Day: November 18, 2025

Reuters: “They [China] will lose” if the World Retreats from Renewable Energy

“… China is acting as a guarantor … They invested a lot on the green economy. If there’s any kind of involution, they will lose. …”

The China Pavilion at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP30) featuring prominent signage and Chinese flags.

From Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

“… China is acting as a guarantor … They invested a lot on the green economy. If there’s any kind of involution, they will lose. …”

China finds bigger role as US sidesteps Brazil climate summit

By Valerie Volcovici and Lisandra Paraguassu
November 16, 20253:20 AM GMT+10

BELEM, Brazil, Nov 15 (Reuters) – With the United States absent from the U.N. annual international climate summit for the first time in three decades, China is stepping into the limelight as a leader in the fight against global warming.

…

“China gets it,” said California Governor Gavin Newsom during a visit to the conference earlier this week. “America is toast competitively, if we don’t wake up to what the hell they’re doing in this space, on supply chains, how they’re dominating manufacturing, how they’re flooding the zone.”

…

“Little by little, China is acting as a guarantor of the climate regime,” said one senior diplomat from an emerging economy. “They invested a lot on the green economy. If there’s any kind of involution, they will lose.“

One Brazilian diplomat said China played a key role in helping reach an agreement over the COP30 agenda before negotiations even began, whereas in previous years its diplomats would not get involved unless there was some key issue for them.

…

Biniaz [former US envoy under John Kerry] said she was not yet convinced that China was playing a leadership role beyond the pavilions.

“If they had wanted to, they would have put in a more ambitious emission reduction target,” she said, referring to China’s announcement in September that it would cut emissions at least 7% from their peak by 2035.

…Read more: https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/cop/china-finds-bigger-role-us-sidesteps-brazil-climate-summit-2025-11-15/

What is really going on with China? Why don’t their emissions reduction targets match their quiet assumption of climate leadership?

The answer of course is China’s advocacy of climate action has nothing to do with climate change.

There is a real possibility the China’s climate action push is an attempt to prevent national bankruptcy.

China has a lot of debt problems.

Sinographs July 31, 2025

Beijing extends and pretends to deal with its mountain of local government debt

By Jeremy Mark

As the pooh-bahs of the Chinese Communist Party gathered recently to extol their vision for urban modernization, China’s paramount leader Xi Jinping offered an assessment of recent developments that appeared slightly at odds with the upbeat tone of the proceedings. The president said that “(I)n the past, GDP was used to judge heroes,” but “One beautiful thing covered a hundred ugly things. Nowadays, in many matters, one ugliness covers a hundred beautiful things.”

Yet as China’s cities, counties, and provinces confront slower economic growth and fiscal belt-tightening, the leadership didn’t mention the “one ugliness” that is weighing on local governments—trillions of dollars of debt. That is because the Chinese government already has declared victory over local government debt and seems to be moving on. A three-year debt restructuring initiative launched last November refinances ten trillion yuan ($1.39 trillion) of “hidden debt,” or bonds issued by investment companies known as local government financing vehicles (LGFVs). But LGFV bonds are only one part of a much larger problem. Local governments throughout China are also on the hook for trillions of dollars of bank loans, unpaid bills, and other obligations that remain unaddressed.

…Read more: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/econographics/sinographs/beijing-extends-and-pretends-to-deal-with-its-mountain-of-local-government-debt/

For decades Chinese local government leaders advanced their careers with a Ponzi scheme. If a local official wants career advancement, they have to meet their growth targets.

Officials quickly discovered they could fake economic growth by pumping their regional economy with borrowed money – building massive infrastructure projects, which looked great on paper, but which did nothing to advance long term prosperity.

Of course, once the local leader made it to the central committee staff, they couldn’t allow this deception to be discovered, so they had to help their successors conceal the growing mountain of debt when their successors pulled the same career advancement trick. As a result, a Ponzi scheme developed, of increasingly senior central committee staff whose careers depended on helping their former subordinates conceal their own career advancing financial malfeasance.

So long as China’s housing bubble lasted, there was enough local government income to conceal the career advancement Ponzi scheme debts. Land releases to developers are a major source of income for local governments in China. But when the housing bubble imploded in 2020, the income required to maintain the career advancement Ponzi Scheme evaporated, and the horrifying debt burden of China’s regional governments was exposed.

It gets worse. While local government officials were playing career advancement Ponzi scheme games, the national government was using debt as a tool of international diplomacy, seeking to ensnare other countries into debt dependency on China, to extend their international influence. But the Chinese national government appears to have miscalculated. They expected to win diplomatic influence by pressuring debtors into concessions, but it never occurred to China that much of the money they loaned would never be repaid.

China Is Bailing Out Its Bad Bets, and Handing the West a Geopolitical Opening

By  Elaine Dezenski
May 18, 2023 2:37 pm EDT

China has created its own subprime infrastructure crisis, and now it is trying to bail itself out. The rescue efforts are focused on loans for China’s much-touted Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI, Beijing’s trillion-dollar attempt to build global infrastructure and increase its influence throughout the developing world. These debt problems offer an opportunity for the West to approach developing economies with a better alternative.

Issuing what have frequently amounted to junk bonds, China’s BRI made high-risk, often-unneeded billion-dollar infrastructure loans, with no conditionality, poor risk planning, shrouded in opacity and secrecy. Cash-poor developing countries that lacked the ability to pay and had long track records of corruption were particularly vulnerable. A recent report by researchers at the World Bank and several other institutions shows that China has funded $240 billion in bailouts for many of these subprime loans.

It’s not surprising that so many of the countries that borrowed what looked like cheap Chinese cash for these global megaprojects are now at risk of defaulting on their loans. The seeds of project failure were sown from the outset by a lack of transparency, risk management, and viable controls to check corruption and incompetence.

…Read more: https://www.barrons.com/articles/china-belt-and-road-loans-bailout-infrastructure-africa-asia-7f905df0

After their traditional infrastructure Belt and Road push went sour, China pivoted more towards green infrastructure loans. They invested in massive green energy manufacturing capacity, powered by coal, in anticipation of a global energy system realignment. But as international demand fell short of Chinese expectations, China once again tried to pump the green infrastructure export market by offering easy credit, to keep Chinese factories running, and soak up China’s excess manufacturing capacity.

Working Together to Build a Green Belt and Road

2025-08-12Source：ECONOMIC DAILY

Green is the defining feature of high-quality Belt and Road cooperation. General Secretary Xi Jinping has stressed the need to pursue open and green development in Belt and Road cooperation. Over the years, China has worked hand in hand with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) partners to advance green, low-carbon, and sustainable development, while steadily deepening cooperation in such areas as green infrastructure, green energy, and green transportation. Nevertheless, the development of the Green BRI still faces many risks and challenges. Constraints in addressing climate change have grown more stringent, and the level of international cooperation on ecological and environmental protection remains to be improved. How can the BRI be advanced in a greener direction? In this edition, we have invited experts to share their insights on these issues.

