Antarctica’s Record 695-Billion-Ton Ice Gain: Temporary Tropical Surprise, Not a Climate Reversal

A peer- reviewed paper published in Nature on 19 August 2026 reports that the Antarctic Ice Sheet gained approximately 695 billion tonnes (Gt) of mass over a roughly 22-month period spanning 2021- 2023.

This was the largest mass gain of comparable length in the GRACE/GRACE-FO satellite gravimetry record, which began in 2002/2003.

A panoramic view of Antarctica showcasing its ice-covered landscape with a focus on ice mass gain, accompanied by text discussing a record 695-billion-ton ice gain and its implications.
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A peer- reviewed paper published in Nature on 19 August 2026 (led by researchers including Yunhe Wang from the Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, with international collaborators) reports that the Antarctic Ice Sheet gained approximately 695 billion tonnes (Gt) of mass over a roughly 22-month period spanning 2021- 2023. This was the largest mass gain of comparable length in the GRACE/GRACE-FO satellite gravimetry record, which began in 2002/2003.

The gain was concentrated in East Antarctica, especially Queen Mary Land and Wilkes Land (roughly 470 Gt, or ~68% of the total). It resulted from exceptionally heavy snowfall, driven by anomalous moisture transport (including atmospheric rivers) from the mid- latitude Indian Ocean.

Sustained warming of about 0.5°C in the tropical warm pool (western Pacific and eastern Indian Oceans) altered atmospheric circulation via Rossby wave trains. This created pressure patterns that funneled more moisture southward. The event was largely natural variability (anthropogenic climate change explained only ~9% of the snowfall anomaly).

Between 2003 and 2024, Antarctica lost ice at an average rate of ~140.5 Gt per year.

West Antarctica continued losing mass during the gain period (due to ocean- driven melting of ice shelves and accelerated glacier flow). The 2021- 2023 episode temporarily offset losses and even produced a near-zero or slightly positive overall balance for parts of 2021- 2024 in some analyses, but it does not reverse the multi- decade decline.

Earlier related work had already noted strong mass gains in 2021- 2022 (on the order of ~130 Gt/year) from anomalous precipitation; the 2026 study extended and attributed the larger multi- year signal.

Subsequent data (into 2024- 2025) indicate the anomalous accumulation period has largely ended, with mass balance turning negative again in more recent years.

In short, the headline figure is correct and reflects a real, well- documented temporary anomaly driven by tropical– polar teleconnections and heavy snowfall, not a reversal of Antarctica’s overall ice- loss trend under ongoing climate warming.

GRACE and GRACE- FO are a pair of NASA/German satellite missions that measure changes in Earth’s gravity field to track how mass (especially water and ice) moves around the planet.

Quick Overview

MissionFull NameOperational PeriodKey Feature
GRACEGravity Recovery and Climate ExperimentMarch 2002- October 2017First mission of its kind
GRACE- FOGRACE Follow- OnMay 2018- presentContinues the record and laser instrument

Two identical satellites fly in the same polar orbit, about 220 km (137 miles) apart, one behind the other, at roughly 490 km altitude.

  • Areas of higher mass (more ice, water, rock, etc.) pull the lead satellite slightly ahead.
  • The trailing satellite is pulled forward a few moments later.
  • Extremely precise ranging instruments measure these tiny changes in distance (down to a few micrometers with microwaves, and even nanometers with the laser on GRACE- FO).

By combining these distance measurements with GPS positioning and accelerometer data (to remove non-gravitational forces), scientists produce monthly maps of Earth’s gravity field. Changes in gravity are then converted into mass changes.

These are the primary tools used to measure ice- sheet mass balance.

In the 2026 Nature study we’ve been discussing, GRACE/GRACE- FO data showed:

  • Long- term Antarctic mass loss of ~140.5 Gt per year (2003- 2024)
  • The record 695 Gt gain between July 2021 and April 2023

They “weigh” the entire ice sheet from space without needing to land on it, capturing both snowfall gains and dynamic ice losses.

Bottom line: GRACE and GRACE- FO act like a planetary scale that continuously tracks where mass is being gained or lost on Earth, especially critical for understanding ice sheets and sea- level rise.

Multiyear tropical warm pool warming drives slowdown in Antarctic mass loss

Between 2021 and 2023 the Antarctic Ice Sheet gained ~695 billion tons of mass, the largest such gain recorded by the GRACE satellites.

The long- term trend (2003- 2024) remains a loss of ~140.5 billion tons per year.

The temporary gain was concentrated in East Antarctica (especially Queen Mary Land- Wilkes Land) and was caused by unusually heavy snowfall.

The driver was sustained warming in the tropical warm pool (western Pacific and eastern Indian Ocean). This triggered a Rossby- wave train that created a north- south pressure dipole (low south of Australia, high over East Antarctica), which steered extra moisture from the mid- latitude Indian Ocean onto the continent via atmospheric rivers.

Anthropogenic global- warming effects accounted for only ~9 % of the extra snowfall; the event was mainly natural variability.

Similar multiyear tropical- warm- pool warmings occur roughly once per decade.

The gain did not reverse the overall long- term ice loss, and West Antarctica continued to lose mass.

The authors demonstrate that the gain was driven by a recurrent atmospheric teleconnection from unusually persistent warming in the tropical warm pool (western Pacific and eastern Indian Ocean) during 2021- 2023.

This warming excited a poleward-propagating Rossby- wave train that produced a high-pressure anomaly over East Antarctica. The resulting circulation enhanced moisture transport (primarily from the mid-latitude Indian Ocean) and atmospheric- river activity onto Queen Mary Land and Wilkes Land, producing the extreme snowfall.

Model experiments and observations show that anthropogenic global- warming effects (poleward storm-track shift and Clausius- Clapeyron moistening) accounted for only ~9 % of the observed precipitation anomaly. Similar multiyear tropical- warm- pool warming events recur roughly once per decade and are distinct from the forced response to greenhouse- gas warming.

Conclusion of the paper: The 2021- 2023 mass gain is therefore probably temporary and does not yet represent a sustained, global- warming- driven moistening of Antarctica. West Antarctic losses continued throughout the period.

The article is a clear, faithful distillation of the scientific paper’s main conclusions and includes a direct quote from first author Yunhe Wang. It does not over- claim that the ice gain signals a reversal of climate-driven ice loss. It was a real, record- breaking but temporary snowfall- driven mass gain linked to tropical ocean conditions.

Title: “Antarctica Gained a Record 695 Billion Tons of Ice in Just Two Years”

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-026-10912-x

Published: Nature volume 656, pages 897- 904, on 19 August 2026 (open access).

Provided: Chinese Academy of Sciences

Authors: Yunhe Wang,
Qinghua Ding,
Xiaofeng Li,
Thomas J. Ballinger,
Yoshihiro Nakayama,
Dániel Topál &
Eric J. Steig 

Abstract

Antarctic mass loss has been a major contributor to global sea-level rise for most of the last few decades, mainly driven by West Antarctica1. During 2021–2023, however, a sharp increase in surface mass balance over Queen Mary Land and Wilkes Land in East Antarctica offset West Antarctic loss and slowed the rate of total ice mass loss2,3. Although this slowdown is consistent with the expected long-term precipitation response to global warming through poleward-shifted storm tracks and Antarctic moistening4, our results point to a different mechanism. Here we show that the recent ice mass gain was linked to a recurrent atmospheric teleconnection driven by sea surface temperature anomalies in the tropical warm pool, which experienced unusually persistent warming from 2021 to 2023 relative to the previous two decades. On the basis of observations and model experiments, we find that tropical warm pool warming excites a poleward-propagating Rossby-wave train that induces a high-pressure anomaly over East Antarctica, enhancing Queen Mary Land and Wilkes Land precipitation and driving the observed mass gain, with moisture primarily sourced from the mid-latitude Indian Ocean. Similar multiyear warming in the tropical warm pool recurs about once per decade in observations and historical simulations, and its influence on precipitation is distinct from the effects of global warming. Therefore, the recent Antarctic Ice Sheet mass gain is probably temporary and does not yet reflect a sustained, global-warming-driven moistening of Antarctica.

Energy Reality Forces Tech to Ditch Climate Virtue Signaling

In Pecos County, Texas, crews are clearing scrubland for a power plant that will burn natural gas and answer to no one but Amazon.

Microsoft has signed a 20-year deal for power from a Chevron gas plant in neighboring Reeves County.

In 2021, Facebook’s parent company Meta declared climate change one of the most pressing challenges facing the world and positioned itself among the largest corporate buyers of clean electricity. Then came its Hyperion data center in Louisiana.

A cartoon-style illustration titled 'Energy Reality' showing a man wearing a green 'Climate' mask, standing amidst energy infrastructure like wind turbines and natural gas plants in Pecos County, Texas. The image displays humorous commentary on energy, technology, and climate, with text elements emphasizing reliable power and critiques of 'virtue signaling.'

