Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
A recent post by Just The News reports that a new Congressional Budget office (CBO) report estimates that modest future warming will avoid millions of temperature-related deaths, because the decrease in very cold days will result in fewer hospitalizations. This tracks with other research, and it is very good that the CBO and Just the News are acknowledging this fact.
A recent post by Just The News reports that a new Congressional Budget office (CBO) report estimates that modest future warming will avoid millions of temperature-related deaths, because the decrease in very cold days will result in fewer hospitalizations. This tracks with other research, and it is very good that the CBO and Just the News are acknowledging this fact.
In “Global warming will result in 2.5 million fewer elderly deaths over the next 50 years: report,” journalist Kevin Killough explains the CBO report predicts that warming will “reduce emergency room visits and spending in cooler regions, increase both outcomes in regions with moderate climates, and increase emergency room visits but reduce spending in the hottest regions.”
One thing that makes this report, and the Just The News piece covering it, different than other times the media has reported on temperature-related deaths is that they acknowledge that adaptation and technology will assist in reducing them. A great point—seeing as data show deaths from extreme weather of any kind have dropped by 99 percent since the 1920s. Much of this is because of technology like air conditioning, central heating, and improvements to medical technology and expanded access to that care.
The CBO report, refreshingly, uses modelled scenarios that are “intermediate” like SSP2-4.5, with the high emissions scenario modelled by SSP3-7.0, rather than the impossible RCP8.5. The report explains that the “reduction in deaths is driven by warmer regions, which will experience fewer cold days and are projected to further adapt to hot days as their average climate gets hotter.”
Their estimate says that even without adaptations to temperature shifts, “the direction of the changes in outcomes would largely be the same, but their magnitudes would differ.” (See figure below)
Over and over, the mainstream media has hyped studies that predict larger numbers of heat-related deaths in the future, while downplaying the impact that modest warming has already had on reducing cold-related deaths. As Climate Realism has pointed out numerous times, and Climate At A Glance: Temperature Related Deaths illustrates with data, the number of lives saved as cold deaths decline vastly outnumber any increase in heat-related deaths. Net mortality is reduced amid modest warming, not increased. (See figure below) One study found that although approximately 600,000 people die of heat globally every year, 4.5 million die from cold.
It is not news to any readers of Climate Realism that deaths of the elderly are actually projected to decrease over the next few decades, but it is very important that Just The News publicized the CBO report.
Many people are not aware of any good news at all when it comes to the weather, being fed mostly alarmist propaganda from major outlets. It is also impressive that a government agency, even one under a Republican administration, is willing to publish an entire report demonstrating that climate-related issues are multifaceted.
A Yale-led study finds that agricultural liming (adding crushed limestone) in the Mississippi River Basin has acted as a net carbon sink, removing more CO₂ than it emits.
Silicate weathering is the natural chemical breakdown of silicate minerals (e.g., those in basalt, olivine, or other igneous rocks) by carbonic acid formed when atmospheric CO₂ dissolves in water.
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A Yale- led study finds that agricultural liming (adding crushed limestone) in the Mississippi River Basin has acted as a net carbon sink, removing more CO₂ than it emits.
The practice, long used by farmers to raise soil pH, reduce acidity, and boost crop yields, covers a vast region: the Mississippi River Basin spans about 41% of the contiguous U.S. and includes roughly 65% of U.S. cropland.
Researchers, led by geochemist Tim Jesper Suhrhoff (Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture), analyzed more than a century of data (roughly 1900- 2015) on river chemistry, fertilizer use, atmospheric pollution, and liming rates, combined with geochemical modeling.
Conventional accounting (including IPCC guidelines) treats liming as a CO₂ source because the carbon in limestone can be released as CO₂ when it reacts with strong acids in soil.
The new work argues this is incomplete: soil acidity from nitrogen fertilizers and fossil- fuel pollution is the main driver of those emissions. Without liming, the acids would still react with natural soil alkalinity and release CO₂.
In the presence of liming, much of the reaction instead forms bicarbonate that is exported by rivers (including the Mississippi) and can ultimately sequester carbon in the ocean for long periods. Compared with a no- liming scenario, liming in the basin removed an estimated 300- 400 million tonnes of CO₂.
Efficacy has improved since the 1930s as liming rates rose; current removal is estimated at about 75% of the theoretical maximum.
The study (published in Nature) concludes that liming aligns climate benefits with agronomic ones (higher yields, potentially lower nitrous- oxide emissions). It suggests policy and emissions inventories should attribute emissions to acid inputs rather than to liming itself, and that strategies such as adding silicate rock first to neutralize acidity could further enhance carbon removal.
The linked phys.org article appears to cover this same research (the URL slug matches the topic and timing). Related earlier work from the Yale group has also highlighted liming’s dual role in soil management and carbon cycling.
Silicate weathering is the natural chemical breakdown of silicate minerals (e.g., those in basalt, olivine, or other igneous rocks) by carbonic acid formed when atmospheric CO₂ dissolves in water.
