Day: May 19, 2026

China’s Solar Industry Redesigned Itself Around U.S. Forced Labor Law

Last month, firsthand testimony from a former Han Chinese police officer who supervised Uyghur labor transfers in Xinjiang described how the system works. Workers are taken to cotton fields under armed escort. Identity cards are confiscated to prevent escape.

From Watts Up With That?

By Adrian Zenz

Last month, firsthand testimony from a former Han Chinese police officer who supervised Uyghur labor transfers in Xinjiang described how the system works. Workers are taken to cotton fields under armed escort. Identity cards are confiscated to prevent escape. Those who refuse state-mandated assignments are sent to short-term detention facilities where, in the officer’s words, they are “intentionally subjected to hardship and suffering” until they comply.

The same coercion architecture underpins the labor that sustains Chinese crystalline silicon solar manufacturers, which continue to seek access to the U.S. market.

Five years after the United States moved to specifically ban Uyghur forced labor, it remains the largest system of state-imposed forced labor in the world – and it is larger than ever. Our research found that China recorded more than 3 million labor transfers of Uyghurs and other ethnic groups in 2025. This was the highest figure on record and a year-on-year increase, despite the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), which was meant to curb the practice.  China’s silicon solar industry, which has lobbied for years to preserve its access to the U.S. market, remains an active participant in it.

At the center of China’s solar supply chain sits Hoshine Silicon Industry, the world’s largest producer of metallurgical-grade silicon. In 2021, the United States blocked Hoshine’s products at the border after extensive evidence of forced labor at its Xinjiang operations. Yet, despite the ban by one of the largest solar markets in the world, Hoshine’s sales volume has grown from 530,000 metric tons in 2021 to more than 1.2 million tons in 2024, with roughly 90% still originating in Xinjiang.

That surge reflects both the difficulty of enforcing UFLPA and the Chinese crystalline silicon industry’s success in circumventing U.S. laws. In December 2023, two years after UFLPA was enacted, a Chinese county government signed a formal employment cooperation agreement with a Hoshine facility and dispatched 65 workers in a state-organized send-off ceremony, describing the arrangement as a “long-term labor export and strategic partnership.”

A 2024 government video – posted the same year Hoshine sued the U.S. government to maintain access to the American market – reveals what these placements entail. Workers sign a three-party agreement with the local government and a state-owned human resources company. The contract requires them to adopt a “correct employment ideology” and remain employed for at least one year. Officials later sent cadres to the facility to monitor workers, reporting a 91.2% retention rate as a government performance metric.

No genuine labor market requires ideological compliance – in this case, to communist ideology –  as a condition of employment. The model has been deliberately redesigned to withstand international scrutiny by removing the camp-style features that drew global attention in 2017 and 2018.

After the UFLPA passed, Chinese manufacturers signed pledges and bifurcated their supply chains: U.S.-bound modules are documented as using non-Xinjiang polysilicon, even as the same companies remain deeply tied to Xinjiang production. This created enforcement challenges compounded by the nature of the product itself – no laboratory test can determine whether polysilicon originates in Xinjiang. And Chinese manufacturers have a long history of shifting manufacturing stages to third countries and claiming non-Chinese origin for what remains, in effect, a Chinese-made product to circumvent U.S. laws.

Even as American manufacturers built large amounts of domestic capacity free of exposure to Chinese crystalline silicon supply chains, the U.S. has detained solar products under UFLPA from India, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Ethiopia.

In 2025, nearly half the companies whose shipments were denied U.S. entry simply redirected them elsewhere. Direct exports from Xinjiang to Canada, Britain, and the European Union rose 465% between 2021 and 2025, and Xinjiang’s total exports have more than tripled since the UFLPA took effect. The result is a global enforcement gap.

The U.S. Trade Representative’s ongoing Section 301 investigation into 60 of America’s trading partners is the clearest opportunity since UFLPA’s passage to close this gap. It should require partners to adopt equivalent import bans within a defined timeline, with a presumption against goods from regions where state-imposed forced labor has been documented. It should mandate information sharing between U.S. Customs and Border Protection and trade partners, so that goods rejected at the U.S. border cannot simply be diverted. Tariff consequences should apply to transshipment hubs. And UFLPA liability should extend to module manufacturers sourcing polysilicon from designated entities to prevent sanctioned material from entering the U.S. either as polysilicon or embedded in derivatives such as ingots, wafers, cells, and finished panels.

The system the police officer described in Xinjiang is not contained. It is the largest of its kind, it is expanding, and it has been redesigned to look like ordinary employment – with China’s solar manufacturing juggernaut among its most active beneficiaries.

Laws are only as effective as their enforcement. Congress took the right step with the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. China’s crystalline silicon industry has proved nimble, and each round of U.S. enforcement has produced a new workaround.

