Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
A new study published in Science (October 22, 2026) by researchers including Nicolás Young and Joerg Schaefer of Columbia’s Lamont- Doherty Earth Observatory (part of the Columbia Climate School) finds that the last remnant of the Laurentide Ice Sheet began expanding about 2,000 years ago, potentially marking the start of the next glacial period, but reversed and began retreating around 1960 due to rising temperatures linked to human- caused warming.
The Barnes Ice Cap on Baffin Island (Nunavut, Canada), roughly the size of Delaware and the final surviving piece of the vast Laurentide Ice Sheet that once covered much of Canada and parts of the northern United States, reached a minimum size after about 3,600 years ago.
It then began re- expanding around 2,000 years ago as the climate cooled enough for net ice accumulation. The researchers interpret this renewed growth as the onset of the next glaciation (what is commonly called an “ice age”), even though a full continental- scale ice sheet would have taken many thousands of years (on the order of ~30,000 years) to rebuild.
Key methods and evidence
The ice is frozen to the bedrock (not sliding), which preserved vegetation (mosses, lichen, etc.) that was overrun and killed as the ice advanced. Carbon-14 dating of these plants, combined with data from other nearby ice caps and exposure dating (e.g., beryllium-10 on rocks), allowed reconstruction of the ice-margin timeline.
Historic aerial photos and observations show the ice reached a recent maximum around 1960 and has since retreated (margins averaging ~4 meters per year in recent decades), as summer melt began exceeding winter accumulation.
This challenges model- based views that the next glacial inception was still thousands or tens of thousands of years away under natural (Milankovitch orbital) conditions. The team argues the first renewed ice- sheet growth should count as the beginning of a glacial period. The findings also provide retrospective context for 1970s scientific concerns about a coming ice age: the process had in fact begun, though it would have been gradual and not immediately noticeable.
The paper (“Late Holocene reexpansion of the Laurentide Ice Sheet”) attributes the post- 1960 reversal primarily to anthropogenic greenhouse- gas forcing overwhelming the natural cooling trend from declining summer insolation.
Models suggest the Barnes Ice Cap will disappear entirely within the next few centuries, removing a key nucleation point that historically helped ice sheets expand during cooling phases. Future glacial cycles, if they occur under elevated greenhouse-gas levels, may therefore unfold differently.
In short, the study presents observational evidence that human- driven warming interrupted an emerging glacial period that had already begun in the Arctic remnant of the last major North American ice sheet.
Has anthropogenic warming prevented the next glacial cycle? Young et al. examined the Barnes Ice Cap (Baffin Island, Canada), the last remaining piece of the Laurentide Ice Sheet (LIS), once the largest Pleistocene ice sheet covering much of North America.
After shrinking through much of the early- and mid- Holocene, the LIS began growing again around 2000 years ago but started shrinking once more around 1960. The authors attribute this reversal to anthropogenic greenhouse forcing and present it as evidence that humans caused the termination of the next glaciation.
Abstract (key points)
During interglacials, the Laurentide Ice Sheet retreats to Arctic Canada and reaches a minimum configuration. Its subsequent reexpansion marks the start of the next glaciation.
The Barnes Ice Cap (the last remnant of the most recent LIS) reached its minimum interglacial size after ~3.6 thousand years ago.
It then reexpanded beginning ~2000 years ago, which the authors interpret as the onset of the next glaciation.
This renewed LIS reached maximum dimensions around 1960 CE.
After that, anthropogenic summer warming produced a negative mass balance, ice-margin recession, and the termination of the next glaciation.
This occurred despite ongoing natural decline in summer insolation, illustrating the dominant influence of anomalous greenhouse- gas forcing.
Main findings and methods
The Barnes Ice Cap sits on relatively low- elevation bedrock (~500 m) and is largely cold- based (frozen to its bed), so it preserves rather than erodes underlying vegetation.
Researchers used:
In situ ¹⁰Be surface- exposure dating of bedrock and erratics to show the ice margin retreated rapidly across the modern forefield and inside the present-day margin at 3.56 ± 0.24 ka BP.
Radiocarbon dating of entombed vegetation (mosses and woody plants) that was overrun and killed as the ice advanced, then re- exposed by recent retreat. These “kill dates” document the timing and progressive advance of the ice margin toward its ~1960 historical maximum (a clear trimline). Many ages cluster around the coldest part of the Little Ice Age (~1800 ± 200 CE).
The regional snowline first intersected the Baffin plateau landscape around the start of the Common Era, allowing net ice accumulation and the beginning of re- expansion. Growth continued (with pulses during cooler intervals) until ~1960, after which summer warming reversed the mass balance. Between ~1960 and 2022 the margin retreated 200- 800 m.
Broader implications
The authors argue that the first renewed growth of the LIS remnant should be counted as the start of the next glacial cycle, even though a full continental-scale ice sheet would have taken many millennia to develop.
The modern reversal, driven by human- caused greenhouse -gas increases, interrupted that process. The Barnes Ice Cap is projected to disappear within the coming centuries, removing a historically important nucleation site for future ice- sheet growth.
A companion Perspective in the same issue of Science (“Has the next ice age already come and gone?” by Shaun A. Marcott) discusses the results in the context of orbital (Milankovitch) cycles and anthropogenic disruption of the glacial- interglacial metronome.
The paper is currently listed as free access on the Science website.
Journal:Science, Vol. 394, Issue 6822, pp. 455–459
By April last year it had taken President Trump’s energy dominance agenda less than 60 days to put the entire climate juggernaut, more than 30 years in the making, at risk of collapse.
Bloomberg was then lamenting that “years of climate action” were being “demolished in days”, and sceptics were permitted a little schadenfreude.
Last Tuesday, those elections arrived, and American voters handed the Democrats both the House and the Senate. Liberal tears have turned to champagne.
Trump’s landslide victory in 2024 derailed the climate juggernaut. But last week’s midterms blue wave showed there’s life in the UN green hydra yet
Image: Grok composition
By April last year it had taken President Trump’s energy dominance agenda less than 60 days to put the entire climate juggernaut, more than 30 years in the making, at risk of collapse. Bloomberg was then lamenting that “years of climate action” were being “demolished in days”, and sceptics were permitted a little schadenfreude. For a second term US President working to seal his legacy, nothing can be taken for granted until the midterm elections. Last Tuesday, those elections arrived, and American voters handed the Democrats both the House and the Senate. Liberal tears have turned to champagne. The UN climate hydra, with energy-policy tentacles reaching into every ministry, central bank and development agency on the planet, has been spared what looked like an extinction-level event.
