Climate Crazies Are Back

Posted on by Ron Clutz

This is the latest and greatest meme to scare the world of climate collapse, and it is gathering momentum and triggering followers.  A sanity check is published at climatetippingpoints, despite they also being prone to CO2 Hysteria. The article is Fact-Check: have actuaries predicted that billions will die beyond 2 degrees? Excerpts below with my bolds and added images and comments.

Roger Hallam (the co-founder of climate activist groups like Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil) has widely promoted this, repeatedly stating for example that “the British insurance sector once did an analysis showing that at 3 degrees Celsius of global warming, 4 billion people could die — and at 2 degrees, 2 billion lives could be lost. But that’s not even the full truth — it’s the minimum.” Hallam has also noted that the trial of some Just Stop Oil activists (which resulted in acquittal) included the court taking “4 billion deaths at 3°C” as an “agreed fact“.

Based on this analysis, Hallam has co-founded a new campaign called ‘4 Billion Dead‘ (4BD), explicitly referencing the 3°C-based number in its name, connecting it to an outlier estimate of 3°C by 2050 (itself based on a linear extrapolation of just the last few years’ warming), and using it as the basis for planning and promoting a new civil disobedience campaign:

So where did these numbers come from then, and are they reliable?

The source is this report jointly written by authors from the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and the University of Exeter, titled “Planetary Solvency – finding our balance with nature” (pdf).

[However, details in the Risk impact matrix give the game away–see below]

Does this confirm then that the Planetary Solvency report is predicting there’ll be 2 billion dead at 2°C or more, and over 4 billion deaths at over 3°C? It may seem like it, but the answer is actually no – the numbers in this dashboard and supporting appendix are labelled as illustrative (as flagged above both instances, including on the latter that it is “not a prediction or central scenario“).

This means these are just hypothetical numbers to show how such a dashboard would work, and not empirical predictions or projections based on some underlying analysis. This has been confirmed by speaking to one of this Planetary Solvency report’s authors, who agreed that these numbers aren’t based on a specific scientific analysis (with no associated calculations on death numbers presented in the report’s supplementary material either, unlike for GDP), rather being meant as a hypothetical illustration of a worst-case scenario to measure risk against, to be followed later with more detailed empirical analyses. Critically, the worst-case scenario here is implicitly part of a spread of many potential outcomes at 3°C, rather than 3°C itself being the worst-case scenario with these numbers the expected outcome if it is reached.

This means that even taking this report as it stands (leaving questions around the robustness of the magnitude of these death and GDP numbers to other posts), these numbers cannot be treated as predictions by actuaries (which implies an empirically-grounded expectation of the most likely future resulting from 3°C), in contrast to how they’ve been referred to in the earlier quotes, social media posts, and campaigns. Instead, they can at most be interpreted as (and for clarity should be communicated as) provisional expert ‘guesstimates‘ of a potential worst-case scenario, which was used to test-run a climate risk analysis methodology,

The UK insurance industry has not predicted mass death then, and four billion dead at 3°C is not an agreed fact but a misunderstood hypothetical worst-case scenario awaiting study. Some of the example reactions above could be down to an honest but widespread misreading, given that media outlets at the time reported these numbers like they were empirical estimates and lacked subsequent pushback (e.g. The Guardian article in January 2025), and skim-reading the report itself one might miss the “illustrative” labels.

It might be argued by some promoters that presenting this scenario as a prediction made by a respected body anyway is useful for promoting appropriately urgent action, but such misrepresentation runs the risk of fuelling scepticism or fatalism too. [You Think?]

 

Update: Climatists Wrongly Exploiting Nepal

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Update: NYT Rushes To Blame Climate Change For Nepal’s Glacier Collapse—It Wasn’t

Anthony Watts writes at Climate Dispatch:

The New York Times (NYT), in its article “Climate Change Raises Risk of Disasters Like Nepal Floods,” claims that climate change increased the risk of the catastrophic glacier collapse and flooding in Nepal by thawing permafrost and destabilizing the mountainside. [some emphasis, links added]

This is false. The best evidence suggests the disaster was primarily caused by a complex cascade of geological failures and vulnerabilities in human infrastructure, not proof of a “climate crisis.”

“Climate change is heating up the Himalayas and supercharging the risk of disasters like the deadly flash flooding in Nepal and Tibet,” says the NYT, which quotes one researcher saying, “‘There’s a very straight link between climate change and these types of disasters.’”

Yet just a few paragraphs later, the article quotes Newcastle University geomorphologist Stuart Dunning,

“I don’t think we can simply say this is a result of climate change.”

A top meteorologist says the evidence points to geological failure and vulnerable infrastructure, not a “climate crisis.”

That caution should have been the headline. Instead, it was buried.

Dr. Roger Pielke Jr.’s analysis of the event, “What Actually Caused the Nepal Disaster,” reaches a much more measured conclusion.

Ironically, the NYT itself provides historical context that weakens its central narrative. The article acknowledges that glacier failures have occurred dozens of times in the China-Nepal border region since 1900.

