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.
Germany faces a projected need for significant additional dispatchable (“secured” or controllable) power plant capacity by 2035, alongside currently low gas storage levels heading into winter and large investment requirements for the energy transition.
A KfW study (based on Prognos calculations, released around mid- October 2026) estimates that reaching climate neutrality by 2045 requires total investments of roughly 5.7- 6.4 trillion euros .
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Germany faces a projected need for significant additional dispatchable (“secured” or controllable) power plant capacity by 2035, alongside currently low gas storage levels heading into winter and large investment requirements for the energy transition.
These points align with official assessments and recent reporting.
Controllable capacity shortfall
The Bundesnetzagentur’s security- of- supply monitoring (published around September 2025, with ongoing discussion into 2026) projects that Germany will need up to 22.4 GW of additional controllable capacity by 2035 in a target scenario in which renewables expansion, grid build- out, and demand flexibility proceed on track. In a delayed- transition scenario (slower renewables growth, limited demand flexibility), the figure rises to up to 35.5 GW.
These are gross additional amounts of dispatchable capacity (e.g., gas- fired plants, storage, or other flexible sources) needed to cover periods of low wind and solar output (“Dunkelflaute”), after accounting for plant retirements (including coal phase- out). Net needs are lower in some presentations (roughly 12.5- 25.6 GW in certain net calculations).
The agency has stated that supply can remain secure if this capacity is built, and it supports the federal government’s planned power-plant strategy and capacity mechanism. The government has targeted new gas (hydrogen- ready) capacity on the order of around 10- 20 GW in the nearer term, with auctions planned.
Current installed capacity includes substantial renewables (roughly 186 GW of the ~274 GW total net rated capacity in recent data), but intermittent sources have low-capacity credit during prolonged low- output periods, so firm backup remains essential as coal exits.
Gas storage and winter outlook
German gas storage levels have been notably low, around 60- 61% full in mid-to- late October 2026, well below year- earlier levels (e.g., ~75%). Official targets (such as high fill rates by 1 November) have been viewed as difficult or unattainable in some assessments.
The Bundesnetzagentur has described the situation as serious but has not seen an acute supply risk so far, attributing low injections partly to market and trading strategies; LNG terminals have spare capacity, and additional winter supply contracts have been secured (costing hundreds of millions of euros).
New or evolving EU rules (including methane emission requirements for imports) have added complexity and potential costs or delays for some suppliers; the European Commission has discussed timelines.
Plans are advancing for a strategic national gas reserve (around 24 TWh) that would replace or supplement mandatory storage fill targets after March 2027, intended as crisis backup rather than routine seasonal storage.
Investment needs for the energy transition
A KfW study (based on Prognos calculations, released around mid- October 2026) estimates that reaching climate neutrality by 2045 requires total investments of roughly 5.7- 6.4 trillion euros (commonly rounded to ~6 trillion), or about 290 billion euros per year on average from 2025- 2045. Transport accounts for the largest share (~45%), followed by energy (~25%), buildings (~22%), and industry (~8%).
Much of this replaces investments that would have been needed anyway in a fossil- based path; the additional and net climate- related investment is substantially lower (estimates in the range of ~65 billion euros per year or higher depending on accounting).
Private actors (businesses and households) would bear the large majority; the public sector share is around 12%. The energy sector alone involves major spending on renewables, grids, and related infrastructure.
In short, the capacity gap figures come directly from the network regulator’s scenario analysis and highlight the need for firm backup alongside renewables growth.
Low storage is a current seasonal concern that authorities are monitoring and mitigating without declaring an emergency, while the multi- trillion- euro investment path reflects the scale of the long- term transformation. Outcomes will depend heavily on the pace of new plant construction, flexibility measures, renewables and grid expansion, and external factors such as weather and import conditions.
Flare ribbons act as visible “footprints” of solar flares, revealing that the hidden energy- release process high in the Sun’s corona is fragmented and bursty rather than smooth.
Magnetic reconnection in the solar corona is the process in which oppositely directed magnetic field lines break and rejoin into a new configuration, converting stored magnetic energy into heat, bulk plasma motion, and accelerated particles. It is the central engine of solar flares, many coronal mass ejections (CMEs), and is widely believed to contribute to coronal heating.
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Flare ribbons act as visible “footprints” of solar flares, revealing that the hidden energy- release process high in the Sun’s corona is fragmented and bursty rather than smooth.
Solar flares are the most powerful explosions in the Solar System. They are triggered by magnetic reconnection: twisted magnetic field lines in the corona snap and reconfigure into a simpler state, suddenly releasing stored energy equivalent to millions or billions of hydrogen bombs. This energy can drive coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that produce aurorae on Earth but can also disrupt radio communications, GPS, spacecraft electronics, and power grids.
Direct observation of the reconnection site itself is difficult because the corona is faint and hidden by the Sun’s glare. Researchers led by Marcel Corchado Albelo (NSF National Solar Observatory / Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope ambassador) therefore focused on flare ribbons, bright, elongated structures in the chromosphere formed when plasma and high- energy particles slam back down along magnetic field lines. These ribbons are the surface footprints of the flare.
Recent 3- D models had suggested that fine- scale substructure (irregularities and fragments) in the ribbons is linked to fragmentation of the reconnecting current sheet higher up. The team developed a quantitative method to track how the spatial complexity of the ribbon edges evolves over time. They first validated it on synthetic (simulated) data, then applied it to a real M6.5- class flare observed by NASA’s Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) on 22 June 2015.
