Super El Nino Coming! Or not.

Many headlines proclaiming lots of warming with the current La Nina ending.  Some examples from the usual suspects:

El Niño is coming, chances rising it will be historically strong,  CNN
What Makes This Year’s Super El Niño the Strongest in 140 Years?,  Science Times
Weather experts warn of ‘super’ El Niño. Here’s what could happen,. USA Today
Here’s What The Super El Niño Means In Your State, Weather.com

After all, warmists need warming to justify their narrative, and people attending outdoor sporting events in NH are noticing how cool it is presently.  So hope abounds for a great reversal in coming months, while leaving unstated that oceanic cycles are a natural climate driver unaffected by CO2 emissions.

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, the graph above shows all of the warming since 1947 was episodic, coming from three brief El Nino 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.

Is a Super El Nino Coming?  Yes and No.

The certainty in the headlines is speculative and exaggerated.  The Climate Prediction Center is more circumspect and unbiased.  The forecast is here: ENSO Alert System Status: El Niño Watch  Synopsis in italics with my bolds and added images.

El Niño is likely to emerge soon (82% chance in May-July 2026)
and continue through Northern Hemisphere winter 2026-27
(96% chance in December 2026-February 2027).

In the past month, ENSO-neutral conditions continued, as indicated by near-average sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the east-central equatorial Pacific Ocean [Fig. 1].

The latest weekly Niño-3.4 index value was +0.4°C, with the westernmost (Niño-4) and easternmost (Niño-1+2) indices at +0.5°C and +1.0°C, respectively [Fig. 2]. The equatorial subsurface temperature index (average from 180°-100°W) increased for the sixth consecutive month [Fig. 3], with widespread, significantly above-average subsurface temperatures across the equatorial Pacific [Fig. 4]. Westerly wind anomalies were observed over the western equatorial Pacific at low levels and were evident over the central and east-central Pacific at upper levels. Convection was near average on the equator near the Date Line and was suppressed around Indonesia [Fig. 5]. Collectively, the coupled ocean-atmosphere system reflected ENSO-neutral conditions.

The North American Multi-Model Ensemble (NMME) average, including the NCEP CFSv2 [Fig. 6], favors El Niño to form by next month and persist through Northern Hemisphere winter 2026-27.

While confidence in the occurrence of El Niño has increased since last month, there is still substantial uncertainty in the peak strength of El Niño, with no strength categorization exceeding a 37% chance [Figs. 7 & 8].

The strongest El Niño events in the historical record are characterized by significant ocean-atmosphere coupling through the summer, and it remains to be seen whether this occurs in 2026. Stronger El Niño events do not ensure strong impacts; they can only make certain impacts more likely (see CPC outlooks for probabilities of seasonal anomalies). In summary, El Niño is likely to emerge soon (82% chance in May-July 2026) and continue through Northern Hemisphere winter 2026-27 (96% chance in December 2026-February 2027).

Warming in Nino 3.4 index in 2026.

This discussion is a consolidated effort of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NOAA’s National Weather Service, and their funded institutions. Oceanic and atmospheric conditions are updated weekly on the Climate Prediction Center web site (El Niño/La Niña Current Conditions and Expert Discussions). A probabilistic strength forecast is available here. The next ENSO Diagnostics Discussion is scheduled for 11 June 2026.

 

April 2026 SSTs Continue to Warm

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 February 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.

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  is matching the value 2 years ago, 04/2024.

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. 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.

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, 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

Complete Slides in English from Dr. Fleischmann

I received today an email from Dr. Bernd Fleischmann acknowledging my effort to present an english version of his recent presentation. In order to have a more accurate and complete communication he sent me the set of english slides in a pdf embedded below. Along with several additional exhibits, this makes a much more powerful and accessible statement of his points regarding the notion of a Climate Crisis. You can either scroll through the exhibits embedded on this page, or download the pdf file by hitting the download button at the bottom.

I thank Dr. Fleischmann for his research and organized critique of this issue and for speaking truth to the powers that be, many of whom are still entranced by a false narrative.

My post is linked above for reference.

2026 Mid-May: Arctic Ice Extents Less Impacted by Vortex

The arctic ice extents are now reported through Mid-May 2026, and as noted previously the wavy polar vortex has hampered ice formation with incusions of warmer southern air into the Arctic circle.  This was still a factor early in May, but now appears to be receding, according to the AER Polar Vortex blog (May 11).

Judah Cohen:  As I discussed in the previous blog, I do think that the influence from the PV did continue into easrly May, and in fact May so far has been impressively cool in Eastern Canada and the Eastern and less so in parts of Europe (see Figure ii). With more Greenland blocking predicted (see Figure i) is that still the influence of the PV?

Figure ii. Estimate of the observed surface temperatures (°C; shading) from 01 May to 10 May 2026 based on GFS initializations and the GFS forecast from the 11May 2026 run.

From Figure 11, it appears that the influence of the PV split/Final Warming has ended this week with cold/negative polar cap height standardized geopotential height anomalies (PCHs) throughout the stratosphere and tropsophere. Last week I used the PCH limited to the North Atlantic sector to argue the ongoing influence of the PV split and today’s plot (see Figure iii) does not provide any longer an alternative interpretation but rather any further influence of the PV will have to wait until next fall. Though I think this does need to be qualified as my interpretation rather than being fully objective.

The chart below shows the 20-year averages for Arctic ice extents from Mid-April to Mid-May March along with 2026, 2025 and 2006 as well as SII v.4.

Remarkably the deficit to average opened up on May 5 (day 125) to 739k km2, but since then the gap was cut in half, reaching 328k km2 at the end of this period.  The 20-year average maximum daily ice extent loss over this period is 1.5M km2, and in 2026 the decline was 1.2M km2. These are MASIE stats, but SII shows virtually the same results.