Let us be precise about what inaction means: U.S. companies continue purchasing goods produced through the forced labor of ethnic groups that have been systematically detained, surveilled, and conscripted by a state – not because there is no alternative, but because no one has compelled them to use one. American-made solar panels exist, and there is no trade-off to be made. Nor is there a neutral position.

Continuing to look away is a choice, and the people living inside this system will bear the consequences long after the next procurement cycle closes.

This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.

Even The DNA Of Single-Celled Plankton Can Upend Alarmist Arctic Sea Ice Melt Claims

If the Arctic can be sea ice-free year-round when CO2 is 230 ppm but dominated by multi-year ice when the CO2 concentration is 430 ppm, this does not support the alarmist claims that high CO2 concentrations are responsible for enhanced Arctic sea ice melt.

From NoTrickZone

By Kenneth Richard

New research utilizing the DNA of dinoflagellate (Polarella glacialis) indicates that, 14,000 years ago, when the atmospheric CO2 concentration is thought to have been 230 ppm, the studied Arctic region (Yermak Plateau) was sea ice-free year-round.

“Around 14.0-13.9 cal kyr BP, a short-lived year-round, ice-free, open ocean occurred.”

During the Early to Middle Holocene (10,000 to 4,000 years ago), Arctic sea ice was seasonal, dominated by first-year ice that did not survive the summer melt season.

“The Holocene Yermak Plateau is characterized by a seasonal sea ice cover, which my consist mainly of first-year sea ice … a large part of first-year ice, as opposed to seasonally drifted multi-year ice.”

Today, at 430 ppm CO2, Arctic sea ice is increasingly first-year, but a “multi-year environment” persists. Multi-year sea ice has survived at least one summer melt season, and it continues to thicken over multiple years.

The current phase is similar to the sea ice conditions that predominated ~16,000 years ago, or during the last glacial.

“…a marginal sea ice cover ca. 16 cal kyr BP [characterized by] first-year sea ice in a multi-year sea ice environment, a setting not unlike today.”

If the Arctic can be sea ice-free year-round when CO2 is 230 ppm but dominated by multi-year ice when the CO2 concentration is 430 ppm, this does not support the alarmist claims that high CO2 concentrations are responsible for enhanced Arctic sea ice melt.

Image Source: Mayers et al., 2026

Wrong, Sky News, Human-Caused Climate Change Isn’t to Blame for the Alaskan Megatsunami

Sky News claims that a recent Alaskan tsunami was caused by a climate change-induced landslide. This claim is speculative at best, since it is difficult to say whether the particular tidewater glacier is retreating because of warming or other factors that impact glacial movement.

From ClimateRealism


By Linnea Lueken

U.S. Geological Survey/John Lyons, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Sky News claims that a recent Alaskan tsunami was caused by a climate change-induced landslide. This claim is speculative at best, since it is difficult to say whether the particular tidewater glacier is retreating because of warming or other factors that impact glacial movement. Climate change and glacial retreat have always occurred, but media overuse of the former term conflates natural shifts with supposed human-caused change. This has made it difficult, if not impossible, to discuss natural hazards.

The Sky News article, “Alaskan megatsunami bigger than Empire State Building triggered by climate change,” tries to convince people that using fossil fuels is causing megatsunamis. Sky News writes “[t]he wave at the Tracy Arm Fjord in the Tongass National Forest was triggered by a rock landslide which was driven by climate change,” and the “climate change” link goes to a list of Sky News articles connecting natural phenomena to human use of fossil fuels. This is not true. Recent warming is not all human-driven, except locally in the case of the urban heat island effect.

The amount of warming that humans contribute by industry and other activities releasing carbon dioxide is a question of ongoing debate. It’s true that industrialization has increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but ice core data show that carbon dioxide was gradually rising even before that, most likely due to outgassing from the oceans as the world warmed after the end of the Little Ice Age, as discussed in Climate at a Glance: Natural vs. Human Contributions to Greenhouse Gases and Global Average Temperatures. Human contributions to greenhouse-gas related warming are very small, probably around 0.28 percent, because the vast majority of the greenhouse effect comes from water vapor, not carbon dioxide.

Modern warming is likewise not unprecedented. In fact, global average temperatures are still lower today than there were during the Holocene Climate Optimum.

In the case of this tsunami, glacial retreat is said to have destabilized a section of the fjord walls and a massive landslide resulted, which caused the second-tallest tsunami wave on record (that is to say, that we are aware of) at 1,578 feet high. The record is still held by the 1958 Lituya Bay landslide-caused tsunami, which was an incredible 1,720 feet high. No one was blaming climate change back then.

