Day: November 19, 2025

Ocean Rises, Science Sinks

Ever wondered how a tiny rise in sea level—let’s say, the aquatic equivalent of topping up your birdbath—might be responsible for frigid winters rampaging through East Asia? No? Well, Nature Communications thinks you should, in an article yclept “Intensification of extreme cold events in East Asia in response to global mean sea-level rise“.

A dramatic scene depicting the Statue of Liberty surrounded by floodwaters and debris from a submerged city skyline, symbolizing the impact of climate change and rising sea levels.

Watts Up With That?

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach

Ever wondered how a tiny rise in sea level—let’s say, the aquatic equivalent of topping up your birdbath—might be responsible for frigid winters rampaging through East Asia? No? Well, Nature Communications thinks you should, in an article yclept “Intensification of extreme cold events in East Asia in response to global mean sea-level rise“.

Here’s their premise, as bold as a flashing warning sign on your grandma’s thermostat: A global mean sea-level rise of 15–30 cm can intensify extreme cold events in East Asia, thanks to a retooled atmospheric circulatory engine, weakening westerlies, and powered-up blocking episodes.

Mind you, this is not about that old chestnut, Arctic amplification or vanishing sea ice; it’s the earth-modeling equivalent of arguing that rearranging the living room somehow makes next winter’s snow deeper.

So, how did we get here?

I did what any skeptical denizen of the scientific peanut gallery would do: pondered their use of the NorESM1-F Earth System Model, the chosen oracle of this saga. Picture it—a whopping 2200-year sensitivity experiment, climate dials set to “controlled conditions” (CO₂ steady at 400 ppm, as if the atmosphere were on cruise control). The researchers periodically poured another cupful into the global ocean, then waited to see if the weather started shivering in East Asia.

Their definition of “cold extreme”? Days below the 10th percentile surface air temperature. Their measure of blocking? A reversal index for 500 hPa geopotential height (if that sounds like NASA-jargon, it is—think traffic jams in the jet stream).

Transparency, you say? Sure, you can sift through their supplementary files and simulated archive in the EU’s Zenodo repository—model outputs in glorious bulk if you’re inclined to lose weeks in NetCDF purgatory.

But empirical data? Not a sausage. Not one single lonely observation. No time series to ground these flights of model fancy.

Let’s hit pause for a moment and return to ugly reality. Does historical sea-level rise correlate with nasty winter chills in East Asia?

Not per the record: since 1900, global sea level crept up around 20 cm, but there’s no independent demonstration that this correlated with actual cold extremes in the region. In fact, most climate analyses emphasize local, not global, fingerprints.

So here’s my summary of my critique of the study, in three acts:

1. Single Model Dependency
The findings are entirely shackled to NorESM1-F—a ponderous climate engine whose output is only as good as its assumptions. There’s no check against real-world circulation, no multi-model brawl for robustness. It’s as if we rated steak quality by asking only one vegetarian chef.

2. Plausibility—Or The Lack Thereof
A the end of the last glaciation, sea levels rose by on the order of 120 meters (12,000 cm). Is it physically plausible that nudging the average sea level upward by a mere twenty centimeters will scramble global-scale atmospheric machinery? As someone who enjoys a good weather metaphor, I say: that’s like expecting the Second Law of Thermodynamics to take requests from the audience.

Graph depicting post-glacial sea level rise over the last 24,000 years, showing data points from various regions with a focus on changes in sea level in meters.
post-glacial_sea_level.png

And then there’s blocking dynamics. In the real world? Much larger effects emerge from Arctic warming and sea ice loss than from sea-level twitchiness. Moreover, the study does not exclude confounders like SST changes, sea ice variability, or those slow-moving decadal ocean cycles that usually run this show.

3. Where Are the Comparisons To Reality?
A single climate model struts across the stage, unopposed. No ERA-Interim, no NCEP/NCAR, no HadCRUT temperature data, no observational counterpoint.

Let’s talk logic. The paper’s “nonlinear” threshold—cold events only spring loose above a 0.625m sea-level scenario—seems arbitrary, and it’s totally unsupported by observational reality. Real-world cold spikes in East Asia have been diagnosed as the products of Arctic heat, sea ice droughts, and the peculiar ballet of oceanic cycles, not bathtub-level adjustments.

No primary source—none—shows that sub-meter global mean sea-level rise is a puppetmaster for blocking frequency or icy East Asian blasts. All such claims hitch their wagon to untested numerical projections, idealized boundary conditions, and a climate model’s fever dreams.

The logic that a shallow sea-level rise reorganizes planetary wind and weather systems?

Dramatic pause …

No. Just no.

So what does this mean?

If you’re poised to rewrite winter preparedness handbooks based on sea-level forecasts, put that pen down. The dominant factors in real-world cold extremes—Arctic temperature, sea ice, ocean temperatures—remain unaffected by the aquatic inchworm pace of mean sea-level rise.

A final thought. Sea level has gone up about 20 cm in the last 125 years. If the cold weather only starts with an additional 62.5 cm of sea level rise, that means it will begin in … divide by pi, carry the 3 …

…

… the year 2415.

Be very afraid …

As always in science, I’m open to correction—if someone drags an empirical time series from the basement that links 20 cm of GMSL with bitter Februarys in Beijing, I’ll eat my galoshes.

But for now? File this under “Climate Mythmaking: The Model Show.”

w.

You Know The Drill: When you comment, quote the exact words you’re discussing. I can’t defend your interpretation of what I write.

Labour net zero levies now main driver of rising energy bills

Labour’s net zero levies will become the main driver of household energy bills next year, overtaking gas prices for the first time, analysts have warned.

Portrait of a man in front of multiple wind turbines in a clear blue sky.

Predicted price rises add to pre-Budget pressure on the Chancellor

Labour’s net zero levies will become the main driver of household energy bills next year, overtaking gas prices for the first time, analysts have warned. The Telegraph has the story.

Green taxes, upgrades to the electricity grid and other government-backed charges will account for 60pc of energy bills from April 2026, Cornwall Insight said – far outweighing the actual cost of energy.

The shift undermines claims by Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, that gas prices are the primary cause of high bills. He has previously said that bills were high “because of our dependence on fossil fuels”.