The table below shows the distibution of ice extents on day 136 across regions of the Arctic ocean.

Region 2026136 Day 136 Ave. 2026-Ave. 2006136 2026-2006
 (0) Northern_Hemisphere 12271401 12599588 -328188 12157814 113586
 (1) Beaufort_Sea 1071070 1047101 23969 1066139 4931
 (2) Chukchi_Sea 940742 927240 13502 956734 -15992
 (3) East_Siberian_Sea 1065475 1081524 -16050 1074876 -9402
 (4) Laptev_Sea 872186 878598 -6412 889990 -17804
 (5) Kara_Sea 917017 873944 43073 839569 77448
 (6) Barents_Sea 344186 411348 -67162 182554 161632
 (7) Greenland_Sea 549259 621605 -72346 519337 29922
 (8) Baffin_Bay_Gulf_of_St._Lawrence 917090 1054954 -137865 892335 24755
 (9) Canadian_Archipelago 853177 841640 11537 828806 24370
 (10) Hudson_Bay 1176685 1172007 4677 1071342 105343
 (11) Central_Arctic 3212502 3223772 -11270 3169225 43277
 (12) Bering_Sea 248490 285726 -37236 478464 -229973
 (13) Baltic_Sea 0 5749 -5749 15239 -15239
 (14) Sea_of_Okhotsk 101440 172136 -70695 168615 -67174

The table shows that most regions are close to or above the 20-year average.  The majority of the 3% overall deficit is from Baffin Bay, down 138k km2,  Smaller deficits are in Okhotsk, 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.

 

Climate Hysteria Surgically Dissected by Dr. Bernd Fleischmann

In the above presentation, Dr. Bernd Fleischmann cuts to the quick on the Issue: Is Climate hysteria scientifically refuted?   In this provocative lecture, the speaker addresses current climate and environmental issues in the context of global warming and the political agenda. He criticizes the German Federal Constitutional Court’s climate ruling and questions the compatibility of fundamental rights with CO2 reduction measures. Furthermore, he refutes the tipping point theory and many climate models as unreliable, emphasizing the marginal influence of CO₂ on temperature in favor of natural factors.

He also addresses the unintended consequences of wind power and warns against a political agenda that allegedly seeks greater control over the population. The speaker appeals to the audience to critically consider the information disseminated. H/T NoTricksZone

May 19 Update: Complete Slides in English from Dr. Fleischmann

I received today an email from Dr. Bernd Fleischmann acknowledging my effort to present an english version of his recent presentation. In order to have a more accurate and complete communication he sent me the set of english slides in a pdf embedded below. Along with several additional exhibits, this makes a much more powerful and accessible statement of his points regarding the notion of a Climate Crisis. You can either scroll through the exhibits embedded on this page, or download the pdf file by hitting the download button at the bottom. Link in red goes to post with english slikes.

The original language is german, but video settings allow for choice of language, both audio and closed captions. For those who prefer to read I provide below a lightly edited transcript with my bolds and added images consisting of the following themes:

  1. Introduction to the Climate Issue
  2. Ignorance as the Basis of Climate Policy
  3. The Media and Their Responsibility
  4. Propaganda in Climate Research
  5. The Reality of the ‘Climate Crisis’
  6. The Influence of CO2 on Plants
  7. Wind Turbines and Their Unexpected Consequences
  8. Redistribution Through Climate Policy
  9. Conclusions and Personal Remarks

Introduction to the Climate Issue

The question is, of course, a rhetorical question, as you can imagine. But the topic is interesting and still very important.  And you can see that, for example, in the climate decision of the Federal Constitutional Court.  Most of you probably don’t remember it being published a few years ago. But the fewest know that we will be affected by it for the next few years. Because it was decided that for Germany a carbon dioxide budget of 6.7 gigatons is still available, so that we can save the global climate.

And we have already used half of that. And we will have used the remaining half in the next five years or so. And what comes next? The Constitutional Court already has a solution for this. It wrote at the time that behaviors that are directly or indirectly associated with CO2 emissions can only be allowed if the basic rights can be implemented in accordance with climate protection. But the relative weight of freedom of movement, i.e. not free time, but freedom of movement, i.e. eating a sausage, driving a car, these are freedom of movement, because all of this is harmful to carbon dioxide. They are then restricted.

And we have to be aware of that. In the decision that took place without oral negotiations and without listening to reasonable people, but only relied on the results of the IPCC and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research, only these, I would say, alarmist models were laid down. And now we have to ask ourselves, can you trust them? Can you trust the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research? It is the most influential climate institute in the world with almost 500 employees, which we all here finance, as far as we pay taxes.

And they, for example, they brought up the legend of the tipping points. There was a publication in 2008. And this is a picture from this publication without the arrows. I added the arrows. I may have to explain it briefly. Tipping points are elements of the Earth’s climate system.  These are these colorful surfaces here that will tip when it gets a few degrees warmer. That’s the assumption. And they defined around a dozen of these tipping points at the time.

And eleven years later, in 2019, the five elements on which the arrows indicate, I added these arrows because they no longer appeared in the update in 2019. For example, the greening of the Sahara was a positive tipping point. The theory is, and it’s actually true so far, when it gets warmer, more water evaporates from the oceans.  There are then clouds and then it rains more. And then the Sahara turns green. And as a tipping point, it was also defined that way because it stays green.

But because this is not alarmistic enough, this tipping point was thrown out. And the other tipping points don’t appear in the update either. This is a graphic from the update in 2019.  Other tipping points are defined there. But they have long been contradicted by statistics and climate history. So the greening of the Sahara was no longer an issue.

