Scientists Track Hidden Weather Systems That Drive More Tropical Rainfall Than Cyclones

Scientists from Monash University have, for the first time, identified and tracked “moisture modes” and related systems as discrete, trackable weather objects, showing that these less dramatic systems collectively contribute more to tropical rainfall than tropical cyclones.

The paper introduces a practical framework for defining and tracking synoptic-scale tropical weather systems (other than tropical cyclones).

Meteorologists monitor tropical cyclones and weather patterns in a high-tech forecasting center overlooking a stormy tropical coastline.
AI generated by Grok

Scientists from Monash University have, for the first time, identified and tracked “moisture modes” and related systems as discrete, trackable weather objects, showing that these less dramatic systems collectively contribute more to tropical rainfall than tropical cyclones.

The study, published 6 November 2026 in Weather and Climate Dynamics (Respati, Singh & Jakob), uses more than three decades of satellite observations (1984- 2016). Researchers identified large areas of high, cold cloud linked to organised tropical convection and tracked them as individual objects, classifying them mainly by propagation speed:

  • Moisture modes: relatively slow- moving systems that organise thunderstorms and rainfall over several days; strongly coupled to moisture perturbations.
  • Inertio- gravity (IG) waves and gravity- wave systems: faster- moving systems with stronger temperature perturbations.
  • Mixed systems: intermediate speeds and characteristics.

This turns moisture modes from largely theoretical concepts into trackable objects analogous to tropical cyclones.

Key findings include:

  • Moisture modes are especially important near the northern and southern margins of the humid tropics (including areas near tropical Australia), where they are linked to 45- 75% of extreme three- hourly rainfall events in some regions.
  • Overall, the defined systems (including TCs) account for a large share of total tropical rainfall and an even larger share of heavy rainfall.
  • Mixed systems tend to matter more in equatorial regions such as the Pacific ITCZ; IG waves and TCs each contribute less due to lower frequency and spatial coverage.

Professor Christian Jakob noted: “Tropical cyclones are the divas of the tropics… But less dramatic systems occur much more frequently, and collectively they are very important for rainfall.”

Lead author Muhamad Reyhan Respati emphasised that defining moisture modes as objects allows them to be tracked like tropical cyclones. The approach helps fill a longstanding gap: mid- latitude weather is routinely described via discrete systems (fronts, highs, lows), while the tropics previously lacked a comparable framework between individual thunderstorms and planetary- scale waves.

Source press release: Monash University, 11 November 2026.
Paper: “The moisture mode-to-gravity wave spectrum as a framework to define tropical weather systems,” Weather Clim. Dynam., 7, 2171- 2192, 2026.

Two men walk along a flooded pathway in heavy rain, with trees and hedges surrounding them.
Image credit: Pexels, Nadim Mahmud
More important than tropical cyclones: Scientists finally track the hidden weather systems behind most tropical rainfall – Monash University

The moisture mode- to- gravity wave spectrum as a framework to define tropical weather systems

The paper introduces a practical framework for defining and tracking synoptic-scale tropical weather systems (other than tropical cyclones).

It bridges two previous approaches:

  • Object tracking of mesoscale convective systems (MCSs)
  • Spectral analysis of planetary- scale waves (e.g., MJO, equatorial waves)

Using theory on the moisture mode- to- gravity wave spectrum, the authors classify convectively coupled systems by zonal phase speed:

CategoryPhase speed (approx.)Dominant physics
Moisture modesSlow (≲ 9 m s⁻¹)Strong moisture anomalies; weak temperature gradients
Mixed systemsIntermediate (~9- 27 m s⁻¹)Hybrid moisture and buoyancy characteristics
Inertio- gravity (IG) wavesFast (≳ 27 m s⁻¹)Stronger temperature and buoyancy anomalies

Key findings

  • Consistent with theory, the ratio of low- level temperature to moisture anomalies increases with phase speed (moisture variations remain non-negligible even for IG waves).
  • Moisture modes and mixed systems show distinct dynamical structures near vs. off the equator; IG waves are less clearly differentiated.
  • Characteristics are broadly consistent across the tropics, with some regional variations.
  • Rainfall importance:
    • Moisture modes account for up to 75% of extreme rainfall events along climatological moist margins (including regions near tropical Australia).
    • Mixed systems dominate rainfall contributions in the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ).
    • Together with tropical cyclones, these systems explain a large fraction of total and especially heavy tropical rainfall.

Methods (high- level)

  • Satellite observations (primarily outgoing longwave radiation / high cold cloud areas associated with organised convection, 1984- 2016).
  • Lagrangian object tracking of cloud systems combined with spectral filtering by phase speed.
  • Composites of thermodynamic and dynamic fields from reanalysis (ERA5) and precipitation data (GPM- IMERG).

Significance

This framework treats moisture modes as discrete, trackable “weather objects” analogous to mid- latitude cyclones or fronts. It opens new possibilities for:

  • Improved understanding of day- to- day tropical rainfall organisation
  • Conditional forecasting of extremes
  • Attribution of rainfall changes under global warming (frequency vs. intensity of different system types)

Direct links:

This is the scientific paper behind the recent Monash University press release about systems “more important than tropical cyclones” for tropical rainfall.

Paper: The moisture mode- to- gravity wave spectrum as a framework to define tropical weather systems

Journal: Weather and Climate Dynamics, 7, 2171- 2192, 2026

DOI: 10.5194/wcd-7-2171-2026

Provided: Monash University

Published: 6 November 2026

Open access: Full PDF and supplement available on the Copernicus site.

Authors: Muhamad Reyhan Respati,
Martin S. Singh,
and Christian Jakob

Abstract

While mid-latitude weather is commonly described in terms of discrete “weather systems”, such as cyclones and fronts, an equivalent framework is less established in the tropics due to the wide range of relevant scales. Instead, tropical weather is often analysed either in Lagrangian terms, through the tracking of mesoscale convective systems, or via spectral decomposition into planetary-scale wave-like disturbances. Here, we use both spectral analysis and Lagrangian object tracking to develop a novel framework for analysing tropical weather systems. We apply recent theoretical advances to classify convectively coupled tropical motions into three types based on their zonal phase speed: moisture modes, inertio-gravity waves, and mixed systems. We show that, consistent with theory, the observed ratio of low-level temperature to moisture anomalies increases with the system’s phase speed, although moisture variations may not be negligible for inertio-gravity waves. Moisture modes and mixed systems show distinct dynamical structures near and off the equator, while inertio-gravity waves are less clearly differentiated. These characteristics are broadly consistent across the tropics, with some regional variations. We find that moisture modes account for up to 75 % of extreme rainfall events along climatological moist margins, whereas mixed systems dominate in the intertropical convergence zone. Our tropical weather systems framework offers a new way to link large-scale tropical dynamics with precipitation.

Gaslighting and collectivism all in one day at COP31

Former U.S. Secretary of State and longtime climate change devotee John Kerry made a triumphant return to the UN COP climate summit on its second day with an Orwellian claim that American voters endorsed his climate change agenda.

The American people “made climate change and its exigencies a voting issue,” he said.

Satirical COP31 climate conference illustration contrasting gaslighting about global warming with collectivist carbon quotas and shared emissions.
AI generated by Meta

From CFACT

By Peter Murphy

Former U.S. Secretary of State and longtime climate change devotee John Kerry made a triumphant return to the UN COP climate summit on its second day with an Orwellian claim that American voters endorsed his climate change agenda.

Two men walking outdoors, with one wearing sunglasses and an event badge and the other in a dark suit.
John Kerry hurriedly walks past the CFACT delegation as he departs COP31, Wed., Nov. 11.

The American people “made climate change and its exigencies a voting issue,” he said.

A short bus ride away from Kerry’s fantasy world, a panel of corporate business leaders described the challenges for the private sector to implement lower carbon emission targets to meet “climate goals”. The consensus among this panel was that governments must institute “collective action” by mandating such targets on all businesses.

With the Democratic Party roaring back to sizable majorities in both houses of Congress, which hold the power of the purse, Mr. Kerry is right to feel giddy, since one of his party’s agenda items — kept hidden during the election campaign — is to reinstate climate mandates on U.S. businesses and, invariably, U.S. consumers, many of whom voted last week in record numbers.

Well into his octogenarian years, yet still vigorous with a fulsome head of hair (likely fake), Mr. Kerry gaslighted his audience with the mendacious claim that “Americans did vote for clean, affordable energy,” deceitfully declaring they embraced the climate agenda, which is the opposite of affordable.

Mr. Kerry has never let facts, science, or practicality get in the way of his pursuit of climate nirvana on Earth, and no one in the building was going to challenge him, including the supine media.

Last week’s election outcomes were arguably a repudiation of climate policies long championed by Kerry, former Vice President Al Gore, and their fellow climate colleagues in the U.S. House and Senate.

Reputable post-election surveys found that the overwhelming concern of voters was the lack of affordability in the cost of living, which was the theme the Democrats used to defeat President Donald Trump’s fellow Republicans in Congress and capture robust majorities in both houses. The affordability issue stemmed primarily from high gasoline and food prices, for which the major influences are the Iran war and tariffs.

Climate change did not register as a concern for American voters. Since climate policies necessarily lead to higher gasoline and oil prices to help make “renewable” energy more economically competitive, e.g., by canceling oil and natural gas development and imposing usage mandates on utility companies, it stands to reason that Americans voted against such policies that would mathematically exacerbate their affordability concerns.

Two men converse at a COP31 event beside a table with water bottles.

Which brings us to the COP31 panel, Leading by Example: Corporate Best Practices for Climate Action, which comprised several private-sector business leaders who discussed ways to “accelerate implementation” of renewable energy to reduce “greenhouse gases … to achieve climate goals.”

This panel at first danced around the implications of achieving such climate goals before eventually acknowledging that reducing one’s carbon footprint with alternative energy sources is “not cost effective [and] no one would do this,” said Emre Kuzu, General Manager of Honeywell in Türkiye. Since cost-prohibitive climate goals cannot be achieved through the free marketplace, “[government] mandates are essential,” he said.

“Collective action is the name of the game here,” said one of the panel’s moderators, an assertion no one on the panel challenged, but all endorsed.