Key findings:
Energy deposition is not a single smooth event. The ribbon breaks into fragments of different sizes and deposits energy in intermittent bursts.
Greater spatial complexity (more intricate, multi- scale irregularities in the ribbon shapes) coincides with the flare’s most intense phase, faster energy release and stronger X-ray emission.
This provides the first experimental demonstration of a physical link between the irregular ribbon shapes observed at the surface and the fragmented structure of the energy- conversion region (current sheet) in the corona.
As Corchado Albelo put it: “For the first time we have experimentally shown a physical relationship between the irregular shapes we observe, and the structure of the energy conversion region… We can diagnose what’s happening in the energy conversion region by studying the irregularities of these shapes.” Co- author Maria Kazachenko noted that the work supplies the long- missing quantitative observational test of earlier simulations.
The paper (“Evolution of Spatial Complexity in Flare Ribbon Substructure and Its Relationship to Magnetic Reconnection Dynamics,” The Astrophysical Journal) concludes that the buildup of ribbon spatial complexity across multiple scales can serve as an observational proxy for current- sheet fragmentation.
While the method alone does not enable flare forecasting, it improves physical understanding of how flares release energy and will help refine models. The technique is designed to take advantage of the even higher resolution of instruments such as the Inouye Solar Telescope.
In short, by carefully measuring the messy, evolving outlines of bright ribbons lower in the atmosphere, scientists can “read” the invisible, fragmented explosions occurring far above them.
NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of a solar flare—as seen in the bright flash on the right side—on Sept. 10, 2017. The image shows a combination of wavelengths of extreme ultraviolet light that highlights the extremely hot material in flares, which has been colorized. There’s a lot to learn about flaring and the ever-changing sun itself, and new research made progress in understanding its flaring behavior. Credit: NASA/SDO
Magnetic reconnection in the solar corona is the process in which oppositely directed magnetic field lines break and rejoin into a new configuration, converting stored magnetic energy into heat, bulk plasma motion, and accelerated particles. It is the central engine of solar flares, many coronal mass ejections (CMEs), and is widely believed to contribute to coronal heating.
Why it happens in the corona
The corona is the Sun’s outermost atmospheric layer, extremely tenuous, highly ionized plasma at temperatures of 1- 2 million K (or far hotter in active regions and flares).
In this environment the magnetic field is “frozen- in” to the plasma under the ideal magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) approximation: plasma and field lines move together.
Over time, photospheric motions twist, shear, and braid the field lines that thread up into the corona. This stores free magnetic energy in non- potential configurations (currents).
Where oppositely directed field lines are pressed together, a thin current sheet forms. Inside the current sheet the ideal- MHD approximation breaks down: finite resistivity (or other non- ideal effects such as anomalous resistivity, kinetic processes, or turbulence) allows the field lines to diffuse across one another, break, and reconnect.
The basic geometry and energy release
Classic two- dimensional cartoon:
Inflow of plasma and magnetic flux toward the current sheet.
At a localized diffusion region (or X- point), field lines break and rejoin.
Outflow of reconnected plasma along the sheet at roughly the Alfvén speed, forming jets.
Newly reconnected field lines relax into a lower- energy state (often appearing as post- flare loops).
The released magnetic energy appears as:
Thermal energy (heating the plasma to 10–30 MK or more in flares),
Kinetic energy (bulk flows and turbulence),
Non- thermal particle acceleration (producing hard X-rays, radio bursts, and the energetic particles that create flare ribbons when they impact the chromosphere).
In three dimensions the process is richer. The reconnecting current sheet frequently fragments into many smaller sites, magnetic islands (plasmoids), and turbulent structures. This multi- scale fragmentation produces the bursty, intermittent energy release observed in flares and is directly linked to the irregular substructure seen in flare ribbons.
Observational consequences
Because the corona itself is faint and the reconnection site is often obscured, we usually observe the secondary effects:
Bright flare ribbons in the chromosphere (footpoints of newly reconnected field lines),
Hot flare loops,
Soft and hard X- ray emission,
Radio bursts,
CMEs when a large-scale flux rope is ejected.
High- resolution observations (IRIS, SDO/AIA, and especially the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope) now resolve fine- scale ribbon structure that serves as a diagnostic of the fragmented reconnection occurring high above.
Theoretical context
Early models (Sweet- Parker) predicted slow reconnection rates inconsistent with explosive flares. Faster regimes (Petschek- like shocks, plasmoid-mediated reconnection, turbulent reconnection) allow the rapid energy release actually observed.
Modern 3- D simulations show that the current sheet becomes unstable to the tearing- mode instability, breaking into a hierarchy of plasmoids that enable efficient, bursty reconnection, precisely the picture supported by the recent flare- ribbon complexity studies.
In short, magnetic reconnection is the Sun’s way of relieving magnetic stress in the corona: field lines that can no longer remain in a highly sheared state “snap” and rearrange, liberating energy that powers some of the most dramatic phenomena in the solar system.