Since these events occurred repeatedly for well over a century, long before human greenhouse gas emissions rose, this event cannot be automatically linked to modern greenhouse gas emissions and human-induced climate change.

Addendum: News-Making Nepal Region Has Had As-Warm Or Warmer Periods Than The 2000s In The 1600s, 1700s, 1800s

Background from Previous Post

The disaster in Nepal is likely not over.  And as expected, the climate alarmists are already claiming humans and CO2 are implicated.  Some examples from the usual suspects.

CBC: Scientists fear Nepal’s disaster is just a glimpse of the carnage climate change could cause
Global warming contributes to conditions that make a glacier collapses, floods more likely, experts say

ABC Australia: Nepal flood exposes risks from melting glaciers and thawing permafrost. Scientists have warned for years that a warming climate is destabilising the Himalayas.

New York Times: Climate Change Raises Risk of Disasters Like Nepal Floods

The Guardian: Climate crisis could be destabilising mountain areas like Nepal

Forbes: Nepal Flash Flood: Experts Say Climate Change Primed Disaster 

Scientific American: the Nepal disaster—and why climate change could make these events more likely

Etc., Etc., Etc.,

A more balanced perspective is presented at Explore All About Nepal: Are Himalayan floods becoming more dangerous as the mountains warm?  Excerpts with my bolds.

The answer is increasingly concerning but it is not as simple as saying that every flood is caused by climate change.  The danger comes from a combination of changing climate conditions, unstable terrain, expanding glacial lakes, extreme rainfall, rapidly changing rivers and development in narrow mountain valleys.

Glaciers in the Hindu Kush Himalaya are losing ice, while many high-altitude areas are experiencing changes in snow cover and frozen ground. These changes do not simply mean that there is “less ice.” They can also alter the stability of the entire mountain environment.

Flooding is not new to Nepal. Every monsoon, heavy rainfall causes rivers to swell, while landslides frequently block roads and damage settlements. But high-mountain floods can have another source. Water can suddenly be released from a glacier, a glacial lake or a temporary blockage in a mountain valley. A  flood can also be triggered by a rock or ice avalanche entering a river. This is one reason Himalayan floods can be so difficult to predict.

The August 2026 disaster in the Nepal-China border region has highlighted precisely this problem. Preliminary scientific assessments indicate that an ice-rock avalanche entered the Lhende Khola system before producing a destructive downstream surge. Researchers have also emphasized that the exact chain of events is still being investigated.

Recent research has shown just how complicated the region can be. A 2026 study documented major outburst floods from supraglacial lakes along the China-Nepal Himalayan border in 2025, demonstrating that water can also accumulate and drain within or on top of debris-covered glaciers in ways that are difficult to observe from the ground.

Following the August 2026 disaster, scientists told Reuters that warming temperatures are contributing to instability in high mountain ice and rock, while emphasizing that the precise trigger of the event remains under investigation. That scientific caution is important. Climate change is a risk multiplier, not a single switch that turns every mountain hazard on.

The August 2026 disaster is a painful reminder of what can happen when a high-altitude event suddenly connects with a populated river valley. It also demonstrates why Himalayan hazards cannot be viewed separately. A glacier can influence a lake. A lake can interact with a landslide. A landslide can change a river. A river can destroy infrastructure many kilometres away. That chain is what makes the Himalayas so difficult—and increasingly important—to understand.

Further Commentary on Switzerland 2025 Disaster: Unstable slopes and warming peaks: Scientists race to understand Blatten collapse

Blatten dominated discussions at an international landslide conference held last month in Lausanne, where over 60 experts gathered to understand how such an event unfolded — and how to anticipate the next one.

Six months on, certain patterns have emerged, say scientists. The three largest Alpine landslides of the past 20 years — Piz Cengalo (2017), Piz Scerscen (2024) and now Blatten (2025) — all involved rockfalls onto glaciers that transformed into massive rock-ice avalanches and debris flows.

Whether Blatten can be attributed to climate change remains a central, unresolved question. Some scientists argue the link is evident. University of Zurich scientist Christian Huggel believes climate change played a key role in Blatten. “Of course, the geology, especially the layering and composition of the rock, is the key factor in such an event,” he told a conference in Innsbruck, Austria, in September. But Huggel believes that without climate warming, the Blatten landslide would have happened centuries later, if at all.

Others are more cautious. A July factsheet from the federal technology institute ETH Zurich concluded it was “quite likely” that warming was a relevant factor, noting that the unstable rock zone lies within permafrost, which is sensitive to rising temperatures.  Switzerland has warmed 2.9° degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times — about twice the global average — leading to widespread glacier loss, altered snowfall patterns and thawing permafrost.

Rockfalls are increasing as snowmelt and permafrost thaw worsen, but scientists say it’s still unclear whether larger rockslides are becoming more frequent, and it’s hard to make reliable statements about very big, rare events as data is uneven.  “Processes are interlinked and difficult to disentangle,” says ETH Zurich glaciologist Daniel Farinotti, who hopes to present firmer conclusions about the Blatten disaster next year. “What can be said is that the local geology, climate, glacier and permafrost all played a role [in the Blatten disaster].”

