Day: October 1, 2026

Ancient Jerusalem’s Climate Crisis: How the City of David Battled Drought and Floods 2,800 Years Ago

Climate has profoundly shaped the City of David (the original core of ancient Jerusalem on the southeastern ridge), primarily through its effects on water availability. The site’s location was chosen around the perennial Gihon Spring, the only reliable local water source in an otherwise semi- arid environment. Fluctuations in rainfall, droughts, and extreme weather over the last 3,000 and more years directly influenced settlement size, fortifications, water engineering, agriculture, and periods of growth or stress.

A dramatic landscape featuring a stormy sky over ancient ruins, with rushing water from Gihon Spring flowing towards Siloam Dam, surrounded by dry, cracked earth and distant hills.
AI generated by Grok

The City of David (Hebrew: ʿĪr Davīd; also known locally in Arabic as Wadi Hilweh) is the archaeological site widely regarded as the original settlement core of ancient Jerusalem during the Bronze and Iron Ages.

It occupies a narrow, elongated ridge (the southeastern hill) immediately south of the Temple Mount, Ophel saddle, west of the Kidron Valley and east of the Tyropoeon Valley. The Gihon Spring, the ancient city’s primary water source, lies on its eastern slope. This location made it defensible and strategically important from the earliest periods of settlement.

According to the Hebrew Bible (e.g., 2 Samuel 5), King David conquered the Jebusite city (often called Zion or Jebus) around 1000 BCE and established it as his capital, renaming or identifying it as the “City of David”.

Later kings, including Solomon, expanded the city northward toward the Temple Mount. The site remained the core of Jerusalem through the Kingdom of Judah until the Babylonian destruction in 586 BCE, and occupation continued into later periods, including the Second Temple era.

Archaeologically, permanent settlement evidence begins in the Early Bronze Age (3rd millennium BCE), with major fortifications appearing in the Middle Bronze Age (around the 18th century BCE) around the Gihon Spring. The site is central to debates about the scale and nature of Jerusalem in the 10th- 9th centuries BCE (the traditional United Monarchy period).

Major Archaeological Features and Discoveries

  • Gihon Spring fortifications and water systems: Middle Bronze Age walls, towers, and passages protected the spring. Later systems include Warren’s Shaft and Channel II.
  • Stepped Stone Structure and Large Stone Structure: Massive Iron Age constructions. The Stepped Stone Structure is one of the largest known Iron Age man- made features in Israel (over 20 m high). Eilat Mazar interpreted the adjacent Large Stone Structure as a monumental public building (possibly linked to a royal or administrative complex from the time of David or shortly thereafter). Dating and exact identification remain debated among scholars.
  • Siloam Tunnel (Hezekiah’s Tunnel) and Pool of Siloam: A famous water tunnel traditionally associated with preparations for the Assyrian siege under Hezekiah (late 8th century BCE), though some evidence suggests earlier origins. The Pool of Siloam and the adjacent stepped street (Pilgrimage Road) were major features in the Second Temple period.
  • Iron Age city walls and other fortifications: Segments of the mid- slope fortification (Kenyon- Shiloh Wall) from the 8th century BCE and earlier; a massive rock- cut moat and trench separating the City of David ridge from the Ophel and Temple Mount area, used during the Kingdom of Judah period.
  • Other finds: Bullae (seal impressions), pottery, destruction layers from 586 BCE, a unique First Temple-period ritual structure with rock- hewn rooms (altar, standing stone, oil and wine presses) that may have gone out of use during Hezekiah’s reforms, and extensive Second Temple remains.

Recent radiocarbon studies (sampling organic material from multiple areas) support significant activity already in the 10th century BCE and earlier westward expansion of the city (toward Mount Zion) by the 9th century BCE, refining older chronologies.

The City of David is part of the Jerusalem Walls National Park and a major tourist site operated with visitor centers, guided tours, the Pilgrimage Road, access to the Siloam Tunnel (often by flashlight), and interpretive exhibits. It continues to yield new finds through ongoing salvage and research excavations by the Israel Antiquities Authority, Hebrew University, and other teams.

In short, the City of David is the archaeological heart of ancient Jerusalem- providing the physical evidence for its earliest urban phases, water management, fortifications, and continuous development over millennia- while remaining a focal point for both scholarly debate and public interest in biblical archaeology.

Ancient stone walls and ruins with a domed structure in the background under a blue sky.
Shake yourself from the dust, rise up, O captive Jerusalem; Loose yourself from the chains around your neck, O captive daughter of Zion. –Isaiah 52:2
The City of David: The Jerusalem That You Don’t Know

Climate has profoundly shaped the City of David (the original core of ancient Jerusalem on the southeastern ridge), primarily through its effects on water availability. The site’s location was chosen around the perennial Gihon Spring, the only reliable local water source in an otherwise semi- arid environment. Fluctuations in rainfall, droughts, and extreme weather over the last 3,000 and more years directly influenced settlement size, fortifications, water engineering, agriculture, and periods of growth or stress.

Paleoclimate Context for the Southern Levant and Jerusalem

High- resolution proxies, including Dead Sea sediment cores (which act as a regional “rain gauge”), speleothems from nearby caves such as Soreq (recording precipitation via isotopes), pollen records, and solar activity indicators, reveal multi- decadal to multi- centennial climate swings rather than a stable climate.

Key patterns relevant to the last ~3,000 years (roughly Iron Age onward):

  • A ~150- year arid phase at the end of the Late Bronze Age (around the 13th- 12th centuries BCE) contributed to societal disruptions across the eastern Mediterranean.
  • Wetter conditions returned in Iron Age I, supporting highland settlement expansion and the rise of early kingdoms.
  • Iron Age II conditions were generally moderate (closer to modern averages), but with notable variability, including drier intervals and flash- flood events.
  • Later periods (including Roman, Byzantine, and medieval) also show oscillations, with lower groundwater recharge during cooler and drier epochs (e.g., parts of the Iron Age Cold Epoch and Little Ice Age) and higher recharge in warmer and wetter intervals.