…

Practical cooperation in the energy sector has continued to advance. China is currently engaged in green energy projects with more than 100 countries and regions. In 2024, China’s investment in clean energy reached USD 625 billion — accounting for one-third of the global total — cementing its role as a “stabilizer” of the global clean energy production and supply chain. By deepening cooperation on renewable energy projects in Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, China has provided solid resource foundations for host countries to pursue energy transition and green, low-carbon development. Leveraging its scale and integrated industrial advantages, China has promoted the “going global” of equipment manufacturing, engineering, and technical services. China’s clean energy industry has continued to expand in scale, and in 2024 accounted for over 70 percent of the world’s wind power equipment and lithium battery supply, as well as more than 80 percent of photovoltaic modules. A series of projects — including solar PV projects, wind power installations, and transmission lines — has been built in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. The promotion of Chinese equipment manufacturing and technical standards has helped alleviate energy poverty in host countries and boosted their economic growth.

…Read more: http://en.brigc.net/Media_Center/Updates/Latest_News/202508/t20250814_137603.html

Thanks to President Trump’s forceful rejection of the fake climate crisis, all the money the Chinese government invested in their green energy manufacturing capacity and green energy loans is at risk. If other nations follow President Trump’s lead, those Chinese Government funded solar, EV and wind turbine factories and installations will become worthless.

China is a big presence at COP30, despite not presenting “ambitious” climate targets of their own, because they are desperate to keep the climate roadshow going. As John Kerry’s former assistant Biniaz said, “if there’s any kind of involution, they [China] will lose“.

How badly China will lose, only China knows.

And maybe even Chinese leaders can’t be sure how much bad debt resilience their nation has left. Nobody knows when China’s ageing population of income savers will try to withdraw trillions of dollars of retirement cash which has been squandered on bad debt.

We know for sure that Chinese communists lie to their bosses – look how badly the Chinese mishandled the Wuhan Covid outbreak. In the USA such incompetence would have been rapidly exposed by mainstream or new media, but China doesn’t have a free press to expose local coverups and corruption. A courageous Chinese doctor tried to raise the alarm, but his warnings were censored, and he was summoned to explain his actions to local authorities.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, the CIA was as surprised as the Kremlin, because even though the CIA had full access to Kremlin economic data, all the Kremlin data was lies, the product of long chains of Soviet bureaucrats concealing their failures from the boss. When the Chinese communist system implodes, the timing of that collapse will also come as a big surprise for the same reason, even to people who thought they knew what was happening inside China – including me.

The Cooling Also Not Our Fault 2025

Illustration of global ocean currents, showing red and blue arrows representing warm and cold water flows across the world map.

From Science Matters

By Ron Clutz

A diagram of ocean currents in the North Atlantic, showing various straits and basins, including the Denmark Strait, Davis Strait, and North Atlantic Current, with arrows indicating the flow direction.

With the lack of global warming and the steep decline of SSTs the last 2 years, climatists are pivoting to the notion invented by the infamous M. Mann, AKA Mr. Hockey Stick (aiming to erase the Medieval warming period).  The reasoning is convoluted, as you might expect given the intent to blame cold weather on global warming.  The claim is that burning fossil fuels causes the North Atlantic Current to slow down and bring cold temperatures to the Northern Hemisphere.  The video below is an excellent PR piece promoting this science fiction as though it were fact.

Science Facts to Counter Science Fiction

Natural variability has dominated Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation since 1900
Mojib Latif et al. published April 2022 Nature Climate Change.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

Abstract

There is debate about slowing of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a key component of the global climate system. Some focus is on the sea surface temperature (SST) slightly cooling in parts of the subpolar North Atlantic despite widespread ocean warming. Atlantic SST is influenced by the AMOC, especially on decadal timescales and beyond. The local cooling could thus reflect AMOC slowing and diminishing heat transport, consistent with climate model responses to rising atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations.

Here we show from Atlantic SST the prevalence of natural AMOC variability since 1900. This is consistent with historical climate model simulations for 1900–2014 predicting on average AMOC slowing of about 1 Sv at 30° N after 1980, which is within the range of internal multidecadal variability derived from the models’ preindustrial control runs. These results highlight the importance of systematic and sustained in-situ monitoring systems that can detect and attribute with high confidence an anthropogenic AMOC signal.

Main

Global surface warming (global warming hereafter) since the beginning of the twentieth century is unequivocal, and humans are the main cause through the emission of vast amounts of greenhouse gases (GHGs), especially carbon dioxide (CO2)1,2,3. The oceans have stored more than 90% of the heat trapped in the climate system caused by the accumulation of GHGs in the atmosphere, thereby contributing to sea-level rise and leading to more frequent and longer lasting marine heat waves4. Moreover, the oceans have taken up about one third of the total anthropogenic CO2 emissions since the start of industrialization, causing ocean acidification5. Both ocean warming and acidification already have adverse consequences for marine ecosystems6. Some of the global warming impacts, however, unfold slowly in the ocean due to its large thermal and dynamical inertia. Examples are sea-level rise and the response of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a three-dimensional system of currents in the Atlantic Ocean with global climatic relevance7,8,9,10.

[Comment: The paragraph above is the obligatory statement of fidelity to the Climatist Creed. All the foundational claims are affirmed with references to prove the authors above reproach, and not to be dismissed as denialists.  As further evidence of their embrace of IPCC consensus science, consider the diagrams below.

Graphs depicting sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies from various datasets over time, illustrating trends in the North Atlantic region and their implications for climate study.

a, The NAWH SST index (°C), defined as the annual SST anomalies averaged over the region 46° N–62° N and 46° W–20° W. Observations for 1900–2019 from ERSSTv.5 (orange) and Kaplan SST v.2 (yellow), and ensemble-mean SST for 1900–2014 (dark blue line) from the historical simulations with the CMIP6 models and the individual historical simulations (thin grey lines) are shown. b, Same as a but for the NA-SST index (°C), defined as the annual SST anomalies averaged over the region 40° N–60° N and 80° W–0° E. c, Same as a but for the AMO/V (°C) index, defined as the 11-year running mean of the annual SST anomalies averaged over the region 0° N–65° N and 80° W–0° E. The SST indices in a–c are calculated as area-weighted means. d, NAO index (dimensionless) for 1900–2019 (red), defined as the difference in the normalized winter (December–March) sea-level pressure between Lisbon (Portugal) and Stykkisholmur/Reykjavik (Iceland). The blue curve indicates the equivalent CO2 radiative forcing (W m−2) for 1900–2019, which is taken from the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) SSP5-8.5 after 2014.

Chart d shows the NAO fluxes compared to a CO2 forcing curve based upon the much criticized RCP 8.5 scenario, which is not “business-as-usual” but rather “business-impossible.” Using it shows the authors bending over backwards to give every chance for confirming the alarming slowdown narrative.  The next paragraph gives the entire game away]

Climate models predict substantial AMOC slowing if atmospheric GHG concentrations continue to rise unabatedly1,11,12,13,14. Substantial AMOC slowing would drive major climatic impacts such as shifting rainfall patterns on land15, accelerating regional sea-level rise16,17 and reducing oceanic CO2 uptake. However, it is still unclear as to whether sustained AMOC slowing is underway18,19,20,21,22. Direct ocean-circulation observation in the North Atlantic (NA) is limited9,23,24,25,26,27. Inferences drawn about the AMOC’s history from proxy data28 or indices derived from other variables, which may provide information about the circulation’s variability (for example, sea surface temperature (SST)21,29,30, salinity31 or Labrador Sea convection32), are subject to large uncertainties.