And measurements contradict almost all these tipping points. And as alarmists, they pay for themselves. So you can’t trust the Potsdam Institute for Climate Follow-up Research.

At least, you can trust the World Climate Council. They wrote something right 13 years ago. Namely, if the CO2 content in the atmosphere doubles, i.e. 100% more, then the temperature rises by any value between 1 and 6 degrees.  That was pretty honest. Especially because they also added with 10% more probability, with 5% less probability.

Ignorance as the Basis of Climate Policy

But ultimately, this tension between 1 and 6 degrees means that they don’t know. This is a sign of ignorance. And everything that is told to us, it is based on a mean value that they have taken, but which cannot be justified by the models.  It is arbitrary.

If you look at CO2 alone, then it becomes warmer by a maximum of 1 degree, rather less. And everything that is added, it comes through feedback. And these positive feedbacks, these reinforcing feedbacks. A feedback, a positive one is, for example, if I hold the microphone towards the speaker, then it whistles. This is a reinforcing feedback.

And every reinforcing feedback in a loss-free system leads to instability. And the climate would then be unstable if these models were correct. But the climate has been stable for the last 10,000 years, as we all know.  The climate system is stable, the feedbacks are not reinforcing. And the measurements also confirm these reinforcing feedbacks.

Richard Lindzen is one of the advisors of Donald Trump. And he is an emerited professor. Almost everyone who dares to tell the truth is emerited these days, because they are no longer dependent on financial support.  And he said, all models do not agree with the observations. So the positive feedback in the models is wrong. In the last IPCC report of 2021, this span was slightly reduced from 1 to 6 degrees.

But at the same time he wrote, our new models scatter more than the old ones. That is, it is actually a larger span that these models produce, which has nothing to do with reality. And from the new IPCC report is this graph.

I have to explain this now. This graph represents the reflected solar radiation. What comes down from the sun is reflected.  From clouds, from everything that is on the earth’s surface, from ice and snow, of course, but also from plants, etc. And this graph, the black one, is supposed to be the measurement. And the colorful ones are models. And this graph shows that the reflection is increasing. So more is scattered back. And if more solar radiation is scattered back, it gets colder.

Figure 8. Comparison between observed global temperature anomalies and CERES-reported changes in the Earth’s absorbed solar flux. The two data series representing 13-month running means are highly correlated with the absorbed SW flux explaining 78% of the temperature variation (R2 = 0.78). The global temperature lags the absorbed solar radiation between 0 and 9 months, which indicates that climate change in the 21st Century was driven by solar forcing.

So this graph indicates that this cannot be a reason for the warming that we have found. And this is the original graph, the lower graph. From the CERES program, that is a satellite measurement program, you can call it.  And the two graphs are exactly mirrored. So in fact, the reflected solar radiation, which is reflected by the sun, has become less over the last few years. And significantly less. And that explains the warming. That is, because the IPCC has shown the opposite, they have mirrored it. This cannot have been a coincidence.

Figure 10. This graph is the cloud fraction and is set forth on the left vertical axis. The temperature is on the right vertical axis and the horizontal axis represents the observation year. The information was extrapolated from figures prepared by Hans-Rolf Dubal and Fritz Vahrenholt [37]. Source: Nelson & Nelson (2024;)

The report has 3,000 pages, just the one from the Working Group 1, which deals with physics. And around this graph, there is about a third page, which deals with it and does not really thematize it. So, the increase in the absorbed solar radiation, it is less reflected, it is absorbed more, that explains the warming. And I calculated that, how the temperature development is. And I have taken this increase of the absorbed solar radiation into account.

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.

And El Niño in the Pacific and the Niño phenomena in the Atlantic. These are ocean cycles, which are irregular, but occur again and again. They then cause, for example, for this warming 2010, 2016, 2024. So it has to do with the ocean cycles. And the linear trend since 2000 to 2025, it comes from the increase of the absorbed solar radiation. The blue curve is the temperature curve measured by satellites. And the orange curve, I hope this is also orange here, the orange curve is the temperature curve that I calculated.

Without greenhouse gases, only the effects, increase of the absorbed solar radiation and the ocean cycles in the Pacific and in the Atlantic. That’s it. That’s it to calculate how the temperature develops. The difference between the two curves is in the middle 0.05 degrees. And you will not find a climate researcher who, with the greenhouse theory, with CO2 and something else, comes to similarly good agreement. I have, as I said, completely ignored the greenhouse gases and come to a very good agreement.

CO2 plays a small role, in my opinion, but it is so small that it has been declining more or less in the rush for at least the last 25 years. So what the IPCC said in 2013, 1 to 6 degrees temperature range, this ignorance, that was the basis for the Paris climate agreement, for the EU Green Deal, for the Climate Decision of the Federal Constitutional Court and, as a result, for the destruction of industry in Germany, for the poverty of the population. You probably already feel it in your wallet. And for future freedom restrictions. All this is based on ignorance.

The Media and Their Responsibility

And the Germans are of course not the only ones who are on this wrong path. The UNO propagates it quite strongly. This figure here, this knight of the sad figure, this is Antonio Guterres, the UN General Secretary, and he spoke of the sinking planet. He is very good with his formulations. The sinking planet, it supposedly stands in the water in front of Tuvalu. This is an island group in the Pacific. Coral islands.

And the article in Time magazine is from 2019. A year earlier there was a publication that dealt with how the surface of Tuvalu develops. And they found that Tuvalu is growing. Coral islands adapt to the sea level. The corals form a rock. This is then partially ground up in the surf and lifted up to the island with the next storm.  That is why they have not sunk in the last thousand years and will not do so when the sea level rises, which it does, but also much slower than many claim. It grows at almost all measuring stations only with 1-2 mm per year. So that was a lie that the planet is sinking.