The simplified reaction consumes CO₂ and produces bicarbonate ions (HCO₃⁻) plus dissolved cations such as Ca²⁺, Mg²⁺, K⁺, and Si:
(Similar reactions occur for magnesium and other silicates.) The bicarbonate is ultimately transported to rivers and oceans, where the carbon can remain sequestered for thousands to hundreds of thousands of years. Natural silicate weathering already removes roughly 0.5 Gt CO₂ per year globally; enhanced rock weathering (ERW) accelerates it by crushing silicate rocks into fine powder and spreading them on soils (especially agricultural land).
ERW converts atmospheric CO₂ into stable bicarbonate that is stored in groundwater and the ocean on intergenerational to geological timescales.
Field trials (e.g., U.S. Corn Belt maize-soybean rotations) have measured cumulative CDR potentials of ~10.5 t CO₂ ha⁻¹ over four years at application rates of ~50 t ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹ of basalt.
Modeling studies project that widespread deployment on U.S. farmland could deliver 0.16–0.30 Gt CO₂ yr⁻¹ by 2050 (rising further by 2070), and global estimates often fall in the 0.5–2 Gt CO₂ yr⁻¹ range under ambitious scenarios (after accounting for mining, grinding, and transport emissions).
Unlike carbonate liming (which can release some of its own carbon under acidic conditions), pure silicate minerals contain no carbon of their own, so the alkalinity they generate is more fully atmospheric in origin. Silicates can therefore act as a clearer net sink and are sometimes proposed as a complement or partial replacement for agricultural lime.
Agronomic and soil- health co -benefits
Soil pH regulation: Silicate dissolution neutralizes acidity, raising pH in a manner similar to traditional liming. This improves nutrient availability, reduces aluminum toxicity, and supports healthier microbial communities.
Nutrient release: Weathering supplies plant- available calcium, magnesium, potassium, phosphorus, silicon, and micronutrients. Field studies show elevated concentrations of these elements in soil and crops, partially offsetting the need for synthetic fertilizers.
Crop yield increases: Trials report 12- 16% higher maize and soybean yields, with similar gains for other crops (e.g., sugarcane, miscanthus). Silicon uptake can also strengthen plant tissues, improving resistance to pests, pathogens, and drought.
Reduced nitrous oxide (N₂O) emissions: Better soil conditions and higher pH can lower emissions of this potent greenhouse gas, improving the overall greenhouse- gas balance of ERW by tens of percent in some simulations.
Additional ecosystem effects: Higher silicon in runoff can favor diatoms over harmful algal blooms (reducing eutrophication risk). Downstream alkalinity can help buffer ocean acidification. Some studies also note modest reductions in surface ozone in agricultural regions, which further supports yields.
Relation to the Mississippi River Basin and liming context
In the recent Nature study on agricultural liming, the authors note that silicates are already used for pH management and have attracted strong interest as enhanced- weathering feedstocks. Because silicates do not carry their own carbonate carbon, they avoid some of the accounting complexities of limestone while still providing the same agronomic benefits (pH correction and nutrient release). Modeling and field work in the U.S. Midwest (including the Corn Belt portion of the Mississippi basin) indicate that combining or sequencing silicate and carbonate amendments could optimize both yield and long- term carbon removal.
Practical considerations
Benefits are greatest in warm, wet, acidic soils with active biological communities (roots and microbes accelerate dissolution). Application rates of tens of tonnes per hectare are typical. Life- cycle emissions from grinding and transport must be minimized (renewable energy helps), and potential release of trace metals is monitored; well- chosen basalts generally show low risk in trials. Measurement, reporting, and verification of the actual CDR remain active research areas because of soil heterogeneity and time lags.
In short, silicate weathering (especially when enhanced on farmland) offers durable carbon removal while delivering direct benefits to soil fertility, crop productivity, and other greenhouse- gas reductions, aligning climate action with existing agricultural practices.
Agricultural liming is a carbon sink in the Mississippi River Basin
Application of carbonate minerals (limestone or dolomite) to farmland, agricultural liming, is a long-established practice that counters soil acidification and boosts crop yields. Conventional greenhouse- gas accounting treats it as a net source of agricultural CO₂ emissions.
Using century-scale records of liming rates and anthropogenic acidity inputs across the Mississippi River Basin (MRB), the authors show that liming has instead acted as a net carbon sink over the past century. River alkalinity flux records indicate that roughly 90% of the ideal CO₂- removal potential of the lime applied since 1900 (≈ 0.44 Gt CO₂) has been realized at the catchment scale. A multi- decadal time lag occurs because of soil cation- exchange processes and solute transport. Reactive- transport modelling corroborates this: an initial emissions pulse (from neutralizing existing soil acidity pools) is followed by net CO₂ removal.
Current accounting frameworks use an incomplete counterfactual, they attribute emissions to the lime itself rather than to the anthropogenic strong acids (from fertilizers and fossil- fuel pollution) that drive CO₂ release. When evaluated against the proper counterfactual (acidity inputs without liming), liming is a net sink on decade- to- century timescales. The results imply that optimized soil- pH management can simultaneously cut agricultural greenhouse- gas emissions, raise yields, and improve soil health.