“Collective behavior is very important,” said Murat Tarakcioglu, the chairman of Cargill in Türkiye, the Middle East and Africa.

Agreeing among on climate goals and the need for “action” is free and easy to businesses and nations alike, which is basically what every COP summit celebrates. “Implementation” of climate policies to reduce carbon emissions is something else entirely because it imposes tangible cost increases to businesses, which are passed onto customers.

Addressing the affordability problem in the U.S. starts with lowering gasoline prices and removing tariffs, which will necessitate increasing global supply of oil and natural gas.

By contrast, “achieving climate goals” necessitates government mandates to impose “collective action” to use more expensive wind and solar energy and cut the supply and usage of oil and gas, which will raise their costs.

“Fighting climate change” through “implementation” of climate goals agreed upon at annual UN COP summits is costly and economically damaging, which is why so many nations balk at doing so, and why others (e.g., China, India and the U.S. under the Trump administration) refuse altogether to play along.

The new Democratic congressional majorities, if they echo John Kerry’s delusion to eagerly reinstate high-cost climate policies, do so at their political peril.

Stay tuned.

Same Cloud Loss, Different Climate Impact: Why Reflectivity Matters More Than Coverage Alone

Similar changes in cloud cover can produce different climate effects primarily because of differences in the clouds’ initial reflectivity (how strongly they reflect sunlight).

It is a gold open- access article. Direct full- text retrieval is currently limited, but the University of Wyoming news release (based on the paper and interviews with the lead author) provides a clear summary of its main results.

Infographic comparing high- and low-reflectivity cloud loss, showing how bright clouds cause stronger cooling while thinner clouds allow more sunlight absorption and warming.
AI generated by Grok

Similar changes in cloud cover can produce different climate effects primarily because of differences in the clouds’ initial reflectivity (how strongly they reflect sunlight).

A University of Wyoming led study (published October 18, 2026, in Geophysical Research Letters) examined this using 250 experimental configurations of the Energy Exascale Earth System Model version 3 (E3SMv3).

Researchers focused on marine low clouds (especially stratocumulus) over eastern subtropical oceans, which strongly cool Earth by reflecting sunlight.

How these clouds respond to warming is a major source of uncertainty in climate projections.

Key findings

  • Reflectivity matters more than coverage alone: The same reduction in cloud cover has a larger warming effect if the clouds were highly reflective to begin with (they blocked more incoming solar energy). Losing less- reflective clouds has a smaller impact. In short, both how much cloud cover changes and the clouds’ starting optical properties determine the net climate effect.⁠
  • A major control on reflectivity in the model is the efficiency of converting cloud water into rain. When this process is less efficient, more liquid water stays in the clouds, making them brighter and more reflective and amplifying the climate impact of any given change in coverage.
  • The model generally captured the direction of observed cloud responses to meteorological and aerosol changes (compared with satellite data from ~2010- 2016) but often exaggerated their strength.⁠
  • A consistent shortcoming: the model failed to reproduce the observed cloud response to surface temperature advection (winds transporting cooler air over warmer ocean regions). In reality, this tends to increase low- cloud cover and reflectivity via enhanced near- surface mixing, heat, and moisture; none of the 250 simulations recovered this relationship. Fixing it will require better representation of the underlying small- scale processes.

Lead author Timothy Myers (UW Department of Atmospheric Science) emphasized that evaluating models requires looking at both coverage changes and baseline reflectivity.

The work builds on the UW- led Nephele project, which systematically varies uncertain cloud, convection, and aerosol parameters. Collaborators included other UW researchers and Mark Zelinka of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

The study was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy.

Bottom line: Predicting future warming depends not only on whether cloud cover increases or decreases, but on the radiative properties of those clouds.

Highly reflective clouds that diminish allow more solar energy into the climate system than the same areal loss of dimmer clouds. Improving these processes in models should reduce uncertainty in cloud feedback and climate sensitivity estimates.

Full UW news release: https://www.uwyo.edu/news/2026/11/uw-study-reveals-why-similar-cloud-changes-can-have-different-climate-effects.html.

The scientific paper is “Cloud Controlling Factor Analysis Reveals E3SMv3 Structural Bias and Mean State Controls on Stratocumulus Radiative Sensitivity.”

Three-panel chart showing stratocumulus radiative sensitivity to controlling factors for total, amount, and optical depth, comparing observations with model estimates and PPE distributions.
Stratocumulus radiative sensitivity to controlling factors. Credit: Geophysical Research Letters (2026). DOI: 10.1029/2026gl125263

Cloud Controlling Factor Analysis Reveals E3SMv3 Structural Bias and Mean State Controls on Stratocumulus Radiative Sensitivity

It is a gold open- access article. Direct full- text retrieval is currently limited, but the University of Wyoming news release (based on the paper and interviews with the lead author) provides a clear summary of its main results.

Researchers used a large perturbed- parameter ensemble (250 configurations of E3SMv3, drawn from the UW- led Nephele project) to examine how marine stratocumulus, low clouds respond to changes in their environment (meteorological and aerosol “cloud- controlling factors”). They compared the simulations with satellite observations covering roughly 2010– 2016.

Key results include:

  • Similar changes in cloud cover can produce very different climate effects depending on the clouds’ baseline reflectivity (how strongly they reflect sunlight). Losing highly reflective clouds allows more solar energy into the climate system than losing the same area of less- reflective clouds. Both the change in coverage and the starting optical properties therefore matter for cloud feedback and future warming estimates.⁠
  • The efficiency with which the model converts cloud liquid water into rain is a strong control on cloud reflectivity. When conversion is less efficient, more water remains in the clouds → higher reflectivity → larger climate impact from a given change in cover.⁠
  • The model generally captures the direction of observed cloud responses to most meteorological and aerosol changes but frequently overestimates their magnitude.⁠
  • A persistent structural bias exists none of the 250 simulations reproduced the observed cloud response to surface temperature advection (winds carrying cooler air over warmer ocean water). In observations this process tends to increase low- cloud cover and reflectivity; the model systematically misses it. Correcting this will require improvements to how the underlying boundary-layer and mixing processes are represented.

Authors (from the UW release): Timothy Myers (lead), Travis Aerenson, Jacqueline Nugent, Hunter Brown, and Daniel McCoy (University of Wyoming Department of Atmospheric Science), plus Mark Zelinka (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory).

Implication: Accurate assessment of cloud feedback (and therefore climate sensitivity) requires evaluating both how cloud amount changes and the mean-state radiative properties of those clouds. The study identifies specific processes for model developers to target.

For the complete scientific details, methods, figures, and quantitative results, access the paper directly via the DOI link above (or through an institutional subscription and open- access route).

The UW news summary is available at:
https://www.uwyo.edu/news/2026/11/uw-study-reveals-why-similar-cloud-changes-can-have-different-climate-effects.html.

Journal: Geophysical Research Letters

DOI: 10.1029/2026GL125263

Provided: University of Wyoming

First published: 18 October 2026

Authors: T. A. Myers, T. Aerenson, D. T. McCoy, M. D. Zelinka, J. M. Nugent, H. Brown

Abstract

We investigate marine stratocumulus cloud radiative sensitivity to meteorological and aerosol controlling factors in a perturbed parameter ensemble of the Energy Exascale Earth System Model version 3 (E3SMv3). The ensemble perturbs 25 cloud, convection, and aerosol parameters, spanning diverse cloud behavior. The default simulation and many ensemble members capture observed responses to most controlling factors, but not to surface temperature advection, revealing a structural deficiency in processes linking stratocumulus to advection. Many members also overestimate cloud fraction and radiative responses to inversion strength, free-tropospheric humidity, and sulfate aerosol optical depth. Differences in mean cloud optical depth substantially modify the radiative impact of similar cloud fraction changes, showing that the mean cloud state strongly regulates stratocumulus radiative sensitivity. Across the ensemble, conversion of cloud water to rain controls mean optical depth, identifying autoconversion as a key microphysical control on stratocumulus radiative sensitivity.

Seafloor Clay Reveals West Antarctica’s Ice Collapsed Repeatedly Over 800,000 Years

Scientists led by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) found strong evidence from seafloor sediment (clay and mud) cores that West Antarctica’s most vulnerable ice streams, including Thwaites Glacier, repeatedly collapsed and retreated far inland during natural warm periods (interglacial) over the past 800,000 years.

Over the last 800,000 years, Earth’s climate has followed a roughly 100,000-year cycle of glacial (cold, ice- sheet growth) and interglacial (warmer, ice-sheet retreat) periods. This pattern became dominant after the Mid- Pleistocene Transition.

Infographic showing Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica and seafloor clay evidence of repeated ice-sheet collapses over 800,000 years.
AI generated by Grok

Scientists led by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) found strong evidence from seafloor sediment (clay and mud) cores that West Antarctica’s most vulnerable ice streams, including Thwaites Glacier, repeatedly collapsed and retreated far inland during natural warm periods (interglacial) over the past 800,000 years.

The key signal comes from the clay mineral kaolinite (also known as china clay). This mineral formed under warmer, wetter conditions on Antarctica more than 34 million years ago and is now locked in bedrock beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS).

Glaciers like Thwaites and Pine Island grind it out and deliver it offshore via icebergs and currents. In sediment cores recovered from ~4,000 m depth on the Amundsen Sea continental margin (IODP Expedition 379 sites U1533 and U1532), the kaolinite signal drops to near-zero during every interglacial in the record. This indicates that marine- based ice in the Amundsen Sea sector retreated far into the continent’s interior, cutting off the supply of that glacigenic debris.⁠

Supporting evidence includes:

  • A second clay mineral, smectite (a magnesium- rich variety with a chemical signature from the deep Pacific Ocean floor farther north). Its increased presence at the same times as kaolinite disappearance points to warm deep-water currents (Circumpolar Deep- Water intrusions) carrying it southward while melting the grounded ice.⁠
  • Diatom microfossil proxies showing local seawater temperatures in front of the WAIS were about 1- 3°C warmer than today’s near- freezing baseline during those periods, even when global average temperatures were only ~1.0- 1.5°C warmer than pre- industrial levels (or cooler).⁠

The peer- reviewed study, “Repeated loss of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet’s Amundsen Sea sector during late Pleistocene interglacial,” was published in Nature Communications on 9 November 2026 (DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-77004-2).