Discussion

Observed SSTs and a large ensemble of historical simulations with state-of-the-art climate models suggest the prevalence of internal AMOC variability since the beginning of the twentieth century. Observations and individual model runs show comparable SST variability in the NAWH region. However, the models’ ensemble-mean signal is much smaller, indicative of the prevalence of internal variability. Further, most of the SST cooling in the subpolar NA, which has been attributed to anthropogenic AMOC slowing21, occurred during 1930–1970, when the radiative forcing did not exhibit a major upward trend. We conclude that the anthropogenic signal in the AMOC cannot be reliably estimated from observed SST. A linear and direct relationship between radiative forcing and AMOC may not exist. Further, the relevant physical processes could be shared across EOF modes, or a mode could represent more than one process.

A relatively stable AMOC and associated northward heat transport during the past decades is also supported by ocean syntheses combining ocean general circulation models and data76,77, hindcasts with ocean general circulation models forced by observed atmospheric boundary conditions78 and instrumental measurements of key AMOC components9,22,79,80,81.

Neither of these datasets suggest major AMOC slowing since 1980, and neither of the AMOC indices from Rahmstorf et al.20 or Caesar et al.21 show an overall AMOC decline since 1980.

Contextual Background

From the Energy MIx Changes in Atlantic Current May Fall Within Natural Variability.  

In the February, 2022, edition of the journal Nature Geoscience, researchers at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science urged more detailed study of the notoriously complex Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). Now, oceanographer Mojib Latif and his team from the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel, Germany are repeating that call in a paper just published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

The latest study describes the AMOC as a “three-dimensional system of current in the Atlantic Ocean with global climatic relevance.”

The February study responded to an August 2021 warning from the Potsdam Institute
that the AMOC has become wildly unstable and dangerously weak
due to global warming caused by human activity.

The authors of the latest study affirm that the Earth’s oceans have taken up more than 90% of the accumulated heat and roughly a third of all CO2 emissions since the dawn of the industrial age, leading to clearly measurable and devastating impacts like marine heat waves, sea level rise, and ocean acidification.

But it isn’t easy to confirm that the Atlantic circulation is actually slowing, partly because the ocean possesses such “large thermal and dynamical inertia.”

It is also extremely difficult to directly observe ocean circulation patterns in the North Atlantic, and proxies like sea surface temperature are “subject to large uncertainties,” the scientists say. Based on the available data, the GEOMAR study attributes localized sea surface cooling in the North Atlantic since 1900 to natural AMOC variability—not, as had been hypothesized, to a global heating-induced breakdown in the AMOC’s capacity to transfer heat.

Footnote:

See also from Science Norway Researchers and the media need to stop crying ‘wolf’ about the Gulf Stream

COP30 is the world’s biggest trade show

The vast majority of the tens of thousands of people attending COP30 are there to sell and buy stuff, including oil, natural gas, and even coal. Climate policy has little to do with it. This is by far the world’s biggest trade show, with almost every country represented. There is nothing else like it.

A woman interacts with a colorful 'Brazil' sign surrounded by greenery and floating dollar bills, symbolizing commerce and trade, in a vibrant setting.

From CFACT

By David Wojick

A close-up of a person's hand in a suit holding several hundred dollar bills against a blue background.

The vast majority of the tens of thousands of people attending COP30 are there to sell and buy stuff, including oil, natural gas, and even coal. Climate policy has little to do with it. This is by far the world’s biggest trade show, with almost every country represented. There is nothing else like it.

Pre-registration for COP30 is around 56,000, the second highest in COP history. Total attendance might be 70,000 or more. The press often talks as though all these people are somehow involved in the climate deliberations, but that is wildly false.

The number of actual in-the-building negotiators is likely fewer than a thousand. It is possibly a lot less, as that would be five per country, and some countries only send two or three people. Many countries have several negotiators as negotiations often proceed in multiple simultaneous work groups. So, let’s say it is a thousand.

There are also around a thousand journalists, several thousand activist observers, and likely several thousand conference support staff.

So suppose there are ten thousand people directly involved in the negotiations as doers, helpers, and watchers. What do the other 60,000 or so people do? Well, for a start, many of them man (person?) the endless pavilions, booths, and presentations going on outside the negotiations building. Many others attend this carnival.

Many countries have pavilions. Some, like China’s, are whole buildings. There are also components of countries like states and cities. But then, there are big businesses and multi-national corporations that develop projects in and sell to countries and their components. There are even big financial institutions. The show is enormous.

CFACT’s team in Belém has reported on some of these heavy hitters. See, for example, Peter Murphy’s “COP30: Traversing the UN Green Zone. Corporations and government PR on full display for the Amazon” here.

They also talk to each other, and this is where I am sure many deals get done. Plus, there are lots of people who come just to deal with the people in the show.

On the funny side, a few COPs ago, the UN started asking registrants about their ties to oil and gas companies. There turned out to be well over a thousand per COP, which is as many, or more than, the number of negotiators. I am sure a lot of oil and gas deals get started here. In fact, at COP28, the COP president, himself an oil executive, got yelled at for talking about making such deals.

Countries do business in a lot of areas besides oil and gas, from airplanes to agriculture. It would be fun to assess all the shows for the range of businesses potentially involved.

There is no other get-together in the world even remotely like these COPs. Senior people from most countries and a lot of big businesses all talking to each other around the clock for well over a week. I envision 100,000 elevator pitches.

The number of people here to talk about climate change is probably relatively small, say just 15%. Most are here to see and be seen, to sell and to buy, or at least to start talking about that. This might actually make these otherwise stupid COPs valuable. Imagine that!

Paris Climate Accord’s Demise—James Hansen was Right

The Paris Climate Agreement turns ten this month. But COP21’s outcome — in which 195 countries pledged to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to achieve a global temperature outcome — is in serious peril. COP30, now in session, finds almost all signatories out of compliance with their “nationally determined contributions.” Major emitters such as the United States and Russia are not participating in the annual meeting either. How much longer can “Net Zero” and like UN global aspirations continue?

A man speaking at a microphone with a fiery background.

From Watts Up With That?

Robert L. Bradley, Jr.

The Paris Climate Agreement turns ten this month. But COP21’s outcome — in which 195 countries pledged to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to achieve a global temperature outcome — is in serious peril. COP30, now in session, finds almost all signatories out of compliance with their “nationally determined contributions.” Major emitters such as the United States and Russia are not participating in the annual meeting either. How much longer can “Net Zero” and like UN global aspirations continue?

Specifically, only one of the 40 major reporting groups (accounting for 85% of global emissions) is on track, and most of the rest have not even submitted a target. “This lack of progress is deeply concerning,” Climate Action Tracker reported, citing a need to “step up mitigation efforts and avoid weakening targets by relying on offsets and sinks….”

The U.S. is rated “critically insufficient,” joining Russia, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, and six others. Canada, China, India, Argentina, and three others are “highly insufficient,” and the trend is negative for virtually all countries with growing economies.

Little Surprise

Like the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, the Paris Climate Accords were destined for failure. James Hansen, the father of the global warming alarm with his 1988 Congressional testimony, predicted as much. The 2015 agreement, he said at the time, is “a fraud really, a fake.”