This is a depiction of the sun’s magnetic fields overlaid on an image of the sun captured in extreme ultraviolet light by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory on March 12, 2016. The churning, rotating fields eventually break and then reconnect to the sun in a more stable and straightforward configuration, releasing flares. Credit: NASA/SDO/AIA/LMSAL
Evolution of Spatial Complexity in Flare Ribbon Substructure and Its Relationship to Magnetic Reconnection Dynamics
Core idea
Three- dimensional flare models predict that fine- scale structure (substructure) in chromospheric flare ribbons is produced by fragmentation of the reconnecting current sheet high in the corona (via the plasmoid, tearing-mode instability).
The authors develop and test a quantitative method to measure how that ribbon substructure evolves, showing that increasing spatial complexity acts as an observable proxy for the hidden coronal reconnection dynamics.
Method
Extract the bright leading edge (front) of the flare ribbons from high-resolution imaging.
Quantify its morphology and complexity using two fractal- geometry tools:
Box- counting dimension, a global measure of multi- scale roughness and complexity of the boundary.
Correlation Dimension Mapping (CDM), a more local measure of how complexity varies along the ribbon and over time (adapted from other fields).
They first validated the pipeline on synthetic (simulated) observations, then applied it to real data.
Observations
Event: Eruptive M6.5- class flare on 2015 June 22 in NOAA AR 12371 (near disk center).
Primary data: IRIS 1330 Å slit-jaw imager (high- cadence, high- resolution views of the ribbons).
When the ribbon boundary develops more multi- spatial- scale features (higher box- counting dimension), both hard X- ray emission and magnetic reconnection rates reach their strongest values.
Flare- ribbon complexity measured by CDM shows a moderate correlation with:
Non- thermal velocity in the IRIS Si IV 1402.77 Å line (especially in the negative- polarity ribbon),
Reconnection flux rates in ribbons of both magnetic polarities.
There is a power- law- like relationship between reconnection flux rate and box- counting dimension during the impulsive phase.
Overall, the progressive buildup of spatial complexity across multiple scales tracks the intensity of energy release.
Interpretation and conclusion
The irregular, multi- scale shapes of the ribbon fronts are not random surface noise. They map the fragmented, bursty nature of the coronal current sheet (plasmoid formation, merging, and cascading reconnection).
Therefore, “the buildup of the spatial complexity of the ribbons at multiple spatial scales can serve as an observational proxy for current- sheet fragmentation in the corona.”
This provides the first quantitative observational confirmation of predictions from recent 3- D MHD simulations. The technique is designed to be even more powerful with the higher spatial resolution of the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope.
The full paper (open access) includes detailed figures of the ribbon tracking, complexity time series, correlations, and comparison with synthetic data. You can read or download it directly from the IOP link or the arXiv PDF.
Authors: Marcel F. Corchado Albelo, Maria D. Kazachenko, Ryan J. French, Vadim M. Uritsky, Emily Mason, Cole A. Tamburri, Rahul Yadav, and Benjamin J. Lynch
Abstract
Recent three-dimensional flare models suggest that flare ribbon substructure is linked to the fragmentation of the reconnecting current sheet in the corona. Flare ribbon substructure can therefore potentially serve as a unique diagnostic tool for physical processes in the flare current sheet. In this paper, we describe a new method to quantify the evolution of ribbon substructure that first extracts the ribbon’s bright leading edge and then quantifies its morphology using the box-counting dimension and correlation dimension mapping (CDM). We first test our method using synthetic observations. We then apply it to an M6.5-class solar flare on 2015 June 22 observed by the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) 1330 Å slit-jaw imager. We find that when the flare ribbon boundary has more multiple-spatial-scale features (a higher box-counting dimension), hard X-ray emission and magnetic reconnection rates are the strongest. We also find that the flare ribbon complexity characterized by CDM has a moderate correlation with the IRIS Si IV 1402.77 Å nonthermal velocity (in the negative polarity ribbon) and reconnection flux rates (in ribbons of both magnetic polarities). We conclude that the buildup of the spatial complexity of the ribbons at multiple spatial scales can serve as an observational proxy for current-sheet fragmentation in the corona.
The El Hierro wind/storage electricity system has the name Gorona del Viento. The system started operating in 2013. The Gorona del Viento entity has a website with large portions in English where you can go to see their claims, and measure those against the actual performance in real life. From the opening page:
An island 100% renewable energy. . . . Gorona del Viento El Hierro, S.A.´s Wind-Pumped Hydro Power Station is designed to supply the Meridian Island with electrical energy derived from clean, renewable energy sources such as water and wind. The Wind Farm has capacity to fully meet El Hierro´s demand for electricity.
In my post several days ago on October 18, I recounted the story of how ignorant Chinese Communist Party ideologues in the late 1950s convinced themselves that they knew how to achieve limitless agricultural production by just ordering each community to produce large, arbitrary amounts of food. Do you want to double grain production? Then just plant twice as many seeds in the same acreage! The ideologues had no idea how agriculture actually worked in the real world. Within a couple of years, there was widespread famine, probably the largest in world history. Tens of millions died horrible deaths of starvation.
At the end of that post I noted that, here in the West, equally ignorant ideologues were engaged, actually for a few decades now, in ordering up an energy transition to replace electricity generation by fossil fuels with generation mostly by intermittent wind and sun. Today’s energy transition ideologues have a lack of knowledge of how an energy grid works that is comparable to the ignorance of the Chinese ideologues of agriculture. How is this one working out?