For almost two years, the Trumpian counter-revolution cut off the beast’s heads one after another. America’s second exit from the Paris Agreement took effect on January 27th 2026. Washington then withdrew from 66 international organisations, the UNFCCC and the IPCC among them, after the President had told the UN General Assembly that climate change was the “greatest con job” ever perpetrated on the world. In February, the EPA rescinded the 2009 endangerment finding, the legal keystone of federal greenhouse gas regulation. Now the climate industrial complex, from Turtle Bay to Brussels to the NGO war rooms of Washington, is breathing a great collective sigh of relief. A lame-duck President without the power of the purse is one whose agenda can be slowed, harassed and litigated. What the relief is not, however, is a mandate.
A cost-of-living revolt rebranded as a climate victory
Exit polls had Trump’s approval at 38%, historically low for a president at the midterms, and 89% of voters told CBS that the cost of living was a major or crucial factor in their vote. Nor were voters enamoured of the victors: the Democratic Party, which stands at 29% approval in the latest NBC poll, below even than the 38% for the Republican Party. The Associated Press named the drivers of the blue wave as high prices, the Iran war and concerns over Government corruption. As Charles Rotter noted at Watts Up With That, divided government “may slow some of Trump’s energy rollbacks, but it is just not a climate referendum”.
That has not stopped the green press from treating it as one. Climate Home News, in its COP31 briefing, declared that the mood ahead of the Antalya talks had been “sweetened somewhat by Lula’s surprise re-election in Brazil and American voters delivering a thumbs down to climate change-sceptic Donald Trump”. Grist announced that the sweep “will have profound consequences for climate action”. Scientific American handed its headline to the Union of Concerned Scientists: “It’s a new day in Washington.” The League of Conservation Voters, whose Victory Fund boasts of pouring over $125 million into the campaign, called Trump’s energy agenda “a political disaster for Republicans”. The Sierra Club hailed a “clear rejection” of the Republican “war on affordable clean energy”. And the Sunrise Movement, celebrating the election of its co-founder William Lawrence in Michigan, tweeted “Green New Deal, here we come.”
The less invested corners of the mainstream media tell a different story. Axios ran the headline ‘Democrats’ blue wave leaves climate behind’. Time magazine reported that Texas’s Democratic Senator-elect James Talarico has promised to protect oil-and-gas jobs, that Kansas’s Adam Hamilton campaigned on “all-of-the-above” energy, and that South Carolina’s Annie Andrews called for suspending the federal gas tax. These are not the policies of a party elected to shut down the fossil fuel economy. As Sterling Burnett put it on the Climate Realism Show, quoted by Charles Rotter, Grist is “whistling past the graveyard”: “people didn’t vote for climate change [policy].”
The irony is thick. Voters punished the party in power for living costs driven in large part by the Iran war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Around 20 million barrels a day – about a fifth of world petroleum liquids consumption – and a fifth of global LNG supplies normally pass through that strait. When it closed, nobody reached for a wind turbine. Governments reached for strategic reserves and alternative crude and LNG cargoes. The crisis showed that the world still runs on fossil fuels, and the Hormuz blockade showed that the real threat to Europe was always Neptune, God of the Sea, not Gaia, Goddess of Earth. That the green lobby now claims the electoral fallout of a fossil fuel supply shock as a vote for less fossil fuel use is a feat of political alchemy worthy of the Church of Climate.
The power of the purse and the politics of lawfare
The President retains his veto, and as the MIT Technology Reviewpoints out, neither chamber is anywhere close to the two-thirds majority needed to override it. The green subsidies in Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, largely gutted by the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act, cannot be restored by statute while Trump sits in the Oval Office.
None of this means that the Democrats’ victory is toothless. The House controls the money, and money is the oxygen of the green subsidy machine. Democrats will now write the must-pass appropriations bills. Chellie Pingree, the top Democrat overseeing EPA and Interior funding on the House Appropriations Committee, told Grist: “If you’re not going to spend the money, we have the power to withhold other funding.” Expect every spending deal to come laden with riders forcing the administration to disburse frozen climate grants – and shutdown brinkmanship whenever it refuses.
Then there is the lawfare. Within hours of the results, Robert Garcia, in line to chair the House Oversight Committee, posted a two-word message on X: “LAWYER UP.” His committee is readying investigations into the Trump family’s business dealings, immigration enforcement and much else. Hakeem Jeffries, the presumptive Speaker, told ABC on Sunday that he was a “hard yes” on impeaching Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth. On energy, Politico reported in October that Democrats were plotting a post-midterm reckoning for EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, with document demands, testimony, subpoenas and even impeachment on the table. It was Zeldin who promised last year to drive “a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion”. The high priests of Green have not forgotten.
And the President himself? Trump told House Republicans in January that if they lost the midterms, “they’ll find a reason to impeach me”. Jeffries says only that Democrats “haven’t ruled anything in, and we haven’t ruled anything out”, but prediction markets more than doubled the odds of impeachment by the end of 2027 overnight. Conviction needs 67 Senate votes, which the Democrats do not have. Removal is not the point. The point is to bog the administration down in hearings, subpoenas and court fights, so that the officials who dismantled the climate apparatus spend the next two years defending themselves instead of finishing the job. Victor Davis Hanson has long warned that such opponents do not fight by the ‘Marquess of Queensberry’ rules. The next two years will prove him right.
Antalya’s Hormuz narrative
The timing could not be better for the green ideologues gathering in Antalya for COP31, from November 9th to the 20th. There is talk that the green NGOs and EU climate zealots will be strutting around the meeting rooms with the message that the Trump dalliance with the fossil fuel industry has proved its failure. They will link the cost-of-living crisis perceived by voters directly to Trump’s energy and climate policies. There is little logic in the perceived link. The Hormuz crisis actually showed the world the importance of access to fossil fuels. Renewables are no substitute for the needs of modern industry, especially now with the voracious appetite for baseload power of AI data centres, which could double their share of US electricity by 2030.
But logic has never been the strong suit of the COP circuit. As I wrote last week, the climate establishment has already settled on its storyline, what the World Resources Institute’s David Waskow calls “heat and Hormuz”, referring to the warmer-than-usual summer in the Northern Hemisphere and the blockade of the Persian Gulf strait. Together they have given rise to the European narrative that the only rational route for the West – given the ‘climate crisis’ as signified by last summer’s ‘heat’ – is to turn to ‘renewable energy’. Renewables, the argument goes, do not depend on the whims of “petrostates and dictators”, as Ed Miliband, then Energy Secretary and now Foreign Secretary in Andy Burnham’s Government, righteously proclaimed. UN climate chief Simon Stiell says fossil fuel dependency is “ripping away national security and sovereignty”.
When Hormuz closed, ‘Mad Ed’ vowed to “double down not back down” on Net Zero, an economic illiteracy I dissected in these pages. The imperatives of “climate justice” and the “energy transition” out of fossil fuels, in their view, call for a complete repudiation of the Trumpian legacy in his ‘energy dominance’ policies. To “heat and Hormuz”, the green NGOs and EU delegations will now add a third exhibit: the voters of Ohio, Texas and South Carolina, supposedly having repudiated “drill, baby, drill”.