From The CO2 Coalition

By Vijay Jayaraj

In Pecos County, Texas, crews are clearing scrubland for a power plant that will burn natural gas and answer to no one but Amazon. With 35 turbines and a generating capacity of more than 7 gigawatts, the plant will be able to produce more electricity than the Grand Coulee Dam. A state permit allows the facility to emit 33 million tons of greenhouse gases a year, roughly double what comes from an Alabama coal-fired generator that has topped America’s emissions tables for years.

Now recall who founded the company building the gas behemoth. That would be Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, who just 5 years ago told delegates at a U.N. climate summit that a rocket ride had shown him a planet that was finite and fragile, prompting a pledge of $2 billion to “restore” nature. The applause was warm. The carbon-intensive private jet that carried Bezos to the Scotland meeting was noted by critics and forgotten by everyone else.

Now, his company is financing what may become the largest point source of carbon dioxide in the United States, whose contribution to the greening of ecosystems should be welcome.

You are watching a conversion, and it deserves your attention because of what forced it.

The template, not the exception
Amazon did not stumble into natural gas. It joined a queue. Enverus Intelligence Research projects that user-owned turbines will account for about 40% of new data center capacity through 2030. Microsoft has signed a 20-year deal for power from a Chevron gas plant in neighboring Reeves County. Interconnection subscriptions are full, transformers are back-ordered, and the only metric that matters is the time it takes to get a power plant in operation.

In 2021, Facebook’s parent company Meta declared climate change one of the most pressing challenges facing the world and positioned itself among the largest corporate buyers of clean electricity. Then came its Hyperion data center in Louisiana. Regulators approved three combined-cycle gas plants for it in August 2025. In March 2026 Meta tripled the order, funding seven more and making the totals 10 gas plants and nearly $11 billion of investment. Meta will underwrite 15 years of revenue, while the turbines will run for 30 – a mismatch that has a dissenting member of the Public Service Commission warning that households may inherit the balance.

Elon Musk built an empire on the premise that combustion belongs to the past. In 2024, he said that a carbon tax was the only action needed to solve climate change. More recently, addressing G20 ministers, he warned of a significant power shortfall next year and defended data center construction against negative public sentiment. Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, in the same meeting, asked governments for more electricians and more electricity. Neither man requested more wind and solar installations.

Energy Physics Forces a Hard Reset
Big Tech’s turn toward dedicated gas power does not settle the climate debate, but it exposes the distance between a political narrative and a power grid capable of supporting industries. When servers must run, physics gets a vote and realities are acknowledged.

For example, at the start of 2026, every grid-scale battery in the United States combined could meet national demand for only 15 minutes. Modeling the PJM regional power system through 2045, Jonathan Lesser and Mitchell Rolling found that a grid of wind, solar, and batteries would need 10 times the generating capacity of gas and nuclear power. It would also cost about seven times as much, and cover a land area larger than the PJM service area, which comprises most of the Mid-Atlantic and parts of the Midwest.

Yet, despite these facts, pseudo-scientists, grifters, and demagogues lectured for 20 years that coal is immoral, natural gas is a bridge to nowhere, and so-called green technologies are the planet’s salvation. Banks denied financing for hydrocarbon projects in developing countries where surgeons operate under lights powered by unreliable generators and where hundreds of millions cook with sooty wood and dung.

The lesson is the same for data centers and households: Prosperity requires electricity that is available when needed. Dependable systems of conventional energy sources will continue to power the tech revolution and human progress for decades.

Originally published at American Thinker, September 13th, 2026.

Vijay Jayaraj is a Science and Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Fairfax, Virginia. He holds an M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, both in the U.K., and a bachelor’s in engineering from Anna University, India. He served as a research associate with the Changing Oceans Research Unit at University of British Columbia, Canada.

The Green Climate Fund is greenwashing normal foreign aid

This is just what the UN Green Climate Fund (GCF) is doing. They solicit funds by claiming to finance adaptation when in fact they are funding responses to immediate needs. These needs would clearly still exist if climate change never happened.

Here are three examples, out of many so-called adaptation projects listed in the database of GCF projects.
“ALBAdapt – Climate Services for a Resilient Albania
“Resilience to hurricanes in the building sector in Antigua and Barbuda
“Multi-country Project Advancing Early Warnings for All (EW4All)

A satirical illustration titled 'Greenwashing Foreign Aid' showing a conveyor belt delivering stacks of money labeled as foreign aid being rebranded to green labels like 'Green Climate Fund' and 'Climate Finance.' Various characters, including a smiling man in glasses and a bowtie, discuss the rebranding with enthusiasm, while others express excitement about the change. The background features wind turbines and greenery, emphasizing environmental themes.

From CFACT

By David Wojick

If I buy an air conditioner because summers are hot that is not adaptation to climate change. I am meeting an immediate need that has nothing to do with climate change. Even if climate change made it warmer from time to time my purchase is not based on that possibility.

Suppose I have a fundraiser to pay for my air conditioner, and I claim it is to adapt to climate change as a way to get donations. That would be fraud, a form of what is called greenwashing.

This is just what the UN Green Climate Fund (GCF) is doing. They solicit funds by claiming to finance adaptation when in fact they are funding responses to immediate needs. These needs would clearly still exist if climate change never happened.

Here are three examples, out of many so-called adaptation projects listed in the database of GCF projects.

For simplicity these occur at the beginning of the listing.

1. “ALBAdapt – Climate Services for a Resilient Albania

….develop a fully functional and well-resourced National Meteorological and Hydrological Service (NMHS) that complies with World Meteorological Organization (WMO) standards. The project also includes the implementation of a people-centered Multi-Hazard Early Warning System (MHEWS) and the foundation for ecosystem-based approaches to climate change adaptation (EbA) and disaster risk reduction (Eco-DRR).”

$40 million

So basically weather forecasts and early warning of disasters. This is good stuff but as they say in the project description, Albania is already subject to bad weather and floods, etc. It meets immediate needs.

2. “Resilience to hurricanes in the building sector in Antigua and Barbuda

This project addresses the resilience of building construction in the country, in addition to climate information systems and post-disaster responses. It will climate proof critical public service and community buildings to improve resilience to, and recovery from, extreme climate events.”

$46 million

These folks are already battered by hurricanes and calling them “extreme climate events” does not change that, in fact it is a marketing hoax. Resilience to hurricanes is a great idea but it is an immediate need that does not arise from climate change.

3. “Multi-country Project Advancing Early Warnings for All (EW4All)

This project aims to strengthen the resilience of communities in seven countries (Antigua and Barbuda, Chad, Cambodia, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Fiji, and Somalia) by improving the production, dissemination and effective use of Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems (MHEWS).”

$115 million

Another early warning system which is a good idea but it is an immediate need that has nothing to do with climate change adaptation.

When you think about it climate change adaptation would be weird stuff. You would be building for a need that does not yet exist. For example irrigation or water supply systems where none is presently needed. Or flood defenses where floods have never occurred.

How do you prepare for getting a few more hurricanes, droughts or floods than you already get? Of for some to be bigger than they otherwise would be? Is anybody doing that, if so how?

It is possible that the concept of climate change adaptation makes no sense, but people are certainly raising and making a lot of money using it.

The Green Climate Fund says that 60% of their billions in project funding is directed toward adaptation. They are really just meeting immediate needs which makes this greenwashing on a grand scale.

If the countries donating to the GCF think they are contributing to climate change adaptation they should think again. It is just ordinary foreign aid which they would be better off

doing themselves.

How the 2024 Solar Superstorm Drained Earth’s Outer Radiation Belt

In May 2024, Earth experienced its most intense geomagnetic superstorm since the 2003 Halloween storms (often called the Gannon or Mother’s Day storm). This caused a sudden, dramatic loss (“dropout” or draining) of highly energetic electrons from the outer Van Allen radiation belt.

Satellite observations (particularly from JAXA’s Arase satellite) showed this extreme depletion of MeV electrons during the main phase of the storm. Researchers (Lyu et al.) provided the first comprehensive analysis of the rapid electron transport, published in AGU Advances, and summarized by Sarah Stanley for Eos (American Geophysical Union) on 14 September 2026.

Infographic depicting a solar superstorm event in 2024, illustrating coronal mass ejection (CME) with labeled features including solar wind, compressed magnetopause, and Van Allen radiation belts impacting Earth.
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In May 2024, Earth experienced its most intense geomagnetic superstorm since the 2003 Halloween storms (often called the Gannon or Mother’s Day storm). This caused a sudden, dramatic loss (“dropout” or draining) of highly energetic electrons from the outer Van Allen radiation belt.

The Van Allen belts are doughnut- shaped regions of energetic electrons and protons (mostly from the solar wind) trapped by Earth’s magnetosphere. Geomagnetic storms can reconfigure the magnetosphere and rapidly change electron dynamics in the outer belt, creating hazards for satellites.

Satellite observations (particularly from JAXA’s Arase satellite) showed this extreme depletion of MeV electrons during the main phase of the storm. Researchers (Lyu et al.) provided the first comprehensive analysis of the rapid electron transport, published in AGU Advances, and summarized by Sarah Stanley for Eos (American Geophysical Union) on 14 September 2026.