Overall, the region experienced a long- term drying trend through much of the Holocene, punctuated by wetter and drier episodes. Climate alone rarely caused total collapse; societies often adapted through engineering, agricultural changes, and resilience strategies.

Specific Impacts and Adaptations at the City of David

Water security was existential. Drought reduced spring discharge and crop yields, while intense storms caused erosion, flash floods in the Kidron and Tyropoeon valleys, and soil loss. Archaeological evidence shows repeated investment in water infrastructure as a response:

Late 9th century BCE (ca. 805- 795 BCE), Siloam Dam: Radiocarbon dating of organic material in the mortar pins construction of this massive dam (blocking the Tyropoeon Valley to create/expand the Siloam Pool) to a narrow decade. Climate data from Dead Sea cores show increased aridity (halite layers) plus evidence of torrential rains and floods around 850- 800 BCE. Soreq Cave stalagmites indicate minimum precipitation near 850 BCE. This coincides with the Homeric Grand Solar Minimum (reduced solar activity linked to climate shifts). The dam stored water from the Gihon Spring and captured flood runoff, securing supply during dry spells while managing flood risk. It forms part of a broader late- 9th and early- 8th- century expansion of Jerusalem’s water systems.

Hezekiah’s Tunnel and related works (late 8th century BCE): Traditional association with preparations for the Assyrian siege, but these systems also enhanced resilience to climatic variability by protecting and redirecting the spring’s flow underground.

Broader Iron Age patterns: Radiocarbon- dated sequences from City of David excavations show continuous settlement and architectural development from the 12th- 10th centuries BCE onward, with westward expansion by the 9th century and major fortification after a mid- 8th- century earthquake. Climate variability is one factor among others (political, economic, seismic) influencing these dynamics. Desert- fringe areas felt climatic impacts more strongly than core highland zones like Jerusalem.

Longer- term groundwater and vegetation: Modeling of the Jerusalem region over ~4,500 years shows precipitation- recharge relationships remained relatively linear despite temperature and vegetation changes, though drier decades reduced recharge efficiency. Human impacts (deforestation, overgrazing, terracing, fruit- tree cultivation) further modified the local environment.

Summary of Climate- Human Interaction

In the City of David, climate impacts manifested mainly as water stress and flood risk. Rather than abandonment, the archaeological record documents sophisticated engineering responses, dams, tunnels, pools, and fortifications, that allowed the settlement to grow into a significant urban center. These adaptations highlight both vulnerability (dependence on a single spring and rainfall- dependent agriculture) and ingenuity. Modern parallels exist: the eastern Mediterranean continues to face drying trends and water challenges, making the ancient record relevant for understanding long- term resilience.

Ongoing excavations and multi- proxy climate studies continue to refine these connections, showing that climate was an important but not solitary driver of change at the site.

A detailed model of an ancient city, labeling key locations such as Mount Moriah, Ophel, Palace, Gihon Springs, Central Valley, and Kidron Valley.
The City of David – Jerusalem 101

The Homeric Grand Solar Minimum (also called the Homeric Minimum or Homerian Climate Anomaly) was a prolonged period of unusually low solar activity that began around 800 BCE and lasted roughly 200 years (approximately 2750- 2550 cal BP, with a stronger phase early on).

It is detected through elevated levels of cosmogenic isotopes such as carbon-14 (in tree rings and the atmosphere) and beryllium-10 (in ice cores and lake sediments).

These indicate reduced solar magnetic shielding, allowing more cosmic rays to reach Earth.

The event is sometimes linked to a broader “Hallstatt” solar minimum complex and coincided with a geomagnetic excursion (Etrussia- Sterno).

Climate Effects

In Europe (especially western and central), it is associated with colder, wetter, and windier conditions (the “Homeric Climate Oscillation” or 2.8 ka event).

In the eastern Mediterranean and Levant, regional proxies point to a different response: overall reduced precipitation (aridity), combined with intermittent intense rainstorms that produced flash floods.

Key evidence near Jerusalem includes:

  • Dead Sea sediment cores showing increased aridity (halite deposition) beginning around 850 BCE, along with graded layers indicating floods.
  • Soreq Cave speleothems (about 20 km west of Jerusalem) recording minimum precipitation near 850 BCE, followed by a gradual recovery.
  • Supporting signals from pollen and isotopic data on olive pits indicating shifts in rainfall patterns around 830 BCE.

Connection to the City of David

Researchers directly link this solar- driven climate shift to major water engineering in Jerusalem’s City of David. Precise radiocarbon dating of microscopic organic material (straw and twigs) in the mortar of the Siloam Dam places its construction in a narrow window of 805- 795 BCE.

The dam (a large stone structure that blocked the Tyropoeon Valley) created or expanded the Siloam Pool. It was part of a coordinated system that:

  • Fortified and protected the Gihon Spring (the city’s main water source).
  • Redirected spring water through channels into the artificial reservoir.
  • Captured both spring flow and flood runoff for storage during dry periods while managing destructive flash floods.

This project is attributed to the early Kingdom of Judah, likely under King Jehoash or his successor Amaziah.

It represents sophisticated urban planning to cope with the unpredictable weather (prolonged dry spells punctuated by violent rains) associated with the Homeric Grand Solar Minimum. The scale of the works underscores Jerusalem’s importance and organizational capacity at the time.

In short, the Homeric Grand Solar Minimum provides a climatic backdrop for one of the City of David’s most impressive Iron Age water systems, illustrating how ancient Jerusalem adapted to solar- influenced climate variability through large- scale engineering.