Craig Lowrey, from Cornwall Insight, said: “Wholesale prices are no longer the main story. The real pressure is coming from rising non-energy costs, with levies and policy decisions associated with that investment in renewables driving up bills.”

Household energy bills will surge to more than £1,800 next spring, Cornwall Insight predicted, partly because of the cost of upgrading the UK’s pylons, power cables and substations.

Average household power and gas bills, currently standing at £1,755, will dip by £22 in January only to surge back to £1,808 from April, it warned.

“This [increase] is largely due to rising charges associated with the operation and maintenance of the country’s energy networks, specifically electricity transmission and gas distribution charges,” said Cornwall Insight.

“This is likely to be an enduring trend with wholesale energy prices, once the dominant driver of bills, forecast to drop to less than 40pc of the cap and remain below that threshold for the rest of the decade.”

Cornwall Insight’s forecast includes a new levy averaging £10 per household per year to subsidise the construction of the Sizewell C nuclear power station in Suffolk.

The total predicted price rises add to the pre-Budget pressure on Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, to tackle the surging costs of Mr Miliband’s net zero crusade.

Read the full story here.

The kids are not alright: COP30’s youth-led “climate crisis” struggle “sesh”

With climate anxiety now affecting an estimated half of young people worldwide, COP30 arrived in Belém, Brazil, promising to “elevate youth voices.” What I witnessed instead, by attending some of the side events, was a well-funded pipeline of fear, guilt, and political indoctrination aimed squarely at children and teenagers who have been convinced the world is ending.

A large group of people dressed in gray clothing, with some individuals raising their fists in the air in a show of solidarity or protest, set against a backdrop of a crowd sitting on a hillside.

From CFACT

By Nate Myers

With climate anxiety now affecting an estimated half of young people worldwide, COP30 arrived in Belém, Brazil, promising to “elevate youth voices.” What I witnessed instead, by attending some of the side events, was a well-funded pipeline of fear, guilt, and political indoctrination aimed squarely at children and teenagers who have been convinced the world is ending.

Over several days, I sat through hours of youth-led and youth-themed panels — panels that were supposedly about empowering the next generation but in reality offered little more than emotionally charged rhetoric, self-congratulatory monologues, and wild ideological claims completely detached from scientific or historical context.

By the end, one thing was very clear: The kids are not alright, and the adults running these sessions know exactly what they’re doing.

Inside the COP30 Youth-Centric Panels:

One of the first sessions I attended was titled “A Legacy for Children and Youth in Climate Policies.” The premise sounded harmless enough — encouraging young people to engage in politics and science. But the execution was anything but.

Representatives from Our Kids Climate, ChildFund Alliance, Child Rights International Network, and Plant-for-the-Planet took turns celebrating how many children their organizations have managed to bring into the movement and how there’s always more work to be done to make the conversation “more inclusive” to “marginalized groups.” What they didn’t talk about were scientific principles, energy systems, or practical solutions.

Instead, panelists repeated the talking point that “children are the most affected by climate change” — a phrase that now functions as a moral shield to deflect scrutiny.

The adults paneling the discussion pontificated endlessly about “youth inclusion in climate justice,” never once explaining what “climate justice” actually means or how any of their lofty goals would be achieved. Their message was simple: get more children involved as early as possible.

The moderator even closed with an open call to bring more kids to future COPs. She wasn’t subtle about it. The aim is to expose children to the climate-justice worldview before they have the emotional maturity, economic literacy, or scientific grounding to question it — or even properly understand the conversation.

Youth-Led Climate Forum

The flagship youth session at COP30, the “Youth-Led Climate Forum,” made the earlier panels look calm by comparison. Held over the course of the week in four separate installments that felt more like struggle sessions than intellectual debate and conversation, students repeated sweeping, dramatic lines like:

“We’re just trying to save the world,” followed by, “It’s our responsibility to fix this.”

Someone has convinced these kids that the world is ending — and that they are personally responsible for preventing it. That kind of psychological burden would crush an adult, let alone a teenager.

One young woman even described how her entry into the movement began after watching the apocalyptic thriller “2012.” Sometime later, she experienced a perfectly normal flood — an event that has occurred throughout human history — and interpreted it as confirmation that the “climate crisis” was accelerating.

It was the perfect microcosm of what’s happening to young people worldwide: propaganda scares them into believing natural disasters are unprecedented, and any routine weather event becomes proof that doom is approaching.

A representative from World Youth for Climate Justice took it a step further, declaring:

“Countries authorizing new oil leases should be held criminally responsible.”

The entire forum was drenched in ideological buzzwords. “Solidarity” and “intersectional” were used dozens of times. References to Indigenous communities, women, and LGBTQ groups were thrown around like confetti, to the point of unintended comedy.

Yet amid all the emotional rhetoric, no one offered scientific nuance, historical context, or even a basic acknowledgment of natural climate cycles. In fact, no one cited or discussed a single statistic, figure, or model.

It was all emotion, no wisdom. All fear, no facts. And these are the voices COP30 proudly elevates as the “leaders of tomorrow” — leading us to what, I wonder?

And Then Came the Demands…

To top it all off, the Child Rights International Network (CRIN) proudly released a global letter of demands allegedly “developed by young people at COP30.” They issued these demands to every nation on Earth.

Among the most extreme:

  • End all fossil fuel leasing and extraction.
  • Replace global energy systems with “justice-based alternatives.”
  • Mandate climate reparations across nations and generations.
  • Create youth committees with power to oversee national climate policy.

The adults behind these groups know exactly what they’re doing. No child wrote this without intense indoctrination and adult influence. The youth participants are being used — emotionally and politically — to advance an agenda they don’t fully understand.

After countless hours of youth programming at COP30, the conclusion was unavoidable:

These are scared children seeking comfort and direction — yet they’re being fed panic, ideology, and guilt. The same groups that claim to “empower” young people are the ones frightening them into the movement in the first place. That’s not stewardship. That’s emotional exploitation.

Fritz Vahrenholt: The Flop of Belem

The 30th World Climate Conference in Belem is not yet over, but it is already becoming apparent that the event, which was announced as a “Conference of Truth”, will go down as a tipping point in the history of climate conferences. No heads of state of the four largest CO2-emitting nations China (33%), USA (12%), India (8%) and Russia (5%) are to be seen in Belem. Even before the conference, the New York Times headlined: “The whole world has had enough of climate policy.” And the fact that Bill Gates, one of the biggest supporters and sponsors of climate policy, warned against an exaggerated, short-sighted climate policy just 14 days before the conference and put prosperity at the center of the climate strategy was a bombshell.