Gradual retreat of glacier ice can destabilize valley walls like those of the Tracy Arm fjord, but whether climate change (human or otherwise) is the main cause of this specific glacial retreat is unknown.

NASA reports that moderate rainfall was a contributing factor to destabilizing the slope, as is the case with many landslides.

Tidewater glaciers like the South Sawyer Glacier undergo hundred-plus-year-long retreat and advance cycles, and are unique in that they lose ice primarily through calving, or breaking off massive chunks, rather than gradual melting. It is notable that tidewater glaciers are not as sensitive to climate during their retreat and advance cycles as other kinds of glaciers are. Calving is impacted by water depth (which changes as the ice retreats or advances), along with other physical conditions like mass imbalances. Today, there are tidewater glaciers in Alaska that have advanced, not retreated, amid the modest warming of the past century. The Johns Hopkins Glacier is one of them; it has advanced a mile since 1948. It is unclear how global climate change could be causing one tidewater glacier to collapse while others, in the same climatic region, are expanding.

Because there are a lot of factors that influence tidewater glacier cycles, and some Alaskan glaciers’ advances are unaffected by recent modest warming, it is unclear whether to blame climate change – natural or otherwise—for the recent megatsunami, and even more specious for Sky News to blame human activity for it by extension.

RCP8.5 Was Never a Credible Business-as-Usual Scenario

RCP8.5 was designed as a high-end (roughly 90th percentile) exploratory scenario, not a central “business-as-usual” projection. Its divergence from observed trends stems primarily from unrealistic internal assumptions (especially massive coal expansion), evident well before major post-2015 policy accelerations or renewables cost drops fully took effect.

RCP8.5 was never a plausible “business-as-usual” (BAU) or no-policy baseline; it was a high-end exploratory scenario from the start, and evidence shows it was already diverging from reality based on its own assumptions, not primarily due to later climate policies.

RCP8.5 (developed around 2011) was designed as one of four Representative Concentration Pathways for climate modeling. It leads to ~8.5 W/m² radiative forcing by 2100, corresponding to high GHG concentrations and roughly 4–5°C warming (with a wide range).

RCP8.5 was designed as a high-end (roughly 90th percentile) exploratory scenario, not a central “business-as-usual” projection. Its divergence from observed trends stems primarily from unrealistic internal assumptions (especially massive coal expansion), evident well before major post-2015 policy accelerations or renewables cost drops fully took effect.

Recent developments (as of 2026) reinforce this: the CMIP7 ScenarioMIP framework for IPCC AR7 has effectively retired RCP8.5/SSP5-8.5 as a core scenario. The new “High” scenario sits lower (around RCP6-7 range), acknowledging that extreme high-end paths have become implausible based on renewables trends, emission data, and socioeconomics—not solely policy “success.”

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No, RCP8.5 Did Not Become Implausible Because of Climate Policy

Getting things right may be uncomfortable, but it is the only way forward

By Roger Pielke Jr.

No, RCP8.5 did not become implausible because of climate policy. Today, I explain why. The Honest Broker has the story.

In the past several weeks prominent climate researchers have defended RCP8.5 as a scenario that a decade ago plausibly described where the world was headed, but thanks to their warnings, the world’s policy makers responded with implementation of climate policies that have now made RCP8.5 implausible.

The implication of these claims is that the world was once headed for ~4.8C temperature increase by 2100 and now it is ~2.7C — a huge decrease.

For example:

  • Detlef van Vuuren,1 lead author of the ScenarioMIP paper released last month, explained to The Australian that RCP8.5 had,

“become implausible, based on trends in the costs of renewables, the emergence of climate policy and recent emission trends.”

  • Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at Stripe and a frequent, friendly intellectual sparring partner of mine, also framed RCP8.5 as once plausible but now implausible due to climate policy successes:

“[I]t is incontrovertible that rapid cost declines, investment in, and deployment of clean energy technologies in the past 15 years have changed the plausible scenarios for fossil fuel use later in this century. These new scenarios reflect this success.”2

  • Robert Vautard, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group I for AR7, also framed the retirement of RCP8.5 as the result of successful climate policies:

“Previous “high scenarios” started in 2015 and assumed no climate policies, but there ARE now many climate policies in many countries, developed in particular with the Paris Agreement signed in 2016 (sic), and before. . . it shows that climate mitigation policies do consistently reduce global warming.”

Each of these framings rests on a common logic: RCP8.5 once described a plausible trajectory; subsequent policy progress and technology cost trends moved the world away from it; therefore the scenario became implausible.3

This story, were it true, would be incredibly convenient for the climate science community. Rather than introducing a flawed scenario to the world that dominated climate science and policy for more than a decade — and then stubbornly defending it — this retelling characterizes the climate science community as near-infallible and heroic.