Nonsense anyway. He then increased it with the statement that the era of global warming is over. We are now in the era of global cooking. I think that from 10 km above sea level the water boils at 40 ° C or so. But what he says is complete nonsense. I ask myself, how did this socialist become UN Secretary General? Who is pulling the strings? And the most important question that interests me the most is, what does this guy smoke? Time magazine definitely spreads lies.

When I read this headline it took me about 5 seconds to find out in Google what is really going on with Tuvalu. And they have to do that too. It is their duty as journalists to report truthfully.

Well, the Time magazine is not so great now, but we still have the Upper Bavarian Volkszeitung. Climate emergency, United Nations set alarm. This, of course, also comes from Guterres. And it says in the article I called it on April 20th. The article is from March 24th. And it says the past year was the second or third warmest since measured.

The second or third warmest, okay. But we know exactly that it was 1.43 degrees warmer than 150 years ago. So they know that by a hundredth of a degree. But not whether it was the second or third warmest. Questionable. Well, the reference period is 1850 to 1900. Guterres added other nonsense, load limits, etc. Of course I looked at it. I thought, okay, very interesting.

What measuring stations were there in 1850? I looked up at NASA. The Goddard Institute for Space Studies has several thousand measuring stations that are, I’m not allowed to say, manipulated, that design it creatively. But of course they didn’t do that for the time from 1850, because these are all measuring stations from the time until 1879.

They don’t need new glasses. There are none. This is a graph directly from the website of NASA GIS.
And you can enter which period. I entered from 1879. So all stations that have been running continuously since 1879. And that’s exactly zero. Exactly zero. And then I looked at what it looks like on the other side of the globe. So it’s Pacific, Australia, Antarctica. And the period from 1880. There were the first measuring stations. And that’s a handful. A handful for half the globe. At that time there was not a single measuring station in Africa.

Not a single one. And in many other countries of the world there was not a single measuring station. And on 95% of the earth’s surface there were no measuring stations at all. There are still no measuring stations today that provide really meaningful values in most of Africa on an area of 20 million square kilometers. That’s twice as much as the area of Europe. There are no measuring stations.

And then they produce a temperature for the globe with an accuracy of one hundredth of a degree for a period when there were practically no measuring stations. That’s nonsense. Yes, down here in Argentina there is a measuring station. I looked at it. It shows a cooling down for the last 150 years. So how much warmer has it actually become? Certainly not 1.43 degrees since the end of the Little Ice Age.

Yes, the end of the 19th century. Yes, this reference period 1850 to 1900. That was the coldest phase of the Holocene of the last 10,000 years. The glaciers have advanced as far as never in the last 10,000 years. They have threatened villages in Switzerland. You can read that. It was the coldest phase.

And a warmer phase was, for example, the High Middle Ages about 1,000 years ago. And you know that it was about as warm as it is today. Otherwise, the Vikings would not have made their way to Greenland. Well, Greenland was not entirely green. It is not entirely covered by ice today. But Iceland was ice-free a few thousand years ago.

And my estimate for the temperature development in the last 1,000 years is 0 plus or minus 1 degree. So I don’t know it exactly. I don’t know if anyone knows it better. But this 0 plus or minus 1 degree is, let’s say, an engineer-like statement with an uncertainty.

 Propaganda in Climate Research

1.43 degrees without uncertainty is propaganda. And propaganda is what the media can do best. Some of you may remember this hysteria from three years ago. Po river and Lake Garda are drying up. The editorial network Deutschland is one of almost 500 media where the SPD has the say. 500. I think they have a share in more media than not.  But they were not the only ones.

Po river and Lake Garda are drying up. Lake Garda is only filled to 38%. The average depth of Lake Garda is 133 meters. Absolutely ridiculous. But news agencies like Reuters and EPA have spread the nonsense. The Süddeutsche Zeitung, Die Zeit and of course ARD and ZDF. And the fact is, the level was only 0.5 meters lower than usual at this time of year. A few months later it was higher than usual in the summer.

Yes, this is just normal variation. Therefore, my recommendation to the media and if a media representative is here, please turn on your brain before you spread nonsense.

The Reality of the ‘Climate Crisis’

So, there would be a climate crisis if it got colder. Yes, the little ice age, that was the phase of starvation, poverty, but also flooding. The largest part of the flood was 200 years ago in the little ice age, 1804. Not the one 5 years ago, in 1804 it was worse. And what you see here, this is the vegetation in North Africa. Once to the peak of the Holocene, that is, the current warm season, about 6000 years ago.

And there you see three little white spots up here. I don’t know if you can see them on the screen. Yes, you can still see them. These three little white spots, that was the desert 6000 years ago. Today it is almost the entire desert of North Africa because it has become colder. It was warmer back then and there were no glaciers on Iceland because it was warmer.

So there were not glaciers, but birch forests. And the lower graphic is for the last interglacial warm period 130,000 years ago. It was even warmer there. It was about 8 degrees warmer than today. And what happened? The Sahara was even greener. And all climate researchers know that it was warmer and greener back then.

That’s why you hear a lot, we had the hottest month, the hottest year since 125,000 years ago. Because 125,000 years ago the interglacial period came to an end and the ice age began. And the EME warm period was so warm without the four private jets of Bill Gates. He has four, two Bombardier, two Gulfstream and without our beautiful SUV.