The COP31 hosts themselves give the game away. Turkey still generates a third of its electricity from coal. Its Energy Minister spent the weeks before the summit pitching the port of Ceyhan as a “global energy hub” for Iraqi oil and Qatari gas, an alternative to Hormuz. Meanwhile UNEP’s latest Emissions Gap Report concedes that 1.5°C is out of reach, and UN chief António Guterres now asks only that any overshoot be “as small and as short as possible”.
On the matter that really animates these gatherings – money – the cupboard is bare. An internal EU document seen by Reuters says there is “no scope” for new climate finance commitments. Europe is busy rearming, and money spent on the military cannot also be spent on solar farms in Africa. A Democratic House cannot reverse that. Nor can it bring the United States back into the UNFCCC. As I argued after last year’s COP30 in Belém, Brazil, America’s walkout from the UN climate club marked an Eisenhower-at-Suez moment for Europe’s pretensions to global climate leadership. That verdict stands.
The real contest is 2028
What the midterms have produced, then, is a stalemate, and the next two years will be contentious. Lame duck Trump will not be able to push through policies via his Energy, Interior and EPA cabinet members with as much vigour, each department now facing a hostile committee chair with subpoena power. But the Democrats will not be able to push their own versions of the energy and climate policies they back either. They can obstruct, investigate and attach riders, but they cannot legislate their way back to the Obama-Biden green agenda while the veto pen remains in the White House. Until January 2029, the US President’s executive authority remains to ensure that America’s energy dominance agenda remains broadly in place.
The danger lies further out. Nothing in the Trumpian counter-revolution is irreversible, and the institutional machinery of the climate consensus remains in place. Given the Leftward lurch in the Democrat party, there is much pork that Democrat politicians can promise their green constituencies. The surge in DSA candidates has been across the board. By the ADL’s count, 106 candidates endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America won last Tuesday, eight of them to the House. Socialists took the mayoralties of Washington, DC and Providence, and won the largest bloc of socialist state legislators ever to sit in Albany, a year after Zohran Mamdani’s election as Mayor of New York. Nithya Raman, backed by the DSA, also won the Los Angeles mayoralty. Yet for the next two years, their wins will have limited impact at the federal policy level.
The longer game is another matter. The broad Leftist alliance of Green and pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel factions within the party, drawn from a mainly young demographic, proved its insurgent strength last Tuesday. It may well emerge as the key dynamic in the 2028 Presidential election. In that case, not only will the Republican party be sunk, but there might be a full reversion to the anti-fossil fuel, pro-Net Zero green policies reminiscent of the Obama and Biden administrations, at precisely the moment when the Hormuz shock should have taught the world the value of secure, affordable hydrocarbons.
The Democrats won by running on affordability, often against the very data centres and utility bills that green mandates negatively impact. If they read their victory as a licence to raise energy costs in the name of the climate, they will discover in 2028 what the Republicans discovered last Tuesday: voters usually punish those who make their lives more expensive and onerous. The hydra has a second life. It need not have a third.
Dr Tilak K. Doshi is the Daily Sceptic’s Energy Editor. He is an economist, a member of the CO2 Coalition and a former (cancelled) contributor to Forbes. Follow him onSubstackandX.
The article (published November 12, 2026, on Universe Today by Andy Tomaswick) argues that space debris is fundamentally a control and economics problem, not merely one of inventory or collection.
The paper frames orbital debris as a nonlinear control problem in a stratified environment rather than a static trash count.
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The article (published November 12, 2026, on Universe Today by Andy Tomaswick) argues that space debris is fundamentally a control and economics problem, not merely one of inventory or collection.
It draws on a preprint paper by Dr. Slava Turyshev (NASA JPL), “Orbital Debris in Earth Orbit: Operations, Stability, Control, and Market Formation” (arXiv:2603.23552; later published in Acta Astronautica).
The paper frames orbital debris as a nonlinear control problem in a stratified environment rather than a static trash count.
Common mental models of “space garbage trucks” collecting defunct satellites and tools for return to Earth do not match reality.
Starlink satellites alone performed 144,404 collision- avoidance maneuvers in the six months from December 2024 to May 2025, roughly one per satellite per week on average.
Lower orbits (~500- 600 km, used by Starlink, Kuiper, and similar constellations) are partially self- cleaning due to residual atmosphere; debris typically reenters in a few years.
Higher orbits (~850 km) host long- lived, uncontrolled high- mass objects such as spent rocket stages that can remain for decades or centuries. These dominate long-term risk: ESA data cited in the paper attribute ~96% of the long- term collision risk to inactive objects. Even if launches stopped tomorrow, collisions would generate new fragments faster than natural decay clears them (Kessler syndrome dynamics).
Turyshev identifies three primary levers for near -term sustainability:
High- confidence, rapid post- mission disposal for new spacecraft. Regulators are already moving this way (e.g., the FCC’s five- year deorbit rule, down from the prior 25- year guideline). Raising disposal reliability from 90% to 99% and shortening the post- mission lifetime to five years can cut environmental hazard by a factor of ~50.
Better space situational awareness focused on high- risk conjunctions. Tracking every small object is impractical. The priority is shrinking positional uncertainty (covariance) around the dangerous tail of close approaches, so operators do not waste fuel on non- threats. This aligns with systems such as NOAA’s TraCSS.
Management of the existing high hazard “legacy stock.” Full active removal of every large derelict is expensive. “Just- in- time” collision avoidance, using ground-based lasers or small shepherd satellites to nudge objects a few meters apart before impact, is presented as a lower- cost near- term option, alongside selective active removal of the highest- risk pieces.
Legal and economic barriers are central. Under the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, ownership of objects remains with the launching state, so private firms cannot freely deorbit foreign (or defunct- state) debris. Space is a classic tragedy of the commons: the benefits of cleanup are shared, while costs fall on the actor that performs it.
Turyshev’s proposed fix is outcome- based contracting that pays for verified reductions in long- term risk (not simply the number of objects removed). This would prioritize the most dangerous objects and could be funded in part by “disposal bonds” that reward successful end-of-life compliance. Companies such as Astroscale would then have clearer commercial incentives.
Even 99% disposal success with millions of satellites would still leave large numbers of derelicts.
There is no clear successor framework to the Outer Space Treaty, and scale remains a challenge.
The paper’s intervention stack prioritizes rapid disposal of new objects, targeted uncertainty reduction, and selective handling of the legacy hazard stock, with procurement metrics tied to verified hazard reduction rather than object counts.
In short, the piece (and the underlying paper) shifts the conversation from “how do we collect the trash?” to “how do we control the dynamics and create economic incentives that actually reduce long- term risk?”
