Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
The third annual State of Wildfires report went up as a discussion preprint in Earth System Science Data on August 3. It covers the fire season from March 2025 through February 2026. By the reportโs own count, global burned area was 18% below the 2002 to 2024 average, and fire carbon emissions were 20 to 31% below average.
The third annual State of Wildfires report went up as a discussion preprint in Earth System Science Data on August 3. It covers the fire season from March 2025 through February 2026. By the reportโs own count, global burned area was 18% below the 2002 to 2024 average, and fire carbon emissions were 20 to 31% below average.
That gets one sentence. The rest of the abstract goes region by region:
In the Midwestern Canadian Shield Forests, the epicentre of Canadaโs anomalous season, we find that anthropogenic climate change has doubled the likelihood of extreme fire weather in this region and made the observed BA around 61 times more likely during JulyโAugust 2025, while BA extent in the region is 46 times greater. Many parts of Europe also experienced record or high-ranking BA and fire C emissions, including in Spain, Portugal, and the UK, and a record USD 4.11 billion of physical assets were exposed to fire across the continent. Direct fatalities occurred in Tรผrkiye (17), Spain (8), Portugal (6), Cyprus (2), Greece (1) and France (1), and evacuations in Tรผrkiye, Spain, and Greece totalled over 110,000. In the Northwest Iberian Peninsula, we find that extreme fire weather over August 2025 was around 3 times more likely due to climate change. Under a high-emissions scenario (SSP3-7.0), fires of the same return interval are likely to burn about 78 % more area by the end of the century, with some projections within the same scenario suggesting increases of around sevenfold. In Chile and northwest Argentina, JanuaryโFebruary 2026 fires caused 23 fatalities, displaced 55,000 people and threatened a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In the Chilean Temperate Forests and Matorral, the epicentre, we find that BA was around 36 % larger due to anthropogenic climate change.
A below average year could be luck. So I went to the satellite record. NASAโs MODIS burned area product, MCD64A1, maps burn scars from the Terra and Aqua satellites every month at 500 meter resolution. The University of Maryland fire group, which produces it, also distributes a quarter degree version for climate work, MCD64CMQ, with the burned hectares already summed into each grid cell. I added up every month from January 2001 through December 2023, the last full year in the files.
Global area burned each year, 2001 to 2023. NASA MODIS MCD64CMQ.
The five years 2003 through 2007 averaged 450 million hectares burned. The five years 2019 through 2023 averaged 353 million. The fitted trend from 2003, when both satellites were flying, is a loss of about 1.5% per year, and it is not marginal: the odds of a trend like that turning up by chance are less than one in ten thousand. 2023, the year of Canadaโs record-breaking fire season, comes in 14th of 23 globally. The lowest year in the record is 2022.
None of this is a discovery. In 2017 Niels Andela and colleagues, using the same MODIS product along with the GFED4s database, reported in Science that โglobal burned area declined by 24.3 ยฑ 8.8% over the past 18 years.โ They traced most of it to farming, as agriculture spread into savannas and grasslands that used to burn. They also found that fire models could not reproduce the size or pattern of the decline, and suggested the models may overestimate fire emissions in future projections. At the time, MODIS alone gave them โ1.15% per year for 2003 to 2015, significant only at the 90% level. Eight more years of data have taken care of that.
MODIS at 500 meters misses a lot of small fires, so in 2023 the GFED team rebuilt the record. Chen et al. corrected MCD64A1 against Landsat and Sentinel-2 imagery, which see small burns MODIS doesnโt, and their total came out 93% higher. The decline survived.
From the abstract:
The global annual burned area during 2001โ2020 is estimated to be 774 ยฑ 63 Mha yrโ1 or 5.9 ยฑ 0.5 % of ice-free land. Burned area declined by 1.21 ยฑ 0.66 % yrโ1, a cumulative decrease of 24.2 ยฑ 13.2 % over 20 years. โฆ The global reduction is primarily driven by a decrease in fires in savannas, grasslands, and croplands. โฆ Forest, peat, and deforestation fires did not exhibit significant long-term trends.
So the raw satellite product, the Science paper and the corrected database all point the same way. About a quarter less land burns each year than at the start of the century.
The usual answer is that the decline is African grassland and doesnโt count. Africa is most of it. But I split the totals with a rough box around the continent, and the rest of the world is falling at about the same rate.
Burned area in a box around Africa and everywhere else, 2001 to 2023. NASA MODIS MCD64CMQ.
The right panel is noisier, and the trend there is weaker statistically, but it is down, not up. North of 50ยฐN, where the boreal forests are, the series jumps around with no significant trend in either direction. Its biggest year is still 2003.
The field has a response to all this. In June 2024 Calum Cunningham of the University of Tasmania and colleagues took roughly 30 million fires, kept the 2,913 most energetic, and found that these extreme events increased 2.2-fold from 2003 to 2023. Cunningham told the Washington Post the work began as a response to skeptics who asked how there could be a growing fire crisis while the area burned was shrinking. The increases are real and concentrated in temperate conifer and boreal forests. But the measure is about one fire in ten thousand, on a record that starts in 2003, and by Natureโs own account the study does not directly connect the trend to global warming.
Continued climate change is expected to intensify these hydroclimatic extremes, yet mitigation has already reduced projected end-of-century wildfire risk: under a high-end emissions pathway (SSP3-7.0), the extreme BA events in our focal regions are projected to be 4โ23 % smaller than they would have been under a worst-case emissions scenario no longer considered credible (SSP5-8.5).emphasis added
SSP5-8.5 was never the road we were on. Zeke Hausfather and Glen Peters pointed out in Nature in 2020 that it requires โan unprecedented fivefold increase in coal use by the end of the century,โ and that global coal use peaked in 2013.
There was nothing to mitigate.
Global burned area was 18% below average this past season and has been falling for two decades. Why is that one sentence?
If the fire models could not reproduce the decline in 2017, how much weight do their end-of-century projections carry now?
Burned area data: NASA MODIS MCD64CMQ Collection 6.1, monthly 0.25ยฐ burned area, January 2001 to December 2023, from the University of Maryland fire group (fuoco.geog.umd.edu). Annual totals are sums of the monthly BurnedArea field. โAfricaโ is the box 36ยฐS to 38ยฐN, 18ยฐW to 52ยฐE.
Yeah, whether the current (2026) El Niรฑo ranks as a record depends on the metric, region, and baseline used by different agencies.
The Relative Oceanic Niรฑo Index (RONI) is NOAAโs Climate Prediction Center (CPC) primary metric for monitoring and classifying El Niรฑo and La Niรฑa events, adopted officially in February 2026.
It improves on the traditional Oceanic Niรฑo Index (ONI) by better accounting for background tropical ocean warming due to climate change.
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Yeah, whether the current (2026) El Niรฑo ranks as a record depends on the metric, region, and baseline used by different agencies.
Britainโs Met Office has described this yearโs event as โunprecedentedโ, citing absolute (raw) sea- surface temperatures in the central equatorial Pacific that have surpassed levels from previous El Niรฑos.
Japanโs Meteorological Agency (JMA) declared it the strongest on record. In September 2026, the sea-surface temperature anomaly in the Niรฑo 3 region (eastern Pacific) reached +4.0ยฐC, exceeding the previous high of +3.6ยฐC from December 1997 (records back to 1949). JMA states the strongest conditions are virtually certain to continue into boreal winter.
U.S. NOAA (which primarily monitors the neighboring Niรฑo 3.4 region in the east- central Pacific) has not yet called it the outright record in its books.
It defines El Niรฑo via temperatures at least 0.5ยฐC above normal plus atmospheric coupling (e.g., weakened trade winds and shifted rainfall). Due to accelerating climate change and widespread ocean warming, NOAA now emphasizes the Relative Oceanic Niรฑo Index (RONI). RONI uses a 30- year baseline but measures how warm the east- central Pacific is relative to the rest of the tropical oceans, because that contrast better drives the weather impacts of interest.
NOAA projects a high chance (about 83% for the October- December 2026 average) that the three- month RONI anomaly will reach +2.5ยฐC or higher. That threshold would make it the strongest in NOAAโs records (back to 1950), surpassing the major events of 1982- 83, 1997- 98, and 2015- 16.
As of early October discussions, it was strengthening, with recent Niรฑo-region anomalies already very high (e.g., conventional weekly Niรฑo 3.4 readings around +3ยฐC or more in some reports).
Why the rankings differ
Regions: JMA focuses on Niรฑo 3 (farther east); NOAA on Niรฑo 3.4 (east- central).
Absolute temperatures vs. anomalies: Raw warmth can set records more easily in a warming climate; anomalies measure departure from a baseline.
Traditional vs. relative indices: Older Oceanic Niรฑo Index (ONI) approaches have been adjusted or supplemented by RONI (and similar relative measures used by other agencies) to better isolate the ENSO signal from background tropical warming. This can change how strong past and present events appear relative to one another.
Climate scientist Emily Becker of the University of Miami noted that by any measure it is a very strong El Niรฑo; only after it ends will its full ranking in historical context become clear. It remains an important opportunity to study a powerful event amid ongoing global warming.โ
In short, Japan and the UK are already treating aspects of it as record or unprecedented, while NOAA sees a strong- to- very- strong event with a high (but not yet locked- in) probability of setting a RONI- based record.
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The Relative Oceanic Niรฑo Index (RONI) is NOAAโs Climate Prediction Center (CPC) primary metric for monitoring and classifying El Niรฑo and La Niรฑa events, adopted officially in February 2026.
It improves on the traditional Oceanic Niรฑo Index (ONI) by better accounting for background tropical ocean warming due to climate change.
Why RONI Was Introduced
Traditional ONI measures sea- surface temperature (SST) anomalies in the Niรฑo 3.4 region relative to a fixed (but periodically updated) 30- year climatology. In a warming climate, this baseline lags, which can distort classifications,especially in real time,and weaken the link between the index and actual atmospheric impacts (e.g., rainfall shifts and teleconnections).
RONI addresses this by focusing on the relative warmth or coolness of the Niรฑo 3.4 region compared to the broader tropics, which better captures the ocean-atmosphere contrast that drives ENSO effects.
How RONI Is Calculated
Start with the Niรฑo 3.4 anomaly: Compute the monthly SST anomaly in the Niรฑo 3.4 region (5ยฐN-5ยฐS, 120ยฐ- 170ยฐW), relative to a 30- year base period (currently 1991- 2020 in many operational products; the base period follows WMO standards and is updated periodically). This is the same starting point as the traditional ONI. Data typically come from Extended Reconstructed SST (ERSST) versions (v5 or v6).โ
Subtract the tropical- mean anomaly: Subtract the average SST anomaly over the entire global tropics (20ยฐSโ20ยฐN) for the same period. This removes the broad-scale tropical warming signal, isolating the Pacificโs relative anomaly.โ
Apply a scaling (rescaling) factor: Multiply the difference by a factor so that the overall variance (standard deviation) of the relative index matches that of the traditional Niรฑo 3.4/ONI series. The scaling is often computed separately by calendar month or season (largest in March- May, smallest in July- August) using a historical reference period (e.g., 1950- 2020). The formula is approximately:โโwhere ฯ denotes the standard deviation.
Form the seasonal index: RONI is the three- month running mean (overlapping seasons: DJF, JFM, FMA, etc.) of the relative Niรฑo 3.4 values.
Classification Rules (Unchanged from ONI)
El Niรฑo: RONI โฅ +0.5ยฐC.
La Niรฑa: RONI โค โ0.5ยฐC.
Neutral: between โ0.5ยฐC and +0.5ยฐC.
A full โepisodeโ requires the threshold to be met for at least five consecutive overlapping three- month seasons. Strength categories (weak, moderate, strong, very strong) follow similar incremental thresholds (e.g., โฅ +2.0ยฐC often considered very strong/historic in forecasts).
Key Advantages and Effects
Reduced sensitivity to base period: Classifications of past events are more stable across different climatologies and less affected by the long- term warming trend.
Better physical relevance: More closely tied to the relative SST gradients that influence atmospheric circulation, rainfall, and teleconnections (e.g., sharper relationships with precipitation and upper- level heights over places like Australia and the U.S.).
Real- time reliability: Less lag from updating climatologies.
Impacts on historical record: Some events are reclassified (e.g., certain weak El Niรฑos disappear or weaken; some La Niรฑas strengthen or become continuous; the 2023- 24 El Niรฑo often appears moderate rather than strong under RONI). Overall variance is preserved by the scaling, so extremes are not systematically damped or amplified across the whole record.
