Climate Impacts

Update: My Tom Nelson Podcast with Slides Download

Posted on by Ron Clutz

The podcast is available on Youtube Ron Clutz Part 1: “Highlights from 3400 Climate Blog Posts” #414 

I won’t do a transcript of the video, since many will reconginize text and images from reading various postings here. Content at this blog is arranged into categories relating to the themes discussed. See Guide to Science Matters

There will be a part 2 discussion in August on two additional themes relating to global warming/climate change.

Update: Below are downloads of Slides from Part 1 Podcast

1. CC Overview Slides

2. Climate Reductionism

3. Global Temperature

4. Flawed Climate Models, Flawed Temperature Results

5. GHG Theory and Tests It Fails

6. Temps Lead CO2 Follows

7. Sun’s Role in Climate Change

8. Oceans Make Climate

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.

My Podcast with Tom Nelson Is Now Live

Posted on by Ron Clutz

The podcast is available on Youtube Ron Clutz Part 1: “Highlights from 3400 Climate Blog Posts” #414 

I won’t do a transcript of the video, since many will reconginize text and images from reading various postings here. Content at this blog is arranged into categories relating to the themes discussed. See Guide to Science Matters

There will be a part 2 discussion in August on two additional themes relating to global warming/climate change.

Outlook: Pacific El Niño and Atlantic Niña

Posted on by Ron Clutz

A map of global sea surface temperature anomalies on July 15, 2026, showing a significant region of below-average sea surface temperatures off the western coast of Africa. © NOAA Office of Satellite and Product Operations, arrow added using Canva

There’s been much ado about a strong El Niño, but less is heard about the appearance of a sister anomaly Atlantic Niña.  What happens to summer storm activity when both are on stage?  Ben Cost does a good job of pulling together the implications in his NY Post article El Niño’s sister La Niña has arrived in the Atlantic — here’s what that means for summer weather.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

The extremely strong El Niño brewing in the South Pacific isn’t the only unusual weather pattern on the horizon.  Meteorological experts warn that the oceanic anomaly’s sister —  Atlantic Niña — could be rearing its head in the tropical part of The Pond, potentially helping curtail the number of storms we’ll see this season, according to Severe Weather Europe.

A map of global sea surface temperature anomalies on July 15, 2026, shows a significant region of below-average sea surface temperatures off the western coast of Africa.

This climate pattern is similar to La Niña — the cold phase of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) — in that both cause temperature plunges below average. The difference is that this big chill affects the eastern equatorial Atlantic Ocean instead of the central and eastern equatorial Pacific, potentially altering wind and rainfall across the tropics, per Climate.org.

These two anomalies appear to work on opposite poles (warm vs. cold), but they are actually perfectly aligned in their atmospheric impact.

Should surface temps on the Atlantic Ocean hover at 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit below average for at least two overlapping seasons, this could mark just the sixth Atlantic Niña in the last four decades.

The sibling anomaly El Niño, meanwhile, causes preternaturally warm temperatures on the Pacific Ocean’s surface with forecasters predicting that this particular version could be up to 6.5 degrees warmer than average, potentially making it the strongest El Niño on record.

Despite being polar opposites on the thermometer, these temp-affecting twins are “perfectly aligned in their atmospheric impact,” long-range forecaster Andrej Flis wrote for Severe Weather Europe.

This means that both will help curb hurricanes — but in different ways. El Niño produces high wind shear and sinking dry conditions over the Atlantic and Caribbean — where wind shear is already the second highest on record for July — potentially nipping the storm systems in the bud, according to Weather.com.

This prophylactic effect is evident in the dramatic reduction in the number of forecasted storms, which currently totals just nine, according to Colorado State University’s tropical meteorology project team.

Of these, only four are projected to become hurricanes, while just one will attain Category 3 status or stronger, marking five fewer storms and three fewer hurricanes than an average season.

El Niño’s sister system, meanwhile, literally throws cold water on cyclones. Cooler ocean temps in the Atlantic prevent the heat and moisture buildup required for thunderstorm buildup, according to The Conversation.

It will be interesting if these sibling systems have double the preventive impact come hurricane season.