Lead author Dr. Claus- Dieter Hillenbrand (BAS) noted that the kaolinite collapse is the only way to explain the cessation of debris delivery and that ocean forcing can drive major West Antarctic deglaciation. Co- author Dr. Rob Larter added that past natural warm periods already saw substantial ice loss, but today’s human- driven warming is “an interglacial on steroids.”⁠

Implications: Complete collapse of Thwaites alone could raise global sea levels by ~65 cm (Pine Island ~51 cm more); broader WAIS loss could contribute 3- 5 m. Under past natural conditions the process likely took thousands of years; current rapid ocean warming could compress it into centuries. The findings strengthen concerns about the WAIS’s vulnerability at temperatures similar to today’s.⁠

Primary sources: BAS press release (“China clay clue to past dramatic ice loss,” 9 November 2026) and the Nature Communications paper.

Close-up of a gray metal cylinder sealed with rough, dripping gray material
A sediment core from the SiCLING project 2024–25 season. Credit: Pete Bucktrout

Over the last 800,000 years, Earth’s climate has followed a roughly 100,000-year cycle of glacial (cold, ice- sheet growth) and interglacial (warmer, ice-sheet retreat) periods. This pattern became dominant after the Mid- Pleistocene Transition.

How many interglacials?

A major scientific review by the Past Interglacial Working Group of PAGES (2016) identified 11 interglacial in the last 800,000 years, using a consistent sea -level definition. This count is robust across alternative definitions.⁠

These include the present- day Holocene (Marine Isotope Stage 1, or MIS 1) and earlier ones such as:

  • MIS 5e (Last Interglacial, ~130- 115 ka)
  • MIS 11c (~400 ka, one of the strongest and longest)
  • MIS 9e, MIS 7e, MIS 13a, MIS 15, MIS 17, MIS 19, and others

Interglacial typically lasted 10,000- 30,000 years.

How many glacial periods?

There are correspondingly about 8–9 major glacial periods in the same interval (the cold phases that separate the interglacial). The most recent full glacial maximum occurred during MIS 2 (~29–14 ka, including the Last Glacial Maximum).

Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) overview

Scientists number these stages using oxygen-isotope records from deep- sea sediments:

  • Odd- numbered stages = mostly interglacial (warmer)
  • Even- numbered stages = mostly glacial (colder)

The last 800,000 years roughly span from the present (MIS 1) back to around MIS 19- 20 (near the Brunhes- Matuyama magnetic reversal at ~780- 790 ka).

This is the exact time window covered by the recent West Antarctic Ice Sheet study (using seafloor clay minerals). The paper found that the Amundsen Sea sector (including Thwaites Glacier) experienced major ice loss during all previous interglacial in this 800,000- year record.

Workers in hard hats inspect industrial drilling equipment on an offshore vessel surrounded by yellow railings and ocean.
Scientists watch as the rig floor is prepared for drilling. Credit: Tim Fulton

Sea- level reconstructions and models have long suggested that the vulnerable West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) experienced major mass losses during late Pleistocene warm periods, contributing several metres to global sea level. Direct near- field evidence had remained inconclusive.

This study examines clay- mineral assemblages and past ocean temperatures in sediments from the West Antarctic continental margin spanning the last 800,000 years (IODP Expedition 379 Sites U1533 and U1532 on the eastern Amundsen Sea continental rise).

Main findings:

  • The supply of glacigenic detritus from the main outlet glaciers of the Amundsen Sea sector (especially Thwaites Glacier) ceased almost entirely during all previous interglacial (warm) periods. This documents the loss of their drainage basins.
  • Concurrent seawater warming (from a diatom microfossil proxy) is linked to intensified advection of warm deep water toward Antarctica’s Pacific margin. Clay- mineral data corroborate this.
  • Ocean forcing alone can drive major deglaciation of West Antarctica and associated global sea- level rise.

Researchers used kaolinite (china clay) as a fingerprint of subglacial erosion under Thwaites Glacier and neighbouring ice streams. Kaolinite- rich bedrock underlies parts of the Amundsen Sea sector; grounded ice grinds it out and delivers it offshore. When the kaolinite signal drops to near- zero in the cores during interglacial, it indicates the ice had retreated far inland and stopped delivering that material.

They also analysed smectite composition. Magnesium- rich “Type- 2” smectites originate from the deep Pacific farther north and are transported south by Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW). Their increased presence during the same intervals supports enhanced warm- water intrusion onto the continental shelf at the same time the local glacigenic (kaolinite) supply collapses.

Broader context and implications

  • The Amundsen Sea sector (Thwaites and Pine Island glaciers) drains roughly one- third of the WAIS and is the current focus of rapid mass loss.
  • Full loss of this sector (and potential wider WAIS collapse) could raise global sea level by 3.3- 5.3 m.
  • Past interglacial often had global temperatures only ~1- 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels, comparable to today, yet still produced major retreat driven by ocean warming.
  • The results strengthen the view that the modern WAIS is highly sensitive to ocean forcing and that ongoing anthropogenic warming increases the risk of substantial, potentially irreversible ice loss.

Lead authors include Claus- Dieter Hillenbrand (British Antarctic Survey) and international collaborators.

The paper provides the strongest proximal geological evidence to date for repeated, major retreat of the Amundsen Sea sector of the WAIS during late Pleistocene interglacials.

You can read the full open- access article (including figures, methods, and supplementary data) directly at the link you provided.

Paper: Repeated loss of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet’s Amundsen Sea sector during late Pleistocene interglacials

Published: Nature Communications, (volume 17, Article 10450)

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-77004-2, Open access, (PDF available on the page)

Provided: British Antarctic Survey

Published: 9 November 2026

Authors: Claus-Dieter Hillenbrand,
Werner Ehrmann,
Young Kyu Park,
Jinwook Kim,
Steve M. Bohaty,
Reed P. Scherer,
Joseph A. Ruggiero,
Julia S. Wellner,
Karsten Gohl,
Rebecca L. Totten,
Robert D. Larter,
Mariana Esteves,
Johann P. Klages,
James A. Smith,
Thomas Frederichs,
Keiji Horikawa,
Sandra Passchier,
Joseph R. Mastro,
Thorsten Bauersachs,
Becky A. Hopkins,
Chuang Xuan,
Colm Ó Cofaigh,
Rachel W. Clark,
James W. Marschalek,
Patric Simões Pereira,
Benedict T. I. Reinardy,
Anna Ruth W. Halberstadt,
Li Wu,
Ellen A. Cowan,
Christine S. Siddoway,
Delaney E. Robinson,
Masao Iwai,
Liang Gao,
Sidney R. Hemming,
Michelle L. Penkrot,
Theresa M. King,
Jeremy M. Lloyd &
Denise K. Kulhanek

Abstract

Sea-level reconstructions and numerical models suggest that the vulnerable West Antarctic Ice Sheet underwent major mass losses during the late Pleistocene, raising global sea level by several metres. However, direct evidence from ice-sheet proximal records for such retreat has remained inconclusive. Here we investigate variations in clay mineral assemblages and past ocean temperatures archived in West Antarctic continental margin sediments during the last 800,000 years. Our results demonstrate that the supply of glacigenic detritus sourced from the main outlet glaciers in the Amundsen Sea sector of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet ceased almost entirely during all previous warm periods, documenting the loss of their drainage basins. Concomitant seawater warming, revealed by a microfossil proxy, is attributed to intensified deep-water advection towards Antarctica’s Pacific margin, which is corroborated by the clay mineralogical evidence. Our findings show that ocean forcing can drive major deglaciation of West Antarctica and related global sea-level rise.

Two engineers inspecting a solar panel assembly on a production line
Sedimentologists Anna Halberstadt and Claus-Dieter Hillenbrand look at a freshly split mud core. Credit: Tim Fulton

WHO’s 1.6 Million “Climate” Lives Saved Are Mostly Air Pollution and Handwashing

On November 4 the World Health Organization put out a news release timed for COP31, headlined “Six climate and health actions could save 1.6 million lives and deliver trillions in benefits each year.”
WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: “The climate crisis is a health crisis, but much of the harm it causes can be prevented with tools we already have.”

Satirical infographic showing 1.6 million lives saved attributed mostly to air pollution and handwashing, with a pie chart and humorous WHO-style illustrations.
AI generated by Meta

From Watts Up With That?

By Charles Rotter

On November 4 the World Health Organization put out a news release timed for COP31, headlined “Six climate and health actions could save 1.6 million lives and deliver trillions in benefits each year.” It opens:

Six proven climate and health measures could save 1.6 million lives a year while delivering trillions of dollars in economic and fiscal gains, according to a new World Health Organization (WHO) report released today. Scaling up these measures globally, from heat-health warning systems and climate-resilient water, sanitation and hygiene to clean household energy and efficient fossil fuel pricing policies, could generate US$ 3.9 trillion in economic welfare benefits annually, while also helping to cut carbon emissions. They could deliver a further US$ 5.4 trillion a year in fiscal benefits.

https://www.who.int/news/item/04-11-2026-six-climate-and-health-actions-could-save-1.6-million-lives-and-deliver-trillions-in-benefits-each-year

WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: “The climate crisis is a health crisis, but much of the harm it causes can be prevented with tools we already have.” Several paragraphs later the release says where most of the lives come from:

Efficient fossil fuel pricing policies, including removing inefficient subsidies and appropriately taxing these fuels, would generate the largest gains. These policies are estimated to prevent 1.2 million deaths and generate US$ 3 trillion in economic welfare benefits and US$ 5.4 trillion in fiscal benefits annually.

https://www.who.int/news/item/04-11-2026-six-climate-and-health-actions-could-save-1.6-million-lives-and-deliver-trillions-in-benefits-each-year

WHO’s questions and answers document breaks the total, 1.56 million, down by action in its Table 1. I charted it.

Horizontal bar chart showing WHO's 1.56 million annual climate-and-health lives saved by action, led by fossil fuel taxes and subsidy removal at 1.20 million, followed by heat-health warnings, clean cooking fuels, handwashing, drinking water, and basic sanitation.
Deaths averted per year by each of WHO’s six actions. Chart from figures in WHO’s Table 1.