Artist’s depiction of the ADRAS-J mission to rendezvous with a defunct rocket stage. Credit – Astroscale
Orbital debris in Earth orbit: Operations, stability, control, and market formation
Highlights (from the journal page)
Orbital debris is formulated as an operation– stability control problem.
Three controls dominate: disposal reliability, conjunction uncertainty, and legacy hazard stock.
Traffic workload and long -term hazard peak in different low- Earth- orbit shells.
Verified disposal, risk reduction, and hazard- stock retirement is linked to procurement.
Mitigation, tracking, servicing, and legacy remediation require distinct financing regimes.
Abstract (key points)
Orbital debris is treated as a nonlinear control problem in a stratified orbital environment, not a static inventory of objects. The paper develops a reduced-order shell- and- size framework linking collision- rate scaling, fragment-production gain, natural and controlled sinks, and orbital residence time to intervention ranking and procurement design.
Three dominant near- term control levers:
High- confidence disposal and short post- failure residence time for new spacecraft.
Reduced encounter- plane covariance (uncertainty) for the high- risk conjunction tail.
Retirement or deflection of the residual hazard stock of long- lived inactive bodies.
It distinguishes:
A traffic- driven workload peak near 500- 600 km (high constellation density, more self- cleaning).
A persistence- driven hazard peak near ~850 km (inactive mass and long lifetime dominate future fragment production).
Current public statistics cited: ~44,870 tracked objects and >16,200 tonnes of material in Earth orbit (model populations much larger below catalog thresholds).
Recommended intervention stack: rapid post- mission disposal → targeted covariance improvement for high- risk encounters → selective just- in- time collision avoidance (JCA) or active debris removal (ADR) of high- hazard derelicts.
Procurement metric: not the number of objects removed but verified reduction in time- integrated environmental hazard (verified disposal, verified reduction in ambiguous high- risk conjunctions, verified reduction in residual hazard stock).
Structure (from available sections)
The paper moves from operational evidence (e.g., the sharp rise in Starlink collision- avoidance maneuvers) → environment diagnosis → shell- level hazard proxies and stability criteria → intervention physics and decision rules → roles of NASA/NOAA/FCC/ESA/industry → procurement and mechanism design → a priority program for 2026– 2035 → conclusions.
It emphasizes that the problem is already visible in industrial- scale operations, that passive self- correction can no longer be assumed, and that different parts of the solution require different financing regimes (compliance- driven mitigation for new missions vs. publicly anchored remediation of the legacy stock).
Orbital debris is a nonlinear control problem in a stratified orbital environment, not a static inventory. This paper develops a reduced-order shell-and-size framework that connects collision-rate scaling, fragment-production gain, natural and controlled sinks, and orbital residence time to intervention ranking and procurement design. The formulation identifies three dominant control levers for near-term orbital sustainability: high-confidence disposal and short post-failure residence time for new spacecraft; reduced encounter-plane covariance for the high-risk conjunction tail; and retirement or deflection of the residual hazard stock of long-lived inactive bodies. A source-gain/sink stability margin separates shells that are operationally crowded but dynamically damped from shells that are dynamically amplifying. The analysis distinguishes the traffic-driven workload peak near 500–600 km from the persistence-driven hazard peak near ∼850 km, where inactive mass and long lifetime dominate future fragment production. Current public statistics report ∼44,870 tracked objects and more than 16,200 tonnes of material in Earth orbit, with model populations far larger below routine-catalog thresholds. The resulting intervention stack is rapid post-mission disposal, targeted covariance improvement for high-risk encounters, selective just-in-time collision avoidance or active removal of high-hazard derelicts. The appropriate procurement metric is not the number of objects removed but verified reduction in time-integrated environmental hazard: verified disposal, verified reduction in ambiguous high-risk conjunctions, verified reduction in residual hazard stock.
Senior writer Kate Yoder wrote that climate change is making homeownership harder because fires and floods are damaging homes and driving up insurance. She cited First Street’s report “Property Prices in Peril” which projected climate risks could knock nearly $1.5 trillion off the value of American homes by 2055.
Grist also cited polling that 58% of voters believe climate change will hinder their ability to achieve the American Dream.
An article published by Grist, “The American Dream wasn’t built for climate change,” posits that climate change is making it hard, if not impossible, for many people to buy homes because it is increasing extreme weather and resulting in rising insurance costs. This is false. Extreme weather events are not becoming more common, and so can’t be responsible for rising insurance costs. To the extent that the costs related to natural disasters are rising, it is due to more people and more expensive development in areas prone to periodic extreme weather events, referred to in the literature as the expanding bullseye effect.
“Owning a home has long been seen as a cornerstone of the American Dream, a way to build wealth that you could use one day to pay for your children’s education and fund your retirement,” writes Kate Yoder, senior staff writer for Grist. “That arrangement was always more precarious than it was made out to be.”
“But as fires and floods damage homes and drive-up insurance rates, pouring your life savings into a house has become riskier than ever,” Yoder continues. “In a report called ‘Property Prices in Peril,’ the firm First Street projected last year that climate risks could knock nearly $1.5 trillion off the value of American homes by 2055. For some people, the sociologist Rebecca Elliott wrote, ‘the American dream of homeownership may become a nightmare.’”
Home ownership has long been part and parcel of, if not synonymous with, the “American Dream,” and it has become more difficult over time as housing prices and insurance costs have risen, with demand rising faster than supply and material costs, and thus replacement values, increasing.
However, climate change is not a factor in the rising cost of home buying or ownership.
Grist’s story is misguided, in large part, because it is based on a biased and untrustworthy source for its claims about why home ownership is becoming more difficult. First Street is not a neutral property risk analysis firm; rather, it was explicitly founded to connect climate change to property risk, nothing else. First Street starts with the assumption that climate change threatens homes and businesses and then designs its analyses to make that connection and demonstrate how bad the threat could be. First Street is a climate alarm advocacy group rather than a legitimate risk assessment firm.
Here, here, and here, for example, Climate Realism has debunked multiple mainstream media reports based on First Street analyses in which First Street claimed that floods, wildfires, and property losses related to other extreme weather events were increasing due to climate change, making neighborhoods and cities uninhabitable, uninsurable, or impossible to get affordable insurance for.
The most salient bit of data debunking First Street’s claims that climate change is and will negatively affect property values is the fact that, despite repeated similar reports produced by the firm in previous years, property values have continued to increase rather than decline as predicted. Every year First Street offers a new report claiming climate change will cause property values to decline by trillions of dollars, with each new report citing ever greater losses in value. Yet every year, property values in the areas it focuses on increase, as discussed here and here. In point of fact, if anything is causing a decline in the value of some properties, as explained in a report by the American Energy Institute, it is property listers, brokers, and real estate firms using or referencing First Street’s subjective rating system, a rating scheme whose metrics and methodology are kept secret and whose ratings conflict with official ratings by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Rising prices, not falling prices, are the real threat to the American Dream of home ownership. These are driven not by climate change but by a combination of increasing demand while supply is limited by building codes incorporating climate concerns; higher material costs and supply chain shortages; higher property taxes, with the increases reflecting higher home values; higher interest rates due to inflation and Federal Reserve policies; and higher insurance costs reflecting the increased costs of reconstructing and repairing homes after claims due to higher labor and material costs.