Despite the forecast covering the August-January period, we are already observing this in July. If we look at the seasonal forecast, the latest data clearly shows a large area of below-normal tropical activity across the MDR and the Atlantic region. At the same time, we see enhanced activity in the Pacific, aided by the low pressure and rising air associated with El Niño.

So far, Tropical Storm Arthur was the only named storm to form in the Atlantic Basin before July 17 — one fewer than during and average year, Gizmodo reported.

And while it caused flash flooding and tornadoes to lash the south, this so-called superstorm fizzled before long.   Meanwhile, there are no signs of an Atlantic hurricane; the first one usually forms by August 11.

To enlarge, open in new tab.

2026 Mid-July Arctic Ice Extents Tracking Average

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Russian Nuclear Icebreakers on the Northern Sea Route, March 2025

The arctic ice extents are now reported through mid-July 2026, and as noted previously the wavy polar vortex has hampered ice formation with incursions of warmer southern air into the Arctic circle.  This factor receded in May and June, with 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.

As the image from July 15 shows, despite the melting on the margins, the Arctic Ocean core is solid, expecially along the Eurasian NSR seen on the left vertical side. Some open water is appearing in Laptev (top left) and East Siberian sea (mid Left), but still extensive land fast ice.  As usual mid July, Hudson Bay (bottom right) is mostly open water, as is Baffin Bay (middle right).  Canadain Archipelago remains largely ice covered.

The chart below shows the 20-year mid July 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.  By comparison SII v.4 lost 2.6M and MASIE lost 2.2M. In other words, MASIE 2026 ice melt is just one day ahead of average.

Note the deficit to average mid-June was ~400k km2 but since then 2026 extents tracked close to average before ending down 110k km2. SII tracked close to MASIE last half of June, but as we have seen in previous months SII v.4 lost a lot of ice in the last two weeks ending 338k km2 lower than MASIE, or 1/3 of a Wadham.

The table below shows the distibution of ice extents on day 196 across regions of the Arctic ocean.

Region 2026196 Day 196 Average 2026-Ave. 2007196 2026-2007
 (0) Northern_Hemisphere 8230702 8340811 -110110 8354527 -123825
 (1) Beaufort_Sea 1044469 874320 170149 845938 198531
 (2) Chukchi_Sea 781718 647606 134112 576079 205639
 (3) East_Siberian_Sea 908640 924076 -15436 788128 120513
 (4) Laptev_Sea 719818 563593 156224 575520 144298
 (5) Kara_Sea 245022 350290 -105268 483785 -238762
 (6) Barents_Sea 36 53993 -53957 75731 -75695
 (7) Greenland_Sea 321463 401993 -80531 472890 -151428
 (8) Baffin_Bay_Gulf_of_St._Lawrence 267821 309518 -41696 342503 -74682
 (9) Canadian_Archipelago 719994 707260 12734 730894 -10900
 (10) Hudson_Bay 184771 339584 -154813 248785 -64014
 (11) Central_Arctic 3034736 3164687 -129951 3211275 -176539

The table shows that many regions are close to or above the 20-year average. The Eurasian shelf seas of Laptev, Chukchi and Beaufort are in surplus. The majority of the 1.3% overall deficit is from Hudson Bay, Central Arctic, Kara and Greenland seas.  Excepting Central Arctic, those regions will be ice-free end of summer. 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.

 

June 2026 SSTs Warming Resumes

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.  This February report is 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 June 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 and resuming in June.

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 in 2023-24 came an event resembling 2015-16 with a Tropical spike and two NH spikes alongside, all higher than 2015-16. There was also a coinciding rise in SH, and the Global anomaly was pulled up to 1.1°C in 2023, ~0.3° higher than the 2015 peak.  Then NH started down autumn 2023, followed by Tropics and SH descending 2024 to the present. During 2 years of cooling in SH and the Tropics, the Global anomaly came back down, led by Tropics cooling from its 1.3°C peak 2024/01, down to 0.5C in November 2025. That same month, the Global anomaly exactly matched the mean for this period, with all regions converging on that value, lincluding a 5 month drop in NH.  Now in 2026, warming is due to a six-month rise in NH and Tropics, plus SH the first three months. The Global anomaly in June matched the value 2 years ago, and NH is also the same as June 2024.