The entrance to the 30th World Climate Conference (COP30) in Belem, Brazil, featuring a large illuminated sign with the conference name and details. The venue is adorned with decorative lighting and tropical plants, set against a twilight sky.

From The KlimaNachrichten

A smiling older man with glasses and a beard, dressed in a light blue blazer and a white shirt, posing for a professional portrait.

Monthly newsletter from Fritz Vahrenholt

12.11.2025

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

the global temperature in October 2025 has not changed from August. The cooling trend remains intact. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) sees a cool LA NINA approaching in the Pacific this winter, which will also lead to a further decline in global temperatures.

Graph showing the UAH satellite-based temperature deviations from the 1991-2020 average, highlighting data up to October 2025 with a noted temperature of +0.53 degrees Celsius.

Belem – nothing but expenses

The 30th World Climate Conference in Belem is not yet over, but it is already becoming apparent that the event, which was announced as a “Conference of Truth”, will go down as a tipping point in the history of climate conferences. No heads of state of the four largest CO2-emitting nations China (33%), USA (12%), India (8%) and Russia (5%) are to be seen in Belem. Even before the conference, the New York Times headlined: “The whole world has had enough of climate policy.” And the fact that Bill Gates, one of the biggest supporters and sponsors of climate policy, warned against an exaggerated, short-sighted climate policy just 14 days before the conference and put prosperity at the center of the climate strategy was a bombshell.

Glenn Beck, prominent American television presenter, explains Bill Gates’ change of heart: “It’s not about science, it’s about Trump.” In other words, it’s not about persuasion, it’s about damage limitation for one’s own company, which is planning billions of dollars in investments in data centers in the USA and the world. And as things stand, they will have to resort to electricity from new gas-fired power plants in the short term, because the reactivation of old nuclear power plants will not be enough and the construction of new nuclear power plants in the USA will still take a few years.

For the climate conference in Belem, the states had to report on how they will deal with the use of coal, oil and gas in the future. The fact that only a third made a statement at all already gives an indication of the dissolving importance of the climate issue in most nations of the world. But the reports that came in have it all. Most countries reported further increases in the use of coal, oil and gas. By 2030, the reports show a 30% increase in global coal use, a 25% increase in oil and a 40% increase in gas compared to 2015. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change hoped to reduce global CO2 emissions by 45% by 2030 compared to 2015, and now they are rising further.

Only Europe is steadfastly adhering to the goal of net zero CO2 emissions by 2050. Germany, the industrial heart of Europe, is even more ambitious and, according to Axel Bojanowski, is “the “leader” among industrialized countries: It wants to be climate-neutral by 2045 – a self-destructive plan: Germany’s reduction will inevitably be compensated by rising emissions in other EU countries. This is because European emissions trading ensures that emission allowances that are not used in Germany are used in other EU countries. It is becoming increasingly clear what the Wall Street Journal meant when it described Germany’s energy policy as the “stupidest in the world”.

A few days before the conference, the European states agreed on a common goal, namely to achieve a CO2 reduction of 90% by 2040 compared to 1990. 5% of the voluntary commitment could come from emission reductions abroad, which of course also has to be paid dearly. The German environment minister celebrated this agreement as “good news for the German economy, as everyone would now have the same competitive conditions”. This statement shows how little the German government and its ministers understand about the global economy. As if German industry only exported goods to European countries. However, German goods meet a world market that does not have the burdens of CO2 taxes and high energy prices on German products and can therefore offer cheaper and cheaper prices. 50% of exports go to countries outside the EU.

Chancellor Merz and his environment minister Schneider are blatantly trivializing the German situation. Because Germany has set itself thumbscrews with the Climate Protection Act, which will have a highly painful effect in the coming years. Axel Bojanowski: “The German Climate Protection Act, cemented by the Federal Constitutional Court, seems to be the script for an economic catastrophe. It only allows Germany a residual budget of 6.7 gigatons of CO2, which is likely to be consumed by the early 2030s. Then, according to the law, there is a threat of penalties and shutdowns and restrictions on freedom in order to comply with the climate targets.”
6.7 gigatons was the remaining permissible budget according to the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court from 2020. To date, only 3.6 gigatons of this remain. Every year, the buffer is reduced by about 0.5 gigatons. By 2032 at the latest, the remaining budget will have been used up, and Germany will have reached the end of the flagpole of the Federal Constitutional Court. This will happen in the next legislative period. Not just in 2040.

And Chancellor Merz spreads negligent whitewashing in his 5-minute speech in Belem in front of a half-empty hall: “The economy is not the problem. Our economy is the key to protecting our climate even better. Does the Chancellor not know what a threatening situation our industry is in?
 

The scandal surrounding the Tropical Forest Fund TFFF

Probably the only outcome of the Belem conference will be the establishment of an investment fund proposed by Brazilian President Lula to finance the protection of tropical forests. The fund works as follows: The donor countries pay 25 billion dollars into the fund. Private investors (investment funds) are to pay in 100 billion. The donor countries receive a yield of about 4.0-4.8%, which corresponds to the yield on their government bonds, because they usually have to raise the money through government debt. The return on private investors is 5.8 to 7.2%. The fund’s money is invested in government bonds of emerging markets, which yield comparatively high interest rates due to the higher risk (Brazilian government bonds currently at 12.25%). Private investors are the first to be served, followed by donor countries. If there is anything left over after the profit distribution for private investors and donor countries, the amount will be distributed to 74 countries with tropical forests. It is hoped that in this way 3-4 billion dollars a year will be paid out to the tropical forest countries.

The catch is that in order for investors to bite at all, it is planned that private investors will be favoured in the order of payment: first the private ones, then the donor states. In addition, donor countries must insure the fund against default. A default by an emerging market can quickly lead to the fund’s insolvency. Then the taxpayers of the donor countries must be held liable for it and, in extreme cases, lose their capital.