The Influence of CO2 on Plants

Back to the topic of the climate crisis. More CO2 is of course also good. The plants need CO2 to grow. Everyone knows that. And the more CO2 is in the air, the better they grow. That’s why CO2 dioxide is often added. And this graph is from the Australian Environment Agency. This graph shows the growth of leaf coverings in the last 40 years. And green and blue areas show an increase in leaves and only the red areas show a decrease.

So where there is a fire, there is less fire. But especially in the semi-dry areas in the Sahel, that is the area south of the Sahara, from the Atlantic to the Indian ocean, it has become much greener. In India it has become much greener.

In Australia and other areas it has become much greener. That is why they do not belong to war zones. The population of the Sahel has tripled to quadrupled in all countries in the last 40 years. Because it has become greener, they were able to do that. The deserts are getting smaller. And the Sahel has benefited more than almost any other region in the world.

The Süddeutsche Zeitung has written the opposite. Where is the Sahel zone, whose inhabitants suffer the most from climate change? I think Dr. Weiss, the director of the Wissensredaktion, knows it better. I had a communication with the Süddeutsche three years ago. I showed them with scientific publications ten mistakes on their website . Within a few days I got an answer. They did not try to contradict me. They told me five other things, which were also wrong. These mistakes are still on the website. And I have a presentation on my website, in which the mistakes are shown and why they are mistakes. And because I drew the attention of the Süddeutsche Zeitung to the mistakes, it is no longer an accident or out of ignorance. They deliberately lie.

Is it better to be warm? Someone has to tell this to Karl Lauterbach, who annoys us with his heat protection killers. This is from a publication in Lancet. This is one of the most famous medical science journals. Unfortunately, the graphic is as it is. You can’t see what it says. This is an overview of all European countries, from southern Europe to northern Europe.

The blue bars are deaths from severe cold. The red bars are deaths from severe heat. It looks similar in size. It looks like this for you, because you can’t see the scale below. The ones in the front can see it. The scale is about 5 different.

And if you compare it with the same scale, it looks like the chart on the right. There are 5 to 10 times more deaths from cold than from heat Even in southern Europe, there are more deaths from cold than from heat. Even in the countries of Africa and Oceania, this was found in another publication.

Heat is not the problem. In Singapore, the average temperature is 17 degrees higher than in Germany. And people live 5 years longer. It even says on Wikipedia, there are different times, life expectancy, temperature.  Of course, this is even on Wikipedia on different pages, life expectancy, temperature, but it is a fact. So five to ten times more deaths from cold than from heat.

Wind Turbines and Their Unexpected Consequences

So why are we doing all this with the wind turbines? Can we trust the wind turbine lobby? Of course, this is also a rhetorical question, the solution is coming.

This is unfortunately a complicated graphic, but it can be explained relatively well. Because it doesn’t cool down so well, more water evaporates from the ground. The soils dry out more with wind turbines. And if you plaster the whole world with wind turbines, if you switch the entire energy supply to wind and sun, then there is a Temperature increase that people have calculated. And the red curve down here, this is the temperature curve for the case that 40% of the total energy is generated by wind turbines, 4 seconds. 40% worldwide increases the temperature, I think you can see, by 1 to 3°, so more than carbon dioxide. Its a Chinese publication and Germany would then be a single windpark with hundreds of thousands of wind turbines.

Firstly, we don’t want to see that and, secondly,
we don’t want it for our soils and for the quality of life.

But not only the Chinese have found out, but there is a marine research center, the Helmholz-Zentrum Hereon. They have investigated this for wind turbines in the sea and they have found that these wind farms are changing the North Sea. They even change the ocean currents, they change the mixing on the surface and the reduction of the wind behind the wind farms. This can be measured up to 70 km behind the wind farm.

And then they wrote, so not me, but Helmholz-Zentrum Hereon, who live on taxpayers’ money, they were honest, they wrote that the changes show similar orders of magnitude as the suspected ones changes due to climate change. So, we want to prevent climate change and prevent a suspected and definitely create climate change with the wind turbines. So it really doesn’t get any dumber than that.

And we don’t just change the climate with wind turbines,
some people get sick with the infrasound of the wind turbines.

Not everyone may be so sensitive, but these infracircuits are the pulsed pressure changes that result from such a propeller blade passing the mast. This creates a pressure that spreads. You can’t hear it, but you can feel it. These are enormously high switching pressures and just like they are in the Discoen bass, you can feel it when you’re around. And sensitive people can still do that in 5 km distance, via petzo channels in our cells.

There are publications for this discovery, the Pzukanal even won the Nobel Prize in 2021. So that’s science, that’s not whirlwind. And the organ that suffers the worst from these pressure fluctuations is our brain. And maybe they want to make us stupid on purpose so that we continue to vote for the old parties. I don’t know. So, here are a few sources. There is much more. You can’t find the information on my website yet. I have them relatively new.

Redistribution Through Climate Policy

Okay, they trust Harald Lesch from his statements. He once said that there were temperature increases of more than 10° within a few decades. That’s right. That happened in the Ice Age. Today the argument says:

“Climate change is man-made, leads to catastrophic storms and thermal power plants increase the temperature through their waste heat.”

This is all wrong with the idea of the climate case He has a climate kit for the Ludwig Maximilian University which was distributed to all kinds of schools. When presenting this case, he made 30 false statements in one hour, which I was able to prove to him. 30, so one every 2 minutes. I won’t go into detail about it now, you can find a PDF on my website. If you see, hit me around the ears. Good.

So, who ultimately benefits? Ottmar Edenhofer said that 16 years ago, he is Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research and he said that we are redistributing money and de facto destroying the world’s wealth. He did not say to whom it would be redistributed. However, he has admittedly, it has nothing to do with environmental policy. In any case, it doesn’t reach the poorest. And who benefits?