This story is not true. RCP8.5, and other extreme scenarios, were never plausible.

Scenario plausibility is determined by what theory and evidence supports at the time a scenario is created, not simply by whether the world eventually moved toward or away from the projections that emerge from that scenario.

That means that a scenario that deviates from how the world actually evolved was not necessarily retroactively implausible at the time it was created. A scenario built on assumptions inconsistent with available theory and evidence is implausible at construction, regardless of whether subsequent events confirm or contradict its projections.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) — published in 2000 — defined a scenario as:

“a coherent, internally consistent, and plausible description of a possible future state of the world.”

Scenarios are explicitly “not predictions.” But they must be consistent with theory and evidence.

Any projection built on scenario assumptions that contradict available theory and evidence is invalid from the start, regardless of what happens next. Further, scenarios are not predictions, and a family of scenarios does not describe a probability distribution of expected futures. Much wisdom on scenarios has been lost since IPCC SRES in 2000.

Below, I discuss three assumptions of RCP8.5 that made it implausible from the start (ignoring other implausible assumptions, like its incredible population growth rates):

  • Reliance on a flawed theory for the dramatic expansion of coal energy;
  • A corresponding rapid increase in coal-to-liquids, displacing petroleum;
  • A necessary slowdown in technological improvements in solar energy technology.

Let’s take a look at each.

First, RCP8.5 required burning coal at an implausible rate. Coal is the most carbon intensive fossil fuel, and huge amounts needed to be burned to reach the high forcing level that was assigned to the most extreme RCP scenario.

Recall that under the RCPs radiative forcing levels for 2100 were chosen first, and only later were integrated assessment modelers assigned the task of figuring out how those levels could be reached. RCP8.5 required implausible socio-economic assumptions to meet its preassigned design criteria. Unfortunately, the scenario develoipment community yet to learn that socio-economics should come first.

The figure above, from Ritchie and Dowlatabadi 2017 (RD17), shows that RCP8.5 assumed ~8x increase in primary energy generation from coal. In fact, the entire envelope of assumed future coal consumption across the RCP and SSP scenarios shows an increase in coal — based on a single theory, characterized by RD17 as a “return to coal.”

RD17 explain that the MESSAGE integrated assessment model that generated RCP8.5 applied no constraint from geological reality, and simply assumed that the massive amounts of coal it required would be available. The scenario extrapolated 2000s Chinese coal growth rates and assumed the physical resource base would accommodate whatever the consumption assumption required irrepective of real-world constraints.

The figure below shows that coal consumption as a proportion of the global energy mix started declining around 2013, while RCP8.5 had it steadily increasing. The reason for the divergence between reality and RCP8.5 was not climate policy, but rather a false assumption baked into the scenario from the start.

RCP8.5 — and indeed all of the RCP and SSP scenarios — had a single point of failure in its assumption of a return-to-coal. This assumption alone settles the question of plausibility. A scenario requiring five times proven coal reserves is not plausible by any standard.

Read the full story here.

The United Arab Emirates Is Playing Its Own Game

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) slammed the door on OPEC. This is not a minor episode in the oil saga; it is a geopolitical earthquake. The Emirates understood that the age of the cartel was over.

From The CO2 Coalition

By Dr. Samuel Furfari

On May 1st, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) slammed the door on OPEC. This is not a minor episode in the oil saga; it is a geopolitical earthquake. The Emirates understood that the age of the cartel was over. Spurred by the July 2021 dispute over OPEC+ quotas, Abu Dhabi began a silent revolution, ushering in a new geopolitics of energy in which those who produce hydrocarbons control the destiny of nations. The UAE is no longer a mere oil exporter. It is a global actor and the architect of a new regional alliance where energy, technology, and security are inseparable.

This emerging energy alliance highlights a truth that European ideologues refuse to accept. There is no energy transition; there is energy addition. Wind and solar together account for only 3 percent of global primary energy, while fossil fuels represent 87 percent of global demand. The Emirates is betting that demand will remain robust far longer than Brussels, Strasbourg, or Paris assume. The UAE’s strategic exit from OPEC and its determination to maximize oil output confirm a world in which decarbonization is no longer a priority. Prosperity, security, and geopolitical influence have displaced climate governance from the international agenda. Now, the European Union’s Green Deal appears outdated and politically irrelevant.

The Emirates understood this shift long before others. By hosting COP28 in Dubai – and steering the summit toward a more pragmatic outcome – the UAE demonstrated that the era of ideological climate governance has ended. Its ability to water down activist expectations at COP28 was a coherent expression of today’s global energy order. Addition over substitution, realism over aspiration. The world has moved on, and the UAE has positioned itself accordingly.

