Day: May 6, 2026

California’s Climate Overreach

California is strangling its own energy base—then blaming oil companies for the predictable fallout of shortages, wildfires, and policies built on ideology instead of economics.

From Master Resource

By Edward Ring

“The Affordable Insurance and Recovery Act (SB 982) would impose liability on fossil fuel companies for ‘climate-attributable damages,’ expected to be assessed in billions of dollars. It would empower California’s attorney general to sue the state’s oil companies without even needing to prove fault, negligence, or specific causation by an individual company.”

California is strangling its own energy base—then blaming oil companies for the predictable fallout of shortages, wildfires, and policies built on ideology instead of economics.

Even if the most dire climate scenarios are accurate, and humanity must transition away from fossil fuel, it can’t happen overnight. The rational approach is to first develop alternative sources of energy without precipitously destroying the industries that reliably produce oil and natural gas. Once alternatives are available at a competitive price and in sufficient quantities, demand naturally migrates to the alternatives. Meanwhile, the oil and gas industry, recognizing that their core business is to provide energy, actually stays healthy by also investing in the transition.

None of that is happening in California. The approach the state’s politicians have chosen is irrational and predatory. For more than twenty years, they have legislated and litigated the state’s oil and gas companies down to a fraction of their former size, making up most of the resulting energy shortage not with alternative energy, but with imports.

A recent and particularly brazen case of this ongoing harassment comes in the form of Senate Bill 982, something that only last week came perilously close to moving to a floor vote. Under the moral masquerade of requiring restitution for allegedly causing climate change, which in turn allegedly caused wildfires, what this bill really amounted to was a state-sponsored shakedown. SB 982 is a vivid example of how California’s legislature is determined to cannibalize and ultimately destroy entire industries in order to pay for disasters of their own making.

The so-called Affordable Insurance and Recovery Act (SB 982) would impose liability on fossil fuel companies for “climate-attributable damages,” expected to be assessed in billions of dollars. It would empower California’s attorney general to sue the state’s oil companies without even needing to prove fault, negligence, or specific causation by an individual company.

This bill is not only legalized extortion, but also a total disregard for economic reality. Combustible fuels remain the primary engine of civilization, and they’re not going anywhere for at least the next several decades. Despite this unavoidable fact, California’s in-state oil industry is already on the verge of implosion. The results are easily quantifiable.

Well production in the oil-rich state has fallen from over 400 million barrels per year in the 1980s to barely more than 100 million barrels per year in 2024. A major distribution pipeline from fields in Kern County to Northern California refineries was shut down in late 2025 because there wasn’t enough oil left to permit the pipeline to physically move oil through it, nor enough to make it possible for the operators to break even. Additional regulatory harassment has driven two of California’s major refineries to cease operations, leaving existing refinery capacity insufficient to meet demand. Californians now import 75 percent of their crude oil and, by some reports, now have to import 20 percent of their gasoline from refineries in Asia.

Against this backdrop, SB 982 wouldn’t even permit oil companies to recoup the billions that this predatory legislation will empower the state of California to extort from them. Where they could find the billions (trillions?) to pay for “climate attributable damages” if they can’t raise prices to consumers is unclear.

A similar disregard for economic reality is what motivated the introduction of SB 922 to begin with. For years, California’s semi-numerate insurance commissioners, driven by ideology, have made it difficult, if not impossible, for the state’s insurance companies to pass through to rate payers the increases to their own reinsurance payments or to increase rates to reflect updated risk assessments. Then, when wildfires immolated more than 13,000 homes in the Los Angeles area in early 2025, many insurance companies had already canceled coverage and left the state. The remaining insurers offering coverage, including California’s state-funded FAIR insurance plan, were overwhelmed. Without a bailout, these insurers cannot cover the claims.

But the entire premise of SB 982 is flawed. Culpability for the wildfires doesn’t rest with California’s oil companies. The California State Legislature created these disasters because, for decades, they have waged a regulatory assault on California’s timber industry, along with property owners and ranchers who used to engage in grazing, thinning, and controlled burns. In the Santa Monica Mountains surrounding the burned neighborhoods in Los Angeles, herds of sheep, goats, and cattle used to roam the hillsides, and property owners were able to thin overgrown vegetation on their own land as well as adjacent public land.

All of this became nearly impossible, thanks to interference in the form of hyper-regulatory oversight that effectively eliminated nearly all of the practices that had prevented California’s forests and wildlands from turning into tinderboxes. Trees and scrublands became overgrown, with the vegetation dried out and stressed not because of “climate change” but because natural and prescribed fires were suppressed at the same time any other form of thinning was all but banned. More than any other single factor, environmentalist extremism has caused California’s catastrophic wildfires.