A detailed archaeological map showing the Southeastern Ridge, highlighting the Gihon Spring, Siloam Tunnel, and nearby landmarks.
(A) The study sites. Graphics by Manuel Cimadevilla, Israel Antiquities Authority. (B) The Siloam Dam excavation. Arrows mark the sampling locations. (C) A representative straw fragment embedded in the mortar.
Radiocarbon dating of Jerusalem’s Siloam Dam links climate data and major waterworks | PNAS

Ancient Tibetan Ice Cap Holds Climate Secrets Older Than 100,000 Years

Researchers have confirmed that ancient ice in the high- altitude Guliya Ice Cap (northwestern Tibet) preserves climate records from the last ice age and beyond, making these the oldest ice cores recovered from the region.

The Guliya ice cap (western Kunlun Mountains, northwestern Tibetan Plateau) is a cold- based (polar- type) glacier. Cores to bedrock were recovered in 1992 (GP1992, 308.7 m) and 2015 (GP2015, 309.7 m) on the plateau (~6200 m asl), plus thinner summit cores in 2015. Earlier work suggested ages >110 ka (and possibly much older near the bed based on ³⁶Cl).

Aerial view of a snowy mountainous landscape with a drilling rig and several ice structures in the foreground, under a clear blue sky.
AI generated by Grok

Researchers have confirmed that ancient ice in the high- altitude Guliya Ice Cap (northwestern Tibet) preserves climate records from the last ice age and beyond, making these the oldest ice cores recovered from the region.

The study, led by Lonnie Thompson (professor of earth sciences and senior research scientist at Ohio State’s Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center) and published in Science Advances, compared ice cores drilled from the Guliya Plateau in 1992 and 2015. Both showed matching oxygen isotope patterns, confirming that the environmental signals are consistent and reproducible over decades.

To date the ice, the team used radioactive isotopes beryllium-10 and chlorine-36. These marked the Laschamp Geomagnetic Excursion (a major shift in Earth’s magnetic field more than 41,000 years ago). Combined with oxygen- isotope records from nearby Tibetan cave deposits, the data indicate the Guliya record extends well over 128,000 years (and more than 100,000 years overall).

This is significant because, outside the polar regions, it is the only mountaintop ice core that reaches so far back. For comparison, cores from Peru’s Nevado Huascarán go back only a bit over 30,000 years. Earlier work had suggested Guliya’s record ended in the Mid- Holocene (starting ~12,000 years ago), but the new evidence shows some ice is much older and that portions of the ice cap survived the last ice age.

Accurate timescales like this help answer broader questions about when major glaciations began and ended and how natural ice loss processes worked. The team plans further analyses of the cores for additional climate and environmental indicators. The research was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation; Ohio State co- authors include Mary Davis and Ellen Mosley- Thompson, with international collaborators from Switzerland and China.

Sources: Ohio State News (Tatyana Woodall) and the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center announcement (both dated around September 30- October 1, 2026).

Map showing the Guliya ice cap and surrounding geographical features, with arrows indicating monsoon wind patterns and detailed inset of the Chongge ice cap.
Geographic setting of the GIC. Credit: Science Advances (2026). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aeh2912

Additional evidence supports a timescale exceeding 100,000 years for the Guliya ice cap, Tibetan Plateau

The oxygen isotope (δ¹⁸O_ice) record from a ~310 m core drilled on the Guliya ice cap (GIC) in 2015 (GP2015) is reproducible with a nearby ~309 m core from 1992. The timescale for a composite of the GIC cores was constructed using ¹⁰Be and ³⁶Cl to identify the ~41 ka Laschamp geomagnetic excursion, plus a match to a δ¹⁸O_atm- dated core from the Guliya Summit. Comparison of the GIC δ¹⁸O_ice with an Asian Monsoon speleothem δ¹⁸O record supports a timescale back to 128 ka, the oldest known so far from Tibet. The δ¹⁸O_ice record shows orbital- scale variations in phase with June insolation and polar ice- core stable-isotope records through the last glacial cycle (with a phase reversal after the deglaciation that requires further study). Radiocarbon- dated ice from the glacier margin confirms glacial- stage ice in the GIC. The ³⁶Cl/¹⁰Be ratios in GP2015 confirm that GIC ice is older than 100 ka.

Key background and context

The Guliya ice cap (western Kunlun Mountains, northwestern Tibetan Plateau) is a cold- based (polar- type) glacier. Cores to bedrock were recovered in 1992 (GP1992, 308.7 m) and 2015 (GP2015, 309.7 m) on the plateau (~6200 m asl), plus thinner summit cores in 2015. Earlier work suggested ages >110 ka (and possibly much older near the bed based on ³⁶Cl).

Recent studies of nearby cores (Chongce ice cap and a 2021 Guliya Plateau core drilled close to the earlier sites) produced much younger (Holocene or Late Holocene) ages, challenging the long timescale. This paper extends and independently supports the longer chronology for the 1992 and 2015 plateau cores.

Main results and methods

  • Reproducibility: High-resolution δ¹⁸O_ice profiles from GP1992 and GP2015 match closely by depth and can be stratigraphically aligned, allowing transfer of the timescale.
  • Timescale construction (to 128 ka):
    • ¹⁰Be and ³⁶Cl peaks at ~187 m mark the Laschamp excursion (~41 ka).
    • Matching of the upper part to the δ¹⁸O_atm- and ¹⁴C- dated Guliya Summit composite.
    • Further extension by matching the δ¹⁸O_ice record (pre- 41 ka) to the continuous, ²³⁰Th-dated Southeast Asian Monsoon speleothem δ¹⁸O composite from SE China caves.
  • Supporting evidence of pre- Holocene ice: Two ¹⁴C- WIOC samples from ice ~50 cm above bedrock at the southeastern margin of the GIC yielded mean calibrated ages of ~24.1 ka and ~24.8 ka (last glacial stage).
  • Cosmogenic isotopes: Combined ³⁶Cl (from both cores) and ¹⁰Be (GP2015) data, placed on the new timescale, show the Laschamp peak and a possible Mono Lake excursion (~33 ka). Nuclear-weapons- testing ³⁶Cl is confined to the near- surface. The ³⁶Cl/¹⁰Be ratio decreases with depth in a manner consistent with radioactive decay and ages >100 ka (effective half-life ~384 kyr under standard assumptions). Establishing a precise timescale beyond 128 ka remains challenging due to possible post- depositional mobility or production- rate issues near the bed.