Yes,  who has benefited from the Covid vaccination? Vaccination in quotation marks, of course. Some of you will probably think of this name here. Bill Gates has sent a letter to all participants of the last climate conference in Brazil and said that there are more important things than a certain temperature that we must not exceed. Feeding the world is more important and he did not say the medical care provided by the pharmaceutical companies he leads. I took a closer look at his letter.

He makes statements in various areas where we have to achieve net zero. He stands by his statement, we need net zero as soon as possible. and he named 36 companies in this letter. And I took a look at what kind of companies they are. They are all from Breakthrough Energy’s portfolio. This is an investment vehicle that he founded, in which Jeff Bezos of  Amazon, Bloomberg Media’s Michael Bloomberg, George Soros, Mark Zuckerberg and other billionaires are involved.

Why did he write this letter?  Because the USA has withdrawn from the Paris Climate Agreement and all these companies are not viable, without subsidies and without regulations that applied in the USA and no longer apply. That was a battle letter to the other states. Make the motto: “Help me, otherwise I’ll get in trouble from my fellow billionaires.” And this energy transition in quotation marks with almost everything we do is a redistribution from poor to rich and super-rich and he actually admitted it himself.

Conclusions and Personal Remarks

So, I’m slowly coming to the end. I spoke a little slower so that I could be understood well. I hope this worked.

The question is, of course, why are other climate scientists not being heard? And there’s this email that was laid out as part of ClimateGate a few years ago, very revealing. The most influential climate scientist to the most influential climate scientist in the United States, saying we will publish and keep out of the IPCC report publications that do not correspond to their opinion. And if necessary, we will redefine what peer review, is. So they deliberately make propaganda.

Conclusion: There is no threat of a climate crisis. The greenhouse effect caused by carbon dioxide is marginal. Carbon dioxide is the gas of life. More carbon dioxide makes the world greener. The influence of the sun from clouds and ocean cycles determines the temperature.

Wind turbines raise the temperature. And they dry out the soils. To do this, they poison the environment with the glass fibers that are knocked out. They kill insects 5000 tons per year. It was once calculated in Germany. They kill feather mice and birds of prey.

Infrasound makes you sick and reduces plant growth. This is because plants also have these petzo channels in their cells and grow less well. Science agrees, it is a lie. I am the living example that it is a lie. And the energy transition is a redistribution of normal earners.

Never trust AD, ZDF, Süddeutsche Zeitung etc. So many of them have not known me to this day. I am not a well-known expert, because you only become a well-known expert if you support government policy, and I don’t do that. Thank you very much.

 

 

 

 

 

 

DOJ Sues Against Minnesota’s Climate Lawsuit

Climate Change Dispatch reports DOJ Sues Minnesota Over State Climate Lawsuit Targeting Energy Companies.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Justice Department argues the state case oversteps federal authority,
seeks to reshape national energy policy.

The complaint, filed Monday, May 4, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, accuses state officials of trying to impose their own climate policies on domestic energy producers in a way the DOJ says burdens national energy development and intrudes on federal authority.

The underlying lawsuit was filed in 2020 by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison against Exxon Mobil, the American Petroleum Institute, Koch Industries, and Koch subsidiary Flint Hills Resources.

Minnesota brought the case under state consumer-protection laws, alleging that the companies engaged in fraud and deceptive business practices by misleading the public about “climate change and the role of fossil-fuel products in climate change.”

That lawsuit remains pending after years of procedural fights over whether it belongs in state or federal court.

Minnesota succeeded in keeping the case in state court in 2024, after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review a lower-court ruling allowing the lawsuit to proceed there.

In its new complaint, the DOJ argues that authority over national energy policy
and major questions involving greenhouse gas emissions rests
with the federal government, not individual states.

The department is asking the court to block Minnesota from pursuing the 2020 lawsuit and prevent the state from bringing similar litigation in the future.

“Climate change lawsuits, like Minnesota’s, artfully plead around federal law while transparently seeking to change national energy policy related to global greenhouse gas emissions and to regulate conduct beyond local borders,” the complaint states.

The federal government’s move to counter climate litigation with its own lawsuit follows an executive order issued last year by President Donald Trump, who directed the DOJ to “take all appropriate action to stop” state lawsuits seeking to “dictate national energy policy.”

Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward said in a statement:

“President Trump promised to unleash American energy dominance, and Minnesota officials cannot undermine his directive by mandating that their woke climate preferences become the uniform policy of our Nation,”

“Imagine an argument so airtight about science so settled
over technology so reliable that you have to use censorship
to make sure nobody gives a dissenting opinion.”  @ProctorZ

UN Climate Panel Quietly Admits Its Doomsday Climate Scenarios Were ‘Implausible’

Tyler Durden writes at ZeroHedge UN Climate Panel Quietly Admits Its Doomsday Climate Scenarios Were ‘Implausible‘. excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

The IPCC has published a new generation of climate scenarios – and buried in the fine print is a remarkable concession: the extreme warming pathways that dominated climate research, policy, and media coverage for decades were never actually plausible. It took a while to notice because almost no one in mainstream media bothered to report it.  Science policy analyst Roger Pielke Jr. wrote,

“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has just published the next generation of climate scenarios,” calling it “big news” that “eliminated the most extreme scenarios that have dominated climate research over much of the past several decades.” 

The conclusion was unambiguous. “The IPCC and broader research community has now admitted that the scenarios that have dominated climate research, assessment and policy during the past two cycles of the IPCC assessment process are implausible. They describe impossible futures.”