Rather than admitting their culpability for the entire disaster, the wiped out homes, lost lives, and ensuing economic cataclysm, California’s state legislature blames oil companies. This entire charade is a prime exhibit of why climate change alarm in California has become, more than anything else, a scam designed to deflect responsibility for bad policies and to redistribute wealth and power to bureaucrats who haven’t shown the slightest evidence of learning from their decades of negligent opportunism.

Thanks to what capacity remains for rational climate policy in California, the targets of SB 982’s predatory scheme were able to stall its progress in the legislature this year. But the state’s appetite for seizing billions from disfavored industries isn’t going to go away. A “compromise” that almost had SB 982 sailing into law was to “permit” oil companies to earn “credits” against eventual judgments if they could prove they invested in wind, solar, and carbon capture schemes, all of which are deemed to lower emissions. Notwithstanding the subjective and economically draining morass of “carbon accounting,” this supposed compromise will only intensify; it is yet another way to further impose on oil companies the responsibility for funding projects that, in many cases, are patently ridiculous, such as direct air capture of CO₂, or blatantly destructive to the environment, such as floating offshore wind.

The example California is setting with its war on fossil fuel is not anything for residents in other states to take lightly. The state’s particularly virulent strain of climate overreach is a national disease, stronger in some states than in others, but spreading its contagion everywhere. In 2007, despite having an allegedly conservative majority, the US Supreme Court actually found CO₂ to be a pollutant that could be subject to regulation by the US EPA. The Trump administration has directed the EPA to reverse the regulations that followed the decision, but an incoming Democratic administration will bring it all back.

Anyone still believing that extreme climate shakedowns will be confined to blue states should read a brilliant national overview of the problem. Published in the Spring 2026 edition of City Journal, “The Climate Litigation Swindle” is written by Heather Mac Donald, a researcher noted for uncommon diligence and impeccable logic. In a nearly 6,000 word essay, Mac Donald describes several avenues of litigation being pursued by climate activists throughout the United States. The audacity of these lawsuits is only matched by their vapidity. But that won’t stop lower courts, or a US Supreme Court, should it end up packed and flipped by a new Democratic administration, from granting credence to every absurdity these creative litigants can possibly conjure.

Climate extremists are part of a larger sickness infecting America. They are part of a movement that seeks to undermine our economy, discredit capitalism, disparage Western civilization and Western traditions, spread fear, resentment, despair and self loathing among our youth, and, through their ignorance and fanaticism, deny Americans the opportunities that preceding generations have taken for granted. They are a menace. They must be stopped.

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Edward Ring is a senior fellow of The Center for American Greatness, where this article appeared. He is also the director of water and energy policy for the California Policy Center, which he co-founded in 2013 and served as its first president. Ring is the author of Fixing California: Abundance, Pragmatism, Optimism (2021) and The Abundance Choice: Our Fight for More Water in California (2022).

Climate TRACE Underestimates U.S. Urban Vehicle CO₂ Emissions by 70%, NAU Study Finds

Recent research by climate scientist Kevin Gurney of Northern Arizona University (NAU) has identified significant underestimations in the Climate TRACE global greenhouse gas emissions database, particularly for urban vehicle CO₂ emissions.

Climate TRACE is a global nonprofit coalition that provides independent, open-access greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions data using satellites, AI/machine learning, remote sensing, and other datasets.

Climate TRACE combines:

  • Satellite imagery and remote sensing.
  • AI/ML models (e.g., for detecting activity like traffic or facility operations).
  • Public and commercial datasets.
  • Bottom-up and top-down methods.

Its goal is greater transparency and timeliness than traditional self-reported national inventories submitted to the UN.

It was co-founded/promoted with involvement from former Vice President Al Gore.

Climate TRACE (CT) significantly underestimates urban on-road (vehicular) CO₂ emissions in the U.S. by an average of ~70% compared to a high-quality, bottom-up reference dataset.

Recent research by climate scientist Kevin Gurney of Northern Arizona University (NAU) has identified significant underestimations in the Climate TRACE global greenhouse gas emissions database, particularly for urban vehicle CO₂ emissions.

Urban vehicle emissions: Climate TRACE underestimates CO₂ emissions from cars and trucks in U.S. cities by an average of 70% compared to the well-established Vulcan onroad database (calibrated to official traffic and energy data). Some cities show discrepancies over 90%.

Power plants (prior study): A 2024 NAU analysis found Climate TRACE underestimated emissions at power plants by an average of 50% in the U.S. Only ~4% of facilities used AI-based methods; most relied on approximate approaches.

These results come from peer-reviewed work published in Environmental Research Letters. Gurney and colleagues compared Climate TRACE data against high-resolution, bottom-up inventories like Vulcan, which integrate detailed activity data (e.g., traffic counts, fuel sales) with lower uncertainty (~15% for power sector comparisons).

The critiques highlight that for on-road vehicles and many power plants, its methods (often relying on proxies or approximations rather than direct high-resolution activity data) lead to systematic underestimation of fossil fuel CO₂.

