” temperature reached 46 C (114.8 F) — hotter than Houston, Miami, or Phoenix.”

[chubbs]

21 hours ago, GaWx said:

 Per the following reliable and objective source, year 2026 as of week 32 has had the lowest area burnt in North America since 2012 by a good margin vs other years as of the same week (by a third). Also, globally it has been by a large margin the lowest for this point in the year since 2012 as I’ve been posting despite being near the warmest globally along with 2025 being 2nd lowest. My point in posting about 2026 for N.A. and 2026/5 globally is not to say CC is causing a decrease in wildfire activity because I’m not saying that. Instead, my point in posting this is to show that that there isn’t a proven simple relationship between CC and wildfire related activity and that different kinds of wildfire related data from various sources from various periods can be presented in various ways:
 

I don't think area burned is telling you much about CC; because, other human factors are driving the long-term trends. Per Our World in Data, the vast majority of wildfires occur in grassland and savanna in the sub-tropics and tropics, roughly 50% in Africa. Forest burning is a small portion of area burned in all regions. Our World in Data cites  a Science paper that attributes the long-term decrease in area burned to the spread and intensification of agriculture. In Europe and North America, reduction in cropland burned is another important long-term trend.

Have to look at other stats to see the effect of climate change. The blog I linked makes the point that the intensity of the largest fires is increasing due to climate change. Big, intense fires are the most problematic but aren't well captured by the area burned stats. Here's a recent paper that finds that a small number of extreme fires are having an out-sized impact on the forest ecosystem in western and boreal North America.

https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/sciadv.aeg5802

[chubbs]

This study provides an estimate of transient climate response (TCR) using CERES net radiation estimates and updates temperature-based estimates through 2025. The new TCR estimates for temperature are a little higher than previous studies (orange bars) and the CERES TCR estimates (red bars) are higher still, inline with TCR estimated with the warmer CMIP6 models. 

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2026EF008356

[Typhoon Tip]

2 hours ago, chubbs said:

This study provides an estimate of transient climate response (TCR) using CERES net radiation estimates and updates temperature-based estimates through 2025. The new TCR estimates for temperature are a little higher than previous studies (orange bars) and the CERES TCR estimates (red bars) are higher still, inline with TCR estimated with the warmer CMIP6 models. 

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2026EF008356

Intuitively it has to be higher.  Not intending to condescend but it occurs upon looking at this, the background state is accelerating two-fold:  once over for the fact that CC has not been linear over the last 2 to 3 decades, but now especially with the 2nd reason in the onsetting supposed record warm ENSO. ENSOs are correlated with warm global 'spikes' in temperature means.  Superimposing these two expectations over one another lends to 'adjusting' an increase in any derivatives that describe that system - a transience certainly being one of those... 

[GaWx]

 Joe Bastardi brings something up that I think merits further study. The contrast in temps between the tropics and Arctic has dropped significantly since 1999 because the Arctic has warmed ~2C while the tropics have warmed significantly less. GW has been most concentrated in the Arctic.

“A reduced equator-to-pole temperature gradient lowers zonal available potential energy (ZAPE) and surface baroclinicity. Baroclinic instability is the primary energy source for extratropical cyclones (the large-scale mid-latitude storms that form along the jet stream and frontal zones). With less available energy to draw from:

• Models (including coordinated experiments focused on Arctic sea-ice loss and amplification) generally show fewer individual cyclones each season across the northern mid-latitudes and Arctic.
• The remaining storms tend to be, on average, somewhat weaker, slower-moving, and longer-lived.”

Individual events can still be intense or produce more extreme rainfall because of thermodynamic changes.

Because of the distortion of warming, it leads to some things opposite of what is portrayed in the general sense.

Your point is that this differential warming can produce effects that run counter to the simple ‘warmer world = more of everything extreme’ narrative, especially for baroclinic storm frequency and intensity. The thought experiment cleanly highlights how the pattern of warming, not just global-mean temperature, controls the dynamical response.”

 

[Typhoon Tip]

2 hours ago, GaWx said:

 Joe Bastardi brings something up that I think merits further study. The contrast in temps between the tropics and Arctic has dropped significantly since 1999 because the Arctic has warmed ~2C while the tropics have warmed significantly less. GW has been most concentrated in the Arctic.

“A reduced equator-to-pole temperature gradient lowers zonal available potential energy (ZAPE) and surface baroclinicity. Baroclinic instability is the primary energy source for extratropical cyclones (the large-scale mid-latitude storms that form along the jet stream and frontal zones). With less available energy to draw from:

• Models (including coordinated experiments focused on Arctic sea-ice loss and amplification) generally show fewer individual cyclones each season across the northern mid-latitudes and Arctic.
• The remaining storms tend to be, on average, somewhat weaker, slower-moving, and longer-lived.”

Individual events can still be intense or produce more extreme rainfall because of thermodynamic changes.

Because of the distortion of warming, it leads to some things opposite of what is portrayed in the general sense.

Your point is that this differential warming can produce effects that run counter to the simple ‘warmer world = more of everything extreme’ narrative, especially for baroclinic storm frequency and intensity. The thought experiment cleanly highlights how the pattern of warming, not just global-mean temperature, controls the dynamical response.”