The two brown bars are air pollution. The 564-page technical report is plain about what the fossil fuel deaths are. WHO didn’t model them itself, just borrowed them from the IMF’s fossil fuel subsidies analysis and projected them forward:

Additionally, it was then assumed that over the period 2034 to 2043 the intervention would save the same number of lives per year as in 2034, assigning the IMF estimate of 1 568 883 expected deaths averted (that is, mortality reductions attributable to exposure to air pollution averted only) per each year within this period.

https://iris.who.int/server/api/core/bitstreams/1b391daa-7cfe-4c89-a2b5-ff2856e466a3/content

That is “air pollution averted only,” people breathing soot and smog from burning fuel, and their deaths have nothing to do with the temperature of the planet. The cooking action is the same thing indoors, computed with WHO’s Benefits of Action to Reduce Household Air Pollution tool, switching families from wood, charcoal and kerosene stoves to propane and electric.

Add the two and 1.29 million of the 1.56 million “climate” lives saved, 83 per cent, are air pollution deaths.

The three water actions carry “climate-resilient” in their names. The report explains where the climate part comes from:

We adopted the assumption of a 2019 WHO BCA published as part of the first WHO global investment case (135) that an additional 10% of the total benefits and costs related to WASH could be attributable to ensuring WASH services would be climate resilient in the future. This assumption is based on the judgment that additional goods and services would be needed to ensure the climate resilience of WASH systems (135).

https://iris.who.int/server/api/core/bitstreams/1b391daa-7cfe-4c89-a2b5-ff2856e466a3/content

WHO’s only climate adjustment for water and sanitation is to add 10 per cent to the benefits and costs, a figure it borrowed from a 2019 report. The deaths being counted are diarrhoea deaths from unsafe water and poor sanitation, which the report now files under climate adaptation.

That leaves heat–health warning systems, the only one of the six aimed at the weather, at 100,000 deaths a year, or 6 per cent. That is the source of the $835 back for every $1 in the release, because the warnings cost only $0.23 billion. I could find no step in the heat model that separates the deaths averted from heat blamed on warming from the rest.

Next are the dollar figures. Table 2 of the questions and answers puts the value of lives saved at $5,202 billion, more than the whole $3,920 billion of “economic welfare benefits,” because $2,352 billion of “efficiency costs” from the fuel pricing action, the value of fuel people no longer get to use, is subtracted as a negative benefit. Each death averted is priced with a value of a statistical life scaled from a U.S. figure of $13,429,139 by national income, following a WHO-led paper in the WHO’s own Bulletin. WHO says what those dollars are:

Unlike productivity gains, tax revenues or GDP increases, VSL-based monetary estimates are not real economic flows. Rather, they are welfare-based accounting measures used to represent society’s valuation of mortality reductions in economic analyses, such as benefit-cost analyses, for decision making on climate–health actions.

https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/environment-climate-change-and-health/for-web-faqs-methodology—global-benefits-and-costs-of-prioritized-actions-on-climate-change-and-health.pdf?sfvrsn=4da68c85_5

The $5.4 trillion in “fiscal benefits” is real money, collected from motorists, farmers and households. The report describes it:

These changes comprise the government spendings averted (representing the savings made for governments by not providing fossil fuel subsidies) and government revenue gained (from taxation of fossil fuels at the value added tax or general service tax rate).

https://iris.who.int/server/api/core/bitstreams/1b391daa-7cfe-4c89-a2b5-ff2856e466a3/content

WHO counts the extra money people would pay through higher fuel prices as a benefit to governments, and counts no cost against it, because the report says “This WHO analysis did not include any costs (as inputs) of the intervention.” The scale-up it models has every country on Earth removing every fuel subsidy and taxing every fossil fuel in 2024, “all subsidies removed, and tax introduced at the value added rate, for all fossil fuels,” which did not happen.

Most of the carbon savings also come from the fuel taxes. Of the 16.67 billion tonnes of CO₂e the release says the six actions would avoid, Table 1 credits 16.35 billion to the fuel taxes, and the three water actions and the heat warnings are listed as avoiding none at all.

How many of the 1.56 million would still be at risk in a world that had never warmed at all?

=====

Sources: WHO news release, 4 November 2026, https://www.who.int/news/item/04-11-2026-six-climate-and-health-actions-could-save-1.6-million-lives-and-deliver-trillions-in-benefits-each-year. Quotes from WHO, Global benefits and costs of prioritized actions on climate change and health: technical report, 2026, https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240124813, and its questions and answers, FAQ PDF. Chart built from the figures in the questions and answers, Table 1.

Unexpected Stability: Antarctic Shelf Processes Leave No Fingerprint on Deep-Ocean Carbon Reservoir

A recent study (published November 10, 2026, in Nature Communications) found that dissolved organic matter (DOM) in Antarctic waters remains remarkably stable in both amount and molecular composition as water forms Antarctic Bottom Water on the continental shelf, despite intense biological activity.

Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW) is the coldest, densest water mass in the open ocean. It forms primarily around the Antarctic continental margin and sinks to the abyssal depths, where it spreads northward as a key part of the global overturning circulation (the “great ocean conveyor belt”).

Research vessel sailing past Antarctic icebergs above stylized molecular structures underwater
AI generated by Grok

A recent study (published November 10, 2026, in Nature Communications) found that dissolved organic matter (DOM) in Antarctic waters remains remarkably stable in both amount and molecular composition as water forms Antarctic Bottom Water on the continental shelf, despite intense biological activity.

The press release and related coverage (often under titles highlighting “unexpected stability” or “vanished without a trace”) come from the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI).

The lead author is Dr. Gonzalo V. Gomez- Saez (formerly at AWI, now leading a group at Ludwig- Maximilians- Universität München), with joint senior authors Dr. Moritz Holtappels (AWI) and Prof. Dr. Thorsten Dittmar (University of Oldenburg/ICBM). Folke Mehrtens is associated with the AWI communications and press release.

Researchers analyzed water samples from two Polarstern expeditions (2016 and 2021) in the southern Weddell Sea. They used advanced molecular techniques (including ultrahigh-resolution mass spectrometry at ICBM) and radiocarbon dating (via AWI’s MICADAS facility).

Despite seasonal phytoplankton blooms producing labile (easily degradable) organic matter and significant changes in water masses, the concentration and chemical makeup of the vast DOM reservoir showed almost no detectable change as dense water sank into the deep ocean. Shelf processes left essentially no “fingerprint”.⁠

The explanation is residence time: dense waters stay on the Weddell Sea shelf (including under the Filchner- Ronne Ice Shelf) for 6- 12 years. This gives microbes enough time to fully remineralize newly produced surface organic carbon into dissolved inorganic carbon before the water exits the shelf.

DOM is highlighted as a stable component of the regional Southern Ocean carbon cycle. Because this large organic carbon reservoir is largely unaffected by shelf processes, it may remain relatively buffered against climate change impacts in this region (even as warming reaches Antarctic shelf seas). Other carbon pools (e.g., sinking particulate organic matter or dissolved inorganic carbon) may respond more strongly to temperature, sea-ice, and biological changes.⁠

The paper is: Gomez-Saez et al., “Conserved molecular properties of dissolved organic matter during Weddell Sea Deep Water formation,” Nature Communications (2026), DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-79040-4.

Further work is planned under initiatives like Antarctica InSync, including a 2028 Polarstern winter expedition to the Weddell Sea.

Schematic diagram of Antarctic shelf-water formation, circulation, and export, showing sea ice, brine, water masses, and pathways to the Antarctic bottom water.
Diagram of the seven water masses involved in WSDW formation. Credit: Nature Communications (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-79040-4

Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW) is the coldest, densest water mass in the open ocean. It forms primarily around the Antarctic continental margin and sinks to the abyssal depths, where it spreads northward as a key part of the global overturning circulation (the “great ocean conveyor belt”). It ventilates the deep ocean by supplying oxygen and helps sequester heat and carbon for centuries to millennia.

Main Formation Regions

AABW forms mainly in a few key areas:

  • Weddell Sea (the largest contributor, often producing the densest component, called Weddell Sea Bottom Water)
  • Ross Sea
  • Adélie Coast (off East Antarctica)
  • Cape Darnley region

Step- by- Step Formation Process

  1. Cooling and Sea- Ice Formation in Polynyas
    Strong, cold katabatic winds blow off the Antarctic continent, pushing sea ice away from the coast and creating persistent open- water areas called coastal polynyas. In these “sea- ice factories”, seawater is continuously exposed to the frigid atmosphere, freezes rapidly, and is then blown away, allowing more ice to form.⁠
  2. Brine Rejection and Density Increase
    When seawater freezes, most of the salt is rejected (left behind) in the remaining liquid water. This process, combined with intense surface cooling, creates extremely cold, high- salinity water near the freezing point (around- 1.9 °C). This is known as High- Salinity Shelf Water (HSSW) or, more broadly, Dense Shelf Water (DSW).
  3. Interaction with Ice Shelves (in some regions)
    In places like the Weddell and Ross Seas, some of this dense water flows under floating ice shelves (e.g., Filchner- Ronne or Ross Ice Shelf). Contact with the ice base further cools it, sometimes producing Ice Shelf Water (ISW) that is supercooled (colder than the surface freezing point, typically below -2 °C).⁠
  4. Overflow and Descent Down the Continental Slope
    The dense shelf water becomes dense enough to spill over the continental shelf break. It cascades down the steep continental slope as gravity- driven plumes (overflows).
  5. Mixing and Entrainment
    As the dense plumes descend, they mix with and entrain surrounding waters, primarily warmer, saltier Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW, also called Warm Deep Water) and some Antarctic Surface Water. This mixing modifies the original shelf water, producing the final AABW properties: typically, colder than 0 °C with high density (neutral density greater than about 28.27 kg m⁻³).⁠

The resulting AABW then spreads along the seafloor into the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Ocean basins, forming the deepest layer of the global ocean.