The Emirates’ withdrawal from OPEC is the most significant rupture in the organization’s 66‑year history. The UAE represented roughly 14 percent of OPEC’s total capacity, making its departure particularly consequential.

A decline in crude prices is not necessarily detrimental to a high‑capacity producer: Oil revenues depend not only on price, but on price multiplied by volume. Thus, the UAE – by raising production to 5 million barrels a day (Mb/d), an increase of 43 percent – can absorb a significant price decrease while increasing total revenue. The maximization of total revenue, not the defense of marginal price, guides Abu Dhabi.

The Emirates is not content simply to maximize oil revenues in the short term. Abu Dhabi made a major move in acquiring a stake in the $18.4 billion Rio Grande LNG project in Brownsville, Texas, becoming the first Persian Gulf national oil company to hold a significant position in a U.S. export terminal. The Emirates now holds a prime position in the great global gas game.

Meanwhile in the Middle Eastern theater, the Emirates has become Iran’s preferred target. Since early 2026, the UAE has endured more than 2,800 drone and missile attacks – nearly four times more than suffered by Saudi Arabia. The Houthi attack on Abu Dhabi in January 2022 marked a turning point, when for the first time, the UAE publicly acknowledged civilian casualties on its soil.

Why this Iranian fixation on the Emirates? The Abraham Accords turned the UAE into a “frontline state” within the U.S.–Israeli security architecture. The Al Dhafra base hosts U.S. F‑35s and thousands of Western troops. The UAE is the Gulf’s financial and commercial hub, and striking Dubai or Abu Dhabi is seen as destabilizing global confidence.

The Abraham Accords are not merely a peace treaty; they are the diplomatic crystallization of the new geopolitics of energy. They seal an alliance among the UAE, Israel, Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan – and now Kazakhstan – based on the Iranian threat, shared economic interests between the UAE and Israel, and energy cooperation through East Mediterranean Gas Forum.

But the most important shift is an ideological one. The Arab signatories have relegated the Palestinian cause to the background, prioritizing economic development. Iran cannot tolerate this reality, which contradicts its use of the Palestinian cause as a tool of influence across the Muslim world. This is the triumph of realism over ideology.

The UAE is no longer a mere oil exporter. It is a new global actor. The Emirates asserts it national interests, while the EU dreams of an energy transition that does not exist. This is the true lesson of the new geopolitics of energy. By leaving OPEC, investing in U.S. LNG, resisting Iranian attacks, and shaping the Abraham Accords, the UAE demonstrates the reality of 21st century energy geopolitics and has become the architect of a new regional alliance where energy, technology, and security are inseparable.

Spurning the illusions of energy “transition,” the UAE pursues addition, diversification, and diplomacy based on reality and geared toward long-term prosperity for all. It is a model the EU would do well to consider.

Originally published at Town Hall, May 16, 2026.

Dr. Samuel Furfari is a professor of energy geopolitics in Brussels and London, a former senior official with the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Energy and a member of the CO2 Coalition. He is author of the paper, “Energy Addition, Not Transition,” and 18 books, including “The Truth About the COPs: 30 years of illusions.”

Warmer, Saltier Antarctic Waters Unlocked Higher Atmospheric CO₂ After the Mid- Brunhes Event

The Mid-Brunhes Event (MBE, or Mid-Brunhes Transition, ~424–478 ka, around the MIS 12–11 boundary) marks a major step-change in Pleistocene climate: post-MBE interglacials became warmer, with higher sea levels, smaller ice volumes, and elevated atmospheric CO₂ (roughly +30–40 ppm baseline shift, from ~240 ppm to ~280 ppm range in interglacials), while glacial CO₂ levels remained comparably low.

The Mid-Brunhes Event (MBE, or Mid-Brunhes Transition, ~424–478 ka, around the MIS 12–11 boundary) marks a major step-change in Pleistocene climate: post-MBE interglacials became warmer, with higher sea levels, smaller ice volumes, and elevated atmospheric CO₂ (roughly +30–40 ppm baseline shift, from ~240 ppm to ~280 ppm range in interglacials), while glacial CO₂ levels remained comparably low.

The MBE likely resulted from interacting orbital triggers amplified by Southern Ocean processes (sea ice, AABW, AAIW, winds, and freshwater). No single mechanism fully explains the ~35 ppm CO₂ jump; deep and intermediate water changes, plus wind/sea ice feedbacks, worked together.

Researchers from National Taiwan University (led by Dr. Raúl Tapia and Assoc. Prof. Sze Ling Ho) and international partners analyzed sediment cores from the South Pacific. They reconstructed temperature, salinity, and other properties of AAIW (a water mass at ~500–1,500 meters depth) over the past ~600,000 years.