Climatic implications (discussion highlights)

The composite GP1992/2015 δ¹⁸O_ice and deuterium-excess records track orbital (insolation) and millennial- scale features seen in polar ice cores and (with the expected antiphase relationship) Asian monsoon speleothems through much of the last glacial cycle. A phase shift relative to the speleothem records occurs around the deglaciation (~18- 19 ka), possibly linked to changing atmospheric circulation (westerlies vs. Asian monsoon) and moisture sources as Northern Hemisphere ice sheets retreated. Cooler conditions around the Laschamp excursion are consistent with modeled climate responses to geomagnetic field weakening.

The paper addresses prior challenges to the long timescale and concludes that the Guliya plateau cores preserve a continuous climate archive spanning the last glacial cycle and beyond 100 ka, unique among non- polar, high- elevation ice cores. Future work is suggested to refine ages deeper than 128 ka and to investigate the post- deglaciation isotopic phase change.

Wrong, TIME, One Nor’easter Isn’t Proof of Climate Change

In their article How Does Climate Change Impact Nor’easters? TIME magazine claims that a nor’easter which struck the northeastern United States in mid- September illustrates how climate change is making powerful storms more intense. That’s false.

There is no evidence that the recent nor’easter was at all unusual or represents a long- term climate change induced shift in the occurrence or strength of such storms.

Illustration depicting a severe nor'easter storm with flooded streets and road closures, emphasizing the impact of climate change on weather patterns. The scene includes dialogue between two characters discussing climate change and referencing historical storms, alongside a chart showing long-term records of storm intensity.

From ClimateRealism

By Anthony Watts

Satellite image showing a storm system off the East Coast, illustrating the impact of climate change on Nor'easters.

In their article How Does Climate Change Impact Nor’easters? TIME magazine claims that a nor’easter which struck the northeastern United States in mid-September illustrates how climate change is making powerful storms more intense. That’s false. There is no evidence that the recent nor’easter was at all unusual or represents a long-term climate change induced shift in the occurrence or strength of such storms. TIME’s claims go well beyond what the evidence can establish about an individual storm and lacks support in data and meteorological records.

“While September nor’easters aren’t unheard of, they are uncommon,” states TIME. “And as the climate warms, research suggests that the strongest storms are also going to become more intense.” TIME then uses speculative sleight of hand to link the recent storm to increasing number of billion-dollar disasters.

The historical record and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) show substantial natural variability in extratropical storms and low confidence in observed trends in their intensity, making TIME’s attempt to turn a single weather event into a climate-change story scientifically unjustified.

The basic problem with TIME’s article is right there in its premise. A nor’easter is a weather event. Climate is the statistical behavior of weather measured over decades.

As Climate at a Glance has explained, individual hurricanes, floods, droughts, heat waves, cold snaps, and storms are weather. Long-term changes in their frequency or intensity can potentially constitute evidence of climate change, but one storm cannot establish such a trend. See the graphic below from the European Space Agency to visualize this.

Infographic comparing weather and climate, highlighting that weather refers to short-term atmospheric changes while climate describes average conditions over 30 years or more. Includes visuals of Earth, daily weather icons, and a graph showing climate change data.

That distinction is fundamental to climate science, yet it increasingly disappears when a dramatic weather event presents an opportunity for a climate headline.

TIME reports that this particular nor’easter produced heavy rain, flooding, winds exceeding 60 mph, and coastal flooding in New Jersey. Those facts establish that a strong storm occurred. They do not establish why it occurred, much less demonstrate that human greenhouse gas emissions made it unusually powerful.

TIME even acknowledges that nor’easters are nothing new. The article notes famous storms including the New England Blizzard of 1978, the 1993 “Superstorm,” and the severe Boston snowstorms of 2015. Let’s not forget the Great Blizzard of 1888. Nor’easters are a normal feature of East Coast weather and have battered the region throughout its recorded history.

More revealing is an admission buried halfway through the article: “Scientists are still not 100 percent clear about how nor’easters are changing due to climate change.”

That should have been the beginning of TIME’s analysis, not a caveat quickly brushed aside before returning to claims of worsening storms.

The IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report on climate change provides no findings that extreme weather events, such as nor’easters, are increasing in number of intensity.

Nor’easters are extratropical cyclones, and Chapter 11 of IPCC AR6 specifically examines these storms. The IPCC reports “low confidence in past changes of maximum wind speeds and other measures of dynamical intensity of extratropical cyclones.”

This is true for many weather events, as seen in the table below.

Table listing various weather events with columns for detection and attribution status, all marked as 'No'.
Table. Summary table showing lack of weather event attribution from Chapter 11 of the IPCC AR6 report.

The IPCC also finds that there is low confidence in past-century trends in the number and intensity of the strongest Northern Hemisphere extratropical cyclones because of large year-to-year and decadal variability and limitations in the historical data.

Even more directly, the IPCC states that studies attributing changes in the most extreme extratropical cyclones are not available and that there is “overall low confidence” in attributing changes in individual extreme extratropical cyclone events to human influence.

Somehow, TIME missed the IPCC’s conclusion on this topic.

TIME blurs those two very different propositions.