They used the Versatile Electron Radiation Belt (VERB) model to simulate the event and identify the drivers. Two main processes caused the electron loss:

Magnetopause shadowing: This transported electrons outward, releasing them into interplanetary space. It was tied to intense compression of Earth’s magnetosphere (the magnetopause was pushed inward significantly, with estimates around L ~ 3.7 in related work).

Local wave scattering (e.g., by plasmaspheric hiss and other waves): This scattered electrons so their pitch angles changed, allowing them to precipitate into Earth’s upper atmosphere.

The relative importance of each process varied by region of the magnetic field. Critically, accurate reproduction of the extreme dropout required that the sudden outward transport from magnetopause shadowing occur nearly simultaneously with the strong magnetospheric compression, followed by the wave scattering.

Standard empirical models of electron transport (often parameterized by the Kp index and used in space weather forecasting) do not capture this tightly coupled timing of superstorm dynamics.

The findings highlight the need for improved models that better account for the interplay of magnetopause compression, radial diffusion/transport, and local scattering during extreme events. This could improve forecasting and risk assessment for satellites and other infrastructure during future superstorms.

Note that the same storm also injected particles and temporarily created new radiation belt structures in other regions, which persisted for months in some cases before later storms depleted them; the “draining” specifically refers to the rapid outer- belt electron dropout analyzed here.

Magnetopause shadowing is a key non- adiabatic loss process for energetic particles (especially relativistic electrons) in Earth’s outer Van Allen radiation belt. It occurs when the magnetopause, the boundary separating Earth’s magnetosphere from the solar wind, moves inward during periods of elevated solar wind dynamic pressure (e.g., during geomagnetic storms or interplanetary shocks), allowing previously trapped particles to escape into interplanetary space.

Charged particles in the radiation belts spiral along magnetic field lines while bouncing between the northern and southern magnetic mirror points and slowly drifting azimuthally around Earth (due to gradient and curvature drifts). Under quiet conditions, their drift paths are closed within the magnetosphere, so the particles remain trapped for long periods.

The magnetopause typically sits around 10 Earth radii (RER_E) on the dayside. Strong solar wind pressure compresses the dayside magnetosphere, pushing the magnetopause inward (sometimes to RER_E) on the dayside.

Strong solar wind pressure compresses the dayside magnetosphere, pushing the magnetopause inward (sometimes to L∗≈4L^* \approx 4 -6 or closer during extreme events).

There are two related forms:

Direct magnetopause shadowing
The compressed magnetopause intersects the particles’ previously closed drift shells. Particles whose drift orbits now cross the magnetopause are lost directly into the solar wind as they drift into the boundary. This can happen rapidly (on timescales of a particle’s drift period, often hours or less) when the magnetopause moves inward suddenly.

Indirect magnetopause shadowing (often coupled with outward radial diffusion)
Even if the magnetopause does not immediately intersect a given drift shell, the sudden loss of particles at higher L∗L^*creates a steep negative radial gradient in phase space density (PSD). Ultra- low- frequency (ULF) waves then drive outward radial diffusion, transporting particles from lower L∗L^*toward the last closed drift shell (LCDS, the outermost closed drift path). Once they reach the LCDS or the magnetopause itself, they escape.

The last closed drift shell (LCDS) is a useful concept for modeling: any particle whose L∗L^* exceeds the LCDS is considered lost.

Key Features and Consequences

Location preference: Most effective at higher L∗L^*(outer parts of the outer belt, typically L∗≳4L^* \gtrsim 4 -5). Losses often start at high (L) and propagate inward.

Energy and pitch- angle dependence: Affects a broad range of energies (keV to multi- MeV). It can produce characteristic “butterfly” pitch- angle distributions (flux minima near 90° equatorial pitch angle) because of drift- shell splitting and preferential loss of certain pitch angles.

Speed: Can cause rapid, deep “dropouts” of electron flux (orders- of- magnitude decreases in hours) during the main phase of storms.

Additional factors: The detailed structure of the magnetopause (magnetic field gradients along the boundary, presence of a normal magnetic-field component, or induced electric fields during rapid compression) influences how easily particles cross the boundary. A normal field component facilitates escape along field lines; induced electric fields can sometimes inhibit or modify escape for lower- energy particles.

Role in Storms (Including the 2024 Superstorm)

During intense geomagnetic storms, magnetopause shadowing is frequently a dominant contributor to the sudden draining of the outer radiation belt electrons, often acting together with local wave- particle scattering (which precipitates particles into the atmosphere). Accurate modeling requires event- specific magnetopause location (or LCDS) and realistic radial diffusion rates; standard empirical models often underperform if they do not capture the tight timing between magnetospheric compression and particle transport.

In short, magnetopause shadowing is the process by which a compressed magnetopause “cuts off” or “shadows” the outer drift paths of trapped radiation- belt particles, allowing them to stream away into space, directly or after being transported outward by waves.

Extreme Radiation Belt Dropout During the May 2024 Superstorm

This is the scientific study summarized in the Eos article by Sarah Stanley. Direct full- text retrieval from the Wiley platform was unsuccessful (likely due to access restrictions), but the content is consistent with the open EGU abstract, the associated Zenodo dataset (initial submission materials), and the Eos research spotlight.

Key Points from the Paper

Observations

  • Data from the JAXA Arase (ERG) satellite showed that MeV electron fluxes in the outer radiation belt dropped by several orders of magnitude during the main phase of the May 2024 superstorm (the strongest geomagnetic storm in ~20 years).
  • This extreme dropout coincided with intense magnetopause compression (minimum standoff distance ~ L≈3.7L \approx 3.7, estimated via the Space Weather Modeling Framework) and enhanced ULF Pc5 wave activity (from SuperMAG ground magnetometers).

Modeling Approach

  • The team used the Versatile Electron Radiation Belt (VERB) model to simulate the event.
  • They tested different drivers for radial diffusion and loss processes.

Main Findings

  • Standard empirical radial diffusion models (parameterized by the Kp index) failed to reproduce the observed electron flux profiles.
  • Accurate reproduction of the extreme dropout required enhanced radial diffusion that is properly timed relative to the magnetopause compression and storm- time wave activity.
  • Magnetopause shadowing (outward transport and loss to the compressed magnetopause) was a primary driver, especially at higher L∗L^*.
  • Stronger plasmaspheric hiss scattering was also needed to account for losses at lower L∗L^*.
  • Overall, the extreme electron loss was controlled by the coupled timing of three processes:
    1. Magnetopause compression (enabling shadowing),
    2. Radial diffusion (outward transport of particles), and
    3. Local wave-particle scattering (primarily hiss- driven precipitation into the atmosphere).

Implications

The results emphasize that physically timed (event- specific) representations of transport and loss are essential for modeling extreme storms. Commonly used empirical parameterizations are insufficient for such intense events. Improved models incorporating these timed couplings could enhance space- weather forecasting and satellite risk assessment.

Supporting materials (Arase processed data, ULF wave measurements, VERB simulation outputs under different driving scenarios, magnetopause positions, etc.) are available on Zenodo as part of the initial submission.

This paper provides the detailed quantitative analysis behind the “draining” of the outer radiation belt electrons during the 2024 superstorm via the mechanisms we previously discussed (especially magnetopause shadowing combined with radial diffusion and local scattering).

Published:  AGU Advances

DOI: 10.1029/2026av002476

Provided: American Geophysical Union

Authors: Xingzhi Lyu, Dedong Wang, Bernhard Haas, Miroslav Hanzelka, Yixin Sun, Zikang Xie, Alwin Roy, Yoshizumi Miyoshi, Yihua Zheng, Christos Katsavrias, Sigiava Aminalragia-Giamini, Nana Higashio, Takefumi Mitani, Takeshi Takashima, Iku Shinohara, Yoshiya Kasahara, Shoya Matsuda, Atsuki Shinbori, Fuminori Tsuchiya, Atsushi Kumamoto, Ayako Matsuoka, Mariko Teramoto, Kazuhiro Yamamoto, Yuri Y. Shprits

Abstract

The geomagnetic superstorm in May 2024 represents the most extreme space weather event over the past two decades, offering a unique opportunity to investigate radiation belt electron dynamics under exceptionally strong solar wind driving conditions. Observations from the Arase satellite show that relativistic electron fluxes dropped by several orders of magnitude during the storm main phase. Although magnetopause shadowing and wave-driven losses are established mechanisms, the response of radiation belt electrons to superstorm-level solar wind driving remains poorly constrained. Using the Versatile Electron Radiation Belt model, we present the first physics-based simulation of the May 2024 electron dropout. Utilizing multi-satellite and ground-based observations, we show that the decades-long, widely adopted Kp-driven radial diffusion parameterization fails to represent radial transport under superstorm conditions, substantially misrepresenting both the timing and magnitude of enhanced diffusion relative to observed ultra-low-frequency wave activity. Accurate modeling of the observed extreme dropout requires precise specification of the onset of enhanced radial diffusion, which should coincide with the nearly simultaneous storm-time magnetopause compression. These coupled processes drive the dramatic depletion, followed by scattering from whistler-mode plasma waves.