In the arena of the energy transition, various entire countries, and U.S. states, have offered up their whole populations as guinea pigs for this grand experiment conducted by people who have no idea what they are doing. Germany, the UK, California and New York are prominent examples. And then at the other end of the scale, we have a small island named El Hierro off the coast of Spain. El Hierro only has about 11,000 people, but in 2008 it set out to show the world how to do a full transition to an electric system powered only by wind turbines backed up by a hydro-electric energy storage system.
I have reported on the progress of the El Hierro system multiple times, for example here in 2022, here in 2023, and here in 2024. But it has been more than two years since my last update. So let’s check in.
What makes El Hierro significant is that the promoters actually thought they were going to make a full-time grid based just on the wind turbines and storage. We know that because they have said so repeatedly. But somehow, in their quasi-religious devotion to the cause, they never took time to do the straightforward arithmetic calculations that would have revealed what makes this unworkable.
The El Hierro wind/storage electricity system has the name Gorona del Viento. The system started operating in 2013. The Gorona del Viento entity has a website with large portions in English where you can go to see their claims, and measure those against the actual performance in real life. From the opening page:
An island 100% renewable energy.. . . Gorona del Viento El Hierro, S.A.´s Wind-Pumped Hydro Power Station is designed to supply the Meridian Island with electrical energy derived from clean, renewable energy sources such as water and wind.The Wind Farm has capacity to fully meet El Hierro´s demand for electricity.The surplus wind energy which is not consumed by the Island´s population is used to pump water from a lower reservoir to a higher reservoir. This water is stored in the upper reservoir and used to produce electricity by means of a hidraulic jump at times when the wind power is inadequate.
(Emphasis added.). They explicitly brag that the island will have “100% renewable energy,” and that the wind farm “has the capacity” to fully meet the demand for electricity. The wind farm actually has well more than that “capacity” — if nameplate “capacity” were the relevant factor in determining if a generation system can supply demand as it appears. Read on in the website, and you find out that the wind farm has a nameplate capacity of 11.5 MW, whereas average electricity demand on the island is less than 5 MW. So there is well more than a 2x “overbuild.” With a big elevated pumped reservoir to store energy for when the wind isn’t blowing, surely that should be sufficient to meet the goal.
After the first few years of operation, in 2018 Gorona del Viento started putting out some detailed statistics on the performance of the system. This link goes to a page containing further links to individual pages with the statistics for 2018 and succeeding years. In the first year reported, 2018, the wind/storage system provided 56% of the electricity for the island, with the remainder provided by a diesel generator that they had (thankfully) kept as backup. But then it never really got better. In 2019 it was 54%; in 2020, 42%; in 2021, 48%; in 2022, 48%; and in 2023, only 35%; for 2024 45%; and for 2025, 44%. Here is their bar chart for 2023:
“Llanos Blancos” refers to the backup diesel system.
So the headline page brags about “100% renewable energy,” but in actual performance the best they have ever achieved over a full year is barely over 50%, and the last time they broke 50% was in 2019.
Why can’t they get more than that from this seemingly overbuilt system? Because there are long stretches where the wind does not blow. During those stretches the storage reservoir gets emptied and can’t be refilled. My 2022 post mentioned above linked to a calculation by a guy named Roger Andrews at the Energy Matters website showing that, to reach self-sufficiency with just a wind/storage system, El Hierro would need about double the wind turbine capacity and some 40 times the storage capacity (to deal with worst-case wind droughts). Even if they could afford such a reservoir, they have no place on the island to put it.
Meanwhile, in the face of the experience of El Hierro, places like New York, California, Germany and the UK continue to plow forward as if wind/solar/storage electricity systems can work. It’s as if it’s not possible to learn from experience.
Just 3% (specifically 3.2%) of the world’s glaciers, those ending in lakes, oceans, or ice shelves, account for more than half of global glacier ice loss.
The 57% faster loss rate refers specifically to lake- terminating glaciers compared with land- terminating glaciers.
As the climate warms, proglacial lakes are becoming more common.
Many currently land- terminating glaciers are expected to start ending in lakes, which could accelerate their mass loss beyond what models that ignore terminus type would predict.
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Just 3% (specifically 3.2%) of the world’s glaciers, those ending in lakes, oceans, or ice shelves, account for more than half of global glacier ice loss.
A study led by researchers from the University of Birmingham and the University of Leeds, published in Nature Communications (23 October 2026), examined 216,502 glaciers worldwide (excluding the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets). These water- terminating glaciers lost an estimated 134 billion tonnes of ice per year between 2000 and 2019.
Key findings
These glaciers represent only about 3.2% of the total number but cover more than half of the world’s glacier area because they tend to be much larger than land- terminating ones.
Breakdown of terminus types: ~96.8% end on land, 1.6% in lakes, 1.5% in the ocean, and 0.1% on ice shelves.
Mass loss shares (2000–2019): land- terminating glaciers ~49.4%; lake-terminating ~24.0%; marine- terminating ~22.8%; shelf-terminating ~3.9%. The water- contact group therefore contributed slightly over half of total loss.
After controlling for climate, size, and elevation, lake- terminating glaciers lost ice ~57% faster (relative to their size) than land– terminating ones. They also flow ~10% faster on average; ocean- terminating glaciers flow ~44% faster.