Key scientific points from the paper
Chemical basis of the conventional view At low soil pH, carbonate dissolution releases CO₂:
IPCC default methods essentially treat the carbon in applied lime as emitted; U.S. inventories use a lower emission factor (~50%).
Revised framework The dominant driver of CO₂ release is the input of strong acids (nitric and sulfuric) from nitrogen fertilizers, manure, soil- organic- nitrogen mineralization, biological nitrogen fixation, and atmospheric deposition of SO₂/NOₓ oxidation products. These acids titrate existing alkalinity (bicarbonate) and force CO₂ out of the system regardless of whether lime is added. Adding lime supplies alkalinity that can form bicarbonate, which is exported downstream and ultimately sequesters atmospheric carbon.
Mississippi River Basin as the study system The MRB covers ~41% of the contiguous U.S. land area and ~65% of its cropland, receives most U.S. agricultural lime, and has well-documented river chemistry. The authors compiled spatially explicit, century-long time series of acidity inputs (fertilizer/manure oxidation, atmospheric deposition, etc.) and lime additions. Cumulative acidity has exceeded lime- derived alkalinity by ~20 Tmol by 2015, but the excess is concentrated outside intensively limed Corn- Belt croplands.
Evidence for net sink
Empirical river alkalinity fluxes.
Gridded reactive- transport modelling (SCEPTER) comparing “acidity- only” vs. “acidity and lime” scenarios. Both approaches show that, after an early emissions pulse, liming produces a cumulative carbon sink on the order of hundreds of millions of tonnes of CO₂.
Implications Emissions inventories and climate policy should attribute CO₂ release to acidity inputs rather than to liming. Better -aligned pH management (including possible pre- treatment with silicate rocks) can deliver agronomic benefits while contributing to carbon- dioxide removal.
The paper is open- access; a PDF download link is available on the Nature page. Authors include researchers affiliated with Yale (among others).
Application of carbonate minerals to arable lands, known as agricultural liming, is a long-standing practice for counteracting soil acidification1,2,3. Although liming boosts crop yields4, it is also considered a source of agricultural carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions5. Here we show, using century-scale records of agricultural liming and anthropogenic acidity inputs for the Mississippi River Basin, that agricultural liming has acted as a net carbon sink over the past century. Records of river alkalinity fluxes suggest that approximately 90% of the ideal CO2 removal potential of agricultural lime added since 1900 (approximately 0.44 GtCO2) has been realized at the catchment scale, with a decadal-scale time lag owing to soil cation exchange and solute transport. These results are consistent with reactive transport modelling of soil cation throughput, which indicates that net CO2 removal emerges after an initial emissions pulse associated with neutralization of soil acidity pools. Current accounting frameworks implicitly apply an incomplete counterfactual, attributing CO2 emissions to lime addition rather than to the anthropogenic acidity inputs that drive CO2 release. Evaluated against the counterfactual of anthropogenic acidity inputs, agricultural liming represents a net carbon sink in the Mississippi River Basin on decade-to-century timescales. These results suggest that optimized soil pH management can reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions while simultaneously improving crop yields and soil health.
In what may be a world record for turnaround time, the litigation has already begun over the recent rescission by EPA of its carbon emission standards for fossil-fuel fired power plants.
For example, we have this from Georges Benjamin of the APHA:
“Clean air is a basic human right. Power plant pollution threatens the health of millions of Americans and fuels climate change, worsening extreme heat, poor air quality and other serious health risks. . . .”
Or this from Harold Wimmer of the American Lung Association:
“Emissions from power plants drive climate change, and climate change is a health emergency. . . .”
In what may be a world record for turnaround time, the litigation has already begun over the recent rescission by EPA of its carbon emission standards for fossil-fuel fired power plants.
As reported here on September 17, on that date the EPA finalized its rescission of what were called its “Carbon Pollution Standards” for electric power plants. (EPA’s September 17 action did not rescind all of the Carbon Pollution Standards for power plants, but only those for existing power plants and major overhauls of existing plants; the standards for new plants remain in effect for now, although in its rescission action EPA gave strong hints that those will also soon be ended.). By the end of that very day, September 17, a Petition had been filed in the DC Circuit seeking review of the regulatory action. Here is a copy of the Petition. The Petitioners are the American Lung Association, American Public Health Association, Clean Air Council, Clean Wisconsin, the Environmental Defense Fund, and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
The Petition is a short two-page document that simply asks for “review” of EPA’s action, and does not say anything about the grounds for the request. To learn the basis for the request, we must look to the press releases issued by the various petitioning organizations. Those contain statements from representatives of the Petitioners, mostly about imaginary threats to “health” from this thing they call “climate pollution.” But one thing that none of the Petitioners’ representatives do in their statements is address the grounds set forth by EPA for the rescission.
Here is a copy of the Press Release issued on September 17 by the Environmental Defense Fund. It contains quotations from representatives of EDF, of the Natural Resources Defense Council, of the American Public Health Association, of the American Lung Association and of Clean Wisconsin about the supposed importance of keeping the rules in place. For example, we have this from Georges Benjamin of the APHA:
“Clean air is a basic human right. Power plant pollution threatens the health of millions of Americans and fuels climate change, worsening extreme heat, poor air quality and other serious health risks. . . .”