Complete Geology Page Discussion: Nepal Flash Flood, August 2026: Ice-Rock Avalanche, River Damming, and Cascading Himalayan Hazards

2026 Abundant Arctic Ice in August

Posted on by Ron Clutz

The chart above from DMI shows why Arctic ice melted more slowly than average. This year the daily mean temperature never went above freezing, From now on it will only grow colder.  August is significant because it is the last month that NH ice extent declines.  Those familar with the datasets know that March monthly average is taken as the annual maximum ice extent, and September monthly average serves as the annual minimum. Importantly both months are neutral, i.e. the ice extent values are nearly the same at the month start and end.  All the melting occurs April to August, all the freezing October to February.

[ It reminds me what a Saskatchewan grain farmer told me: “Around here we only have AAA farmers”. I asked what he meant and he replied: “April to August and then Arizona.”]

The arctic ice extents are now reported through August 31, 2026, and as noted previously the wavy polar vortex had hampered ice formation with incursions of warmer southern air into the Arctic circle.  This factor receded in May and June, with July extents closing the gap with the averages. August ends with ice extents well above the 20-year average. The Northern Sea Route (NSR) goes through the Russian shelf seas of Laptev, East Siberian, and Chukchi seas on the way to Bering Strait in Beaufort Sea.

The image from  August 31 shows the Arctic Ocean core is still solid, while the Eurasian NSR now has open water on the left vertical side, including passages through Laptev (top left) and Chukchi (bottom Left).  As usual in August, Hudson Bay (bottom right) is full open water, as is Baffin Bay (middle right).  At this point Canadian Archipelago has opened up the eastern end of the NW passage, but still has extensive fast ice in Beaufort sea (bottom center). Canadian Ice Service latest conditions along the Alaskan coast include an ice warning for ships:

The chart below shows the 20-year August averages for Arctic ice extents, along with 2026, 2025 and 2007 as well as SII v.4. Note that on average during this period 1.9M km2 of ice extent is lost. In August, MASIE was above average the last 3 weeks, showing considerable surplus ice end of August.   SII v.4 continues to greatly underestimate Arctic ice extent, ending this period  ~0.5M km2 lower than MASIE, or half a Wadham in deficit.

The table below shows the distibution of ice extents on day 243 across regions of the Arctic ocean.

Region 2026243 Day 243 Ave 2026-Ave. 2007243 2026-2007
 (0) Northern_Hemisphere 5320736 4960255 360481 4827899 492837
 (1) Beaufort_Sea 734913 573741 161172 688338 46574
 (2) Chukchi_Sea 424517 290417 134100 123559 300958
 (3) East_Siberian_Sea 369883 370301 -417 311 369572
 (4) Laptev_Sea 316828 174987 141840 273250 43578
 (5) Kara_Sea 6471 46663 -40192 104111 -97641
 (6) Barents_Sea 0 15154 -15154 9657 -9657
 (7) Greenland_Sea 142412 164671 -22259 344052 -201641
 (8) Baffin_Bay_Gulf_of_St._Lawrence 36105 29325 6780 37456 -1352
 (9) Canadian_Archipelago 315921 297208 18713 263154 52766
 (10) Hudson_Bay 16 20010 -19994 40797 -40781
 (11) Central_Arctic 2972584 2976914 -4330 2941956 30628

The table shows an overall surplus of 360k km2 or 7%, and almost a half wadham greater than 2007. Many regions are close to or above the 20-year average. The seas of Laptev, Chukchi and Beaufort are in surplus. The only sizeable deficit is in  Greenland Sea. Bering and Okhotsk seas are left off the list since they are open water now as usual.

 

Illustration by Eleanor Lutz shows Earth’s seasonal climate changes. If played in full screen, the four corners present views from top, bottom and sides. It is a visual representation of scientific datasets measuring ice and snow extents.

 

Beware Climatists Exploiting Nepal

Posted on by Ron Clutz

The disaster in Nepal is likely not over.  And as expected, the climate alarmists are already claiming humans and CO2 are implicated.  Some examples from the usual suspects.

CBC: Scientists fear Nepal’s disaster is just a glimpse of the carnage climate change could cause
Global warming contributes to conditions that make a glacier collapses, floods more likely, experts say

ABC Australia: Nepal flood exposes risks from melting glaciers and thawing permafrost. Scientists have warned for years that a warming climate is destabilising the Himalayas.

New York Times: Climate Change Raises Risk of Disasters Like Nepal Floods

The Guardian: Climate crisis could be destabilising mountain areas like Nepal

Forbes: Nepal Flash Flood: Experts Say Climate Change Primed Disaster 

Scientific American: the Nepal disaster—and why climate change could make these events more likely

Etc., Etc., Etc.,

A more balanced perspective is presented at Explore All About Nepal: Are Himalayan floods becoming more dangerous as the mountains warm?  Excerpts with my bolds.