 

The tropics have expanded more to accommodate heating - this is balancing the wholesale integrated PV=nrT ideal gas state.   Increasing the temp --> increases either P, V or both, on the left side of the equation.

That expansion is the Hadley Cell ...

But this is not linear.  Generally, gases expand more significantly the higher temperature.  Thus, the colder Arctic domain can increase more temperature, before it begins to expand ...

The atmosphere is free to expand in the horizontal and upward direction.  It's obviously not expanding through the ground...  The disproportionate expansion at higher temperatures thus causes the HC expansion, and the temperature only shows a more modest rise - it's a trade off. More volume as thermal energy is increasing, the register of the actual kinetic temperature is slowed.  If the tropics were in a closed container, it'd have risen more than what is being measured. 

 

 

 

[donsutherland1]

The distributions of Phoenix's warming summer high temperatures is shown below.

Summer Mean High:
1961-1990: 104.3°
1991-2020: 105.4°
1996-2025: 105.9°

[LibertyBell]

10 hours ago, GaWx said:

 Joe Bastardi brings something up that I think merits further study. The contrast in temps between the tropics and Arctic has dropped significantly since 1999 because the Arctic has warmed ~2C while the tropics have warmed significantly less. GW has been most concentrated in the Arctic.

“A reduced equator-to-pole temperature gradient lowers zonal available potential energy (ZAPE) and surface baroclinicity. Baroclinic instability is the primary energy source for extratropical cyclones (the large-scale mid-latitude storms that form along the jet stream and frontal zones). With less available energy to draw from:

• Models (including coordinated experiments focused on Arctic sea-ice loss and amplification) generally show fewer individual cyclones each season across the northern mid-latitudes and Arctic.
• The remaining storms tend to be, on average, somewhat weaker, slower-moving, and longer-lived.”

Individual events can still be intense or produce more extreme rainfall because of thermodynamic changes.

Because of the distortion of warming, it leads to some things opposite of what is portrayed in the general sense.

Your point is that this differential warming can produce effects that run counter to the simple ‘warmer world = more of everything extreme’ narrative, especially for baroclinic storm frequency and intensity. The thought experiment cleanly highlights how the pattern of warming, not just global-mean temperature, controls the dynamical response.”

 

This is exactly why I stated we are approaching entropy. In that sense ACC is entirely normal because the entire universe is headed towards entropy. Also see my post in the El Nino thread about there being no ice on this planet for 85 percent of its history. 

[chubbs]

17 hours ago, GaWx said:

 Joe Bastardi brings something up that I think merits further study. The contrast in temps between the tropics and Arctic has dropped significantly since 1999 because the Arctic has warmed ~2C while the tropics have warmed significantly less. GW has been most concentrated in the Arctic.

“A reduced equator-to-pole temperature gradient lowers zonal available potential energy (ZAPE) and surface baroclinicity. Baroclinic instability is the primary energy source for extratropical cyclones (the large-scale mid-latitude storms that form along the jet stream and frontal zones). With less available energy to draw from:

• Models (including coordinated experiments focused on Arctic sea-ice loss and amplification) generally show fewer individual cyclones each season across the northern mid-latitudes and Arctic.
• The remaining storms tend to be, on average, somewhat weaker, slower-moving, and longer-lived.”

Individual events can still be intense or produce more extreme rainfall because of thermodynamic changes.

Because of the distortion of warming, it leads to some things opposite of what is portrayed in the general sense.

Your point is that this differential warming can produce effects that run counter to the simple ‘warmer world = more of everything extreme’ narrative, especially for baroclinic storm frequency and intensity. The thought experiment cleanly highlights how the pattern of warming, not just global-mean temperature, controls the dynamical response.”

 

This isn't a new thought, scientists have been looking for weather impacts from accelerated warming in the arctic for a while. One hypothesis is a weaker, wavier jetstream, amplifying and slowing the progression of weather patterns. As far as I am aware this hasn't been proven with studies on both sides. Not aware of any findings on baroclinic storms either. Note that increased moisture compensates for weaker temperature gradients in baroclinic storms through increased heat release from condensation in clouds. One weather effect that has been found is a northward shift in the jet stream and storm track.

[Typhoon Tip]

12 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

This is exactly why I stated we are approaching entropy. In that sense ACC is entirely normal because the entire universe is headed towards entropy. Also see my post in the El Nino thread about there being no ice on this planet for 85 percent of its history. 

I think they got that wrong... (this is a bit lengthy so if don't wanna read it all it's all good)

The expansion of the Universe may only look entropic as the final consequence by the limitations of our human capacity for observation/understanding. 

It's entirely possible, admittedly a conjecture, that the expansion won't inevitably stretch so far that all actions, even the excitations of the quantum scale, are forced to smooth to nothing - when that happens, that's an inability to manifest reality itself above the "Quantum lens". No excitations, no-nothing exists.

Imagine a tarp with wrinkles and as we pull outward in all directions along it's edges the expansion naturally would force all wrinkles to flatten.  That's a metaphor for the cold entropic hell finish idea of accelerating expansion to oblivion. 