Or this from Harold Wimmer of the American Lung Association:
“Emissions from power plants drive climate change, and climate change is a health emergency. . . .”
But OK guys, the issue raised by EPA’s rescission is that the proposed technological fix in the Biden-era rule, namely 90% carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), “has not been adequately demonstrated, the costs of 90 percent CCS are not reasonable, and the associated degree of emission limitation is not achievable.” None of the Petitioners address any of those questions in their statements.
Compared to other environmental litigations that involve highly abstract or theoretical questions, this one looks to turn on easily available concrete evidence. Is there a functioning, economical power plant with CCS that can be easily replicated throughout the electrical system? If so, the Petitioners can just point to it. Even better, they could offer to build such plants wherever needed.
However, that may not be so easy. When the Biden EPA proposed its “Carbon Pollution Standards” as a regulation in 2023, many commenters pointed out the infeasibility and high cost of the CCS approach. Two of the most thorough and sophisticated comments were submitted by groups of red states led by Ohio and West Virginia. This is from the Ohio comment at page 4:
A study of 263 carbon-capture-and-sequestration projects undertaken between 1995 and 2018 found that the majority failed and 78% of the largest projects were cancelled or put on hold. After the study was published in May 2021, the only other coal plant with a carbon-capture-and-sequestration attachment in the world, Petra Nova, shuttered after facing 367 outages in its three years of operation.
The West Virginia comment went into great technical detail about the problems and feasibility issues with CCS. Among other things, West Virginia (at pages 24-25) cited a study that concluded that because a CCS system uses a substantial fraction of the energy output of a plant, it will inherently cause a dramatic reduction in the plant’s efficiency:
Take efficiency to start. CCS units run on power, too. An owner can get that power from the plant itself. But this approach makes the plant less efficient by increasing its “parasitic load”—and CCS more than triples combustion turbines’ normal parasitic load. . . . This is the cause the Wyoming study analyzed that showed installing CCS technology would devastate plants’ heat rates and lower net plant efficiency by 36%.
And when you must burn dramatically more fuel to get the same amount of usable electricity, you inherently increase the emissions of all other pollutants that come from burning fuel (from West Virginia comment, page 27):
Nearly a decade ago, the European Union’s European Environmental Agency released a study finding that CCS would increase “direct emissions of NOx and PM” by nearly a half and a third, respectively, because of additional fuel burned, and increase “direct NH3 emissions” “significantly” because of “the assumed degradation of the amine-based solvent.”
And how about the chemicals that are used to remove the CO2 from the emissions stream? Again, from the West Virginia comment on the Biden rules (page 27):
The Proposed Rule would force utilities to adopt and communities to accept all aspects of CCS technology without fully understanding the ramifications. For example, the environmental and health effects of CANSOLV—the leading amine-based and EPA-recommended CCS solvent, 88 Fed. Reg. at 33,291—appear unknown; leading CANSOLV studies over the past decade don’t discuss its impact.
The questions of feasibility and cost of CCS systems for fossil fuel power plants are things where expert testimony is inherently unsatisfactory. If this technology is feasible and economical, then build it and prove it.
Unfortunately, the Petitioners in this case have little to no interest in maintaining a functioning electricity system.
Heat waves over land worldwide are beginning earlier, ending later, and occurring over longer seasons, while the first heat wave of the season has recently shifted toward faster onset, according to a new study published in Nature Climate Change.
Heatwave early warning systems (HEWS or HHWS, heat- health warning systems) are integrated tools that monitor, forecast, and communicate dangerous heat conditions so governments, health services, communities, and individuals can take timely protective action. They form a core part of broader Heat- Health Action Plans (HHAPs) and multi-hazard early warning frameworks.
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Heat waves over land worldwide are beginning earlier, ending later, and occurring over longer seasons, while the first heat wave of the season has recently shifted toward faster onset, according to a new study published in Nature Climate Change.
The research was led by scientists from the South China Botanical Garden (SCBG) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. They analyzed global climate data from 1979 to 2023, focusing on seasonal heatwave onset and end dates, the length of the heatwave season, and the onset speed of the first heatwave each season.
Key findings
On average, the first heatwave of the season began 3.29 days earlier per decade, while the last one ended 5.41 days later per decade. This extended the overall heatwave season by 8.71 days per decade.
Over the full ~45- year period, this translates to the first heatwave advancing by about two weeks, the last occurring roughly 24 days later, and the season lengthening by about 39 days.
Trends were widespread: ~72% of global land areas showed earlier onset, ~79.6% later end dates, and ~92.1% longer seasons. Changes were generally greater in drylands.
From 2001 to 2023, the share of rapid-onset first heatwaves (classified by how quickly temperature peaks within the event) increased significantly in heatwave- affected land areas.