Importance and Sensitivity to Change

AABW formation drives a major branch of the global thermohaline circulation. It is highly sensitive to changes in sea- ice production, wind patterns, and freshwater input from glacial melt. Recent observations show declines in the densest components in some regions (e.g., reduced volume of the densest Weddell Sea Bottom Water), linked to decreased sea-ice formation and increased meltwater.⁠

This process was central to the recent study on dissolved organic carbon stability in the Weddell Sea: the long residence time of dense waters on the shelf (years) allows biological processes to fully process organic matter before the water sinks as AABW.

Diagram of Antarctic ocean circulation showing surface currents, deep water formation, Circumpolar Deep Water, and the Mid-Ocean Ridge
By Fred the Oyster, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=35204554 AABW is formed in the Southern Ocean from surface water cooling in polynyas.

The regional Southern Ocean carbon cycle refers to the processes controlling the exchange, transformation, transport, and long- term storage of carbon (both inorganic and organic) specifically in the Southern Ocean, particularly its Antarctic sectors such as the Weddell Sea.

This region is disproportionately important for the global carbon cycle.⁠

The Southern Ocean (south of ~30- 35°S) accounts for a large share of the ocean’s uptake of anthropogenic CO₂ and heat. It currently acts as a net carbon sink of roughly 0.4- 1.1 Pg C yr⁻¹ (estimates vary by method and time period), helping offset a significant portion of human emissions.⁠

Key reasons for its outsized role:

  • Upwelling of deep water brings CO₂- and nutrient- rich water to the surface.
  • Biological production (phytoplankton photosynthesis) converts some of that CO₂ into organic matter.
  • Deep- water formation (especially Antarctic Bottom Water) returns carbon to the abyss, where it can be sequestered for centuries to millennia.

Main Components of the Regional Cycle

  1. Air- Sea Gas Exchange
    CO₂ enters or leaves the surface ocean depending on the difference in partial pressure (pCO₂). Upwelling tends to cause natural outgassing, while biological uptake and the rising atmospheric CO₂ drive net anthropogenic uptake.
  2. Biological Carbon Pump
    Phytoplankton convert dissolved inorganic carbon into particulate organic carbon (POC) and dissolved organic carbon (DOC/DOM).
    • Much of the organic matter is remineralized (broken down by microbes) back to inorganic forms in the upper ocean.
    • A fraction is exported to depth as sinking particles or as dissolved organic matter.
  3. Physical Circulation and Deep- Water Formation
    Dense shelf waters form on the Antarctic continental shelf (especially the Weddell and Ross Seas) through sea- ice formation (brine rejection) and cooling under ice shelves. These waters overflow and sink, mixing with Circumpolar Deep Water to form Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW) and its precursor Weddell Sea Deep Water (WSDW). This process ventilates the deep ocean and carries carbon (both inorganic and organic) into long- term storage.⁠
  4. Dissolved Organic Matter (DOM) Reservoir
    DOM is the largest pool of organic carbon in the ocean. In the Weddell Sea, recent research shows that the molecular composition and amount of solid-phase extractable DOM remain remarkably stable during dense- water formation. Shelf processes leave almost no molecular “fingerprint” on the DOM exported into WSDW/AABW because long residence times (6- 12 years) on the shelf allow efficient microbial remineralization of newly produced labile organic carbon. This makes DOM a relatively stable component of the regional Southern Ocean carbon cycle.

Regional Specifics (Weddell Sea Focus)

In the southern Weddell Sea:

  • Intense seasonal phytoplankton blooms occur on the shelf.
  • Dense waters have unusually long residence times, allowing thorough processing of organic matter.
  • An estimated ~0.155 Pg C of organic carbon is transferred annually into AABW via this pathway, with conserved molecular properties.
  • Climate- driven weakening of AABW formation may reduce the efficiency of carbon sequestration in this region, even if the molecular character of the exported DOM stays similar.

Climate Sensitivity

The Southern Ocean carbon cycle is highly sensitive to changes in:

  • Sea- ice cover and formation rates
  • Wind patterns (which affect upwelling and polynyas)
  • Glacial meltwater input (which can freshen shelf waters and inhibit dense-water formation)
  • Iron supply (which limits phytoplankton growth in large areas)

Changes here can influence atmospheric CO₂ levels on both short (decadal) and long (centennial- millennial) timescales.

In short, the regional Southern Ocean carbon cycle, especially around Antarctica, links surface biological activity, air- sea exchange, and deep- ocean sequestration through the formation and export of dense waters, with dissolved organic matter acting as a surprisingly stable reservoir within that system.

View from an industrial ship deck toward a rugged iceberg-covered coastline across the sea
The Alfred Wegener Institute’s research vessel Polarstern on the PS124 expedition in the southern Weddell Sea, Antarctica. Credit: Andreas Rogge/Alfred Wegener Institute

Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW) volume is decreasing due to climate change, with implications for long-term abyssal carbon storage. The study investigates solid-phase extractable dissolved organic matter (SPE-DOM) in the Weddell Sea (source of ~50% of AABW).

  • Molecular and structural properties of SPE-DOM remain essentially unchanged during dense-water formation on the shelf.
  • Shelf biogeochemical processes have minimal impact on the organics exported to the deep sea.
  • This is attributed to efficient remineralization of newly produced organic carbon to inorganic forms, enabled by the long residence time (6–12 years) of dense waters on the Weddell Sea shelf.
  • The dominant SPE-DOM signature in Weddell Sea Deep Water (WSDW, the precursor to AABW) is largely established before dense shelf waters mix with warmer offshore waters.
  • An estimated 0.155 ± 0.03 PgC of organic carbon is transferred annually from the Weddell Sea into AABW.
  • The molecular composition of this exported DOM is expected to remain conserved even as AABW formation weakens under ongoing climate change.

Researchers analyzed 178 water samples from two Polarstern expeditions (2016 and 2021) across seven water masses involved in WSDW/AABW formation (from surface to >4,000 m).

They used:

  • Quantitative DOC measurements
  • Ultrahigh- resolution FT- ICR- MS (molecular formulas)
  • ¹H- NMR spectroscopy (structural features)
  • Radiocarbon (¹⁴C) dating of SPE- DOC

Results:

  • SPE- DOM was highly similar across all water masses at both the molecular-formula and structural levels (low Bray- Curtis dissimilarities).
  • Apparent ¹⁴C ages of SPE-DOC were consistently old (~5,400- 6,800 years), indicating a predominance of aged, recalcitrant material everywhere.
  • No systematic molecular imprint from intense biological activity or shelf processes was detected in the exported deep water.
  • DOC and SPE- DOC concentrations showed little systematic change with depth or water- mass transformation.

This supports the idea that the large oceanic reservoir of recalcitrant dissolved organic carbon behaves as a relatively stable component of the Southern Ocean carbon cycle in this region.

While AABW formation itself is weakening, the organic carbon that does get exported via this pathway carries a conserved molecular signature.

The paper is open access on Nature.com.

Title: Conserved molecular properties of dissolved organic matter during Weddell Sea Deep Water formation

Journal: Nature Communications, volume 17, Article number: 11455, 2026

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-79040-4

Provided: Alfred Wegener Institute

Authors: Gonzalo V. Gomez-Saez,
Sarah K. Bercovici,
Marit Renken,
Sahithya P. B. Vemulapalli,
Andreas Rogge,
Hendrik Grotheer,
F. Alexander Haumann,
Moritz Holtappels &
Thorsten Dittmar

Abstract

Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW) is decreasing in volume due to climate change with potential consequences for abyssal carbon storage, where carbon is locked away from the atmosphere for centuries. Understanding the formation and export of dissolved organic matter (DOM) on the Antarctic shelf is therefore essential to determine how organic carbon enters this deep-sea reservoir. Here, we investigate solid-phase extractable DOM (SPE-DOM) transformations in the Weddell Sea, where half of AABW forms. Molecular and structural properties of SPE-DOM remain unchanged during dense-water formation. Shelf processes minimally affect exported organics into the deep-sea, likely due to remineralization to inorganic carbon enhanced by long residence times on the shelf. Consequently, the dominant SPE-DOM signature in Weddell Sea Deep Water (WSDW) is established before dense shelf waters mix with warmer off-shelf waters. We estimate that 0.155 ± 0.03 PgC are transferred annually from the Weddell Sea to AABW, and that its molecular composition is expected to remain conserved despite ongoing climate-driven weakening of AABW.

They’re back. The mullahs of meteorology and climate

You can’t win with zealots unless you take away the reason for the zealotry. And since it’s not really about climate and weather, but control, they were not going away. Now look at what we are seeing. The recent shift in Congress and the Senate has emboldened that extremity, so people are going to be targets.

What is strange is watching the change in academia?

The times are changing, but not for the better.

Colorful educational illustration of Earth surrounded by weather symbols, planets, rockets, hot air balloons, and scientists studying climate data
Earth planet with business people on background. Elements of this image furnished by NASA

From CFACT

By Joe Bastardi

I really wanted to be involved in the hierarchy that would help figure out how to address the climate agenda. I felt that, as someone who has been forecasting for over 50 years and relies on climate and past weather data, I could offer a different kind of input, one from the guy digging the ditch who has to deal with the fact that being wrong actually costs you something.

I have always felt that the crucible of capitalism and competition will yield the best results. And certainly, in a private sector that has to compete for a shrinking dollar, you cannot simply dismiss anything that may impact the forecast.

And the other thing: everyone in the administration’s hierarchy is smarter than me.

I have no illusions about that. My dad used to say, “Never let on that someone might be smarter or stronger than you.” And certainly that was a driving factor before. But I like surrounding myself with people who are maxing out their strengths. Not that I want to be them, but I want to see what they are doing to make use of what they were given.

That’s inspiring to me. I know that no one loves the weather more than I do, and no one will outwork me.

There may be people who love it as much, or work as hard, but not more. That same father, a meteorologist who taught me a lot, once told me it was sad when I told him I didn’t think I could go a day without looking at weather maps. From the other side, my son said, “Dad, I love the weather, but you are ridiculous.”

I guess I think it’s the only thing God gave me that I had until He took me. My parents are gone, people have come and gone, but the weather is always there.

So, I have gratitude for that. But I would love to have been a part of a group where I could listen to the reasoning behind ideas. How much of it is political, for instance. Or how much is strictly driven by a desire for the right answer.