What could really be happening, oblivion by our limitations, is that the Universe is expanding because there is always new excitations being added into a 'concept of a Universal volume'. Of instrumental importance there, happening at a faster rate than the existing one's and actions decay.  It's almost like the Universe is actually still "big banging" - like it's been occurring for the past 13.5 billion years.  There's a funny pun somewhere in there related to how new life necessarily needs this...

An implication arises that is interesting.  The Universe might necessarily be expanding to make room for the addition. Add air to a balloon, it expands.  However, since if and when we don't see the new excitation emergence (which we don't) then entropy in the localized scale creates an illusion of supremacy there - of course we are inclined to assume what we can observe as to being the nature of the whole. 

However, in this re-imagined aspect of whole-nature, decaying to pure disorder still occurs slower then the emergence of new excitation, by the time the integral reaches the edge/boundary of the whole volume of the whole Universe ...entropy was actually increasing at a slower rate then the advent of new excitation - in the ongoing big bang.    

What is a creepy implication falling from this philosophy is that all entropy is, is a measure of finality of actions at smaller scales.  So yeah...  we (meaning all actions at less than the expansion of the cosmos) die, perhaps necessarily so, so that the Universe can make room for new excitation emergence, so that it can go on existing forever. 

This is an analogy for life as we know it, too, but first ... you might recall our discussion from months and months ago about the emergence of reality from an analog engine.  Basically,  there are 3 original colors of reality - then mixed essentially forever to form an infinite spectrum of colors amid the 'reality color wheel'.   No one thinks brown looks like blue - but the heredity from red, yellow and blue combinations eventually arrives to either.  And if we look around us, we just might see or sense once in a while this kind of "infinity" is almost like a scam in originality; but it gets caught in the act. 

I like this analogy of the tree and the river to help visualize (I believe we may have even touched on this in that prior conversation - ).  If we look at a very high resolution of a river's complete water shed, then, look at a defoliated tree against the canvas of a grey winter sky, the river's water shed looks like a virtual reprint of the same visible specter of the tree's structure against the sky, and vice versa. 

Everything about nature and reality is a repro and/or repurposing like that. Reused structure hidden by end result-unlike contexts - perhaps existing so that context identities may be created - the emergence of reality.   

So the life analogy...  we exist with our awareness and consciousness because of trillions of cells that live and die in a fraction of the time we totally exist.   This is a tree-river inheritance, a new color as it were ... that is inherited and repurposed by a Universe that doesn't really create anything in reality, uniquely.  It's all repro's only differentiable by context.  We, and in fact, everything exists, because the Universe has excitations vs decay occurring, so the model of our systems are deeper than mere analog - it's just inherited.  The new excitations are new cells... so long as cell existence out lasts the rate of decay, we continue to exist. The balloon's expansion occurs because the same calculus (whatever that is..) that drives the emergence of excitation --> expanding cosmos, is parental to the reality of both. 

Back to the original discussion point.  To summarize, it is possible that entropy is just more clearly evident at smaller scales; human limitation to what is coherently perceivable then guides the faux impression of supremacy. But it may not be in control of destiny.  Whatever is introducing this - re-imagined conjecture - emergence of new excitations, driving the expansion of the cosmos, is allowing it to persist. Everything are the children inside.    

 

[LibertyBell]

On 8/20/2026 at 8:41 AM, Typhoon Tip said:

I think they got that wrong... (this is a bit lengthy so if don't wanna read it all it's all good)

The expansion of the Universe may only look entropic as the final consequence by the limitations of our human capacity for observation/understanding. 

It's entirely possible, admittedly a conjecture, that the expansion won't inevitably stretch so far that all actions, even the excitations of the quantum scale, are forced to smooth to nothing - when that happens, that's an inability to manifest reality itself above the "Quantum lens". No excitations, no-nothing exists.

Imagine a tarp with wrinkles and as we pull outward in all directions along it's edges the expansion naturally would force all wrinkles to flatten.  That's a metaphor for the cold entropic hell finish idea of accelerating expansion to oblivion. 

What could really be happening, oblivion by our limitations, is that the Universe is expanding because there is always new excitations being added into a 'concept of a Universal volume'. Of instrumental importance there, happening at a faster rate than the existing one's and actions decay.  It's almost like the Universe is actually still "big banging" - like it's been occurring for the past 13.5 billion years.  There's a funny pun somewhere in there related to how new life necessarily needs this...

An implication arises that is interesting.  The Universe might necessarily be expanding to make room for the addition. Add air to a balloon, it expands.  However, since if and when we don't see the new excitation emergence (which we don't) then entropy in the localized scale creates an illusion of supremacy there - of course we are inclined to assume what we can observe as to being the nature of the whole. 

However, in this re-imagined aspect of whole-nature, decaying to pure disorder still occurs slower then the emergence of new excitation, by the time the integral reaches the edge/boundary of the whole volume of the whole Universe ...entropy was actually increasing at a slower rate then the advent of new excitation - in the ongoing big bang.    

What is a creepy implication falling from this philosophy is that all entropy is, is a measure of finality of actions at smaller scales.  So yeah...  we (meaning all actions at less than the expansion of the cosmos) die, perhaps necessarily so, so that the Universe can make room for new excitation emergence, so that it can go on existing forever. 