It’s just bullshit for them to say: ‘We’ll have a 2°C warming target and then try to do a little better every five years.’ It’s just worthless words. There is no action, just promises. As long as fossil fuels appear to be the cheapest fuels out there, they will be continued to be burned.

What was a photo-op, in retrospect, was negated by superior, consumer-chosen, taxpayer-neutral energies. Should this be surprising?

“Clean” Energy Focus?

At COP30, “clean” energy is in, and emissions targets are out. James Hansen has offered a realistic opinion here as well: “Suggesting that renewables will let us phase rapidly off fossil fuels in the United States, China, India, or the world as a whole is almost the equivalent of believing in the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy.”

China is the new role model with “clean” energy, from renewables to vehicle electrification. But why emulate a centrally planned economy that loses money at the expense of its citizens? China depends on fossil fuels for 87% of its energy usage, in any case.

At best, China is “greenwashing” its coal boom. Coal, after all, the world’s leading source of electrical generation, is powering China’s drive to ‘clean’ energy.

Politics

Climate activism starts and ends with politics, which introduces government failure in the quest to address alleged market failure. Hansen had some choice words here, too.

Big Green consists of several “environmental” organizations, including Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), each with $100+M budgets, each springing from high-minded useful beginnings, each with more high-priced lawyers than you can shake a stick at. EDF …was chief architect of the disastrous Kyoto lemon. NRDC proudly claims credit for Obama’s EPA strategy and foolishly allows it to migrate to Paris.

Compare this to the Grassroots Green movement blocking wind, solar, and battery projects (1,126 and counting) that create blight and lower property values. Will ecologists belatedly stand up against industrial wind, solar, and batteries — and the Climate Industrial Complex writ large?

Conclusion

It is past time to get realistic and repeal the Paris Agreement and Net Zero. The path forward under any climate scenario is adaptation, where the best energies and societal wealth anticipate, ameliorate, and recover from weather extremes. The last word belongs to Alex Epstein, who stated in The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels:

The popular climate discussion … looks at man as a destructive force for climate livability … because we use fossil fuels. In fact, the truth is the exact opposite; we don’t take a safe climate and make it dangerous; we take a dangerous climate and make it safe. High-energy civilization, not climate, is the driver of climate livability.

Originally posted at the Institute for Energy Research

El País Lies When Claiming That Climate Change “Threatens the Future of Food,” It Doesn’t

El País posted an article “The era of scarcity: Climate change threatens the future of food,” claiming that climate change is making food shortages worse, highlighting Japanese rice production and Brazilian coffee, among other crops, as examples. This is false. While production of certain crops may suffer some seasons, data show that crop production and yields have increased substantially amid the past century’s modest warming.

A scenic view of terraced rice fields set against a backdrop of rolling green hills and a blue sky with fluffy white clouds.

From ClimateRealism

By Linnea Lueken

A panoramic view of terraced rice fields in a misty landscape, featuring farmers working among the lush green plants, with a small red building in the background.

El País posted an article “The era of scarcity: Climate change threatens the future of food,” claiming that climate change is making food shortages worse, highlighting Japanese rice production and Brazilian coffee, among other crops, as examples. This is false. While production of certain crops may suffer some seasons, data show that crop production and yields have increased substantially amid the past century’s modest warming.

El País’ post covers so many topics it feels like a climate-alarmist Gish-gallop, with too many topics so shallowly covered. It gives the feeling of overwhelming evidence, even if each example individually fails to support the claims made. Rather than debunk every claim, many of which have already been discussed across hundreds of previous Climate Realism articles on crop production, this article will just refute a few specific examples cited in El País’ woefully misleading article.

The article begins by pointing towards Japanese rice production. Although El País admits that many other factors have contributed to this year’s rice shortage, they assert that the main cause is allegedly climate change-induced heat and heavy rainfall, “fear of natural disasters, and the pressure of mass tourism.” Mind you, climate change cannot cause “fear of natural disasters” or “the pressure of mass tourism,” and neither of those have anything to do with rice production. These claims are just a distraction.

In 2024, rice was stockpiled in anticipation of a serious earthquake, which added to higher prices and less availability on the market. On top of that, there has been a large increase in visitors to Japan “eager to eat sushi,” which also strains rice supplies in the relatively small island nation. Neither of these are climate change related, and the actual largest reason production is declining in Japan is also not climate related.

Japanese rice production has declined since recordkeeping began in 1961, but data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) also show that yields per acre have increased substantially over the same period (See figure below). This indicates that it is not an environmental or climate issue primarily driving the decline. In fact, what El País neglected to mention, is that for decades the Japanese government has actively discouraged rice production in order to protect rice prices.

Graph showing the trends in Japanese rice yield and production from 1961 to 2020, with yield represented by a blue line and production by a red line.

An article at nippon.com, written by Yamashita Kazuhito, explains that the influx of visitors, environmental pressures, and stockpiling only account for a small percentage of the issue. The main driver of rice shortages is government policy. In order to protect the price of rice from dipping, the Japan Agricultural Cooperatives and Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries (MAFF) order less acreage be used for growing rice, “based on the premise that demand for rice is decreasing by 100,000 tons every year.”

When government agencies restrict the amount of rice grown, and bad weather happens, the production is further depressed. Yamashita explains that 40 percent of available paddy fields are not currently being used; the government is restricting rice production to a cap of about 6.5 million tons. The same article contains a useful chart showing how every other major rice producing country is seeing increases in production, while Japan alone declines. (See figure below)

Graph illustrating annual rice production by country from 1961 to 2021, showing trends for countries like Vietnam, the United States, China, India, Thailand, and Japan.

Yamashita explains that “[i]f Japan abandoned the acreage reduction program, it could produce 17 million tons of rice each year, with 7 million tons for domestic consumption and 10 million tons for export,” which would provide enough of a cushion to handle bad production seasons and domestic demand fluctuations.

This information is easily found, even if you are not familiar with Japanese agricultural policy. The fact that the FAO data clearly show yields increasing even as production has declined should have sent up alarm bells for the author of the El País article.

El País also claims that climate change is causing coffee production in Brazil to decline. Climate Realism debunked this claim in a previous post, “Wrong Again, Grist, Climate Change Is Not Causing Higher Coffee Prices,” which shows how coffee production has some bad years, but overall even Brazilian coffee yields have been increasing over time. This is ironic, since the El País author says that the ideal of “continuous growth” is not living up to reality.

In fact, with regards to food production, the only thing that is not living up to reality is alarmists’ predictions of climate change induced declines in production.

El País goes on to highlight a loss of drinking water in Montevideo, Uruguay. But this was due to a severe drought that has since ended. That drought was accompanied by record cold, driven by La Niña conditions in the Pacific, which are natural and known to cause dry conditions in Uruguay even as it gives more rainfall to the northeastern parts of South America. There is no long-term pattern of drought in Uruguay, and no evidence of a climate change fingerprint on drinking water shortages there.

In Mexico, El País says that “white corn” production has dwindled and is “no longer sufficient to meet domestic demand.” But FAO data show that general corn production has increased 341 percent in Mexico since 1961, with a record-breaking year as recently as 2016. (See figure below)

Graph illustrating corn yield and production in Mexico from 1961 to 2020, showing a significant increase in both metrics over the years.