How much is because of economic realities. In the end, to me, the weather and climate have to be stand- alone, and the other items are a response to them, not the reason for an answer.

But now I am glad I am not involved and that is a horrible thing to say, because of the reason. It has to do with what I was warning my colleagues about at the climate conference back in April.

You can’t win with zealots unless you take away the reason for the zealotry. And since it’s not really about climate and weather, but control, they were not going away. Now look at what we are seeing. The recent shift in Congress and the Senate has emboldened that extremity, so people are going to be targets.

Some of those people may be held “accountable” for actions they took because they believed it was the best course of action. Of course, it’s not only people in the administration involved with climate and weather; it’s across the board.

I have always had a variety of clients. If a client happens to be an oil company that needs a forecast (for instance, we have a colder December forecast than the standard, a strong El nino analog), even though December may not be cold compared to many others, it should be colder than the standard strong El nino. Here is the example

Strong El Nino analog:

United States map showing temperature departures versus the 1991–2020 long-term average, with warmer-than-average conditions in orange and red across the central and eastern states and cooler conditions in green across parts of the West.

Our idea relative to analogs:

Color-coded map of the United States showing regional data from 2009, 2002, and 2018, with green in the West, yellow and orange across the Midwest and Northeast, and white in parts of the South.

You start computing the difference in energy costs even though, by no means, it’s a frigid December we have, just not as warm, and it’s a big deal.

But that’s seen as taking money from an oil company. Yet wind and solar are huge items we forecast for also. So, does that put me in their pocket?

Of course not. But it does to them. I found that out when I was making the Bill Nye movie as the villain. I was asked how much money I was getting from the Koch brothers because someone said they were paying me to say what I was saying.

I have no idea who told them that, but I pointed to my 2007 Pontiac Firebird with a hole in the bumper and said, “How does a man getting rich off the Koch brothers drive that?”

The fact is, if you did eliminate all non- wind and solar energy sources, that’s awesome for business. They need not only a seasonal forecast, but hour- by-hour forecasts. For instance, what does a 20- degree drop in a thunderstorm in Dallas do to demand?

Or what if there is a prolonged heat wave in a big city, but the wind turbine source has light winds and is not producing?

They need a forecast not only for an extended time period, but every day and every hour. Heck, why not just push wind and solar all the time if you are a forecaster?

Now isn’t that an interesting question, as far as motivation goes?

Mine is to look for trouble and forecast it, no matter who or what you are. I don’t care what your politics are. But think about this: some people say you should care what someone’s politics are and question their profit motive. I suspect they are seeing in others what they know about themselves. In addition, there won’t be much of a profit motive anymore if the kind of draconian policies we see being touted come to pass. (Another leftist motivation.)

But in climate and weather under Trump, it’s very educated people who decided to serve their country when called upon, and they may now wish they hadn’t. Or a ditch- digging forecaster (me, it’s okay, as Judge Smails said in Caddyshack, the world needs ditch- diggers too) thanking God he is not in that group.

I have always felt about the weather the way Larry Holmes felt about Joe Louis. I was once in the Commodore Inn, owned by Larry Holmes, and there were portraits of all the heavyweight champs. All of them had their names on the portraits, except one: Joe Louis.

I asked the guy at the desk why he didn’t have a name on his. The guy responded, “Larry says Joe Louis doesn’t need an introduction.” Well, that’s the weather.

It is so majestic it doesn’t need to be hyped and dragged into a political sewer, which is where this has gone. So much so that the hammer and sickle of intimidation is now something that has to be dealt with. Walking headfirst into a machine gun nest is not brave; it’s stupid. And that is what the whole political sewer has made this.

What is strange is watching the change in academia?

When I was in college, almost all the profs were Democrats, as I was, but I never had a meteo prof who did not like to be challenged and argue a point. In Dr. Joel Myers’ class, he liked to compete so much that he set up a forecasting contest, and if you beat him, you would be offered a job at AccuWeather. But think about that. There he is, a PhD, acknowledged even then as doing something no one else would even try, and he is telling students to bring it on.

I once got hurt in wrestling practice and was laid up in bed for two days (back). One of my profs called me and asked, “Where the hell have you been?” (Those of you who went to PSU in the ’70s in meteo probably know who that was.) I said, “I was hurt and couldn’t get out of bed.” He says, “Well, you have to call me if you are out, because I have to think about the lesson plan because I need to know that no one is going to argue with me.” As I said, it was bring it on.

Many years later, I heard in one of the classes at PSU that you had to email questions in a day before. But that is a symptom of what is most scary. A large part of the climate agenda is academics who seek to eliminate discussion, not enhance it.

They believe that counterarguments to their ideas are destructive to the overall mission. If the overall mission is truly to find the right answer, that is not the truth. If it’s to push a set political agenda, of course it would be.

Free speech is dangerous to a top-down control agenda. But what a flip. We go from teachers saying “Bring it on” to people determined to “shut it down.”

Planck once famously said:

“Science advances one funeral at a time”.

This is because, in his day, entrenched viewpoints were replaced only when those with the viewpoint died. And it was paraphrased by Bill Nye

Bill Nye on Climate Deniers: “There’s an old saying , ‘science proceeds one funeral at a time’, … but it’s not happening fast enough.”

Bill actually got a couple of things wrong here.

1) No one denies climate; it’s just him demeaning those who dare question attribution

2) This is not about science; it’s about a top-down control agenda

3) As for it not happening fast enough, well, it isnt for his political motivation

But think about what “Not happening fast enough” means. I asked the AI

Me: “But not happening fast enough.” Could that not be something that a fanatic would use as motivation to kill a so-called climate denier?

AI: Yes, a fanatic or extremist could interpret and use that phrasing as motivation or rationalization for violence.

Far-fetched? It used to be, but look at some of the things you see today. There is a well-known man-made global warming catastrophe pusher who said he had to quit his job over threats. I had to smile thinking about my late mother calling me up, crying, because she was worried about what might happen to me because of what she was reading on the internet.

BTW, I don’t think Bill himself was threatening anyone. I think he was stating a fact because of what he believes. But again, a guy like Bill Nye is a science hero many of the current generation of man – made climate catastrophe pushers grew up watching.

People ask me about him, and I say, well, obviously I disagree with him on the issue of the attribution of man-made climate change, but the total picture of what he did, bringing science to the forefront, is immense.

He has an immense following; some of them are willing to destroy paintings worth more than what people think a human life is worth in the name of saving the planet (ironic, destroying evidence of humanity’s advancement on the planet in an effort to save it). But “not happening fast enough”? Given what we are seeing today? Interesting.

But it’s scary that this is what it’s come to. That when you write or say something, instead of laying out a pathway to an answer, you are thinking about people wishing that funerals of people like me would happen fast enough.

Effectively, the way to kill the debate is to destroy the people who dare debate with you.

All in the name of saving the planet and democracy. They have adopted the Marxist mantra of ” You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet.”

The mullahs of meteorology and climate did not go away. They won’t go away.

And now they are coming back, and they are mad. And the very party that, when I went to school, advocated a way that I believed in and adopted now wishes to destroy it. Not with something that will advance mankind, but instead to send it into the abyss of curtailed freedom.

The times are changing, but not for the better.

Ancient Rocks Reveal When Earth’s Tectonic Engine Switched On 2.5 Billion Years Ago

Around 2.5 billion years ago (late Archean and Neoarchaean), based on a distinctive chemical and isotopic fingerprint in ancient rocks that vanishes from the geological record after that time.

The exact cause of the tectonic “switch” around 2.5 billion years ago remains unknown.

Tectonic plates and continents are related but distinct concepts in Earth’s geology.

Illustration of ancient volcanic Earth showing molten cracks, tectonic plates, and the evolution from early heat-pipe volcanism to modern plate tectonics 2.5 billion years ago.
AI generated by Grok

Around 2.5 billion years ago (late Archean and Neoarchaean), based on a distinctive chemical and isotopic fingerprint in ancient rocks that vanishes from the geological record after that time.

Curtin University researchers, led by Dr. Janne Liebmann (Timescales of Mineral Systems Group), with co- author Professor Chris Kirkland and others, identified this shift by analyzing lead (Pb) isotopic signatures in minerals (such as feldspar and sulfides) from more than 1,000– 1,200 rocks spanning nearly 4 billion years. These samples come from ancient continental remnants (cratons) across Australia, Africa, North America, Europe, and elsewhere.⁠

New continental crust often forms by melting older crustal rocks, inheriting a chemical “fingerprint” (here, distinctive Pb isotopes from long- lived, compositionally differentiated reservoirs established ~4.0- 3.7 billion years ago).

This signature appears consistently in rocks older than ~2.5 billion years, showing repeated local melting and reworking of that ancient crustal material with limited new input. After ~2.75- 2.63 billion years ago (centered around 2.5 Ga in the announcements), the fingerprint disappears globally and does not reappear, despite examination of thousands of younger samples.⁠

This is interpreted as a fundamental change in geodynamics: a transition from an early regime (where ancient crust was repeatedly melted and reworked largely in place) to one involving more efficient, larger- scale crustal recycling and magma generation more like modern plate tectonics (mixing of old and new sources at plate margins). The study is titled “Loss of ancient crustal reservoirs marks a shift in Earth’s geodynamic regime” and was published in Proceedings of the Royal Society A (DOI: 10.1098/rspa.2026.0587).⁠

Plate tectonics is key to Earth’s distinct evolution, shaping continents and oceans, influencing climate and the magnetic field, and likely supporting long-term habitability, unlike more tectonically stagnant planets such as Venus or Mars.

The exact onset has long been debated (estimates range from early in Earth’s history to much later), partly because subduction and erosion destroy much of the direct evidence. This geochemical record provides strong supporting evidence for a major reorganization around 2.5 Ga, coinciding with other changes such as shifts in rock chemistry, crustal thickness, composition, and the formation of Earth’s first supercontinent. The precise trigger remains unclear.

Note that the timing of plate tectonics onset is still actively researched, with other studies citing evidence for some form of plate motion or related processes earlier (e.g., ~3.2- 3.5 Ga). This work specifically highlights the loss of these ancient reservoirs as marking a shift toward a more modern- style regime.