Accurate emissions data is essential for:

  • Tracking progress toward Paris Agreement goals.
  • Designing effective mitigation policies.
  • Carbon markets and accountability mechanisms.
  • Scientific modeling of climate impacts.

Underestimation could imply that true emissions (and thus needed reductions) are higher than reported in some sectors/locations. Gurney emphasizes that reliable data is “a critical ingredient for society’s response to climate change.”

This is a specific methodological critique from within the climate science community — not a challenge to the broader reality of anthropogenic climate change or the need for emissions reductions. Similar discrepancies have been noted in other inventories before; science advances through such validation and improvement.For details, see the NAU announcement or the Phys.org coverage of the recent paper. The full study is available in Environmental Research Letters.

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Assessing the accuracy of the Climate Trace global vehicular CO2 emissions

Climate TRACE (CT) significantly underestimates urban on-road (vehicular) CO₂ emissions in the U.S. by an average of ~70% compared to a high-quality, bottom-up reference dataset.

This assessment is based on a peer-reviewed study by Kevin R. Gurney and colleagues (Northern Arizona University), published May 5, 2026, in Environmental Research Letters: “Assessing the accuracy of the Climate Trace global vehicular CO₂ emissions.”

Reference dataset: Vulcan Project (version 4.0) — an atmospherically calibrated, multi-constraint inventory using detailed U.S. traffic counts, fuel sales, vehicle registration data, and other activity data. Uncertainty is relatively low (~14% for on-road emissions).

Scope: 260 U.S. urban areas in 2021 (with analysis also for 2022 and different CT data versions).

Mean relative difference (MRD): ~70% (CT lower than Vulcan). Individual cities like Indianapolis and Nashville showed discrepancies >90%.

Systematic bias: High correlation (Pearson ~0.99) between datasets indicates consistent underestimation rather than random error. Most urban areas fell outside Vulcan’s 95% confidence intervals.

Different CT data versions (v1 and v2) showed large differences from Vulcan, sometimes flipping from over- to under-estimation due to methodological tweaks (e.g., scaling factors), but the magnitude of error remained similar.

Main Sources of Error in Climate TRACE

Machine learning model biases — CT uses convolutional and graph neural networks trained on U.S. Sentinel-2 satellite imagery to predict annual average daily traffic (AADT) on OpenStreetMap road segments. These predictions appear biased when scaled to emissions.

Fuel economy and fleet distribution — Reliance on U.S. national averages (from sources like CURB and FHWA) that do not adequately capture local variations in vehicle mix, driving conditions, or efficiency.

Scaling adjustments — Version 2 applied a global scaling factor to align with EDGAR v8.0 at the country level, which introduced further offsets at urban scales.

Vulcan integrates more direct activity data (e.g., traffic counts, fuel consumption) and has been validated against atmospheric measurements.

Context and Implications

This is a methodological critique, not a denial of climate science. Vehicle emissions are a major and growing share of urban GHG totals (often 30–40%+ in U.S. cities). Underestimation affects policy targeting, carbon accounting, and progress tracking toward mitigation goals.

Global relevance: The study focuses on U.S. urban areas (where validation data are strongest), but the authors suspect similar issues may apply elsewhere due to the global methods used. CT aims for worldwide coverage using satellite + AI approaches.

Comparison to prior work: A 2024 Gurney study found CT underestimated U.S. power plant CO₂ by ~50% on average (with non-AI methods performing poorly).

Caveats: No dataset is perfect. Vulcan has its own uncertainties, and CT’s satellite/AI approach offers valuable global, near-real-time granularity that traditional inventories lack. Independent validation like this drives improvements.

The full open-access paper is available in Environmental Research Letters. NAU’s press release and coverage on Phys.org provide clear summaries. Climate TRACE continues to update its methods, and such comparisons help refine global datasets.

Published:  Environmental Research Letters

DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ae6355

Provided: Northern Arizona University peer-reviewed

Authors: Kevin R Gurney, Bilal Aslam and Pawlok Dass

Abstract

Accurate estimation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions at the infrastructure scale remains essential to climate science and policy applications. Vehicle emissions often dominate GHG emissions in urban areas and are rapidly increasing globally. Climate Trace (CT), co-founded by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, is a new AI-based effort to estimate roadway-scale GHG emissions. However, limited independent peer-reviewed assessment has been made of this dataset. Here, we compare CT on road CO2 emissions in U.S. urban areas to atmospherically calibrated, multi-constraint estimates of on road CO2 emissions from the Vulcan Project. Across 260 urban areas in 2021, we find a mean relative difference (MRD) of 70.4%. These large differences are driven by biases in CT’s machine learning model, fuel economy values, and fleet distribution values. We conclude that sub-national policy guidance or climate science applications using the on road CO2 emissions estimates made by CT should be done so with caution.