Longer heatwave seasons are also increasing crop exposure to extreme heat during sensitive growth stages (e.g., flowering and silking). From 2001- 2023 versus 1979- 2000, the proportion of crop areas affected rose by 1.6- 13.3% for several major crops, with exposure expanding into earlier and later developmental stages.
Implications
Lead and corresponding author Xu Wenfang noted that prior work has mainly examined whether heatwaves are becoming more frequent, stronger, and longer. This study highlights that timing and development speed are also shifting. Earlier arrival and faster intensification can leave societies and ecosystems with even less time to prepare and adapt.
The authors suggest incorporating heatwave onset/end timing and the speed of the first seasonal event into monitoring, early- warning systems, and risk assessments. This could improve strategies for public health, agriculture, ecosystem management, and energy supply.
This aligns with the phys.org headline snippet (“Heat waves on land start earlier and develop faster, global analysis reveals”) and related recent coverage of expanding heat seasons and stress.
Heatwave early warning systems (HEWS or HHWS, heat- health warning systems) are integrated tools that monitor, forecast, and communicate dangerous heat conditions so governments, health services, communities, and individuals can take timely protective action. They form a core part of broader Heat- Health Action Plans (HHAPs) and multi- hazard early warning frameworks.
Core Components (Four Pillars of Early Warning Systems)
Risk knowledge: Understanding who is vulnerable (elderly, children, outdoor workers, people with chronic illnesses, low- income groups), where risks are highest (urban heat islands, drylands), and how heat interacts with factors like humidity, air quality, and socioeconomic conditions.
Detection, monitoring, and forecasting: Using meteorological data and models to identify upcoming heat events.
Warning dissemination and communication: Clear, actionable alerts delivered through multiple channels (media, apps, SMS, sirens, community networks).
Preparedness and response: Pre- planned actions such as opening cooling centres, adjusting work schedules, activating health surveillance, and public messaging.
How They Work
Most systems rely on temperature thresholds (maximum/minimum air temperature sustained for a set number of days), often adjusted for local climate and acclimatization. More advanced ones incorporate:
Thermal indices (e.g., Heat Index, Wet Bulb Globe Temperature/WBGT, Excess Heat Factor) that account for humidity, wind, and radiation.
Health-impact thresholds based on mortality/morbidity relationships.
Lead times typically of 2- 7 days; some systems provide earlier probabilistic outlooks (week 2 or sub-seasonal).
Examples of operational systems:
United States (NWS HeatRisk): Colour- numeric index based on unusual heat for the location and date; available up to 7 days ahead; expanded nationwide. Complements traditional Excessive Heat Warnings/Advisories.
Australia: Excess Heat Factor (EHF) metric; aligned with the national Australian Warning System (Advice → Watch and Act → Emergency Warning). Bureau of Meteorology provides multi-day lead times.
Europe: National systems in France (vigilance levels), Germany (biometeorological), Italy (city-specific impact- based), Spain, and others, often linked to health agencies.
India: India Meteorological Department (IMD) heatwave forecasts (now 4- 5 days ahead under Mission Mausam); many states have Heat Action Plans with GIS-based mapping and colour- coded alerts.
South Korea: Newer multi- tier system including emergency alerts at high perceived temperatures.
Other regions: Expanding in Africa (e.g., Senegal, Burkina Faso), Asia, and Latin America, though coverage remains uneven. preparecenter.org
A 2023 WMO survey found that about 54% of National Meteorological and Hydrological Services issue some form of extreme heat warning. Most are simple temperature-based; fewer use advanced thermal or intensity metrics.
Effectiveness
Evidence shows HEWS can reduce mortality and morbidity when well- designed and linked to action:
France’s system (post- 2003) is credited with saving thousands of lives in later events.
Studies report lower ambulance calls and deaths on alert days versus non- alert heat periods.
Scaling up heat- health warning systems globally could prevent nearly 100,000 deaths annually (WHO/WMO estimates).
Effectiveness depends on accurate forecasts, clear communication, public trust/perception of risk, and the ability of vulnerable groups to act (e.g., access to cooling, ability to stay indoors). Barriers include cost of air conditioning, outdoor work necessities, and heat normalization in some cultures.
Current Limitations and Challenges
Uneven global coverage: Many low- and middle- income countries, especially in Africa and parts of Asia, still lack robust systems.
Metric and threshold issues: Heavy reliance on air temperature alone; thresholds often not regularly updated for a warming climate or local health data.
Communication gaps: Warnings may use technical language, focus on temperature rather than impacts/actions, or fail to reach the most vulnerable.
Action gaps: Warnings are not always linked to pre- agreed, funded response plans; cross- sector coordination (health, energy, labour, agriculture) can be weak.
Forecast skill: Reliable at 1- 7 days in many regions; sub- seasonal (weeks ahead) skill is improving but variable. Onset timing and rapid intensification remain harder to predict precisely.
Limited attention to timing and onset speed: Most systems focus on intensity, duration, and frequency. The September 2026 Nature Climate Change study (“Earlier and faster heatwave onset on land under a warming climate”) shows heatwaves are starting ~3.3 days earlier and ending ~5.4 days later per decade, with seasons lengthening and a recent shift toward faster- onset events (especially in drylands). The authors explicitly call for incorporating timing and onset speed into early- warning systems and risk assessments, as earlier and faster events reduce preparation time.