Sun’s Hidden Fingerprint: Did Our Star Swallow a Super- Earth Billions of Years Ago?

A new study suggests the young Sun may have engulfed a super- Earth (roughly 5- 10 times Earth’s mass) early in its history, potentially leaving lasting chemical and structural “fingerprints” deep inside that could still be detectable today.

The research, by Professor Mutlu Yildiz of Ege University in Türkiye and published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

Illustration of a star showcasing its convection zone, heavy element residues, and a compositional anomaly, with labeled temperature and composition details.
AI generated by Grok

A new study suggests the young Sun may have engulfed a super- Earth (roughly 5- 10 times Earth’s mass) early in its history, potentially leaving lasting chemical and structural “fingerprints” deep inside that could still be detectable today.

The research, by Professor Mutlu Yildiz of Ege University in Türkiye and published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stag1527), uses stellar- evolution modeling (with the MESA code) to explore whether planetary engulfment could resolve long-standing mismatches between standard solar models and observations.

Key points from the work and related coverage:

Standard solar models struggle to simultaneously match helioseismic data (especially the sound- speed structure just below the convection zone and the convection zone’s depth) and the Sun’s strongly depleted surface lithium abundance.

The models that best fit multiple independent constraints involve the young Sun accreting a dense, rocky super- Earth. Preferred masses cluster around 5- 10 Earth masses (one standout model near ~5.6 Earth masses). The planet’s material, rich in heavy elements relative to the surrounding disk gas, could create a localized compositional gradient that alters opacity, temperature, density, and sound speeds.

Such a planet could largely survive passage through the outer layers while losing little mass, allowing its material to settle deeper and leave a lasting imprint.

This scenario also helps address why the Solar System lacks the super- Earths that are common around many other stars. Earlier theoretical work (Martin & Livio, 2016) had already suggested super- Earths could have formed inside Mercury’s orbit and migrated inward; the new study focuses on whether observable traces of engulfment could remain inside the Sun.

Yildiz notes that the calculations unexpectedly converged on a specific mass range and that the engulfment idea improves agreement with several observables at once. However, the study does not claim definitive proof, only that the scenario is physically plausible and that independent detection of the predicted structural/chemical signatures (via improved helioseismology or other methods) would provide strong supporting evidence.

The idea remains a hypothesis grounded in modeling rather than direct observation of residual planetary material.

Super- Earths are planets with masses between roughly 1 and 10 Earth masses (and radii typically ~1- 2 Earth radii). They are the most common type of planet detected around other stars (especially in close- in orbits), yet the Solar System has none. Their formation remains an active area of research, with several competing but complementary mechanisms.

Planet formation begins in a protoplanetary disk of gas and dust around a young star. Dust grains grow into pebbles, then planetesimals (~1- 100 km), and eventually planetary embryos. Super- Earth cores form primarily via core accretion:

  • Solids accrete onto a rocky/icy core.
  • Once the core reaches a few Earth masses, it can begin accreting a gaseous envelope (H/He) from the disk.
  • Growth is limited by the local solid surface density (isolation mass) unless material is continuously supplied by radial drift or migration.

Many observed super- Earths are predominantly rocky (with thin or residual H/He atmospheres), though some may retain substantial water or gas envelopes (often called mini- Neptunes when radii are larger).

Main Formation Pathways

1. In Situ Formation (Close to the Star)
Planets grow near their final orbits (typically <1 AU) from a local reservoir of solids.

  • Challenges: Standard minimum- mass solar nebula (MMSN) models lack enough solid material inside ~1 AU to build multiple super- Earths.
  • Solutions: Enhanced solid surface densities (e.g., via pebble drift or a “dead zone” of low turbulence that allows material to pile up), or late assembly during disk dispersal when gas dynamical friction weakens, allowing embryos to collide and merge.
  • Advantage: Explains compact, multi- planet systems with similar sizes within a system. Variations in the total solid mass available can produce the observed diversity across systems.

2. Formation Farther Out and Migration
Cores form beyond the snow line (where water ice is stable, typically several AU), grow more massive due to higher solid abundance, then migrate inward via Type- I disk torques.

  • Embryos often pile up at the disk’s inner edge or in resonant chains.
  • After the gas disk dissipates, dynamical instabilities can break the resonances, producing the non-resonant compact systems commonly observed.
  • This pathway naturally produces a range of compositions (rocky if growth occurs mostly inside the snow line; water- rich if outside).

3. Ring/Planetesimal Concentration Models (Recent Emphasis)
Solids concentrate in narrow rings at sublimation lines (e.g., the silicate sublimation line near ~1 AU).

  • Planetesimals form rapidly in these rings.
  • Pairwise collisions grow planets until isolation or migration removes them from the ring.
  • High- mass rings produce systems of similar- sized super- Earths; low- mass rings produce Solar-System- like terrestrial planets. This helps explain both the abundance of super- Earths and the intra-system similarity in sizes.

4. Pebble Accretion
Pebbles (cm- to- meter sized) drift inward and are efficiently accreted by embryos. Combined with migration, this can rapidly build multiple super- Earth- mass planets that end up near the star after resonant chains form and later destabilize.

Why No Super- Earths in the Solar System?

Several ideas address the Solar System’s uniqueness:

  • Jupiter’s early formation may have acted as a barrier, blocking inward migration of outer material or preventing close- in super- Earth growth.
  • Super- Earths could have formed inside Mercury’s orbit (especially in a low turbulence “dead zone” disk) and later migrated into the Sun, clearing the region of solids. This is the scenario explored by Martin & Livio (2016) and linked to the recent Yıldız (2026) solar- model work suggesting the young Sun may have engulfed a ~5- 10 Earth- mass body.
  • Disk properties (turbulence level, solid mass, lifetime) simply differed from those of typical exoplanet-hosting disks.

Atmospheric Evolution

Even rocky- looking super- Earths often formed with primordial H/He envelopes. These can later be lost via:

  • Photoevaporation (stellar XUV radiation)
  • Core- powered mass loss
  • Giant impacts

This produces the observed radius “valley” separating rocky super- Earths from gas- rich mini- Neptunes.

No single pathway explains everything. The leading picture combines elements of solid concentration (rings or pebble drift), core growth, limited gas accretion, and Type- I migration, followed by late dynamical sculpting. Key remaining puzzles include the exact fraction of water- rich vs. dry worlds, the role of disk turbulence/dead zones, and why the Solar System appears atypical.

Observations from Kepler, TESS, JWST atmospheric characterization, and future missions (e.g., PLATO, ARIEL) continue to refine these models by providing bulk densities, atmospheric compositions, and system architectures.

Planetary engulfment as a solution to solar-model discrepancies and its implications for planetary systems 

This is the full scientific paper behind the news coverage: “Planetary engulfment as a solution to solar-model discrepancies and its implications for planetary systems” by Mutlu Yıldız (Ege University, Türkiye).

Thousands of close-in exoplanets suggest planetary engulfment may be common. The author investigates whether early accretion of planetary material can resolve long- standing discrepancies between standard solar models and observations, specifically:

  • Helioseismic sound-speed anomalies
  • Convection-zone depth
  • Surface abundances (including lithium)

Using the MESA stellar- evolution code, the models include pre- main- sequence accretion of metal- rich material (representing planetary engulfment) followed by metal-poor disc accretion (associated with planet formation).

Best- fitting model (DD1020) combines planetary engulfment with turbulent mixing and provides the strongest agreement with helioseismic constraints. It favors a super-Earth of mass ~5.6 Earth masses (≈0.33 Neptune masses), informally named “Dev Dilek.” Related best- fitting models prefer ~5- 10 Earth masses.

The dissolved planetary material settles below the convection zone (at mass coordinates m ≈ 0.96- 0.973 M⊙), creating a localized heavy- element enhancement (“Z-bump”). This modifies opacity and the internal stratification, improving the sound- speed profile.

Optimized control models that include variable mixing- length parameters and turbulent mixing without engulfment improve agreement only partially. Bayesian Information Criterion analysis indicates the improvement is not simply due to extra model flexibility.

Solar lithium depletion can be reproduced if the accreted material is lithium- poor and the planet mass is in the range 4.6- 5.8 Earth masses.

The paper also assesses physical feasibility via Roche- lobe stability, pressure- dependent planetary structure models, and classical aerodynamic drag/ablation. A compact rocky planet can traverse the solar convective envelope with negligible mass loss, supporting the scenario.

Main findings and conclusions

  • Standard solar models systematically underpredict sound speed just below the convection zone and overpredict the convection- zone base radius. Surface metallicity and helium abundances are also difficult to match simultaneously.
  • Planetary engulfment offers a unified physical mechanism that simultaneously improves multiple independent constraints.
  • The heavy- element enhancement lies in a narrow layer beneath the convection zone (roughly r ≈ 0.67–0.7 R⊙ in the best models).
  • Engulfment plus limited additional mixing beneath the convection zone can also account for the observed lithium depletion.
  • The results strengthen the physical plausibility of early planetary engulfment in the Solar System and suggest it should be considered more broadly in models of planet- hosting stars, especially when precise asteroseismic data are available.