Why lake- ending glaciers lose ice faster
Possible mechanisms include calving (large ice chunks breaking off as icebergs) and melting of ice below the waterline by lake water. The exact relative contributions of the lakes themselves versus glacier size and shape remain under investigation. Lake- terminating glaciers occur in every major glacier region and, in most regions, lose ice faster than land- or ocean- ending ones.
Implications
Many models used to project glacier change, sea- level rise, water resources, and hazards do not fully account for lake- terminating glaciers.
The study provides a new global classification (freely available) to help improve those projections.
As the climate warms, more glaciers are shifting types: some ocean- ending glaciers in the Arctic are retreating onto land (potentially slowing loss), while growing proglacial lakes are turning land- ending glaciers into lake- ending ones (potentially accelerating loss).
Lead researcher Dr Joe Mallalieu (research done at Birmingham, now at Leeds) noted that lake- ending glaciers “really stand out” for rapid ice loss, and understanding the causes is especially important as glacier lakes become more common. Co-author Dr Nicholas Barrand (University of Birmingham) highlighted the value of combining expanded global datasets to compare glacier behaviour across settings.
Paper: Mallalieu et al. (2026), “Global-scale variability of glacier velocity and mass loss across terminus environments,” Nature Communications (DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-78654-y).
The 57% faster loss rate refers specifically to lake- terminating glaciers compared with land- terminating glaciers.
What the number means
After researchers controlled for major confounding factors (climate, glacier size, and elevation), lake- ending glaciers still lost mass ~57% faster relative to their size than land- ending glaciers during 2000- 2019.
In other words:
It is not simply that lake glaciers are bigger (though they often are).
It is a higher specific mass- loss rate (ice lost per unit area or volume), once size and other variables are accounted for.
How the comparison was made
The team analysed 216,502 glaciers worldwide (excluding the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets) and classified them by terminus type:
Land- terminating
Lake- terminating
Ocean (marine)- terminating
Ice- shelf- terminating
They then compared ice- flow speeds and mass-change rates across these categories.
Statistical controls removed the influence of climate, overall size, and elevation so the remaining difference could be more confidently linked to the terminus environment itself.
Why lake- ending glaciers lose ice faster
Two main physical processes are thought to drive the elevated rates:
Calving: Large blocks of ice break off the glacier front into the lake as icebergs. This removes ice much more rapidly than surface melting alone.
Subaqueous (underwater) melting: Relatively warmer lake water contacts the submerged ice front and melts it from below the waterline, undercutting the glacier and further promoting calving.
These processes are largely absent (or far weaker) for glaciers that end on dry land.
Supporting observations
Lake- terminating glaciers flow ~10% faster on average than land- terminating ones (ocean- terminating glaciers flow ~44% faster).
Lake- ending glaciers occur in every major glacier region and, in most regions, show higher specific mass- loss rates than both land- and ocean- ending glaciers.
Why this matters
As the climate warms, proglacial lakes are becoming more common.
Many currently land- terminating glaciers are expected to start ending in lakes, which could accelerate their mass loss beyond what models that ignore terminus type would predict.
Conversely, some marine- terminating glaciers that retreat onto land may slow down.
Accurately capturing the ~57% relative difference therefore improves projections of future sea- level rise, regional water resources, and glacier-related hazards.
Global-scale variability of glacier velocity and mass loss across terminus environments
The 57% figure refers to the specific (area- normalised) mass- loss rate of lake- terminating glaciers.
In the paper (Nature Communications, 2026), the authors state:
“specific (area- normalised) mass loss rates at lake- terminating glaciers are 57% greater than those at land- and marine-terminating glaciers.”
Precise meaning
After applying linear mixed- effects statistical models that controlled for climate (temperature and precipitation) plus a range of geometric and topographic factors (elevation, area, debris cover, polar deviation, etc.), lake-terminating glaciers still showed significantly greater specific mass loss than land- terminating glaciers.
The model- predicted difference was −0.162 m water equivalent per year (m w.e. a⁻¹). Relative to the land- terminating baseline, this equates to 57% greater losses.
Raw (uncontrolled) numbers for context
Median specific mass- change rate (2000– 2019):
Lake- terminating: −0.490 m w.e. a⁻¹
Land- terminating: −0.245 m w.e. a⁻¹
Marine- terminating: −0.239 m w.e. a⁻¹
So, the raw median for lake glaciers is roughly double that of land or marine glaciers. After statistical controls, the residual difference shrinks to the 57% figure, isolating the association with terminus type itself.
Why “specific” (area- normalised) matters
Total ice loss is dominated by the large size of many non- land glaciers.
The specific rate removes the size effect and shows how rapidly ice is being lost per unit area. The 57% value therefore indicates a higher intensity of loss at lake termini, not merely a size effect.
Note on the comparison
The abstract groups the comparison as “57% greater than those at land- and marine- terminating glaciers” because the land and marine medians are nearly identical.
In the detailed model results the primary contrast is with land- terminating glaciers (the statistical baseline). Marine- and shelf-terminating glaciers actually showed slightly lower specific losses than land-terminating ones after controls.
In short: once climate, size, elevation and other factors are accounted for, lake-ending glaciers still lose mass ~57% faster per unit area than land- ending ones.