Dollar losses are not a physical measurement of storm intensity. A storm striking today’s heavily developed East Coast encounters vastly more homes, businesses, roads, vehicles, utilities, and expensive infrastructure than the same storm would have encountered decades ago. Inflation alone also increases nominal losses. Increasing billion-dollar disaster counts do not, therefore, demonstrate that storms have become meteorologically more severe.

Climate Realism has repeatedly addressed this error in media reporting: increasing economic exposure and wealth can increase disaster losses even without a corresponding increase in the underlying weather hazard.

There is an additional irony in TIME publishing this story in September 2026.

While TIME cites a single nor’easter to suggest that storms are intensifying, the Atlantic tropical basin has been experiencing an extraordinary lack of hurricanes.

As of September 21, the Atlantic had produced six named tropical storms but not a single hurricane. It was the first time since 1914, 112 years ago, that the basin had gone that far into the official Hurricane season without producing one. The climatological peak of Atlantic hurricane activity occurs around September 10, so this historic quiet occurred during what normally is the busiest part of the season.

NOAA National Hurricane Center records confirm the unusually weak activity, with the storms through mid-September remaining below hurricane strength. A strengthening El Niño and associated wind shear have been identified as important factors suppressing Atlantic hurricane development this year.

Does that remarkably quiet hurricane season prove climate change has stopped affecting storms? Of course not. It’s weather. And that is precisely the point.

A quiet Atlantic hurricane season cannot disprove long-term climate change, just as one powerful September nor’easter cannot prove that climate change is making storms worse. Climate trends require decades of data, not whichever storm happens to dominate this week’s headlines.

Indeed, TIME’s own expert undermines the article’s framing. Professor Mathew Barlow acknowledges that researchers are “not seeing any changes in the overall average” number of nor’easters and that the total number of storms “might actually be going down a little bit.”

That admission deserves considerably more attention than TIME gives it.

TIME starts with a storm, asks how climate change made it worse, and then assembles quotations supporting that premise while relegating contradictory evidence to a few sentences. That’s not how climate science is supposed to work. Nor is it how science journalism should work.

A nor’easter struck the Northeast. It produced heavy rain, strong winds, flooding, and disruption, all facts making the storm worthy of significant news coverage. But, there is no evidence whatsoever that climate change had any influence on the recent nor’easter. Since neither data nor historical records suggest any significant changes in the formation or behavior or nor’easters, TIME should make no such connection to climate change. The story goes beyond the news to disaster story telling. Based on this report, perhaps it would be more accurate to file TIME on the fiction rack at bookstores and newsstands.

Was the Anthropocene Rejected by Science — or Buried by Strategy?

That headline Science or strategy? Researchers call for transparency over the Anthropocene rejection  refers to the fallout from March 2024, when the Anthropocene as a formal geological epoch was voted down, and to a long- running critique coming out of the Max Planck Society.

Researchers aligned with Max Planck argue that without published criteria, open peer review of the vote, and inclusion of social scientists and humanists, we can’t tell the difference, and that opacity undermines trust.
There is the new paper, Schäfer et al. 2026 in Earth’s Future: “Science or Strategy? The Rejection of the Anthropocene Epoch Demands Transparency”

It comes from researchers linked to the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology in Jena. It doesn’t argue to relitigate the stratigraphy. It argues the process of the rejection itself was opaque.

Image featuring a dark, industrial landscape with smokestacks, overlaid with the question, 'Was the Anthropocene Rejected by Science — or Buried by Strategy?'
AI generated by Meta

That headline Science or strategy? Researchers call for transparency over the Anthropocene rejection  refers to the fallout from March 2024, when the Anthropocene as a formal geological epoch was voted down, and to a long- running critique coming out of the Max Planck Society.

For almost 15 years the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) worked to put the “age of humans” on the official geologic timescale.

They proposed:

  • Start date: 1952, linked to the global spike of plutonium from nuclear weapons tests
  • Golden spike location: Crawford Lake, Ontario
  • Rationale: rapid acceleration of greenhouse gases, biodiversity loss, plastics, concrete, etc. since the 1950s

In March 2024 the proposal was rejected.

The Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy (SQS) voted it down, and on 20 March the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS), the final arbiter, announced it was upholding that decision.

Reports described it as a highly contested decision in March 2024, with a 12 to 4 vote to reject. 

The debate didn’t end with the vote, it intensified. Two camps of criticism emerged: 

1. Scientific critique: Critics argue the plutonium spike itself is not a direct stratigraphic marker of anthropogenic Earth- system change, that the ∼70- year interval is too short for an epoch, and that evidence of human impacts are diachronous in the geological record.

2. Procedural ans strategy critique: Supporters of the AWG said the vote was leaked to media before the AWG was officially informed, violated the 60% supermajority procedures, and flew in the face of evidence presented. That’s where the transparency call comes in.

This is not new for Max Planck.

In 2016, Nicole Boivin, then Director of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, and colleagues published a Comment in Nature arguing that the soon- to- be- finalized decision was inaccurate and hasty, and that its formalization must be the result of a transparent, broad based, interdisciplinary process.

They explicitly called for the criteria for the formalization to be published and peer reviewed, rather than established in closed meetings, and for at least half the commission to come from anthropology, archaeology, history, sociology, geography and philosophy- not just stratigraphy.

The newer work coming from the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology (MPI- GEA), including Jürgen Renn, Georg Schäfer and colleagues, makes a similar point after the 2024 rejection:

The rejected recognition of an Anthropocene epoch has not ended the Anthropocene debate, rather it underscores that the decisive question is less stratigraphic than political

Their argument:

  • The Anthropocene should not be reduced to a single GSSP (plutonium line). Human impacts started as “a whisper, became a voice and then a scream”, megafaunal extinctions, fire, agriculture, irrigation, urbanization, thousands of years before 1950.
  • Focusing only on 1950s markers sustains a narrow, Eurocentric, elite view of industrial society as the only cause.
  • Geoanthropology needs open epistemic webs that link models, data, and publics, and decision infrastructures that are auditable, hence the call for transparency.