In the Tapia et al. (2026) study and broader paleoceanographic records, AAIW during glacial periods shows characteristic glacial-interglacial variability, but the key long-term shift across the Mid-Brunhes Event (MBE) is primarily in interglacial properties.

Glacial-Interglacial Oscillations

Surface waters (SAMW-influenced): Glacials typically feature cooler sea surface temperatures (SST), as seen in the G. bulloides Mg/Ca proxy at the study site. These follow orbital-scale cycles with larger amplitudes in some intervals.

Subthermocline / AAIW (recorded by G. inflata): Glacials generally align with cooler and often fresher conditions compared to interglacials within each cycle. However, the study highlights that glacial CO₂ levels and associated deep/intermediate water states remained relatively stable across the MBE, unlike the clear step-change in interglacials.

The paper’s reconstructions focus on interglacial AAIW variability (selecting samples from peak interglacials), but downcore data and comparisons (e.g., Fig. 2F in the paper for MIS 2–6) show persistent glacial-interglacial contrasts. Glacial AAIW was generally colder than post-MBE interglacial AAIW.

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Shifts in Antarctic Intermediate Water properties coincide with atmospheric CO2 rise across the Mid-Brunhes Event

Shifts in Antarctic Intermediate Water properties coincide with atmospheric CO2 rise across the Mid-Brunhes Event is the title of a key 2026 paper published in Science Advances by Raúl Tapia, Sze Ling Ho, and colleagues.

Core Evidence and Methods

The study uses sediment core SO213-60-1 (45°S, 119°W, South Pacific, ~3471 m depth) — a key but data-sparse AAIW formation/source region.

They reconstruct properties over ~600 kyr using:

  • Temperature proxies: Mg/Ca ratios (on Globigerina bulloides for surface/SAMW-influenced waters and Globorotalia inflata for subthermocline/AAIW) + independent clumped isotopes (Δ47) on G. inflata for cross-validation. Strong agreement between proxies bolsters confidence.
  • Salinity: Ice-volume-corrected δ18O (δ18Osw-IVC) from the same foraminifera.
  • Stratification: Vertical thermal gradient (ΔT = SST – SubT).

Key quantitative shifts across the MBE (~424–478 ka):

  • Surface temperatures Glacial-Interglacial Oscillations(SST) relatively stable (glacial-interglacial cycles only; minor long-term trend).
  • Subthermocline (AAIW) warmed ~5°C post-MBE (pre-MBE avg. ~4°C → post-MBE2 ~9°C).
  • Vertical thermal gradient weakened dramatically (~8°C pre → ~2°C post).
  • Subthermocline became saltier post-MBE; surface salinity more stable.

Mechanistic Hypothesis

The authors link the shift to reduced Antarctic iceberg meltwater input pre- vs. post-MBE:

  • Stronger pre-MBE Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) + more icebergs → greater northward freshwater transport → cooler/fresher surface waters in formation zone → enhanced subduction and stratification.
  • Post-MBE: Possible southward shift in Southern Westerly Winds → less ice-shelf melting/iceberg calving + weaker ACC freshwater transport.

This complements (does not replace) deep-water (AABW) changes. Intermediate waters handle a large fraction of ventilated/upwelled water return flow.

AABW remains a cornerstone of Southern Ocean carbon cycle hypotheses for the MBE, emphasizing deep storage/release. The newer AAIW evidence broadens the picture to include intermediate waters as a significant, previously underappreciated player. Together, they highlight multi-layer Southern Ocean dynamics as critical for understanding both past CO₂ shifts and future carbon sink behavior.

The Mid-Brunhes Event is a well-known transition in the Pleistocene where interglacial periods became warmer and had higher CO₂ concentrations, despite broadly similar orbital (Milankovitch) forcing. This research links that atmospheric shift more tightly to Southern Ocean intermediate circulation changes.

The paper is open access and available on Science Advances (DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.ady4567). Press summaries from National Taiwan University and Asia Research News provide accessible overviews.

This work refines our understanding of natural carbon cycle variability and has implications for modeling how the modern Southern Ocean carbon sink might evolve under continued warming and freshening.

Published:  Science Advances

DOI: DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.ady4567

Provided:  National Taiwan University

Authors: Raúl Tapia, Sze Ling, Dirk Nürnberg, A. Nele Meckler, Yoshiyuki Iizuka and Ralf Tiedemann

Abstract

Antarctic Intermediate Water (AAIW) is key to the global carbon cycle, yet its influence on past atmospheric CO2 changes remains unclear. Using multiproxy reconstructions from the data-poor Pacific sector of the Southern Ocean, we examine interglacial AAIW variability in its source region across the Mid-Brunhes Event (MBE), a major CO2 transition. While surface temperatures remained stable over 600 thousand years, post-MBE AAIW became warmer and saltier, possibly due to reduced iceberg-derived freshwater input. In contrast, colder, fresher pre-MBE AAIW and enhanced thermal stratification may have promoted greater CO2 uptake and storage. The post-MBE declining sequestration capacity of AAIW, coinciding with rising atmospheric CO2, suggests intermediate waters played a critical role in modulating CO2, challenging the view that changes in bottom-water processes alone controlled this key climatic transition.