The answer is increasingly concerning but it is not as simple as saying that every flood is caused by climate change.  The danger comes from a combination of changing climate conditions, unstable terrain, expanding glacial lakes, extreme rainfall, rapidly changing rivers and development in narrow mountain valleys.

Glaciers in the Hindu Kush Himalaya are losing ice, while many high-altitude areas are experiencing changes in snow cover and frozen ground. These changes do not simply mean that there is “less ice.” They can also alter the stability of the entire mountain environment.

Flooding is not new to Nepal. Every monsoon, heavy rainfall causes rivers to swell, while landslides frequently block roads and damage settlements. But high-mountain floods can have another source. Water can suddenly be released from a glacier, a glacial lake or a temporary blockage in a mountain valley. A  flood can also be triggered by a rock or ice avalanche entering a river. This is one reason Himalayan floods can be so difficult to predict.

The August 2026 disaster in the Nepal-China border region has highlighted precisely this problem. Preliminary scientific assessments indicate that an ice-rock avalanche entered the Lhende Khola system before producing a destructive downstream surge. Researchers have also emphasized that the exact chain of events is still being investigated.

Recent research has shown just how complicated the region can be. A 2026 study documented major outburst floods from supraglacial lakes along the China-Nepal Himalayan border in 2025, demonstrating that water can also accumulate and drain within or on top of debris-covered glaciers in ways that are difficult to observe from the ground.

Following the August 2026 disaster, scientists told Reuters that warming temperatures are contributing to instability in high mountain ice and rock, while emphasizing that the precise trigger of the event remains under investigation. That scientific caution is important. Climate change is a risk multiplier, not a single switch that turns every mountain hazard on.

The August 2026 disaster is a painful reminder of what can happen when a high-altitude event suddenly connects with a populated river valley. It also demonstrates why Himalayan hazards cannot be viewed separately. A glacier can influence a lake. A lake can interact with a landslide. A landslide can change a river. A river can destroy infrastructure many kilometres away. That chain is what makes the Himalayas so difficult—and increasingly important—to understand.

Further Commentary on Switzerland 2025 Disaster: Unstable slopes and warming peaks: Scientists race to understand Blatten collapse

Blatten dominated discussions at an international landslide conference held last month in Lausanne, where over 60 experts gathered to understand how such an event unfolded — and how to anticipate the next one.

Six months on, certain patterns have emerged, say scientists. The three largest Alpine landslides of the past 20 years — Piz Cengalo (2017), Piz Scerscen (2024) and now Blatten (2025) — all involved rockfalls onto glaciers that transformed into massive rock-ice avalanches and debris flows.

Whether Blatten can be attributed to climate change remains a central, unresolved question. Some scientists argue the link is evident. University of Zurich scientist Christian Huggel believes climate change played a key role in Blatten. “Of course, the geology, especially the layering and composition of the rock, is the key factor in such an event,” he told a conference in Innsbruck, Austria, in September. But Huggel believes that without climate warming, the Blatten landslide would have happened centuries later, if at all.

Others are more cautious. A July factsheet from the federal technology institute ETH Zurich concluded it was “quite likely” that warming was a relevant factor, noting that the unstable rock zone lies within permafrost, which is sensitive to rising temperatures.  Switzerland has warmed 2.9° degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times — about twice the global average — leading to widespread glacier loss, altered snowfall patterns and thawing permafrost.

Rockfalls are increasing as snowmelt and permafrost thaw worsen, but scientists say it’s still unclear whether larger rockslides are becoming more frequent, and it’s hard to make reliable statements about very big, rare events as data is uneven.  “Processes are interlinked and difficult to disentangle,” says ETH Zurich glaciologist Daniel Farinotti, who hopes to present firmer conclusions about the Blatten disaster next year. “What can be said is that the local geology, climate, glacier and permafrost all played a role [in the Blatten disaster].”

Complete Geology Page Discussion: Nepal Flash Flood, August 2026: Ice-Rock Avalanche, River Damming, and Cascading Himalayan Hazards

Conrad’s Catchy Climate Chats

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Raymond Inauen is creating a series of light-hearted chats about CO2 and climate at his blog World of CO2.  These are conversing in plain language apart from technical complexities.  An example is above from the first four at the Youtube channel Conrad – The World of CO₂

These chats are also available at Raymond’s website World of CO2 Conrad

This is a work in progress and more content is forthcoming, and he is hoping to get suggestions for future videos. Thanks Raymond for opening up a new form of communicating about these matters.

US & Canada Trade Dispute Seen From Himalayas

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Brabim Karki writes from Nepal about the escalating trade war between these two former allies.  As a citizen of both nations, I have mixed reactions and welcome a disinterested viewpoint.  The article in The Spectator is Trump’s Canada Tariffs Aren’t the Betrayal Ottawa Claims. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Mark Carney says Washington ambushed an ally. But Canada’s
protected markets and dependence on US trade tell a different story.