Ancient Subglacial Methane Reveals Major Mid-Holocene Retreat of the Greenland Ice Sheet

Researchers sampled 26 meltwater streams across the entire western margin of the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS). They found pervasive, biogenic methane (CH₄) dissolved in supersaturated subglacial meltwater. Radiocarbon dating showed the CH₄ is 1.5–4.4 thousand years old (roughly 1500–4500 years before present).

Researchers sampled 26 meltwater streams across the entire western margin of the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS). They found pervasive, biogenic methane (CH₄) dissolved in supersaturated subglacial meltwater. Radiocarbon dating showed the CH₄ is 1.5–4.4 thousand years old (roughly 1500–4500 years before present).

This methane was produced by methanogenic archaea (microbes) breaking down organic matter under anoxic (oxygen-poor) conditions beneath the ice. The ages align with the Holocene Thermal Maximum (roughly 11–5 ka BP), a warmer period when the Greenland Ice Sheet was smaller than today. Proglacial areas accumulated organic matter (soils, vegetation), which later advancing ice overrode, providing the substrate for subglacial methanogenesis.

Methanogenic archaea (also called methanogens) are a specialized group of anaerobic archaea that produce methane (CH₄) as a byproduct of their energy metabolism. They are the only known organisms capable of methanogenesis and play a critical role in the global carbon cycle, especially in oxygen-free (anoxic) environments.

Domain: Archaea (not bacteria). They have distinct cell membranes (ether lipids), ribosomes, and metabolic pathways that differ from bacteria.

Strict anaerobes: Oxygen is toxic to them. They thrive in environments with no or very low oxygen, such as wetlands, rice paddies, ruminant digestive tracts, marine sediments, landfills, and subglacial sediments.

Energy metabolism: They are chemolithotrophs or chemoorganotrophs that generate energy by converting simple carbon compounds into CH₄. This process is their primary (often only) way to obtain energy.

Main Methanogenesis Pathways

  1. Hydrogenotrophic (CO₂-reducing): The most widespread.
    CO₂ + 4H₂ → CH₄ + 2H₂O
    Uses hydrogen (H₂) or formate as electron donors.
  2. Acetoclastic (acetate-splitting): Common in freshwater sediments.
    CH₃COOH (acetate) → CH₄ + CO₂
  3. Methylotrophic: Uses methylated compounds (methanol, methylamines, dimethyl sulfide, etc.).
    Example: 4CH₃OH → 3CH₄ + CO₂ + 2H₂O

Some methanogens can also use other substrates like alcohols or even methoxylated aromatic compounds from lignin.

They use unique coenzymes such as coenzyme M (CoM), coenzyme B, tetrahydromethanopterin (H₄MPT), and factor F₄₂₀ (which gives some a greenish fluorescence).

In the Greenland Ice Sheet studies (including the recent 2026 Nature Geoscience paper), sequences from Methanosarcinales and Methanomicrobiales are frequently detected in subglacial meltwater.

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Mid-Holocene retreat of the Greenland Ice Sheet indicated by subglacial methane release

Mid-Holocene retreat of the Greenland Ice Sheet indicated by subglacial methane release is the title of a research article published on May 5, 2026, in Nature Geoscience.

Methane (CH₄) emissions occur at glacier margins globally, with subglacial CH₄ production identified beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS). Researchers extensively sampled 26 meltwater streams across the entire western margin of the GrIS. They found pervasive, biogenic CH₄ (produced by microbes) dissolved in supersaturated subglacial meltwater. Radiocarbon dating revealed the methane’s age as 1.5–4.4 thousand years before present (ka BP).

These ages indicate that the organic matter fueling subglacial methanogenesis (by methanogenic archaea under anoxic conditions) accumulated in proglacial areas (soils, tundra vegetation) when the ice sheet was smaller than today during the Holocene Thermal Maximum (~11–5 ka BP). Subsequent ice readvances overrode this carbon-rich material, enabling ongoing microbial CH₄ production.

Ice sheet dynamics: The findings support greater mid-Holocene retreat (and subsequent readvance) of the GrIS than some models previously suggested. This points to higher sensitivity to climate warming.

Current and future CH₄ flux: A continuum degradation model estimates that western Greenland’s subglacial organic matter could sustain CH₄ production for another 200 years. The lateral flux from land-terminating sectors is estimated at **715 tonnes per year** (range 481–1,020 t/yr).

Broader context: Subglacial carbon cycling and CH₄ release are relevant to glacial environments worldwide. Increased melting could enhance subglacial connectivity and methane transport in the future

The team (led by researchers including J.E. Hatton, A. Stehrer-Polášková, and M. Stibal from Charles University, Czechia, with international collaborators) used:

  • Sampling along a ~2,000 km transect of the western GrIS margin.
  • Stable isotope analysis.
  • Radiocarbon (¹⁴C) dating of the CH₄.