2026 Mid-May: Arctic Ice Extents Less Impacted by Vortex

The arctic ice extents are now reported through Mid-May 2026, and as noted previously the wavy polar vortex has hampered ice formation with incusions of warmer southern air into the Arctic circle.

From Science Matters

By Ron Clutz

The arctic ice extents are now reported through Mid-May 2026, and as noted previously the wavy polar vortex has hampered ice formation with incusions of warmer southern air into the Arctic circle.  This was still a factor early in May, but now appears to be receding, according to the AER Polar Vortex blog (May 11).

Judah Cohen:  As I discussed in the previous blog, I do think that the influence from the PV did continue into easrly May, and in fact May so far has been impressively cool in Eastern Canada and the Eastern and less so in parts of Europe (see Figure ii). With more Greenland blocking predicted (see Figure i) is that still the influence of the PV?

Figure ii. Estimate of the observed surface temperatures (°C; shading) from 01 May to 10 May 2026 based on GFS initializations and the GFS forecast from the 11May 2026 run.

From Figure 11, it appears that the influence of the PV split/Final Warming has ended this week with cold/negative polar cap height standardized geopotential height anomalies (PCHs) throughout the stratosphere and tropsophere. Last week I used the PCH limited to the North Atlantic sector to argue the ongoing influence of the PV split and today’s plot (see Figure iii) does not provide any longer an alternative interpretation but rather any further influence of the PV will have to wait until next fall. Though I think this does need to be qualified as my interpretation rather than being fully objective.

The chart below shows the 20-year averages for Arctic ice extents from Mid-April to Mid-May March along with 2026, 2025 and 2006 as well as SII v.4.

Remarkably the deficit to average opened up on May 5 (day 125) to 739k km2, but since then the gap was cut in half, reaching 328k km2 at the end of this period.  The 20-year average maximum daily ice extent loss over this period is 1.5M km2, and in 2026 the decline was 1.2M km2. These are MASIE stats, but SII shows virtually the same results.

The table below shows the distibution of ice extents on day 136 across regions of the Arctic ocean.

Region2026136Day 136 Ave.2026-Ave.20061362026-2006
 (0) Northern_Hemisphere1227140112599588-32818812157814113586
 (1) Beaufort_Sea107107010471012396910661394931
 (2) Chukchi_Sea94074292724013502956734-15992
 (3) East_Siberian_Sea10654751081524-160501074876-9402
 (4) Laptev_Sea872186878598-6412889990-17804
 (5) Kara_Sea9170178739444307383956977448
 (6) Barents_Sea344186411348-67162182554161632
 (7) Greenland_Sea549259621605-7234651933729922
 (8) Baffin_Bay_Gulf_of_St._Lawrence9170901054954-13786589233524755
 (9) Canadian_Archipelago8531778416401153782880624370
 (10) Hudson_Bay1176685117200746771071342105343
 (11) Central_Arctic32125023223772-11270316922543277
 (12) Bering_Sea248490285726-37236478464-229973
 (13) Baltic_Sea05749-574915239-15239
 (14) Sea_of_Okhotsk101440172136-70695168615-67174

The table shows that most regions are close to or above the 20-year average.  The majority of the 3% overall deficit is from Baffin Bay, down 138k km2,  Smaller deficits are in Okhotsk, Barents and Greenland seas.  All of those regions will be nearly ice-free end of summer.

Illustration by Eleanor Lutz shows Earth’s seasonal climate changes. If played in full screen, the four corners present views from top, bottom and sides. It is a visual representation of scientific datasets measuring ice and snow extents.

America’s energy comeback is leaving green fantasies behind

After years of efforts by radical greens to strangle America’s oil, gas, and coal industries — while forcing the nation to accept costly, land-devouring wind and solar — the U.S. is once again emerging as a global energy superpower.

And this time, it’s not just fossil fuels: In fact, nuclear power is taking center stage.

Environmental conservation technology and approaching global sustainable ESG by clean energy and power from renewable natural resources

From CFACT

By Craig Rucker

After years of efforts by radical greens to strangle America’s oil, gas, and coal industries — while forcing the nation to accept costly, land-devouring wind and solar — the U.S. is once again emerging as a global energy superpower.

And this time, it’s not just fossil fuels: In fact, nuclear power is taking center stage.