This is an analogy for life as we know it, too, but first ... you might recall our discussion from months and months ago about the emergence of reality from an analog engine.  Basically,  there are 3 original colors of reality - then mixed essentially forever to form an infinite spectrum of colors amid the 'reality color wheel'.   No one thinks brown looks like blue - but the heredity from red, yellow and blue combinations eventually arrives to either.  And if we look around us, we just might see or sense once in a while this kind of "infinity" is almost like a scam in originality; but it gets caught in the act. 

I like this analogy of the tree and the river to help visualize (I believe we may have even touched on this in that prior conversation - ).  If we look at a very high resolution of a river's complete water shed, then, look at a defoliated tree against the canvas of a grey winter sky, the river's water shed looks like a virtual reprint of the same visible specter of the tree's structure against the sky, and vice versa. 

Everything about nature and reality is a repro and/or repurposing like that. Reused structure hidden by end result-unlike contexts - perhaps existing so that context identities may be created - the emergence of reality.   

So the life analogy...  we exist with our awareness and consciousness because of trillions of cells that live and die in a fraction of the time we totally exist.   This is a tree-river inheritance, a new color as it were ... that is inherited and repurposed by a Universe that doesn't really create anything in reality, uniquely.  It's all repro's only differentiable by context.  We, and in fact, everything exists, because the Universe has excitations vs decay occurring, so the model of our systems are deeper than mere analog - it's just inherited.  The new excitations are new cells... so long as cell existence out lasts the rate of decay, we continue to exist. The balloon's expansion occurs because the same calculus (whatever that is..) that drives the emergence of excitation --> expanding cosmos, is parental to the reality of both. 

Back to the original discussion point.  To summarize, it is possible that entropy is just more clearly evident at smaller scales; human limitation to what is coherently perceivable then guides the faux impression of supremacy. But it may not be in control of destiny.  Whatever is introducing this - re-imagined conjecture - emergence of new excitations, driving the expansion of the cosmos, is allowing it to persist. Everything are the children inside.    

 

I love reading your posts they are always very informative John!

Are you aware of Sir Roger Penrose's Conformal Cyclical Cosmology? He uses geometry to explain how the expansion of the universe could be one in many cycles of expansion and contraction and how what seems like increasing entropy will one day maybe a trillion years from now lead to a return to a very low entropy state like at the so called Big Bang which was really a Big Bounce. It doesn't violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics as long as the universe is at least slightly larger with each reiteration of the cycle. Think of a ball rolling up and down successive hills with potential energy being converted to kinetic energy as it rolls downhill and being converted back to potential energy as it rolls up the next hill. This is how a cyclic universe would be possible with the ball rolling downhill representing expansion and the ball rolling uphill representing contraction. Reason being that going uphill goes against gravity and going downhill happens because of gravity.

 

Each cell living,  breathing and dying really is like its own universe but also cyclic in a way because nothing is ever truly destroyed (the Law of Conservation of Mass-Energy) it just changes form and becomes part of the next whole.

 

The idea of the primary colors representing the universe are intriguing. You could have space represented by the additive primaries of RGB red green blue and the arrow of time represented by black in our universe and an anniversary with its anti-space represented by the subtractive primaries of CMY cyan magenta yellow and an equal but opposite arrow of time represented by white, so as our universe expands its anniversary contracts and vice versa.

By the way are you familiar with the search for superhabitable planets John? The idea being that our planet is not ideal for life for various reasons.  Based on the research paper I've read the ideal planet would have a Hawaii type climate planet wide. The idea being this is ideal for greatest biodiversity.  It would have an orange type K star as its sun since such a star spends 2 to 3 times more time on the stable main sequence that our yellow type G sun will, is about 1.5 times more massive than our planet so it can retain a denser atmosphere,  gets about twice as much rain as we do and has an average temperature 5 to 8 degrees Celsius higher. It mostly describes our climate during the Mesozoic before the big asteroid hit! Only one planet has been found that seems to fit all the criteria and it's about 1100 light years away.

[donsutherland1]

Nonsensical social media claims are circulating that the Nepal/Tibet glacial flood was caused by an earthquake, not the impact of a warm summer and climate change. The USGS made clear that the shaking was caused by the glacial collapse/debris flow, not the trigger for those events.

Two useful papers following the glacial flood in Nepal/Tibet.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921818126002766

https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/15/1889/2021/

Despite social media claims, July had been warmer to much warmer than normal and August 24th had been warmer than normal. Some modestly cooler than normal air moved in on August 25th, but the stresses of long-term glacial thinning due to a warming climate and the impact of what has been a very warm summer proved too much for the glacier responsible.

July 2026 Monthly Anomalies:

August 24, 2026 Anomalies:

[chubbs]

Blog article on the Nepal floods by a glaciologist providing background and recent history of the area impacted.

https://www.antarcticglaciers.org/2026/08/august-2026-nepal-tibet-floods/

[GaWx]

 Chris Martz posted this on the day of the Nepal flooding disaster. I’m not posting this because of agreement with him since I vehemently disagree. The one thing I’ve been most concerned about regarding CC/GW is what to me has to be an obvious direct result from it, melting of ice and the resultant negative consequences.