In the end, had Grist been concerned about truth and integrity, it would have checked its source, First Street, particularly its track record of bad predictions, data on natural disaster trends, and simple economic theory. Home prices are rising, reflecting increasing demand and limited supply, not fear of climate change impacts suppressing home values.
Researchers from Utrecht University (with partners in China and Belgium) analyzed 250,000- year climate records from the Chinese Loess Plateau and found that the East Asian monsoon generally tracks long- term changes in incoming solar radiation driven by Earth’s orbital variations, but crosses into abrupt, multi- thousand- year periods of extreme cold and drought when radiation drops below a critical threshold- especially under low atmospheric CO₂.
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Researchers from Utrecht University (with partners in China and Belgium) analyzed 250,000- year climate records from the Chinese Loess Plateau and found that the East Asian monsoon generally tracks long- term changes in incoming solar radiation driven by Earth’s orbital variations, but crosses into abrupt, multi- thousand- year periods of extreme cold and drought when radiation drops below a critical threshold- especially under low atmospheric CO₂.
The work was published in Communications Earth & Environment (Lu et al., 2026; DOI: 10.1038/s43247-026-04060-3). Lead author Hao Lu and co- author Francien Peterse (Utrecht University Faculty of Geosciences) highlight its relevance: about one- fifth of the world’s population depends on the East Asian monsoon for freshwater, so understanding how climate change affects its rainfall is important.
Conventional proxies often mix temperature and precipitation signals. The team used variations in the molecular structure of soil bacterial membrane lipids (branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers, or brGDGTs) preserved in loess sediments.
Bacteria adjust these molecules differently in response to temperature versus moisture, allowing the researchers to reconstruct the two signals separately.
On orbital (tens to hundreds of thousands of years) timescales, both temperature and precipitation largely follow insolation changes. Precipitation can lag by a few thousand years.
Abrupt departures occur when Northern Hemisphere summer insolation falls below a threshold (previously identified in modeling work by a co- author). These produce extreme cold -dry conditions that persist for several thousand years.
The climate recovers only after insolation rises back above the threshold.
Such events are most pronounced during glacial periods with low CO₂, showing that background climate state modulates sensitivity.
Comparison with climate- model output confirmed the timing and the role of the insolation threshold in triggering land- based abrupt change, linked to feedback involving sea ice, ocean circulation, and atmospheric teleconnections.
The authors note that these ancient glacial events are not direct analogs for present- day extremes, but they improve understanding of how solar- radiation changes can drive abrupt monsoon responses. The study builds on earlier methodological work by the group that separated temperature and precipitation signals in East Asian records.
Map of the Chinese Loess Plateau (CLP) and modern meteorological data near the study site. Credit: Communications Earth & Environment (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s43247-026-04060-3
Over the past ~250,000 years, temperature and precipitation in the East Asian monsoon region largely followed changes in incoming solar radiation (insolation) driven by Milankovitch cycles, the slow variations in Earth’s orbital eccentricity, axial tilt (obliquity), and precession.
Higher summer insolation generally strengthened the summer monsoon (warmer and wetter conditions); lower insolation weakened it.
Key nuances from the research:
Precipitation sometimes lagged temperature by a few thousand years.
The tracking was not perfect. When Northern Hemisphere summer insolation fell below a critical threshold (roughly in the 352–3 58 W/m² range in the model comparisons), the system crossed into abrupt, multi- thousand- year episodes of extreme cold and drought. These “departures” were especially pronounced during glacial periods when atmospheric CO₂ was low.
Recovery occurred only after insolation rose back above the threshold.
The researchers reconstructed these signals separately using branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (brGDGTs), molecular fossils from soil bacteria preserved in Chinese Loess Plateau sediments, which allowed them to distinguish temperature from moisture effects more cleanly than traditional proxies.
In short, the monsoon system does track orbital insolation forcing on long (orbital) timescales, but it can also respond nonlinearly and abruptly when certain thresholds are crossed. This is the pattern documented in the 2026 Communications Earth & Environment paper.
Heinrich event | Causes, Timing, & Facts | Britannica Icebergs released into the North Atlantic during the initial warming intervals that follow cool periods have carried coarse-grained rocky debris into the North Atlantic Ocean to latitudes between 40° N and 55° N. This material falls away as the icebergs melt, creating a large ice-rafted debris (IRD) belt on the ocean floor
Heinrich events were massive, episodic discharges of icebergs from the Laurentide Ice Sheet (primarily via the Hudson Strait) into the North Atlantic during the last glacial period (roughly 60,000–16,800 years ago).
Named after marine geologist Hartmut Heinrich, they produced distinctive layers of ice- rafted debris (IRD) on the seafloor and injected large volumes of freshwater into the ocean.
Major events (H1- H6) peaked around 16.8 ka (H1), 24 ka (H2), 31 ka (H3), 38 ka (H4), 45 ka (H5), and 60 ka (H6), with durations typically of a few hundred to ~2,000 years.
Freshwater fluxes could reach ~0.03- 0.13 Sv (Sverdrups), equivalent to several meters of global sea- level rise in extreme cases such as H4.
The freshwater input reduced North Atlantic surface salinity and density, weakening or temporarily collapsing the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC).
This disrupted northward heat transport and produced Heinrich Stadials, prolonged cold periods in the North Atlantic and Northern Hemisphere.
Subsurface ocean warming often preceded the events, potentially destabilizing marine- terminating ice margins.
Climatic Impacts
North Atlantic and Northern Hemisphere: Strong cooling (several degrees in Greenland and Europe), expanded sea ice, and altered ocean productivity. Proximal sites sometimes show complex or muted signals compared to remote ones.
Bipolar seesaw:Cooling and AMOC weakening in the north often coincided with (or led, with a lag of ~100- 150 years) accelerated warming in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. Recent modeling attributes stronger Southern Hemisphere responses during Heinrich Stadials (vs. non- Heinrich stadials) to a “bipolar convection seesaw”: shutdown of North Atlantic convection triggers deep convection in the Southern Ocean, causing rapid sea -ice retreat, ocean ventilation, and abrupt atmospheric CO₂ rises of ~10– 15 ppm on centennial timescales.
Global ocean and carbon cycle: Changes in deep- ocean ventilation, nutrient distribution, and productivity (e.g., increased subantarctic productivity). Methane increases also occurred synchronously with some events via atmospheric teleconnections.