In preparation for Belem, there was a fundamental dispute between the Ministry of Finance and the Federal Chancellery over Germany’s participation in the fund. The Federal Chancellery was clearly in favor of participation and a participation of at least 1 billion dollars. It was assisted by the Ministry of the Environment under Minister Schneider and the Ministry of Development under Minister Alabali-Radovan. The Ministry of Finance under Lars Klingbeil vehemently disagreed, saw the fund as a billion-dollar risk and doubted the sustainability of the fund structure. And in fact, the model is structurally disadvantageous for the German taxpayer. You could also say: We subsidize the returns of private investors with public money and take over the default guarantee for Blackrock and CO. This is the reason why the Federal Ministry of Finance is stubbornly blocking Germany’s participation in the fund. It can be stated bluntly that the Federal Ministry of Finance has so far bravely defended the interests of the German taxpayer against the interests of BlackRock and Co.

This is the background to the fact that Chancellor Merz could not name a figure (“a considerable amount”) in Belem. The billion euros or dollars are now to be found in the budget adjustment for the 2026 federal budget, which will take place this week, in order to be able to pass the federal budget on November 28. It is to be expected that the SPD will withdraw the flag. But it could be a Pyrrhic victory for Chancellor Merz, who will then have taken into account the interests of international financial investors for everyone to see. Especially if the fund were to get into trouble.

Whether the fund will come in the end is still questionable, as it will only come into force when the donor states have subscribed to 10 billion dollars. So far (excluding Germany) 5.6 billion have been collected. The USA and Great Britain have already waved off. When the fund comes, the first to benefit are the investment companies with high returns backed by governments, and then the emerging markets, which can sell their high-risk government bonds. It is not yet clear whether the tropical forest will benefit in this unmanageable financial jungle. The biggest risk remains with donor countries, which are putting their taxpayers’ money at risk with the catchy story of saving the rainforest.

Sincerely,

Fritz Vahrenholt

Climate Change on Trial

Socrates said wisdom is knowing what you don’t know. If his insight prevailed today in the Academy and elsewhere, there would be less anxiety about climate change; no frantic pursuit of Net Zero, and less support for the utopian belief that governments and agencies have the knowledge and power to create a “stable climate” on Earth.

A painting depicting the death of Socrates, surrounded by his followers in a dimly lit prison cell. Socrates is seated on a bed, reaching for a cup, while his companions display various emotions of grief and contemplation.
The_Death_of_Socrates

From Watts Up With That?

Michael Kile

Socrates said wisdom is knowing what you don’t know. If his insight prevailed today in the Academy and elsewhere, there would be less anxiety about climate change; no frantic pursuit of Net Zero, and less support for the utopian belief that governments and agencies have the knowledge and power to create a “stable climate” on Earth.

Fewer folk would be fretting about global tipping points. Mercifully, there would be no more climate conferences, no ministers or shadow ministers of climate change, no authorities or agencies spending billions chasing the chimera of an “energy transition” based on a false premise: that their actions will improve the planet’s weather one day, preferably before the next election or United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP), now in another extravagant and futile thirtieth year.

COP30, promoted as The COP of Truth, is now underway in Belem, Brazil. So many delegates are attending that cruise ships have been chartered to accommodate them. What would the UN be if it had not transformed itself into a global “climate protector”? Fighting an invisible enemy clearly has been a more lucrative gig for a lot of people than trying to keep international peace.

Socrates was concerned about truth too. Imagine this scenario: that the following two charges were brought against the philosopher in 2025AD, not 399 BC. Firstly, he was a heretic, a “climate denier”, one of Michael Mann’s “bad state actors” who did not respect the Net Zero deity conjured up by the fear-mongering political classes. Secondly, that his unique method of seeking the truth through dialogue and logic had “corrupted the minds” of  Athenian youth.

Plato’s The Last Days of Socrates contains the three speeches Socrates made to the Court: his defence, The Apology; a counter-proposal to the death penalty – “free maintenance at the State’s expense” for giving Athenians a lifetime of “moral encouragement” and truth-telling; and a final address to the Court. Here is part of his hypothetical defence.

“I know not, fellow Athenians, how far you have been influenced by my accusers. In listening to them I almost forgot myself, so convincing are their claims about me spreading misinformation and disinformation about climate change. Yet scarcely a word of what they said was true: either about Net Zero, their model prognostications, the high cost of energy every Athenian must now pay due to the dubious schemes that have been forced upon them, or even about the atmosphere itself.

I mention these things because I want to show you how the accusations against me arose. I call as the first expert witness to my wisdom (such as it is), Zeus, the god at Delphi. You know Chaerephon, of course, a friend of mine from boyhood. One day he actually went there and asked: “is there anyone wiser than Socrates?” The priestess replied that there was no one.

Please do not interrupt me, gentlemen. I ask the Court to stop the noisy chanting in the public gallery: of “climate denier”, “we believe in climate change”, “climate change is real” and so on.

Climate change, of course, is real. It has been real ever since our planet acquired an atmosphere. How, then, could anyone imagine that making such a statement in this place, or anywhere, is some kind of revelation? Everything is in a state of change, in the cosmos and here on Earth. How could there not be climate change?

There have been and will be many different calamities that can destroy humankind, the greatest of them by fire and water, or by countless other means.

But I digress. When I heard about Zeus’s reply, his answer puzzled me. For I do not think I am wise, either much or little. What, then, did he mean by saying that I am the wisest? For he never speaks falsely: that a god could not do. So one day I chose the following method to try to discover his meaning.

I sought an interview with a person in the Ministry of Climate Change who had a high reputation in atmospheric matters. I felt that here, if anywhere, I should succeed in disproving the oracle and pointing out to Zeus, my divine authority: ‘You said that I was the wisest of men, but here is a man who is wiser than I am.’

Well, I had a long conversation with this person. I need not mention his name, but it was one of our politicians. I formed the impression that, although in the opinion of many, and especially his own, he appeared to be wise, but in fact he was not. “Don’t worry,” he said, “with our Net Zero god helping us, we can control all the extreme weather events affecting our farmers, our country, and by 2050 the entire world.”

When I tried to show him that he only thought he was wise but was not really so, he naturally resented my efforts, as did the others present. They continued to call me a ‘climate denier’. I was threatened with imprisonment and worse if I refused to prostrate myself before their Net Zero god.

As I walked away, I reflected: ‘Well, I am certainly wiser than this man. It is very likely neither of us has any knowledge to boast of about climate change. He, however, thinks he knows something which he does not know, whereas I am quite conscious of my ignorance. At any rate it seems to me that I am wiser than he is to this small extent, that I do not think that I know what I do not know.’