Perhaps the “dwindling” production is just the plateaued production since that peak, but all-time high yields occurred in 2023. So, the question is whether this is climate related or economics.

Corn prices have been very low recently, to the point that farmers just this year protested the Mexican government to get price guarantees on their product. Mexico News Daily reports that farmers say “production costs have increased in recent years, but prices for agricultural goods haven’t kept pace.”

Just like with Japan, when economic and political conditions make growing food more difficult and a naturally bad season strikes resulting in a decline in production, it can be more devastating to farmers and consumers than it would have been otherwise. This is not evidence of climate change hurting food production. The fact that production inputs like fertilizers are increasing in cost is, in fact, more attributable to the climate alarmists’ war on fossil fuels than anything else. Natural gas and oil are used to make and as components of fertilizers and pesticides, and power most farm equipment, like tractors, combines, and trucks.

The article makes an absurd claim, citing a study in Nature, that “a 1°C increase in average global temperature reduces food production by about 120 kilocalories per person per day.”

If that were true, we would already have seen it, as the planet has warmed more than a degree since the pre-industrial period, and in some places like Europe, even more so. Yet, global staple food production has increased, and hunger and malnutrition have decreased amid the modest warming of the past century, and especially recent decades. Part of this is due to improvements in technology, usually driven by fossil fuel use and byproducts, but also due to better growing conditions, slightly more precipitation, and the fertilizing effect of increased carbon dioxide itself, all factors discussed in Climate at a Glance: Crop Production.

To conclude, El País makes a number of false claims about short-term shortages of various crops being due to climate change. In fact, the evidence shows that government policies have limited the production of some crops, despite favorable climate conditions boosting yields. Short-term weather events have harmed production seasonally on occasion, only for subsequent years’ weather to result in better crop production. In the end, data clearly show that food production is not suffering due to climate change.

This tired claim gets harder for alarmists to defend every year as food production continues to improve. If developing countries choose to ignore climate alarmists, including El País writers who sinisterly claim that “global food production is one of the main causes of climate change,” and allow and encourage their farmers to embrace modern high-yield production techniques, including by expanding their use of fossil fuel powered or derived farm technologies, they are likely to also greatly improve crop production as well as resilience in the face of natural weather events.


The BBC: My Part in Its Downfall

The BBC has always been very Left-wing. But it didn’t used to be biased.

Graphic combining the BBC logo with a hammer and sickle, featuring the text 'MINISTRY OF TRUTH' against a swirling red background.

From The Daily Sceptic

By Iain Macwhirter

People walking in front of the BBC entrance, with the large BBC logo visible above.

The BBC has always been very Left-wing. But it didn’t used to be biased.

I should know because I was one of those identikit Left-wingers who worked at the BBC for 25 years. Everyone thought the same: Thatcher was mad, the poll tax was evil, immigration was a good thing, the rich should be taxed, and nuclear weapons were immoral. These liberal-Left attitudes were shared by the vast majority of the people I worked with in the British Broadcasting Corporation. With a few exceptions.

I remember a quiet young man called Robbie Gibb who appeared in the BBC’s Millbank complex in Westminster in the 1990s when I was presenting BBC political programmes there. He was a Tory, so I was informed, as if he had some affliction which was unfortunate, but which should be respected and not mocked.

And on the whole he was respected. The general view on the shop floor back then was that the BBC needed more political diversity in its own ranks. Though he did always appear just a little bit isolated. However, I can honestly say his views were much more respected on screen than off. We may have been Left-wing but we went to great lengths not to let it show.

I remember trying to persuade the late Enoch Powell to come on Westminster Live for nothing – he demanded a fee when it was not BBC practice to pay politicians. I didn’t agree with his views on race, nor did the producers of the programme, but we wanted his voice to be heard. The idea that someone who opposed immigration was not suitable to be broadcast was just not something anyone ever argued, to my knowledge.

You may say I’m being naïve here and perhaps I am. Of course our unconscious biases probably ended up being reflected in the kinds of issues that we showcased on news and current affairs. But this cultural bias in the BBC, a result of its recruitment of politically-literate humanities graduates, was counteracted by an almost religious observance of impartiality. It really was a kind of cult in the BBC then. Letting your views show on air was seen as just as much a violation of the BBC’s ‘mission to explain’, as the then BBC director general John Birt put it, but deeply unprofessional and uncool. At least that’s how I remember it. Others may have different recollections.

When Tony Blair was elected in 1997 everyone I worked with seemed relieved, glad, optimistic. Rejoice! The Tories were dead and buried. However, we all realised that we had to bend over backwards now to hold Labour to account over lobbying, spin, spending, defence, Europe and a whole range of issues. The idea that it was our job to amplify or validate Labour’s policies and prejudices would have seemed outrageous.

So when did this all change? Well I think I can just about date it to 2014 or so and the issue was climate change. For the first time the BBC said to its staff that this cult of impartiality should no longer apply. So no more platforming of critics of climate change like the former Tory Chancellor Nigel Lawson, the popular TV botanist David Bellamy, or indeed Piers Corbyn, the brother of the Left-wing Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn. The science was conclusive, said the BBC, declaring that there should be no ‘two sides-ism’ which might lead viewers to think that there was a legitimate argument against climate change.

The comparison was with Nazism. You would not give the fascist point of view in a debate nor would your platform a racist. Opposing climate change became ‘climate change denial’ – equivalent to Holocaust denial, which of course was illegal in Germany. That was the moment that the impartiality cult was dropped.

Now I agree that the scientific consensus is clear and that anthropogenic climate change is happening and that we are partly responsible for it. But the trouble with refusing to debate an issue is that it is no longer tested. It becomes a dogma. The whole crucial issue of what to do about climate change went by default. Whatever the popes of climate change said was automatically assumed to be true.

Oil and gas were simply evil and to be shunned, even though 75% of our energy is still derived from it. Cars were bad, flying wrong, central heating an infestation and industrial farming an affront to nature. This approach informed just about every BBC programme. As if in wartime, BBC programmes were all about how to do the right thing. How to rewild nature, install renewable energy, stop using chemicals, reduce car miles, use bicycles etc. Like supporting your nation in a war, going green was seen as a moral absolute to be promoted without question. Yet, the inconvenient truth, to paraphrase Al Gore, is that our society is inconceivable without energy and most of it still comes from carbon-based fuel and will do for many years to come.

The omertà on discussion led to the absurdity of the UK closing down the North Sea oil and gas industry, endangering tens of thousands of jobs, just so we could import the oil and gas we still need from abroad. The dogmatic rejection of ‘unnatural’ pesticides and herbicides ignored the reality that productive agriculture is impossible without them. The promotion of ‘clean energy’ ignored the fact that it isn’t actually all that clean and that constructing wind farms and the paraphernalia of renewable energy brings its own problems, not least unaffordable electricity bills which have left a third of the country in fuel poverty. Green is not always good.