The environment in which a glacier terminates can strongly influence its behaviour, stability and future evolution, yet the relationship between terminus type and glacier dynamics at the global scale remains poorly constrained. Here we present a globally-complete classification of glacier termini distinguishing between land, lake, marine and shelf environments, and integrate it with datasets of glacier geometry, dynamics and climate. We show that although lake-, marine- and shelf-terminating glaciers comprise only 3.2% of glaciers globally, they account for over half of global glacier area and mass loss. We also show that lake- and marine-terminating glaciers flow, on average, 10% and 44% faster than land-terminating glaciers, respectively. Furthermore, specific (area-normalised) mass loss rates at lake-terminating glaciers are 57% greater than those at land- and marine-terminating glaciers. Our findings underscore the need for improved representation of non-land glacier termini in models of glacier evolution and sea-level rise, and suggest that distinguishing the environmental and geometric controls of termini on glacier dynamics remains an important challenge for future research.
Recent announcements by South Korea and Taiwan that they were open to investing $54 billion and $80 billion, respectively, in a new Alaska pipeline that would transport natural gas from Arctic oilfields along a pathway similar to that of the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline have Alaskans both excited and yet skeptical. They have, after all, been waiting for decades.
Recent announcements by South Korea and Taiwan that they were open to investing $54 billion and $80 billion, respectively, in a new Alaska pipeline that would transport natural gas from Arctic oilfields along a pathway similar to that of the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline have Alaskans both excited and yet skeptical. They have, after all, been waiting for decades.
Should the new pipeline, and new mining projects, come to fruition, by the early 2030s, the 49th state could be in the midst of a new (liquid) gold rush – making the $7.2 million Alaska Purchase, authorized by Secretary of State William Seward, a better bargain than ever.
To cartoonists like Thomas Nast, the Alaska Purchase of 1867 was a bad joke, Seward’s Folly. Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune called it “Seward’s Arctic Circus.” A year later, President Andrew Johnson was (unsuccessfully) impeached.
While the laughing stopped with the 1896 Klondike Gold Rush, it was the discovery of “black gold” that eventually led to the long-running war against development of Alaska’s vast mineral resources. Even today, the biggest risk factor for investors in Alaskan minerals is political — President Biden illegally canceled Alaska oil and gas leases on his first day in office.
Already strong opposition to oil production in Alaska’s North Slope was squelched in the wake of the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973. The long lines for scarce gasoline enabled President Nixon to win passage of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act. By 1977, the 800-mile, 48-inch-diameter pipeline began transporting crude oil from Prudhoe Bay to the Valdez Marine Terminal.
As soon as the price of gasoline dropped to pre-embargo levels, anti-development forces — citing “potential” damage to Alaska’s “fragile” environment — were lobbying President Carter to sign a bill to prevent further development of oil and gas resources on the Arctic coastal plain.
The election of Ronald Reagan as President in 1980 gave hope to the pro-development forces, but the hue and cry in the wake of the Exxon Valdez oil spill left the issue in limbo — where it remained until the election of pro-development President Donald Trump.
While the Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017 officially opened the Arctic Refuge to energy development, the Biden administration suspended Trump-era oil leases on federal lands on Day One. But no sooner than Trump was sworn in for his second term, he again reopened the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas extraction and restored the leases.
Decades of suppression of Alaska oil exploration and development have played a role in the decline in oil production from 2 million barrels per day in the late 1980s to just 420,000 barrels per day today. Alaska natural gas production, however, has remained in the range of 29 to 32 billion cubic feet per year over the past 20 years.
Cook Inlet natural gas is largely used within Alaska for fertilizer production in Kenai and heating and power in Anchorage. In addition, at the Cook Inlet LNG Terminal, natural gas is liquefied for shipment, largely to Japan, under Energy Department licenses. North Slope natural gas has largely been reinjected because there is no pipeline to ship the gas — an estimated 35 trillion cubic feet — to markets.
All that may soon be changing if politics allows. The pipeline (and various mining projects) could soon end decades of frustration for Alaskans and solidify relations with Far East allies, just as new mining projects could ease concerns over foreign (mostly Chinese) control over the U.S. critical minerals supply chain.
The state-owned Alaska Gasline Development Corporation (AGDC) had been developing a plan for an 810-mile, $44 billion pipeline to transport about 3.9 billion cubic feet per day of stranded natural gas from the North Slope for liquefaction at an ice-free port facility in southern Alaska. The project, which would produce up to 20 million tonnes per year of LNG, just needed major financing partners.
Glenfarne Group, LLC, a New York-based development firm, through Glenfarne Alaska LNG, LLC, in 2025 entered into a 75-25 partnership with the AGDC under the banner 8 Star Alaska, which now owns all Alaska LNG project assets, permits, engineering data, and rights-of-way.
With all permits and rights-of-way granted and all engineering and environmental studies completed, the only thing standing in the way of construction has been secure purchase contracts and the financing for construction of the pipeline, liquefaction facilities, and port expansion.
Just this month, both South Korea and Taiwan have stepped up to provide that financing — provided the U.S. and 8 Star Alaska can demonstrate the project will be profitable. The $54 billion South Korean investment announced on October 1 by President Trump was contingent, according to the South Korean government, on finalization of commercial and legal conditions.
Glenfarne said at the time it had lined up commitments for the purchase of 13 million tonnes per year (tpy) but needed another 3 million tpy to support a final investment decision that would make those commitments binding. This includes commitments from Japan’s two largest LNG importers — JERA and Tokyo Gas — for a combined 2 million tpy.