In other words: Was the 2024 rejection a strictly scientific judgment that the evidence doesn’t meet chronostratigraphic rules? Or was it a strategic move to protect the stability of the timescale and avoid a very short, highly political epoch?

Researchers aligned with Max Planck argue that without published criteria, open peer review of the vote, and inclusion of social scientists and humanists, we can’t tell the difference, and that opacity undermines trust.

Even though the epoch was not formalized, the term is alive:

  • Nature Reviews Earth & Environment now frames the debate as epoch vs. event, epoch (a formal break after the Holocene) vs. event (a cumulative, time- transgressive transformation analogous to the Great Oxidation Event)
  • Many Earth- system scientists continue to use Holocene vs. Anthropocene informally in planetary boundaries work, regardless of the official timescale.

If you want the original sources, I can pull the 2016 Boivin et al. Nature comment Involve social scientists in defining the Anthropocene and the 2024-2025 Renn et al. MPI- GEA preprint The Decision for the Anthropocene – Between Activism, Doubt and Responsibility.

Science or Strategy? The Rejection of the Anthropocene Epoch Demands Transparency

There is the new paper, Schäfer et al. 2026 in Earth’s Future: “Science or Strategy? The Rejection of the Anthropocene Epoch Demands Transparency”

It comes from researchers linked to the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology in Jena. It doesn’t argue to relitigate the stratigraphy. It argues the process of the rejection itself was opaque.

What happened

In March 2024, the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) upheld the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy’s (SQS) decision to formally reject the Anthropocene Working Group’s (AWG) proposal

Despite the outcome, the AWG continues to publish evidence that the authors say meets established standards, a globally synchronous plutonium signal and 12 depositional environments.

The problem, they say, is not that rejection is impossible, but that the manner of rejection remains unexplained.

What is problematic is the manner in which this rejection occurred.

The scientific basis for rejection therefore remains opaque. 

Documented procedural violations they list

1. Violation of SQS chair’s rights: the vote was called against the expressed will of the chair who according to the Statutes is leader of the Subcommission

2. Invalid voting process:

  • 11 of the 16 members who cast votes were ineligible under ICS Rule 9, their terms having exceeded the 12- year limit, leaving eligible members short of quorum
  • Valid Standard Auxiliary Boundary Stratotypes proposals were excluded from deliberation despite meeting ICS requirements

3. Compromised evaluation:
The AWG received no opportunity to respond to comments, including those that revealed misconceptions, or to revise the proposal, counter to ICS procedure that a proposal must receive extended opportunity for open discussion. The matter then passed to a quickly convened ICS meeting from which the SQS Chair was excluded and on to IUGS ratification within days.

4. Suppression of ethics oversight:
The IUGS’s own Commission on Geoethics submitted a report in January 2024 concluding the AWG had been unfairly treated and recommending immediate suspension of voting procedures. The Executive Committee ignored it, forwarding the report only after results leaked via the New York Times. That Geoethics report remains publicly inaccessible.

They also cite earlier suppression: at STRATI 2023 in Lille, the AWG’s press conference was withdrawn from the venue and media were instructed not to interview AWG members inside.

And the Geoethics Commission itself was then disestablished on 28 April 2025 with the justification that its objectives do not offer sufficient interest, only reinstated in June 2025 on an interim basis without financial support. 

Science or Strategy?

The core question they pose:

Was the AWG proposal rejected on scientific grounds, such as methodological concerns, marker inadequacy, disputes over the timing of the boundary, or did institutional politics and strategic gatekeeping prove decisive?

Until today, neither SQS, ICS, nor IUGS explained the evidentiary threshold by which it was judged inadequate.

What they demand

They explicitly say:

We are not calling for reversal of the IUGS decision, nor seeking to relitigate the stratigraphic evidence… We call for transparency.

Two steps:

1. Full disclosure of relevant documentation, including the IUGS Commission on Geoethics report, SQS voting records, and communications
2. Independent review commissioned by a body independent of the IUGS, such as the International Science Council

Their argument: The Anthropocene concept has long transcended geoscience, archaeology, history, ecology, law, public discourse, and if decisions as consequential as this can be made behind closed doors, geoscience’s capacity to inform society is diminished. 

Journal information: Earth’s Future

First published: 01 October 2026

DOI: 10.1029/2025EF007638

Provided: Max Planck Society

Authors: Georg N. Schäfer, Jürgen Renn, Christoph Rosol, Jochen Büttner

Abstract

In a recent Earth’s Future article, Skelton and Noone (2025, https://doi.org/10.1029/2024ef005719) crystallized the dilemma facing the geoscientific community: the Anthropocene Working Group’s (AWG) evidentiary case for an Anthropocene epoch is at least as strong as, and in their view stronger than, that for the Holocene. Yet a substantive scientific debate cannot proceed until the reasons for the rejection of the AWG’s proposal to formalize the Anthropocene as a geological epoch are made transparent. Often framed as a question of stratigraphic markers and boundary criteria, the Anthropocene controversy now turns on a more fundamental issue: whether current institutional practices for establishing geological time units meet the transparency and procedural standards expected in times of heavy public reliance on Earth-system expertise. Drawing on surfaced communications, public statements, independent reporting and publicly available documentation, we identify unresolved procedural irregularities in the evaluation of the AWG proposal, including questions about voter eligibility and quorum, restricted access to key documents, and the handling of an IUGS-commissioned geoethics report. These matters have not been addressed in a systematic or public way. We argue that clarifying the basis of the decision—scientific or otherwise—is essential to preserve trust in stratigraphic governance and, by extension, in the institutions that underpin global environmental knowledge. We therefore call for full disclosure of the relevant documentation and an independent procedural review to ensure that decisions about Geological Time Scale remain credible and legitimate in the context of rapid planetary change.