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 2023 the Tropics flipped from below to well above average, while NH produced a summer peak extending into September higher than any previous year.  Despite El Nino driving the Tropics January 2024 anomaly higher than 1998 and 2016 peaks, following months cooled in all regions, and the Tropics continued cooling in April, May and June along with SH dropping.  After July and August NH warming again pulled the global anomaly higher, September through January 2025 resumed cooling in all regions, continuing February through April 2025, with little change in May,June and July despite upward bumps in NH. Temps in all regions cooled  from August through November 2025, followed by a rebound of mild warming in 2026 appears in all regions through April Pausing in May and resuming in June.

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, but now matching 2016 and well below the peak years of 2023 and 2024.

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 1982-1996 inclusive, value 0.18.  The orange line the average 1982-2025, value 0.41 also for the period 1997-2012. The red line is 2015-2025, value 0.74. 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

UAH June 2026 SH Leads Global Cooling

Posted on by Ron Clutz

The post below updates the UAH record of air temperatures over land and ocean. Each month and year exposes again the growing disconnect between the real world and the Zero Carbon zealots.  It is as though the anti-hydrocarbon band wagon hopes to drown out the data contradicting their justification for the Great Energy Transition.  Yes, there was warming from an El Nino buildup coincidental with North Atlantic warming, but no basis to blame it on CO2.

As an overview consider how recent rapid cooling  completely overcame the warming from the last 3 El Ninos (1998, 2010 and 2016).  The UAH record shows that the effects of the last one were gone as of April 2021, again in November 2021, and in February and June 2022  At year end 2022 and continuing into 2023 global temp anomaly matched or went lower than average since 1995, an ENSO neutral year. (UAH baseline is now 1991-2020). Then there was an usual El Nino warming spike of uncertain cause, unrelated to steadily rising CO2, and now dropping steadily back toward normal values.

For reference I added an overlay of CO2 annual concentrations as measured at Mauna Loa.  While temperatures fluctuated up and down ending flat, CO2 went up steadily by ~66 ppm, an 18% increase.

Furthermore, going back to previous warmings prior to the satellite record shows that the entire rise of 0.8C since 1947 is due to oceanic, not human activity.

gmt-warming-events

The animation is an update of a previous analysis from Dr. Murry Salby.  These graphs use Hadcrut4 and include the 2016 El Nino warming event.  The exhibit shows since 1947 GMT warmed by 0.8 C, from 13.9 to 14.7, as estimated by Hadcrut4.  This resulted from three natural warming events involving ocean cycles. The most recent rise 2013-16 lifted temperatures by 0.2C.  Previously the 1997-98 El Nino produced a plateau increase of 0.4C.  Before that, a rise from 1977-81 added 0.2C to start the warming since 1947.

Importantly, the theory of human-caused global warming asserts that increasing CO2 in the atmosphere changes the baseline and causes systemic warming in our climate.  On the contrary, all of the warming since 1947 was episodic, coming from three brief events associated with oceanic cycles. And in 2024 we saw an amazing episode with a temperature spike driven by ocean air warming in all regions, along with rising NH land temperatures, now dropping well below its peak.

Chris Schoeneveld has produced a similar graph to the animation above, with a temperature series combining HadCRUT4 and UAH6. H/T WUWT

image-8

See Also Worst Threat: Greenhouse Gas or Quiet Sun?

June 2026 UAH Temps: SH Land Cools Sharplybanner-blog

With apologies to Paul Revere, this post is on the lookout for cooler weather with an eye on both the Land and the Sea.  While you heard a lot about 2020-21 temperatures matching 2016 as the highest ever, that spin ignores how fast the cooling set in.  The UAH data analyzed below shows that warming from the last El Nino had fully dissipated with chilly temperatures in all regions. After a warming blip in 2022, land and ocean temps dropped again with 2023 starting below the mean since 1995.  Spring and Summer 2023 saw a series of warmings, continuing into 2024 peaking in April, then cooling off to the present.