Those “impossible futures” formed the backbone of a decade-plus of apocalyptic climate messaging – melting ice caps, submerged coastlines, mass extinctions, widespread crop failures, and global hunger, always around the corner, always demanding immediate, economy-reshaping action to avert a catastrophe that, it now turns out, the underlying science community had assigned to a category closer to science fiction than projection.

The new IPCC framework formally demotes its remaining “HIGH scenario” from expected outcome to “exploratory – a thought experiment, not a projection.” [SSP5-85]

That’s a significant institutional retreat. 

Pielke noted that the previous framework lacked “any systematic effort to evaluate plausibility of scenarios,” meaning the scariest pathways were able to dominate the policy debate for years without anyone in the room applying a basic reality check.

What matters today is that the group with official responsibility for developing climate scenarios for the IPCC and broader research community has now admitted that the scenarios that have dominated climate research, assessment and policy during the past two cycles of the IPCC assessment process are implausible. They describe impossible futures.

Curiously, the revised framework was technically adopted back in 2021, but has only now filtered into public view as related technical and institutional changes caught up. And it’s fair to ask why. The policy consequences of those “impossible futures” were very real.

As the Daily Sceptic’s Chris Morrison opines

It cannot be over-emphasised how important this finding of implausibility is. It means that almost every fearmongering mainstream media climate headline and story that has been written over the last 15 years is junk. Of course it also explains why a growing band of sceptical commentators have refused to accept the political concept of ‘settled’ science and have engaged in widespread debunking. Shooting fish in a barrel is one way of describing this work. At times, with just a modicum of investigative scepticism, the stories can be seen as little more than an insult to average human intelligence.

When the RCP8.5 assumptions are loaded into computer models, they run politically-convenient red hot suggestions that the temperature in 2100 will rise by about 4°C from a 1850-1900 baseline – in other words, a rise of nearly 3°C in the next 80 years. Only the most deranged eco loons will claim such large short-term rises out loud, so the activist scientists quietly loaded garbage assumptions into their computers to arrive at their garbage-out Armageddon scares. The writing was on the wall for RCP8.5 last year when President Trump’s executive order titled ‘Restoring Gold Standard Science’ effectively banned the use of RCP8.5 for scientists on the United States federal payroll. It also noted one of the unrealistic RCP8.5 assumptions driving deliberate climate psychosis to be that end-of-century coal use will exceed estimates of recoverable reserves.

At the time, the climate researcher Zeke Hausfather dismissed the Trump Administration’s claims about RCP8.5 by stating that the research community had moved on. But Pielke has taken issue with this ‘nothing to see here’ claim. He states that from 2018 to 2021, Google Scholar reported 17,000 articles published using RCP8.5 compared with 16,900 in the next three year period. “Some shift,” he observed.

Again, those using less charitable words might note that the ultimate climate crackpipe has proved difficult to put down. A long and painful process of rehabilitation now seems likely.

UAH April 2026 Land Chills More Than Ocean Warms

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?

April 2026 UAH Temps: Land Cools More Than Ocean Warmsbanner-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 April 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 March 2026 Mild Warming SSTs Continue. 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. Now in April NH land has cooled further down to 0.51C while NH ocean warmed slightly.  SH air temps went oppositely: SH land wamed slightly while SH ocean dropped from 0.38C to 0.27C.  Note that in the first 4 months of 2026 the Global land and ocean air temps have hardly varied from 0.38C.

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 April 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 is evident, but now SH cooling offset NH and Tropical warming.

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 March 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 and the Global land anomaly pulled back down despits some SH and Tropical land warming.

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, and slightly higher since, now at 0.39C in  2026.

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.

March 2026 Mild Warming SSTs Continue

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 February 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 mild rising in 2026.

 

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 0.6C in September this year. Note the smaller peak in NH in July 2025 now declining along with SH and the Global anomaly cooler as well. In December the Global anomaly exactly matched the mean for this period, with all regions converging on that value, led by a 6 month drop in NH.  Now in 2026 the first 3 months show a mild warming in all regions, in March approximately matching values 3 years ago, 03/2023 before the warming spike.

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 led by NH from August through December 2025. A mild warming in 2026 appears in all regions January through March.

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, 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

US Temperature Extremes Declined (Christy)

A comprehensive new study extending the U.S. Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) record back to 1899 finds that both hot and cold temperature extremes across the contiguous United States have declined over the past 127 years. The research, performed by Dr. John R. Christy, Alabama State Climatologist (retired) and professor of atmospheric and Earth science at The University of Alabama in Huntsville, analyzed more than 40 million daily temperature observations to provide the most complete long-term view to date of U.S. extreme heat and cold. The paper is published in Theoretical and Applied Climatology. Excerpts below with my bolds and some added images.

Abstract

Knowledge of temperature extremes, and their potential changes within a climate system of increasing greenhouse gases, is of vital interest for humans and the infrastructure which supports them. To produce a better understanding of how daily extreme temperatures have changed over time in the conterminous US (CONUS), the United States Historical Climate Network (USHCN) database was extended back to 1899 and forward to 2025. The original 1,218 stations, selected in the 1980s by NOAA as capable of addressing climate concerns, have since been neglected – almost half of the stations have closed since 2000. Incomplete station records were supplemented with nearby stations with high correlation and removeable biases to provide time series for 1,211 of the stations with at least 92% of data present. Extreme temperature metrics for summer daily maximum temperatures and winter daily minimum temperatures were calculated. The general result is that metrics for extreme summer heat, e.g., hottest values, number of heatwave days, etc., show modest negative trends since 1899. Extreme cold temperature metrics also indicate a decline in their occurrences especially since the 1990s. In sum, instances of both hot and cold extreme metrics have declined since 1899. To demonstrate an application of this dataset we examined the claims of one source regarding changing temperature extremes, The National Climate Assessment 5.