PDF: Science or Strategy? The Rejection of the Anthropocene Epoch Demands Transparency

New York Times Publishes a Balanced Climate/Energy Article

“Many states and businesses are backing off ambitious climate targets, and Democrats are less vocal nowadays about climate change. Tech companies are using more natural gas to meet exploding demand for data centers. The International Energy Agency, after some browbeating by Mr. Wright, is revising up its projections for how long fossil fuels will stick around.” – New York Times

A desolate scene featuring rusty wind turbines partially submerged in water, under a dark, cloudy sky.

From Master Resource

By Robert Bradley Jr. 

“Many states and businesses are backing off ambitious climate targets, and Democrats are less vocal nowadays about climate change. Tech companies are using more natural gas to meet exploding demand for data centers. The International Energy Agency, after some browbeating by Mr. Wright, is revising up its projections for how long fossil fuels will stick around.” – New York Times (below)

Brad Plumer, a “a Times reporter who covers technology and policy efforts to address global warming,” recently explained (September 23, 2026) the “energy dominance” position of the Trump Administration. “The Former Fracking Executive Selling Trump’s ‘Energy Dominance’ Vision” began with the subtitle: “Energy Secretary Chris Wright is pitching a future of fossil fuel abundance. It’s not always an easy sell while war drags on and oil prices surge.

A fair article like this would have incensed the late Joe “head exploding” Romm. But the bully is gone, so others of less stature are left to fuss (see the reader comment below).

The Article

Quotations from the Plumer article follow:

“… Energy Secretary Chris Wright brought a sunny message to Houston last week at a gathering of energy ministers from the G20 nations. The Trump administration, he said, was ushering in an era of energy abundance by expanding oil and gas supplies in places like Alaska and Venezuela.”

“Mr. Wright acknowledged some tension, though he insisted it was temporary. ‘Everyone’s frustrated with higher energy prices,” he said of the mood at the meeting. “But I’ve not met one person who’s comfortable with a nuclear-armed Iran. So everyone gets what we’re doing and this is a critically important mission. It creates dislocations in the short term. But the only answer to short-term dislocations is the energy abundance agenda.’”

“Whereas Mr. Trump speaks bluntly about energy — chanting ‘drill, baby, drill,’ calling wind turbines ugly, or claiming that global warming is a hoax — Mr. Wright gives his arguments an intellectual gloss. He cites figures on how solar panels underperform during winter storms. Or he argues that global warming is not as big a problem as energy poverty, which he says can only be alleviated with more oil, gas and coal, even if that means more planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions.”

“Administration allies say that has made Mr. Wright invaluable. ‘He has been one of the most consequential picks for energy secretary I’ve seen,’ said Thomas J. Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, a research group that promotes fossil fuels. ‘He’s very experienced, brings a lot of substance, and he articulates President Trump’s vision clearly.’”

“… since taking office, [Wright] he has been more combative, deriding wind and solar power as a ‘parasite’ on the grid, blasting Democratic-led states for environmental policies that have shut down coal and gas plants, and accusing Europe of being in thrall to a ‘climate cult’ that is crippling economic growth.”

“… Ben Dietderich, an Energy Department spokesman, said in a statement: ‘Secretary Wright doesn’t have preferred energy sources. He just believes in being honest about math and energy security. Unfortunately, many in the climate lobby don’t like that. The Department is proud to have ended energy subtraction policies that lead to higher prices, less energy security and human impoverishment.’”

“[Wright] argued that people in developing countries still lacked enough energy to enjoy a decent standard of living and that renewables couldn’t replace oil, gas and coal to provide that power.”

“’At the height of this era when everyone was saying energy policy should just be about climate, Chris Wright was one of the few C.E.O.s that ran oil and gas firms who clearly and vocally spoke out,’ said Arjun Murti, a partner at the energy research firm Veriten.

Mr. Wright also had a flair for the dramatic. He once drank fracking fluid on video to show it was safe. In 2021, he rented billboards around Denver to heckle The North Face after the company declined to work with an oil firm.

“Mr. Wright quickly transformed the department. Out were programs to develop novel technologies to fight climate change, like green hydrogen or low-emissions steel. Instead, federal funds went to help utilities finance gas plants, nuclear reactors and transmission lines or upgrade older coal plants, which officials say are essential for meeting rising electricity demand. Mr. Wright also lifted a Biden-era pause on expanding exports of liquefied natural gas, now the nation’s fastest-growing export, and has pressured Europe to ease rules on methane, a potent greenhouse gas, saying they could hurt U.S. exports.”

“’He brought a whole new attitude to the agency,” said Scott Segal, an energy lobbyist at Bracewell. ‘It’s all about how do we produce enough energy to support A.I. and economic growth.’”

“Mr. Wright, who often criticizes wind and solar for not running at all hours, has cut renewable energy programs and renamed the National Renewable Energy Laboratory as the National Laboratory of the Rockies. While experts agree that the variability of wind and solar poses real challenges, many say it goes too far to call the sources ‘worthless.’ Texas gets roughly one-third of its power from renewables and has kept costs low.”

“Mr. Wright’s supporters say he has helped steer the country away from what they saw as the Biden administration’s unrealistic plans to rapidly phase out fossil fuels. Some say the debate is shifting in his direction. Many states and businesses are backing off ambitious climate targets, and Democrats are less vocal nowadays about climate change. Tech companies are using more natural gas to meet exploding demand for data centers. The International Energy Agency, after some browbeating by Mr. Wright, is revising up its projections for how long fossil fuels will stick around.”