RONI is based on work by van Oldenborgh et al. (2021) and formalized/extended for operational use by LโHeureux et al. (2024) in the Journal of Climate. NOAA maintains both RONI and traditional ONI data for continuity, with RONI now primary for advisories and forecasts. Official values and historical tables are available on the CPC website (updated monthly, with recent values potentially provisional due to data filtering).
In short, RONI keeps the familiar structure and thresholds of ONI while measuring the ENSO- relevant contrast rather than absolute regional anomalies, making it more robust in a warming world.
It’s a response to the Telegraph headline Wednesday: ‘Next financial crisis “to be triggered by uninsurable homes”‘ , warning that climate change is making British homes uninsurable, mortgages unobtainable, and properties unsellable, in a repeat of 2008.
Homes are covered by Flood Re. Businesses are not. And Tenbury’s problem is old: the Audit Commission flagged lack of flood defences in 2009, and the Environment Agency has now put the full scheme on hold.
Many scary numbers rely on RCP8.5, the implausible high-emissions pathway. Scientists behind the next IPCC scenarios have now dropped RCP8.5, SSP5-8.5 and SSP3-7.0 as “implausible”.
โIf it bleeds, it leadsโ is the oldest rule in the newsroom. Its climate-era corollary is that if it floods, burns or sinks, it sells. Wednesdayโs Telegraph ran the headline โNext financial crisis โto be triggered by uninsurable homesโโ, warning that climate change is making British homes harder or even impossible to insure, that mortgages will become unobtainable and that properties will become unsellable. Readers are reminded that the undermining of the mortgage market drove the 2008 crash, and informed that a wave of uninsured, high-risk homes could do the same.
There is no surer way to unsettle a reader than to tell him that his home, almost always a familyโs largest asset, is about to become worthless. That is precisely the point. For 15 years the climate story has been sold as โthe scienceโ that threatens the readerโs own front door: your house will burn (โglobal warmingโ), your street will flood (โrising sea levelsโ), your foundations will crack with land subsidence. In May 2013 Barack Obamaโs Twitter account told its 31 million followers that 97% of scientists agreed climate change was โreal, man-made and dangerousโ. The study behind the tweet said nothing about danger; that word was added by Obamaโs team. โReal, man-made and dangerousโ has nonetheless been the house style of the legacy media ever since, and the uninsurable home is simply its latest product line.
Whistleblowers, or a campaign?
The Telegraph describes its sources as senior City figures represented by โa whistleblowing organisation called Inside Trackโ, which has written to Ministers, the Financial Conduct Authority and the Bank of England claiming that insurers are under-pricing climate risk. The paper adds, almost in passing, that the group is backed by climate charities including the Esmรฉe Fairbairn Foundation, one of Britainโs largest grant-makers, whose 2020 strategy explicitly targets โthe causes and impacts of climate changeโ.
Inside Track Campaigns Ltd was incorporated in March 2025 as a company limited by guarantee whose registered business is public relations and communications. Its first accounts are not due until December, so the public cannot yet see who pays for it; its own FAQ says only that it has been funded by trusts and foundations. Nor does it deal in leaked documents, the stock-in-trade of genuine whistleblowers. Its website says plainly that it is not looking for confidential documents. It recruits anonymous senior professionals, collects their views on common industry practice, and then advises on which stakeholders should hear the message and how best to deliver it. That is a description of an advocacy campaign, as my colleague Paul Homewood describes. The template has been used before: an Inside Track group of food-industry executives issued a similar memo warning of climate risk to Britainโs food supply.
The anonymous insidersโ own words undercut the alarm. One former reinsurance executive complains that the industry does not care about climate risk more than a year ahead because it can โkeep repricing coverโ. That is not a scandal; it is how property insurance works. As Warren Buffett told Berkshire Hathaway shareholders in his 2015 letter, policies are written for a year and repriced annually, so a rising possibility of loss shows up promptly in premiums rather than in insolvency. An insurer that reprices every year is not quietly accumulating a 2008-style time bomb on its balance sheet.
The 2008 analogy fares no better. Stanford economist John Cochrane put it plainly in his testimony to the US Senate Banking Committee in March 2021: โClimate change poses no measurable risk to the financial system.โ As he explained, โโRiskโ means unforeseen events. We know exactly where the climate is going over the horizon that financial regulation can contemplate.โ The financial crisis was a sudden, unforeseen collapse in the value of leveraged mortgage securities; a slow, observable drift in weather statistics, repriced every year, is its opposite. Cochrane also warned that climate goals were being pursued through financial regulators โby regulatory subterfuge rather than aboveboard legislation or transparent agency rulemakingโ. A memo campaign aimed at the Bank of England and the FCA, rather than at voters, fits that description well. I made the same arguments last month about Brusselsโs plans for an EU-backed โclimate insuranceโ pool โ a climate protection racket as it were โ the very model the Telegraph now commends to Britain.
The โuninsurable townโ that isnโt about homes
The articleโs lead photograph shows flood water in Tenbury Wells, Worcestershire, โdubbed Britainโs first โuninsurable townโโ. But the Tenbury story is not about homes, and it is not new. What lost cover there were the town councilโs civic buildings and local businesses: Zurich withdrew flood cover from the Pump Rooms and the Regal Cinema in October 2025. Homes are a different matter. As the local MP Dame Harriett Baldwin pointed out to the Treasury Committee, the Flood Re scheme exists to help homeowners in flood-prone areas get insurance; what it does not cover is businesses.
Nor is the cause a sudden shift in the climate. As long ago as 2009 the Audit Commission flagged the lack of progress on Tenburyโs flood defences as one of only two red flags for Worcestershire, noting that some businesses already could not get insurance and that the national funding formula ranked the scheme low. Seventeen years later the Environment Agency has put the full scheme on hold. Tenbury is a monument to unbuilt flood defences, not to a broken climate. Even the Telegraph concedes that โscrapped flood defence investmentโ played its part.
Flood Re itself shows how the system is meant to work. Homes built after January 1st 2009 are excluded from the scheme, a cut-off designed to discourage developers from building on flood-prone land; owners of such homes buy cover at whatever price the risk commands. That is the price signal doing its job. Even the Association of British Insurers, quoted by the Telegraph, asks only for the obvious: more investment in flood defences, an end to building on flood plains and better building standards. None of that requires a climate emergency. It requires engineers, planners and premiums that are allowed to tell the truth.
Fifteen years of RCP8.5
Behind many of the headlines lies a single scenario. The high-emissions pathway known as RCP8.5 with projected catastrophic outcomes, and for over a decade journalists and regulators treated it as โbusiness as usualโ. As early as 2020, Zeke Hausfather and Glen Peters warned in Nature that this framing was misleading. In April this year the scientists who design the scenarios feeding the IPCCโs next assessment went further, declaring the old high-end emission levels โimplausibleโ and dropping RCP8.5, SSP5-8.5 and SSP3-7.0 from the new framework. Even the European Commissionโs climate website now concedes that RCP8.5 is no longer considered plausible.
Yet the numbers built on these scenarios live on in the property pages. The Telegraph tells readers that one in 10 homes could be affected by subsidence by 2070. That figure matches the British Geological Surveyโs projection under RCP8.5: 11%, or 4.2 million properties. Under RCP4.5, the pathway the BGS itself says current emissions are closest to, the share is around 5%; under the Paris-aligned scenario, about 500,000 properties. The BGSโs earlier, widely cited subsidence maps used RCP8.5 alone. The scariest number, as ever, is the one that reaches the reader.
The Telegraphโs August data feature on climate threats to homes, which the paper recommends at the foot of this weekโs article, follows the same formula. Its interactive map finds that fewer than one in 20 British properties is spared high exposure to at least one of five threats: drought, heat, wildfires, flooding and coastal erosion. A measure that captures 95% of the country tells you about the threshold, not the risk. Read further and the threats shrink. Some 10,000 properties are at risk from coastal erosion over the next 80 years, out of a national stock of tens of millions. Wildfires, the article concedes, are mostly started by human hands, from barbecues and campfires to discarded cigarettes โ a point I made about Britainโs wildfires this summer.
What the loss data actually show
The insurance figures are presented in the same way. The Telegraphโs chart shows domestic claims for subsidence and weather damage rising from about ยฃ437 million in 2021 to just over ยฃ1 billion in 2025. That is five years of raw totals in nominal pounds, with no adjustment for inflation in repair and rebuilding costs or for the growing number and value of insured homes. A short window of unadjusted claims is not a climate signal.
The longer, global record tells a different story. Roger Pielke Jrโs analysis of Munich Re data shows that total economic losses from weather and climate disasters have fallen as a share of world GDP, from about 0.25% in 1990 to under 0.2%. Insured losses do grow, by 5-7% a year in real terms according to Swiss Re, but the reinsurer names the main driver as rising exposure: economic and population growth, building in hazard-prone areas and construction-cost inflation. Nor is the market buckling. Swiss Reโs sigma report says reinsurers can absorb even a one-in-10 peak year of $300 billion or more in insured losses.
Swiss Reโs own press release makes the point with Hurricane Katrina. A repeat today would still be very costly because of higher housing and construction costs, but improved flood defences and a 20% fall in the local population along the stormโs path have significantly reduced exposure. Adaptation works. That is the lesson of Tenbury too.
Swiss Reโs Chief Executive Andreas Berger tells a different story when he goes on television. In a CNN interview last summer, against footage of European wildfires, he declared that the frequency and severity of natural catastrophes are increasing, that conventional measures are no longer sufficient, and that governments, the public and industry must โcome togetherโ in a tripartite arrangement. His host opened with the firmโs claim that around 480,000 people a year die from extreme heat. Those are modelled mortality estimates, not insured losses, and say nothing about whether a home in Kent can be insured. A reinsurer whose business grows with perceived risk has every reason to talk the risk up on CNN while its research department attributes the rising bill to exposure. Readers may weigh the two accordingly. Of course, it does not occur to Berger to mention cheap air-conditioners as an appropriate mitigation option for households in summer heat.
Who benefits from fear?
If the facts are this thin, why the drumbeat? Partly because fear is the product. A postcode map of personal peril, published in the money pages, travels further than a chart of losses relative to GDP. As we found during Covid, fear has avid customers. Every โprotection gapโ story strengthens the case for a public-private scheme in which taxpayers backstop risks that premiums ought to price: a bigger and longer-lived Flood Re, the EUโs new โclimate insurance allianceโ that the Telegraph holds up as a model, or the EU-backed catastrophe protection racket I criticised last month. It strengthens the hand of central bankers who have doubled down on climate regulation even as green finance collapses. And it sustains a foundation-funded campaign ecosystem that turns anonymous testimony into memos to ministers and government regulatory authorities such as the FCA.
There is a final irony. The industryโs real failing, according to Inside Trackโs insiders, is that it has gone quiet: fewer people, one complains, are now prepared to stand up and say they are scared by what they are seeing. In the climate debate, fear is no longer a by-product of the evidence; it has become the evidence. As I argued in a recent piece on the so-called Planetary Health Check, doom never goes out of fashion.
The homeowner in Worcestershire or Kent deserves better than a map telling him that his house sits beneath five climate threats at once. He deserves flood defences that are actually built, planning rules that stop new estates going up on flood plains, and insurance priced honestly, year by year, as it always has been. The Telegraphโs readers were offered a financial crisis in their homeownership instead. Fear sells, but the scenario on which 15 years of it were built has now been retired. As with Covid, so with climate: sooner or later, truth will out. Franklin Delano Rooseveltโs first inaugural speech, delivered in March 1933 on the East Portico of the US Capitol at Washington DC, was called โThe Only Thing We Have to Fear is Fear Itselfโ. Truer words have seldom been spoken.
Dr Tilak K. Doshi is the Daily Scepticโs Energy Editor. He is an economist, a member of the CO2 Coalition and a former (cancelled) contributor to Forbes. Follow him onSubstackandX.
New research from White Sands National Park in New Mexico shows that early humans were present during the Last Glacial Maximum (roughly 23,500- 21,700 years ago) and lived through repeated, rapid climate shifts, including drought and major landscape changes.
Dansgaard- Oeschger (D-O) events are abrupt, large- scale climate oscillations that occurred repeatedly during the last glacial period (roughly the past 120,000- 11,000 years). They are named after Danish geophysicist Willi Dansgaard and Swiss geophysicist Hans Oeschger, who identified them in Greenland ice-core records.
D -O event 2 (also called Greenland Interstadial 2 or GI- 2) is one of the later events in the sequence. It began around 23.3- 23.2 thousand years ago (ka), during the Last Glacial Maximum (the coldest phase of the last ice age, ~26.5- 19/20 ka).
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New research from White Sands National Park in New Mexico shows that early humans were present during the Last Glacial Maximum (roughly 23,500- 21,700 years ago) and lived through repeated, rapid climate shifts, including drought and major landscape changes.