 How can GW not be a cause or contribution to melting ice? I feel I’m open minded about what CC/GW clearly does or doesn’t cause (an example being global wildfire acreage burnt that I’ve recently been posting about) as well as the idea that there are some significant positive results from it (like fewer hunger related deaths resulting from increased world food supply as well as fewer deaths related to GW since cold has killed many more than heat). Some of my posts do address things like that. Also, I’ve recently even posted about the coldest 80N+ late May through most of the summer since at least 1958 per DMS stats possibly contributing to less melting of Arctic ice area this summer vs recent years. But in the case of melted ice in general, I don’t get the doubt about CC causing it like Chris Martz implies:

@donsutherland1@chubbsand others, any comments?

[donsutherland1]

14 minutes ago, GaWx said:

 Chris Martz posted this on the day of the Nepal flooding disaster. I’m not posting this because of agreement with him since I vehemently disagree. The one thing I’ve been most concerned about regarding CC/GW is what to me has to be an obvious direct result from it, melting of ice and the resultant negative consequences.

 How can GW not be a cause or contribution to melting ice? I feel I’m open minded about what CC/GW clearly does or doesn’t cause (an example being global wildfire acreage burnt that I’ve recently been posting about) as well as the idea that there are some significant positive results from it (like fewer hunger related deaths resulting from increased world food supply as well as fewer deaths related to GW since cold has killed many more than heat). Some of my posts do address things like that. But in the case of melted ice, I don’t get the doubt about CC causing it like Chris Martz implies:

@donsutherland1@chubbsand others, any comments?

I will repost what I posted on X in response to Martz's deflection, "I was not aware that climate change causes earthquakes and mudslides." The opening sentence fits.

My response: "The CFACT policy analyst again shows how little he knows. A large chunk of melting glacier plunged into a valley, creating the 5.2 shock and triggering the devastating mudslide. Tectonic processes were not involved. Glaciers are melting due to climate change."

It should be noted that Martz dishonestly posted his claim hours after the USGS made clear that the shaking was the result of a glacial collapse and debris flow, not the cause of those events. The USGS update was carried widely in the reporting on the catastrophe. In other words, he deliberately chose to mislead in order to push a false narrative.

[Typhoon Tip]

There's no debate.

The objective reality is that this was caused by destabilization of geological mass (ice/rock/water) failing and thus accelerating from elevation.  

The +flux (which means increase) of melt water destabilizes the previous the geologic structural integrity that previously held glacial lake mass, and potentially destabilizing land mass(es) made to fail, at bay. 

A collapse was inevitable. Occurring at significant elevation provided excessive momentum - a structural failure that went on to become mass-gaining.   The land, ice, or both-slide probably inundated and ultimate pushed out glacial lake, and then en masse accelerating down the highly sloped region... Subsequently gaining more  mass most every time in swept through and acquired any alpine lakes and kettle nadirs that may have been transiently filled with seasonal melt ...etc etc.. along the way. Until there's amassed biblical torrent with so much crushing momentum and weight it was capable of setting of seismology detection.  

That's it as far as cause.

The rest is humanity building civility in the fertile/convenience of an alpine river valley, thus inherently placed in potential harms way. 

It is important to mention that anytime you place civility under a geological feature, eventually, given time, something like this is going to happen.   It is perhaps of even more importance to mention, the acceleration of climate change is going to bring about this sort of thing with increased frequency.  This is so for a lot of geo-physical reasons; each case analyzed precisely. In this case, the chain of events described above would likely occur at some point in geology, anyway, but the relationship to rapidly non-restoring climate change is directly provable/moved it up in geological history.

Everywhere around the world where these risk zones that can be sought out and identified should be addressed.  Now.

But won't be... so that people can instead get off on these marvelously dystopian horror shows, watching what are likelier than not to become regular matinees as we go on blithely in denial or just stupidly forward in (humanity's end time?) history.

Just wait until Greenland goes on ahead does the impossible whence its land-locked ice slides on off into the ocean, setting off a 22 ft global tsunamis that doesn't run back out to sea after it sweeps in for lunch and eats 3.8 billion lives one single afternoon.  Or Antarctica... Luckily for humanity huh, these regions are "presumed" be slower contributors to sea-level rise. Weee. But, no one thought an entire planet and all it its integrated systems, could up and rise a half degree C in the spring of 2023 ... and stay there, either.  

Has anyone else paused in a moment of startling realization that we are living in an era where the impossible actually happens?  

By the way, the Greenland massive landslide in September 2023, remember?  The one that set off a 200M mega-tsunami through the Dickson Fjord, it was also seismically detectable, worldwide for that matter.  The planet rang like a bell for nine days. 

[WolfStock1]

5 hours ago, Typhoon Tip said:

There's no debate.

The objective reality is that this was caused by destabilization of geological mass (ice/rock/water) failing and thus accelerating from elevation.  

The +flux (which means increase) of melt water destabilizes the previous the geologic structural integrity that previously held glacial lake mass, and potentially destabilizing land mass(es) made to fail, at bay. 