This distinguishes biogenic (microbial) origins from thermogenic or hydrate sources (which would lack modern radiocarbon).

The paper builds on earlier site-specific studies (e.g., at Leverett or Isunnguata Sermia glaciers) by demonstrating the phenomenon is widespread. Popular summaries appear on Phys.org, University of Oulu, and other sites. Access to the full text may require institutional login or purchase via Nature.com.

Published: Nature Geoscience 

DOI: 10.1038/s41561-026-01976-5

Provided: Charles University

Authors: J. E. Hatton, 
A. Stehrer-Polášková, 
P. A. Píka, 
M. H. Garnett, 
P. Klímová, 
L. C. P. Wentzel, 
J. D. Žárský, J. Trubač, 
S. Arndt, 
A. Hubbard, 
J. C. Yde, 
J. R. Hawkings, 
E. L. Doting, 
J. G. Murphy, 
G. Lamarche-Gagnon, 
J. L. Wadham, 
S. E. Sapper, 
J. R. Christiansen, 
C. J. Jørgensen & 
M. Stibal

Abstract

Methane (CH4) emissions have been detected at glacier margins globally, with subglacial CH4 production identified beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet. Despite its potential role in carbon cycling, an assessment of the sources, production pathways and prevalence of subglacial CH4 export is lacking. Here we report on extensive sampling of 26 meltwater streams across the entire western margin of the Greenland Ice Sheet, revealing a radiocarbon age of 1.5–4.4 thousand years before present for pervasive, biogenic CH4 laterally transported by emerging subglacial supersaturated meltwater. These ages corroborate a smaller-than-present Greenland Ice Sheet during the Holocene Thermal Maximum (11–5 thousand years ago before present), stimulating proglacial organic matter accumulation, which was then overridden by subsequent glacial advance. Applying a continuum degradation model, we demonstrate that western Greenland’s subglacial organic matter can support CH4 release for another 200 years, with a lateral flux of 715 (481–1,020) tonnes per year from its land-terminating sectors. We highlight the pertinence of subglacial carbon cycling to the release of CH4 from all glacial environments globally, and a dynamic sensitivity of the Greenland Ice Sheet not yet fully realized in ice sheet models, via the isotopic assessment of subglacial CH4.

Physics-Based Models Outperform AI in Predicting Record-Breaking Extreme Weather

Modern forecasting relies primarily on Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) — physics-based models that solve the fundamental equations of fluid dynamics, thermodynamics, and conservation laws on a global 3D grid. These models ingest vast amounts of real-time data from satellites, radars, weather stations, buoys, aircraft, and balloons.

Weather forecasting is the process of predicting atmospheric conditions (temperature, precipitation, wind, humidity, etc.) over short to medium time scales, from hours to about two weeks ahead. It has evolved dramatically from rule-of-thumb methods to highly sophisticated computer models.

Modern forecasting relies primarily on Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) — physics-based models that solve the fundamental equations of fluid dynamics, thermodynamics, and conservation laws on a global 3D grid. These models ingest vast amounts of real-time data from satellites, radars, weather stations, buoys, aircraft, and balloons.

AI models like GraphCast (Google DeepMind), Pangu-Weather, Fuxi, and ECMWF AIFS have transformed the field:

They are trained on decades of reanalysis data (e.g., ERA5).

Extremely fast and computationally cheap (often 1,000x faster than traditional NWP).

They match or outperform physics models on many average metrics, especially for large-scale patterns and routine forecasts.

Limitation: Pure AI models tend to underestimate record-breaking extremes (intense heatwaves, cold snaps, strong winds) because these events lie in the tails of the training data.

Weather forecasting remains a blend of science, data, and human expertise. While AI has accelerated progress, the most reliable systems in 2026 integrate physics foundations with machine learning. This hybrid era is delivering faster, more accurate, and more actionable forecasts — ultimately helping save lives and property.

A recent research confirms that physics-based (numerical weather prediction or NWP) models, such as ECMWF’s HRES, generally outperform current AI/ML weather models for predicting record-breaking extreme weather events.

The May 2026 study published in Science Advances directly compared the physics-based High RESolution forecast (HRES) from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts against leading AI models (GraphCast, GraphCast operational, Pangu-Weather, Pangu-Weather operational, and Fuxi). It analyzed thousands of record-breaking heats, cold, and wind events from 2018 and 2020.

For extremes: HRES showed consistently smaller forecast errors than the AI models across nearly all lead times for record-breaking events. AI models systematically underestimated the intensity and frequency of these extremes (the more extreme the record, the larger the underestimation).

Overall/average forecasts: AI models often match or exceed HRES in standard metrics (e.g., RMSE for temperature or wind) for typical conditions, and they are dramatically faster and cheaper to run.