Surreal volcanic landscape with an erupting mountain, moon, and rocky lake shoreline
An artist’s impression of Earth during the Archaean period.
Tim Bertelink / Wikimedia, CC BY-SA

The exact cause of the tectonic “switch” around 2.5 billion years ago remains unknown.

The Curtin University team that identified the timing of the shift (via the disappearance of an ancient crustal chemical fingerprint in the rock record) explicitly states this.

In their words (from the related The Conversation article by lead author Dr. Janne Liebmann and colleagues): “We still don’t know exactly what triggered the start of plate tectonics, but we’re continuing to chase an answer.”

The study documents a clear transition, from repeated local melting and reworking of ancient (~4- billion- year -old) crustal material to a regime with more efficient, larger- scale recycling and mixed sources more like modern plate margins but does not identify the driving mechanism.⁠

The onset (or major strengthening) of plate tectonics is one of the longest-running debates in Earth science. Proposed triggers or enabling factors for a shift in the late Archean and Neoarchaean (around 2.5- 2.7 Ga or somewhat earlier) generally involve progressive cooling of the planet and related changes, including:

  • Secular cooling of the mantle and lithosphere: Making the lithosphere stronger and denser (less buoyant oceanic plates), which favors sustained subduction over earlier, more intermittent or vertical “stagnant- lid” or “sagduction” styles of tectonics.
  • Changes in crustal composition, thickness, or strength: Growth and differentiation of continental crust, possibly enabling more rigid plates or different stress regimes.
  • Altered mantle convection or rheology: Shifts that allowed better coupling between the mantle and surface, or more efficient recycling.
  • Other hypothesized contributors: Such as the role of water, volatiles, sediment lubrication of subduction zones, or even biological influences (e.g., dense banded iron formations from microbial activity potentially helping initiate subduction in some models). These remain more speculative.

The ~2.5 Ga timing coincides with other major changes (shifts in rock chemistry, crustal thickness, composition and formation of Earth’s first supercontinent, and the lead- up to the Great Oxidation Event), suggesting a system- wide reorganization, but correlation is not the same as proven causation.

Different lines of evidence point to somewhat different timings for the start or maturation of plate tectonics (ranging from >3.5 Ga for early or intermittent forms, to ~3.0- 2.5 Ga for a more global or modern- style regime).

The Liebmann et al. study adds strong geochemical support for a punctuated shift in crustal recycling style near 2.5 Ga, interpreted as the tectonic engine more fully “switching on”, without resolving the “why.” Research continues on this fundamental question.

Diagram comparing habitable Earth-like and non-habitable Venus-like planets, showing differences in oceans, atmospheres, magnetic fields, core convection, and plate tectonics.
Characteristic features of long-term life-friendly (‘habitable’) and non-habitable planets. Liebmann (2020); modified after Shahar et al. (2019)

Tectonic plates and continents are related but distinct concepts in Earth’s geology.

Tectonic Plates

Tectonic plates (also called lithospheric plates) are large, rigid segments of Earth’s outer shell, the lithosphere (crust plus the uppermost rigid part of the mantle).

  • They float and move slowly over the weaker, more ductile asthenosphere beneath them.
  • There are about 7 major plates and many smaller ones.
  • A single plate can consist of oceanic crust, continental crust, or (most commonly) a combination of both.
  • Plate boundaries are where most earthquakes, volcanoes, and mountain-building occur, driven by processes like divergence (spreading), convergence (collision or subduction), and transform (sliding past one another).
  • Examples: The Pacific Plate is almost entirely oceanic; the North American Plate includes the continent of North America plus a large portion of the Atlantic oceanic crust.

Continents

Continents are the large, elevated landmasses on Earth’s surface, composed primarily of continental crust.

  • Continental crust is thicker (typically 30– 70 km), less dense, and richer in silica and lighter elements (broadly “granitic” in composition) compared with oceanic crust (thinner ~5– 10 km, denser, and basaltic).
  • Continents include the visible land plus the submerged continental shelves.
  • They are long- lived features that resist subduction because of their buoyancy.
  • The seven traditional continents (Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia and Oceania, Europe, North America, South America) are geographic and geologic entities defined mainly by this continental crust.

Key Differences

AspectTectonic PlatesContinents
What they areMoving pieces of the lithosphereLandmasses of continental crust
CompositionCan include oceanic and continental crustPrimarily continental crust
Size and ExtentCover the entire Earth’s surfaceCover only ~30% of the surface (plus shelves)
MobilityActively move (cm per year)Move only as parts of plates
BoundariesDefined by plate boundariesDefined by edges of continental crust
ExampleEurasian Plate (includes Europe, Asia and surrounding ocean floor)The continent of Europe (part of the Eurasian Plate)

Relationship

Continents “ride” on tectonic plates.

A continent is usually part of one or more plates, but plates are larger and often extend far beyond the continental margins into the oceans.

Plate tectonics is the process that moves the plates and therefore rearranges the continents over geologic time (continental drift is the observed result of plate motion).

In short: plates are the mobile puzzle pieces of the lithosphere; continents are the thick, buoyant land portions that sit on some of those pieces.

Hikers exploring a rugged red-rock desert landscape with scattered shrubs and grasses
Dr. Janne Liebmann and a fellow researcher collecting rock samples in the Western Australian outback. Credit: Bryant Ware

Loss of ancient crustal reservoirs marks a shift in Earth’s geodynamic regime

This is the peer -reviewed study behind the Curtin University media release. Direct full- text access via the provided URL appears restricted (common for many Royal Society journal articles), so the details below are drawn from the publicly available abstract, supplementary descriptions, press materials, and related summaries.

The researchers compiled and analysed lead (Pb) isotopic data from minerals (particularly sensitive to crustal fractionation) in rocks spanning nearly 4 billion years, drawn from multiple ancient continental remnants (cratons) worldwide.

  • Long- lived, compositionally differentiated crustal reservoirs formed by approximately 4.0- 3.7 billion years ago.
  • These reservoirs contributed substantially to felsic (granite- like) magmatism until roughly 2.63 Ga.
  • They left a distinctive Pb isotopic fingerprint that is consistently recorded in rocks older than ~2.5- 2.6 Ga across different continents.
  • This fingerprint largely disappears from the accessible rock record after 2.75-2.63 Ga. Statistical change- point analysis confirms the transition in the full dataset and in geographic and mineral subsets.

The sudden loss of these ancient crustal sources is taken as evidence of a punctuated shift in Earth’s geodynamic regime during the Neoarchaean.

Before the transition, new crust formed largely by repeated melting and reworking of the same ancient material in place. Afterward, crust production involved more efficient recycling and a mix of sources, consistent with magma generation reorganising toward plate margins, i.e., a move toward a more modern- style plate- tectonic system.

This change coincides with independent geological and compositional evidence for a late Archaean secular shift in how continents evolved.

The paper strengthens the case for a major reorganisation of crustal processes around 2.5- 2.6 billion years ago but as noted in related public commentary by the authors, does not identify the precise physical trigger (e.g., progressive mantle cooling, changes in lithospheric strength, or other factors).

Supplementary materials (tables of Pb- isotope compositions and additional information) are available via Figshare linked from the Royal Society site.

For the full text, figures, methods, and complete discussion, access through the DOI link, an institutional subscription, or the publisher’s platform is required. Public summaries (Curtin University release and the authors’ The Conversation article) provide accessible overviews of the same results.

Published in: Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical and Physical Sciences (2026), volume 482, issue 2349;

DOI: 10.1098/rspa.2026.0587

Provided: Curtin University

Published online: 11 Nov 2026

Authors: Janne Liebmann;

Christopher L. Kirkland;

Michael I. H. Hartnady;

Christopher J. Spencer

Author for correspondence: Janne Liebmann e-mail: janne.liebmann@curtin.edu.au

Abstract

The composition and evolution of Earth’s earliest crust provide critical constraints on how continents grew and when modern geodynamics emerged. Lead isotopes provide a time-resolved record of planetary differentiation and unlike commonly used systems such as Lu–Hf, are particularly sensitive to fractionation within the crust, offering a powerful complementary perspective on early Earth crustal evolution. Here, we used Pb isotopic data to show that long-lived, compositionally differentiated crustal reservoirs were established by 4.0–3.7 billion years ago (Ga) and contributed substantially to felsic magmatism until ca 2.63 Ga. These ancient fractionated reservoirs produce distinctive Pb isotopic signatures that are preserved across multiple cratons worldwide. Strikingly, this isotopic fingerprint largely disappears from the accessible global rock record after 2.75–2.63 Ga, marking a punctuated, fundamental shift in the sources and mechanisms of crust formation. Statistical change point analysis consistently identifies this transition in the full data compilation and in geographic and mineral-based subsets. We interpret this disappearance as evidence of a Neoarchaean transition to more efficient crustal recycling and the reorganization of magma generation towards plate margins. The loss of long-lived fractionated crustal sources coincides directly with independent geological and compositional evidence of a late Archaean secular change in continental evolution.

Climate Alarmism is Toxic

Aficionados of the climate wars will remember the climate-malaria link controversy of the 2000s. Despite alarmists’ insistence that climate change would increase the spread of malaria, sceptics of the claim noted documentary evidence that the disease had been endemic at very northern latitudes, including within the Arctic Circle.

The Lancet Countdown has attempted to conceal this rate of progress by hiding behind a novel metric. Rather than looking at the number of cases of vector-borne diseases, it has developed a measure called ‘climate suitability’. Of particular interest to the report are dengue virus, chikungunya, Zika virus, West Nile virus and malaria.

Satirical cartoon depicting climate alarmism as toxic, with panic news, warning signs, green fumes, and a doom meter.
AI generated by Meta

From The Daily Sceptic

By Ben Pile

A rat sits on a raised concrete barrier in a flooded city street.

In my previous post here, I looked at the central claim in the Lancet’s Countdown report, that “Heat-related deaths reached a record-high of 710 000 estimated deaths globally in 2023, of which 71·5% [507,650] can be attributed to climate change.” That claim simply didn’t stand up against the evidence provided by a more authoritative database of health metrics, despite the Lancet report citing it as a source of data. In this article, I’ll look at another claim from the report – that climate change is increasing the potential for infectious diseases to spread.