UAH has updated their TLT (temperatures in lower troposphere) dataset for June 2026. Due to one satellite drifting more than can be corrected, the dataset has been recalibrated and retitled as version 6.1 Graphs here contain this updated 6.1 data.  Posts on their reading of ocean air temps this month are ahead the update from HadSST4 I posted recently on May 2026 SSTs Cease Warming. These posts have a separate graph of land air temps because the comparisons and contrasts are interesting as we contemplate possible cooling in coming months and years.

Sometimes air temps over land diverge from ocean air changes. 2025 showed a sharp contrast between land and sea, first with ocean air temps falling in January recovering in February.  Then in November and December SH land temps spiked while ocean temps showed litle change. In February 2026 NH land temps doubled, from Dec. 0.53C up to 1.14C last month.  Despite SH land changing little, and Tropical land cooling, the Global land anomaly jumped up from 0.53 to 0.93C.  That reversed in March with both NH land and Global land anomaly back down to 0.63C. That cooling offset SH Ocean warming doubling from 0.19C to 0.38C. In May was a warming spike in Tropics and SH ocean air while NH ocean air was flat. At the same time, Land air temps warmed in Tropics and NH while dropping in SH.  The unusual end result for May was Global, Land and Ocean air temp anomalies all showing the same 0.53C. Now in June SH land dropped sharply along with some SH ocean cooling, pulling down Global anomalies.

Note:  UAH has shifted their baseline from 1981-2010 to 1991-2020 beginning with January 2021.   v6.1 data was recalibrated also starting with 2021. In the charts below, the trends and fluctuations remain the same but the anomaly values changed with the baseline reference shift.

Presently sea surface temperatures (SST) are the best available indicator of heat content gained or lost from earth’s climate system.  Enthalpy is the thermodynamic term for total heat content in a system, and humidity differences in air parcels affect enthalpy.  Measuring water temperature directly avoids distorted impressions from air measurements.  In addition, ocean covers 71% of the planet surface and thus dominates surface temperature estimates.  Eventually we will likely have reliable means of recording water temperatures at depth.

Recently, Dr. Ole Humlum reported from his research that air temperatures lag 2-3 months behind changes in SST.  Thus cooling oceans portend cooling land air temperatures to follow.  He also observed that changes in CO2 atmospheric concentrations lag behind SST by 11-12 months.  This latter point is addressed in a previous post Who to Blame for Rising CO2?

After a change in priorities, updates are now exclusive to HadSST4.  For comparison we can also look at lower troposphere temperatures (TLT) from UAHv6.1 which are now posted for June 2026.  The temperature record is derived from microwave sounding units (MSU) on board satellites like the one pictured above. Recently there was a change in UAH processing of satellite drift corrections, including dropping one platform which can no longer be corrected. The graphs below are taken from the revised and current dataset.

The UAH dataset includes temperature results for air above the oceans, and thus should be most comparable to the SSTs. There is the additional feature that ocean air temps avoid Urban Heat Islands (UHI).  The graph below shows monthly anomalies for ocean air temps since January 2015.

 After sharp cooling everywhere in January 2023, there was a remarkable spiking of Tropical ocean temps from -0.5C up to + 1.2C in January 2024.  The rise was matched by other regions in 2024, such that the Global anomaly peaked at 0.86C in April. Since then all regions have cooled down sharply to a low of 0.27C in January.  In February 2025, SH rose from 0.1C to 0.4C pulling the Global ocean air anomaly up to 0.47C, where it stayed in March and April. In May drops in NH and Tropics pulled the air temps over oceans down despite an uptick in SH. At 0.43C, ocean air temps were similar to May 2020, albeit with higher SH anomalies. In November/December all regions were cooler, led by a sharp drop in SH bringing the Global ocean anomaly down to 0.02C. In 2026, ocean warming was evident, with Tropics and SH pulling up Global ocean air temps despite little rise in NH ocean. Now in June that has stopped with SH cooling and pulling down the Global ocean anomaly.

Land Air Temperatures Tracking in Seesaw Pattern

We sometimes overlook that in climate temperature records, while the oceans are measured directly with SSTs, land temps are measured only indirectly.  The land temperature records at surface stations sample air temps at 2 meters above ground.  UAH gives tlt anomalies for air over land separately from ocean air temps.  The graph updated for June is below.