The findings come from an October 2026 Science Advances paper (and a related popular article by co-authors Matthew Robert Bennett and Sally Christine Reynolds in The Conversation). Expanded excavations identified 20 distinct sediment layers (horizons) containing human footprints, spanning nearly 2,000 years at the height of the last ice age. This builds on earlier (2021 and later) dating of the famous White Sands footprints that placed people in North America thousands of years earlier than many traditional models allowed.
Environmental reconstruction
Sediments, pollen, and plant- leaf waxes (biomarkers) reveal a dynamic setting quite unlike todayโs desert:
Early in the record, a large perennial lake (Lake Otero) filled much of the basin. Nearby mountains held conifer forests, and average temperatures were about 4ยฐC colder than today.
From around 23,600 years ago the lake began shrinking as temperatures rose. Conifers declined and were replaced by oak and sagebrush steppe; the basin grew drier due to higher evaporation.
Around 23,200 years ago a short but severe drought struck: rainfall dropped, the lake became more saline, and drought- tolerant plants expanded. This local aridification matched a rapid Northern Hemisphere climate shift (Dansgaard- Oeschger event 2) recorded in Greenland ice cores.
People were present during these transitions, the earliest expanded footprint horizons appear around the drought/climate shift, and tracks continue at intervals as the lake retreated.
Interpreting the footprint record
The authors caution against over- interpreting the pattern.
An agent- based computer model of people moving around a fluctuating lake showed that preservation is highly selective: footprints survive mainly when mud is exposed (e.g., during drying) and then quickly buried by rising water or sediment.
As a result:
Footprint- rich surfaces tend to cluster around climatic and hydrological transitions (exactly the pattern seen at White Sands).
Gaps between layers do not prove people were absent, and dense tracks do not necessarily mean a population boom, a few people crossing soft mud repeatedly can leave many prints.
The record therefore interleaves a human history (repeated use of the landscape amid changing conditions) with a geological filter that preserved only certain moments.โ
In short, the study strengthens evidence that humans occupied the southern United States during the peak of the ice age and demonstrates they experienced abrupt, noticeable environmental change (lake recession, vegetation turnover, centennial- scale wet, dry swings) over roughly two millennia. It does not claim people only appeared during droughts, but shows they were resilient in a rapidly shifting world.
Footprints found at White Sands, New Mexico, were dated to the height of the last ice age. Credit: National Park Service
Dansgaard- Oeschger (D-O) events are abrupt, large- scale climate oscillations that occurred repeatedly during the last glacial period (roughly the past 120,000- 11,000 years). They are named after Danish geophysicist Willi Dansgaard and Swiss geophysicist Hans Oeschger, who identified them in Greenland ice-core records.
General characteristics
Each D- O event typically features:
A very rapid warming phase (over decades, sometimes just a few years to decades) in the North Atlantic region, especially Greenland. Temperatures there could rise by 5- 15 ยฐC (9- 27 ยฐF), roughly half the full glacial- to- interglacial difference.
This is followed by a more gradual cooling over centuries to millennia, often ending with a sharper drop back into cold (stadial) conditions.
These produce a characteristic โsawtoothโ pattern in temperature proxies (especially oxygen isotope ratios, ฮดยนโธO) from Greenland ice cores. About 25 such events are recognized over the last glacial cycle; roughly 13 well- dated ones fall between ~45,000 and 11,600 years ago, with an average spacing near 1,470 years (though exact regularity is debated).
They are most strongly expressed around the North Atlantic but have global or hemispheric effects, appearing in records from Europe, Asia, the Americas, and the Southern Hemisphere (often with some lag or opposite polarity via ocean and atmospheric teleconnections).
Causes
The precise triggers remain uncertain, but the leading explanation involves shifts in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), the large- scale ocean current system that transports heat northward.
Weakened AMOC (linked to expanded sea ice, freshwater input from melting ice, or other factors) produces cold stadials; a sudden reinvigoration produces the abrupt warmings. Sea- ice extent in the North Atlantic, atmospheric circulation changes, and possible external pacing (e.g., solar or orbital influences) are also implicated. Exact mechanisms are still actively researched.
Dansgaard- Oeschger event 2 specifically
D -O event 2 (also called Greenland Interstadial 2 or GI- 2) is one of the later events in the sequence. It began around 23.3- 23.2 thousand years ago (ka), during the Last Glacial Maximum (the coldest phase of the last ice age, ~26.5- 19/20 ka).
In Greenland ice cores (on the GICC05 timescale), it marks a relatively short interstadial warming. Recent high-resolution work, including from White Sands National Park in New Mexico, places its peak or expression at approximately 23.2 ยฑ 0.3 ka.
At White Sands, this interval coincided with a short but severe regional drought: reduced rainfall, increased lake salinity in ancient Lake Otero, expansion of drought- tolerant vegetation, and shrinkage of the lake that exposed shoreline areas. This local aridification is interpreted as a teleconnected response to the broader Northern Hemisphere climate shift associated with D- O 2.
D- O 2 is notable because it occurred deep within the Last Glacial Maximum, when large ice sheets still dominated the Northern Hemisphere, yet it still produced detectable, rapid environmental changes far from Greenland, including in the American Southwest.
In short, D- O events illustrate that even during full glacial conditions the climate system could flip rapidly between cold and warmer states on human- relevant timescales, driven largely by ocean- atmosphere interactions centered on the North Atlantic. Event 2 is a specific instance of this behavior dated to ~23.2 ka.
Reconstruction of life at White Sands at the height of the last ice age. Credit: Davide Bonadonna, Bournemouth University
Dansgaard- Oeschger (D- O) events, including event 2 (~23.2 ka), produced rapid, widespread climate impacts far beyond Greenland and the North Atlantic, though the strongest signals occurred in the Northern Hemisphere.
These effects arose mainly from changes in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), shifts in atmospheric circulation (including the Intertropical Convergence Zone, or ITCZ, and storm tracks), and interhemispheric heat redistribution via the bipolar seesaw.
Northern Hemisphere
Europe and western Mediterranean: Interstadial (warm) phases brought warmer and wetter conditions. Vegetation expanded (more temperate forests or woodland), and lake levels or precipitation proxies often rose. Stadials were colder and drier. Temperature swings were smaller than in Greenland but still significant (several degrees).
Eurasia (including central and eastern Europe, western Asia): Largest land- based warming during interstadials occurred here according to pollen- based reconstructions. Winters warmed more than summers, reducing seasonality. Moisture responses varied but often included wetter conditions in many areas.
East Asia and Asian monsoon regions: Northern Hemisphere summer monsoons typically strengthened during interstadials (more rainfall in China and surrounding areas, recorded in speleothem ฮดยนโธO). Southern Hemisphere monsoons weakened in a seesaw pattern.
North America: Patterns were spatially complex. Eastern or more continental areas often warmed and sometimes became wetter during interstadials. Western North America (including the Southwest) frequently showed cooling or increased aridity in some reconstructions. For D- O event 2 specifically, multiproxy evidence from White Sands (New Mexico) and other southwestern U.S. sites records a short but severe aridification: reduced rainfall, higher lake salinity, recession of Lake Otero, and a shift toward drought- tolerant vegetation (conifer forest giving way to sagebrush/oak steppe). This matched the Greenland timing of D- O 2 and allowed humans and megafauna to traverse newly exposed lake margins.โ
Tropics and low latitudes
The ITCZ shifted northward during Northern Hemisphere interstadials. This increased rainfall in northern tropical regions (e.g., Caribbean, northern South America, parts of Africa and Asia) and decreased it in southern tropical areas. Speleothem and lake records across the tropics consistently show these hydroclimate flips, often with little lag relative to Greenland.
Southern Hemisphere
Antarctica and Southern Ocean: Temperature changes were typically out of phase with Greenland (the bipolar seesaw). Antarctic warming (Antarctic Isotope Maximum events) often led or lagged Greenland warmings by centuries, driven mainly by slower oceanic heat transport changes. Atmospheric teleconnections were faster: mid- latitude storm tracks and westerly winds shifted within decades of North Atlantic changes, altering moisture sources for Antarctic precipitation (seen in deuterium- excess records).
Southern extratropics more broadly often cooled or showed muted/opposite responses relative to northern warming.
Spatial and temporal patterns
Impacts diminished with distance from the North Atlantic but remained detectable globally. Warming was strongest in northern extratropics (especially Eurasia), with antiphasing between northern and southern extratropics.
In North America a west- east contrast (cooling and aridity in the west, warming farther east) appears in some pollen syntheses. Moisture (precipitation) changes did not always mirror temperature changes and were regionally specific. Most teleconnections outside the high southern latitudes operated rapidly (decades or less) via the atmosphere; oceanic links to Antarctica were slower (centuries).
These patterns hold across multiple D- O events, including weaker ones like event 2 during the Last Glacial Maximum, although signal strength and coherence are greatest for the larger events. Proxy records (ice cores, speleothems, pollen, marine sediments, lake levels) and climate models consistently support this global reorganization of atmospheric and oceanic circulation.
Map of early archaeological sites in North America. Credit: The Conversation
Humans experienced abrupt environmental changes at White Sands during the Last Glacial Maximum
Key findings
Expanded excavations at White Sands National Park (WHSA) Locality 2 (Tularosa Basin, New Mexico) uncovered 20 stratigraphic horizons containing in situ human footprints, megafaunal trackways (mammoth/Proboscidea, ground sloth, canids, possible ursids, rare birds), and linear features interpreted as travois (drag marks from poles used to transport resources).
Refined chronology (using improved radiocarbon dating of conifer pollen and aquatic Ruppia seeds, plus supporting OSL ages):
Footprint- bearing sequence spans 23.5 to 21.7 thousand years ago (ka).
Firmly within the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM).
Paleoenvironmental reconstruction (pollen, leaf- wax biomarkers and hydrogen isotopes, stratigraphy):
The setting began as a shallow perennial lake (pluvial Lake Otero) with surrounding conifer forests and cooler temperatures.
It underwent a complete environmental overturn to a lake- margin and wet- playa system.
A major aridification episode at ~23.2 ka coincided with Dansgaard- Oeschger event 2 (a rapid Northern Hemisphere climate oscillation recorded in Greenland ice cores). Rainfall declined, the lake shrank and became more saline, and vegetation shifted toward drought- tolerant sagebrush and oak steppe.
Centennial- scale swings in hydroclimate continued afterward.
Lake recession during the aridification exposed shoreline areas that humans and megafauna repeatedly traversed for nearly two millennia.
This provides a high-resolution terrestrial record showing that early humans in North America experienced marked, abrupt environmental changes (including severe drought) during the height of the last ice age. The earliest track horizons occur around the D- O 2 transition.
The paper strengthens the LGM age of the White Sands footprints (previously debated) and demonstrates human presence and activity (including possible resource transport with travois) amid a dynamic glacial climate.
Journal:Science Advances, 14 October 2026, Vol. 12, Issue 42, eaeh0707
Authors: Kathleen B. Springer, Jeffrey S. Pigati, Jessica E. Tierney, et al. (including Sally C. Reynolds and Matthew R. Bennett)
Abstract
Expanded excavations at White Sands National Park have unearthed 20 stratigraphic horizons containing in situ human footprints, megafaunal trackways, and linear features created by travois. Advances in radiocarbon dating of conifer pollen, combined with ages of aquatic seeds, refines the chronology of the footprint-bearing sequence to between 23.5 and 21.7 thousand years ago (ka). Biomarker, pollen, and stratigraphic evidence indicate a complete overturning of the environment from a perennial lake to a playa and capture a large aridification episode coincident with Dansgaard-Oeschger event 2 at 23.2 ka, which shrank pluvial Lake Otero and allowed people to traverse the former shoreline area for nearly two millennia. This well-dated and highly resolved paleoclimate record provides compelling evidence that humans in North America experienced marked environmental changes during the Last Glacial Maximum.
People repeatedly crossed this landscape for almost two millennia while the regional climate swung between wetter and exceptionally dry conditions. Credit: National Park Service
Stanford scientists (led by Ph.D. student Danny Collins at the Doerr School of Sustainability, with collaborators including Steve Palumbi and Fiorenza Micheli) have shown that bleached corals can fully recover in as little as 4- 8 weeks through brief physical contact with healthy clones of the same colony, the fastest documented recovery to date.
Coral โcloningโ is done through asexual fragmentation (commonly called fragging). Because corals can regenerate from small pieces of themselves, any fragment that contains living tissue and polyps can grow into a genetically identical colony (a clone, or ramet).