AI models (e.g., graph neural networks like GraphCast) are trained on historical data (often reanalysis like ERA5). They excel at interpolating common patterns but are less reliable when extrapolating to unprecedented extremes (“gray swans” or records far outside the training distribution). Physics-based models solve the governing equations of fluid dynamics, thermodynamics, etc., so they better handle novel conditions as long as the physics approximations hold.

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Physics-based models outperform AI weather forecasts of record-breaking extremes

The recent peer-reviewed study published in Science Advances (April/May 2026) confirms that physics-based numerical weather prediction (NWP) models, particularly ECMWF’s High RESolution forecast (HRES), consistently outperform leading AI models in forecasting record-breaking extreme weather events.

Researchers analyzed thousands of record-breaking hot, cold, and high-wind events from 2018 and 2020. They compared HRES against state-of-the-art AI models including:

  • GraphCast (and its operational version)
  • Pangu-Weather (operational)
  • Fuxi

For record-breaking extremes, HRES showed smaller forecast errors across nearly all lead times for temperature (heat/cold) and wind speed records.

AI models systematically underestimated the intensity and frequency of these extremes. The more extreme the record (larger deviation from past norms), the greater the underprediction, especially for hot records.

On average/typical conditions, AI models often match or beat HRES in standard metrics like RMSE, and they run orders of magnitude faster/cheaper.

AI models are trained primarily on historical reanalysis data (e.g., ERA5). They excel at interpolating common patterns but struggle with extrapolation to unprecedented “gray swan” or record events outside (or far in the tails of) their training distribution.

Physics-based models solve the underlying equations of atmospheric dynamics, thermodynamics, and conservation laws. They remain more robust for novel or extreme conditions, as long as the physical approximations and resolution are adequate.

This study serves as a timely caution against over-relying on AI alone for critical early warnings of disasters, where underestimating record events can have severe consequences. AI weather forecasting is advancing quickly, but physics-based foundations still provide superior reliability for the most impactful extremes as of 2026.

Published:  Science Advances Vol 12, Issue 18

DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aec1433

Authors: Zhongwei Zhang, Erich Fischer, Jakob Zscheischler, and Sebastian Engelke

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI)–based models are revolutionizing weather forecasting and have surpassed leading numerical weather prediction systems on various benchmark tasks. However, their ability to extrapolate and reliably forecast unprecedented extreme events remains unclear. Here, we show that for record-breaking weather extremes, the physics-based numerical model High RESolution forecast (HRES) from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts still consistently outperforms state-of-the-art AI models GraphCast, GraphCast operational, Pangu-Weather, Pangu-Weather operational, and Fuxi. We demonstrate that forecast errors in AI models are consistently larger for record-breaking heat, cold, and wind than in HRES across nearly all lead times. We further find that the examined AI models tend to underestimate both the frequency and intensity of record-breaking events, and they underpredict hot records and overestimate cold records with growing errors for larger record exceedance. Our findings underscore the current limitations of AI weather models in extrapolating beyond their training domain and in forecasting the potentially most impactful record-breaking weather events that are particularly frequent in a rapidly warming climate. Further rigorous verification and model development is needed before these models can be solely relied upon for high-stakes applications such as early warning systems and disaster management.

Quit Fearmongering, San Francisco Chronicle, Climate Change Isn’t Coming for Cabernet

The San Francisco Chronicle posted an article claiming that climate change is harming Cabernet production, specifically in California. This is false. The climate hasn’t appreciably changed for the worse in California amid modest warming. Wildfires are not outside of their historical norm and droughts haven’t become more frequent or severe.

From ClimateRealism


By H. Sterling Burnett

The San Francisco Chronicle posted an article claiming that climate change is harming Cabernet production, specifically in California. This is false. The climate hasn’t appreciably changed for the worse in California amid modest warming. Wildfires are not outside of their historical norm and droughts haven’t become more frequent or severe. Data show fluctuations in Cabernet production across the decades, but no sustained downward trend correlating to global warming or carbon dioxide emissions. In fact, the highest production years for cabernet grape tonnage have all occurred during twenty-first century, supposedly the hottest years on record.

In the story, “Climate change is coming for Cabernet. Here’s how one Napa winery is getting ready,” staff writer, Jess Lander, writes:

In 2019, the greatest threat to California wine was climate change. It felt like a reckoning was coming, especially to Napa Valley, where the future of its crown jewel grape, Cabernet Sauvignon . . ..

Then, suddenly, winemakers stopped talking so much about climate change.