 After this I went on to interview other people with even greater reputations for wisdom about climate change, some of whom had invested many drachmas and much time in trying to monetize the atmosphere by various forms of trickery, such as putting an arbitrary price on “carbon” (carbon dioxide); either for personal gain or “to save the planet” and so on. I formed the same impression again and again I incurred much public resentment.

The priestess said something else too. Zeus was emphatic: he was the god of weather, not a Net Zero imposter carefully contrived to dupe Athenians.

The evidence of global warming is incontrovertible? The claim – how can you measure the average temperature of the whole earth for a whole year? – is that the temperature has changed from approximately 288.0 to approximately 288.8 degree Kelvin (14.85 to 15.65 Celsius) in about 150 years, which (if true) means to me is that the temperature has been amazingly stable, and both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this ‘warming’ period. (I Glaever, Nobel Laureate, September, 2011)

I’m very worried that there’s been an almost obsessive focus on these bold international targets, like stopping warming below two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the goal written into the Paris Agreement and adopted by almost every country. Everyone’s talking about two degrees, but it’s impossible to meet it. Some people are talking about one and a half degrees. These are just fantasy goals. We don‘t really know what’s feasible. That’s the reality of the situation. Furthermore, setting goals in terms of global temperature is highly misleading, as we cannot directly control the temperature. (Professor D Victor, UC, 10 November, 2017) Reference

Climate science is an example of what Canadian educator Sue McGregor calls ‘post-normal science’ in which “the facts are uncertain, values are in dispute, stakes are high and decisions are urgent”. In such circumstances it is virtually impossible to avoid sub-conscious cherry picking of data to suit the popular theory of the time… In the modern era of concern about climate, the problem is compounded by the existence of the vastly complex computer forecasting models that can be tuned, again more-or-less subconsciously, to yield a desired result. From theory to observation and back again — if we are not very careful, the cherry picking can go round and round in an endless misleading loop. (Emeritus Professor G Paltridge, research scientist and author, Climate Etc., 18 April, 2018) Reference

This post was prompted by an article I read last month: PR firms are spreading misinformation on behalf of fossil fuel companies. The author: Christian Downie, Professor of Political Science, School of Regulation and Global Governance, at the Australian National University.

Professor Downie and his colleagues just coined a new expression: climate obstruction. It refers to “efforts by organized interests to slow or block policies on climate change”. Did “climate denial” become too yesterday for today’s alarmists?

My research has followed the money trail between the fossil fuel industry and public relations firms. As a co-editor on a forthcoming book on climate obstruction, I can say that large PR firms have too often put their commercial interests, and the interests of fossil fuel giants, ahead of those of the public.

Misinformation is dangerous: The problem has been recognised at the highest levels. Last year, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called on PR firms to “stop acting as enablers to planetary destruction”. (Professor Downie, October 2, 2025, The New Daily)

The book, Climate Obstruction – A Global Assessment, was published on October 14, 2025, by Oxford University Press, UK. It

Brings together nearly one hundred scholars and experts to advance our understanding of efforts by organized interests to slow or block policies on climate change; and

Includes sector-by-sector documentation of obstruction efforts, including by the fossil fuel industries, utilities, agribusiness, transportation, public relations, and organizations on the political far right.

What is going on here? This comment by strativarius to my last post, Midsummer Madness, in the Watts Up With That? July 2025 archive, came to mind: “While attribution modelling in scientific terms is utter garbage, in the political and cultural arenas – where it gets the full hype treatment – it can be pure gold.”

Yes: misinformation is dangerous. The above example suggests, at least to me, that hostility towards seeking truth by open discussion and free enquiry is as pervasive today as it was two thousand four hundred and twenty four years ago, even in the Academy.

One way of avoiding “planetary destruction” is by knowing our ABC: A is for atmosphere, B is for boondoggle, and C is for climate. And so on and so forth.  Z, of course, is for Zeus, the Olympian thrower of thunderbolts and nasty weather.

Seek wisdom: not Net Zero.

Michael Kile

13 November 2025

Michael Kile is the author of The Devil’s Dictionary of Climate Change. It was inspired by Ambrose Bierce’s 1906 Cynic’s Word Book, republished later as The Devil’s Dictionary.

Trump’s Eisenhower Moment: COP30 and the End of Europe’s Green Agenda

As the world’s climate delegations gather in Belém for COP30 (November 10th-21st), they do so under a very different geopolitical sky. The United States has withdrawn from the UN’s climate process altogether, and its diplomats have just led a successful rebellion at the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) to block a global carbon tax on shipping. The episode marks not only a turning point for global climate policy but a moment of historical resonance.

A split image showing two prominent political figures: one on the left is a gray-haired man in formal attire, possibly reflecting a vintage style, and the other on the right is a man with blonde hair wearing a blue suit and red tie, looking directly at the camera.

From The Tilak´s Substack

From Tilak Doshi

A vintage-style graphic featuring two prominent figures: a stern-looking military leader on the left, labeled 'SUEZ EISENHOWER,' and a businessman on the right, smiling and dressed in a suit, with an 'IMO' emblem and a globe above his head.

As the world’s climate delegations gather in Belém for COP30 (November 10th-21st), they do so under a very different geopolitical sky. The United States has withdrawn from the UN’s climate process altogether, and its diplomats have just led a successful rebellion at the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) to block a global carbon tax on shipping. The episode marks not only a turning point for global climate policy but a moment of historical resonance. Europe’s effort to impose its moral and regulatory hegemony on the world has been checked by the US. As in 1956, when President Eisenhower forced his European allies to abort their attempt to take over the Suez Canal, Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” approach to energy policy in 2025 has re-asserted the primacy of national interest over imperial pretension.

The IMO Revolt

In April 2025, the IMO unveiled what Carbon Brief – a European climate policy advocacy website – described as “the first in the world to combine mandatory emissions limits and greenhouse-gas pricing across an entire industry sector”. The “Net-Zero Framework” would have imposed an effective global levy on ships not meeting emissions-intensity targets and funnelled revenues into an UN-run global decarbonisation fund.