Impacts on Monsoon Systems (Especially East Asian)
Heinrich events commonly weakened the Asian summer monsoon, producing widespread aridity or megadroughts across the Afro- Asian monsoon domain (including catastrophic drought during H1). A southward shift of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) and reduced interhemispheric thermal contrast were key drivers.
In East Asia specifically:
Proxy records (speleothems, loess, lake sediments, pollen) show weakened East Asian Summer Monsoon (EASM) intensity, cooler and drier conditions, and vegetation shifts toward cold- and drought- tolerant plants during H1- H6 and the Younger Dryas.
Spatial heterogeneity exists: some regions (e.g., parts of the Yangtze River Valley) experienced relatively wetter conditions or prolonged early- summer rainfall due to delayed northward migration of the monsoon rain belt (by ~18 days in simulations), linked to later advances of the western North Pacific subtropical high and westerly jet.
Teleconnections involved Rossby wave propagation from North Atlantic cooling and reduced land– sea thermal contrast.
Responses could be phased (gradual onset, weak- monsoon plateau, gradual recovery) and sometimes decoupled from high- latitude signals at termination due to tropical ocean– atmosphere influences.
Similar weakening or shifts affected the Indian summer monsoon and African monsoon systems, while Southern Hemisphere monsoons (e.g., northern Australia) often intensified in anti- phase.
Broader Ecological and Human Impacts
Vegetation changes reduced net productivity in some regions and altered resource availability affected Paleolithic populations in Europe and elsewhere (e.g., contractions of suitable habitats during extreme cold and arid phases). Sea- level rises of 1- 2, and more m accompanied larger events.
Relevance Today
Heinrich events illustrate the sensitivity of the AMOC and global climate to freshwater forcing. Modern Greenland Ice Sheet iceberg calving rates can approach mid- range Heinrich levels, but sustained disruption is considered less likely from icebergs alone because the ice sheet is receding from marine-terminating outlets.
Meltwater runoff and overall AMOC weakening under warming remain concerns, with potential effects on European climate, monsoon rainfall, and carbon- cycle feedback.
These events are distinct from but often nested within Dansgaard- Oeschger (D- O) cycles; not every cold stadial contained a Heinrich event. Proxy and model evidence continues to refine the exact triggers (ice- sheet dynamics, subsurface warming, orbital and insolation influences) and global teleconnections.
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Extreme cold– dry events in East Asia during glacials reflect insolation thresholds
The study presents high-resolution (~900-year) quantitative reconstructions of land temperature and monsoon precipitation from the Chinese Loess Plateau (Mangshan section) spanning the past ~250,000 years. These are based on branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraether (brGDGT) molecular fossil proxies, which allow separate reconstruction of growing- season temperature (via MBT′₅ₘₑ) and mean annual precipitation (via degree of cyclization, DC), plus complementary GDGT-based aridity indicators.
Main findings:
Temperature and precipitation largely track precession- driven (~20- kyr) changes in boreal summer insolation on orbital timescales.
Superimposed on this are repeated extreme cold– dry events during glacial inceptions (and additional pronounced droughts during glacial terminations).
These extreme cold– dry events cold- dry extremes are not clearly expressed in widely used terrestrial proxies such as speleothem δ¹⁸O records.
Transient climate simulations (LOVECLIM) reproduce the timing of the extreme cooling events and support threshold- like responses to declining Northern Hemisphere summer insolation (critical range previously identified around 352– 358 W m⁻²).
Such threshold behaviour may be an important mode of continental climate response to orbital forcing, offering a long- term perspective on how regional extremes can emerge when background conditions approach critical thresholds.
Core methods and results summary
Site: High- sedimentation- rate loess– paleosol sequence at Mangshan on the southeastern Chinese Loess Plateau.
Growing- season temperatures ranged ~12- 26 °C; MAP ranged ~430- 1015 mm.
Both temperature and precipitation show strong precession pacing, consistent with direct insolation control of the East Asian summer monsoon.
Five major coinciding extreme cold- and- drought events (CDEs) are identified during glacial inception, substages when insolation dropped below the threshold; additional drought- only events occur during terminations (linked to Weak Monsoon Intervals).
Model experiments with orbital forcing alone (and with greenhouse- gas forcing) confirm that the extreme coolings occur when insolation crosses the identified threshold, with low CO₂ amplifying the response during glacials.
The paper directly supports the point we noted earlier: over the past 250,000 years the monsoon system tracks orbital insolation changes, but with clear nonlinear, threshold- driven abrupt cold– dry departures.
Title: Extreme cold– dry events in East Asia during glacials reflect insolation thresholds
Authors: Hao Lu, Jingjing Guo, Qiuzhen Yin, Louise Fuchs, Zhipeng Wu, Youbin Sun, Martin Ziegler & Francien Peterse (led by Utrecht University with Chinese and Belgian collaborators)
Open access: Yes (PDF available on the page).
Abstract
Whether extreme climate events reflect intrinsic threshold behaviour of the climate system remains uncertain, in part because most terrestrial archives integrate multiple climatic signals and lack simultaneous constraints on temperature and hydroclimate. Here we present high-resolution ( ~ 900 years) quantitative reconstructions of land temperature and monsoon precipitation from the Chinese Loess Plateau spanning the past ~250,000 years, based on molecular fossil proxies. Using branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraether (brGDGT) proxies for temperature and precipitation, together with complementary GDGT-based aridity indicators, our records reveal repeated extreme cold–dry events during glacial inceptions, in addition to pronounced droughts during glacial terminations. Although previous studies have provided key insights into past monsoon variability, these cold–dry extremes are not clearly expressed in widely used terrestrial proxies such as speleothem δ¹⁸O records, indicating that key aspects of continental climate variability have remained under-recognized. Transient climate simulations reproduce the timing of the extreme cooling events, providing model-based support for threshold-like climate responses to declining boreal summer insolation. Our findings suggest that such threshold-like behaviour may represent an important mode of continental climate responses to orbital forcing, providing a long-term perspective for assessing how regional climate extremes may emerge when background conditions approach critical thresholds.
Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank announced a $1.6B climate-policy package for Türkiye for its Climate Law, emissions- trading system, renewables targets.
UN Secretary- General António Guterres, in what was billed as his final COP address, said fossil fuels “must go the way of the dinosaurs,” noted dinosaurs had no lobby, called for taxing oil profits, said emissions hit new highs in 2025 and the past four years were hottest on record.
CFACT’s Marc Morano confronted John Kerry about his hypocrisy outside the COP
The climate establishment has spent years insisting its agenda is popular, urgent, and non-negotiable. Yellow Vest protests in France, tractor blockades by Dutch farmers, and anti-Net-Zero demonstrations across England have said otherwise.
At COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye, the same people who once treated climate change as the defining moral crisis of the age are discovering that publics on both sides of the Atlantic have other priorities. Rather than adjust, they are rewriting the recent midterms and doubling down on the old script.