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Stanford scientists (led by Ph.D. student Danny Collins at the Doerr School of Sustainability, with collaborators including Steve Palumbi and Fiorenza Micheli) have shown that bleached corals can fully recover in as little as 4- 8 weeks through brief physical contact with healthy clones of the same colony, the fastest documented recovery to date.
The findings were published on October 14, 2026, in Science Advances. The work was conducted at Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, California, primarily with the cauliflower coral Pocillopora damicornis.
Key details of the discovery
Coral bleaching occurs when heat stress causes corals to expel their symbiotic algae (Symbiodiniaceae), leaving them pale, starving, and vulnerable. Natural recovery in the wild, if it happens, typically takes months to years by taking up free- floating algae.
In lab experiments:
Researchers paired bleached and healthy fragments from the same genetically identical colony (clones).
In contacting pairs, the tissues fused, forming bridges that allowed beneficial algae and nutrients to transfer from the healthy to the bleached fragment within about three days.
Just 5- 7 days of contact was often enough for the bleached coral to receive sufficient algae to finish recovering on its own after separation. Continuous contact was not required.
Algae then multiplied rapidly inside the recovering coral (doubling roughly every 4 days in the second week, up to ~10 times faster than rates seen in wild recovering reefs).
All contacting bleached fragments fully regained color and health (one in as little as 4 weeks; others within ~7- 8 weeks) and later grew new branches. Non- contacting fragments (separated by only a few millimeters) did not recover and mostly died, overgrown by harmful algae.โ
The effect relies on genetic identity: clones recognize each other and fuse tissues (analogous to successful organ transplants between identical twins). The discovery was partly serendipitous, noticed when fragments accidentally touched in a tank.
Implications and limitations
Researchers describe this as offering hope and a potential new approach for restoration (โhelping handsโ), showing that severely bleached corals are not necessarily a lost cause and can recover far faster under the right conditions. It could inspire scalable techniques to inoculate bleached corals with beneficial symbionts.
However, the work is currently limited to laboratory conditions with one species and genetically identical clones. Scaling to wild reefs faces major practical challenges (e.g., treating large numbers of colonies, ensuring compatible genetics, and operating in the field during heatwaves). Further research is needed to develop practical methods that do not depend on sacrificing healthy corals.โ
This remains a lab proof- of- concept rather than a ready field solution, but it highlights a previously underappreciated rapid recovery pathway.
In a laboratory setting, researchers have shown that corals can fully recover from bleaching within seven weeks through brief contact with healthy corals. Credit: Danny Collins
Coral โcloningโ is done through asexual fragmentation (commonly called fragging). Because corals can regenerate from small pieces of themselves, any fragment that contains living tissue and polyps can grow into a genetically identical colony (a clone, or ramet).
This is the same principle used in the recent Stanford study on bleaching recovery, where researchers worked with genetically identical fragments from the same parent colony (Pocillopora damicornis).
Standard Coral Fragmentation (Fragging) Procedure
Here is the typical step- by- step process used in laboratories, coral nurseries, and aquarium hobbyists:
Select a healthy donor colony Choose a vigorous, disease- free coral that is actively growing. For research or restoration, note the genotype (genet) so all clones remain genetically identical.
Prepare tools and workspace
Clean, sharp tools: bone cutters, coral clippers, scalpel, or diamond band saw (for hard skeletons).
Reef- safe cyanoacrylate gel (super glue) or epoxy.
Frag plugs, ceramic tiles, or small pieces of live rock.
Containers of clean saltwater from the same system.
Gloves and eye protection.
Remove and handle the coral carefully Keep the colony submerged or moist at all times. Many people give the coral a brief dip in a mild coral dip solution to remove pests before cutting.
Make clean cuts
Branching corals (e.g., Pocillopora, Acropora): Snip or saw off a branch tip, usually 1- 5 cm long, ensuring it has several healthy polyps.
Massive or encrusting corals: Use a saw or chisel to cut small pieces containing living tissue. Make one decisive cut rather than crushing or sawing repeatedly, cleaner cuts heal faster.
Mount the fragment Apply a small amount of gel glue or epoxy to the cut skeleton base and press it firmly onto a frag plug or tile. Hold for 20- 60 seconds until it sets. Some soft corals are simply secured with rubber bands or mesh until they attach naturally.
Allow recovery and grow- out Place the new fragment in a nursery tank or low- to- moderate flow area with appropriate lighting and water quality. Within days to weeks the cut edge heals, tissue spreads, and new polyps form. Full recovery into an independent colony can take weeks to months depending on species and conditions.
Microfragmentation (Advanced Technique)
For faster growth, especially with slow- growing massive corals, practitioners cut the coral into very small pieces (often ~0.5- 1 cmยฒ containing only a few polyps).
These micro fragments are mounted close together on a tile. Because they are clones, they recognize each other, grow rapidly outward, and fuse into a single larger colony much faster than a single large fragment would grow. Growth rates can be 10- 50 times higher in the early stages.
Key Points Specific to Research (like the Stanford study)
Fragments are taken from the same genet (same genetic individual) so they can fuse tissues when placed in contact.
Size is carefully controlled (e.g., 1- 3 cm).
They are maintained under controlled laboratory conditions (temperature, light, water chemistry).
Important Notes
Not every species frags equally well. Soft corals and many branching stony corals are easiest; some massive species are harder but benefit greatly from microfragmentation.
Stress, infection, or poor water quality can cause high mortality, so sterile technique and excellent husbandry are essential.
In the wild and in restoration projects, fragments are often secured to the reef with epoxy, cable ties, or special frames.
This asexual method allows rapid production of thousands of genetically identical corals from a single healthy donor, which is why it is widely used for reef restoration, aquarium trade, and scientific experiments.
In the experiment, gaps of just a few millimeters between pairs of coral fragmentsโone bleached, one healthyโprevented the bleached fragments from recovering. Credit: Danny Collins
Rapid coral bleaching recovery via symbiont transfer from healthy corals
This is the open-access research article published in Science Advances on 14 October 2026 (Vol. 12, Issue 42): โRapid coral bleaching recovery via symbiont transfer from healthy coralsโ
Abstract (key points)
Coral bleaching, the temperature- induced loss of dinoflagellate symbionts (Symbiodiniaceae), is a major driver of global reef decline. Natural recovery via residual symbiont repopulation or environmental uptake is often too slow to prevent mortality.
The study demonstrates that bleached Pocillopora damicornis fragments recover rapidly through contact-mediated transfer of symbionts from healthy corals of the same genet (clone):
Transfer occurs over days to weeks and is highly efficient.
Only brief physical contact is needed: a single week (and in some cases as few as 3- 5 days) supplies enough symbionts for sustained full self- recovery after separation.
By ~1 week, symbiont population doubling time is ~4 days, up to an order of magnitude faster than typical field recovery rates.
The main mechanism is tissue fusion, enabling directional symbiont transfer from healthy to bleached tissue. This works only between same-genet fragments; different genets trigger antagonistic interactions (healthy coral overgrowing the bleached one).
A secondary, slower pathway (symbiont expulsion and polyp uptake) occurs even between different genets but is insufficient alone for full colony recovery.
These findings reveal a previously unrecognized natural process for efficiently reintroducing symbionts and provide a foundation for potential post- bleaching recovery interventions.
Main experimental results
Contact vs. no-contact: All bleached fragments (1- 1.5 cm, later also larger ones) placed in direct contact with same- genet healthy fragments fully recovered within 8 weeks (one as early as 4 weeks). Color and polyps returned starting at the contact point and spreading outward. Non- contacting fragments (separated by only 5- 7 mm) suffered severe filamentous algal overgrowth, tissue necrosis, and high mortality.
Brief contact sufficient: After 1 week of contact (and some cases of 5 days), bleached fragments continued to full recovery on their own once separated. Shorter contact (โฅ3 days) showed initial symbiont transfer and early recovery signs, but most were later overgrown by algae.
Symbiont dynamics: Confocal imaging confirmed rapid increases in symbiont density inside recovering polyps. Densities rose dramatically within the first 12 days of contact.
Longer- term: At 20 weeks, recovered fragments showed active growth with new branches, comparable to healthy ones.
Genet specificity: Same- genet pairs fused tissues (ripping upon separation left matching scars and symbiont accumulation). Mixed- genet pairs did not fuse effectively and often showed aggression.
The work was done in controlled laboratory tanks with experimentally bleached aquarium-sourced P. damicornis colonies hosting Cladocopium symbionts.
Broader context and caveats
The paper notes that most current coral interventions are preventive (heat tolerance, assisted evolution, shading, etc.). This study focuses on post- bleaching recovery, a relatively underexplored area. While promising, the mechanism is currently limited to same- genet contact in small fragments under lab conditions.
The authors suggest it could inspire scalable methods to reintroduce symbionts more broadly (including possibly enhancing environmental uptake pathways).
Data are available on Zenodo (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21128851). The article is open access.
This is the primary scientific paper underlying the recent news reports about Stanford researchers reversing coral bleaching at record speed.
Authors: Daniel S. Collins, Jana Sipkova, Nathaniel R. Mollica, Thomas Rolander, Courtney N. Klepac, Gabriel F. Calistro, Vanessa Barone, Fiorenza Micheli, and Stephen R. Palumbi (Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and collaborators).
In just a few days, life-giving algae flow from healthy corals to bleached corals, kick-starting the recovery process. Credit: Danny Collins
New research suggests that climate- driven changes are amplifying seasonal COโ exchange patterns in parts of the Indian Ocean, which could influence its role as a climate buffer, though this does not automatically mean greater overall carbon absorption.
The Indian Ocean plays a significant but regionally complex role in the global carbon cycle.
It acts as a modest net sink for atmospheric COโ overall, absorbing a portion of human- caused emissions and helping buffer climate change, though its behavior differs sharply between northern and southern regions and is strongly modulated by the monsoon system, ocean circulation, temperature, biology, and climate variability.
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New research suggests that climate- driven changes are amplifying seasonal COโ exchange patterns in parts of the Indian Ocean, which could influence its role as a climate buffer, though this does not automatically mean greater overall carbon absorption.
Published on Phys.org on October 18, 2026, and written by Hannah Bird, the article covers a study in Geophysical Research Letters (Joshi et al., 2026; DOI: 10.1029/2026GL123472) led by Dr. Apurva Padamanbh Joshi of the Indian National Center for Ocean Information Services. It analyzes data from 1980- 2019 on how seasonal air- sea COโ exchange has evolved across Indian Ocean regions.
Key findings
Seasonal variation in COโ exchange increased by 48% in the equatorial Indian Ocean and 23% in the southern Indian Ocean (greater contrast between seasonal highs and lows).
It decreased by 14% in the Arabian Sea and rose modestly (~7%) in the Bay of Bengal.
Average COโ release to the atmosphere decreased in the Arabian Sea, Bay of Bengal, and equatorial Indian Ocean, while absorption increased in the southern Indian Ocean. Larger seasonal swings do not necessarily equal higher net carbon uptake.
Drivers
In the equatorial and southern Indian Ocean, changes in the COโ partial- pressure difference between surface water and the atmosphere were key.
In the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal, shifts in wind speed (which affect gas transfer across the air-sea interface) played a larger role.
Similar seasonal amplification has been noted in parts of the Pacific and Atlantic, indicating broader ocean responses.
Context and implications
Oceans absorbed roughly 26% of human- caused COโ emissions from 2014- 2023 (per the Global Carbon Budget 2024), but capacity growth has slowed since around 2016 amid rising climate variability.
Temperature, winds, circulation, and existing dissolved COโ levels all influence the exchange: cooler water tends to absorb more, while warming can favor release, modulated by currents and other factors.โ
The study focuses on historical changes rather than future projections. It highlights that seasonal processes are being reshaped regionally, which matters for accurate carbon- budget estimates (annual averages can miss timing shifts) and for marine ecosystems.
Greater COโ absorption increases ocean acidification, reducing carbonate ions needed by corals and shell-forming organisms; repeated seasonal extremes could stress recovery and affect biodiversity and productivity.
Overall, the findings provide a finer picture of the Indian Oceanโs evolving contribution to the global carbon cycle and its buffering of atmospheric COโ. Further work is needed to determine long- term effects on storage capacity as warming continues.
Diagrammatic representation of the global carbon cycle. Credit: Wikimedia Commons/ PD-USGov-NASA.
The Indian Ocean plays a significant but regionally complex role in the global carbon cycle.
It acts as a modest net sink for atmospheric COโ overall, absorbing a portion of human- caused emissions and helping buffer climate change, though its behavior differs sharply between northern and southern regions and is strongly modulated by the monsoon system, ocean circulation, temperature, biology, and climate variability.
Overview of the Ocean Carbon Cycle (Relevant to the Indian Ocean)
Oceans exchange COโ continuously with the atmosphere. When the partial pressure of COโ in surface seawater (pCOโ) is lower than in the air, the ocean absorbs COโ (a sink); when higher, it releases COโ (a source).