This metric determines for each day of the season the particular year in which the hottest (coldest) TMax (TMin) occurred. There are 153 (122) days in the May-Sep (Dec-Mar, leap year) for which a daily record will be achieved. The number of extremes occurring in each year is calculated per station then geographically interpolated as discussed above. This metric is more robust than the single All-Time metric above as each station contributes 153 (122) values to the time series rather than just one. This also provides an indication of the incidence of multiple hot and cold records to help identify periods of excess heat (cold).

The expected value for a purely random process for the number of daily TMax (TMin) records would be 1.20 (0.96) in a given year per station for a 127-year record (i.e., 1.20 = 153/127 and 0.96 = 122/127). The results (Fig. 4) indicate again that 1936 contributed the most daily hot records for the CONUS at 6.7 per station but followed more closely by other years, with 1934 (5.3), 1931 (3.4) and 1911 and 1925 (3.3) completing the top five.

The number of coldest records occurred in 1899 (3.7) in association with February 1899 event. The following years experienced extreme cold as well, 1917 (3.3), 1989 (2.9), 1924 (2.4) and 1936 (2.4). Thus, 1936 was a year with many extremes on both ends of the thermometer.

Comparing the two metrics in Figs. 10 and 11 produces Fig. 12 which displays the sum and the difference, year-by-year of the 15-yr running means. The sum of days in extreme heat/cold declined from over 120 in the 1930s to about 75 since 1960. The conclusion here would be that the CONUS has experienced a decline of around 30% of these durative extreme events in the past 100 years. Along with this decline has been an increase in heatwave days vs. cold wave days since the 1970s, mainly due to the increase in heatwave days in the West (Fig. 10) and the decline in cold wave days overall.

Discussion

Overall, our project indicates that extremes in summer heat-related metrics for the CONUS as defined in the four questions above do not show increasing trends, but rather modest negative trends, and thus appear to be substantially affected by other forcings such as natural variability in addition to GHGs. There are positive TMax metric trends in western regions which are countered by larger negative trends elsewhere.

The number of cold extreme events has declined in the past 30 years too and this is likely, in part, related to the development of infrastructure around the stations which disturbs the nocturnal boundary layer, inhibiting the formation of the cold, shallow layer in which TMin is observed. Additionally, this result may be an early sign of atmospheric warming of the coldest air masses by the added GHGs (e.g., Krayenhoff et al. 2018), though this hypothesis has not been confirmed as a direct result of GHGs (e.g., Huang et al. 2023). Observations of the deep atmospheric temperature in the polar region north of + 60° latitude indicate a warming trend of + 0.47 °F (+ 0.26 C) decade− 1 since 1979 compared with a global trend of + 0.27 °F (+ 0.15 C) decade− 1 (Spencer et al. 2017). This would suggest Arctic air intrusions into the CONUS may be slightly warmer now than in the past century or so (for whatever reason) and thus consistent with the results shown here for a lessening of the magnitude of cold events in recent decades. However, we note the same area in the southern hemisphere shows virtually no warming (+ 0.05 °F (+ 0.03 C) decade− 1).

Conclusions

In the field of climate change, attention has been drawn to extreme metrics occurring in the last several years as evidence for human influences through increasing GHGs (e.g., USGCRP 2017; Seneviratne et al. 2021; Jay et al. 2023). Examining this aspect of climate and weather is appropriate since human thriveability is often constrained by the magnitude of the extremes that we experience. We describe here a dataset constructed to examine the occurrence through time of extreme temperature metrics in the CONUS for the coldest winter and hottest summer days since Dec 1898. The dataset is based on the 1,218 USHCN stations 1,211 of which have been supplemented to be “complete”, i.e., each station having at least 92% of days available for analysis.

The results indicate that extremes in heat-related metrics for daily TMax in the summer have not increased and in fact often show modest declines since 1899, due mostly to the early heat events during 1925–1954. This is consistent with Seneviratne et al. 2021 (IPCC AR6, their Fig. 11). Cold-related extreme events based on winter TMin show evidence of decreasing occurrences, two causes of which were proposed, (1) increasing human development around weather stations, and (2) an early response to increasing GHGs as they warm the coldest air first. When taken together, the occurrences of heat and cold extremes have declined over the past 127 years in the CONUS, i.e., the climate over the CONUS has become less impacted by temperature extremes to this point.

Relating this reduction of extreme events to increasing GHGs would be difficult
as the magnitude of the regional natural variability of weather and climate
is considerable in comparison to a small GHG-induced temperature rise.

Once the shifts were accommodated, the time series (Fig. 14) for Fresno 12-month running anomalies indicate very different results between TMax and TMin, which is a clear indication of the NCI of urbanization. The TMax time series indicates no trend through 2012 (slightly negative) but contains a relatively sudden rise in 2013 which is consistent with the entire western CONUS as seen in Figs. 5 and 10. The overall TMax trend is + 0.03 °F (+ 0.02 C) decade− 1. The trend in TMin is + 0.43 °F (+ 0.24 C) decade− 1.

The impact of Non-Climatic Influences (NCI) was considered in the temperature evolution of one USHCN station, Fresno California, as an example of a clear and large response to forcings unrelated to the increasing GHGs. In this case, the urbanization impact on TMin of 5 °F (~ 3 °C) is clearly apparent, while summer TMax (with urbanization) indicates a trend not significantly different from zero. Voluminous research has and will be performed on this aspect of surface temperature records as these types of influences need to be identified and removed so that changes in the background climate due to GHGs may be estimated with more confidence. We also demonstrated that one must be cautious when interpreting official statements about extreme weather events for the CONUS.