A collapse was inevitable. Occurring at significant elevation provided excessive momentum - a structural failure that went on to become mass-gaining.   The land, ice, or both-slide probably inundated and ultimate pushed out glacial lake, and then en masse accelerating down the highly sloped region... Subsequently gaining more  mass most every time in swept through and acquired any alpine lakes and kettle nadirs that may have been transiently filled with seasonal melt ...etc etc.. along the way. Until there's amassed biblical torrent with so much crushing momentum and weight it was capable of setting of seismology detection.  

That's it as far as cause.

The rest is humanity building civility in the fertile/convenience of an alpine river valley, thus inherently placed in potential harms way. 

It is important to mention that anytime you place civility under a geological feature, eventually, given time, something like this is going to happen.   It is perhaps of even more importance to mention, the acceleration of climate change is going to bring about this sort of thing with increased frequency.  This is so for a lot of geo-physical reasons; each case analyzed precisely. In this case, the chain of events described above would likely occur at some point in geology, anyway, but the relationship to rapidly non-restoring climate change is directly provable/moved it up in geological history.

Everywhere around the world where these risk zones that can be sought out and identified should be addressed.  Now.

But won't be... so that people can instead get off on these marvelously dystopian horror shows, watching what are likelier than not to become regular matinees as we go on blithely in denial or just stupidly forward in (humanity's end time?) history.

Just wait until Greenland goes on ahead does the impossible whence its land-locked ice slides on off into the ocean, setting off a 22 ft global tsunamis that doesn't run back out to sea after it sweeps in for lunch and eats 3.8 billion lives one single afternoon.  Or Antarctica... Luckily for humanity huh, these regions are "presumed" be slower contributors to sea-level rise. Weee. But, no one thought an entire planet and all it its integrated systems, could up and rise a half degree C in the spring of 2023 ... and stay there, either.  

Has anyone else paused in a moment of startling realization that we are living in an era where the impossible actually happens?  

By the way, the Greenland massive landslide in September 2023, remember?  The one that set off a 200M mega-tsunami through the Dickson Fjord, it was also seismically detectable, worldwide for that matter.  The planet rang like a bell for nine days. 

 

OK - you were sounding sensible up until those last couple of paragraphs.

Entire Greenland ice mass "sliding off" and causing 22-ft global tsunamis that would kill 3.8 billion people?   Not even suspension-of-disbelief Hollywood goes to that lengths of ridiculousness.

Sorry but it's crap like this that feeds deniers.    They like to point to dire predications that didn't come true, and just deny the whole thing as a result.   Suggest you revisit your strategy, because it's counter-productive, and very un-realistic/un-scientific, and it does your discipline a disservice.   (assuming that you actually are a meteorologist)

[chubbs]

“We don’t see a time in the past where El Niños have been as strong as today, and we show that the strength of El Niño changes in parallel with the warming of global temperature,” said lead author Julia Cole, professor and chair of the U-M Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. “Our findings tell us that the big El Niño events of the last 40 years are not normal in the context of the last thousand years.”

https://news.umich.edu/el-ninos-more-intense-over-last-40-years-than-previous-1000-according-to-u-m-study/

[GaWx]

On 8/28/2026 at 7:31 AM, donsutherland1 said:

I will repost what I posted on X in response to Martz's deflection, "I was not aware that climate change causes earthquakes and mudslides." The opening sentence fits.

My response: "The CFACT policy analyst again shows how little he knows. A large chunk of melting glacier plunged into a valley, creating the 5.2 shock and triggering the devastating mudslide. Tectonic processes were not involved. Glaciers are melting due to climate change."

It should be noted that Martz dishonestly posted his claim hours after the USGS made clear that the shaking was the result of a glacial collapse and debris flow, not the cause of those events. The USGS update was carried widely in the reporting on the catastrophe. In other words, he deliberately chose to mislead in order to push a false narrative.

Chris, posted this last night:

 I suspect based on his post 2 nights earlier and the tone of this one that I largely won’t agree with the upcoming video, but let’s see what he says.

[forkyfork]

what a great guy

 

[donsutherland1]

7 hours ago, GaWx said:

Chris, posted this last night:

 I suspect based on his post 2 nights earlier and the tone of this one that I largely won’t agree with the upcoming video, but let’s see what he says.

Based on a long post, it's now clear that his video will be misleading. 

Point 1: Just because landslides/avalanches have occurred over tens of millions of years, does not automatically mean that one must not consider the warming climate and its impact on the most recent glacial collapse/debris flow.

Point 2: Even after the USGS pointed out that an earthquake did not trigger the recent events, Martz continued to mislead. Apparently, his deception became unsustainable, so he has subtly altered his narrative in order to continue to blame seismic activity.

Point 3: Jim Steele has no background in the relevant sciences (climate, glaciers, etc.) He is a biologist.

Point 4: This is Martz's opinion. Here's the latest relevant science: "Rising ELA increasingly intersecting with the steep, narrow, thin ice, and heavily crevassed icefall areas drive fragmentation and disconnection."

Point 5: Strawman argument. The issue concerns glacial response to today's warming climate.

Point 6: This is common language used to dismiss or discount the rapidity of warming being driven by the burning of fossil fuels. 

Point 7: Another argument that is irrelevant to the recent event combined with the attitude, "Don't worry about it; nothing can be done, anyway. This is supposed to happen." 