Key controls include:
Solubility pump: Cooler water holds more COโ. Warming reduces solubility and can promote outgassing.
Biological pump: Phytoplankton take up COโ via photosynthesis; some organic carbon sinks to deeper waters, sequestering it.
Physical factors: Winds enhance gas transfer across the air-sea interface; upwelling brings COโ-rich deep water to the surface; currents and stratification redistribute carbon; freshwater inputs (e.g., rivers) affect alkalinity and pCOโ.
Anthropogenic influence: Rising atmospheric COโ drives net ocean uptake, but also causes ocean acidification (lower pH) as COโ forms carbonic acid.
Globally, oceans absorb roughly 25- 28% of anthropogenic COโ emissions. The Indian Ocean contributes a share of this, estimated at a net uptake of about โ0.07 to โ0.19 PgC/yr (petagrams of carbon per year; negative = sink) north of ~37.5ยฐS for recent decades.
Regional Patterns in the Indian Ocean
The basin is not uniform:
Northern Indian Ocean (north of ~15โ18ยฐS): Generally a net source of COโ to the atmosphere.
Arabian Sea (northwestern): Strong perennial source, especially due to intense upwelling during the Southwest Monsoon that brings carbon-rich deep waters to the surface.
Bay of Bengal (northeastern): Often a moderate net sink, influenced by large freshwater inputs from rivers that lower salinity and can suppress pCOโ.
Southern Indian Ocean (south of ~15- 18ยฐS, especially 15- 50ยฐS): A significant sink. Cooler temperatures, subduction of surface waters, and biological activity favor COโ absorption. This region helps make the overall Indian Ocean a weak net sink.โ
The equatorial Indian Ocean is closer to neutral (neither strong source nor sink) due to relatively deep thermocline and weaker upwelling compared to the equatorial Pacific.
Seasonal and Interannual Variability
The Indian Oceanโs carbon cycle is strongly seasonal because of the reversing monsoon winds and currents:
Large seasonal swings in pCOโ and air- sea COโ flux are linked to monsoon- driven changes in temperature, winds, upwelling, and biological production.
Recent research (1980- 2019 data) shows these seasonal variations have amplified: +48% in the equatorial Indian Ocean and +23% in the southern Indian Ocean, with a decrease (โ14%) in the Arabian Sea and a modest increase (~7%) in the Bay of Bengal. Drivers include changes in the air-sea pCOโ difference (especially equatorial and southern regions) and wind speeds (Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal). Average outgassing has decreased in northern and equatorial areas while southern uptake has increased.โ
Interannual variability is strongly influenced by the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) and its interactions with El Niรฑo- Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Positive IOD events can enhance outgassing in parts of the southeastern tropical Indian Ocean via upwelling and changes in dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) and alkalinity. Circulation changes (e.g., Indonesian Throughflow, Southern Ocean inflows) can also cause large interior carbon accumulation anomalies.
Biological and Other Processes
Primary production (photosynthesis) is substantial, with satellite- based estimates around 8 Gt C/yr for the basin.
Respiration in deeper (aphotic) layers recycles carbon, influencing DIC distributions.
Dust and iron deposition from the atmosphere can stimulate biological uptake in some areas, though effects vary north- south.
The Indian Ocean is relatively undersampled compared to other basins, leading to greater uncertainty in flux estimates
Climate Change Impacts and Buffering Role
Warming, changing monsoons, and rising atmospheric COโ are altering the cycle. Amplifying seasonal COโ exchange does not automatically increase the net annual sink, but it reshapes when and how strongly exchange occurs.
This matters for accurate carbon budgets (annual averages can miss timing shifts) and for marine ecosystems: greater COโ uptake increases acidification, which reduces carbonate availability for corals, shellfish, and other calcifiers. Extreme seasonal conditions may hinder ecosystem recovery.โ
Overall, the Indian Ocean continues to act as a climate buffer by taking up anthropogenic COโ, with evidence of a strengthening sink in some analyses (~0.02 PgC/yr per decade in certain periods).
However, its capacity and reliability depend on ongoing physical and biological changes. Continued observations and modeling are essential, especially given data sparsity in parts of the basin.
The Indian Ocean and Atlantic Ocean both act as net sinks for atmospheric COโ and contribute meaningfully to the global ocean carbon sink, but they differ substantially in magnitude, regional patterns, drivers, seasonal behavior, and efficiency of carbon storage.
Net COโ Flux (Air-Sea Exchange)
Indian Ocean: A relatively modest net sink, typically estimated at about โ0.07 to โ0.19 PgC/yr (north of ~37.5ยฐS) for recent multi- decadal periods (e.g., 1985- 2018). Northern areas (especially the Arabian Sea) are sources, while the southern subtropical region is a stronger sink. One reconstruction puts the full Indian Ocean sink near โ0.30 PgC/yr.โ
Atlantic Ocean: A stronger net sink overall, with basin- wide estimates around โ0.36 to โ0.47 PgC/yr (1985- 2018, including the Mediterranean in some assessments). The North Atlantic (particularly subpolar regions) is an intense sink; the tropical Atlantic is a moderate source due to upwelling. The North Atlantic alone (a small fraction of global ocean area) can account for a disproportionately large share of global uptake.
In relative terms, the Atlantic often contributes a larger share of the global ocean sink relative to its size than the Indian Ocean. Both basins show evidence of a strengthening sink over recent decades in response to rising atmospheric COโ, though interannual variability (e.g., linked to ENSO and IOD in the Indian Ocean or AMOC changes in the Atlantic) can modulate this.
Regional Contrasts
Indian Ocean: Strong north- south contrast driven by the monsoon. The northwestern Arabian Sea is a perennial source (strong summer upwelling brings COโ- rich deep water to the surface). The Bay of Bengal is closer to neutral or a mild sink (influenced by large river freshwater inputs that lower salinity and pCOโ). The equatorial region is near neutral. The southern Indian Ocean (south of ~15- 18ยฐS) is the main sink region.โ
Atlantic Ocean: Stronger high- latitude sink in the North Atlantic due to cooling of poleward- flowing waters (increasing solubility) and biological drawdown, combined with deep convection and the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). The tropical Atlantic is a source (upwelling), while the South Atlantic is a sink. Coastal and open-ocean differences exist, but the North Atlanticโs efficiency is notable.
Unlike the equatorial Pacific (a major source) or equatorial Atlantic (a source), the equatorial Indian Ocean is closer to neutral because of its unique wind patterns and deeper thermocline.
Drivers and Physical Processes
Indian Ocean: Dominated by seasonal monsoon wind reversal, upwelling (especially Arabian Sea), riverine freshwater inputs (Bay of Bengal), and connections via the Indonesian Throughflow and Southern Ocean inflows. Both solubility and biological pumps matter, with solubility more influential in the north and both important in the south. Climate modes like the Indian Ocean Dipole strongly affect interannual flux variability.
Atlantic Ocean: Strongly influenced by the AMOC, which ventilates deep waters and efficiently transfers anthropogenic carbon (Cโโโ) into the interior. The North Atlantic is a key entry point for Cโโโ into the deep ocean. Heat loss, biological export, and western boundary currents (e.g., Gulf Stream cooling) enhance uptake. A significant fraction of Atlantic Cโโโ accumulation comes from lateral transport from the Southern Ocean.
The Atlantic stores a large share of global oceanic anthropogenic carbon relative to its area (historically ~23% despite covering ~15% of the ocean), thanks to deep ventilation. The Indian Ocean stores less efficiently in its northern (landlocked) portion but receives carbon via throughflow and Southern Ocean connections.
Seasonal Variability
Both oceans show pronounced seasonal cycles in COโ exchange, with cooler seasons favoring stronger sinks.
In the Indian Ocean, monsoon-driven changes produce large seasonal swings in pCOโ and flux; recent studies show these seasonal amplitudes have increased substantially in equatorial and southern regions (e.g., +48% equatorial, +23% southern from 1980- 2019).
In the Atlantic, seasonal amplitude is also significant (especially subtropics and high latitudes), with winter cooling and biological activity enhancing uptake. Amplification of seasonal pCOโ cycles due to anthropogenic carbon accumulation is a broader ocean phenomenon observed in both basins.
Climate Change and Buffering Role
Both basins help buffer atmospheric COโ rise and are experiencing acidification.
The Atlanticโs deep ventilation makes it particularly important for long- term sequestration of anthropogenic carbon.
The Indian Oceanโs role is more surface- and intermediate- depth oriented in many areas, with greater sensitivity to monsoon and IOD changes.
Warming reduces solubility in both, but circulation changes (e.g., potential AMOC weakening vs. monsoon shifts) will affect future uptake differently. The Indian Ocean remains more undersampled than the Atlantic in many datasets (e.g., SOCAT), adding uncertainty to its estimates.
In summary:The Atlantic is generally a more efficient and stronger net COโ sink per unit area (especially in the North Atlantic), with superior deep- ocean carbon storage via overturning circulation.
The Indian Ocean is a weaker overall sink with sharper regional contrasts (northern sources vs. southern sink) tightly coupled to monsoon dynamics.
Both are critical components of the global ocean carbon cycle, and ongoing changes in their seasonal and interannual behavior will influence how reliably they continue to act as climate buffers.
The Pacific Ocean is the largest ocean basin and plays a dual role in the global carbon cycle: it is the worldโs biggest oceanic source of COโ in its equatorial region, yet overall, it functions as a net sink of comparable magnitude to the Atlantic (and larger than the Indian Ocean in absolute terms), thanks to strong uptake in its subtropical and higher- latitude zones.
Net COโ Flux (Air- Sea Exchange)
Pacific: Basin- wide net uptake is typically estimated at roughly โ0.4 to โ0.5 PgC/yr (e.g., โ0.41 ยฑ 0.12 PgC/yr from observation- based pCOโ products and โ0.51 ยฑ 0.16 PgC/yr from models for (โ0.7 PgC/yr), offsetting substantial natural outgassing. The net sink has been strengthening at rates around โ0.08 to โ0.09 PgC/yr per decade.
Comparison: This places the Pacificโs net sink in a similar range to the Atlantic (โ0.36 to โ0.47 PgC/yr) and larger in absolute terms than the Indian Ocean (โ0.07 to โ0.30 PgC/yr depending on the exact domain). Despite covering nearly half the global ocean area, the Pacificโs net contribution is moderated by its powerful equatorial source. In some climatologies, the three basins contribute roughly similarly to global open- ocean uptake when coastal zones are included (Pacific and Atlantic each ~25%, Indian ~20%).
Regional Patterns
Equatorial Pacific: The dominant global oceanic COโ source. Strong upwelling of carbon-rich deep water (especially in the eastern โcold tongueโ) releases ~0.4- 0.7 PgC/yr or more on average, often accounting for a large fraction of total oceanic outgassing. This far exceeds the tropical Atlantic source and the more localized northern Indian Ocean sources (e.g., Arabian Sea). The western equatorial Pacific is closer to neutral or occasionally a weak sink.โ
Subtropical Pacific: Strong sinks, particularly in the North Pacific subtropical gyre, driven by cooling of waters and biological activity. These help offset equatorial outgassing.
Higher latitudes: Uptake occurs in subpolar regions, though less intense per unit area than the North Atlanticโs deep-convection zones. The North Pacific lacks the Atlanticโs vigorous deep-water formation, so anthropogenic carbon (Cโโโ) penetration is shallower (mainly intermediate depths).
In contrast:
The Atlantic has intense high- latitude (especially North Atlantic) sinks and efficient deep ventilation via the AMOC.
The Indian Ocean shows a clear northโ south divide (northern sources vs. southern sink) tightly tied to the monsoon, without a single dominant equatorial source like the Pacificโs.
Drivers and Variability
Pacific: Dominated by the El Niรฑo- Southern Oscillation (ENSO). During El Niรฑo, equatorial upwelling weakens and outgassing decreases sharply (sometimes nearly shutting off the source); during La Niรฑa, outgassing intensifies. This makes the tropical Pacific the largest contributor to interannual variability in the global ocean carbon sink. Subtropical and higher -latitude uptake is influenced by gyre circulation, seasonal temperature changes, and biology.
Seasonal cycles: Present but often secondary to interannual ENSO- driven swings in the tropics. Seasonal amplification of pCOโ cycles (linked to anthropogenic carbon accumulation) occurs, similar to other basins.
Comparison: The Indian Oceanโs variability is more monsoon- and IOD- driven with strong seasonal signals that have recently amplified. The Atlantic has notable seasonal cycles (especially high latitudes) and is influenced by AMOC strength and North Atlantic Oscillation variability but lacks the Pacificโs extreme interannual equatorial swings.