The ‘no debate’ idea quickly spread from climate change to other issues. Transgender people insisted that there should be no debate about their existence any more than there should be debate about global warming. The BBC adopted this uncritically from around 2015. There is a famous discussion with Victoria Derbyshire and a group of four transgender advocates where Susie Green of Mermaids remarks that her own daughter told her “When she was four” that “God had made a mistake, and she should have been a girl”. The academic and feminist, Germaine Greer, was summarily cancelled after she said that “just cutting off your dick doesn’t make you a woman”. The BBC installed an LGBTQ correspondent who became a kind of witch-finder general damning heresy against the transgender ideology, as the leaked report from the former BBC editorial adviser Michael Prescott exposed. Male sex offenders were referred to as women. Drag queens became ubiquitous. Gender transitioners were invariably celebrated for their ‘courage’. It took the Supreme Court and the Cass Review in 2024 to make the BBC question the gospel according to Stonewall.

Then of course we had Black Lives Matter, and the UK media collectively took the knee after a black man died in police custody in Minneapolis. Militant demonstrators, who took to the streets during Covid lockdown, causing injuries to 27 police officers, were generally regarded as virtuous opponents of racism.

Donald Trump opposed climate change, critical race theory and transgender ideology so he was clearly an agent of the devil. Statements from Trump invariably included references to his ‘lack of evidence’ and ‘unfounded’ complaints. Many of his remarks were indeed outrageous and his claims unfounded. But so are the remarks of most politicians.

Trump became quarantined as a kind of moral infection. The objection to his policies became a kind of knee-jerk reaction to politicians of the Right like Nigel Farage who, along with the Daily Mail, became the butt of endless unfunny jokes on Have I Got News for You. The comedienne, Jo Brand, famously said that she wished the Reform leader had been pelted pelted “with battery acid” instead of milkshakes.

Comedy was the one area where the BBC felt it could be unashamedly Left-wing because if anyone criticised it they could be accused of lacking a sense of humour or being a supporter of the far Right. This became so ubiquitous on shows like the News Quiz, Dead Ringers and even the formerly hilarious Now Show that they became all but unlistenable even to people of the Left like me.

So we are where we are now, which is the worst crisis the BBC has faced over, yes, Donald Trump, race and transgenderism. The BBC has responded to criticism of editorial standards by its own adviser, Michael Prescott, by attacking the same Robbie Gibb, now a BBC governor, of leading a “Right-wing coup” in league with the Tory press. The Today programme turned into a party political broadcast on behalf of its right-thinking employees, thus inadvertently exposing the reality of political bias. It should have reported the crisis dispassionately and analysed the content of the Prescott Report into BBC bias rather than trying to deflect attention from it. The thin skein of BBC impartiality was finally ripped apart.

Perhaps it is impossible for the BBC to continue after this split. As critical friends like the former BBC politics presenter Andrew Marr and the former defence correspondent Mark Urban have pointed out, there is now a generation of activist-minded graduates running BBC programmes who think that they should, like broadcasters in wartime, be taking sides. They think the BBC should be promoting social justice, opposing environmental catastrophe and depriving anti-immigrant populists of the oxygen of publicity. Only they cannot do this and still be the BBC proper. Now that Reform is leading the opinion polls the BBC cannot exclude Nigel Farage or sack Robbie Gibb. The “coup” theory only points up the fact that there are many members of the BBC Board of Governors like Muriel Gray, formerly of The Tube, who could not exactly be called Tories.

The howls of anguish from the legions of BBC supporters on X only exposes the reality that the BBC now is biased as it always has been – but it has unfortunately stopped realising that it is.

Iain Macwhirter, a former BBC political correspondent and TV presenter, is a columnist for the Times and the author of Disunited Kingdom. This article was first published on his Substack page.

OISST Updates: Ocean SST Cooling Confirmed

The climatists have seized on this unusual warming as proof their Zero Carbon agenda is needed, without addressing how impossible it would be for CO2 warming the air to raise ocean temperatures. It is the ocean that warms the air, not the other way around. Recently Steven Koonin had this to say about the phenomenon confirmed in the graph above:
El Nino is a phenomenon in the climate system that happens once every four or five years. Heat builds up in the equatorial Pacific to the west of Indonesia and so on. Then when enough of it builds up it surges across the Pacific and changes the currents and the winds. As it surges toward South America it was discovered and named in the 19th century. It is well understood at this point that the phenomenon has nothing to do with CO2.

A serene ocean view at sunset with sunlight reflecting on the water surface.

From Science Matters

By Ron Clutz

Map showing the status of the global drifter array as of October 27, 2025, with locations marked in blue and red indicating different types of drifters and their data capabilities.

The best context for understanding decadal temperature changes comes from the world’s sea surface temperatures (SST), for several reasons:

  • The ocean covers 71% of the globe and drives average temperatures;
  • SSTs have a constant water content, (unlike air temperatures), so give a better reading of heat content variations;
  • A major El Nino was the dominant climate feature in recent years.

Recently I posted on SST data from HadSST4 since the US shutdown stopped other SST sources. Now OISST is back online, so this report is based on data from OISST2.1.  This dataset uses the same in situ sources as HadSST along with satellite indicators.  Importantly, it produces daily anomalies from baseline period 1991-2020.  The data is available at Climate Reanalyzer (here).  Product guide is (here).  The charts and analysis below are produced from the current data.

The Current Context

The chart below shows SST monthly anomalies as reported in OISST2.1 starting in 2015 through October 2025.  A global cooling pattern is seen clearly in the Tropics since its peak in 2016, joined by NH and SH cycling downward since 2016, followed by rising temperatures in 2023 and 2024 and cooling in 2025.

Line graph depicting OISST2.1 monthly temperature anomalies from 2015 to 2025, showing variations in global, northern hemisphere (NH), southern hemisphere (SH), and tropical temperatures.

Note that in 2015-2016 the Tropics and SH peaked in between two summer NH spikes.  That pattern repeated in 2019-2020 with a lesser Tropics peak and SH bump, but with higher NH spikes. By end of 2020, cooler SSTs in all regions took the Global anomaly well below the mean for this period.  A small warming was driven by NH summer peaks in 2021-22, but offset by cooling in SH and the tropics, By January 2023 the global anomaly was again below the mean.

Then in 2023-24 came an event resembling 2015-16 with a Tropical spike and two NH spikes alongside, all higher than 2015-16. There was also a coinciding rise in SH, and the Global anomaly was pulled up to 0.6°C in 2023, ~0.2° higher than the 2015 peak.  Then NH started down autumn 2023, followed by Tropics and SH descending 2024 to the present. During nearly 2 years of cooling in SH and the Tropics, the Global anomaly came back down, led by Tropics cooling the last 22 months from its 0.9°C peak 2024/01 down to 0.26C in October this year. SH and NH also cooled Sept./Oct. pulling the Global anomaly down to 0.42C, just 0.1C above the average for this decadal period.

Comment:

The climatists have seized on this unusual warming as proof their Zero Carbon agenda is needed, without addressing how impossible it would be for CO2 warming the air to raise ocean temperatures.  It is the ocean that warms the air, not the other way around.  Recently Steven Koonin had this to say about the phenomenon confirmed in the graph above:

El Nino is a phenomenon in the climate system that happens once every four or five years.  Heat builds up in the equatorial Pacific to the west of Indonesia and so on.  Then when enough of it builds up it surges across the Pacific and changes the currents and the winds.  As it surges toward South America it was discovered and named in the 19th century. It is well understood at this point that the phenomenon has nothing to do with CO2.