In sum, any video will be badly misleading, dismissive of what actually occurred, and indifferent to the consequences of that event and the increased probability of similar future events as the climate continues to warm.

 

 

[bluewave]

 

Thread] [1/6] I think we can now confidently say that France is going through the greatest national agricultural disaster since 1945. Without public aid, 30,000 to 35,000 farms could find themselves in bankruptcy, which is nearly 10% of French agricultural holdings. That's monstrous. The exceptional weather conditions we're experiencing today are getting closer to what will become much more frequent, or even ordinary, in the coming decades. 2026 will be in line with the average for 2050. We'll see even hotter and more extreme years than 2026. The realization is therefore becoming hard to avoid: our agricultural model is not sufficiently prepared for the climate change that's coming. It's also the result of a collective political failure: successive governments haven't fully grasped the scale of the upheavals that climate change is already imposing on our agriculture, and will impose tomorrow. It's no longer just about repairing the damage after every drought, heatwave, or poor harvest. We now need to undertake a structural transformation of our agriculture. Here are the most reliable yield losses I could find compared to the average of the last 5 years (only for spring and summer crops).

Rate this translation:

 

 

[Typhoon Tip]

8 hours ago, bluewave said:

 

Thread] [1/6] I think we can now confidently say that France is going through the greatest national agricultural disaster since 1945. Without public aid, 30,000 to 35,000 farms could find themselves in bankruptcy, which is nearly 10% of French agricultural holdings. That's monstrous. The exceptional weather conditions we're experiencing today are getting closer to what will become much more frequent, or even ordinary, in the coming decades. 2026 will be in line with the average for 2050. We'll see even hotter and more extreme years than 2026. The realization is therefore becoming hard to avoid: our agricultural model is not sufficiently prepared for the climate change that's coming. It's also the result of a collective political failure: successive governments haven't fully grasped the scale of the upheavals that climate change is already imposing on our agriculture, and will impose tomorrow. It's no longer just about repairing the damage after every drought, heatwave, or poor harvest. We now need to undertake a structural transformation of our agriculture. Here are the most reliable yield losses I could find compared to the average of the last 5 years (only for spring and summer crops).

Rate this translation:

 

 

so it begins...  

[gallopinggertie]

46 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

so it begins...  

Sorghum is supposed to be drought- and heat-tolerant, the fact that it’s down 24% this year in France is alarming. Hopefully there are more heat-tolerant strains available that they haven’t tried there yet.

[GaWx]

 I just watched Joe Bastardi’s free to the public Saturday Summary. He says the Nepal disaster has nothing to do with CC. Why?

-He says that there has been no net change in temperature in Nepal in 400 years!

-He shows a summer temp. anomaly map that has blue colors all over Tibet  including the Tibet-Nepal border.

 So, I’d like to know whether or not these two things are true. Anyone know?

@donsutherland1

[chubbs]

5 hours ago, GaWx said:

 I just watched Joe Bastardi’s free to the public Saturday Summary. He says the Nepal disaster has nothing to do with CC. Why?

-He says that there has been no net change in temperature in Nepal in 400 years!

-He shows a summer temp. anomaly map that has blue colors all over Tibet  including the Tibet-Nepal border.

 So, I’d like to know whether or not these two things are true. Anyone know?

@donsutherland1

BS, its well known that glaciers around the world are shrinking rapidly due to climate change. The Himalayas are no exception.  The increasing local risk from glacier melting was described as a "crisis" earlier this year:

https://www.icimod.org/press-releases/hindu-kush-himalaya-glaciers-losing-ice-at-double-the-rate-since-2000-new-icimod-report-confirm/

Kathmandu, 18 March 2026 – Glaciers across the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) are melting at an accelerating rate, with ice loss rates doubling since the year 2000, according to two new landmark reports that will be released on 21 March 2026 by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) to mark World Day for Glaciers.

The reports, Changing Dynamics of Glaciers in the Hindu Kush Himalaya Region from 1990 to 2020 and HKH Glacier Outlook 2026: Insights from 50 Years of Himalayan Glacier Monitoring, provide the most comprehensive evidence yet of glacier change in the region. They reveal a total loss of up to 27 metres of ice thickness since 1975, sounding an alarm for the nearly two billion people downstream who depend on meltwater from the ‘Water Towers of Asia’.

“This isn’t a distant problem; it’s a crisis unfolding in real-time, with new disasters every summer and monsoon. The fact that ice loss rates have doubled this century should shock us all into action,” said Pema Gyamtsho, Director General of ICIMOD. “The Hindu Kush Himalaya is at a crossroads. The rapidly escalating impacts we’re seeing from water uncertainty to catastrophic floods underscore that we are in a critical decade for the cryosphere. We must scale up monitoring and invest in adaptation now. These aren’t blind spots becoming surprises anymore; they are our new reality.”

[bluewave]

14 hours ago, Typhoon Tip said:

so it begins...  

Occurring during such a strong developing El Niño made this even more extreme relative to what has occurred in the past.

 

[Typhoon Tip]

3 hours ago, bluewave said:

Occurring during such a strong developing El Niño made this even more extreme relative to what has occurred in the past.

 

It's hard to parse out what did what and how much, in the run up to this specific states and scenarios. 