Anthropogenic Carbon Storage and Efficiency
The Pacific stores a large absolute amount of Cโโโ due to its size, but less efficiently per unit area than the Atlantic. The North Atlanticโs deep convection allows deeper and more rapid sequestration. Pacific Cโโโ is mostly confined to intermediate depths via mode and intermediate water subduction. The Southern Ocean (shared influence) is a major entry point for all basins, with subsequent redistribution.
Climate Change Context
All three basins are experiencing rising uptake of anthropogenic COโ, ocean acidification, and changes in seasonal and interannual patterns. The Pacificโs equatorial source region is particularly sensitive to ENSO changes and warming (which can affect upwelling and solubility). Its large area means even modest per-area changes have global impact. Data coverage in the Pacific is generally better than in the Indian Ocean but still sparse in some southern regions.
Summary comparison:
Pacific: Largest source region (equatorial) and large subtropical sinks โ moderate- to- strong net sink; high interannual variability (ENSO).
Atlantic: Strongest high latitude sinks and efficient deep storage (AMOC) โ strong net sink relative to size.
Indian: Modest net sink with sharp monsoon- driven northโ south contrast and growing seasonal amplitude.
Together, the three major ocean basins (plus the Southern Ocean) form the backbone of the oceanic carbon sink that absorbs roughly a quarter of human COโ emissions each year.
The Pacificโs unique combination of a massive natural source and extensive sink regions makes its behavior especially important for understanding global carbon- cycle variability.
Changes in surface COโ levels and the factors driving them across four Indian Ocean regionsโthe Arabian Sea (AS), Bay of Bengal (BoB), Equatorial Indian Ocean (EIO) and Southern Indian Ocean (SIO)โduring the 1980s and 2010s. Black lines show COโ changes, while red and blue lines represent the effects of temperature and non-temperature related factors, respectively. Dashed lines represent the 1980s and solid lines the 2010s. Credit: Joshi et al, 2026.
Climate Change Induced Seasonal Amplification of the Indian Ocean CO2 Sink
Key findings from the paper (based on available summaries)
The study analyzed air- sea COโ exchange across the Indian Ocean from 1980 to 2019, focusing on changes in seasonal variability:
Seasonal amplitude increased by:
48% in the equatorial Indian Ocean
23% in the southern Indian Ocean
~7% in the Bay of Bengal
It decreased by 14% in the Arabian Sea
Mean COโ release to the atmosphere decreased in the Arabian Sea, Bay of Bengal, and equatorial Indian Ocean.
COโ absorption increased in the southern Indian Ocean.
Drivers differed by region:
Equatorial and southern Indian Ocean โ mainly changes in the air-sea difference in COโ partial pressure (ฮpCOโ).
Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal โ primarily changes in wind speed (affecting gas-transfer velocity).
Important caveat emphasized in the work: Larger seasonal swings do not automatically mean a stronger net annual carbon sink. The amplification reshapes the timing and intensity of exchange within the year rather than necessarily increasing total uptake.
The paper frames these changes as a response to climate change (warming, altered circulation and monsoon patterns, and rising atmospheric COโ) and notes implications for marine ecosystems (via acidification) and for carbon- budget estimates that rely only on annual averages.
Context
This is one of the more detailed observational analyses of seasonal COโ flux changes specifically in the Indian Ocean. It complements broader findings that seasonal pCOโ amplitudes are increasing across much of the global ocean due to anthropogenic carbon accumulation (which reduces the oceanโs buffer capacity and makes pCOโ more sensitive to temperature and biology).
This study investigates changes in the mean and seasonal states of oceanic carbon uptake across the Indian Ocean (IO) using an improved, high-resolution, observationally constrained long-term (1980โ2019) surface ocean pCO2 data product. The Arabian Sea shows a โผ14% decline in CO2 flux amplitude along with reduced mean source strength. In contrast, the Equatorial IO exhibits the largest increase in seasonal amplitude (โผ48%), followed by the Southern IO (โผ23%), while the Bay of Bengal shows only a modest change (โผ7%). Despite these differences, mean source strength decreases in both the Bay of Bengal and Equatorial IO, whereas the Southern IO shows an enhanced carbon sink. Amplitude changes in the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal are driven by shifts in flux sensitivity to wind speed and evolving seasonality of the ocean-atmosphere pCO2 gradient, whereas in the Equatorial and Southern regions, they are primarily controlled by the evolving pCO2 gradient alone.
Archaeologists in Groรkรถllnbach (Lower Bavaria, Dingolfing- Landau district, Germany) recently uncovered the remains of an adolescent who lived about 7,000 years ago, buried in an unusually twisted posture that departs from typical practices of the Linear Pottery culture (Linienbandkeramik or LBK).
The Linear Pottery culture (LBK), also known as the Linearbandkeramik, Linear Band Ware, or Danubian culture, was a major early Neolithic archaeological . It flourished roughly from c. 5500- 4500 BC (with some regional variation in start and end dates) and represents one of the first widespread farming societies in the region.
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Archaeologists in Groรkรถllnbach (Lower Bavaria, Dingolfing- Landau district, Germany) recently uncovered the remains of an adolescent who lived about 7,000 years ago, buried in an unusually twisted posture that departs from typical practices of the Linear Pottery culture (Linienbandkeramik or LBK).
The discovery occurred during preventive excavations ahead of housing construction in the Steigรคcker IV development area. After about five weeks of work, the team noticed a dark soil discoloration that turned out to be a pit containing human bones, located near one of the settlementโs ancient ovens.
The remains date to the early Neolithic period (roughly associated with the LBKโs presence in the region around 5300- 5000 BC), when the first farming communities were establishing permanent settlements across Central Europe.
Unusual burial position and other puzzles
People of the Linear Pottery culture commonly used โcrouchedโ or โhockerโ burials: the body was laid on its side with legs drawn up, resembling a sleeping posture. In this case, the right leg was bent up extremely sharply (a position that would have been painful for a living person), while the left leg was angled outward. This creates a striking, twisted overall posture.
The pit itself was irregular and sloping rather than carefully prepared. Archaeologists (including district archaeologist Dr. Florian Eibl) suggest the body may have slipped down the incline after placement, shifting bones or pressing them into soft clay. It is unclear whether the unusual pose was intentional (possibly a special or secondary burial in a pit originally dug for another purpose) or resulted from post- depositional movement.
The cervical spine also shows a pronounced deformation. Researchers have not yet determined whether this reflects a pathological condition or physical peculiarity from the individualโs lifetime, or whether it developed after burial due to pressure and decomposition processes. Initial examination confirms the person was an adolescent (growth plates/epiphyses at the ends of the long bones had not yet fully fused); exact age and sex remain to be clarified through further anthropological study. The skeleton has been fully recovered and transferred to the district archaeology department for detailed analysis.
Broader settlement context
The skeleton is part of a larger LBK settlement landscape. Excavators documented around 150 features, including traces of three large longhouses (likely no more than two standing at the same time), well-preserved hearths, and domed clay ovens insulated underneath with packed pebbles. Grinding slabs (some of stone that may have come from beyond the Danube or the Bavarian Forest) indicate processing of grain and possible longer- distance procurement of materials. These finds offer insights into daily life, cooking, and communal activities among early farmers.โ
The site is not open to the public, and further scientific results (including more on the adolescentโs life, health, and the circumstances of burial) are expected once analyses are complete. The find highlights both the routine settlement remains of Europeโs first farmers and the occasional anomalies that continue to raise questions about individual lives and burial practices roughly seven millennia later.
The Linear Pottery culture (LBK), also known as the Linearbandkeramik, Linear Band Ware, or Danubian culture, was a major early Neolithic archaeological . It flourished roughly from c. 5500- 4500 BC (with some regional variation in start and end dates) and represents one of the first widespread farming societies in the region.
It takes its name from the distinctive decoration on its pottery: simple handmade vessels (cups, bowls, vases, and jugs) ornamented with incised or impressed linear bands, spirals, meanders, and related geometric patterns. Early phases feature more uniform styles; later ones show increasing regional variation.
Origins and spread
The culture emerged in the middle Danube region (areas of modern Hungary, Slovakia, Bohemia, and Moravia), likely deriving from or strongly influenced by earlier Balkan farming groups such as the Starฤevo- Kรถrรถs- Criศ complex.
From there it expanded rapidly westward and northward along river valleys (Danube, Rhine, Elbe, and others), covering a vast area from western Hungary and Ukraine in the east to the Paris Basin, the Netherlands, and parts of France in the west, spanning roughly 1,500 km in a few centuries at an average rate of about 4 km per year.โ
This expansion marks a key stage in the Neolithization of Europe: the shift from Mesolithic hunter-gatherer lifestyles to sedentary agriculture, driven primarily by the migration of farming communities (with some admixture of local hunter- gatherer ancestry confirmed by ancient DNA).
Economy and daily life
LBK communities practiced mixed farming on fertile loess soils:
Crops: Emmer and einkorn wheat, barley, peas, lentils, flax, and others.
Animals: Cattle (dominant), sheep, goats, and pigs. Evidence of dairy use (including possible early cheese-making) appears in pottery residues from many sites.
They used to slash- and- burn or shifting cultivation in some areas and produced polished stone adzes (โshoe- lastโ adzes), flint tools, grinding stones, and bone implements.
Settlements consisted of rectangular timber longhouses (often 20- 45 and more meters long, among the largest free- standing buildings of their time), built with posts, wattle- and- daub walls, and sometimes partial upper stories. Houses were typically arranged in small villages or clusters along river terraces. Some sites include enclosures, wells (showing sophisticated carpentry), and evidence of trade in flint, obsidian, amber, and other materials.
Burial practices
Typical burials were flexed (โcrouchedโ or hocker) inhumations, with the body laid on its side and legs drawn up, often in pits lined with stone, clay, or plaster. Both individual graves and small cemeteries occur; grave goods (pottery, tools, ornaments) sometimes appear and can vary by age or sex. Cremation was also practiced in some cases. Unusual or special burials (such as the recently reported twisted adolescent skeleton from Groรkรถllnbach, Bavaria) occasionally deviate from the norm.
Society and later developments
Early LBK material culture was relatively uniform, suggesting shared traditions across a wide area. Later phases show greater regionalization. Society appears largely egalitarian in many respects, though evidence of interpersonal and intergroup violence increases toward the end of the culture (e.g., mass graves at sites such as Talheim, Herxheim, and others). Some communities show signs of social stress, fortified settlements, or abrupt endings.
Around 4500 BC (or earlier in some regions), the LBK gave way to a series of successor cultures, including the Stroke- ornamented ware, Rรถssen, Lengyel, and others, through a combination of cultural transformation, population changes, environmental factors, and possible conflict.โ
The Linear Pottery culture is central to understanding how farming, permanent villages, and new social patterns first took hold across much of temperate Europe. Major excavated sites include Bylany (Czech Republic), Langweiler and Zwenkau (Germany), Vrรกble and Nitra (Slovakia), and many others along the major river systems.
Climate played a role in the dynamics of the Linear Pottery culture (LBK, c. 5500- 4500 BC), but it was rarely a sole or immediately catastrophic driver.
Research frames climate as one factor among others (social, demographic, economic) that influenced population trends, expansion, resilience, and eventual transformation into successor Middle Neolithic cultures.
Climatic background of the LBK period
The LBK developed during the mid- Holocene Climatic Optimum (Atlantic period), which featured generally warmer and wetter conditions than today across much of Central Europe. Mean annual temperatures were roughly 1- 2ยฐC higher in some areas (e.g., estimates around 11.4ยฐC on the Aldenhovener Plateau in the Rhineland). Precipitation was often 8- 22% higher than modern levels, with relatively mild, wetter winters and somewhat drier summers in certain reconstructions. These conditions favored early farming on fertile loess soils along river valleys.โ
However, the period was not uniformly stable. Paleoclimate proxies (tree rings, lake sediments, ice cores, pollen records) show repeated short- term fluctuations in temperature, rainfall, and solar activity, including links to ice- rafted debris (IRD) events and phases of rapid climate change (e.g., around the 5.9 ka / IRD 5b interval spanning much of the LBKโs duration).
Impacts on population, farming, and expansion
Rainfall and population: Studies correlating high- resolution archaeological chronologies (especially in western Central Europe) with rainfall proxies find that periods of decreased or irregular precipitation often coincide with population declines, while increased rainfall phases align with growth. This is particularly notable after about 5150 cal BC.