Tennessee is poised to become the world’s leading hub for nuclear innovation, thanks to Trump administration policies and state leaders willing to back real energy solutions over climate virtue-signaling. Public and private investments are now flowing into advanced reactors, uranium enrichment, and next-generation nuclear technologies.

The Kairos Power Hermes 2 salt-cooled nuclear reactor demonstration plant has already broken ground and is expected to deliver 50 megawatts of reliable electricity to the Tennessee Valley Authority grid by 2030.

Meanwhile, GE Vernova Hitachi plans to invest $40 billion in two small modular reactors — one in Tennessee and one in Alabama. These projects will create 2,000 construction jobs, hundreds of manufacturing jobs, 600 permanent plant jobs, and roughly 65 additional local jobs for every 100 jobs at the reactors themselves.

America’s uranium industry, nearly wiped out during the COVID pandemic, is also roaring back. The Trump administration has approved permits for new uranium mining and enrichment projects, while the Tennessee Valley Authority and Centrus Energy partnership plans to invest $560 million in a major uranium enrichment facility at Oak Ridge. That means less dependence on Canada, Kazakhstan, and Russia for critical nuclear fuel.

Even more exciting, Commonwealth Fusion Systems is moving toward construction of a “commercially relevant” nuclear fusion power plant in Virginia capable of generating up to 400 megawatts of electricity later this decade. The plant is expected to produce more tritium fuel than it consumes.

Together with a resurgence in oil, natural gas, and coal production, these developments will unleash American energy, manufacturing, innovation, and job creation while lowering electricity prices and reducing blackout risks for families and businesses alike. They also send a clear warning to America’s blue states: If you cling to anti-energy ideology, you will be left behind.

Democrat-controlled states remain obsessed with eliminating fossil fuels in favor of wind, solar, and battery systems — supposedly to prevent climate catastrophe. In the process, they ignore the devastating economic damage inflicted on working families and the environmental destruction caused by massive wind and solar projects. Worse, the supposed climate benefits from any individual state’s emissions cuts are effectively meaningless — undetectable against constantly changing global climate systems and constantly rising global greenhouse gas emissions.

Forty years ago, blackouts were routine for India’s 950 million citizens. Today, despite adding another half-billion people, it has made power outages a rarity. Why? Because India built hundreds of coal-fired power plants. China is doing the same thing on an even larger scale.

As energy analyst Vijay Jayaraj observes, Africans from east to west to south are rejecting permanent poverty imposed in the name of climate orthodoxy. Across the continent, nations are embracing oil, natural gas, coal, and nuclear power because they know abundant, affordable energy is “the only proven path to prosperity.”

Those policies are lifting billions of people out of poverty, disease, malnutrition, and premature death.

Meanwhile, many Europeans are finally waking up to the disastrous consequences of green energy fanaticism: soaring electricity prices, shuttered industries, destroyed jobs, landscapes marred by wind turbines and solar panels, families unable to heat or cool their homes — and rising deaths linked to energy poverty.

Unfortunately, Europe’s ruling elites remain trapped in their climate obsessions. But perhaps some American blue-state governors and legislators will eventually abandon ideology and start governing responsibly.

Electricity prices in Northeastern states are roughly twice those in much of the Midwest and South — and they are still climbing. Even Democratic governors are now quietly delaying or abandoning once-sacred green energy mandates, or at least hinting they may do so.

Some are cautiously reconsidering nuclear power. A few may even join President Trump and Energy Secretary Chris Wright in supporting new pipelines from Pennsylvania’s shale fields to deliver abundant, reliable, affordable natural gas for heating, cooking, and electricity generation — and thus for lights, refrigeration, computers, entertainment, and air conditioning.

If they fail to follow through, their residents will remain dependent on overpriced Canadian gas and electricity, fuel shipped from Texas, or extremely expensive liquefied natural gas imports from Norway and Russia.

Residents of New York and other states could also face the nightmare confronting roughly 40,000 angry residents of Co-Op City in the Bronx. New York City climate mandates demand that the entire complex convert entirely to electric heating by 2035. Between the costs of heat pumps, system retrofits, shutting down an efficient combined heat-and-power gas plant, and purchasing expensive wind-solar-battery electricity, monthly fees for a one-bedroom unit could skyrocket from $950 to nearly $4,000.

And then they’d have to rely on wind and solar, which will appear when Mother Nature chooses to cooperate, regardless of when they need electricity or how much they need.

America finally has a chance to reject decades of energy deprivation and economic self-sabotage. Nations that embrace abundant, reliable, affordable energy prosper. Nations that worship Net Zero mandates decline.

Thankfully, America is beginning to choose wisely.

This article originally appeared at The Hill