Every diplomatic breakup produces two stories, and the one Ottawa is telling that Washington ambushed a trusted partner at the negotiating table has already won the sympathy of most of the press. It is a good story. It is also incomplete.

What actually happened last week is that trade talks fell apart because the United States asked Canada to accept terms Canada found uncomfortable, and Canada refused. Prime Minister Mark Carney called the American position “unfair” and “uneconomic.” He may be right that it was tough. He is wrong to suggest that toughness, on its own, is grounds for outrage. The United States has run a trade relationship with Canada for decades that gave Ottawa nearly unrestricted access to the world’s largest consumer market while Canada kept its own protections, most notoriously its dairy supply management system firmly in place. Donald Trump’s blunt framing on social media, “Canada wants the benefits of being a State, without being one,” is crude. It is not wrong.

Trade relationships built on one side’s permanent tolerance
of the other’s protections were never going to last forever.

Trump’s tariffs are not an act of aggression against an ally. They are the predictable consequence of a negotiation in which one side finally stopped accepting asymmetrical terms it had tolerated for years.

The asymmetry Trump is pointing to is real, not invented. Canadian dairy tariffs on U.S. products have run well above 200 percent under the country’s supply management regime, even as Canadian goods flow south with comparatively modest friction. American dairy farmers in Wisconsin and New York have complained about this for a generation, through Republican and Democratic administrations alike. Trump did not manufacture this grievance. He inherited it and, unlike his predecessors, chose to act on it rather than manage it quietly. Carney’s own advisers have not seriously disputed that the tariff wall exists; they have argued only that dismantling it now would be politically costly at home. That is an argument about Canadian domestic politics, not about whether the American complaint is legitimate.

The walkout itself weakens Canada’s position more than it strengthens it. Carney told reporters the American side “asked too much and offered too little,” then pulled his negotiators from Washington and out of what by his own account had been a week of real progress. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer’s account is less charitable: Canada, he said, backed away from terms it had already agreed to. Whichever version proves closer to the truth, walking away rewards Ottawa’s leverage only if the United States needs a deal more than Canada does. It does not. American exports to Canada matter, but Canada sends a far larger share of its own economy south than the reverse. A negotiating partner who breaks off talks from the weaker hand is making a statement, not a strategy.

Canada has spent the past several months hedging toward Beijing, and that context matters more than Ottawa would like to admit. A new trade arrangement with China, cutting tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles in exchange for agricultural access, landed in the middle of a fragile American relationship already strained by years of tariff threats. One can defend Canada’s right to diversify its trading partners. One cannot then act surprised when Washington treats that diversification as evidence that Ottawa is playing both sides, and responds accordingly.

The escalating tariffs on both sides will likely raise costs for consumers in both countries, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is not wrong that supply chains built over 30 years under NAFTA and its successor don’t unwind painlessly. Businesses in Michigan and Ontario alike will feel this fight before their governments do. That is a genuine cost, and it should temper any triumphalism about the tariffs themselves.

But a cost is not a refutation. Trade relationships built on one side’s permanent tolerance of the other’s protections were never going to last forever, and someone was eventually going to test whether Canada’s dairy walls and Washington’s patience could coexist indefinitely. Trump tested it. Carney blinked first, then called it an attack.  Alliances endure disagreement. What they cannot survive indefinitely is one partner mistaking the other’s patience for permanent policy.

Canada is about to find out how much of that patience is left.

Update: Second Youtube Podcast with Slides Download

Posted on by Ron Clutz

 

The new podcast is now published at Youtube.

Overview from host Tom Nelson:

Podcast #423, 8/25/26: Ron Clutz continues a three-part framework on climate change: humans cause warming, warming is dangerous, and government can stop it. He argues observed warming can be explained by post–Little Ice Age recovery plus multidecadal oscillations and solar-orbital effects, and says “alarmists” deny these. He describes a taxpayer-funded “climate scare machine” and cites a Climate Change Business Journal estimate of a $3.4T/year global climate industry. Using Joseph D’Aleo’s materials, he disputes claims about heatwaves, storms, droughts, wildfires, ice loss, ocean acidification, health, and food, then focuses on Arctic sea ice cycles and sea-level model projections versus tide gauges. He stresses climate is local (Köppen zones) and says climate policies are wasteful, ineffective, and harmful, citing project failures, costs, and energy poverty.

This follows the first podcast available with slideshow downloads at my previous July post My Tom Nelson Podcast with Slides Download

Below are downloads of Slides from Part 2 Podcast

1. Part 2 Intro

2. Climate Impacts Arctic Sea Ice

3. Sea Level Rise Urban Flooding

4. Climates Are Local

5. Energy Transition

6. Spending Wasted on Green Energy

7. Climate Policies Do More Harm Than Good

8. Climate Change Funnies

Note:  Clicking on a red link above will download a pptx presentation file which can be opened in powerpoint or compatible application. Once opened, select the slide show menu and then “from current slide”, which will be the first one.  The slides will then be full screen, and some with gif images will display the animations.