Agricultural vulnerability: LBK farming (emmer/einkorn wheat, barley, pulses, cattle husbandry) was sensitive to spring- summer rainfall variability, which is critical for crop development. Tree- ring data from Bavaria indicate high year- to- year hydroclimatic variability during much of the LBK, with frequent extreme dry or wet seasons until roughly 5100 BC. Such extremes could reduce yields or increase disease risk.
Expansion phases: Some reconstructions link LBK origin and westward and northward expansions to intervals of climatic stress or cooling (e.g., around 7.7 and 7.2 ka events). Other work associates geographic expansion with multi- century phases of warmer winters (by ~2.5ยฐC on average in some models) and increased precipitation, conditions well-suited to certain crops like einkorn. Decline phases correlate with cooler winters and reduced summer rainfall in some regions.โ
Overall, climate often acted as a stabilizing or destabilizing influence rather than a direct force. Early LBK societies showed resilience; most fluctuations did not cause immediate collapse. Resilience- theory approaches (adaptive cycles) describe climate as one component in broader processes of growth, increasing fragility, and reorganization.โ
Role in the late LBK and cultural transformation
Toward the end of the 6th millennium BC, a trend toward reduced rainfall, punctuated by short- term wet episodes, created a volatile climatic setting. During this time the LBK reached peak population levels in western Central Europe while also showing evidence of heightened conflict and warfare.
Population then declined, and the culture gradually disappeared from the record, replaced by Middle Neolithic groups (e.g., Stroke- ornamented ware, Rรถssen).
Climate is viewed as a contributing stressor alongside possible soil exhaustion, social tensions, disease, or intergroup violence,not the single cause.โ
Regional differences matter, core loess areas may have responded differently from peripheral or lowland zones. Some multi- agent models and pollen- based reconstructions explore how climatic shifts affected settlement trajectories and farmer- hunter- gatherer interactions, but endogenous social factors remain important.
In summary, the LBK thrived under generally favorable mid- Holocene conditions that supported early agriculture, yet it was sensitive to rainfall variability and short- term fluctuations. Climate helped shape expansion, population cycles, and the cultureโs eventual transformation, typically in combination with human and environmental factors rather than as a deterministic force.
Ongoing research continues to refine the precise timing and regional strength of these links using better-dated proxies and archaeological sequences.
Every hurricane season, three issues come up with me, not necessarily in order of importance. One of them was evident a couple of weeks ago with the norโeaster that developed an eye. Its formation over abnormally warm water near or above the threshold for tropical cyclones fueled the debate, along with objective evidence that it had become a warm-core system. I reviewed that in a previous blog.
A person analyzes a holographic hurricane forecast displayed above a laptop. Clear details and vi…
Every hurricane season, three issues come up with me, not necessarily in order of importance. One of them was evident a couple of weeks ago with the norโeaster that developed an eye. Its formation over abnormally warm water near or above the threshold for tropical cyclones fueled the debate, along with objective evidence that it had become a warm-core system. I reviewed that in a previous blog.
Another is a complete overhaul of the Saffir-Simpson scale. The Weatherbell Power Impact Scale accounts for storm size by assigning values to the radius of hurricane-force winds, 50-knot winds, and 34-knot winds. It also considers sea-level pressure, maximum wind, and maximum wind gust. So, itโs quite comprehensive โ not just one value. At the very least, it should grade the Saffir-Simpson scale in tenths. A category two storm at 110 miles per hour becomes category three at 111. It should be labeled as a 2.9, as opposed to, say, a 95-mile-per-hour storm, which would be lower.
By the way, Bill OโReilly gave me this idea the night Ike was on the way to hit Texas. It had been lowered to a two, and he remarked off air that it meant it should not be as bad. As an example of what my scale would give:
The max wind we classify off the Saffir-Simpson scale is 2.8. Wind gusts get a 3.8.
SLP gets a 3.3.
The hurricane-force winds get a rating of 3.2.
50 kt wind is also at 3.2.
34kt force winds: 3.7.
This gives a total of 20.
Divided by 6 makes it a 3.7 at landfall.
The explanation as to parameter computation is on the Weatherbell.com site.
A spot wind at one place does not do justice to the storm. Conversely, some smaller storms may have the same Saffir-Simpson rating but not be in the same ballpark, except where the center crosses the coast. Charley, a Cat 4, vs. Donna, also a Cat 4 when it hit the same place in Florida, is a classic example. We want to look at the storm as a whole, not just one spot.
But what I really want to talk about here is something Iโve been trying to push for many years and that is to seed intensifying hurricanes as theyโre coming to the coast in the last 12-24 hours before landfall. There was a seeding project many years ago โ Project Stormfury โ and the results were inconclusive, although some were pretty impressive, especially with Hurricane Debbie in 1969. I remember as a kid being upset that they were going to seed the storm because I wanted it to intensify. But it was out in the middle of nowhere.
The idea is that if you can disrupt the stormโs eye wall and focus energy away from the center, you can reduce wind intensity at the center. This is not dropping atomic bombs into the eye wall. Itโs trying to force condensation in a way that spreads out the hurricaneโs concentrated energy. We see practical examples of this where you have a strong hurricane that will hit land โ the eyewall will fall apart and it will then get back out over the water, but it takes a long time to get back to where it was. In most cases, it never gets back to where it was. You should examine anything you can do to disrupt the processes that are causing the storm to intensify.
Now, there are people who will say, โWell, thereโs no real proof this will do anything.โ So what?ย ย Can you not try it? What do you have to lose if you have a Category 4 hurricane and could knock it down to a Category 3 in terms of max wind? You can help mitigate the cost. Sometimes I think that there are people who are simply anti-progress in this country that donโt want to see this. Some people also think you shouldnโt mess with nature at all, and of course they go off the deep end with the whole chemtrail argument. But the fact is, with something so disruptive as this, why would you not want to give it a shot of knocking it down? Itโs like the whole nuclear power argument. People fear something going wrong. Not only did Jane Fonda protest the war, but her movie โThe China Syndromeโ also set the stage for an almost irrational resistance to moving forward with nuclear power. Itโs one of the most interesting things about the so-called progressive movementโin many things itโs the opposite. But again, what do you have to lose?
If you have a hurricane and can induce eyewall replacement โ which we know can stop the storm from intensifying, if not briefly bring it down โ why wouldnโt you try it? We live in the United States. Itโs the year 2026. Why should we live like it was 75 years ago, afraid of something when we could mitigate it? It almost seems like some people donโt want to stop hurricanes from being destructive when they hit the United States. Pardon my skepticism or cynicism, but I think some people want to see the worst happen so they can make a point about things getting worse climate-wise. And then thereโs the other part that just loves it when these storms wrap up and go wild.
I believe someday all three of these ideas will be addressed, if not to my suggestion, then in some way that resembles the ideas put forth. But until such a time, the status quo remains. Interesting, since what got you to a place is also what can get you stuck there if there is no change.
TIME Magazine reporter Simmone Shah claims in โClimate Change Is Accelerating Faster Than We Can Respond, Scientists Warnโ that Earth is undergoing a rapidly accelerating climate destabilization that humanity is increasingly unable to handle. This is false and grossly misleading. The observational record shows a modest long-term warming trend amid substantial short-term variability, while human longevity, food production, resilience to weather disasters, and global vegetation have improved dramatically during the same period.
TIME Magazine reporter Simmone Shah claims in โClimate Change Is Accelerating Faster Than We Can Respond, Scientists Warnโ that Earth is undergoing a rapidly accelerating climate destabilization that humanity is increasingly unable to handle. This is false and grossly misleading. The observational record shows a modest long-term warming trend amid substantial short-term variability, while human longevity, food production, resilience to weather disasters, and global vegetation have improved dramatically during the same period.
TIME opens with the ominous declaration that โthe climate is warming up faster than we can respond,โ based on a new BioScience paper titled โThe 2026 state of the climate report: challenges and opportunities.โ The article then barrels through warming, sea level, wildfires, heat deaths, greenhouse gases, coral reefs, tipping points, fossil fuels, and planetary โlife-support systems,โ giving readers the impression that civilization is watching the planetary engine check lights turn red one after another.
There is remarkably little effort to ask the most obvious question: If climate change is outrunning humanityโs ability to respond, where is the evidence that humanity is losing?
Letโs start with TIMEโs central claim. Shah writes that warming accelerated from approximately 0.05ยฐC per decade between 1880 and 1970 to 0.36ยฐC per decade from 2010 through 2024.
That sounds terrifying until you translate it into ordinary numbers.
A trend of 0.36ยฐC per decade is 0.036ยฐC per year. That is about six-hundredths of a degree Fahrenheit per year. No human being can perceive such a change from one year to the next, much less experience it as some runaway climatic upheaval.
More importantly, TIME compares a 90-year trend with a recent 14-year trend ending immediately after the extraordinary 2023-2024 temperature spike. That is a marvelous way to manufacture a frightening comparison, but a poor way to explain climate.
Climate Realism addressed almost exactly this claim in March in โNo, TIME, the Planet Isnโt โHeating Faster Than Ever.โโ The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) satellite record showed a long-term lower-tropospheric trend of about 0.16ยฐC per decade since 1979, with large short-term excursions associated with El Niรฑo and other natural influences.
NASA Science itself has described the 2023-2024 warmth as โexceptionalโ and investigated multiple contributors, including El Niรฑo, aerosol changes, cloud cover, solar activity, and the enormous injection of stratospheric water vapor from the 2022 Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haโapai eruption.
But here is the most embarrassing omission in TIMEโs story: the BioScience paper itself is more cautious than TIME.
The researchers say warming โappearsโ to have accelerated. They then explicitly acknowledge that other analyses find the recent warming, including the 2023-2024 spike, consistent with climate-model simulations rather than evidence of a newly accelerated trajectory.
TIME doesnโt bother telling readers that.
Instead, Shah jumps immediately from the short-term warming calculation to tipping points, irreversible changes, and the possibility of reaching 2ยฐC before 2050. Thatโs not explaining uncertainty. Thatโs stripping the uncertainty out and keeping the scary part.
Then TIME turns to extreme weather. Shah points to 2026 heat waves and wildfires and declares that the effects of an โacceleratingly warming planetโ have become โimpossible to ignore.โ Yet in the very same paragraph she admits, โwe donโt yet know enough to link these individual weather events to climate change.โ
Read that again.
TIME uses individual weather events as evidence of accelerating climate catastrophe and then acknowledges that those individual events cannot presently be linked to climate change. That is not climate analysis. Thatโs narrative first, evidence later doomsday claim.
That nuance is nowhere to be found in TIMEโs parade of disasters.
Then there is mortality. TIME cites a preliminary estimate of 35,000 excess deaths during European heat waves. Heat kills people, and sensible adaptation to extreme heat is important. But presenting one summerโs estimate without the broader mortality record is spectacularly misleading.
Climate at a Glance documents that deaths from weather-related disasters have fallen by more than 99 percent during the past century. Average annual deaths fell from approximately 485,000 in the 1920s to fewer than 8,000 around 2020.
That is what successful adaptation looks like.
Temperature mortality provides another inconvenient fact. A large 2021 study in The Lancet Planetary Health estimated that 8.52 percent of deaths were associated with cold temperatures compared with 0.91 percent associated with heat. From 2000-2003 to 2016-2019, declining cold mortality outweighed increasing heat mortality, producing a net reduction in temperature-related mortality.
TIME somehow manages to write an article about climate changing โfaster than we can respondโ without mentioning one of the clearest measurements of our response: people have become vastly less likely to die from weather.
Food tells the same story.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reports that global cereal production increased 27 percent from 2010 to 2024, reaching 3.1 billion tonnes, primarily because of improving yields. Oil-crop production increased 50 percent. Climate at a Glance similarly documents record-setting global crop production and yields during the period of modern warming.
Apparently Earthโs โlife-support systemsโ forgot to notify agriculture. Plants didnโt get TIMEโs doom memo either.
NASA satellite observations found that between one-quarter and one-half of Earthโs vegetated land significantly greened over 35 years, with researchers estimating that carbon dioxide fertilization accounted for approximately 70 percent of the observed greening. NASA
Human beings have been equally uncooperative with the apocalypse narrative. The United Nations reports that global life expectancy reached 73.3 years in 2024, up 8.4 years since 1995.
Think about the absurdity of TIMEโs framing.
During the period in which humanity was supposedly losing its race against climate change, weather-related mortality collapsed, crop production soared, vegetation increased, billions more people were fed, and global life expectancy rose.
That doesnโt mean climate change has no effects. It means TIMEโs claim that climate is changing โfaster than we can respondโ is contradicted by some of the most important measurements of human welfare and resilience.
Even the underlying BioScience paper recognizes something TIMEโs catastrophe narrative obscures. It states that extreme-weather disasters result from interactions between climatic hazards and human social systems, and it lists adaptation measures including cooling centers, flood protection, prescribed burns, irrigation, resilient crops, early-warning systems, coastal protection, and stronger infrastructure.