By October, that project lay in tatters. As Climate Home News – a UK-based green advocacy media outlet – reported: “The IMO’s Net-Zero Framework will be up for approval again in October 2026, after the US and Saudi Arabia persuaded countries not to vote on it as planned.” The US position is explicit. A State Department press release titled ‘Taking Action to Defend America from the UN’s First Global Carbon Tax’ stated: “The Administration unequivocally rejects any and all efforts to impose economic measures against US ships based on GHG emissions or fuel choice.”

The State Department confronted IMO-led efforts bluntly, declaring that: “The United States will be moving to levy remedies against nations that sponsor this European-led neocolonial export of global climate regulations.” US negotiators warned of “reciprocal measures to offset any fees charged to US ships”. In the words of one industry source quoted by E&E News: “The Trump team went all out to kill the carbon tax, rallying allies from Asia to Africa.” The result: Europe’s most ambitious multilateral climate initiative since Paris 2015 has been deferred for at least a year under US pressure. The IMO affair shows that Washington no longer merely abstains from globalist schemes — it now blocks them when the US national interest is at stake.

COP30 and Europe’s Waning Leverage

The European Parliament’s briefing admits that “global greenhouse-gas emissions are still increasing, while fast and deep emission reductions are needed to keep the goals of the Paris Agreement within reach”. In diplomatic terms, that is an admission of failure.

Graph showing CO2 levels in the atmosphere from 1995 to 2021, labeled 'COP Curve', with corresponding flags of countries participating in UN climate conferences.

The EU’s internal politics compound the problem. Politico notes that “Hungary, Poland and Slovakia balked at stricter 2035 targets, warning of damage to their industries”. The EU faces dismal economic prospects. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has warned that the welfare state is “no longer sustainable” while France and the UK teeter on the brink of financial insolvency. The EU’s Green Deal, once hailed as “Europe’s man on the moon moment”, has become a fiscal and political quagmire.

COP30 arrives, therefore, at a moment when Europe’s self-proclaimed “climate leadership” is largely rhetorical. Its moral capital cannot pay its energy bills. Along with Europe, the UK – fond of proclaiming ‘climate leadership‘ – is being hoist by its own petard with Energy Secretary ‘Mad Ed’ Miliband leading the charge. Europe’s climate order was built on two illusions: that the world would follow its moral leadership, and that its own citizens would bear the costs indefinitely. Both have collapsed.

Even an icon of the climate establishment like Bill Gates senses the shift. He recently published a note on his website which stunningly admitted:

Although climate change will have serious consequences — particularly for people in the poorest countries — it will not lead to humanity’s demise. People will be able to live and thrive in most places on Earth for the foreseeable future.

When even the billionaire technocrat who bankrolled climate alarmism for over a decade calls for realism, the intellectual tide is turning.

America’s Return to Energy Realism

From his first week in office in the second term, President Trump moved to dismantle the global climate bureaucracy. He withdrew from the Paris Agreement and halted payments to the Green Climate Fund. His administration supported legislative moves in Texas to eliminate ESG considerations from investment and procurement decisions by state pension funds. The Trump administration is actively challenging the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), characterising it as an “unfair trade practice” and a “Global Green New Scam Tax”. The blocking of the IMO tax is only the latest in US moves against the EU-led globalist climate agenda.

These steps are not merely populist gestures. They amount to a coherent energy-dominance doctrine: a reassertion that economic competitiveness and energy security are the foundation of national power. White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers told the Guardian: “President Trump will not jeopardise our country’s economic and national security to pursue vague climate goals that are killing other countries.”

Eisenhower’s Lesson

The analogy with the Suez crisis of 1956 is not contrived. Then, Britain and France, clinging to illusions of empire, tried to retake the canal with Israel’s help from Nasser’s Egypt. The Eisenhower administration, fearing a global backlash from perceptions of European colonialism and a Soviet response, used economic pressure — including threats to sell US holdings of sterling — to force its allies to withdraw. The Economist later called it “the moment when Britain learned it was no longer a great power.”

As in 1956, when the Suez crisis exposed the gap between imperial ambition and economic means, the IMO defeat has revealed the EU’s strategic senescence. Its leaders can no longer compel compliance through soft power. Even EU members now resist its edicts. In 1956, the US intervened to halt an imperial venture that threatened world stability. In 2025, it intervenes to halt a climate venture that threatens world prosperity. Then, the attempted takeover of the Suez Canal; now, the IMO carbon tax gambit on global shipping. Then, Europe’s imperial gunboats; now, EU’s climate bureaucrats.

Having outsourced its defence to NATO that steadily crept eastwards to the Russian border under US tutelage in the 1990s, the EU tried to build its moral stature through multiculturalism, mass immigration and the Net Zero crusade. In the salons of Brussels and European capital cities, the Paris Agreement was adopted as the European flagship enterprise – an enterprise which President Obama enthusiastically adopted without Senate approval, which he knew would not have been forthcoming.

The IMO global carbon-tax plan was to be the UN’s latest gambit in ‘saving the planet’. Trump, like Eisenhower, has torpedoed it — through diplomatic and financial leverage. Once again, Washington has reminded Europe that moral posturing without material power is mere vanity. If in a former age, the US stood against European resource colonialism, now it stands against Europe’s carbon colonialism, as so eloquently put by the US Energy Secretary Chris Wright.

The Western globalist climate project was less about science than salvation. In post-Christian Europe, carbon emissions replaced sin; ‘Net Zero’ became moral redemption through self-denial. The empirical reality remains: hydrocarbons supply over 80% of global energy despite massive subsidies for renewable energy. The world’s poorest billions aspire to the material comforts fossil energy makes possible. To deny them that path, in the name of climate virtue, is a new colonialism in all but name.

The Eisenhower-Trump parallel is more than rhetorical flourish. Both men confronted allies whose imperial vanity endangered the balance of power. Eisenhower saved the liberal post-war order from colonial overreach; Trump may be saving global prosperity from ideological overreach. In each case, America’s realism imposed limits that Western Europe refused to acknowledge.

The Global South Aligns with Reality

Developing nations have watched this evolution with a mixture of relief and calculation. For decades, UN ‘climate finance’ was the rent-seeker’s game: pledge allegiance to the climate cause in order to receive grants. On the one hand, we have environmental NGOs such as the WWF and Greenpeace and their subsidiaries and political supporters in developing countries convinced that the ‘climate crisis’ requires a radical curtailment of oil and gas development. On the other are businesses in the renewable energy sector and their political sponsors that benefit from subsidies and regulatory mandates provided by Western governments, the UN and affiliated organisations in the climate-industrial complex.