Here we have fresh evidence of the greater volatility of the Land temperatures, along with extraordinary departures by SH land.  The seesaw pattern in Land temps is similar to ocean temps 2021-22, except that SH is the outlier, hitting bottom in January 2023. Then exceptionally SH goes from -0.6C up to 1.4C in September 2023 and 1.8C in  August 2024, with a large drop in between.  In November, SH and the Tropics pulled the Global Land anomaly further down despite a bump in NH land temps. February showed a sharp drop in NH land air temps from 1.07C down to 0.56C, pulling the Global land anomaly downward from 0.9C to 0.6C. Some ups and downs followed with returns close to February values in August.  A remarkable spike in October was completely reversed in November/December, along with NH dropping sharply bringing the Global Land anomaly down to 0.52C, half of its peak value of 1.17C 09/2024. In 2026 January and February Global land rebounded up to 1.14C, led by a NH warming spike. That NH spike was reversed in March and April back down to 0.43C.  In May the Global land anomaly went back up to 0.53C with all regions around that value. Note in June land temps in SH plunged nearly 0.6C down to 0.2C, pulling Global land anomaly down more than 0.1C.

The Bigger Picture UAH Global Since 1980

The chart shows monthly Global Land and Ocean anomalies starting 01/1980 to present.  The average monthly anomaly is -0.02 for this period of more than four decades.  The graph shows the 1998 El Nino after which the mean resumed, and again after the smaller 2010 event. The 2016 El Nino matched 1998 peak and in addition NH after effects lasted longer, followed by the NH warming 2019-20.   An upward bump in 2021 was reversed with temps having returned close to the mean as of 2/2022.  March and April brought warmer Global temps, later reversed

With the sharp drops in Nov., Dec. and January 2023 temps, there was no increase over 1980. Then in 2023 the buildup to the October/November peak exceeded the sharp April peak of the El Nino 1998 event. It also surpassed the February peak in 2016. In 2024 March and April took the Global anomaly to a new peak of 0.94C.  The cool down started with May dropping to 0.9C, later months declined steadily until  August Global Land and Ocean was down to 0.39C. then rose slightly to 0.53 in October, before dropping. to 0.3C in December.  By May 2026 the anomaly was back up to 0.53C, now down to 0.39C in June.

The graph reminds of another chart showing the abrupt ejection of humid air from Hunga Tonga eruption.

TLTs include mixing above the oceans and probably some influence from nearby more volatile land temps.  Clearly NH and Global land temps have been dropping in a seesaw pattern, nearly 1C lower than the 2016 peak.  Since the ocean has 1000 times the heat capacity as the atmosphere, that cooling is a significant driving force.  TLT measures started the recent cooling later than SSTs from HadSST4, but are now showing the same pattern. Despite the three El Ninos, their warming had not persisted prior to 2023, and without them it would probably have cooled since 1995.  Of course, the future has not yet been written.

Funding Country Prosperity and Self-Reliance vs. Climate Mitigation

Posted on by Ron Clutz

The news from a climatist perspective is reported in the LinkedIn article World Bank and IMF Retreat from Climate Finance Under US Pressure.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

In a significant shift in global financial priorities, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) appear to be scaling back their commitments to climate finance in 2026, likely influenced by pressure from the United States. This development, reported in mid-2025, has sparked concerns among environmental advocates, developing nations, and the business community about its potential to disrupt the global transition to a sustainable economy. Climate finance, which funds projects aimed at mitigating and adapting to climate change, is critical for supporting renewable energy, sustainable infrastructure, and climate resilience initiatives. [ Note: The United States is the largest shareholder of the World Bank, controlling about 16% of voting power. This allows the U.S. to single-handedly block any decision that requires a supermajority, such as extending or replacing the climate financing targets.]

Reorientation Background from US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent

Excerpts from Secretary Bessent IMFC-DC Statement in italics with my bolds and added images.

In recent years, the IMF has suffered from mission creep. Its work has too often extended into areas such as international development, climate change, gender, and social issues, which are disconnected from the institution’s core mandate. To restore its relevance and impact, the Fund must drop these extraneous items and focus on the critical economic work at hand. 