John Kerry told the gathering here at COP31, unbelievably, that the midterms showed Americans had made “climate change and its exigencies a voting issue.” Hogwash.
The claim does not survive contact with the record. The truth of the matter is Democrats spent the campaign cycle downplaying the subject.
Energy expert Michael Shellenberger noted in a post on X on November 9th that the share of House and Senate Democratic press releases mentioning climate change fell from 28 percent in 2021 to 2 percent in the first five months of this year.
The House Democrats’2020 climate report used the phrase “climate change” a whopping 500 times; their September 2026 report, on the other hand, used it a paltry 22 times. Instead of climate, candidates talked about grocery bills, electricity prices, and affordability. The electorate responded. Kerry’s version is convenient fiction.
The goings on at the COP31 summit undercut the moralizing. CNN surprisingly highlighted one such case of hypocrisy. It counted 93 private flights into Antalya — more than the 66 that reached last year’s event in Brazil. It even noted one Nigerian businessman arrived on a flight that emitted more carbon dioxide than an ordinary person produces in six years.
Inside the venue, while there were some vegan options which few partook of, the vast bulk of venues featured red-meat kebabs, lamb, and other meaty Turkish favs. Complimentary water came in carbonated bottles; each opened cap releases a few grams of CO₂. The contrast is typical at these UN shindigs. The same delegates who lecture ordinary people about meat, cars, and flights arrived by private jet and dined as they pleased.
A side event I attended on “climate democracy” also was revealing. UN experts described how to bring the public on board for net-zero living — which of course means less meat, fewer combustion engines, more transit and bicycles. Despite it being about getting public input, audience questions were not taken.
There was no discussion of what should be done with people who prefer their cars, their diets, and their own judgment. The omission was telling. When persuasion fails, the residual options are social pressure and regulation. Recent history with pandemic mandates showed how quickly those options expand.
CFACT’s presence produced the usual mix of outreach and resistance. An interview with an Angolan television station allowed me to make a straightforward case for energy realism. Kudos to them. But a longer exchange with a Time magazine crew rendered a different result.
It was civil but closed. Basic points on temperature records, disaster trends, and the physical limits of intermittent power were acknowledged by the reporters … and then set aside. The reporters did take our cards and said they ‘might’ follow up in Washington. I’m not holding my breath. The pattern is familiar: Facts are noted, then subordinated to the preferred narrative.
To our surprise, we crossed paths with Kerry as we left the grounds. He was moving quickly with an entourage. Marc Morano asked what message he might have for Donald Trump. Kerry’s reply was “Why aren’t you here?” Handlers closed in and ended the exchange.
Official announcements stayed inside the established frame. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank announced a record $1.6 billion climate-policy package for Türkiye to support its Climate Law, an emissions-trading system, renewable targets, and related measures.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres, delivering what was described as his final COP address, said fossil fuels “must go the way of the dinosaurs,” observed that dinosaurs had no lobby, and called for taxing oil-company profits. He noted that emissions reached new highs in 2025 and that the past four years were the hottest on record. The prescription remains the same: more finance, faster phase-outs, and continued pressure to eliminate fossil fuels regardless of cost or reliability.
COP 31 is being presented as a summit of so-called “implementation.” What is being implemented, however, is insulation from energy realities being faced by households and businesses. American voters just ranked cost of living and energy reliability far above climate goals. The Antalya conference continues to treat these preferences as obstacles rather than constraints.
Two continent- sized “hot zones” (Large Low Seismic Velocity Provinces, or LLSVPs) in the lowermost mantle near Earth’s core appear to fuel much of the volcanic activity that builds seamounts on the ocean floor.
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Two continent- sized “hot zones” (Large Low Seismic Velocity Provinces, or LLSVPs) in the lowermost mantle near Earth’s core appear to fuel much of the volcanic activity that builds seamounts on the ocean floor.
Researchers Clint Conrad and Mathew Domeier (University of Oslo, Centre for Planetary Habitability / Department of Geosciences) published the findings in Nature Geoscience (2026).
The associated University of Oslo news article, written by Gunn Kristin Tjoflot, frames the work around seamounts as a window into Earth’s deep interior.
Key points
What the LLSVPs are: Two enormous, relatively hot and less- rigid structures sit at the base of the mantle (near the core– mantle boundary), one beneath Africa and one beneath the Pacific. Seismic S- waves travel more slowly through them. They are thought to have persisted for a very long time (possibly billions of years).
Link to seamounts: Seamounts are mostly extinct underwater volcanoes (Earth’s oceans contain tens of thousands of them). Analysis of seamount catalogues shows that volcanic output is significantly more voluminous on seafloor that has previously passed over these LLSVPs. The effect is present for both structures but stronger above the Pacific LLSVP and has declined since the mid- Cretaceous.
Proposed mechanism: Weak mantle plumes rise from the hotter, less- rigid LLSVPs. These plumes interact with the oceanic lithosphere and promote intraplate volcanism, producing scattered seamounts (as well as other forms of intraplate volcanism such as hotspot chains). The Pacific enhancement may reflect higher mantle temperatures, greater transition- zone hydration, and- or more vigorous convection in that hemisphere.
Broader significance: The work supports the idea that heat carried upward from the LLSVPs accounts for most oceanic intraplate volcanism, including dispersed seamounts outside classic hotspot tracks. Because seamount volcanism records this deep connection, it can help constrain how the dynamics of Earth’s deepest mantle have changed over geological time. Classic examples such as the Hawaiian- Emperor chain illustrate the process as plates drift over an LLSVP- related zone.
Seamounts themselves matter beyond geology: they create unique deep- sea habitats, influence ocean currents and nutrient mixing, serve as stopovers for migratory species, and can pose navigational hazards.
In short, the research ties ordinary- looking underwater volcanoes on the seafloor to two long- lived thermal anomalies sitting almost 3,000 km down, near the core.
The figure shows the two regions of the mantle where seismic signals travel unusually slowly. Conrad and Domeir discovered that these two regions are connected to the formation of seamounts at the surface (shown by dots). Figure: Clint Conrad
The Hawaiian hotspot chain (Hawaiian Emperor seamount chain) is one of the best- studied examples of intraplate volcanism driven by a deep mantle plume. It stretches ~6,200 km across the northern Pacific Ocean and records more than 80 million years of volcanic activity.
Overview and Structure
The chain consists of over 80 identified volcanoes (islands, atolls, seamounts, and guyots).
Youngest section (Hawaiian Islands and Windward Isles): Ages from ~0 to ~5 Ma. Includes the Big Island of Hawaiʻi (with active volcanoes Kīlauea, Mauna Loa, Hualālai, and Mauna Kea) and Maui (Haleakalā). The next volcano in the chain is the submarine Kamaʻehuakanaloa Seamount (formerly Lōʻihi), ~35 km southeast of the Big Island, currently in the pre- shield stage with a summit ~975- 1,000 m below sea level. It shows ongoing seismic activity and hydrothermal venting.
Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (Leeward Isles): Ages ~7- 28 Ma; mostly eroded to atolls and reefs (e.g., Midway, Kure, the northernmost atoll on Earth).
Emperor Seamounts: Oldest section (~39- 85 and more Ma), fully submerged, trending more northward. Named after Japanese emperors; the chain ends near the Kuril- Kamchatka Trench.
The Pacific Plate moves northwestward over the relatively fixed (or slowly moving) Hawaiian hotspot at roughly 7- 10 cm/year, producing a clear age progression: volcanoes become older and more eroded with distance from the hotspot.
Formation Mechanism
John Tuzo Wilson proposed the classic hotspot model in 1963: a relatively stationary mantle plume rises from deep in the mantle, melting as it nears the surface and building volcanoes that are then carried away by plate motion.
The plume is widely linked to the edge of the Pacific Large Low Shear Velocity Province (LLSVP)—one of the two continent- sized “hot zones” near the core-mantle boundary discussed in the prior conversation.
Geochemical evidence (especially the Loa vs. Kea trends in younger Hawaiian volcanoes) supports sampling of material from the LLSVP (more enriched “Loa” component) and ambient lower mantle (“Kea” component). Recent models suggest the plume originates near LLSVP ridges or edges, influenced by slab push, and can exhibit bilateral zoning or even conduit splitting.
The Famous Bend
A sharp ~60° bend (Hawaiian- Emperor Bend or HEB) occurs around 47- 50 Ma. It was long attributed solely to a sudden change in Pacific Plate motion (from more northerly to northwesterly).
However, paleomagnetic data show the hotspot itself drifted southward significantly (up to ~10- 15° or more) during formation of the Emperor Seamounts (~80- 47 Ma), at rates that may have reached ~40- 50 mm/year at times.
Current consensus leans toward a combined explanation: both plate- motion change (linked to subduction reorganization, including the end of certain northern Pacific subduction forces and new western Pacific subduction) and hotspot motion (influenced by ridge- plume interaction earlier and deeper interaction with the Pacific LLSVP).
Recent modeling indicates plate rotation contributed roughly 30– 35° of the bend angle, with hotspot drift (including longitudinal components) accounting for the rest.
Current Activity and Broader Significance
The hotspot remains highly active. Kīlauea and Mauna Loa are among the world’s most closely monitored volcanoes. Recent studies even suggest the plume has heated up over the past ~47 million years (counter to the usual expectation of progressive cooling), with heat surges contributing to especially large volcanoes.
Kamaʻehuakanaloa continues low- level unrest (earthquake swarms, hydrothermal activity) but is not currently erupting on a major scale.
The chain provides key constraints on absolute plate motions, mantle convection, plume dynamics, and the longevity and mobility of LLSVPs. It is a classic case linking surface volcanoes to deep- Earth structures.
In the context of the earlier discussion on LLSVPs and seamount volcanism, the Hawaiian chain is a prime example of how weak- to- strong plumes rising from (or near) these basal mantle structures interact with the oceanic lithosphere to produce long- lived intraplate volcanism.
Example of rocks and deep‑sea life observed on the Polarstern seamount in the Arctic Ocean during a GoNorth expedition to the Arctic in 2025. The remotely operated vehicle Ægir 6000 (ROV) was used. Photo: Ægir 6000 / NORMAR
Seamount volcanism associated with Earth’s basal mantle structures
While mid- ocean ridge spreading and subduction account for most oceanic volcanism, intraplate volcanism (including scattered seamounts) requires a deeper explanation.
The authors show that seamount volcanism is systematically more voluminous on seafloor that has previously passed above the two large low- shear- velocity provinces (LLSVPs), the continent- sized “hot zones” at the base of the mantle beneath Africa and the Pacific.
Key Results
Seamount equivalent lithospheric thickness (SELT, a measure of volcanic volume) is higher on seafloor that has spent more time (higher residence time, RT) above the LLSVPs or their margins.
The enhancement occurs above both LLSVPs but is stronger above the Pacific LLSVP.
The effect has declined since the mid- Cretaceous.
Even after excluding known hotspot tracks, the Pacific association remains robust (roughly a factor- of- two amplification in some analyses).
The authors propose that weak mantle plumes rise from both LLSVPs (or their edges). These plumes interact with the base of the oceanic lithosphere and promote melting and seamount formation. The stronger Pacific signal may reflect:
Higher mantle temperatures,
Greater transition- zone hydration, and/or
More vigorous convection in the Pacific hemisphere.
This supports the broader hypothesis that heat transported upward from the LLSVPs drives most oceanic intraplate volcanism, not only classic hotspot chains and large igneous provinces, but also the thousands of dispersed seamounts scattered across the ocean floor.
Because seamount distribution records this deep connection, it can serve as a sensitive indicator of how the dynamics of Earth’s deepest mantle (including the evolution and mobility of the LLSVPs) have changed through geological time.
The study uses modern seamount catalogues (including G23 and KW11), plate-motion models (M16 and T19), and seafloor-age grids.
The authors compute residence times of seafloor above LLSVP interiors and margins using GPlates- PyGPlates reconstructions. Supporting data and code notebooks are available on Zenodo.
This is the peer- reviewed paper that underlies the University of Oslo news release (“Two hot zones near Earth’s core may fuel volcanoes beneath oceans”) and the earlier discussion of seamounts linked to LLSVPs.
Title:Seamount volcanism associated with Earth’s basal mantle structures
While seafloor spreading and subduction explain much of the volcanic activity in Earth’s oceans, magmatism occurring within tectonic plate interiors requires a deeper mantle explanation. Various types of oceanic intraplate volcanism, including oceanic plateaus and hotspot-associated seamount chains, have been attributed to plumes rising from the margins of two continent-sized structures termed large low-shear-velocity provinces (LLSVPs) in the lowermost mantle beneath Africa and the Pacific Ocean. Here we analyse seamount catalogues and show that seamount volcanism is more voluminous on seafloor that has passed above a LLSVP. We find that this volcanic enhancement is evident above both LLSVPs, but is greater above the Pacific one and has declined since the mid-Cretaceous. We suggest that weak plumes rising from both LLSVPs interact with oceanic lithosphere to promote seamount volcanism. This process may be enhanced for the Pacific because of elevated mantle temperature, transition zone hydration and/or convective vigour in the Pacific hemisphere. Our findings provide additional support for the hypothesis that plumes carrying heat from the LLSVPs are responsible for most oceanic intraplate volcanism, including dispersed seamounts. This deep mantle connection means that seamount volcanism is sensitive to, and thus may constrain, the time-dependent dynamics of Earth’s deepest mantle.
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