Recent Developments and Future Directions
WHO and WMO guidance: Original 2015 guidance on Heatwaves and Health is being updated (new version expected around 2026); second edition of Heat- Health Action Plans guidance (2026) emphasizes graded, health- linked thresholds and integration with broader plans.
AI and higher- resolution modelling: Efforts in India (IISc– IMD), China (“MAZU” AI multi- hazard system), and elsewhere to improve localised, impact- based forecasts.
Sub- seasonal to seasonal outlooks: Growing use for earlier preparedness (e.g., resource pre- positioning).
Biodiversity and multi- sector systems: Emerging tools for ecosystem heat warnings; stronger links to agriculture, energy, and labour.
Global initiatives: UN Early Warnings for All (EW4All) aims for universal multi- hazard coverage by 2027; heat is a priority area.
Zurich Climate Resilience Alliance / Red Cross reports (2026) highlight rapid expansion but stress the need for better risk knowledge, refined metrics, inclusive communication, and ensuring warnings trigger real action.
In summary, heatwave early warning systems are expanding and demonstrably save lives, but significant gaps remain in coverage, sophistication (especially health- impact and multi- factor metrics), communication, and response linkage. With heatwaves arriving earlier and intensifying faster, systems that currently emphasise intensity and duration will need to better capture seasonal timing and rapid- onset characteristics to maintain effectiveness. Strengthening the full end- to- end chain, from forecasting to last-mile action, remains the priority.
Earlier and faster heatwave onset on land under a warming climate
Heatwaves threaten ecosystems and societies. While previous studies have focused on frequency, intensity, and duration, long- term changes in timing, onset, ending, and season length, have been poorly understood.
The authors analysed global changes in these metrics and in onset- speed type from 1979 to 2023. Globally:
Heatwave onset advanced by 3.29 ± 0.12 days per decade.
Ending was delayed by 5.41 ± 0.12 days per decade.
The heatwave season lengthened by 8.71 ± 0.17 days per decade.
Trends toward earlier onset, later ending, and longer seasons covered 72.0%, 79.6%, and 92.1% of global land, respectively (statistically significant across 13.4%, 20.3%, and 34.4%). A recent shift toward faster heatwave onset was also observed. Drylands experienced more pronounced timing shifts than humid regions.
These results highlight the need to incorporate heatwave timing into early- warning systems, risk assessments, and proactive adaptation strategies under climate change.
Additional details from the paper
Data sources include ERA5, Berkeley Earth, JRA-3Q, TerraClimate, MODIS land cover, and crop phenology datasets. Processed data and code are available via Figshare.
Figures illustrate heatwave detection and onset- speed classification, temporal/spatial trends in timing metrics, patterns of first- heatwave onset- speed types, and correlations with conventional heatwave metrics (frequency, intensity, duration).
The work builds on prior research showing increases in heatwave frequency, intensity, and duration, while adding the critical dimension of seasonal timing and development speed.
This is the peer- reviewed study underlying the phys.org and press- release coverage from earlier today. The abstract matches the reported numbers exactly. Full- text access is subscription- or institution- based.
Heatwaves threaten ecosystems and societies. Previous studies have examined their frequency, intensity and duration, whereas long-term changes in heatwave timing—including onset, ending and season length—remain poorly understood, limiting our ability to anticipate heat-related risks. Here we analyse global changes in these metrics and onset-speed type from 1979 to 2023. Globally, heatwave onset advanced by 3.29 ± 0.12 days per decade, ending was delayed by 5.41 ± 0.12 days per decade and the heatwave season lengthened by 8.71 ± 0.17 days per decade. Trends towards earlier onset, later ending and longer heatwave seasons covered 72.0%, 79.6% and 92.1% of global land, respectively, with statistically significant trends across 13.4%, 20.3% and 34.4%. A recent shift towards faster heatwave onset was observed. Drylands experienced more pronounced timing shifts than humid regions. These findings highlight the need to incorporate heatwave timing into early-warning systems, risk assessments and proactive adaptation under climate change.
Nepal Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal connects the August 26 flood to the popular narrative that industrial emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) cause dangerous atmospheric warming and the melting of mountain glaciers, which, so the logic goes, produces floods like the one that killed his countrymen.
Asian neighbors and Western countries demonized for “climate failings” have supported Nepal’s building of high-voltage lines, tunnels, bridges, vehicles, and other blessings of modernity.
Nepal Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal’s request for a foreign response to his country’s disastrous Himalayan flood would be better made as an appeal to the charitable instincts of people than as a demand for compensation from climate sinners.
Khanal connects the August 26 flood to the popular narrative that industrial emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) cause dangerous atmospheric warming and the melting of mountain glaciers, which, so the logic goes, produces floods like the one that killed his countrymen. “Climate justice” reasoning is that industrialized countries such as neighboring India and China bear more responsibility for the disaster than does Nepal, whose per capita income ranking is less than five on a global scale of 1-100.