In other words, we are responding. And we have been responding extraordinarily well.
TIME finishes with the reportโs theatrical declaration that we are witnessing the โrapid destabilization of the Earthโs climate systemโ and that this is โa diagnosis of the present.โ
Fine. Then diagnose the patient using all the vital signs.
Donโt show readers carbon dioxide while hiding crop production. Donโt show a European heat wave while ignoring the century-long collapse in weather mortality. Donโt show selected wildfire seasons while ignoring declining global burned area. Donโt discuss planetary โlife-support systemsโ while neglecting global greening. Donโt claim humanity cannot keep up while life expectancy is rising and human vulnerability to natural disasters has plummeted.
Most of all, donโt take a 14-year temperature trend ending in an exceptional temperature spike, compare it with a 90-year historical trend, omit the underlying paperโs own caution about that acceleration, and then tell millions of TIME readers that Earth is careening toward irreversible catastrophe.
Thatโs not reporting climate science responsibly. Itโs incompetent and irresponsible climate doom journalism written by a reporter whoโs obviously incapable of factual research. TIMEโs reporter had an opportunity to interrogate an alarming scientific paper, examine its assumptions, compare its claims against observational records, and ask whether the real-world trajectory of human welfare supports the headline. Instead, she simply amplified the alarm. Iโd call it press release regurgitation.
The climate is changing slowly. Humanity is adapting rapidly. The world is not coming to an end. The only thing accelerating uncontrollably in TIMEโs article is the rhetoric.
The article by Peter Jordan (Professor of Archaeology at Lund University), published in The Conversation on 14 October 2026, examines how prehistoric Jลmon hunter- gatherer communities in Japan responded to the massive Kikai- Akahoya volcanic eruption about 7,300 years ago, and what that reveals about human resilience amid modern climate and environmental shocks.
The Kikai- Akahoya (K- Ah) eruption (~7,300 years ago / ~5,300 BCE) was one of the largest volcanic events of the Holocene (Volcanic Explosivity Index VEI 7; bulk tephra volume estimated at 332- 457 kmยณ). It originated from the largely submarine Kikai caldera south of Kyushu, Japan. While its most dramatic immediate effects were local (pyroclastic flows, tsunamis, earthquakes, and thick ash deposits), it also produced measurable regional- to-hemispheric climate impacts lasting decades.
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The article by Peter Jordan (Professor of Archaeology at Lund University), published in The Conversation on 14 October 2026, examines how prehistoric Jลmon hunter- gatherer communities in Japan responded to the massive Kikai- Akahoya volcanic eruption about 7,300 years ago, and what that reveals about human resilience amid modern climate and environmental shocks.
The disaster
The Kikai- Akahoya eruption was an enormous underwater blast, the largest volcanic event since the end of the last ice age. It struck without warning, triggering powerful earthquakes and massive tsunamis across the Japanese islands. Ash clouds blanketed the landscape in metre- deep toxic layers, choking coastlines, destroying rivers, and killing forests for decades (centuries near the epicentre). This destroyed local food systems that the Jลmon people depended on for wild plants, nuts, game, and other resources.
Moving beyond โapocalypse vs. continuityโ
Archaeologists had long debated two extremes: total societal collapse and the abrupt end of human life in affected areas, or seamless continuity with people simply enduring. New research (led by Enrico Crema of the University of Cambridge, with Jordan as senior author, published in Science Advances) tracked regional population levels before and after the eruption using detailed archaeological records. The picture that emerged was far more complex.
Key findings include:
Populations nearest the epicentre in southern Kyushu were already declining before the eruption; the disaster compounded existing vulnerabilities among highly mobile forager groups.
In some areas relatively close to the destruction (notably northern Kyushu), populations actually boomed afterward. Survivors migrated from the worst- hit zones into safer regions.
Inland groups rapidly shifted to coastal areas, where marine ecosystems recovered faster, reinventing their economies around sea resources.
Paradoxically, more distant populations (expected to be safer) stagnated or declined, likely due to a โvolcanic winterโ that reduced sunlight, plant growth, and animal numbers.
Lessons for resilience today
Jordanโs core argument is that true resilience is not about rigidly maintaining the status quo or pretending nothing changed. The eruption did not produce uniform collapse or unbroken continuity. Instead, it triggered a dynamic mix of migration, adaptation, recovery, and innovation shaped by both environmental conditions and human decisions.
Survivors actively chose to move, built new social networks, developed new economic strategies, and found ways to thrive in a permanently altered landscape, even without modern warning systems, aid, or infrastructure.
This underscores the vital role of human agency: outcomes after catastrophe are not predetermined solely by the scale of the shock, but emerge from pre-existing conditions, environmental recovery rates, mobility, and the capacity of communities to reorganize and collaborate.
The Jลmon case offers a more flexible, realistic vision of resilience for contemporary societies facing climate shocks and other disasters. Survival is not a fixed state; the future will depend heavily on collective social actions and decision-making alongside environmental factors.
The original article is available at The Conversation. Related coverage from Lund University, the University of Cambridge, and other outlets expands on the population patterns and the broader โSurviving the Apocalypseโ research project.
Map of the study area. Credit: Science Advances (2026). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aeh7197
The Kikai- Akahoya (K- Ah) eruption (~7,300 years ago / ~5,300 BCE) was one of the largest volcanic events of the Holocene (Volcanic Explosivity Index VEI 7; bulk tephra volume estimated at 332- 457 kmยณ). It originated from the largely submarine Kikai caldera south of Kyushu, Japan. While its most dramatic immediate effects were local (pyroclastic flows, tsunamis, earthquakes, and thick ash deposits), it also produced measurable regional- to-hemispheric climate impacts lasting decades.
Primary climate forcing mechanism
Large explosive eruptions inject sulfur dioxide (SOโ) into the stratosphere, where it converts to sulfate aerosols. These aerosols reflect incoming solar radiation, increasing Earthโs albedo and causing surface cooling (a โvolcanic winterโ effect).
The K- Ah event ranks among the highest sulfur- injection eruptions of the Holocene. Ice- core records show prominent sulfate spikes around 7,180- 7,175 years BP in both Greenland and Antarctica, with estimated sulfur loading far exceeding that of the 1815 Tambora eruption (often cited as >75 Tg S, potentially several times Tamboraโs output).
Documented temperature and hydroclimate responses
Proxy evidence indicates multi- decadal cooling rather than a purely short- lived (1- 3 year) aerosol effect:
Stalagmite record from Minami- Daito Island (Northwest Pacific, ~600 km from the caldera): A clear cold- wet anomaly peaking at ~7.13 kyr BP. Temperature anomaly reached a minimum of approximately โ3.1 ยฑ 0.6 ยฐC, with reduced ฮดยนโธO and ฮดD in fluid inclusions indicating intensified regional rainfall. The cooling phase lasted roughly 50 years and was amplified relative to other mid-Holocene volcanic clusters.
Northern Hemisphere mean temperature: Modeling and multi-proxy analyses linked to this event (or closely associated clusters) suggest cooling of up to ~1.6 ยฐC lasting about 50 years, sustained by oceanโ sea- ice feedback after the initial aerosol forcing.โ
Marine sediments near Okinawa: Sea- surface temperature (SST) drops of ~3- 5 ยฐC (alkenone and TEXโโ proxies) spanning roughly 7.5- 6.6 or 7.4- 6.9 kyr BP, consistent with the eruption timing (higher values in some proxies may partly reflect non- temperature influences).
These signals appear as an amplification of multi- decadal climate variability rather than an isolated extreme event. Clusters of large mid- Holocene eruptions (including K-Ah) tend to coincide with the onset or intensification of cooling phases, potentially via Atlantic- Pacific teleconnections (e.g., influences on Atlantic Multidecadal Variability).
Spatial scale and ecological consequences
Near- field (southern and central Kyushu): Direct ash blanketing (meters thick near the source, tens of cm farther afield) destroyed forests for centuries, choked rivers and coastlines, and caused long- term terrestrial ecosystem collapse. Climate cooling compounded these effects but was secondary to physical ash deposition.
Regional and East Asian: Ash fallout extended across much of Japan, parts of Korea, and beyond. Reduced sunlight and cooler and wetter conditions likely lowered plant productivity and affected animal populations (e.g., possible accelerated tooth wear in deer and wild boar from ash-contaminated forage).
Hemispheric and distant Japan: The 2026 demographic study of Jลmon populations noted stagnation or decline in areas far from the volcano, attributing this in part to short- term climate disruption (volcanic winter reducing plant growth and game availability). This matches the multi-decadal cooling signal.
Comparison and uncertainties
Compared with other large Holocene eruptions (e.g., Tambora 1815, Samalas 1257, or even larger events like Toba), K- Ahโs climate footprint was substantial but not globally catastrophic on multi- century scales. The ~50- year duration exceeds pure aerosol lifetimes, pointing to amplifying feedback (ocean heat content, sea ice).
Precise sulfur yield estimates and exact global mean temperature responses still carry uncertainties due to ice- core resolution, dating offsets, and model sensitivities. Local vegetation recovery took 500- 1,000 and more years in the heaviest ash zones, driven more by physical burial than climate alone.
In summary, the K- Ah eruption produced a clear multi- decadal (โ50- year) cold and wet anomaly across the Northwest Pacific and broader Northern Hemisphere cooling of order 1- 3 ยฐC regionally, superimposed on longer- term Holocene variability. These climate effects, combined with direct ash impacts, contributed to the divergent demographic responses observed among Jลmon communities.
Divergent demographic responses to the Kikai- Akahoya volcanic catastrophe in mid- Holocene Japan
This is the peer- reviewed research paper underlying the Conversation article by Peter Jordan.
Abstract (key points)
The study examines human demographic responses to one of the Holoceneโs largest volcanic eruptions, the Kikai- Akahoya (K- Ah) event ~7,300 years ago, which devastated East Asia. Archaeologists have long debated whether such massive environmental shocks caused societal collapse or cultural continuity, but few studies place these events in longer-term demographic trajectories.
Using statistical models applied to radiocarbon- date frequencies as population proxies, the authors infer the demographic and environmental impacts on Jลmon foraging communities across the Japanese archipelago.
Traditionally viewed as an apocalyptic โforcingโ mechanism that redirected Japanese prehistory, the results instead reveal a more complex and contingent suite of outcomes:
Major population collapse in regions immediately adjacent to the volcano.
Population increases in some proximal areas after the catastrophe.
Negative effects on some distal communities due to previously overlooked environmental consequences (e.g., volcanic winter impacts).
Core methods and findings
The team developed Bayesian statistical models (including intrinsic conditional autoregressive / ICAR models) that account for spatial structure and use ash- fall thickness as a predictor variable. They compared regional population growth rates before the eruption (roughly 8000- 7250 cal BP) and after it (7250- 6500 cal BP), drawing on hundreds of radiocarbon dates from archaeological sites across Japan.
Main regional patterns:
Southern and central Kyushu (closest to the epicentre): Severe decline and depopulation. Populations here were already trending downward before the eruption; the disaster hit a sparsely populated landscape used mainly by highly mobile groups. Some areas show an enduring cultural hiatus.
Northern Kyushu and certain coastal zones (still relatively proximal): Continued or accelerated growth despite heavy ecological damage. This is attributed in part to migration of โrefugeesโ from the worst- hit southern areas. Inland survivors appear to have shifted toward northern coastlines, where marine ecosystems recovered faster, supporting economic adaptation focused on sea resources.
More distant parts of Japan: Pre- eruption growth often slowed, stagnated, or reversed after the event, pointing to wider impacts such as reduced plant and animal productivity from atmospheric ash and volcanic winter effects.
Overall, post- eruption growth rates declined across much of the archipelago, but the responses were highly divergent rather than uniform.
Broader implications
The paper moves beyond the binary โapocalypse versus continuityโ debate. The K- Ah eruption triggered a mix of high local fatality, abandonment, migration, social reorganization, economic innovation, and recovery. Outcomes depended on pre- existing demographic conditions, local environmental recovery rates (especially marine vs. terrestrial), mobility, and human decision-making.
The authors emphasize that even in extreme circumstances, communities retained agency: they migrated, formed new networks, and adapted subsistence strategies. This offers a more nuanced archaeological perspective on resilience to sudden environmental catastrophe.
Note: The full text on Science Advances appears to be paywalled or access- restricted in some contexts (tool retrieval failed for the complete HTML/PDF). Open excerpts, the abstract, supplementary materials (including a Japanese extended abstract), and institutional press releases from Cambridge, Lund, and others provide the details above. Supplementary materials are available at the journal site.
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