You can also view these pptx files online for free at GroupDocsViewer.  When the file opens there, click on “Present” for full screen display including animations.

My Second Tom Nelson Podcast with Slides Download

Posted on by Ron Clutz

The new podcast is now published at Bit Chute: https://www.bitchute.com/video/hoKSRoKdv29i

Overview from host Tom Nelson:

Podcast #423, 8/25/26: Ron Clutz continues a three-part framework on climate change: humans cause warming, warming is dangerous, and government can stop it. He argues observed warming can be explained by post–Little Ice Age recovery plus multidecadal oscillations and solar-orbital effects, and says “alarmists” deny these. He describes a taxpayer-funded “climate scare machine” and cites a Climate Change Business Journal estimate of a $3.4T/year global climate industry. Using Joseph D’Aleo’s materials, he disputes claims about heatwaves, storms, droughts, wildfires, ice loss, ocean acidification, health, and food, then focuses on Arctic sea ice cycles and sea-level model projections versus tide gauges. He stresses climate is local (Köppen zones) and says climate policies are wasteful, ineffective, and harmful, citing project failures, costs, and energy poverty.

This follows the first podcast available with slideshow downloads at my previous July post My Tom Nelson Podcast with Slides Download

Below are downloads of Slides from Part 2 Podcast

1. Part 2 Intro

2. Climate Impacts Arctic Sea Ice

3. Sea Level Rise Urban Flooding

4. Climates Are Local

5. Energy Transition

6. Spending Wasted on Green Energy

7. Climate Policies Do More Harm Than Good

8. Climate Change Funnies

Note:  Clicking on a red link above will download a pptx presentation file which can be opened in powerpoint or compatible application. Once opened, select the slide show menu and then “from current slide”, which will be the first one.  The slides will then be full screen, and some with gif images will display the animations.

You can also view these pptx files online for free at GroupDocsViewer.  When the file opens there, click on “Present” for full screen display including animations.

2026 Mid-August Arctic Ice Meltdown Slows

Posted on by Ron Clutz

The chart above from DMI shows why Arctic ice is melting slowly. This year the daily mean temperature never went above freezing, From now on it will only grow colder.  August is significant because it is the last month that NH ice extent declines.  Those familar with the datasets know that March monthly average is taken as the annual maximum ice extent, and September monthly average serves as the annual minimum. Importantly both months are neutral, i.e. the ice extent values are nearly the same at the month start and  end.  All the melting occurs April to August, all the freezing October to February.

[ It reminds me what a Saskatchewan grain farmer told me: “Around here we only have AAA farmers”. I asked what he meant and he replied: “April to August and then Arizona.”]

The arctic ice extents are now reported through August 15, 2026, and as noted previously the wavy polar vortex had hampered ice formation with incursions of warmer southern air into the Arctic circle.  This factor receded in May and June, with July and August extents closing the gap with the averages. The Northern Sea Route (NSR) goes through the Russian shelf seas of Laptev, East Siberian, and Chukchi seas on the way to Bering Strait in Beaufort Sea.

The image from  August 15 shows the Arctic Ocean core is still solid, while parts of the Eurasian NSR have open water on the left vertical side. Ice persists in Laptev (top left) and Chukchi (bottom Left).  As usual in August, Hudson Bay (bottom right) is full open water, as is Baffin Bay (middle right).  At this point Canadian Archipelago has opened up the eastern end of the NW passage, but still has extensive fast ice in Beaufort sea (bottom center)

The chart below shows the 20-year Mid August averages for Arctic ice extents, along with 2026, 2025 and 2007 as well as SII v.4. Note that on average during this period 2.4M km2 of ice extent is lost. In August, MASIE tracked average throughout, before showing surplus ice the last week.  SII v.4 continues to greatly underestimate Arctic ice extent, ending this period  0.73M km2 lower than MASIE, nearly 3/4 of a Wadham in deficit.

The table below shows the distibution of ice extents on day 227 across regions of the Arctic ocean.

Region 2026227 Day 227 ave 2026-Ave. 2007227 2026-2007
 (0) Northern_Hemisphere 6081763 5893684 188079 5673110 408653
 (1) Beaufort_Sea 924043 717443 206601 770413 153630
 (2) Chukchi_Sea 666327 442909 223417 260048 406278
 (3) East_Siberian_Sea 489246 566073 -76828 172718 316527
 (4) Laptev_Sea 417965 244265 173700 292592 125373
 (5) Kara_Sea 53320 90006 -36686 201115 -147794
 (6) Barents_Sea 36 20953 -20917 17324 -17288
 (7) Greenland_Sea 137031 217917 -80886 316155 -179124
 (8) Baffin_Bay_Gulf_of_St._Lawrence 62564 57852 4712 86165 -23600
 (9) Canadian_Archipelago 387590 403530 -15941 375984 11606
 (10) Hudson_Bay 18844 63303 -44459 91653 -72809
 (11) Central_Arctic 2923673 3068368 -144694 3087687 -164013

The table shows that many regions are close to or above the 20-year average. The seas of Laptev, Chukchi and Beaufort are in surplus. The only sizeable deficits are in East Siberian, Greenland Sea and Central Arctic. Bering and Okhotsk seas are left off the list since they are open water now as usual. Note 2026 is 3% above average and 409k km2 higher than 2007.