The paper does not claim definitive proof that the Sun swallowed a planet, only that the scenario is consistent with current data and provides a better match than standard models or alternative mixing prescriptions alone. Future independent detection of the predicted structural/chemical signature (via improved helioseismology or other probes) would strengthen the case.

This is the primary source that the RAS press release and subsequent popular- science articles (including the MSN piece) were based on. The full text is available via Oxford Academic (subscription or institutional access may be required for the complete PDF).

Published: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 551, Issue 4, October 2026,

DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stag1527

Author: Mutlu Yıldız

ABSTRACT

Thousands of close-in exoplanets suggest that planetary engulfment may be common during stellar evolution. We investigate whether early accretion of planetary material can resolve discrepancies between standard solar models and observations, including helioseismic sound-speed anomalies, the convection-zone depth, and surface abundances. Using mesa, we model pre-main-sequence accretion of metal-rich material representing planetary engulfment, followed by metal-poor disc accretion associated with planet formation. Model DD1020, combining planetary engulfment and turbulent mixing, provides the best agreement with helioseismic constraints. It favours a super-Earth of mass   (0.33 ⁠) (Dev Dilek), while related best-fitting models favour –10 ⁠. The dissolved planetary material settles below the convection zone (⁠–0.973 ⁠), producing a localized heavy-element enhancement that modifies opacity and internal stratification. Optimized control models with variable mixing-length parameters and turbulent mixing but without engulfment improve the agreement only partially. Bayesian Information Criterion analysis shows that the improvement cannot be explained solely by increased model flexibility. The observed solar lithium depletion can be reproduced if the accreted material is lithium-poor and the engulfed planet has a mass of 4.6–5.8 ⁠. We also assess the physical feasibility of engulfment using Roche lobe stability, pressure-dependent planetary structure models, and classical aerodynamic drag and ablation. A compact rocky planet can traverse the solar convective envelope with negligible mass-loss, providing independent support for the proposed scenario.

Wrong, USA Today, “Hottest Summer Ever” Claim Ignores the Most Important Temperature Record

In a recent USA Today story “Hottest summer ever? US breaks longstanding record,” the writer claims that the United States just experienced its hottest summer ever based on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) latest temperature analysis. That claim is misleading, based on an incomplete causal analysis.

Cartoon illustrating climate change debate, featuring two characters: a smiling news anchor promoting headlines about record temperatures and a concerned scientist emphasizing the importance of long-term climate records. The background includes a thermometer, graphs showing historical climate changes, and text warning against short-term headlines misleading public perception.

From ClimateRealism

By Anthony Watts

In a recent USA Today story “Hottest summer ever? US breaks longstanding record,” the writer claims that the United States just experienced its hottest summer ever based on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) latest temperature analysis. That claim is misleading, based on an incomplete causal analysis. The best available evidence suggests that much of the reported “record” depends on adjusted temperature datasets and weather stations increasingly affected by urban development, while the nation’s highest-quality climate network tells a very different story.

USA Today accurately repeated NOAA’s announcement that the average temperature for June through August 2026 was the warmest in the 132-year record for the contiguous United States, edging out 1936 and 2021 by just 0.4°F.

That sounds straightforward enough, but unfortunately, it isn’t.

The first problem is terminology. USA Today repeatedly calls this the “hottest summer ever.” NOAA itself does not. NOAA consistently describes 2026 as the “warmest summer on record” based on average temperatures. The word “hottest” never appears in NOAA’s announcement. That distinction matters because “warmest average” and “hottest” are not the same thing.

Meteorologist Chris Martz carefully examined NOAA’s data and found that the reported record was driven largely by higher than normal overnight minimum temperatures rather than record daytime highs. Using average daytime maximum temperatures, 2026 ranks behind several earlier summers, including the legendary Dust Bowl summer of 1936.

That fact is hardly a trivial. Most Americans experience summer heat primarily during the daytime, not as an average of daytime highs and nighttime lows. Martz also points out something almost entirely absent from the media coverage. Although the national average narrowly set a record, very few parts of the country actually experienced their hottest summer.

Using NOAA’s own data, he found that only seven of 344 climate districts, barely two percent, recorded their warmest summer on record in 2026. Those districts were concentrated almost entirely in the Desert Southwest, see in Figure 1 below. By contrast, during the infamous summer of 1936, fifty-one climate districts set all-time summer records.

Map showing mean temperature percentiles in the United States for June to August 2026, indicating temperature ranges from coldest to warmest.
Figure 1. June–August 2026 U.S. mean temperature percentiles map. Source: NOAA NCEI.

That paints a much different picture than headlines suggesting the entire nation experienced unprecedented heat, when it did not.

Then there is an even larger issue that deserves far more attention.

NOAA’s long-term temperature record is not based solely on raw observations. It relies on a “homogenized” dataset in which station records are adjusted to account for changes in observation times, instrumentation, station moves, and other factors. NOAA openly acknowledges using these adjusted datasets for its national rankings.

Whether those adjustments perfectly capture reality is a legitimate scientific question; Martz argues they may not.

He notes that some adjustments are larger than the tiny 0.4°F margin separating 2026 from 1936, raising reasonable questions about whether the new record is as certain as headlines suggest. He also discusses concerns that NOAA’s pairwise homogenization algorithm may not adequately remove gradual urban heat island effects and could unintentionally blend urban warming into nearby rural stations. Whether one ultimately agrees with every aspect of that critique, these are serious methodological issues worthy of discussion, but the USA Today never opens that discussion.

There is another dataset that deserves attention.

The United States Climate Reference Network, or USCRN, is widely regarded as America’s gold standard surface temperature network. Unlike many older Cooperative Observer stations, USCRN sites were specifically designed to avoid contamination from expanding cities, parking lots, buildings, and other artificial heat sources.

The USCRN Figure 2 graph below tells an interesting story.

Line graph depicting average temperature departure from January 2005 to March 2026, with fluctuations ranging from -6°F to +8°F. The USCRN value is labeled at 7.69°F.
Figure 2. USCRN Average Temperature departure for the United States from January 2005 to the present.

The USCRN network data shows one extraordinary warm month during March 2026, with a national temperature anomaly reaching nearly 7.7°F above average. But June, July, and August do not stand out nearly as dramatically. Instead, they fall within the normal range of variability seen across the roughly twenty-year USCRN record.

If America truly experienced an unprecedented hot summer across its highest-quality climate observing network, one might expect the USCRN record to show an equally extraordinary signal. It doesn’t, and that discrepancy deserves investigation, not dismissal.

One plausible explanation is the urban heat island effect (UHI).

Many of NOAA’s legacy stations are located at airports or sites that have experienced decades of surrounding development. Asphalt, concrete, buildings, jet traffic, air conditioning exhaust, and expanding urbanization all contribute to elevated nighttime temperatures. Those are precisely the temperatures that drove much of NOAA’s reported national record. A perfect example of such a situation is the weather station is Reno, NV where an investigation revealed large warm biases in official temperature measurements. A similar problem has been identified by Roy Spencer, Ph.D. with temperatures recorded in and reported for Phoenix.

That possibility becomes even more significant in light of extensive station surveys documenting widespread siting problems throughout the U.S. Historical Climatology Network. The issue is not whether cities are warmer. Everyone agrees they are.

Then there is the problem of “ghost stations,” with NOAA reporting temperature data from stations that no longer exist. NOAA simply makes up temperature measurements for a huge number of closed stations based on averaging from surrounding stations, to maintain record continuity – but made up or assumed temperatures are not actual data.

The issue is whether artificial heat island biases are being fully removed and assumed “data” from ghost stations not counted, before national climate conclusions are announced. Reasonable scientists can debate that question, journalists should at least acknowledge it, but they don’t

Instead, USA Today presented NOAA’s adjusted temperature ranking as settled fact while ignoring both the methodological caveats and the existence of higher-quality observational data that display no record setting warmth. The result is another headline that generates maximum attention while minimizing  scientific complexity and compromising accuracy.

Good climate journalism should do the opposite. It should explain uncertainty, distinguish between adjusted datasets and pristine observations, and recognize that a record based on a few tenths of a degree deserves careful examination rather than unquestioning repetition.

Readers deserve more than headlines declaring “hottest ever.” They deserve the whole complicated story, with all the ifs, ands, buts, and “we just don’t know or can’t be sure,” included.

Trillion tree initiative is so 2020

In 1989, the U.S. Forest Service published a 13-page booklet (Program Aid No. 1442) titled “Trees are the answer… to America’s growing environmental concerns.”

The Society of American Foresters turned it into a bumper sticker, and by the end of the 1990s, cars across the country proclaimed, “Trees are the answer.”

A large tree trunk in a forest, featuring a carved design of the American flag, surrounded by lush green foliage.
American flag on a tree in the forest. Conceptual image.