Developing countries are waking up to the ‘climate finance’ spigot being turned off. The previous UN climate summit in Baku was dubbed the “climate finance COP” for its central goal: to agree on how much money should go each year to help developing countries cope with “climate-related costs”. But with US funds drying up, the incentives are shifting. The UN Green Climate Fund faces a funding shortfall. The US officially rescinded $4 billion of its outstanding $6 billion pledge to the GCF in early 2025 but there is little expectation of any US funding of the globalist UN climate agenda henceforth.

The COP30 process will proceed, but its authority is broken. The IMO will reconvene, but without US money or muscle, its “Net Zero framework” will remain aspirational. Europe will continue to sermonise, but the world is tuning out. Eisenhower’s intervention ended Europe’s pretensions to empire. Trump’s energy realism may end Brussels’s claims to climate leadership. The world will not be poorer for it.

Dr Tilak K. Doshi is the Daily Sceptic‘s Energy Editor. He is an economist, a member of the CO2 Coalition and a former contributor to Forbes. Follow him on Substack and X.

An Ice Age May Come, New York Post, But If It Does, Ocean Current Collapse Won’t Be the Cause

The New York Post (NYP) covered a recent study that claims the “Gulf Stream” could soon collapse due to human caused climate change. Scientifically, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) has slowed and sped up on its own due to physical factors that humans have no control over, but it has never before caused a major ice age, although its slowing has cooled regions on the order of years and decades.

Four-panel image of a cityscape covered in snow, showing buildings under various lighting conditions, resembling a frozen landscape with tall skyscrapers and snowdrifts.

From ClimateRealism

By H. Sterling Burnett

A large ice iceberg rises dramatically from the ocean, showcasing textured ice formations and a gray sky in the background.

The New York Post (NYP) covered a recent study that claims the “Gulf Stream” could soon collapse due to human caused climate change. Scientifically, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) has slowed and sped up on its own due to physical factors that humans have no control over, but it has never before caused a major ice age, although its slowing has cooled regions on the order of years and decades. As importantly, the study cited by the NYP is disputed by other studies published in peer-reviewed journals over the past year and decade that come to the opposite conclusion, that the AMOC has sped up or has neither increased nor decreased in strength or speed during the period of recent warming.

The NYP story, “Climate scientists claim Gulf Stream could be near collapse — predicting a new ice age,” is couched in uncertainty, as is appropriate to the topic. Climate scientists claiming something doesn’t make it true, especially when other scientists claim the Gulf Stream isn’t changing much or is speeding up. At least the headline read “could” be near collapse. Could is very vague. A lot of things, both disastrous and beneficial for life on Earth, could happen in the days, weeks, years, and decades ahead, but that doesn’t mean they are likely and that society should spend precious time and resources worrying about them. Studying those that are likely, yes; completely transforming our lives and economic systems on the off chance that it might modestly impact something as vast and poorly understood as the Gulf Stream, no.

Parsing the claims made in the NYP and the study, one finds many problematic, disputed, and some easily falsified claims.

Per the new findings, the at-risk current in question is the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, a “conveyor belt of the ocean” that funnels warm water toward the ocean surface from the tropics to the Northern Hemisphere.

This current, which includes the Gulf Stream that runs from the Gulf of Mexico to the US East Coast and across the Atlantic to Europe, helps maintain the mild climate of Europe, the UK and the US East Coast.

The study stated that the source of this marine temperature regulator, the Greenland Ice sheet, is being thawed amid warming temperatures, causing meltwater runoff to leach into the North Atlantic — leading to stagnation.

This has resulted in a “distinctive temperature fingerprint” located some 3,280 to 6,560 feet below the ocean’s surface, according to reporting by the Daily Mail.

“Here we identify a distinctive temperature fingerprint in the equatorial Atlantic that signals the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation change,” the authors wrote. “The robust physical mechanism and reliable detection make [this fingerprint] a valuable metric for AMOC monitoring in a warming climate.”

The presence of the marine hot pocket appears to suggest that the current slowdown has been occurring for decades and could foment a total decline before the end of the century, per the study.

First, we have only been able to study the AMOC for a few decades, and there are no good proxies for its historic behavior before we began direct, somewhat precise observations. This means that what these scientists have measured may or may not be unusual across years, decades, centuries, or millennia. The researchers involved aren’t measuring the AMOC directly. Rather, they discovered a “hot pocket” deep beneath the ocean that they consider to be a proxy for a “distinctive temperature fingerprint” or “valuable metric” for changes in the AMOC. But, of course, the discovery of this hot pocket or metric is even more recent than the study of the AMOC itself. The researchers can’t know how long it has been around, whether it has grown or shrunk from past extent, or truly what its existence indicates.

A better indicator of the AMOC would be to measure the speed of the current directly, both along its entire track, and in its distinct segments. Other scientists have done this in recent years and months and, as discussed at Climate Realism, have concluded the AMOC is either stable or speeding up.

Studies published in the prominent peer-reviewed journal Science in 2020 and 2022 both report that the AMOC has sped up in recent decades, rather than slowed down. Two peer-reviewed studies in the journal Nature, one in February 2025 and one in January 2025, found that the AMOC has remained stable for at least 60 years, displaying no significant slowing trend. The researchers who undertook those studies found no credible evidence to suggest that a collapse is imminent or even likely in the foreseeable future. Commenting on the climate models that have forecast a collapse of the AMOC, the scientists carrying out the research concluded that climate models are flawed and overstate the risks. Since these studies didn’t play into the narrative that humans are causing dangerous climate change that was disrupting the Gulf Stream and the AMOC, they received minimal media coverage.

What is true of taking climate model simulations as accurate representations of the AMOC is equally true of treating a recently discovered hot blob in the ocean as proxy for a waning AMOC when direct measurement of the phenomenon is available. Neither is justified scientifically.

Second, both the claimed cause of the AMOC decline and the predicted impacts on sea levels are simply wrong. As discussed at Climate at a Glance: Greenland Ice Melt, while many headlines have blared in recent years that Greenland is melting unusually rapidly, the melting and thawing are normal for Greenland each year, and most of the ice that melted in Greenland never reached the sea. It just refroze. (See the figure, below for Greenland’s relative ice loss).