Aficionados of the climate wars will remember the climate-malaria link controversy of the 2000s. Despite alarmists’ insistence that climate change would increase the spread of malaria, sceptics of the claim noted documentary evidence that the disease had been endemic at very northern latitudes, including within the Arctic Circle. The idea of ‘tropical diseases’ being pushed northwards by a warming planet therefore suffered from a major category error. Moreover, the disease had been abolished in lower, but still categorically temperate, not ‘tropical’, latitudes by draining land and spraying insecticide – both of which are interventions that the green movement objects to. But even worse news for the alarmists was to come. Rates of malaria deaths began falling through the 2000s.

The Lancet Countdown has attempted to conceal this rate of progress by hiding behind a novel metric. Rather than looking at the number of cases of vector-borne diseases, it has developed a measure called ‘climate suitability’. Of particular interest to the report are dengue virus, chikungunya, Zika virus, West Nile virus and malaria.

It’s hard to understand why the report includes West Nile virus, as it admits that it “has a near-global distribution”. In Europe and the US, the virus is attributed to around 100 deaths in each, and though the distribution of cases in Europe is attributed to warming causing a northward migration, that pattern is not evident in the US, where counties in northern states between east and west such as Montana and North Dakota appear to have greater incidence rates than southern states in general, such as Florida or Texas.

Global mortality statistics from chikungunya and Zika are hard to find, because deaths from them are rare. Global annual recorded deaths from Zika are often as low as zero and have only exceeded single figures in one year according to the IHME GBD database. Deaths from chikungunya are usually in the low hundreds, and almost exclusively in vulnerable people.

By contrast, dengue and malaria were the causes of 53,000 and 670,000 deaths in 2023 respectively, or 0.65 and 9.57 age-standardised deaths per 100,000 people, also respectively. We can see in the following chart that mortality from dengue has increased but that mortality from malaria has fallen radically from the turn of the century until the Covid era – a factor that created shockwaves in all health metrics, as I discussed in the previous article.

Line chart showing global dengue and malaria deaths and age-standardised death rates from 1980 to 2023, with malaria far exceeding dengue.

Since its inception in the middle of the 2010s, the Countdown report has been tracking vector-borne diseases using its bespoke statistical methodology. But malaria has been remarkably resistant to climate alarmists’ narratives, hence the report’s emphasis on ‘climate suitability’ for these disease vectors – malaria deaths might be down, but the opportunity for mosquitoes that carry it might be increasing. The 2020 edition of the report claimed that “There have been significant increases in the environmental suitability for the transmission of falciparum malaria in highland areas of four of the five malaria endemic regions, with an increase of 38·7% in the African region […]” and illustrated the claim with the following chart.

Line chart showing average months suitable for malaria transmission in highland areas from 1950 to 2020 across five WHO regions.

This year’s report claims similarly that “Highland areas (>1500m above sea level) show an increase in climatic suitability of 17·68% for P falciparum and 5·41% for P vivax from 1981–90 to 2015–25, with a 12·88% increase in highland areas in the WHO African Region for P falciparum”.

Using the UN FAO’s definition of African countries with highland areas, I obtained malaria mortality rate data from the IHME’s GBD database. As is very obvious, if there has been an increase in ‘suitability’ for malaria vectors in these regions, this hasn’t produced an increase in mortality. At the extreme, 16% of deaths in Malawi in 1990 were from malaria, but by 2023 this had fallen to 2.5%. Burundi bucks the trend, showing a significant increase in malaria mortality rate from 2012 to 2020, from 4% to nearly 7%. But that exists in the context of 1990 rates of more than 14%, in an extremely poor country where per-capita GDP is little more than $1,000.

Line chart showing age-standardised malaria mortality rates per 100,000 people from 1990 to 2023 in African highland countries, with global comparison.

I can claim no clinical or scientific qualifications, and only maths to A-level. But it seems to me that if the environment (climate) is hypothesised as a determinant of an endemic disease’s human cost, and if the human cost shows an opposite outcome, then there is a problem with the hypothesis. Climate-obsessed health statisticians were unable to sustain their claim of a link in global mortality statistics, so changed their metric to ‘suitability’. But scrutiny of the ‘suitability’ also reveals an underwhelming basis in evidence. Nearly four decades of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming has not revealed its hand in mortality statistics relating to the most climate-ravaged regions of the world, which are home to the world’s poorest people. How is that possible?

I have, in my career as an irredeemably evil climate change denier, tried to put myself in the position of my moral superiors in the climate change movement – to try to understand their unimpeachable good faith and their desire to make the world a better place. But despite my attempts, I have always been drawn into the moral abyss, probably constructed by Big Oil, where I find the idea that the link between climate and disease is not as strong as the relationship between poverty (i.e., wealth) and disease. Furthermore, from this hate-filled, callous, nihilistic and probably transphobic, disgusting amoral perspective, I cannot help wondering how making energy scarcer and more expensive for people is going to help them deal with problems like endemic disease.

But how can we explain the rise of dengue mortality, if malaria mortality debunks the link between climate and disease? I have to admit, from my amoral position, I find the question utterly irrelevant – quite possibly one of the least relevant things that preoccupies institutional science. Yes, infectious diseases should be tracked and ways to prevent their transmission and cures both sought. But the attempt to link such diseases with climate for political ends is to make the victims of disease the puppets of a grotesque morality play. Let’s put it into perspective.

The IHME GBD data has been turned into a grim league table of causes of mortality by the Oxford University project, Our World in Data.

Bar chart showing estimated global deaths by cause in 2023, led by cardiovascular diseases at 19.1 million, followed by cancers at 10.6 million and chronic respiratory diseases at 4.15 million.

Dengue does not even feature on this chart. There is, in these 31 other mortality causes, an argument for vastly more attention on these causes of death, many of which are also diseases of poverty. And, as this and my previous article have argued, their links with climate are wildly exaggerated, if not completely pulled out of thin air using extremely dubious statistical methodology – spinning grim statistics out of models that merely reproduce researchers’ ideology, despite the weight of evidence to the contrary.

It’s easy to see why the Lancet Countdown report team have highlighted vector-borne tropical diseases to illustrate their narrative. Mosquitoes that carry them elicit disgust, and the idea of diseases that afflict the most poverty-stricken regions escaping their putative ecological niche using our own carbon profligacy, to exact Gaia’s revenge on us, is a tale of our age and the stuff of B-movie plots.

But the numbers can’t support it. And what this shows is that institutional prestige that has been loaned to the global climate agenda has caused the standards of science and medicine to slip, slide and crash. If this report, along with countless bullshit reports like it, is allowed to influence policy any further, to put energy and wealth even further out of reach than it is now for billions of people, then it will be environmentalism that will need to be listed as a cause of mortality.

COP31: Buildings are the new climate cash sink

The Turkish President of COP31 has launched yet another call for climate funding, this time for buildings. Every developing country has lots of buildings so the call is truly universal compared to specialty causes like wind and solar, droughts and floods, etc.

Large golden dollar signs above modern city apartment buildings, symbolizing real estate investment and property value.
Sleek cityscape featuring contemporary skyscrapers adorned with oversized golden dollar symbols, capturing the essence of prosperous property ventures and financial growth.

From CFACT

By David Wojick

The Turkish President of COP31 has launched yet another call for climate funding, this time for buildings. Every developing country has lots of buildings so the call is truly universal compared to specialty causes like wind and solar, droughts and floods, etc.

It is called the “Antalya Compact for Energy Efficient Buildings” but that is misleading because supposed energy efficiency is just part of it. It includes electrification which may well not be efficient. In any case it takes tons of money which is really the point.

See the Antalya Compact at https://globalabc.org/sites/default/files/resources/2026-10/cop31-energy-efficient-buildings-compact-text.pdf

The Compact is a proposed multinational agreement to do the following by 2035 which is very soon from an engineering and construction point of view:

“Pursue at least a 25 per cent reduction in the operational energy intensity of the global building stock by 2035 relative to 2020 levels.

Accelerate efficient electrification in buildings in support of the COP31 Presidency’s objective of increasing electricity’s share of global final energy consumption to 35 per cent by 2035.”

Electrification in buildings mostly means replacing the use of natural gas and fuel oil in existing buildings which is very expensive plus prohibiting it in new buildings. Both green efforts are already at work in America.

The more-money part of the Compact goes like this:

“We commit, in accordance with our respective national circumstances, priorities and capacities, and in support of the Compact’s 2035 objectives, to:

Mobilise finance, markets and implementation capacity, inter alia by increasing investment; using targeted public and concessional finance and technical assistance to mobilise private investment; reforming subsidies and taxation; and using sustainable public procurement, energy-service companies, performance contracting, green mortgages and property-linked finance to create demand.”

The inclusion of energy-service companies reflect the fact that they are major sponsors of this effort. The Compact comes from the “Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GlobalABC)” which is hosted by the UN Environment Program.

GlobalABC boasts over 440 members which is a great list of the kind of folks that will get the money.

Our members | GlobalABC

There are three primary groups — (1) developing countries, (2) activist groups and (3) construction trade associations. Here are three illustrative examples from the beginning of the list:

BANGLADESH – MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND PUBLIC WORKS

ALLIANCE FOR AN ENERGY EFFICIENT ECONOMY

AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS

Some seem a bit odd like the AMERICAN CONCRETE INSTITUTE as I do not see concrete as part of energy efficiency or electrification. Then there is the intriguing BUILD WITH HEMP but I digress.

Surely a 25 per cent reduction in the operational energy intensity of the entire global building stock by 2035 is impossible. Not only would the cost be astronomical, the required labor and materials could not be mobilized that quickly. Plus of course there is no one to pay for it. As a civil engineer I would love to see an engineering cost estimate.

There is also a bit of a contradiction here which is common throughout net zero energy efficiency proposals. If you are going to electrify the buildings and get the juice from wind and solar what is the green point in reducing energy usage? It does not reduce emissions as these are already zero.

In any case it will be worth watching COP31 to see how this latest wacky climate money sink progresses. Given that impossible targets are free it may do very well.

Stay tuned to CFACT to see how this green building circus goes.