From CFACT

By Greg Walcher

In 1989, the U.S. Forest Service published a 13-page booklet (Program Aid No. 1442) titled “Trees are the answer… to America’s growing environmental concerns.” The Society of American Foresters turned it into a bumper sticker, and by the end of the 1990s, cars across the country proclaimed, “Trees are the answer.”

During that same period, the global warming movement escalated, heightening worldwide concern about CO2, so the link between the two was inevitable. Human activity moves CO2 into the atmosphere – trees absorb it. A 9-year-old German student named Felix Finkbeiner started Plant-for-the-Planet, proposing that he and other kids plant a million trees in their own countries. He came to the UN, which had proposed a “billion trees program,” and Finkbeiner’s group turned it into the “Trillion Trees Initiative.” The group now has 30 employees, affiliated groups in eight countries, and has planted 100 million trees. An affiliated program on the Yucatan Peninsula has planted 17 billion.

The Trillion Trees Initiative caught the attention of world leaders, and President Trump, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2020, committed the U.S. to participation. His State of the Union message promoted the idea to Congress, touting the effort by both government and the private sector in planting trees across the U.S. and around the world.

Congress’s only forester, Rep Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.), introduced the Trillion Trees Act to finance tree planting and provide tax credits for sustainable wood products. He cited an American Academy for the Advancement of Science report suggesting that a trillion trees could capture 205 giga-tons of carbon, two-thirds of all manmade carbon in a century. Sixty-seven congressmen of both parties cosponsored the bill before a heavily publicized committee hearing.

Trump held a White House tree-planting ceremony on Earth Day, calling the tree the first of the trillion, “a very big deal.” Two days later, his Arbor Day message again cited the Trillion Trees Initiative. That fall, an executive order created the One Trillion Trees Interagency Council to coordinate federal participation through 2030. It never convened.

The 2020 election intervened, and the initiative was scarcely ever mentioned again. President Biden refocused the entire conservation agenda, mostly on climate change. Planting trees around the world was never part of his program. Nor has the idea been mentioned again since Trump’s return to the White House in 2025. No new speeches, executive actions, or press releases mentioning the Trillion Trees Initiative.

The issue also lost momentum on Capitol Hill. The 2020 hearing was the only one ever held on Westerman’s bill, though he is now the powerful chairman of the Natural Resources Committee. He has demonstrated the capacity to move substantial forestry legislation. The committee has held hearings and markups and reported numerous measures dealing with forest management, wildfire prevention, reforestation, and the federal forestry workforce. Yet Westerman has not even reintroduced his signature Trillion Trees Act.

What happened to an initiative so universally lauded just five years ago? It’s simple – groups determined to stop the use of fossil fuels figured out that the tree initiative could become a strong antidote to their CO2 alarmism, so they needed to shut it down. First, some scientists challenged the math on how much CO2 a trillion trees could absorb. They said planting that many trees would destroy grasslands that are ecologically valuable precisely because they aren’t forests. The environmental industry said promoting new seedlings would detract from saving old growth. They said Westerman just wanted to promote logging, and Trump just wanted to protect polluters. They called the idea “greenwashing,” a “fig-leaf solution” that allowed policymakers to sidestep the “fossil-fuel problem.”

That’s all politics – nothing to do with trees. Experts may differ on how much CO2 a trillion trees might absorb, but does it matter? The U.S. Geological Survey says 91 million metric tons of carbon are naturally stored every year, mostly by trees.

A trillion new trees is not an outlandish goal. The earth already has roughly 3 trillion trees, 300 billion in the U.S., 11 billion in Colorado alone. Americans already plant 2.5 billion new trees annually, and if we doubled that, the U.S. would meet its share of the global goal within 30 years. U.S. wildfires have burned perhaps 100 billion trees in the last 20 years, so imagine the benefit of simply replacing those.

All the environmental regulations, conferences, summits, and studies have failed to convince people to stop using energy to enhance their lives. Imagine all that time and money spent planting trees. Trees are the answer.

Sinabung Awakens: Indonesia’s Volcano Erupts After 5 Years of Quiet, Raising Alert to Level 3

Mount Sinabung’s return to activity after roughly five years of relative quiet fits a pattern the volcano has shown before, where periods of dormancy are followed by eruptive phases that can stretch on for months or longer rather than resolving in a single event. That assessment aligns well with Mount Sinabung’s documented recent history.

Mount Sinabung’s magma dynamics involve a multi- level crustal plumbing system that feeds viscous andesitic magma, often with evidence of recharge and mingling, leading to prolonged dome growth, collapses, and intermittent explosions.

Volcano Sinabung erupts dramatically with ash and smoke billowing into the sky, against a colorful sunset backdrop.
AI generated by Grok

Mount Sinabung (North Sumatra, Indonesia) erupted on August 31, 2026, prompting authorities to raise its alert level to Level III (Siaga/Alert, the second highest on Indonesia’s four- level scale) and expand the exclusion zone.

Key details from reports:

The eruption began around 10:17 a.m. local time. It produced a thick black ash column rising approximately 3,500 meters above the summit (about 5,960 meters above sea level), drifting east and southeast. Seismic readings showed a maximum amplitude of 120 mm and duration of over an hour.

This marked the volcano’s first significant eruption in about five years (previous notable activity ended around 2021). It had been at Level II (Waspada/Advisory) since May 2023.

Indonesia’s Geological Agency (Badan Geologi / PVMBG) raised the status to Level III effective 12:30 p.m. local time the same day, citing increased seismic activity beforehand (dozens of volcanic earthquakes, gusts, and tremors) and visual signs of unrest. Officials noted it as an initial eruption with potential for larger follow- up activity.

Exclusion/safe zone: Residents, visitors, and tourists were advised to stay outside a 3 km radius of the summit, with the restricted sector in the south-southeast expanded to about 5- 6 km (accounts vary slightly by source and update). People near rivers originating from the volcano were also warned about possible lahars (volcanic mudflows), especially with rain.

Impacts included evacuations (reports of hundreds of residents, such as ~615 from Kuta Tengah or higher figures in some updates, moved to shelters) and flight disruptions/cancellations at Kualanamu International Airport near Medan due to ash.

Authorities (including BNPB, the national disaster agency) urged calm, compliance with exclusion zones, and monitoring of official updates rather than rumors. Activity has continued under Level III monitoring in subsequent days, with ongoing seismic and visual surveillance.

Mount Sinabung is a stratovolcano on the Pacific Ring of Fire and has a history of intermittent eruptive periods.

Mount Sinabung’s return to activity after roughly five years of relative quiet fits a pattern the volcano has shown before, where periods of dormancy are followed by eruptive phases that can stretch on for months or longer rather than resolving in a single event. That assessment aligns well with Mount Sinabung’s documented recent history.

After roughly 1,200 years of dormancy, Sinabung reactivated with a relatively short eruptive episode in August- September 2010 (phreatic explosions and ash plumes). It then quieted again for a few years before entering a much longer, multi- year eruptive phase beginning in September 2013. That period featured repeated dome growth and collapses, pyroclastic density currents (PDCs), lava flows, vulcanian explosions, and ash emissions that continued intermittently through 2018- 2021 (with notable activity documented into September 2021).

Activity then declined substantially, and the volcano remained at a lower alert level (Level II) for years, until the August 31, 2026, eruption that sent an ash column ~3,500 m above the summit and prompted the raise to Level III (Siaga/Alert). Indonesian authorities explicitly described that event as an “initial eruption” with the possibility of further or larger activity.

As of early- to- mid September 2026 updates, the eruption was still ongoing at a lower intensity (gas and vapor plumes), the Level III alert remained in place, and exclusion zones (3 km radial, extended in the south- southeast sector) continued to be enforced, consistent with the expectation of a potentially prolonged phase rather than an isolated event.

This pattern, long quiescence interrupted by reactivation that settles into sustained or intermittent eruptive behavior lasting months to years, is characteristic of Sinabung’s post- 2010 behavior and similar to some other andesitic stratovolcanoes that produce viscous lava domes prone to repeated instability. Monitoring continues closely for any escalation.

Mount Sinabung’s magma dynamics involve a multi- level crustal plumbing system that feeds viscous andesitic magma, often with evidence of recharge and mingling, leading to prolonged dome growth, collapses, and intermittent explosions.

The dominant erupted material since the 2013 reactivation is andesite (typically 57- 65 wt% SiO₂), ranging from basaltic andesite to more evolved compositions. Lavas are porphyritic with phenocrysts of plagioclase, pyroxenes (clino- and orthopyroxene), amphibole, and minor olivine.

Black, porphyritic basaltic andesite enclaves (around 57 wt% SiO₂) are common in the host andesite.

These indicate incomplete mingling of a hotter, more mafic magma with a cooler, more evolved andesitic reservoir.

Petrological studies of 2013- 2016 products show overlapping mineral chemistries, zoned plagioclase, and crystallization conditions spanning a range of temperatures (~825-1100 °C) and pressures, consistent with multi- stage storage and interaction rather than simple single- chamber evolution. Composition slightly evolved toward more silicic values over successive eruptive phases.