Two weeks later, the second shoe dropped — with Taiwan’s commitment to an offtake investment of $70 to $80 billion to secure a 30% stake in the pipeline project for the next two decades. Taiwan also pledged $4.4 billion in direct equity investment. These two major commitments have brought the long-awaited Alaska LNG project closer than ever to fruition.
The natural gas pipeline is not the only good news for Alaskans eager for economic development and jobs. According to the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, mining today supports 12,400 direct, indirect and induced jobs for Alaskans and brings $1.1 billion to over 500 local businesses for goods and services. Mining also brings in $425 million in royalty payments to Alaska Native Corporations.
In mid-September, the U.S. government announced it had become a 10% owner of Trilogy Metals – after closing a $35.6 million investment aimed at advancing Trilogy’s Upper Kobuk Minerals Projects (UKMP) in northwestern Alaska. The properties are held by Ambler Metals, a 50-50 joint venture between Trilogy and Australian miner South32.
UKMP is a potential new U.S. source of copper, zinc, and other metals vital to domestic supply chains. Trilogy’s Arctic project was added earlier this year to the FAST-41 program that seeks to improve coordination among federal agencies to accelerate permitting for major infrastructure and critical minerals projects.
The project, long opposed by anti-development forces, anticipates a 13-year mine life averaging annual production of 149 million pounds of copper and 173 million pounds of zinc plus smaller quantities of lead, gold, and silver. The only federal permit needed is a Section 404 authorization, which Trilogy hopes to have completed by late 2028. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on September 18 opened a 45-day comment period regarding the Section 404 permit.
In addition, the Alaska DNR lists numerous large-mine projects in the permitting or development stage, including Graphite One, the Palmer copper-zinc project, the Niblack copper-gold-zinc deposit, and the Bokan-Dotson Ridge rare-earth elements project. Another proposed mining project, the copper-gold-molybdenum open pit Pebble Mine project in southwest Alaska, remains blocked by federal environmental rulings and ongoing litigation.
A study published October 23, 2026, in the Cell Press journal Cell Reports Sustainability estimates that common reporting methods may underestimate average PFAS (“forever chemicals”) concentrations in U.S. drinking water by roughly half (or more).
The 4 ppt limit refers to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) legally enforceable Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) of 4.0 parts per trillion (ppt), also expressed as nanograms per liter (ng/L), for two of the most studied PFAS compounds: PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) and PFOS (perfluorooctanesulfonic acid).
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A study published October 23, 2026, in the Cell Press journal Cell Reports Sustainability estimates that common reporting methods may underestimate average PFAS (“forever chemicals”) concentrations in U.S. drinking water by roughly half (or more).
Researchers led by Gehendra Kharel (Texas Christian University), with coauthors from TCU, the University of Florida, and Oklahoma State University, reanalyzed more than 1.8 million PFAS measurement records from the EPA’s national drinking- water monitoring data (January 2026 release). The data covered 25 PFAS detected at least once across 9,991 community water systems. About 98% of individual test results fell below the EPA’s minimum reporting levels (MRLs), the concentrations labs can reliably measure and report and are typically treated as zero when calculating averages.
Using statistical models to estimate possible concentrations for the “<MRL” results (including generating many possible values per result), the team found that treating below- limit results as zero captured only about 44% of the modeled average concentration of those 25 PFAS. In other words, conventional summaries left out more than half of the estimated total.
Key modeled figures include:
Combined average for the 25 PFAS: roughly 15.0 ng/L (parts per trillion) under the primary model (95% uncertainty interval ~13.8– 16.3 ng/L), versus ~6.6 ng/L when zeros are used.
For the six PFAS covered by the EPA’s enforceable drinking- water limits (including PFOA and PFOS): conventional average ~2.6 ng/L, modeled estimate ~5.2 ng/L.
The study focuses on how measurements are summarized statistically; it does not claim the EPA’s lab testing itself is flawed, collect new samples, assess individual water systems’ safety, or quantify personal exposure and health effects.
The authors note that “below the reporting limit does not mean zero”, and that this distinction matters for understanding overall occurrence. Modeling also suggested some additional sampling locations could approach or exceed comparison thresholds near the EPA’s 4 ppt limits for certain compounds, though results varied by model.
PFAS are persistent synthetic chemicals linked to health concerns (cancers, cholesterol issues, reproductive effects, etc.) and found in products that can enter soil and water.
The EPA has set enforceable limits for a subset of them. The findings highlight a known statistical challenge with left- censored environmental data rather than new contamination discoveries.
The 4 ppt limit refers to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) legally enforceable Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) of 4.0 parts per trillion (ppt), also expressed as nanograms per liter (ng/L), for two of the most studied PFAS compounds: PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) and PFOS (perfluorooctanesulfonic acid).
Background on the Limit
In April 2024, the EPA finalized the first National Primary Drinking Water Regulation (NPDWR) for six PFAS under the Safe Drinking Water Act. Key details include:
PFOA and PFOS: Individual MCLs of 4.0 ppt each.
The non- enforceable Maximum Contaminant Level Goals (MCLGs) for both are set at zero, because the EPA determined they are likely carcinogenic to humans and there is no known safe threshold for cancer risk.