 

Illustration by Eleanor Lutz shows Earth’s seasonal climate changes. If played in full screen, the four corners present views from top, bottom and sides. It is a visual representation of scientific datasets measuring ice and snow extents.

 

July 2026 El Nino Spikes SSTs Warming

Posted on by Ron Clutz

The best context for understanding decadal temperature changes comes from the world’s sea surface temperatures (SST), for several reasons:

  • The ocean covers 71% of the globe and drives average temperatures;
  • SSTs have a constant water content, (unlike air temperatures), so give a better reading of heat content variations;
  • A major El Nino was the dominant climate feature in recent years.

Previously I used HadSST3 for these reports, but Hadley Centre has made HadSST4 the priority, and v.3 will no longer be updated.  Reports since February are based on HadSST 4, but with a twist. The data is slightly different in the new version, 4.2.0.0 replacing 4.1.1.0. Product page is here.

The Current Context

The chart below shows SST monthly anomalies as reported in HadSST 4.2 starting in 2015 through July 2026. A global cooling pattern is seen clearly in the Tropics since its peak in 2016, joined by NH and SH cycling downward since 2016, followed by rising temperatures in 2023 and 2024 and cooling in 2025, now with a steady mild rising in 2026 pausing in May, resuming in June and extending in July.

Note that in 2015-2016 the Tropics and SH peaked in between two summer NH spikes.  That pattern repeated in 2019-2020 with a lesser Tropics peak and SH bump, but with higher NH spikes. By end of 2020, cooler SSTs in all regions took the Global anomaly well below the mean for this period.  A small warming was driven by NH summer peaks in 2021-22, but offset by cooling in SH and the tropics, By January 2023 the global anomaly was again below the mean.

Then comes a third iteration of the pattern starting in 2023 and continuing through July 2026. Each year presents a summer NH warming spike with the highest in 2023, now approached by 2026. The Tropics have a different rhythm, rising dramatically in 2023, peaking in 2024, then rapidly declining hitting bottom end of 2025. Now in 2026 El Nino is returning with a spike, helping to bring the Global anomaly upward.  Meanwhile SH is hovering around the Global mean, a slightly higher plateau than previous iterations. The result is that all regions are nearly matching July 2023.

Comment:

The climatists have seized on this unusual warming as proof their Zero Carbon agenda is needed, without addressing how impossible it would be for CO2 warming the air to raise ocean temperatures.  It is the ocean that warms the air, not the other way around.  Recently Steven Koonin had this to say about the phonomenon confirmed in the graph above:

El Nino is a phenomenon in the climate system that happens once every four or five years.  Heat builds up in the equatorial Pacific to the west of Indonesia and so on.  Then when enough of it builds up it surges across the Pacific and changes the currents and the winds.  As it surges toward South America it was discovered and named in the 19th century  It iswell understood at this point that the phenomenon has nothing to do with CO2.

Now people talk about changes in that phenomena as a result of CO2 but it’s there in the climate system already and when it happens it influences weather all over the world.   We feel it when it gets rainier in Southern California for example.  So for the last 3 years we have been in the opposite of an El Nino, a La Nina, part of the reason people think the West Coast has been in drought.

It has now shifted in the last months to an El Nino condition that warms the globe and is thought to contribute to this Spike we have seen. But there are other contributions as well.  One of the most surprising ones is that back in January of 2022 an enormous underwater volcano went off in Tonga and it put up a lot of water vapor into the upper atmosphere. It increased the upper atmosphere of water vapor by about 10 percent, and that’s a warming effect, and it may be that is contributing to why the spike is so high.

A longer view of SSTs

To enlarge, open image in new tab.

The graph above is noisy, but the density is needed to see the seasonal patterns in the oceanic fluctuations.  Previous posts focused on the rise and fall of the last El Nino starting in 2015.  This post adds a longer view, encompassing the significant 1998 El Nino and since.  The color schemes are retained for Global, Tropics, NH and SH anomalies.  Despite the longer time frame, I have kept the monthly data (rather than yearly averages) because of interesting shifts between January and July. 1995 is a reasonable (ENSO neutral) starting point prior to the first El Nino.

The sharp Tropical rise peaking in 1998 was dominant in the record, starting Jan. ’97 to pull up SSTs uniformly before returning to the same level Jan. ’99. There were strong cool periods before and after the 1998 El Nino event. Then SSTs in all regions returned to the mean in 2001-2.

SSTS fluctuate around the mean until 2007, when another, smaller ENSO event occurs. There is cooling 2007-8,  a lower peak warming in 2009-10, following by cooling in 2011-12.  Again SSTs are average 2013-14.