In considering France's issues with agriculture, this was likely set into motion over decades when looking at this as an epistemic/a-priori approach.  I'm not personally with any confidence that this specific 'onsetting' warm ENSO has much to do with it frankly.

Quick primer ( I get it that you know this.. just for the general reader).  As we know El Ninos typically begin to formulate during summers, then maturing during autumn and early winters.  This one appears to fit that climatology so far...  More importantly, during these prefaces of onset the wholesale seasonal gradients are still flaccid. That's a crucial consideration in the presumptions.  Because... the gradient determines where the jet structures will ultimately bias; that becomes the El Nino characterization if/when the El Nino is sufficiently coupled. 

As an aside, the warming total atmosphere associated to CC is limiting the coupling.  Why? because the gradient of winter is being lifted to higher latitudes - that is distancing that latitude (geometrically), so the coupling is getting amorphously defined.   Enters RONI...  Relative ONI is pure statistical approach to the resulting slipping/lowering observed effectivity.  

The 2nd aspect that makes the causal parsing a challenge is that the heat and drought has been an improving frequency and specter for decades, doing so regardless of a ENSO variances in either direction over that time. 

Having said all that, here's where there's an angle:  I think there is a gray area in the completer understanding as to what actually triggers the modal oscillation of ENSO. In that area of speculation, conjecture and hypothesis, it may yet be shown that the circulation modes outside the tropics are somehow transitively being causing the tropical wind patterns to occasionally reverse.  Like the noise over time organizes into a sinusoidal harmonic feedback, at a whole-Earth atmosphere scale.   If something like that were taking place then it would be entirely possible/reasonable that machinery 'switching gears' did something to specifically enhance France's agricultural problems now.  But, since the specter of heat and drought goes back years, parsing out what's to blame ...mm intuitively argues it's just a CC related matter in general. 

At some point, if the CC continues to change .. it may herald in a new behavior there and abroad. It's areas of the curve favor a phenomenon typology. 

 

[GaWx]

3 hours ago, chubbs said:

BS, its well known that glaciers around the world are shrinking rapidly due to climate change. The Himalayas are no exception.  The increasing local risk from glacier melting was described as a "crisis" earlier this year:

https://www.icimod.org/press-releases/hindu-kush-himalaya-glaciers-losing-ice-at-double-the-rate-since-2000-new-icimod-report-confirm/

Kathmandu, 18 March 2026 – Glaciers across the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) are melting at an accelerating rate, with ice loss rates doubling since the year 2000, according to two new landmark reports that will be released on 21 March 2026 by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) to mark World Day for Glaciers.

The reports, Changing Dynamics of Glaciers in the Hindu Kush Himalaya Region from 1990 to 2020 and HKH Glacier Outlook 2026: Insights from 50 Years of Himalayan Glacier Monitoring, provide the most comprehensive evidence yet of glacier change in the region. They reveal a total loss of up to 27 metres of ice thickness since 1975, sounding an alarm for the nearly two billion people downstream who depend on meltwater from the ‘Water Towers of Asia’.

“This isn’t a distant problem; it’s a crisis unfolding in real-time, with new disasters every summer and monsoon. The fact that ice loss rates have doubled this century should shock us all into action,” said Pema Gyamtsho, Director General of ICIMOD. “The Hindu Kush Himalaya is at a crossroads. The rapidly escalating impacts we’re seeing from water uncertainty to catastrophic floods underscore that we are in a critical decade for the cryosphere. We must scale up monitoring and invest in adaptation now. These aren’t blind spots becoming surprises anymore; they are our new reality.”

 Thanks, Charlie, for posing that. None of what you posted from that article surprises me. I’m not at all expecting to take JB’s side, especially because he’s a proud denier of AGW being a significant factor in GW.

 But what do you know about his statement that Nepal hasn’t warmed in 400 years? Did he just make this up? From where would he have gotten accurate data so far back?
 

 Also, does that map of his that I reposted supposedly showing a somewhat cooler than normal summer along the Nepal-Tibet border have any significance even if accurate? I noticed it has no legend and no reference like the base period and the period these blue colors are representing. He’s saying this is the “wrong summer” to claim a disaster was based on GW. But even if it truly was cooler than normal this summer there, would that even matter being that melting supposedly would have already been put in motion due to supposedly prior warmer than normal periods?

[FPizz]

5 minutes ago, GaWx said:

 Thanks, Charlie, for posing that. None of what you posted from that article surprises me. I’m not at all expecting to take JB’s side, especially because he’s a proud denier of AGW being a significant factor in GW.

 But what do you know about his statement that Nepal hasn’t warmed in 400 years? Did he just make this up? From where would he have gotten accurate data so far back?
 

 Also, does that map of his that I reposted supposedly showing a somewhat cooler than normal summer along the Nepal-Tibet border have any significance even if accurate? I noticed it has no legend and no reference like the base period and the period these blue colors are representing. He’s saying this is the “wrong summer” to claim a disaster was based on GW. But even if it truly was cooler than normal this summer there, would that even matter being that melting supposedly would have already been put in motion due to supposedly prior warmer than normal periods?

Is it accelerating because of GW, or is it that since it is smaller ice absorbs heat more quickly then when it was larger?  I always wondered that.