As part of the ongoing Comprehensive Surveillance Review (CSR), the IMF is taking important steps to better calibrate the scope of its surveillance and reverse these concerning trends. Through the ongoing Review of Program Design and Conditionality, we expect the IMF to reemphasize a culture focused on achieving successful program outcomes rather than prioritizing inputs, such as the volume of financing provided.

In a more constrained external financing environment, the IMF should promote domestic revenue mobilization, better governance, and policies that support durable, private sector-led growth.  Moreover, the IMF, together with the World Bank, must continue its efforts to improve debt data reporting, help build debt management capacity for borrowing countries, restore momentum in debt-restructuring processes, and advance progress under the Common Framework.

The World Bank must maintain focus on its core mission of reducing poverty and increasing economic growth. This means:

♦ Promoting a stronger development agenda focused on country self-reliance by directing resources to the countries most in need for foundational investments that increase productivity and growth and graduating countries from Bank support;
♦ Delivering access to all technologies which can provide abundant, reliable, and affordable energy;
♦ Promoting prudent macroeconomic management and the rule-of-law; and improving development outcomes by proactively seeking to expand competition in procurement.
♦ Striving for greater efficiency, discipline, and accountability so that every dollar delivers more impact.

The Bank must do more to advance developing country access to abundant, affordable, and reliable energy to support economic growth and poverty reduction. Energy abundance sparks economic abundance, and the World Bank should support an all-of-the-above approach to energy technologies—including fossil fuels such as gas, oil, and coal, rather than restrict borrower choice. We call on the Bank to further expand its support for affordable, reliable energy by removing constraints on its support for natural gas and increasing the number of gas projects in the pipeline. We continue to welcome the Bank’s removal of the prohibition on financing nuclear power generation last year. We further welcome the Bank’s leadership in a working group on nuclear energy development with other multilateral development banks. Financing that delivers energy abundance will provide a strong boost to growth, which will also support debt sustainability.

Focusing on the Bank’s core mission also means abandoning its distortionary 45% climate finance target, which impedes market efficiency, distorts incentives, and undermines efforts to reduce poverty and spur economic growth. We welcome the coming expiration of the Climate Change Action Plan, and upon its long-overdue expiration, expect the Bank to immediately shift its myopic focus on climate and financing volumes to one that emphasizes high-quality, durable projects rather than shaping and selecting projects to chase arbitrary financing targets that do little to lift people out of poverty. The Bank should turn its attention to whether its investments and the countries they support are resilient to a multitude of shocks, rather than to meeting nonsensical arbitrary targets.

As public institutions, the World Bank and IMF can most clearly demonstrate accountability to their shareholders by ensuring that a sharper focus on their respective core missions is also reflected by restrained budgets. In service of this goal, we are pleased that both institutions have proposed flat real administrative budget growth for the upcoming fiscal year alongside streamlining efforts that will help reverse the mission creep of recent years.

More than eight decades after their creation at Bretton Woods, we must ensure that the international financial institutions remain true to their mandates and fit for purpose. Streamlining policy priorities will allow both the World Bank and IMF to focus limited public resources on effectively fulfilling their core mandates while nimbly responding to crises. The United States will continue to work with Management and staff, as well as other shareholders, to advance these priorities.

 

 

2026 June Arctic Ice Extents Basically Normal

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Russian Nuclear Icebreakers on the Northern Sea Route, March 2025

The arctic ice extents are now reported through end of June 2026, and as noted previously the wavy polar vortex has hampered ice formation with incursions of warmer southern air into the Arctic circle.  This factor receded in May and June, with 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.

As the image from yesterday shows, despite some melting on the margins, the Arctic Ocean core is solid, expecially along the Eurasian NSR seen on the left vertical side. As usual end of June, Hudson Bay (bottom right) is opening to water, as is Baffin Bay (middle right)

The chart below shows the 20-year June averages for Arctic ice extents, along with 2026, 2025 and 2007 as well as SII v.4. Note that on average June loses 2M km2 of ice extent.  By comparison SII v.4 lost 2.3M and MASIE lost 1.7M. In other words, MASIE 2026 ice melt is just two days ahead of average.