COVID-19 hit in 2020, forcing wineries to close to visitors and find new ways to reach customers. (Remember virtual tastings?) A few months later, more than 30 Napa Valley wineries were damaged or destroyed in devastating wildfires, and smoke from the disasters nearly wiped out an entire vintage. Starting in late 2022, California wine began to feel the effects of an unprecedented downturn in the wine industry. Ever since, California wineries have been in survival mode, battling a litany of challenges, including declining sales and tourism; a major grape oversupply; competition from alternative alcoholic beverages, like seltzers and ready-to-drink cocktails; tariffs and the loss of the Canadian export market; and growing anti-alcohol sentiment among Americans.

In truth, there is no evidence that climate change has ever posed a threat to California or Napa Valley Cabernet production.

Neither drought nor wildfire in California are outside of their normal frequency or severity. Since European colonization of America and migration to California, severe droughts were recorded in 1841, 1864, 1895, 1924, 1928–1935, 1947–1950, 1959–1961, 1976–1977, 1986–1992, 2007–2009, and 2011–2017,2020–2022 and 2024-25. Many of those droughts occurred long before human greenhouse gas emissions rose significantly, when the Earth was cooler. Indeed, historic droughts in California were much more lengthy and severe. Even with the recent droughts, the past two centuries have been relatively wet when compared to California’s historic drought patterns, as seen in the graphic below.

Dozens of Climate Realism posts provide data and reference peer-reviewed studies showing wildfire frequency and severity in California are well below historic norms, even with a small uptick in recent years due to shifts in land management and increasing urban expansion into areas historically prone to wildfires, here, here, here, and here, for instance.

If drought and wildfires haven’t become more common or severe as the climate has undergone a modest change, then that change can’t be behind any Cabernet grape production losses. Even more telling is the fact that Cabernet production is, contrary to what is implied by Lander’s San Francisco Chronicle story, doing well amid modest climate change.

Interestingly, in 2019, seven years ago, CBS News warned “Climate change is coming for your Cabernet,” almost the same title as the San Francisco Chronicle story. Yet just four years later, data from the Wine Institute show that California’s Cabernet production was the state’s second highest on record, with the record being set just the year before CBS bemoaned Cabernet’s supposed fate. Indeed, despite some vineyards closing, resulting in acreage taken out of production and modest warming, no year’s production since 2010 has been lower than any year’s production before then. No year after 2000 experienced Cabernet crushed grape tonnage lower than any year before then. As the graphic below shows, with fits and starts due to normal agricultural ups and downs, California’s Cabernet production has increased dramatically. California’s all-time record for Cabernet production was set in 2018, with 2023 being the second highest production year on record.

Nor, despite the San Francisco Chronicle’s warnings of a climate change induced Cabernet apocalypse, does the industry seem to believe Cabernet production is doomed due to climate change or any other factor, like reduced wine consumption or rising costs amidst falling prices. In fact, ReNub writes concerning the future market for conditions for Cabernet, “[c]abernet Sauvignon Market is expected to reach US$ 789.98 Million by 2034 from US$ 362.23 Million in 2025, with a CAGR [compound annual growth rate] of 9.05% from 2026 to 2034.” (See the image)

Cabernet may face some serious headwinds, but they have nothing to do with climate change. As mentioned, but downplayed in Lander’s article, trade issues, a decline in alcohol consumption among younger demographics, and higher input costs, are among the factors squeezing vintner’s profits. In France, as discussed at Climate Realism here and here, they have a solution, blame climate change for wine’s woes, while pouring excess wine down the drain rather than put it on the market. The problem is a glut of wine suppressing prices, not a surfeit.

The article, “Climate change is coming for Cabernet. Here’s how one Napa winery is getting ready,” is a disservice to the San Francisco Chronicle’s readers, misrepresenting the true state of Cabernet production and its prospects in an attempt to advance the false narrative that climate change is dooming the world, one product, crop, or industry at a time.

IPCC Admits Apocalyptic Climate Scenarios Are “Implausible” – Meaning Most Media Scare Stories Over Last 15 Years Are Officially Junk

Activist climate scientists, journalists and Net Zero-obsessed politicians are in shock following an official admission from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that a set of key assumptions promoting a climate ‘crisis’ since 2011 are “implausible”. The notorious set of always-improbable RCP8.5 ‘pathway’ assumptions which fed into computer models trying to measure an unmeasurable climate are no more.

From The Daily Sceptic

By Chris Morrison

Activist climate scientists, journalists and Net Zero-obsessed politicians are in shock following an official admission from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that a set of key assumptions promoting a climate ‘crisis’ since 2011 are “implausible”. The notorious set of always-improbable RCP8.5 ‘pathway’ assumptions which fed into computer models trying to measure an unmeasurable climate are no more. Since around 2011, these ‘business as usual’ assumptions have produced outlandish claims of future climate catastrophe which have been lapped up by lap dog journalists and politicians. The influential writer Roger Pielke Jr. called RCP8.5’s demise, “the most significant development in climate research in decades”.

Others might observe that we have not heard the last of RCP8.5. Its gross misuse is likely to be given a starring, central role when the history of the Great Climate and Net Zero Scam comes to be written.