Other regulated PFAS (as of the 2024 rule): PFHxS, PFNA, and HFPO- DA (GenX chemicals) each have MCLs of 10 ppt; mixtures of certain PFAS are regulated via a Hazard Index of 1.
Public water systems must complete initial monitoring by 2027 and achieve compliance with the MCLs by 2029 (with some later proposals discussed for possible deadline extensions to 2031 for PFOA/PFOS while keeping the 4 ppt levels).
Compliance is based on running annual averages. The 4 ppt level was chosen as the lowest concentration that is both protective of public health and technologically and economically feasible for water systems to achieve and reliably measure.
One ppt is an extremely low concentration, equivalent to about one drop of water in 20 Olympic- sized swimming pools.
Health Risks Associated with PFAS Exposure
PFAS are called “forever chemicals” because they are highly persistent in the environment and the human body (they bioaccumulate). They have been detected in the blood of nearly all Americans tested. Exposure can occur through drinking water, food, consumer products, and other pathways. The EPA and other scientific reviews link certain levels of exposure (especially to PFOA and PFOS) to multiple adverse health effects. Research continues, particularly on low-level, long-term exposure.
Documented or strongly associated risks include:
Cancer: Increased risk of kidney and testicular cancers (and evidence for others in some studies). The EPA classifies PFOA as “likely to be carcinogenic to humans.”
Immune system effects: Reduced ability to fight infections and decreased vaccine response (particularly in children).
Developmental and reproductive effects: Low birth weight, developmental delays in children, decreased fertility, and high blood pressure or preeclampsia in pregnant women.
Cardiovascular and metabolic effects: Elevated cholesterol levels and increased risk of obesity.
Other effects: Interference with hormones, liver effects, and potential impacts on thyroid and other systems.
These associations come from human epidemiological studies and supporting animal research. Risks can occur at very low doses, which is why the MCLG is zero for PFOA and PFOS and why the enforceable MCL was set so low.
Individual risk depends on the specific PFAS, concentration, duration of exposure, and personal factors (age, health status, etc.). Not every exposure at or near 4 ppt will cause harm, but the standards aim to reduce population- level risk.
In the context of the recent modeling study discussed earlier, the national average for the six regulated PFAS was estimated around 5.2 ng/L when accounting for below- reporting- limit results (versus ~2.6 ng/L when treating them as zero).
This is close to or slightly above the 4 ppt individual limits for PFOA/PFOS, illustrating why accurate characterization of low- level contamination matters for understanding overall exposure.
Censoring- aware models quantify systematic underestimation of PFAS occurrence in US drinking- water monitoring
Core Finding
Environmental monitoring data for PFAS (and many other chemicals) frequently report results only as “below the laboratory reporting limit” (minimum reporting level, or MRL). The common practice of treating these non- detects as zero systematically underestimates average concentrations.
Using the EPA’s fifth Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR 5) January 2026 data release (~1.86 million PFAS records from 9,991 community water systems), the authors show that zero- substitution captures only about 44% of the model- estimated population- weighted average concentration for 25 data- identified PFAS analytes. For the six PFAS covered by the 2024 National Primary Drinking Water Regulation (NPDWR), zero-substitution captures about 50%.
Methods (High- Level)
The team treated results below MRLs as left- censored observations rather than zeros.
They developed and validated a censoring- aware multiple- imputation (MI) framework.
This was benchmarked against direct censored maximum likelihood estimation (Cens- MLE), regression on order statistics (ROS), and alternative distributional assumptions (lognormal, gamma, Weibull).
The primary model used a regularized lognormal distribution.
They performed extensive validation (held- out observations, multi- analyte masking, semi- synthetic simulations with known truth) and robustness checks (by water source, system size, marginal family, etc.).
Population- weighted national averages were calculated, with full uncertainty propagation.
Key Quantitative Results
Under the primary regularized lognormal model:
Zero substitution captured 44% of the estimated average for 25 analytes.
Zero substitution captured 50% for the 6 NPDWR PFAS.
PFOA and PFOS together accounted for only 27- 31% of the main censoring gap; other PFAS contributed substantially.
Results were robust: refitting by source- water type or system size changed national estimates by less than 5%.
Near- MCL screening effects (around the 4 ppt / 4.0- 4.05 ng/L threshold for PFOA/PFOS) were modest, the models added only a limited number of additional sampling locations near that threshold.
Important Caveats Stated by the Authors
The analysis examines how measurements are summarized, not regulatory compliance of any specific water system.
It does not quantify actual human exposure, intake dose, toxicity- weighted risk, or health outcomes.
“Sub- MRL concentration contribution” is a model- estimated statistical increment, not a measured physical mass delivered to consumers.
The work supports more transparent, uncertainty- aware interpretation of heavily censored data and can help prioritize where additional sampling or clearer communication of uncertainty would be most useful.
Science for Society Statement (from the paper)
Treating below- limit results as zero can make low- level occurrence appear smaller than the data support. The framework does not determine compliance or health risk, but it can help agencies and utilities decide where additional sampling and clearer communication of uncertainty are needed.
In short, the paper provides rigorous statistical evidence that the widespread convention of zero- substituting non- detects understates national PFAS occurrence estimates in U.S. drinking- water monitoring data, and it offers a reproducible, validated alternative approach for handling such heavily censored datasets.
Title:Censoring-aware models quantify systematic underestimation of PFAS occurrence in US drinking-water monitoring
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