Now people talk about changes in that phenomena as a result of CO2 but it’s there in the climate system already and when it happens it influences weather all over the world.   We feel it when it gets rainier in Southern California for example.  So for the last 3 years we have been in the opposite of an El Nino, a La Nina, part of the reason people think the West Coast has been in drought.

It has now shifted in the last months to an El Nino condition that warms the globe and is thought to contribute to this Spike we have seen. But there are other contributions as well.  One of the most surprising ones is that back in January of 2022 an enormous underwater volcano went off in Tonga, and it put up a lot of water vapor into the upper atmosphere. It increased the upper atmosphere of water vapor by about 10 percent, and that’s a warming effect, and it may be that is contributing to why the spike is so high.

Graph showing upper atmosphere water vapor content from 2006 to 2024, highlighting the spike following the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai eruption on January 15, 2022, with annotations detailing water injection and data source.

A longer view of SSTs

A line chart displaying ocean sea surface temperature anomalies from the OISST2.1 dataset, illustrating trends from 1991 to 2025 for global temperatures, northern hemisphere (NH), southern hemisphere (SH), and tropics.

The graph above is noisy, but the density is needed to see the seasonal patterns in the oceanic fluctuations.  Previous posts focused on the rise and fall of the last El Nino starting in 2015.  This post adds a longer view, encompassing the significant 1998 El Nino and since.  The color schemes are retained for Global, Tropics, NH and SH anomalies.  Despite the longer time frame, I have kept the monthly data (rather than yearly averages) because of interesting shifts between January and July. 1995 is a reasonable (ENSO neutral) starting point prior to the first El Nino.

The sharp Tropical rise peaking in 1998 is dominant in the record, starting Jan. ’97 to pull up SSTs uniformly before returning to the same level Jan. ’99. There were strong cool periods before and after the 1998 El Nino event. Then SSTs in all regions returned to the mean in 2001-2.

SSTS fluctuate around the mean until 2007, when another, smaller ENSO event occurs. There is cooling 2007-8,  a lower peak warming in 2009-10, following by cooling in 2011-12.  Again SSTs are average 2013-14.

Now a different pattern appears.  The Tropics cooled sharply to Jan 11, then rise steadily for 4 years to Jan 15, at which point the most recent major El Nino takes off.  But this time in contrast to ’97-’99, the Northern Hemisphere produces peaks every summer pulling up the Global average.  In fact, these NH peaks appear every July starting in 2003, growing stronger to produce 3 massive highs in 2014, 15 and 16.  NH July 2017 was only slightly lower, and a fifth NH peak still lower in Sept. 2018.

The highest summer NH peaks came in 2019 and 2020, only this time the Tropics and SH were offsetting rather adding to the warming. (Note: these are high anomalies on top of the highest absolute temps in the NH.)  Since 2014 SH has played a moderating role, offsetting the NH warming pulses. After September 2020 temps dropped off down until February 2021.  In 2021-22 there were again summer NH spikes, but in 2022 moderated first by cooling Tropics and SH SSTs, then in October to January 2023 by deeper cooling in NH and Tropics.

Then in 2023 the Tropics flipped from below to well above average, while NH produced a summer peak extending into September higher than any previous year.  Despite El Nino driving the Tropics January 2024 anomaly higher than 1998 and 2016 peaks, following months cooled in all regions, and the Tropics continued cooling in April, May and June along with SH dropping.  After July and August NH warming again pulled the global anomaly higher, September through January 2025 resumed cooling in all regions.  The descending sawtooth in all regions continued through Sept./Oct.

What to make of all this? The patterns suggest that in addition to El Ninos in the Pacific driving the Tropic SSTs, something else is going on in the NH.  The obvious culprit is the North Atlantic, since I have seen this sort of pulsing before.  After reading some papers by David Dilley, I confirmed his observation of Atlantic pulses into the Arctic every 8 to 10 years.

Contemporary AMO Observations

Through January 2023 I depended on the Kaplan AMO Index (not smoothed, not detrended) for N. Atlantic observations. But it is no longer being updated, and NOAA says they don’t know its future.  So I find that ERSSTv5 AMO dataset has current data.  It differs from Kaplan, which reported average absolute temps measured in N. Atlantic.  “ERSST5 AMO  follows Trenberth and Shea (2006) proposal to use the NA region EQ-60°N, 0°-80°W and subtract the global rise of SST 60°S-60°N to obtain a measure of the internal variability, arguing that the effect of external forcing on the North Atlantic should be similar to the effect on the other oceans.”  So, the values represent SST anomaly differences between the N. Atlantic and the Global ocean.

Graph depicting the AMO ERSST5 Index for August, showing the comparison of August anomalies (red line) and annual anomalies (blue line) from 1900 to 2025, with temperature fluctuations represented in degrees Celsius.

The chart above confirms what Kaplan also showed.  As August is the hottest month for the N. Atlantic, its variability, high and low, drives the annual results for this basin.  Note also the peaks in 2010, lows after 2014, and a rise in 2021. Then in 2023 the peak reached 1.4C before declining to 0.9 last month.  An annual chart below is informative:

Line graph displaying the AMO ERSST5 Index with monthly sea surface temperature anomalies from 1998 to 2025, showing trends and fluctuations over the years.

Note the difference between blue/green years, beige/brown, and purple/red years.  2010, 2021, 2022 all peaked strongly in August or September.  1998 and 2007 were mildly warm.  2016 and 2018 were matching or cooler than the global average.  2023 started out slightly warm, then rose steadily to an  extraordinary peak in July.  August to October were only slightly lower, but by December cooled by ~0.4C.

Then in 2024 the AMO anomaly started higher than any previous year, then leveled off for two months declining slightly into April.  Remarkably, May showed an upward leap putting this on a higher track than 2023, and rising slightly higher in June.  In July, August and September 2024 the anomaly declined, and despite a small rise in October, ended close to where it began.  Note 2025 started much lower than the previous year and headed sharply downward, well below the previous two years, then since April through September aligning with 2010, with an upward bump in October 2025.

The pattern suggests the ocean may be demonstrating a stairstep pattern like that we have also seen in HadCRUT4.

Line graph showing HadSST4 global temperature anomalies over time from January 1980 to October 2025, with highlighted mean anomalies.

The rose line is the average anomaly 1982-1996 inclusive, value -0.25.  The orange line the average 1982-2025, value -0.014 also for the period 1997-2012. The red line is 2015-2025, value 0.32. As noted above, these rising stages are driven by the combined warming in the Tropics and NH, including both Pacific and Atlantic basins.

Curiosity:  Solar Coincidence?

The news about our current solar cycle 25 is that the solar activity is hitting peak numbers now and higher  than expected 1-2 years in the future.  As livescience put it:  Solar maximum could hit us harder and sooner than we thought. How dangerous will the sun’s chaotic peak be?  Some charts from spaceweatherlive look familar to these sea surface temperature charts.

Graph depicting solar cycle progression with observed and predicted F10.7cm radio flux values from 1991 to 2030.