Now a different pattern appears.  The Tropics cooled sharply to Jan 11, then rise steadily for 4 years to Jan 15, at which point the most recent major El Nino takes off.  But this time in contrast to ’97-’99, the Northern Hemisphere produces peaks every summer pulling up the Global average.  In fact, these NH peaks appear every July starting in 2003, growing stronger to produce 3 massive highs in 2014, 15 and 16.  NH July 2017 was only slightly lower, and a fifth NH peak still lower in Sept. 2018.

The highest summer NH peaks came in 2019 and 2020, only this time the Tropics and SH were offsetting rather adding to the warming. (Note: these are high anomalies on top of the highest absolute temps in the NH.)  Since 2014 SH has played a moderating role, offsetting the NH warming pulses. After September 2020 temps dropped off down until February 2021.  In 2021-22 there were again summer NH spikes, but in 2022 moderated first by cooling Tropics and SH SSTs, then in October to January 2023 by deeper cooling in NH and Tropics.

Then in starting in 2023 the Tropics flipped from below to well above average, while NH produced a summer peak extending into September higher than any previous year.  2024 and 2025 replicated summer peaks in the previous itertation.  Now in 2026 July is nearly as high as 2023.

What to make of all this? The patterns suggest that in addition to El Ninos in the Pacific driving the Tropic SSTs, something else is going on in the NH.  The obvious culprit is the North Atlantic, since I have seen this sort of pulsing before.  After reading some papers by David Dilley, I confirmed his observation of Atlantic pulses into the Arctic every 8 to 10 years.

Contemporary AMO Observations

Through January 2023 I depended on the Kaplan AMO Index (not smoothed, not detrended) for N. Atlantic observations. But it is no longer being updated, and NOAA says they don’t know its future.  So I find that ERSSTv5 AMO dataset has current data.  It differs from Kaplan, which reported average absolute temps measured in N. Atlantic.  “ERSST5 AMO  follows Trenberth and Shea (2006) proposal to use the NA region EQ-60°N, 0°-80°W and subtract the global rise of SST 60°S-60°N to obtain a measure of the internal variability, arguing that the effect of external forcing on the North Atlantic should be similar to the effect on the other oceans.”  So the values represent SST anomaly differences between the N. Atlantic and the Global ocean.

The chart above confirms what Kaplan also showed.  As August is the hottest month for the N. Atlantic, its variability, high and low, drives the annual results for this basin.  Note also the peaks in 2010, lows after 2014, and a rise in 2021. Then in 2023 the peak reached 1.4C before declining to 0.9 August 2026.  An annual chart below is informative:

Note the difference between blue/green years, beige/brown, and purple/red years.  2010, 2021, 2022 all peaked strongly in August or September.  1998 and 2007 were mildly warm.  2016 and 2018 were matching or cooler than the global average.  2023 started out slightly warm, then rose steadily to an  extraordinary peak in July.  August to October were only slightly lower, but by December cooled by ~0.4C.

Then in 2024 the AMO anomaly started higher than any previous year, then leveled off for two months declining slightly into April.  Remarkably, May showed an upward leap putting this on a higher track than 2023, and rising slightly higher in June.  In July, August and September 2024 the anomaly declined, and despite a small rise in October, ended close to where it began.

Note 2025 started much lower than the previous year and headed sharply downward, well below the previous two years, and since April through September aligning with 2010. In October there was an unusual upward spike, now reversed down to match 2022 and 2016.  The orange 2026 line started downward and is visible on top of 2016 purple line, then slightly higher, and now spiking higher in July.

The pattern suggests the ocean may be demonstrating a stairstep pattern like that we have also seen in HadCRUT4.

The rose line is the average anomaly 1980-1996 inclusive, value 0.18.  The orange line the average 1980-2026, value 0.42 also for the period 1996-2013. The red line is 2013-2026, value 0.72. As noted above, these rising stages are driven by the combined warming in the Tropics and NH, including both Pacific and Atlantic basins.

Curiosity:  Solar Coincidence?

The news about our current solar cycle 25 is that the solar activity is hitting peak numbers now and higher  than expected 1-2 years in the future.  As livescience put it:  Solar maximum could hit us harder and sooner than we thought. How dangerous will the sun’s chaotic peak be?  Some charts from spaceweatherlive look familar to these sea surface temperature charts.

Summary

The oceans are driving the warming this century.  SSTs took a step up with the 1998 El Nino and have stayed there with help from the North Atlantic, and more recently the Pacific northern “Blob.”  The ocean surfaces are releasing a lot of energy, warming the air, but eventually will have a cooling effect.  The decline after 1937 was rapid by comparison, so one wonders: How long can the oceans keep this up? And is the sun adding forcing to this process?

uss-pearl-harbor-deploys-global-drifter-buoys-in-pacific-ocean

USS Pearl Harbor deploys Global Drifter Buoys in Pacific Ocean