Khanal’s framing begins with a vacuous political claim that someone else must pay and ignores realities of the physical world, adopting the false premise that CO2 emissions have made weather worse. He apparently embraces the notion that computer models can assign a dollar value to damages inflicted by increases in the destructiveness of natural disasters. For the foreign minister, an apocalyptic narrative used for a decade to advance net-zero policy is an observed fact rather than an implausibly extreme scenario treated as destiny.
A century of observations shows no CO2-driven march toward more heat waves, hurricanes, droughts, and wildfires. Many of those hazards peaked in earlier decades or have declined. Record U.S. heat still belongs to the 1930s. Hurricane activity has not followed the alarmist script. Wildfire intensity is inseparable from fuel loads and land management.
A report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine that “quantifies climate damages” merely assumes worsening weather with rising CO2without even attempting to establish a link. The National Academies uses computer-generated models of a world with no industrial CO2 emissions to divine how much milder the weather would be. That is a fabrication for use in a liability case, not a finding of fact.
Studies that purportedly attribute worsening weather to emissions have multiplied because “climate scientists” have been rewarded with research grants, not because physics demonstrates evidence of a connection. Saying the Nepal flood would have been milder on a planet without industrial CO₂ is not evidence that floods have grown more common or more destructive.
Once those exercises are treated as proof of causation, Nepal’s Khanal would say, energy producers “whose historical contribution to greenhouse gases is much bigger than ours” are to be made defendants in civil courts facing billions of dollars in liabilities. This demagoguery makes villains of businesses whose products – coal, oil, and natural gas – have powered electric grids, transportation systems, and factories that have lifted living standards worldwide. The fertilizers and medicines derived from these hydrocarbon feedstocks nourish and enhance the health of billions.
Nepal’s own development depends on fossil fuels. Transport runs on imported diesel and gasoline. Cooking and industry use liquefied petroleum gas and coal. Coal is necessary for production of cement, which is integral to the infrastructure of the country’s hydroelectric system and highways.
Asian neighbors and Western countries demonized for “climate failings” have supported Nepal’s building of high-voltage lines, tunnels, bridges, vehicles, and other blessings of modernity. Foreign Minister Khanal is biting hands engaged in feeding his country.
None of this diminishes the tragedy of the thousands of dead and missing in August’s awful flood. Nonetheless, compassion does not require surrendering facts to accommodate what amounts to a scam. There is no evidence of carbon dioxide emissions precipitating the Nepal flood or any other disaster. Even the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has declared as implausible its most extreme predictions of global warming. The most likely cause of the flood has been identified as the failure of bedrock underlying a glacier.
More than climate apostates to blame, Nepal needs modern technology and better land-use practices to protect people as much as possible from the risk of nature’s brutality.
In the meantime, the country has reportedly received $820 million in aid, which suggests that at least some of the developed world is more charitable than villainous.
Angela Wheeler is executive director of theCO2Coalition, Fairfax, Virginia. She is a cum laude graduate of Emporia State University, Kansas, where she studied communication, with additional biology and pre-medicine coursework.
Martin Jagger, a climate activist specializing in carbon capture & storage, recently wrote a sobering post on the progress of this technology in addressing the assumed-to-be climate crisis. This problematic approach is another example of the tears-in-the-ocean choices of climate mitigation policy.
“Today, global operating nameplate capture capacity is approximately 60 million tonnes a year. If fully utilised, that would represent gross capture equivalent to roughly 14-15 hours of annual global energy and industrial emissions. Actual verified net storage is lower.”
“Today, global operating nameplate capture capacity is approximately 60 million tonnes a year. If fully utilised, that would represent gross capture equivalent to roughly 14-15 hours of annual global energy and industrial emissions. Actual verified net storage is lower.” (- Martin Jagger, below)
Martin Jagger, a climate activist specializing in carbon capture & storage, recently wrote a sobering post on the progress of this technology in addressing the assumed-to-be climate crisis. This problematic approach is another example of the tears-in-the-ocean choices of climate mitigation policy.
“For twenty years,” he begins, “I have argued that CCS has an important role to play in managing emissions from industries where practical alternatives remain limited.” The progress to date has been small, and the effect on global emissions minuscule. He explains:
Today, global operating nameplate capture capacity is approximately 60 million tonnes a year. If fully utilised, that would represent gross capture equivalent to roughly 14-15 hours of annual global energy and industrial emissions. Actual verified net storage is lower…. Closing even the gap between today’s operating capacity and the announced [EIA estimated 2030 pipeline would require an extraordinary acceleration in permitting, financing, construction, commissioning and sustained operating performance.
The interest and potential investment are there, he believes, but “delivery” is small and problematic.
… announcements are not delivery, storage resources are not injection capacity, and nameplate capacity is not independently verified climate impact. The next phase of CCS must therefore be more demanding than the last. By 2030, success should no longer be measured primarily by the number of projects announced, memoranda signed, licences awarded or billions committed. It should be measured by verified net tonnes securely stored, year after year. That requires a tougher delivery model.