Note the deficit to average mid-month was ~400k km2 but since then 2026 extents tracked close to average before ending down 142k km2. SII tracked close to MASIE first half of June, but as we have seen in previous months SII v.4 lost a lot of ice in the last two weeks ending 504k km2 lower than MASIE, or half a Wadham.

The table below shows the distibution of ice extents on day 181 across regions of the Arctic ocean.

Region 2026181 Dasy 181 ave 2026-Ave. 2007181 2026-2007
 (0) Northern_Hemisphere 9606298 9748505 -142207 9672969 -66671
 (1) Beaufort_Sea 1050375 932169 118205 939209 111165
 (2) Chukchi_Sea 836066 736703 99363 670088 165978
 (3) East_Siberian_Sea 978394 1013254 -34859 901963 76431
 (4) Laptev_Sea 818505 701277 117228 658742 159762
 (5) Kara_Sea 490236 542563 -52328 657478 -167242
 (6) Barents_Sea 16225 113543 -97318 130101 -113876
 (7) Greenland_Sea 418285 504228 -85944 548399 -130114
 (8) Baffin_Bay_Gulf_of_St._Lawrence 379841 522139 -142297 450461 -70619
 (9) Canadian_Archipelago 812857 775268 37588 773611 39246
 (10) Hudson_Bay 650307 683587 -33280 718441 -68134
 (11) Central_Arctic 3140155 3201754 -61599 3218999 -78844
 (12) Bering_Sea 17 8137 -8120 981 -964
 (13) Baltic_Sea 0 3 -3 0 0
 (14) Sea_of_Okhotsk 13845 12549 1296 2983 10862

The table shows that most regions are close to or above the 20-year average. The Eurasian shelf seas of Laptev, Chukchi and Beaufort are in surplus. The majority of the 1.5% overall deficit is from Baffin Bay, Barents, and Greenland seas.  All of those regions will be nearly ice-free end of summer.

 

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.

 

El Ninos Signal Cooling Earth Climate

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Andy May provides data from instruments along with proxies showing that historically when Earth goes into a cooling period, the number of El Ninos increase, while declining during stable warm periods. The article at his blog is Do Los Niños cause climatic cooling?.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

We’ve seen a lot of news stories about an upcoming El Niño, that may turn into a so-called “super” El Niño over the next year. This will affect our weather for a year or two, but what is the climatic effect of this weather feature, if any? Here we examine the history of warm ENSO events.

Los Niños warm Earth’s atmosphere for a few years because they cause excess thermal energy (heat) to be expelled from the topical Pacific Ocean and the heat is then circulated around the planet via atmospheric circulation, especially in the Northern Hemisphere where most of us live. But this is warm weather, not climate. Climate is normally defined as the average weather over a period of more than 30 years. Over 30 years, Los Niños are a cooling event since nearly all the heat they transfer to the atmosphere is eventually radiated to space. Very little of the heat released from the oceans during an El Niño is returned to the oceans because downwelling infrared radiation from the atmosphere cannot penetrate the ocean surface (Wong & Minnett, 2018). Only solar radiation can penetrate to the deeper ocean and significantly warm it.

Irreversible processes in the atmosphere. Neglecting radiative processes (not shown here), the largest sources of irreversibility in the atmosphere are those associated with the hydrologic cycle: evaporation, the mixing of moist and dry air, and the melt–freeze cycle (60–80% collectively), and the fallout of precipitation (5–15%).

Many Los Niños are very powerful weather features and can be traced back in time with lake sediment proxies in Ecuador as has been done by Christopher Moy and colleagues at Syracuse University (Moy et al., 2002). Figure 1 shows Moy’s El Niño proxy record and Rosenthal’s Makassar Strait proxy temperature record since 0AD. Moy’s sediment record from the Laguna Pallcacocha drainage basin is well located to record warm El Niño events since these events cause anomalous sea surface temperatures off the coast of Ecuador which initiate strong and widespread convection in the area.

Figure 1. The Moy warm El Niño record in blue (left scale) and Rosenthal’s North Pacific temperature record in orange (right scale) overlain. Data sources: (Moy et al., 2002) & (Rosenthal et al., 2013).