Graph comparing the magnified ice loss of Greenland since 1980 to the total changes in Greenland ice mass, illustrating the disparity between media portrayals and the actual data.
Figure 1. A comparison of presentations of satellite data capturing Greenland’s ice mass loss. The image on the right shows changes in Greenland’s ice mass relative to Greenland’s total ice mass. Sources: The data plotted in these graphs are from the Ice Sheet Mass Balance Inter-Comparison Exercise, a joint exercise by NASA and the European Space Agency.4 Graphs originally by Willis Eschenbach. Adapted and annotated by Anthony Watts.

So, contrary to the scientists claims, Greenland’s ice sheet is not “being thawed.” If Greenland isn’t losing massive amounts of ice, colder water flowing from Greenland can’t be disrupting the AMOC’s ability to transport warm and cold water around the Atlantic from North to South and back.

“A key Atlantic current could be pushed to the brink of collapse within decades, supposedly ushering in a new ice age and dramatically raising sea levels, climate scientists have claimed in a controversial new study published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment,” writes the NYP.

Labeling this study “controversial” as opposed to nonsense is kind on the NYP’s part, since the claim that the AMOC’s collapse would lead to both the next ice age and rising seas is nonsensical. During ice ages, seas fall dramatically as the water stored in the oceans is what forms the glaciers. Seas rise during interglacial periods as the ice sheets retreat and return water to the seas. You can’t have both rising seas and glacial expansion across the land – where does the water for the glacier growth come from?

The final and ultimately dispositive nail in the coffin for the claim that a dramatically slowed or stalled AMOC would lead to the next ice age is our historical, scientific understanding of the causes of past ice ages. The causes of what scientists refer to as ice ages, periods of a hundred thousand years or more where glaciers grow from the arctic to cover vast swaths of the Northern Hemisphere, are multiple and complex, of which AMOC currently may play, at best, a small part.

There is some evidence that a combination of a slowed AMOC coinciding with periods of reduced solar activity have been responsible for mini-ice ages in the past, lowering temperatures modestly with mountain glaciers expanding some, and temperatures dropping disrupting crop production. However, these periods have occurred without any contribution from humanity and are not what the recent study and the NYP’s reporting of it bring to mind. Rather, what the scientists are implying is that a stagnant AMOC by itself, will cause a true ice age with, for example, glaciers reclaiming Canada and parts of the United States and Europe, leaving a vast swath of humanity shivering, with what remains of modern civilization living hand to mouth – a “Day After Tomorrow” scenario.

But true ice ages aren’t caused by collapsed AMOC or reduced sun spots. Rather, these large scale geologic phenomena are a result of Milankovitch cycles, during which: the
Earth’s Eccentricity, that is its orbit, changes from nearly circular to more elliptical over cycles of about 100,000 to 400,000 years; the tilt of Earth’s axis, its Obliquity, changes over a cycle of about 41,000 years; and the wobble of Earth’s axis, or its Precession, changes the orientation of the tilt, affecting the distribution of sunlight received at different times of the year over a cycle of about 26,000 years. These are the main drivers of ice ages, which also occur, it is worth noting, when carbon dioxide levels are in decline and much lower than now.

To conclude, while another ice age will likely occur in the future, a slowing AMOC physically can’t be the cause. Also, there is no evidence an ice age is pending in the near future. Perhaps, going forward, the New York Post and other news outlets should ignore studies that make claims about pending ice ages from causes that are physically impossible, being refuted by physics and real-world data.

Is Rainfall in Wales More Extreme?

I had a fruitful conversation with Grok, after he/she/it mentioned in passing that floods in Monmouth since 2000 had become more frequent because of climate change:

People walking in the rain with umbrellas and raincoats, showing the effects of heavy rainfall in an urban area.

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

A scenic view of a lush, green valley with a river running through it, surrounded by hills and dense trees, under a cloudy, rainy sky.

I had a fruitful conversation with Grok, after he/she/it mentioned in passing that floods in Monmouth since 2000 had become more frequent because of climate change:

A summary image discussing the increased frequency of floods in Monmouth since 2000 due to climate change, focusing on the River Wye levels and recent high-water events.

When challenged he referred me to Met Office reports, which stated the amount of rain falling on the wettest days (99th percentile) has increased by ~20 % across Wales since 1960. He also quoted attribution studies.

I responded by pointing out that the 1960 to 1990 period was a much drier interlude. When the HADUKP daily data, which goes back to 1931, and monthly data back to 1836 was analysed, those “extremes” disappeared.

Grok responded:

A chart displaying overall annual rainfall trends in SW England and South Wales, indicating no statistically significant long-term increase in rainfall from 1931 to 2020.
A screenshot displaying a conversation about climate change and rainfall patterns in Wales, including references to increased flooding and meteorological data.

Which, I suppose, all goes to show that you should not trust the Met Office without checking the data first!

And this is what that data shows.

You’ve already seen this graph for daily rainfall, which clearly shows no worsening trends:

Line graph showing daily rainfall greater than 20mm in South West England and South Wales from 1931 to November 2025, with data points represented as blue diamonds.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2025/11/16/storm-claudia/

I have also extrapolated the highest daily values each year:

Bar chart showing daily rainfall from 1931 to 2025 in SW England and South Wales, with the highest rainfall values each year represented.

The Met Office keeps monthly data back to 1936 for the whole of Wales.

Graph showing monthly rainfall exceeding 270mm in Wales from 1836 to October 2025, with data points represented by blue diamonds.
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/uk-and-regional-series

December 2015 was the wettest month with a total of 334.1mm. However, November 1929 was effectively just as wet with 333.8mm. (It is also worth noting that December 1929 had 301.9mm, making it the 8th wettest on record. The period from October 1929 to January 1930 recorded 1068mm, an average of 267mm per month. It was by far the wettest four month period in Wales, wetter even than September to December 2000 and the wettest part of the autumn/winter of 2015/16).

Met Office Monthly Weather Reports for 1929/30 mention “extensive and severe floods across South Wales, in addition to much of the country. Grok made no mention of floods in Monmouth at that time, even though they must have occurred there too. This serves as a reminder that many floods in the past have not been recorded for posterity on the internet.