“’There’s been a real shift in how investors and others now talk about energy,’ said Travis Fisher, a director of energy and environmental studies at the libertarian Cato Institute who worked with Mr. Wright to organize the agency’s climate report. ‘Climate has become a lot less salient.’”

“Mr. Wright, for his part, says fossil fuels are too useful to recede anytime soon. ‘We will never, ever come remotely close to running out of hydrocarbons, which means you need better technology and innovations to eventually eat into their market share,’ Mr. Wright said at a Cato event in May. He said he was excited about recent breakthroughs in areas like fusion. But, he added, “the biggest innovations the rest of my lifetime in energy are almost certainly going to be in oil, gas, and coal, because they are what matter.’”

Romm-like Complaint

A comment from ‘bl in Rochester’ was featured in the Times comment section. “It’s appalling to give wright an unchallenged forum to spew out his denialist propaganda,” he began. “Covering [Chris Wright’s] speech as here, or his ‘interview’ at the climate forum, does just that.” Continuing:

He’s conducting a full out war on renewable energy sources and technology using false reasoning, no rigorous scientific argumentation, and manipulative, cherry picking economic analyses that only “answer” the irrelevant questions he chooses to ask to justify his policy choices. This is socially destructive, and will be suicidal if not stopped in the near term.

He offers no coherent reply to the increasing climate instability. He carelessly dismisses the data, and provides vapid bromides to the evident dangers with fantastical assertions while ignoring the very real costs that will be incurred. Still he remains unchallenged in public.

He chooses the present with no concern for the future. That is not leadership. It is profit protection for one energy industry.

This is doubly damaging because all sorts of roadblocks have been imposed to block renewables. He therefore condemns generations to suffer horribly from such unhinged policy insanity.

The fact that no immediate follow up rebuttal by a climatologist is allowed makes this demagoguery even more vile and sickening. Indeed his “interview” with this paper was with a journalist not a scientist, and produced a predictable, unchallenged stream of idiocy without addressing at all the reality of climate change incurred damage,

And so the debate continues….

Near-M Solar Flare Erupts from AR4535 as Scientists Watch Dual CMEs for Possible Geomagnetic Effects by Oct. 2

On September 30, 2026, sunspot region AR4535 (also tracked as SIDC Sunspot Group 962) produced a strong C8.6 solar flare that peaked at 02:46 UTC. The region had developed increased magnetic complexity (beta- gamma configuration), which made the near- M- class event notable after a period of relatively quiet solar activity.

A close-up view of a fiery sun with solar flares and magnetic field lines, alongside a distant Earth in space.
AI generated by Grok

On September 30, 2026, sunspot region AR4535 (also tracked as SIDC Sunspot Group 962) produced a strong C8.6 solar flare that peaked at 02:46 UTC. The region had developed increased magnetic complexity (beta- gamma configuration), which made the near- M- class event notable after a period of relatively quiet solar activity.

Image of the Sun highlighting a coronal hole, with the label indicating its location.
Sun news for October 1, 2026. The yellow arrow points to a large coronal hole near the center of the Earth-facing solar disk. Look closely, and you might see a heart shape! A coronal hole is a region in the sun’s atmosphere, or corona, where the magnetic field opens out into space and lets fast solar wind escape. It appears dark because the escaping plasma leaves it cooler and less dense. Now facing Earth, this hole should send its fast wind our way by October 3, possibly bringing G1 (minor) geomagnetic storms and auroras. The GOES-19 SUVI instrument captured this view in its 195 angstrom wavelength channel at 7:32 UTC on October 1. Image via NOAA.

The flare was associated with a coronal mass ejection (CME). SOHO/LASCO C2 imagery first detected the CME around 03:12 UTC; it had an angular width of roughly 70 degrees and a projected speed of about 450 km/s, along with Type II and Type IV radio emissions. Modeling indicates this CME is mostly westward-directed and is expected to miss Earth or deliver only a weak glancing blow (possibly around October 4 at the earliest).

Separately, a filament eruption on September 28 produced a partial-halo CME that is forecast to deliver a glancing blow to Earth around October 2. NOAA SWPC issued a G1 (minor) geomagnetic storm watch for that date, with possible elevated Kp values (highest forecast three-hour Kp around 4.67 / G1 levels in some windows). High- latitude aurora is the most likely visible effect if conditions align; mid-latitude chances remain limited.

High-resolution image of the Sun captured in 304 Angstroms wavelength, displaying solar flares and surface details.
Sun news for September 29, 2026. This full-disk view shows the sun on the afternoon of September 28, as a long filament to the right of the disk began to erupt. The following views show the solar material released in the eruption billowing out into space. Image via NOAA and NASA/ESA.

Overall solar activity has remained low (mostly C- and B- class flares), with AR4535 and a newer region (AR4544) among the numbered groups on the disk. Forecasters expect continued low activity with a chance of additional C- class flares and a slight chance of M-class events in the coming days. Geomagnetic conditions were quiet through September 30, October 1 under ambient solar wind, with the main potential disturbance tied to the September 28 CME arrival.

The WooGlobe reference (WGA970410) and AI/stock-footage disclosure match typical space-weather video explainers summarizing these events. For real- time updates, check sources such as NOAA SWPC, SIDC, EarthSky’s daily sun news, or SolarHam.

Image of the Sun taken with NSO/GONG at 677nm, showing active regions AR4535 and AR4544, captured from Learmonth, Australia.
Sun news October 1, 2026. Here’s today’s sun – with the most active regions labeled – as of 5 UTC this morning, as seen from Learmonth Solar Observatory in Australia. Original image, without labels, via NSO/GONG. Data acquired by GONG instruments operated by NISP/ NSO/ AURA/ NSF with contribution from NOAA, and labeling by EarthSky. Armando Caussade posted today’s sun. Why are east and west on the sun reversed?