The important point is that during the Medieval Warm Period Los Niños were rare and did not become common until the Little Ice Age began around 1200 AD and then declined as the Little Ice Age progressed and the world became colder. They have since become common again as the world has warmed, as shown in figure 2 which is a plot of the NOAA ERSST Niño 3.4 Index where Los Niños are positive and Las Niñas are negative values.

Figure 2. The NOAA ERSST v5 ENSO index from the end of the Little Ice Age (~1850) to the present. Data source: Climate Explorer. In this plot, an El Niño is positive (0.5 or greater) and a La Niña is negative (-0.5 or less).

Los Niños were extremely rare during the Holocene Climatic Optimum, only increasing in number as the Neoglacial began as shown in figure 3. The paucity of Los Niños during the Holocene Climatic Optimum is confirmed by numerous geological proxies from around the Pacific basin as discussed in Moy et al. (Moy et al., 2002).

Figure 3. The Vinther Greenland area temperature and Moy’s warm ENSO proxy (number of events each 100 years).

The paucity of Los Niños during the Holocene Climatic Optimum has been connected to Earth’s orbital cycles by Clement et al. (Clement et al., 2000). A discussion of the effects of orbital cycles on climate can be seen here. During the Holocene Climatic Optimum, Northern Hemisphere summer insolation was maximal. It appears that when this happens Los Niños are suppressed. Since the Neoglacial began, around 3800 BC, Northern Hemisphere summer insolation has declined significantly.

Figures 1 to 3 suggest that a warm stable climate is associated with very few Los Niños, but when Earth’s climate is beginning to cool, as at the beginning of the Neoglacial Period or the early cooling years of the Little Ice Age, there are more Los Niños. Los Niños were very common as we cooled into the depths of the Little Ice Age (~1750 or so) and then as we began to warm coming out of the deepest period of the Little Ice Age the number of Los Niños dropped off.

We are currently at the end of Modern Solar Maximum or
the Modern Warm Period, and we are seeing more Los Niños,
suggesting the world is beginning to cool.

Footnote: Atlantic Cold Blob Comes On the Scene

Ironically, as climatists proclaim warming from Pacific El Ninos confirms their CO2 hysteria, the actual climate signal points to a cold period, already manifesting in a large Atlantic cold blob.

May 2026 SSTs Cease 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.  This February report is 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 May 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 ceasing in May.

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 in 2023-24 came an event resembling 2015-16 with a Tropical spike and two NH spikes alongside, all higher than 2015-16. There was also a coinciding rise in SH, and the Global anomaly was pulled up to 1.1°C in 2023, ~0.3° higher than the 2015 peak.  Then NH started down autumn 2023, followed by Tropics and SH descending 2024 to the present. During 2 years of cooling in SH and the Tropics, the Global anomaly came back down, led by Tropics cooling from its 1.3°C peak 2024/01, down to 0.5C in November 2025. That same month, the Global anomaly exactly matched the mean for this period, with all regions converging on that value, lincluding a 5 month drop in NH.  Now in 2026, due to a six-month rise in SH and Tropice, plus NH the last three months. The Global anomaly in April matched the value 2 years ago, and in May is slightly lower due primarily to SH cooling.

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 2023 the Tropics flipped from below to well above average, while NH produced a summer peak extending into September higher than any previous year.  Despite El Nino driving the Tropics January 2024 anomaly higher than 1998 and 2016 peaks, following months cooled in all regions, and the Tropics continued cooling in April, May and June along with SH dropping.  After July and August NH warming again pulled the global anomaly higher, September through January 2025 resumed cooling in all regions, continuing February through April 2025, with little change in May,June and July despite upward bumps in NH. Now temps in all regions have cooled  from August through November 2025, followed by a rebound of mild warming in 2026 appears in all regions through April ceasing in May.

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, then 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 continues downward and is visible on top of 2016 purple line, now slightly higher but well below the peak years of 2023 and 2024.

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 1982-1996 inclusive, value 0.18.  The orange line the average 1982-2025, value 0.41 also for the period 1997-2012. The red line is 2015-2025, value 0.74. 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