Pielke lays it out clearly what has happened:

What matters today is that the group with official responsibility for developing climate scenarios for the IPCC and broader research community has now admitted that the scenarios that have dominated climate research, assessment and policy during the past two cycles of the IPCC assessment process are implausible. They describe impossible futures.

He goes on to note that tens of thousands of research papers have been and continue to be published using these scenarios. In addition, a similar number of media headlines have “amplified their findings”, while governments and international organisations have built these implausible scenarios into policy and regulation.

It cannot be over-emphasised how important this finding of implausibility is. It means that almost every fearmongering mainstream media climate headline and story that has been written over the last 15 years is junk. Of course it also explains why a growing band of sceptical commentators have refused to accept the political concept of ‘settled’ science and have engaged in widespread debunking. Shooting fish in a barrel is one way of describing this work. At times, with just a modicum of investigative scepticism, the stories can be seen as little more than an insult to average human intelligence.

When the RCP8.5 assumptions are loaded into computer models, they run politically-convenient red hot suggestions that the temperature in 2100 will rise by about 4°C from a 1850-1900 baseline – in other words, a rise of nearly 3°C in the next 80 years. Only the most deranged eco loons will claim such large short-term rises out loud, so the activist scientists quietly loaded garbage assumptions into their computers to arrive at their garbage-out Armageddon scares. The writing was on the wall for RCP8.5 last year when President Trump’s executive order titled ‘Restoring Gold Standard Science’ effectively banned the use of RCP8.5 for scientists on the United States federal payroll. It also noted one of the unrealistic RCP8.5 assumptions driving deliberate climate psychosis to be that end-of-century coal use will exceed estimates of recoverable reserves.

At the time, the climate researcher Zeke Hausfather dismissed the Trump Administration’s claims about RCP8.5 by stating that the research community had moved on. But Pielke has taken issue with this ‘nothing to see here’ claim. He states that from 2018 to 2021, Google Scholar reported 17,000 articles published using RCP8.5 compared with 16,900 in the next three year period. “Some shift,” he observed.

Again, those using less charitable words might note that the ultimate climate crackpipe has proved difficult to put down. A long and painful process of rehabilitation now seems likely.

RCP8.5 assumed high emissions of carbon dioxide leading to a radiative forcing (extra energy trapped in the Earth’s atmosphere) of 8.5 watts per square metre. The new pathways act as agreed guidelines for computer models that will then provide information for the IPCC’s forthcoming seventh assessment reports. Pielke has run the figures and estimates that the new high scenario will produce 3°C of warming by 2100, a reduction from 3.9°C but still an improbable 1.8°C rise in less than 80 years. Of course these new scenarios are just assumptions anyway, and on past observational evidence of atmospheric gas ‘saturation’ stretching back 600 million years they still grossly overestimate the warming effect of a few trace gases. Much higher levels of CO2 were the norm in the past in a complex, chaotic, non-linear and ultimately unmeasurable atmosphere. Climate scare bingo based on sightings in mainstream media of ‘scientists say’ will likely continue as long as an audience, albeit a diminishing one, still believes in the politicised agitprop of a ‘climate emergency’.

Finally, it might seem churlish to pick on a single mainstream media RCP8.5 nonsense story, but there is one that is your correspondent’s favourite. This article not only reported RCP8.5 fantasies but climbed even further heights, going where no other story has gone before. In May last year, Mark Poynting of the BBC claimed that “scientists say” coastal land and beyond could be overwhelmed with several metres of sea level rise if global temperature moves by three-tenths of a degree centigrade. This claim was arrived at by pushing the boundaries well beyond what even SSP5-8.5 (a newer version of RCP8.5) predicted. Based on a paper looking at polar ice melt, which gave a high emissions projected rise by 2100 of between 12 and 52 centimetres, Poynting chanced on a suggestion that the IPCC said it could not rule out (admittedly with “low confidence”) that the pathway could point to a sea level rise of over 15 metres by 2300. So Poynting got his several metres of inundation story, “even if ambitious targets of limiting global warming to 1.5°C is met”.

Purely anecdotal, but the BBC seems to have moderated its wilder climate stories of late with the “Climate” topic on its News site relegated to the second tier of subjects. This might be considered a bit of a status drop for a subject whose authors had past pretentions to provide an essential core for all reporting. Now it finds itself rubbing shoulders with the picture gallery and the dumbed-down “Newsbeat” offering.

But we must avoid the temptation to intrude on private grief. It is to be hoped that this move does not spell the end of the highly imaginative claptrap classics that have added to the gaiety of the nation over so many years. Regular readers will recall climate change could make beer taste worse and the Gulf Stream could collapse by 2025 – how we shall miss all this copy aimed at the idiot short of a village.

Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor. Follow him on X.