He alludes to the problem of getting from hyperbole to practice.
We have largely solved the problem of attracting interest and announcing investment. We have not yet solved the delivery problem. That distinction matters because CCS cannot indefinitely be judged by its potential. Nor should every delay be explained by saying that the industry simply needs more policy support or more public money. After two decades, the burden of proof must begin to shift.
Continuing:
That shift also requires greater honesty about how progress is reported. Too many of the institutions responsible for advocacy and industry leadership still present CCS largely as a good-news story. New projects, funding awards and headline capacity are publicised; delays, cancellations, operating shortfalls and the absence of verified storage receive much less attention.
Final Comment
Government incentives to carbon capture and storage, formalized in the Energy Improvement and Extension Act of 2008 (Section 45Q tax credit), should be terminated, an end to please many environmentalists and the free market community. [2] The whole initiative is inconsequential to global or regional climate, and projects have been opposed by local residents in the U.S. and elsewhere. [3]
I am an Executive Consultant in Energy Transition Strategy and Decarbonisation Delivery with a track record of bringing operator discipline to CCS policy and projects. I established Shell’s Carbon Capture and Storage Centre of Excellence in 2007 and helped shape international frameworks for long-term CO₂ storage that informed UNFCCC CDM mechanisms and regulatory guidance.
I currently advise sovereigns, regulators and innovators on areas where policy realism, technical feasibility and capital must align. My work tests the credibility of targets, the true scaling pathways for CCS and low-carbon fuels, and the structural barriers that stall momentum – especially FID drag, subsidy distortion, infrastructure mis-sequencing and the policy-performance gap.
[2] The tax credits since 2022 are $85 per ton of CO₂ stored for dedicated geologic storage projects and $60 per ton for CO₂ utilization projects with associated storage, increased from $50 and $35 subsidies (2018) and $20 and $10 (2008). A summary of federal largess from Taxpayers for Common Sense reads:
For decades, the federal government has provided billions of dollars in both direct and indirect subsidies to support CCS technology and projects. These subsidies have included research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) funding, loan guarantees, and tax credits.
Over the past few decades some of these subsidies have gone to projects that have been repeatedly started and stopped, only to eventually collapse due to various economic issues and controversies (e.g., FutureGen, Kemper). Additionally, the 45Q tax credit, which has grown significantly in both size and scope, has been mired in fraud and waste. To date, the federal government has spent tens of billions of taxpayer dollars on CCS through research and development funding and tax credits, yet the technology is still struggling with widescale deployment issues due to high costs….
According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), Congress provided roughly $9 billion (in nominal dollars) in annual appropriations for DOE’s FECM from FY2010 to FY2023, with over $2.8 billion specifically directed towards CCS line items…. Congress appropriated $12 billion more to the technology through the infrastructure law (Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, P.L. 117-58) and greatly expanded the already lucrative tax credit in the Inflation Reduction Act (Public Law 117-169).
[3] There are currently 15 operating CCS facilities in the U.S. and another 120 projects under development. The top ten projects are (verbatim):
1. Stratos Direct Air Capture (DAC) Project
Companies:Occidental Petroleum (through its subsidiary 1 Point Five) and Origis Energy Capacity:500, 000 metric tons of CO₂ annually Application: Direct Air Capture powered by a dedicated solar portfolio Source:Origis Energy Commissions 500 MWdc Swift Air Solar Projects in …
2. Calpine Baytown Energy Center CCS Project
Companies:Calpine Corporation and Exxon Mobil Capacity: Approximately 2 million metric tons of CO₂ annually Application: Low-carbon power generation from a new natural gas plant Source:Calpine, Exxon Mobil sign CO 2 transportation and storage …
3. CF Industries Donaldsonville CCS Facility
Companies:CF Industries and Exxon Mobil Capacity: A key component of Exxon Mobil’s contracted ~9 million metric tons per annum (MTA) portfolio Application: Decarbonization of ammonia production Source:Here’s How XOM Is Scaling Up Its CCS Footprint to Reduce Emissions
Companies:Frontier Infrastructure and Baker Hughes Capacity: Positioned to be one of the largest U.S. CO₂ sequestration assets (specific tonnage not provided) Application: Multi-user CO₂ sequestration hub for industrial emitters Source:Baker Hughes, Frontier Infrastructure Partner on Carbon Capture …
7. ADM Decatur CCS Facility
Company:Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM) Capacity: Averages nearly 0.5 Mtpa (based on 4.5 million metric tons sequestered over a decade) Application: Long-term industrial CCS for ethanol production Source:ADM and Carbon Capture and Storage
8. Lake Charles Power Station Integrated CO₂ Capture Project
Company: Project supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Capacity: Not specified; large-scale pilot Application: Advancing capture technologies for power generation Source:[XLS] Sheet 1 – Climate Program Portal
Company:Climeworks Capacity: Over 5, 000 tons of CO₂ annually Application: Direct Air Capture, noted as the largest operational DAC in the U.S. as of October 2025 Source:Facilities – CO 2 RE – Global CCS Institute
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