Geophysical and petrological data point to a multi- level system:

Shallow reservoir: A key storage zone lies at approximately 1- 3.5 km below the summit (or ~0.9- 3 km below sea level in some GPS models). Seismic tomography images a low-Vp (low seismic velocity), low-seismicity zone interpreted as a shallow magma chamber with an estimated volume on the order of ~2 km³ during the 2014- 2017 period. InSAR and GPS studies of west Sunda volcanoes, including Sinabung, commonly detect inflation sources in this shallow range (~1- 3 km).

Deeper sources: Pressure sources and crystallization depths extend to ~8- 15 km (or deeper, with some barometry indicating ~24- 32 km regions). GPS modeling of 2013 deformation showed migration from deeper (~12- 15 km) to shallower levels prior to dome emergence. Deeper high- frequency volcano- tectonic earthquakes often precede or accompany ascent.

Magma rises through a conduit system that can partially seal, leading to pressurization. Hybrid and low-frequency earthquakes commonly signal magma movement or pressurization in the upper conduit and shallow reservoir.

During the long 2013- 2021 eruptive period (and likely relevant to the 2026 reactivation):

  • Magma ascent produces ground inflation detectable by continuous GPS and InSAR. Volume changes in modeled sources can reach tens of millions of cubic meters during inflation/deflation stages.
  • Once at the surface, viscous andesite forms lava domes and flows. Early extrusion rates were high (>7 m³/s, sometimes estimated higher), allowing a dome to transition into a flow extending up to ~3 km. Rates then declined exponentially (to ≪1 m³/s in later stages), matching observed ground deflation.
  • Dome instability drives many hazards: partial or complete collapses generate pyroclastic density currents (PDCs/block- and- ash flows) that travel several kilometers, mainly southeast and south. Cyclic vulcanian explosions arise from limited degassing in the upper conduit, gas pressurization beneath a crystalline, relatively impermeable dome, or unloading after collapses.
  • Degassing evolves with the eruption. SO₂ emission rates peak during intense phases (averages of hundreds to >1,000 t/d, with peaks near 3,800 t/d) and generally decline as supply wanes. Ash leachate chemistry (S/Cl ratios) tracks the transition from hydrothermal/accidental material in early phreatic/phreatomagmatic stages to more juvenile magmatic signatures.

Total erupted volume in the main 2013- 2018 phase reached roughly 0.16 km³ dense-rock equivalent by late 2015, with continued activity into 2021.

The August 31, 2026, eruption (ash column ~3,500 m) and subsequent Level III status fit the established pattern of renewed unrest after relative quiet. Pre- eruption increases in deep volcanic earthquakes, hybrid events, and denser emissions, along with later hotspot detections and ongoing gas/vapor plumes, are consistent with renewed magmatic involvement or pressurization of residual shallow magma.

Some early commentary suggested a possible phreatic component (heating of groundwater without direct magma arrival at the surface), but the overall history and monitoring indicators point to a system capable of transitioning into sustained magmatic extrusion or further explosive activity, as seen previously.

In summary, Sinabung’s dynamics are characterized by open-system behavior in a multi- level plumbing system: deeper recharge supplies a shallow andesitic reservoir, leading to slow, viscous effusion of domes that repeatedly destabilize.

This produces long- lived eruptive episodes punctuated by collapses and explosions rather than simple, short-lived events.

Continuous seismic, deformation, gas, and visual monitoring remains essential for tracking changes in this system.

Indonesia has approximately 127 active volcanoes, according to Badan Geologi / PVMBG (Pusat Vulkanologi dan Mitigasi Bencana Geologi). Of these, about 69 are closely monitored in real time.

Current Elevated Alert Levels (as of early– mid September 2026)

Level III (Siaga / Alert), Highest current alert (second- highest overall on the 4- level scale):

  • Anak Krakatau (Sunda Strait / Lampung- Banten)
  • Lewotobi Laki- laki (East Nusa Tenggara / Flores)
  • Merapi (Central Java / Yogyakarta)
  • Semeru (East Java)
  • Sinabung (North Sumatra)

Level II (Waspada / Advisory), Elevated activity (roughly 20- 22 volcanoes). Notable ones include:

  • Ibu (Halmahera, North Maluku), extremely frequent eruptions
  • Ili Lewotolok (Lembata, NTT), very high eruption count
  • Dukono (Halmahera)
  • Marapi (West Sumatra)
  • Karangetang (Siau Island, North Sulawesi)
  • Others frequently listed: Dempo, Rinjani, Tambora, Sangeangapi, Bromo, Raung, Slamet, Tangkuban Parahu, Kerinci, Gamalama, Lokon, Soputan, and several more across Sumatra, Java, Nusa Tenggara, Sulawesi, and Maluku.

The remaining monitored volcanoes are mostly at Level I (Normal).

No volcanoes are currently at Level IV (Awas / Warning), the highest level.

Indonesia sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire, so multiple volcanoes erupting or showing elevated activity at the same time is common.

In 2026 so far, at least 11 volcanoes have recorded eruptions, with Semeru, Ibu, Ili Lewotolok, Lewotobi Laki- laki and Anak Krakatau among the most active by eruption frequency.

Alert levels and recommendations (exclusion zones) can change quickly.

For the most up- to- date status, check the official MAGMA Indonesia platform (magma.esdm.go.id) or PVMBG reports.

Climate Alarmists Are Making False Claims to Derail Approval of Jackdaw and Rosebank

Both the Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields have had a chequered history. Both were discovered in the mid-2000s and were initially approved for development in 2023 and 2022, respectively.

Previous Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has described the decision to issue a development licence to Rosebank as “climate vandalism.” But now new Prime Minister Andy Burnham and new Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh have vowed to take a more “pragmatic” approach to the North Sea.

An illustrated graphic comparing climate change propaganda and reality, featuring exaggerated claims of £483 billion climate damage, polar bears, and a critique of coal plants. It includes humorous depictions of people reacting in shock, social media references, and symbols of fossil fuel industry impact.
AI generated by Grok

From The Daily Sceptic

By David Turver

A large oil rig in the background with a stack of coins in the foreground indicating £29bn in UK benefits, £483bn in claimed climate damage, and £62 trillion if applied to all fossil CO2.

Both the Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields have had a chequered history. Both were discovered in the mid-2000s and were initially approved for development in 2023 and 2022, respectively. But the approvals were overturned in 2025 because the Government had not taken into account the Scope 3 emissions arising from burning the hydrocarbons once they had been extracted.

Previous Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has described the decision to issue a development licence to Rosebank as “climate vandalism.” But now new Prime Minister Andy Burnham and new Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh have vowed to take a more “pragmatic” approach to the North Sea. The decision to approve both fields has allegedly been pushed back to this month because of the “optics” of approving new oil and gas licences during a heatwave. Stop press: the decision might now be postponed beyond the Holborn and St Pancras by-election because of pressure from the Greens.

Sensing weakness in the Government, the green industrial complex has ramped up the rhetoric with the Guardian claiming a new analysis calculated that £119 billion to £336 billion of economic damage would be caused by burning the hydrocarbons produced by Rosebank and Jackdaw, or £170–483 billion under a high production scenario. This article looks at the source of those claims and tests their veracity.

Source of Jackdaw and Rosebank damage claims

The Guardian made reference to a research article produced by Luke Hatton under the auspices of the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London. The reason the alleged damages are so high is they use a social cost of carbon of $754/t to $1,538/t or £572/t to £1,167/t at a GBP: USD exchange rate of 1.381. These are simply astronomical numbers and compare to the current UK carbon price of about £60/t. To make the damage numbers even bigger, they then escalate the cost of carbon by 2% for each year of the life of the field.

The research article claims that the total emissions from burning the production of both fields may reach almost 300 million tonnes under a high production scenario and the maximum damages reach £483 billion. This equates to £1,610/t, or almost 27 times the current cost of carbon. These alleged damages are compared to the estimated economic benefits of the projects of £28.7 billion. The article claims the damages from Jackdaw and Rosebank are up to 16.8 times higher than the economic benefits.

The paper concludes by contrasting Miliband’s “climate vandalism” quote and the latest “pragmatic” noises from Burnham and Fahnbulleh. Hatton says his article aims to inform the policy choice by quantifying the economic trade-offs and climate damages.

Flaws in the Jackdaw and Rosebank article

There are several problems with Hatton’s Jackdaw and Rosebank article. First, it assumes that extracting and burning oil and gas from Jackdaw and Rosebank will create an additional pulse of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere – in effect, greater supply will lead to greater demand. It is more likely that Jackdaw and Rosebank will displace supply that is marginally more expensive and make no difference to global demand. Moreover, the gas from Jackdaw will likely displace expensive LNG with higher emissions than using domestically produced gas. Strike one against the article.

Second, Hatton compares the alleged global climate damages with UK-only benefits, which is not a like-for-like test. The relevant comparison would be to compare the global costs to the global benefits. There is global value in the energy those hydrocarbons provide such as heat, transport and feedstock. Hatton misses out these benefits and uses only the receipts booked in Aberdeen and Whitehall. On any such basis the £28.7 billion is a lower bound on benefits, not the full credit side. Strike two against the article.