Summary

The oceans are driving the warming this century.  SSTs took a step up with the 1998 El Nino and have stayed there with help from the North Atlantic, and more recently the Pacific northern “Blob.”  The ocean surfaces are releasing a lot of energy, warming the air, but eventually will have a cooling effect.  The decline after 1937 was rapid by comparison, so one wonders: How long can the oceans keep this up? And is the sun adding forcing to this process?

A crew member throws a blue and purple ocean sensor into the water from the side of a ship.
USS Pearl Harbor deploys Global Drifter Buoys in Pacific Ocean

Storm Claudia

There has been minor flooding elsewhere, but I am not aware of anything else major.

A coastal town with a stone clock tower facing turbulent ocean waves crashing against the shore, while colorful houses stand perilously close to the water.

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

 There has been some bad flooding in Monmouth, following Storm Claudia:

There has been minor flooding elsewhere, but I am not aware of anything else major.

Rainfall totals were not unusually excessive in South Wales, 71mm in Gwent, for instance, over the day and a half of the storm:

Rainfall totals for various locations in the UK after Storm Claudia, showing measurements in millimeters.
https://x.com/metoffice/status/1989619387171524996

Across SW England & S Wales, an average of 22.09mm fell on Friday, which was when nearly all of the rain fell:

Map of the United Kingdom showing different regions and their divisions.
Table showing daily rainfall amounts in millimeters from November 5 to November 14, 2025, indicating varying levels of precipitation.

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadukp/data/daily/HadSWEP_daily_totals.txt

And it was plainly widespread across the whole of the Southwest, not just South Wales:

Weather map showing rainfall distribution and temperature data for regions in the UK on Friday, 14 November 2025, highlighting areas affected by heavy rain.
https://x.com/metoffice/status/1989483716243001405

Yet 22mm in a day is not in the least bit unusual in the region:

Graph showing daily precipitation data in Southwestern England from 1930 to 2020, displaying variation in rainfall amounts.
KNMI Climate Explorer

KNMI data ends in 2022, but I have updated it to include Claudia, with the chart below showing all days over 20mm:

Graph showing daily rainfall over 20mm for South West England and South Wales from 1931 to November 2025, with a marker indicating the rainfall from Storm Claudia.
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadukp/data/daily/HadSWEP_daily_totals.txt

On average, it happens four times a year on average.

The highest daily rainfall occurred in July 1969. But the autumn storm in November 1931 is directly comparable with Claudia. On that day, 50.55 mm fell, more than double Friday’s rainfall.

The numbers themselves don’t tell the real story, which the Met Office Monthly Weather report at the time revealed:

Historical weather report detailing rainfall totals in November, highlighting heavy rain in various locations in western England.
https://digital.nmla.metoffice.gov.uk/IO_ce3083d7-e430-49a0-9de7-20d26098091e/

Totals of 244mm at Trecastle make Claudia appear just another, run of the mill storm, which of course it was.

Rainfall was almost as bad in 3rd December 1960:

A historical document titled 'Monthly Weather Report of the Meteorological Office,' published in December 1960, featuring observations from official stations.
A historical weather report discussing heavy rainfall and flooding in South Wales during early December, including specific measurements and impacts on local areas.

7 inches is 178mm and 5.5 inches in the Rhondda in just 20 hours works out at 140mm.

Floods were widespread and serious in Glamorgan.

So why was flooding so bad in Monmouth this week?

Grok has the answer:

History of Flooding in Monmouth, Wales

Monmouth, located at the confluence of the Rivers Wye, Monnow, and Trothy in Monmouthshire, Wales, has a long history of flooding dating back centuries. The town’s position in a river valley makes it particularly vulnerable to riverine flooding from heavy rainfall, thunderstorms, and storms, often exacerbated by rapid snowmelt or overflow from tributaries like the Norton Brook. Historical records show events ranging from flash floods causing localized damage to widespread inundations affecting homes, businesses, and infrastructure. Below is a chronological summary of key flooding incidents in Monmouth before 2025, drawn from official reports and historical archives. This focuses on major events impacting the town itself, though Monmouthshire-wide context is noted where relevant.

9 June 1754
Severe hailstorm with stones up to six inches in diameter caused the River Monnow to overflow rapidly within an hour, depositing fish on streets.
Damage to crops, windows, and homes in Monmouth and nearby Colford; widespread property destruction.

21 November 1766
Violent thunderstorm led to the River Wye rising several feet higher than previously recorded near Monmouth.
Loss of lives and large quantities of goods; meadows and low-lying areas submerged.

20 June 1839
Intense thunderstorm caused the Rivers Wye and Monnow to overflow.
Premises near Wye Bridge inundated; Monnow Street flooded to several feet deep.

2 April 1848
Prolonged thunderstorm with heavy hail and rain (over 1 hour 20 minutes) overwhelmed drainage.
Many houses in central Monmouth flooded; streets turned into torrents.

31 May 1859
Heavy rains swelled the River Trothy, leading to overflow into Monmouth meadows.
Walls washed away in nearby Skenfrith; houses drenched and stones carried downstream in Rockfield.

22 July 1907
Thunderstorm with marble-sized hail turned streets into rushing rivers.
Significant flash flooding in town center; damage to gardens and minor structures (also severe in nearby Cwmyoy on River Monnow).

10 June 1912
Lightning storm during heavy rain implied widespread waterlogging.
One man killed by lightning; roads and low areas flooded.

27 May 1931
Rapid rise of the River Monnow due to thunderstorms across Monmouthshire.
Floodwaters reached bedrooms in houses; Drybridge Street submerged to several feet (boats used for rescues); cattle and sheep washed away in The Forge district; worst flood in living memory at nearby Skenfrith; racecourse and military huts affected.

April 1947
Nationwide flooding event triggered by heavy snowfall followed by rapid thaw; Rivers Trothy and Monnow overflowed into Monmouth.
Severe inundation in Drybridge Street (water to upper bedrooms, evacuations); widespread damage across town and upstream villages.

December 1979
Rivers Wye, Monnow, and Usk burst banks after prolonged heavy rain.
Significant property flooding in lower Monmouth and Mayhill areas; multiple locations affected along riverbanks.

October 1998
Storm-driven rise in River Wye levels.
Peak level of 17.19 m AOD; homes and roads in low-lying areas flooded.

October 2000
Autumn storms caused River Wye overflow.
Peak level of 17.59 m AOD; internal flooding in several properties.

December 2000
Two separate events from winter storms.
River Wye peaks at 17.58 m and 17.61 m AOD; over 50 residential properties reported flooded in Monmouth (including Blake Street and Wyesham).

February 2002
Multiple storms led to two floods.
River Wye peaks at 17.59 m and 17.67 m AOD (latter was previous record); extensive evacuations and damage in Mayhill and town center.

July 2005
Summer deluge overwhelmed rivers.
River Wye at 16.37 m AOD; localized flooding in meadows and streets.

January 2008
Winter storms caused moderate overflow.
River Wye at 16.42 m AOD; some properties affected in lower town.

Monmouth has always been particularly vulnerable to flooding, because it sits at the confluence of three rivers, the Wye, Monnow, and Trothy. Its history is littered with floods every bit as bad as this week’s.

It might seem a daft place to build a town, but the Normans built the castle and town specifically because of those three rivers, allowing them to exert control over the river crossings. Since then, it continued to thrive because of its communication links.