Third, Hatton writes that holding damages fixed in 2025 pounds “does not account for the non-linear relationship between emissions and warming,” and therefore raises the social cost of carbon by 2% a year. However, the relationship between temperature changes and increased carbon dioxide concentration is logarithmic in nature:

Mathematical expression showing the relationship for temperature change, represented as ΔT equals λ times alpha times the natural logarithm of the ratio of c to c0.

This means that each extra molecule has less impact on temperature. The non-linearity that would justify a rising cost of carbon is not in the physics of forcing. However, the alleged damage function that does have a non-linear relationship in the way Hatton means – in the Burke paper he references – is a hypothesis, not a hard physical relationship. Readers should also note how fragile these damage functions are, since the Kotz paper was withdrawn late last year, calling into question the damage functions used by a consortium of central banks worldwide. Strike three against Hatton’s article.

Fourth, the scale of the claimed “damages” is nothing short of extraordinary. If these claims are scaled up to the global level, the figures frankly look ridiculous. According to Our World in Data, in 2024 the world emitted 38.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide from burning hydrocarbons. If the average £1,610/t social cost of carbon used in the Hatton article is applied to these emissions, we get a value for the alleged climate damage from these emissions of £62.1 trillion (or $85.8 trillion at a 1.381 exchange rate). According to the World Bank, global GDP in 2024 was $111.67 trillion. This means the alleged climate damages from fossil fuels, using Hatton’s sky-high carbon costs, amount to about 76.8% of global GDP – clearly a risible conclusion. Strike four.

Finally, the implication of Hatton’s research article is that the damages from Jackdaw and Rosebank must be avoided by refusing to grant development licences. We have seen the claimed damages from using an astronomical cost of carbon are absurd. But we should also consider the counterfactual of the economic harm if we applied the same logic of such high carbon costs globally and stopped burning coal, oil and gas to avoid the alleged climate damages. According to Our World in Data, the world consumed 175,605TWh of primary energy with coal, oil and gas providing 142,532TWh or 81.2% of the total, see Figure 1.

Graph showing global primary energy use by source from 1800 to 2025, measured in terawatt-hours. The chart indicates contributions from various sources including coal, oil, gas, nuclear, hydropower, wind, solar, biofuels, and other renewables.
Figure 1 – Global Primary Energy by Source (TWh)

What would happen if we stopped using this coal, oil and gas (the Just Stop Oil mantra)? It is not only hydrocarbon energy sources that would suffer. Coal is used to make steel and oil is used as a lubricant, so no more wind turbines or solar arrays could be built and no more nuclear or hydro power plants either. It is clear the impact on global energy is likely higher than the raw figures would suggest, but we can ignore that for now.

Our World in Data also shows us that in 2024 the world consumed 20,154kWh per person and GDP was $21,393 per capita. It is important to note there are no rich countries with low energy use, as shown in Figure 2:

A scatter plot showing energy use per person against GDP per capita for various countries in 2024. The y-axis measures energy consumption in kilowatt-hours, while the x-axis represents GDP per capita in international dollars. Key countries highlighted include the United States, China, the United Kingdom, and the European Union, with additional data points for countries in Africa and South America.
Figure 2 – Energy Use per Person vs GDP per Capita

Removing 81.2% of this energy would bring per capita energy consumption down to about 3,789kWh per person. This is around the level of countries like Congo (3,858kWh/person), Mauritania (3,807) and Nicaragua (3,823). The GDP per capita of these countries in 2024 was $6,153, $6,483 and $7,661 respectively – much lower than the world average and far below that of developed countries.

If we scale up Hatton’s article to a global level and consider the impact on the global economy of removing hydrocarbons to avoid the alleged $85.8 trillion of climate damages, then the global economy would collapse. Is Hatton really suggesting Britain and the rest of the world should stop burning hydrocarbons so they regress to poverty-stricken agrarian economies? This level of economic and social damage is far higher than his risible “social cost of carbon.” Hydrocarbons bring untold social and economic benefits. In addition, about half the world’s population is dependent for food on nitrogen fertiliser made from natural gas. Stopping this would lead to half the world going hungry and starving to death. Is this really a better outcome than burning coal, oil and gas? Is Hatton really suggesting that Britain’s “climate leadership” will persuade China and the United States to give up coal, oil and gas? Strike five.

Conclusion

This “research article” is clearly propaganda designed to derail the approval of Jackdaw and Rosebank. Hatton uses astronomical estimates of the social cost of carbon that do not hold up to even cursory scrutiny. The flaws in the report have not stopped the Guardian drawing attention to it. The green industrial complex is clearly rattled that the fields may be approved and thus to some extent break the Net Zero spell, so it has resorted to disinformation to pressure the Government. It would be a travesty if Burnham and Fahnbulleh use this flimsy report as a pretext to refuse approval of these oil and gas fields.

David Turver writes the Eigen Values Substack page, where this article first appeared.

Watch: Morano on Fox on Massachusetts ‘green energy’ mandate for data centers

Massachusetts Gov Healey demands data centers use clean energy.

It’s a way of saying we’re banning data centers, but we’re not actually saying we’re banning data centers.

But we already have Larry Fink of BlackRock announce that solar and wind cannot possibly power AI data centers; you need fossil fuels.

A television host smiles while discussing a news segment about data centers and clean energy. The background features a graphic with the text 'MA GOV DEMANDS DATA CENTERS USE CLEAN ENERGY' and live broadcast details.

From CFACT

By CFACT Ed

WATCH NOW

Massachusetts Gov Healey demands data centers use clean energy – ClimateDepot.com executive editor Marc Morano discusses Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey’s demand that data centers use clean energy and opposition to artificial intelligence data centers on ‘The Bottom Line.’

Partial Transcript: 

Morano on Massachusetts green energy mandates for data centers:

It’s a way of saying we’re banning data centers, but we’re not actually saying we’re banning data centers. What they’re doing is the same scam we’ve seen for decades now, originating with Al Gore. They’re setting up, essentially, this fund, which you could safely call a climate slush fund, demanding that all AI data centers being built in the state of Massachusetts adhere to green energy.

But we already have Larry Fink of BlackRock announce that solar and wind cannot possibly power AI data centers; you need fossil fuels.

You have Bill Gates, you have Mark Zuckerberg, you have Jeff Bezos, all investing in fossil fuels and in nuclear energy. The last thing they’re doing right now is saying, ‘Oh, solar and wind will power our new AI data centers.”

The math isn’t mathing. The physics aren’t physicing, and the state’s reality is not reality.

It’s a way to fill the state coffers. I don’t think the state will get any money in this climate slush fund because there’s no AI data center that’s going to adhere to their ridiculous proposal.

But in Massachusetts, let’s be clear if this goes forward, they’ve essentially banned AI data centers. And that’s what we should call it, a ban. It’s not, ‘if they meet this green energy provision, they can build’ — because that’s nonsensical, and it’s a non-starter. Every AI advocate will tell you — anyone who studies AI will tell you — that ‘green energy’ can’t possibly power it.

…

Fox Anchor: A sports editor at the Los Angeles Times has a new target for climate doom, college football writing on X quote, at some point schools and TV networks are going to have to adapt to climate change. And stop expecting fans to tolerate extreme heat as a badge of honor supporting their teams. What is this individual? I couldn’t ascertain if that was a the gender of that person wouldn’t, the hell is this person talking about?

Morano: This is a senior sports editor over there and it’s the same Los Angeles Times that said that the World Cup back in June would cause a climate catastrophe and warned of the games being too hot. Remember we had the whole thing with the World Cup where the media was touting that we could have fans that were overly drunk due to the climate and you’d have extra slow players from climate change.

The Los Angeles Times has also said they want to get rid of individual air conditioners in homes and have cooling centers around the city, so people could go congregate in central locations.

See: LA Times: Instead of air conditioning running in your home during heatwaves, the LA Times interviews experts suggesting “investing in a wider network of cooling centers, with transportation to help people get there.” 

This is utter nonsense. If you look at EPA data, it was much hotter in the 1930s, heat waves in the United States than anything we’re experiencing now. The EPA’s Heat Wave Index was significantly higher during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Imagine if these games were back then? Meteorologist debunks ‘belief’ that ‘climate change is making heatwaves worse: Heatwaves in USA were more frequent from 1901-1960 & ‘Number of days reaching 100°F & 105°F have also declined since 1895’

I don’t understand how an allegedly intelligent person with the Los Angeles Times can come out and say essentially: ‘We can’t do sporting events during the day because of climate change.’ If it’s an extra hot day, maybe move the game to later in the day when it’s cooler. But that’s not climate change. That’s just smart sports practices. But the LA Times just cannot help themselves.

And they keep pushing this nonsense over and over. They did it with the World Cup; they’re doing it with football. By the way, the La Clippers basketball team are involved in a carbon scheme fraud scandal. So the whole City of Los Angeles and California just can’t get away from it.

Fox Anchor: There’s always got to be some dumb politics getting in the middle of sports. Marc Morano, you bring all the smart analysis and energy. Thank you very much; we appreciate it.